Episode 188

There are a lot of misconceptions out there in this world about parenting. And one of them is the myth of the calm ⁓ parent. How many of you have seen that all over ⁓ books and social media that somehow ⁓ the goal in parenting is to perfectly be calm and never get mad or never raise your voice, ⁓ never be frustrated. And you you're always no matter how heated the situation gets, ⁓ you're never escalated or dysregulated. Well, Sarah and I want to take this podcast. ⁓
blow up that myth, because that is not gonna happen and that is actually not healthy for your kids. ⁓ I really, our kids need to see us in all types of different states. It's really not about being calm or not being calm. ⁓ We wanna present to you ⁓ a different way of viewing success as a parent that really speaks to the heart of what we're doing at Art of Raising Humans. And today, by the end of this podcast, you are gonna have a different vision, hopefully, of what it looks like for you to succeed as a wonderful mom and dad of the beautiful kids.
you have. ⁓ if you haven't already, please take time to rate, review ⁓ and comments. We'd love to hear about your journey, even about you trying to be a different type of parent, but, not ⁓ buying into this myth of the calm parent. We'd love to hear about how that's going for you. And if you're ever needing any help with your parenting and you are interested in parent coaching, reach out to me at Kyle at art of raising humans.com. I would love to connect with you and talk about how we could help you on your journey.
to really becoming the parents that you wanna be. So sit back and enjoy this episode of we ⁓ break down the myth of the comp parent.

Kyle And Sara Wester (0:1.134)
Hello and welcome to the art of raising humans. I'm Kyle. Hi there. I'm Sarah. And you know, Sarah, I think lots of times in this culture, we're trying to parent differently. You know, we're trying to be more intentional. We're trying to like do better maybe than what our parents have done, you know, kind of build upon the stuff they did. That was great. Yeah. Take their great stuff and then let's add to it. Right. Each generation I believe is doing that. Yeah.
trying to like get away from fear and shame based approaches, you know, we don't want our kids doing things because they're scared of us or that kind of stuff. But there can be and I know I definitely felt this pressure a lot early on we're learning this because I am more of a combustible person. If I could say definitely anger is easy for me to lean into that was a lot of my kids, a lot of my childhood was like that. And I and I think it's important even
Personality wise yes, yeah, yeah, it's more it's like that's your I'm a passionate person man I'm passionate person so so to say all that though. I think when I started being like oh We I want to parent differently. I felt this pressure especially as I was being trained by people like dr. Markham and and other people like that who were so good at being peaceful and calm I Thought that this this idea that you never get angry
You're always super calm. You're never getting dysregulated. And I was just spending probably the first year, year and a half of this journey just beating myself up because I was failing at it on a daily basis. It was not working. And so I think there is this kind of myth of the calm parents and how we're trying to be perfect. And we never get upset and never lose our cool. On the side note, I kind of wonder if that's a little.
the pushback with the gentle parents. And everyone's like, it's permissive. And the kids run the show. But I almost wondered too, if it's that sense of like the pressure you feel to be calm all the time. And hi honey, how are you feeling? That's kind of the joke of it. The pushback to it. you see that on all the reels. Yeah. It's like, And so we want to bring clarity to the fact that that's actually not the goal. yeah. ⁓

Kyle And Sara Wester (2:13.934)
But we've all had those moments where, I definitely a life I could have just stayed calm. Everything would have been better. Oh, it's all my fault. Look what I just did. And I would read the books. I would watch the reels and I see these, I'd see you doing, I'd see all these peaceful parents who never seem to lose it. I felt that too. I felt a lot of really down on myself. If I didn't somehow stay, stay calm and I need to move it. And so I think everybody can feel that.
pressure. Well, even I felt super fake because there was times I was pretty upset, but I'd be like, I'm just going to act like ⁓ maybe maybe that's what everybody else is doing too. Maybe they're all secretly mad in this moment, but that perfectionism comes in and guilt. And well then there was a lot of shame and then I'd be like, I'd be that. I remember coming back constantly being like, I need to go say I'm sorry again for how I did that. And like, and then I'd be like, I can't be Sarah. think Sarah's doing it.
way more often than I am, but even I try to do it like Sarah, it feels weird. It doesn't feel like me. ⁓ And I was caught in this kind of dichotomous, like, well, to be me is to be mad, but then to not be me is to be Sarah. Like, no, there's ⁓ gotta be a third option where I can actually ⁓ just be more aware of my anger, be more aware of my tendency to get dysregulated and what that looks like. ⁓ But I can't make...
perfection the goal or even being calm all the time. Well, and I think because if you're acting out of that, this is who I ought to be and they're shame if I'm not that person, then even when you try to move into that space, it's not from this freedom and authenticity. You know, if you're saying, I've got to be like this person and I'm bad or doing it wrong. If I'm this, you know, then anything that you're doing is coming out of this space of judgment.
instead of the space of freedom and authenticity to go, okay, I can regulate myself and I can be calm, but instead it was coming from a judgment of not being calm. Does that make any sense? know, that would feel so fake. know, and you wouldn't have the freedom to be ⁓ actually calm. For real. And I think it goes back to even what really effective coaching is. Like when you're coaching somebody, you aren't just telling them what not to do. You're telling them what to do.

Kyle And Sara Wester (4:29.090)
You know, and so like in my mind, what I had switched from was don't get mad. Don't be mad. Don't be mad. Don't be mad. Don't yell. Don't yell. Don't raise your voice. For your brain is just not. Well, you're still focused on it. And so you're just like at best you're screaming inside. And I know every parent listening knows those moments. You're trying to push that down. You're to push it down and you're feeling bad that you want to scream. And then of course we know you can't hold that in forever. And so then you.
Lots of parents when they're first on the coaching journey, lots of them think this is the goal. And I spent some time kind of reframing it for them because they will think it's just to be calm, be calm, be calm, be calm. And then they feel really bad because a couple of weeks into that they blow up and then they're like really mad at it. Look, I failed again, you know? And so I think what we're trying to do in this particular episode is it isn't about don't be mad, don't yell. It is about, this is what it looks like to succeed in these moments.
and having that vision of what it looks like when my kid is flipping out, my kid is dysregulated, what does it look like for me as their parent to handle this in a healthy way? ⁓ What does that look like, right? So if you could kind of describe for you what does success look like? How did you come to that eventually having a picture of, okay, when the kid is really upset, ⁓ I want to ⁓ respond this way or do this.
Yeah, I mean, I think about how I want to respond. Like ⁓ I do have the goal of being calm. ⁓ But I think instead of just ⁓ living from a place of be calm, yes, yeah. It's more like, take care of myself in this moment. You know, it's okay that I might get triggered, I might get dysregulated, I might be upset in this moment, and not having a judgment against that. But then how do I care for myself, ⁓ as I'm trying to care for my child? Yeah.
Yeah. You know, and, and realizing that that's what's happening. It's okay that my child's having a rough moment. It's okay if I'm having a rough moment in that rough moment. ⁓ And, and that's what I want to, I want to take care of that versus just the simple ⁓ be calm, push it down, you know, and, ⁓ and it's like looking at it in a more, more full. What I hear you saying, what I wanted to say is, the goal isn't to be calm for calm sake. Yeah. ⁓ even I like how Dr. Becky Bailey talks about being composed.

Kyle And Sara Wester (6:49.506)
We hear a lot about being regulated, right? So calm sometimes to me is it's kind of hard to grasp what that is, because lots of people can just put on a mask of calm ⁓ when really they're seething inside. And so I think being regulated, meaning like when I'm having these big feelings, whether I'm frustrated, angry, furious, whatever it is, it's not that feeling those feelings is bad or you shouldn't be feeling those feelings, it's what are you doing with them? Are you letting those feelings overtake you?
And then basically, know, Sarah, I've used this metaphor before, but are you letting them drive the car and you're just a passenger? Or are you able to, in those moments, move the feeling over and drive the car while being curious about why that's there? You know, ⁓ how come I'm feeling so furious in this moment? Like, so having this sense of awareness that this moment isn't about controlling my kid, it isn't about faking calm. It's about getting control of myself. Right. It's able to acknowledge it and
⁓ See it there and have compassion for it versus judgment. Okay. Yeah, this is a tough moment for me I'm having a hard time ⁓ and and that's okay that I'm having a hard time now How what do I do now? How do I move through that and I'll just stay there right because maybe you can go I'm really mad Yeah, and then you just stay there but like then the next steps to come full circle with that Well, and I even think what can happen and I felt this happened for me somewhat and I know this can happen for guys for men and women But I feel like a lot of men I talked to they can't slip into
just being emotionless, you know? In order to not be mad, they just stay super logical. And they think somehow they're being calm by being logical. But then they've kind of left their kid completely alone with their emotion and the kid doesn't feel like you can understand what they're feeling. And so I think that can be the mistake that a lot of we just move into logic and then it's like, oh, look, they're being overwhelmed with feelings. Well, I'm just being logical. And I even remember first being married. That's a really awful feeling. Yeah. By the way. Of what?
where person just lives in that logic. Oh, yeah, yeah, Someone who's just completely not disconnected from you. And I think they feel like they're being successful, but from men's like, oh no, you've just shut off half your brain there. Yeah, exactly. You're a whole person who has feelings and thoughts. We need that integration. There's a lot on that. yeah. But we need both. And the person you're with in relationship needs both. Yeah. And so I felt myself shift into that. Like, OK, maybe I can't.

Kyle And Sara Wester (9:15.630)
be calm all the time, but I can just look at this and like almost disconnect myself, disassociate myself from the feeling and just, but then I noticed this wasn't helping. The kids just felt like you aren't with me in this moment. I'm by myself. I'd rather be with mom. So, so I want to kind of define this. If we're talking about instead of just being a calm parent, but we're, our goal is to be a regulated parents. So a regulated parent, would say, isn't someone who never feels strong emotion, but that's just not going to happen.
It's someone who can notice their emotional state and then respond intentionally instead of reacting automatically. ⁓ So that's a big part of it is you're gonna have the big emotion. That's you being human. ⁓ that's ⁓ your kid, they're gonna have their big emotions. That's them being human. The goal isn't for any of us just to act like everything's fine, everything's okay. Which is sometimes what we want our kids to do, just say everything's okay. ⁓ sometimes we might even act like everything's fine just to appease somebody in that moment.
but it's really to be able to know what to do with that feeling and then to regulate that so it doesn't cause us to keep reacting to the situation. Yeah, as we can accept ourselves and our feelings at the moment, it'll actually help us accept our child. Yeah. And we can actually then from that place move forward together. Well, and I like this idea that regulation is about flexibility. It's about moving through the emotion and returning to balance.
Siegel calls this integration and you referred to that a minute ago connecting the emotional brain and the logical brain bringing the two forces together ⁓ And when we integrate then we can connect and then we can reason you know So like for all those dads listening to this or or moms who are like, But what point can we reason with the give a first the reason is important We want to be able to reason through this but you first got to connect with the feeling and then move them over to
the part. And that's where you can, maybe you can get off the rails a little bit when you just stay in the emotion, ⁓ you know, and you don't full. I love that moving through. It's like completing the whole circle. Right? You see people who just get in the mad, the sad, whatever they tap into that emotion and they don't come through, come all the way through of linking that back to reasoning and being able to look at the moment.

Kyle And Sara Wester (11:26.258)
and make a plan or what, you there's all kinds of pieces. Well, even I find that interesting because a lot of people who I talked to are actually pretty good at being calm. Sometimes they miss that step. You there isn't the talk afterwards about how to do that differently next time. You know, they think if the whole goal is to just be calm, well, we did that. Okay, we said, know, ⁓ it was to be calm and then lead to this reasoning. Right. And even Dr. Bruce Perry, Dr. Bruce Perry is really big in the trauma ⁓ of kids who've been through trauma. He talks about these three steps of you regulate
then you relate or you connect and then you reason. So in other words, before we can talk ⁓ with our child and talk them through something, we have to first help both us and them calm that nervous system down so we feel safe again and then we can actually reason through it. so, I mean, all of us have experienced that in marriage or with friendships. Like we're not gonna be able to resolve anything here or come ⁓ together and create a different ending unless we get that nervous system.
you know, in a place where it feels safe and then now we can, you know, reason together. Yeah. It's really neat to even watch it. ⁓ going outside of the anger part of it, just with little kids, I loved this part of, let's say they fall down and get hurt. And, know, there are just, you would think they lost a limb or something, you know, it's so big. And, and just that when I learned this and I connect with them, that was scary. You're hurt. It's hurting.
Once you feel like you've really truly connected with them on that, then you can start to go through the story of what happened. were running and this happened and you crashed and you fell down and that hurt. And so you're bringing it, the whole story so they don't keep carrying it and you see them move through it. And after you do that a few times, you can see them just be able to let it go. And the more you do that with them and all kinds of feelings that they have, sad, scared, hurt, mad, whatever it is. ⁓
They they their brain builds this ability to go. Okay, this is what I'm feeling I can accept it Okay, here's the story or here's what happened I can play that out and I can bring this all to completion and move forward because otherwise that's where you get people who carry all these things with them and their body and in their memories and things they weren't able to complete that full circle of safety and sharing and regulating and well, and that's where I think this statement along with that just gives me a lot of peace ⁓

Kyle And Sara Wester (13:46.767)
I had to come to this understanding that a regulated parent isn't always peaceful. They're not always looking like they're calm. They might take a deep breath. They might sigh. They might pause. They might even raise their voice for a moment out of frustration. But they're aware. ⁓ They're able to come back. They're able to repair. They don't just start spiraling into the shame cycle of controlling and intimidating.
You know, and so, so, so basically kind of wrap that idea up is you don't have to avoid emotion. That's not the goal. mean, so many parents are actually surprised when I say, I would tell my kids, I'm feeling really frustrated right now. Like what's happening right now is really annoying me. You know? And like, want parents be honest about that. You know, say that because the kids see it. They see something's affecting you. Just be honest about it. You're actually just naming something they usually are aware of. Yeah. But they're not placing the blame on them. You're saying this is my experience is what's happening inside. Yeah. But do you just
The difference is you don't stay stuck in that and then use it as a weapon to punish them. Or scare them or intimidate them. So I think a lot of people are saying, and this is an important question, OK, well, if the goal isn't to be calm per se 100 % of the time, and this idea that it's OK to be upset and be angry and maybe even raise your voice, is there a line? Do we need to have a line Well, we all know there's a line, so it's like, how do I identify the line? There you go.
Right? Yeah. Cause I think everyone knows obviously, you know, safety. We're not there abuse, anything, obviously, but we all know that line is before that line. Right? ⁓ We know there's like, okay, how do I tell when, I don't want to damage or hurt my child by being dysregulated. ⁓ And, and you know, there's, there's different, there's different markers, but chronic, you know, if you're frequently dysregulated and upset, your children will learn to be like, I need to be.
⁓ I got a safeguard against this or I don't know when it's gonna happen So and and I don't even say that in a place of judgment I say that in a that's a wake-up call to this parent to go. You know what? ⁓ You know a good few times whatever several times a day I'm I'm getting triggered or I'm upset and I'm struggling with this that just means you need some care, right? Go get some help go, you know, there's different things we won't go into that today But that's just a signal to you of yeah. Okay, cuz that could that

Kyle And Sara Wester (16:10.444)
that frequent chronic stress to your children's nervous system. Your nervous system is struggling ⁓ and you're going to pass that on to their nervous system as they're trying to always be ready for when you're Well, and I think a way that I started noticing and kind of the boundary I'd put for myself, Sarah, ⁓ is I started, you know, one, had to accept this fact that I am, I can get ⁓ energized. I can get passionate. I do get angry. My voice ⁓ will start to raise.
And I wanted to stop beating myself up for not being this constant compare. So I started thinking, what is that thing for me? And I was thinking, well, it's when I am ⁓ unable to think clearly and when it's really hard for me to connect anymore. Like I really can't feel this distance. And I mean, I really don't want to be around them. I'm like, this is it's getting there. Right. And that may happen, but it needs to be normal. It can be needs to be temporary.
And if it's going on for a long period of time, right? ⁓ I would stay stuck in there. know, like I would stay, it would go all evening. Sometimes I'd wake up still pissed off about whatever happened the day before. And that is not, that's not healthy. Yeah. That's too far. If you're looking for a barometer, ⁓ that's saying, wow, my cortisol levels are too high. My nervous system is ⁓ severely dysregulated and it's just a signal.
that you need to get, you know, there's some things you need to to care for yourself. Siegel says, Siegel says this, he says, the mind's job is to regulate energy and information. I love that. Your job, your mind's job is to regulate the energy and the information. So it's not about never being stressed, never being upset, but it is about coming back to balance. Like, like you do need to be able to know how to get back to a space.
I'm seeing this in a more balanced way. ⁓ If I'm letting it only be one sided that I'm the good guy, you're the bad guy. ⁓ Everything you're doing is horrible and I'm staying stuck in that for hours and hours, days and days, which I've dealt with parents who doing that. ⁓ It's high. It's a lot. It's not just, I'm irritated. If it's like, well, I get really big and then for hours that's impacting me and my relationships.

Kyle And Sara Wester (18:29.004)
Yeah, so ⁓ if there's moments where you're getting dysregulated and you're raising your voice, I mean, that's not automatically harmful. It's harmful, like you say, when it becomes chronic. And when it starts to create fear or shame, and then especially when there's no repair being done, right? So you got to be able to, ⁓ if you snap and then come back later and say, hey, I got overwhelmed, that wasn't okay, I love you, let's try again, right? ⁓ When you do that, you're actually teaching your child how to regulate.
you're showing them how to come back from disconnection. And that's actually where I had to eventually get to where Sarah, I started to feel less shame about not being perfect and sometimes blowing up because I thought my kids need to sometimes know that that happens in life, that we do get upset and we do lose our cool. But it's, what do we do with that? It's not that we never do that. It's what do we do with that? Do we let it just sit there and make this kind of toxic? That's what you're talking about. ⁓
Yeah, you you learned okay. I need to come all the way back around with the taking care of myself ⁓ Right integrating my brain Repairing the relationship that whole whole thing. Yeah Well, and and so if we don't do that Sarah if we don't get if we don't Understand that that needs to be worked on and we are just staying dysregulated all the time There is some negative impacts that will have on kids, you know, and when parents stay dysregulated meaning like they're yelling they're threatening punishing
it does, like you were saying, shifts the child's nervous system into this kind of survival mode where they're more on edge and more anxious. They'll feel responsible to keep you regulated instead of trusting that you can stay regulated. It's, I better be careful. I don't want to say that or I'll do that. Then you'll be dysregulated and they take responsibility. Well, I think a lot of listeners, I mean, I know as a kid, Sarah, there's many times where in our home and I know many of my friends homes, it was like, hey, when your dad comes home, you're going to be in big trouble for that thing. like,
you knew mom or dad were gonna get a call from the school or the friend or somebody who you'd messed up, you'd made a mistake or you'd done something and you're like, ⁓ I gotta like, ⁓ I'm on edge. You're waiting in your room, you hear their footsteps coming and like, ⁓ no, what are they gonna do? Dad's gonna get really mad right now, or mom's gonna yell at me. And so ⁓ when that's happening, the kid does go in that fight, flight or freeze. And typically they're just gonna be less honest, they're gonna be more ⁓ kinda just withdrawn.

Kyle And Sara Wester (20:51.662)
They're definitely not gonna be vulnerable and open to you. You know, they won't learn Yeah, and the child might comply in the short term, but they're not developing their own self-regulation Yeah, know they're learning that fear, you know to be controlled by fear and over time that's gonna lead to an anxious kid You know who withdrawals and has explosive reactions of their own, you know, if we're calm then our kids feel safe
you know, if we're able to come full circle, repair, regulate, take care of ourselves. So I wanna be careful of just using the word, be calm. But when we can do that, then we help our child's nervous system to stay in a really great place for them to learn. Yeah, and I also think what's helpful about this idea of realizing we don't want this to be chronic, know, something that I did too was ⁓ I wanted to like put a cap on how big I would, like I wanna put a boundary. I knew there was a boundary on a scale of one to 10.
I would never let myself get to a 10. I would never let myself get to a nine. But I did find myself frequently getting to a seven or eight. And that was higher than what I wanted or what we wanted as a couple. So then I had to like, well, what does it look like to be at a five? What does it look like to be at a six? ⁓ Do I think that, although maybe not ideal, ⁓ am I, if I get there, can I still come back and repair? ⁓ And so ⁓ there's that piece where if you're dealing with that, that might be a good way to help you be more aware of what success looks like.
But I wanted to add, whenever we have a home where it's not always calm and perfect all the time, it does free the kids to sometimes ⁓ be messy. Meaning like, ⁓ they can get dysregulated, they might raise their voice, ⁓ and they then will know what to do because they've seen me do it, or they've seen you do it. They've seen us say, hey, I'm really frustrated right now, I need to take a break from this. ⁓ I need to go take a walk, I need to do something right now. And the more the kids...
see you do that in imperfect ways, but also with the intention to repair and bring it back around, then they will be skilled to do that. And they'll understand what's going on when their maybe boss does it or a friend does it. And they, don't think it's always personal. They just see it as what it is that this person in this moment is being overwhelmed or dysregulated. And they just need some help to just take a pause, you know, so they could even say to a friend, Hey, let's pause for a moment. They were just getting kind of heated. And I think we come back, we'll be able to repair this. Yeah.

Kyle And Sara Wester (23:6.798)
They learn the skill of conflict and resolution and repair and regulation. Yeah, by watching you go through those steps. And I want to make a statement, another one that I think really freed me and I hope frees you is one of the biggest myths of parenting is that we need to avoid making mistakes. Repair is where the real work happens. Like we've got to accept that we are going to make mistakes. We got to accept that we're going to mess up.
at times we are not gonna treat our kids or talk to them the way we would like to be treated. At times I will be a hypocrite. ⁓ That used to really bother me being a parent coach and helping families that at times I'm not doing what I would tell parents to do. And that I felt like in order to actually be an effective coach, I had to be perfect in what I did at home. ⁓ But then I realized that that was actually causing more problems because I was beating myself up so much.
And it wasn't until I realized like, you know what? I want to get really good at not only lowering the amount of times I'm getting dysregulated, I want to be really good at the repair. I want to get really good at learning about myself, learning about my kids. And I think that's going to be like a really helpful for their personal growth in mine as well. Brene Brown says this, she, you we love Brene Brown. That's what I was just thinking. I was thinking of her perfection. Yeah. Maybe sometime we'll get Brene Brown on the podcast.
I don't know if that's possible. We'll try. Brene Brown says, vulnerability ⁓ builds trust, not perfection. When you repair after you've yelled or lost it, you're saying ⁓ our relationship can handle hard moments. I love that. And that's how kids learn ⁓ resilience is through those moments. ⁓ I like that. I'm sure people have got to be aware of her. I don't know.
But but just her work on vulnerability, not perfection. You know, perfection is gonna get you into hard places, dark places, not and and just the true vulnerability. And I think parents need to sit on that for a moment. You know, are you being vulnerable? What does that look like? How does that look like in relationship with your child, you know?

Kyle And Sara Wester (25:13.102)
and as a parent. So we won't get too far into that. another time. That would be great. Yeah. Another podcast. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's really, really valuable. You'd, don't want to just like speed past it. That's really something that we should sit with, you know, and kind of work through. Yeah. If I can give a quick moment of what success looked like for me, Sarah, and not being perfect is I remember there was a time and I may have shared this before and I know the podcast, but there was a time where I was in the room at Abbey was probably like seven and Brandon was maybe four.
and Abby and I were talking and it wasn't quite heated, but I definitely was a little frustrated or energized by the conversation. ⁓ And I did not want to be ⁓ interrupted. And Brennan came in and when he did, Abby looked at him and said, she was kind of dysregulated. She said, what are you doing here, Brennan? And Brennan went at that time, he was like three or four, ⁓ he just kind of stopped. He could feel the energy and he was like, what is happening? You both seem so intense. And then Abby said, take that thing out of my room. You brought them, I want it out of here. ⁓
I just wanted ⁓ Brennan to leave, because I wanted to talk to Abby. So I said, did you hear what she said, dude? Take it out of the room. And he did not move. He just was total in freeze mode. And it was really annoying me, because I wanted him to leave the room. And so was like, Brennan, leave the room. And then I felt myself, I felt the anger getting bigger and bigger. And I just stared at him with this intensity. I really did feel like I was using the force. I was like Darth Vader. Yeah, ⁓ him out of the room.
And I was like making him leave the room with my, and he was just staring at me. And we did that for probably like five to 10 seconds. It seemed like a long time. And in that moment though, I could feel this other voice. And I said, what are you doing? You know, how come you're so mad right now? You know, he just came in. He has no idea what's going on. So then I did something I hadn't done before at that time. just, I just smiled and I looked at him and I said, that was weird. Wasn't that weird? And then Brandon goes,
That was weird. And Abby goes, that was really weird. Like you were just staring at him. said, Brennan, I was trying to like force you out of the room with my eyeballs. I was like, and he goes, I know you, you, you just look so mad at me. And I said, how do you feel now? And he said, well, I feel loved now. And I said, man, I'm really sorry for doing that. I was just talking to Abby. You came in, I turned my energy towards you. ⁓ I'd like you to go and leave the room so I can finish this talk with Abby.

Kyle And Sara Wester (27:29.742)
take that thing out when you go. And he was more than happy to do it. He wasn't opposed to it. can see that he probably got in free flight free. His nervous system was like, wait, what did I just walk into? And it sent him into this emergency mode. And for him, he froze in the moment. But then it was really cool because that was a great moment between me, Abby and Brennan of talking through that where they saw me losing it. I definitely was not calm. But then they saw my ability to shift it and then come back and reconnect.
And then it was, we were almost like laughing about it. Like that was such a weird experience. good like little healing. mean, it's such a, it's a little snippet, but it's like a full circle that happened kind of quick. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't always happen though. No, it doesn't. But that's where, but that was a big moment of success for me, how quickly it didn't just stay there and I didn't beat myself up. I was actually proud of myself. I was like, that was kind of cool. I almost like lost it. And then I didn't. And it wasn't like, it wasn't me going, why weren't you more calm in that moment? I was like,
Well, cause was kind of annoyed. He walked in the room. I was trying to talk to Abby. It makes sense. You know? And so I just gave myself that grace that that's just kind of me, but I could, I heard this other voice kind of call me back to this better space of connection rather than pushing Brennan away, you ⁓ know? So, so like in another example you might have is like a moment where, where you're, getting stressed, you're starting to yell and something you could do is just take a deep breath and just for a moment and just admit, Hey, I'm getting kind of loud. ⁓ That was my stress talking. It's not your fault. Can we start over?
That could be a moment. I ⁓ love smiling when I do that to kind of take the energy out. But in that moment, what Siegel would say is you have just transformed what was turning into a rupture, but you turned it into a moment of growth. And those kind of small repairs are what kids need to internalize safety with you. They don't need us to be calm all the time. They need us to show them what to do ⁓ whenever calm disappears. ⁓
that's the hard work, right? It's like, okay, what do I do real quick? You know, we can feel it and then knowing, okay, let's, let's restart. Let's start, do a do over and yeah, all the things yours. love those. How much they can use those later in life. Well, so let's take a moment, Sarah, and just kind of wrap this up by redefining what success looks like to the parent. It's, it's, you know, we started out, yeah. So like this myth of like the goal is to be able, cause I think many parents think that maybe they grew up with yelling in their home and they think like, okay, goal.

Kyle And Sara Wester (29:48.067)
to never yell. The goal is to always be calm. If we do that, then our kids are gonna be like fantastic human beings. Yeah, it's not about being calm 100 % of the time. It's about knowing how to come back, repair and reconnect. And that's actually the hard work. ⁓ Yes, real parenting isn't about ⁓ never being triggered. That's going to happen. It's about how quickly we notice and name it and then take responsibility for it. That's the emotional maturity, the emotional intelligence.
that we want our kids to have. ⁓ Because it puts a lot of pressure on them if we're always perfect and never had like, the fact that we are imperfect is a part of loving another human. Yeah, and they can learn how to do that too because they're not gonna be perfect humans either. Yes, so we wanna be able to be calm, ⁓ but adding connection, connection. When we're losing the calm, we wanna make sure we're always moving towards connection. Perfection isn't the goal, being present is the goal. That's the connection piece.
And too often, you know, that's the problem with losing the calm is, is we disconnect. We even like I was saying, sometimes I was being calm and I still wasn't connected because I was moving into logic, you know, give yourself grace. We're all allowed to be human. What matters is how we were returned whenever the conflict happens and we lose it. so next time you lose your cool, try this, just notice it, ⁓ name it, repair it. That's you modeling what emotional regulation really looks like. And that's at the core of the art of raising humans.
It's not perfectly calm people walking around who never get mad. I mean, there are things to get mad about, ⁓ but it's about connected, resilient people who know that even when things get messy, ⁓ love will always bring us back together. Yeah. And if that's a real struggle for you, ⁓ getting the support and care that you need to take care of yourself, you know, there's times where life is really, really hard and that even just what you said there,
is a difficult thing to do. And that's just a signal that you need more support. ⁓ Go get the extra support you need. ⁓ Yes. So I hope this helps you. you as a parent are dealing with dysregulation, ⁓ you've been struggling with seeing all over social media. If I'm a good parent, I never get mad. I hope this gives you the freedom to give yourself some grace, but also to help you redefine what successful parenting ⁓ is going to look like for you and your spouse.

Kyle And Sara Wester (32:11.766)
and how you can raise kids who it's okay for them to be dysregulated, but we wanna teach them the skills on how to connect and repair. So really hope this was helpful to you and please share it, give it to other people you know who are caught up in that myth and hopefully this can really dispel that. So thank you for taking the time to listen. Have a great day.