Eps 222: SOLO SHOW – how’s the connection at your house?

Transcription

Casey O'Roarty 0:01
This podcast is supported by better help. Parenting is hard. Most of us find ourselves in seasons where we experience anger, anxiety, isolation, we feel alone like we're the only ones that are having a hard time. Better help is the online resource that we all need. It's counseling. Better help matches you with a professional licensed therapist that is trained in all the things that come to the surface for us, parents, not everybody has the time or resources to seek out a counselor. BetterHelp is affordable and allows you to connect via phone, text or video conference. Guess what? Parenting challenges don't go away. We have to nurture ourselves so that we can show up for the people that we love. And now you could get 10% off your first month of better help. When you use the code joyful courage, go to www.betterhelp.com/joyful, courage to get 10% off your first month, you deserve it. You'll be so glad you did it. I promise that's www.betterhelp.com/joyful, courage. Hello and welcome. Welcome to the joyful courage podcast, a place where we tease apart what it means to be a conscious parent and aren't afraid of getting super messy with it. I'm your host, Casey, awardy, positive discipline trainer, parent coach, and in the trenches of the parenting journey with my own two teenagers. Each week, I come at you with a solo show or an interview. You can be sure that the guests on the podcast have something important to say, and I am honored to have you listen in as I pick their brains about what it is that they are passionate about. If you are a parent looking to grow while walking the path of parenting, if you're open to learning new things, if your relationship with yourself and your kids is something you are interested in diving deeper into, then this is the place for you. After you listen, I would love to hear from you. Head over to iTunes and leave a five star review, letting others know what you love about the show, or feel free to shoot me an email at [email protected] I love hearing from listeners, and I'm always quick to respond if you want to be sure not to miss any of the happenings going on with joyful courage, join my list. You'll stay updated on the podcast and events that are happening for parents, both online and live. You can join the list at WWW dot joyful courage.com/join, yay. So glad you're here. Enjoy the show. Hey everybody. Welcome back to the podcast this week. It's just you and me. It's just you and me. A little special time, little one on one time. Thank you so much for all the feedback that I got about last week's show with Sarah rosensweet. You really appreciated our conversation. A lot of you reached out via email and text saying it was exactly what you needed to hear at exactly the right time. And I'm just always so honored and grateful when you reach out and you let me know, whether it's on Instagram or in Facebook or even, you know, like I said, email or text, you reach out and you let me know that the show really landed for you. I It's, you know, here I am right now. I'm in my office hallway and I'm all alone, and I'm speaking into a microphone, and I know that you'll be listening to this next week. But you know, sometimes it feels really lonely, and I'm just kind of hopeful that you're enjoying the content, but I don't really know, but I can see the download numbers, and then I get a sweet, sweet message from someone, and it just makes my heart swell. So anytime you listen to the show and you feel like, wow, this is really helpful to me right now. Would you do me a favor and let me know? Because I just can't tell you how much it fills me up and motivates me to keep going when I know that what I'm creating is really making a difference in your life. So thank you to everybody that reaches out, and that has reached out. And thank you for everyone in the future that is inspired to do that. Yeah, this week, what I want to talk about is something that just keeps coming up, keeps coming up, coming up in the Super fam Patreon community, coming up in the joyful courage for parents of teens Facebook group coming up in my live class, which I'm almost as of this show. So this show will go out on Tuesday, so the very next night is my last of six week live parenting classes here in belling. Am, and this keeps coming up, and I'm it's funny, you know, we talk about relationship a lot. We talk about the iceberg. You know, I start all my classes talking about the philosophy of positive discipline and how it's founded in our perception of belonging and significance. I have a visual of a iceberg, and we talk about how the behavior we see at the tip of the iceberg is typically a solution or a response to things that are happening underneath the iceberg, and how important it is to excavate that iceberg and find out the deeper kind of behind the scenes things that are going on. So I say this over and over again, and yet it's still and for me too. You guys know I'm talking to you, I'm talking to myself. It's still really easy to get hung up on how to stop a particular behavior, right? Whether some of the things that have come up in the joyful courage parents of teens community have been around, you know, not wanting, not performing at school, not being interested in school. You know, conversations around just getting out into the world, having interests in other people, trying to encourage our teens to talk to us in the Patreon community, there's been some discussion and some requests around, you know, my some things that show up with younger kids, like, you know, boundary issues with friends, or maybe stealing or lying at home. And in my live class. You know, we talk about just kind of everyday defiance that's come up, or sibling conflict has come up with some of my clients. So all of these things, all of the things that I just mentioned, are kind of those tip of the iceberg things, right? And I find myself there's lots of conversation happening in the groups, and I totally am so grateful and so appreciative of the way that the joyful courage community shows up for each other. Like you guys are amazing. I don't know there aren't a lot of places online, certainly not on Facebook, where people are so supportive of each other. I just feel like you all really see each other. You recognize yourselves in each other's challenges, which I think is really, you know, deep, kind of next level work, right when we can see ourselves in the in the challenges of other people, just really appreciating the way you show up for each other. And I notice, too, when I come in, I kind of hang back. I try to hang back a little bit and let others, you know, support each other before I have anything to say. But I'm just finding a lot that I bring it back to relationship. I bring it back to relationship, relationship, relationship. And sometimes I'm like, Oh, my God, I'm such a broken record, right? And I can hear, you know, or I don't necessarily hear it, but I sometimes imagine people feeling like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know it's about relationship, but dot, dot, dot, right? I know I need to connect with them better, but dot, dot, dot, dot, right? How do I get them to do this thing? How do I get them to stop doing this thing? How do I, you know, how do I change the behavior of my child? And again, relationship is so key, and it's kind of like, it's kind of like, sneaky. It's not sneaky, but it's like, you don't really, it's less, it feels less like, you know, super activated, right? It's kind of like the backdoor response to a lot of the issues, really all the issues that kids have, because remember coming back to belonging and significance. We behave, you know. And also, another little mantra that I love from Rudolph dreikers is a misbehaving child is a discouraged child, right? And often discouragement. Most of the time, discouragement comes from feeling misunderstood, feeling rejected, feeling like people don't see us and get us feeling like we don't matter, right, feeling disconnected. And so you know, when you bring it, when you look at whatever the behavior your child is going through, that lens, it's easier to see how powerful relationship is, right,

um, and, and when we're talking about teenagers, you know, part of the typical teen development is, you know, kind of pushing away from us and just. Connecting from us, from us, meaning as parents, so we and that doesn't mean that, even though that's the typical development that just is a little bit of information for us, it doesn't mean that we're like, Okay, well, I guess I won't have a relationship with my teenager, because I don't know how many of you listened to the Mental Health Mini summit, but I think all of my guests, when I asked what is it that these kids need most from their parents, their response was, you know, basically connected, relationship, unconditional love. When I talked to Sarah rosensweet last week and asked her what she thought teens needed the most, her response was, relationship, love being seen and connected. Like, I know that I talk about this a lot, and I feel like, well, I'm gonna keep talking about it, and I'm gonna talk about it in different ways, right? And give you different visuals so that it really starts to click and starts to become that go to place where your kids getting into mischief. And I really want you and myself to immediately think, Okay, what's our connection like, right now, right? And if you can check the box, and if you can say, You know what, our connection's really good, we are super connected. And my teens talking to me, and they're also having this challenge, you know, that's ex, that's they're going to be okay, right, if they have a solid connection, and probably if they have a really solid connection to you, you know you're not getting too worked up around the challenges that they're having, because my guess is they're coming to you, They're asking for support. You know what? I mean? I

um, so, yeah, belonging and significance and connection. So here's what happens for our kids. You know, the misbehaving child is a discouraged child. So what happens is, imagine just like walking down the street and the road is really solid, and everything's good, right? This is like the metaphor for you're feeling connected, you're feeling like you matter, you're feeling like you have purpose. You're being seen and heard. Now imagine and you're just walking right? You just have that regular, able bodied gait going and now imagine if the ground below you started to shake right, or maybe the ground below you just started to have some weird potholes and and now picture that person walking on that ground, and how their steps might get kind of wonky, and they might, you know, from a distance, look a little weird like, Whoa. What's happening with that person right the ground beneath them has become wobbly. They can't trust the ground beneath them. They can't, you know, it's not stable. There's a little bit of fear and worry that happens. And so we actually look different while walking on a ground like that. So I imagine that when our kids are feeling disconnected, right, mistaken, misbehaving child is a discouraged child. So when the foundation of connected, connection and relationship gets wobbly, right, they're going to show up differently because they're navigating that wobble now. It doesn't mean our kids are also having the experience of that, like metacognition, experience of, oh, I am feeling disconnected to my family, and that's why I am being such a freak right now, or I'm having a hard time right now. They're not connected to that. All they know is that things feel weird. They don't feel good. They, you know, slide into fear or worry or sadness or embarrassment or resentment or whatever it is. But however, they experience disconnection, and then they move through the world from that place, right? They move through the world from that place. And you get it. I mean, think about when, for whatever reason, you're in a bad mood, right? I don't think anybody that's listening can say, Oh no, I can't relate to being in a bad mood like we can be in a bad mood right around something that happened earlier in the day, or a text we got, or a conversation we had with someone, either someone we know or a stranger, and it can really cloud our way of being. It can really get in the way of how we then turn and relate with our kids or relate with the people that we love. Our foundation is wobbly because of that bad mood. And when we move from that place, you know, we get into some mischief. So, you know, just really, really, really wanting to encourage everybody this week and beyond. And to think about relationship in a new or deeper way, right? If you are currently really struggling with your child, whether it's, you know, a two year old, an eight year old, 12 year old, 18 year old, where are their openings for relationship? And sometimes, you know, and I think I talked about this last week or in my last solo show, sometimes, because I can hear, and I know that some of you are like, Yeah, my my teenager doesn't want me to connect with them. They don't want to talk to me. They push me away, right? Okay, that is a deeply discouraged child, right? Right? That's a deeply discouraged teen, and they're holding on to beliefs that are creating a barrier. And so I invite you to get really, really honest with yourself and do some soul searching and start to recognize some places where you perhaps showed up in a way that ruptured relationship, right? This isn't about blame. I'm not saying it's all your fault. I am saying that our kids are great perceivers, and they're really not so skilled at interpreting what they see or experience, and so oftentimes we have interactions with our kids and they're simply left feeling like, well, I can't trust you. I don't want to be close to you, because all you do is criticize and judge me. You don't get me, you know, you don't let me explain myself. And now evidence might prove differently. Right? You might be saying, but Casey, I do listen to them, and I just want what's best, and you don't know the choices that they're making, and I'm just so worried. Yes, all of that is true. I get that. I see you, believe me. If you listen to last week's show, you know I am in the trenches with you. I am navigating some crazy teen behavior, mental health situations, living in uncertainty. I know it's hard, and I promise you there are places where you can own your behavior. There are places where you can own your behavior. And if you're really in a spot where it feels really challenging to connect with your child, to connect with your teenager. I promise you, there are places where you can own some stuff and make and clean some things up and make things right, because that teenager that's living with you, that's in the other room. They're the same kid as that eight year old who you know didn't want to leave your side, who ran to you when you picked them up from school and threw their arms around you. They are that same kid. Oh my gosh, I'm totally getting emotional right now. You know, it's, it's really challenging, I know, and I've heard from many of you, and I've worked with many of you, where you're you're mourning the loss of that little kid who was so in love with you, right? And it was so easy to cuddle on the couch and to engage them in a game and to make them smile. And now, you know, if they're teenagers that can feel like, where did that kid go? And I promise you, that kid is still with you, right? They're just navigating a different part of their journey, and they still want to be in relationship with you. They might not want to get in your lap and snuggle and play hide and seek, but they want to be in relationship with you. They're they're longing for that, and part of the discouragement that you're seeing from them has to do with the way that the relationship currently is and they aren't skilled enough to come to us and say, you know, I really miss how it was with us. I really miss our relationship because they're, you know, they're in the teen brain. They're in the place where, you know, where it's just like, I don't know. I mean, I can't really remember. I know is it's hard to be a teenager. Hey, hi. I just wanted to interrupt really quick, because I want to talk to you about the joyful courage Academy. Parenting teens is a roller coaster ride through emotions that we never knew we had. This season of parenting takes worry to a new level. We can feel the highest sense of pride and the most wounded heart all in the same day. The academy is designed as a place to increase understanding about typical teen development and learn tools and strategies for communication. In and boundary setting in a way that strengthens relationship and allows space for the autonomy that teens so deeply desire and need. It's a five week program. So that's five weeks of content. You get 190 minute one on one call with me, an engaged community, and at least two open office hours with me via zoom, so check it out now at www, dot, joyful courage.com/jc, a, PT, again, that's www, dot joyful courage.com/jc, a, PT, doors close. March 1, we start March 2, yay. I hope to see you there.

We have this really cool activity that I've done with parents called boxes of burden. And what we do is we pick a volunteer, and the you know the volunteer, I said, Okay, you're going to stand there and I'm going to give you some boxes to hold, and they're not huge boxes. They're like, shoe box size. And i Each box has a label on it, and the labels are things like, I didn't study for my math test. My best friend isn't talking to me. My boyfriend wants to have sex and I'm not ready. I'm curious about drinking. I don't know if my mom and dad are getting along, you know, it's all these things, and I, you know, and for that volunteer, I just keep piling these shoe boxes into her arms, right? And she's the teenager, so she's holding all of these things, and she starts, and the activity is that she walks across the room, and a couple other volunteers are the quote parents, right? And the first round, you know, we're saying, the parents are saying things like, why can't you keep your room clean? What's your problem? Why is it so difficult for you to be home on time? You know? Why won't you spend any time with me? What's your problem? Over and over again, like these kind of complaints, and why and why is this so hard? Meanwhile, this teenager, volunteer teenager, is holding all of these things that we forget about, right? Because it's been, you know, for me, 30 years since I was 16 years old. We forget about all the little things. Not to mention, today the box. There would also be a, you know, a social media box and, and, you know, I wonder if there's going to be an active shooter drill today box, you know, I'm worried about the climate box, which is real, like this is real. Our kids are growing up in an environment that is pretty freaking bleak, right? It is, and they want to be in relationship. Because, you know what relationship with us is it's an anchor. It's someplace where they can feel solid, a soft landing, where they know they're going to be accepted and loved and cared about. So

my gift to you for this podcast is to come back to relationship with your kids, right? Look through the lens of relationship. Come from that place of I care about you so much, and I know things don't feel good, and maybe I've made some mistakes. In fact, I know I've made some mistakes, and I want to make things right, right. I want to make things right with you, yeah, and then just turn and burn, you know, like, especially if we're talking about teenagers, don't think that you're gonna have this two hour heart to heart. I'm showing up. I'm owning my stuff. And now, you know, the floodgates will open and they'll get really vulnerable. And I mean, that could happen. I'm not saying it is impossible for that to happen, but what it's going to take is little bits over time of you just continuously showing up and saying You're important to me, and I've got some stuff to own, and you're important to me,

right? You're important to me. So coming back to that over and over again, as I love you and you're important to me, and I'd like to, you know, and then as you feel, as you feel the tension shift, just even a little bit you might throw in there, I'd like for us to do something together, you know. And it could be simply, can I watch you play your video game? Will you explain to me your video game? Tell me about the show that you're watching. Can I watch it with you?

Who are you watching on YouTube lately? Show me what you're watching. Let me listen to the music that you're listening to. And then when they show you and they share with you, no judgment, no critic. Is a curiosity celebration,

be with them. Be with them, right? And then, as that starts to feel like the tension is melting a little bit more, then it becomes like, hey, you know what? I would like to hang out with you more often, once a week. You know, I could take you to coffee before school, or we could go to the movies, or we could take a walk. You know, which which day works for you, which morning works for you, which afternoon works for you, right? So you're offering that up, you're putting putting it out there, and then, okay, great. So Wednesday afternoons are our time together. I'm looking forward to that, right? And then show up.

Show up and show up with flexibility, right? Show up being open. Show up not attached. There's a great story in the positive discipline for teenagers. Book about a dad who started come you know, he and his son were having a really hard time. They were really disconnected. He started showing up at his son's High School at lunchtime, and he would sit down across the table from his son, and for months, his son wouldn't talk to him, so he would just sit there,

and they wouldn't talk, but they would eat lunch, and then, you know, slowly, there'd be more conversation. And then one day, one week, the dad wasn't able to go. He had something to do, or something came up. He wasn't able to go. And his son came home from school and said, Where were you? I waited for you. I thought you were coming for lunch. And the dad was like, Oh, I'm so sorry. I had something come up and it didn't. The dad did not realize the impact that it had made for him to show up regularly for his son like that, even when his son isn't necessarily reciprocating with like, oh man, Dad. Thank you so much. And acknowledging, you know, because we always want to be acknowledged. We want our kids to be grateful and to acknowledge what we've done for them, you know, they might not all be really good at outwardly expressing that. That doesn't mean that they aren't really grateful for the ways that we show up for them,

you know. So yes, it would be great if they could outwardly express that, yes, of course, that would be fantastic, please. And we get to also trust that you know they're carrying those boxes of burdens, and we don't know what is happening inside for them. We don't know how they're experiencing gratitude for us, and we don't know what's keeping them from sharing that with us, right? We just don't know. And so really, all we can do is continue to step into relationship and and model gratitude, right? Model the language and that and the actions that we would hope that once our kids are you know, their brains are fully developed and they're functioning adults that they will reciprocate and use and be grateful and appreciative. And I know that some of you, I'm thinking about some of the conversations that have happened in the teens Facebook group. I know that for some of you, the teen behavior is extremely hurtful right now. And what I want to say, and sometimes this is really hard to hear, if you are experiencing a lot of hurt in your relationship with your teenager, my guess is that they are hurting too.

They're hurting too, because that's where that kind of behavior comes from. And it might not be that you're hurting them, so they're hurting you. It could be something completely outside of your relationship with them. It could be disconnection, lack of belonging at school or with their peer group, right? It's not necessarily. And then you're the one that they take it out on. So instead of being triggered by how they are treating you, you know, show up as curious to wow. You know, this is really, it sounds like, it sounds like you're hurting. I'm wondering what's going on with you, and if I can, you know, if you need somebody to listen, I'm here, and I love you, right? Just start with that. Start with that. Start with repairing relationship. And then you can have conversations around you know when you you know when you're having a hard day, and you kind of flip on me and use that really cruel voice, it really hurts me. And if you could just simply say, You know what, Mom, I'm having a hard time and I kind of need to be alone, that that's going to be. More helpful for me than the way that you're treating me, because nobody deserves to be treated like that, right? So it's a different kind of come from than How dare you treat me like this, right? And in no way am I encouraging you to quote take the abuse, right? But know that somebody that's being really hurtful to you is often somebody who is feeling a lot of hurt on the inside. So getting really curious about that as well, because it's, I promise you, it's, it is. It's all about relationship. Relationship is our foundation. Relationship and being connected to our family, being connected to community. You know, I mean, I think about my own daughter, who is struggling like I shared last week. And I don't know if I said this, I probably did on the podcast last week, but one of the anchor points for me is that even though things don't look the way I want them to look, even though I worry about how she is interacting and intersecting with the outside world. She is super solid at home most of the time. You know, she is really connected and in good relationship with her little brother. She's connected to myself and my husband, and that feels really good. That makes me really trust that everything's going to be okay. Now, even as I said that just yesterday, we were looking at something, we were talking about GED stuff, and we were looking on the website, and I was asking a lot of questions, and she gave me one of those, okay, just like that. And that's pretty much like, you're dismissed. And there's something about that when she does that, that just pisses me off. And you know, in my best moments, I keep my mouth shut in my worst moments, not so much. Yesterday, I kept my mouth shut, but she said, Okay. And I said, Okay, well, I guess I didn't keep my mouth shut because I was like, okay, great, I guess I'll leave now. And I got up, and she immediately got defensive. And I was like, You know what hurts my feelings when you do that, she's like, I didn't mean to, you know, like, it's her automatic too, like she's responding to overwhelm. Because I'm like, let's look at the GED. Let's look at the GED. And because she's coming from that place. What's coming out of her mouth is dismissive and hurtful towards me, and then I responded from that hurt place, and then she's in tears, and I just said, I love you. And I walked away, right? I just had to walk away. She came downstairs a little bit later, and we both had moved through it, and nobody was hanging on to anything. But I did get to say, you know, I It's such a trigger for me when you you know, quote, dismiss me like that. It feels, just feels really hurtful, you know. So I got to let her know how that felt. But if we didn't have the relationship that we have, you know, then it would be really hard for her to be able to hear me. And so that's really where I'm getting that's why, every time you make a post on social media or in any of the groups that I run, it's, you know, I always start with relationship because it is found. It's just so foundational, right? And when we talk about things like creating routines and agreements, you've probably heard me talk about family meetings, even those things, those tools, quote tools, for problem solving at their very core, it's an exchange in relationship. Right? When we create routines with our kids, we co create them, we hear them out. We you know, are emotionally available. We share honestly, you know, agreement, same thing. The purpose of those things, yes, they are tools to create order and systems. But bigger than that, they are tools. The reason we co create these things is because that, in and of itself, builds relationship, right? That, in and of itself, builds relationship. And when we're talking about family meetings and circling up at the dinner table once a week and giving compliments and problem solving and planning fun things to do together, it's about relationship. It's about connection, the side bonus, bonus to the whole thing is, yeah, we can get problem solved. And, you know, there's that piece to it as well. But really, what it's about is building relationship. Because the most powerful tool that we have for influencing behavior is the relationship that we cultivate, that we nurture, that we strengthen with our kids, no matter their age. All right, let me just climb off my soapbox, because clearly, that's what I wanted to talk about today. I also want to say that it is hard when our kids are getting into mischief. It can feel really challenging. Challenging to trust that working on relationship is going to influence those behaviors that we're seeing. But it is, it is it is going to influence those behaviors. So you get to trust the process. You get to be patient, right? You get to be patient and, and, yeah, trust the process, peeps. Thank you so much for the ways that you're showing up inside the community. I've been loving I've done so many explore calls lately with people that are interested in finding out more about the joyful courage Academy for parenting teens. I've done some explore calls with new coaching clients, so I'll have a link in the show notes if you want to do a 15 minute consult slash explore call with me. That's always free, and I love to connect with you that way, or feel free to send me an email with feedback, or show up in any of the places online that you can find me, but yeah, it's exciting. And of course, know that we have a few days left for you to sign up for the joyful courage Academy. This is a really powerful, deep dive into the work of joyful courage and positive discipline, specifically around the teen years. Many people have already been through the academy and found it useful. So come join us. The link again is joyful, courage.com/j. C, A, P, T, sweet. All right, until next week, I will, I will be, I will be out in the world looking for your feedback and engaging in conversations with you. So have a beautiful, beautiful week. Thank you so much for listening. It is my great honor to create this show for all of you. Big thanks to my producer, Chris Mann at pod shaper, for his work in making the podcast sound oh so good. If you're interested in continuing these powerful conversations that start on the podcast, become a patron by heading to www.patreon.com/joyful courage. That's www dot, P, A, T, R, E, O n.com/joyful, courage. For $5 a month, you will have access to a private Facebook group where I do weekly Facebook lives on Mondays and interview recaps on Fridays. Plus it's a great way to give back to the show that gives you so much. Be sure to subscribe to the show. Head to Apple podcast, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Google Play, wherever you are listening to podcasts, and simply search for the joyful courage podcast, and hit that subscribe button. Join our communities on Facebook, the live and love with joyful courage group and the joyful courage of parents of teens groups are both safe, supportive communities of like minded parents walking the path with you if you're looking for even bigger, deeper support, please consider checking out my coaching offer. Www dot joyful courage.com/coaching, is where to go to book a free explore. Call with me and we can see if we're a good fit. I'll be back next week. Can't wait until then. Big Love to you. Remember to find your breath. Ride it into your body, take the balcony seat and trust that everything is going to be okay.