Episode 173

Kyle And Sara Wester (0:25.422)
You ever have those mornings with your kids where everything seems to be going one direction and then in a matter of seconds, it's bam, it's going a totally different direction. And all of sudden people are upset. You're frustrated. The kids upset. And it's like, how did it, how did this happen? How did we get here? This is so frustrating. I just wanted the morning to be a fun morning that we just, oh my gosh. And I know we have been there.
so many times and I'm sure you can relate to that. So Sarah and I wanted to take a moment today to actually kind of walk you through a moment that recently happened with us and our kid, because we're constantly telling you, we don't do everything perfect. That's not even the goal. We mess up all the time, but it's all about how you handle those moments and those mess ups with your kids that are going to create more isolation or more closeness and connection with your kids.
And so we're going to walk you through an actual lifetime story that happened with our teenager the other day and kind of show you kind of our thinking process ⁓ and how we blew up about it, how ⁓ all the ways in which our childhood and how our kids would have, ⁓ our parents would have reacted to this and how that played a role into without our kid even understanding all of that. Like our kid has no ⁓ understanding of what that was like when we were a kid and, and how, how we would have perceived that moment as a child. And then within about 15, 20 minutes, you're going to see
kind of the steps that we walk through to eventually take a moment that could have been disaster and instead turn into a moment that actually ended with a lot of connection and everything still was accomplished. All the things we wanted to get done still got done, but it wasn't done because we were all mad at each other and ⁓ thought we weren't good enough in some way and we needed to make our kid do anything. So I hope it really helps you ⁓ see kind of ⁓ how that works in our family.
and gives you the real practical tools. By the end, we're gonna walk through the five steps that you can use today to actually implement in these conflicts with your child to get a different outcome. So take a moment, if you haven't already, to please pause, review, comment, rate, share, all those things that help us. ⁓ That's the currency of the podcasting world. It helps us grow, and we wanna keep growing more and more so we can help more and more ⁓ families with this kind of information and support. So.

Kyle And Sara Wester (2:46.840)
Thank you so much for listening. hope you enjoy the episode today.

Kyle And Sara Wester (0:1.070)
Hello and welcome to the Art of Raising Humans. I'm Kyle. Hi, I'm Sarah. And you know, Sarah, we've been talking a lot over this past few years on this podcast and with parents that we help that a big part of changing the way we parent, know, one of the biggest tools that we use is this intentionality of reflecting upon moments with our kids to help us.
better understand ourselves and better understand them. Right. Yeah. We talked a lot about it starting with us, a conflict, whatever the problem is that's happening. We first want to turn kind of inward and go, Whoa, okay. What's happening in me? Um, it kind of gets messed up if we start with the child, right? I've got to kind of know our space and what's happening here. But sometimes that's a little hard to figure out.
⁓ What does that look like? How do you do that? Especially in the moment, because in the moment, we don't feel able to do that. We're so caught up in the conflict. And so ⁓ I really felt like, you know, we strongly believe it begins with us. ⁓ The focus is ⁓ trying to help ourselves and parents that we coach and work with to focus on what you can control, which is not the kid. It's you. You can control you. And I know sometimes that seems impossible.
But really that is the only person you can control in this situation. you actually don't want to control your kid. Even though you think you kind I know. And well, that's the problem is it seems like we can if we get big enough or angry enough. And you feel like you should because it's your duty. Exactly. And that's the whole kind of dance we're going through. But we really, think what really has helped a lot of parents that we work with and that we coach ⁓ is by giving our own personal stories, ways in which this looks practically because
We don't ever come on the podcast acting like we have it all together. And that's not even the goal. We've done a whole podcast on it. That'd be gross if we're on there. We have it figured out. We do it great every day, you know, that there's still mess ups we make, ways in which we don't, ⁓ re respond to the kids in ways that we would want to. But those moments can be ⁓ mined for some really ⁓ big pieces of gold, you know? ⁓ Yeah, it's kind of like, sharing the journey. We're gonna go, okay, here, this is what it looks like.

Kyle And Sara Wester (2:13.270)
It reminds me of all those DIY videos I watch where, know, it's like, there's a hole in the wall. How do I patch it? I'm going to go watch. Someone can tell me about it. Great. But then I love also kind of seeing it in process. ⁓ How did it look that you did that? Whatever project it is. ⁓ Well, I think it's even what we like watching science videos with the kids, like Mark Rober or things like that. It's like you hear like, yeah, part of learning and growing is messing up and then doing it differently and learning. And so we had a really
interesting moment happened a month or so ago ⁓ with our oldest. ⁓ And it was just a moment that I thought was really insightful for me. And I think you and I both learned more about ourselves through it. ⁓ And I thought it'd be great to share with our audience what that was, you know, to some extent and, and how we kind of use the steps and we're going to give real practical steps ⁓ on what we did as we reflected on it ⁓ and how it brought us closer together with her rather than us pushing each other further away. ⁓ Yeah.
So it's sort of a, yeah, like, yeah, you always say watch the tape. It's, we're gonna kind of, we're gonna watch the tape ⁓ and share parts, you know, some highlights with you. Yeah, well, I say watch the tape because it is a sports metaphor, but it's this idea of slowing it down. So I want to go back, look at the event, slow it down. And this only happened, you know, once we did this, once we were able to talk about this with her and looked back on it. And then this insight came.
And this to me is actually what's exciting about parenting. ⁓ It's like these moments, if we just want them to go away or they just happen and we never reflect on them, never watch the tape, then we never learn from them and we're doomed to keep repeating it over and over again. So in this scenario, it's just a typical Saturday morning. We had some things to do. Typically Saturday for us is a time for fun, but there's also things we're getting done, just like most families. ⁓ We're getting groceries, we're mowing the lawn, we're...
got your to-do list because you've been working all week or you know whatever's going on all week so on the weekends you're getting things done and then you know we also want to have some family time fun time. So you and I are both pretty early risers so we get up early ⁓ and we're already you know relaxing but we're also getting things done. I tend to jump right in that's sort of my that's my good times to get a lot done. Yeah and then our younger two ⁓ they both were already up by about 730 and ⁓ they were already getting breakfast and they were you know

Kyle And Sara Wester (4:33.410)
asking us, hey, what's going on today? And we were gonna hang out with some good friends that day. So there was kind of a timeline. It wasn't just a total free day. There were things that we were going to accomplish. Okay, we want to knock in our heads, we want to knock this stuff out. Because we know we have these other things coming later.
Yeah, and so with the ⁓ younger two already up, we were able to talk to them about what the expectations were for that day, kind of what we wanted to accomplish that day, and they were on board. They were like, okay, so there's gonna be some room cleaning done, some house cleaning done, some errands run, but we'll get all that done. We'd like to do it before we go see these friends, because then we can have some free time later that night to connect, watch a movie or swim or whatever is gonna be that afternoon. ⁓ And then our oldest, being a 15-year-old, comes down later. By later, I mean...
nine. Yeah, I mean, wasn't super late, but she comes down at nine. She's comes down, we greet her and then we immediately go into already. I've already done about six things that morning. We had already kind of been up and going. And so of course we are jumping right in with her. Yeah. And so we immediately come in and like, Hey, just so you know, here's what's happening. Here's what we want you to accomplish today. We've already had our coffee. We're we're going. Yeah. And if you're listening and you have a teenager,
How do you think that went? How do you think she responded to that? ⁓ It sounds dumb, but we were kind of surprised that she was not happy with that. She immediately was like, my gosh, what? And there was this kind of reaction that to you and I, we're like, what is this? ⁓ We're just letting you know, right? But she immediately began to complain and be like, I'd rather you guys greet me with good morning and let's have some breakfast. And we're like.
I immediately went into it. Do you know how long I've been up? Like I've been up for two and a half hours at this point. little slow wake up and eat, relax for a minute. And like, yeah, that was two hours ago. Well, and we, I feel like we immediately reverted to what a lot of parents do. Um, and my mind, I'll share my own experience, but my experience was like, have we not taught her better than this?

Kyle And Sara Wester (6:32.878)
Like just own your stuff, honey. Take responsibility. Your room wouldn't be so messy if you'd been taking care of it all. All these statements are like quickly just going through my brain. And so I'm sure I'm expressing all of that judgment. Were you aware of all of that? You were just kind of operating from those beliefs. Yeah, yeah. Immediately. And I know I was because I was saying like, what is the deal? Like if you had just had this done, this wouldn't be, it's only a big deal right now because you haven't been.
keeping it up all week and then you could see our daughter like, you know, more and more being like, what is this? ⁓ Why am I getting all of this ⁓ lecture and negativity? ⁓ And of course she wasn't giving the response I would have preferred, which was just, thanks guys, ⁓ I'll go do it now. ⁓ I'm gonna take care of it now, which seems unrealistic in reflection, but in that moment seemed like the perfectly appropriate way to respond. And then you and I had already, because we were both on the same page, we this plan.
going. ⁓ So I jumped on that too. ⁓ with, you know, come on, just get it done. I mean, yeah, just, so it was kind of a two against one, unfortunately for her. Yeah, we both are on the same page. And I think they were, sure in our tone and in our presentation, there definitely was some shame involved of like, why is this such a problem? You know,
how come you're making this so difficult? I'm not the one that came down at nine o'clock. If you were up earlier, we could have got this all done. Right. Yeah. So, so some of that shame stuff. Now, what I really appreciate about our daughter is ⁓ she didn't just like she could have kept escalating, you know, and kept getting more mad at us. You know, she was frustrated, but I felt like if I was going to give it a number, I think she probably stayed at like a five around there. And I think
You and I, for the most part, I started to become, so once again, I'll speak to my own experience, I started to be more aware as she stayed relatively calm in this moment, which helped me. And then I was able to be like, okay, Kyle, I can feel, and I'm doing this on video if you're watching this on YouTube. If you're not watching us on YouTube, you should. ⁓ But ⁓ I'm closing my hands. could feel my body definitely being more closed off. I could feel there was a tenseness in my voice. There was this like a...

Kyle And Sara Wester (8:47.822)
My thoughts were definitely in a negative space. Everything she was saying, I wanted to counter with an argument, you know? But I definitely, not physically, but like in a metaphorical way, my hands were closed. I was not open to her perspective. I just wanted her to accept my perspective and then go accomplish the task. I was feeling in the middle of that, this kind of tug of war going on inside. I remember looking at her thinking, the fear that was rising up in me is,
This is what everyone's afraid of that you're going to have fragile kids who can't do anything. know, so I could feel that coming up in me, but then this war was going on inside of me that going, no, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, don't believe that way. Don't believe, you know, and, but that fear is still, still there, you know? So I kind of was, I mean, we're going along in the conversation. You know how this stuff goes. You're, sort of aware, but yet not really aware. It's not, know, maybe if you take a break and really unpack it, but in the heat of the moment, you're.
you're having the conversation. So you're ⁓ kind of aware of this fear rising up and that I'm speaking from that fear. Yeah. ⁓ And, then my internal belief system would have been, it doesn't matter how you feel, ⁓ you just do the thing. doesn't matter how you feel, you know, cause that would have been the message that I really, as a child kind of internalized, you just move forward, you get the task done. doesn't matter what you think, what you feel, what
what's going on with you. Preach it Sarah. That's right. You do the thing you've been told to do. Yeah, you do. And so I was kind of semi aware of that stuff. And then when you have that rising up in you, it's a little hard in the moment, you know, you kind of have to go, okay, wait, what am I practicing here though? What am I doing a little different, you know, and, ⁓ and, ⁓ we have these, this wiring in our brain, right? The software it's, it's going, the program's running.
And it can be really hard to halt that program and go, no, no, I'm starting this. I'm doing this program, you know, and work on doing that wiring, especially when that fear rises up that this is going wrong. This is going to turn out badly. My child isn't going to make it in life. You start spiraling kind of with where you believe this may go. ⁓ That was good. bet a lot of listeners can resonate with that feeling. And as you said it, I did think that too. It's like, my gosh, we just ask you to go.

Kyle And Sara Wester (11:11.854)
organize your room. And it's like, Oh, wow, that's the end of the world. In my head, was thinking, it's not even that bad. You've got about 20 minutes where the work up there. Yeah. And you mean like, get over it. It's like, what, I don't care what you feel. I get it. So all those things are popping in our, in my head too. That was really well said. And then that led to us moving in from the kitchen where we were at and then into the living room. And then she sat down, we sat down and I remember she started sharing something that I didn't really hadn't thought about. Cause in that moment,
All my mind was like, ⁓ ma'am, Sarah and I, we don't give into this. What have we modeled? We've modeled nothing but get the job done. We've modeled, we're not raising a kid who can't handle, ⁓ what have we been teaching her? So ⁓ this is in my thoughts, we've modeled this in a good way. ⁓ What's missing in her mind? How come she's not connecting So we have maybe a little of this awareness of what's behind it, but the words coming out of our mouths were pretty much still.
from those belief systems and those feelings. And being bred by the frustration, So we weren't quite really operating from this awareness and doing something with it. I think it was kind of floating around for both of us. And we're thinking we're having that wrestling match. Well, it turned into an interesting thing where she was like, ⁓ don't you guys ⁓ get ⁓ frustrated or get annoyed at doing these things? Like dad mowing the lawn? No, I don't actually. I feel fine. I don't let myself feel it. I told her I could let myself. How would that help me? ⁓
If I did that, then I'd just be upset the whole time. I'm not gonna do that. I'll find ways to enjoy So I feel like at first, Sarah, I was thinking, this is a moment to tell her how we do this, how we walk through it. And I thought it was gonna be a teaching moment for her, right? But then she said something very interesting where she said, you know, it's actually, ⁓ feel ⁓ kind of lonely that you guys don't ever seem to get mad about this stuff. You guys don't ever, you just get the job done.
You know, mom, you look all happy as you're doing and dad, you just look like you're enjoying mowing the lawn. And so she's like, I don't feel like you guys can, like I can ever live up to that. I feel like I'm always going to disappoint you because you guys have it all together. you, and I thought, dang, that's not what I'm trying to tell her. I think when she said that, I saw the shift kind of happen in you, you know, I saw you kind of soften and it felt like you were, you were kind of connecting with that feeling that she had.

Kyle And Sara Wester (13:34.060)
that maybe something inside of you had felt that at some point too, ⁓ and you were resonating with that with her. Well, because I immediately thought of all the times I have done things with you that I didn't want to do, and I did complain about them to you. I'd be like, man, this stinks. Hey, we got these papers to do for our master's degree all weekend. We just got to work on it. I would complain. And then ⁓ I never once heard you say,
Well, let's shift it to a different way, Kyle. Let's think of this in a positive way. ⁓ We're getting a master's degree. This is great. Like you never tried to change my mindset. We just commiserated with each other as adults will do. And I never thought that was a bad thing. I always thought like we went, we got our papers done. It never stopped us from doing the task, but I felt connected to you through the misery, right? And then I was like, wait, is that, that's interesting. Cause I never would have thought that was bad or I.
And like, I'm almost approaching her as if she's lacking something. Like she has a character defect for not being excited or- And even though you didn't say that with your words, that's what she put words to. Yeah. You know, and I think that really is a good moment for parents to realize, even if we're not saying in, if in our heads, we're like, what's wrong with you ⁓ or you're not, you know, those, those thoughts that live in there, ⁓ they're still picking up on them. Cause you never said to her that she wasn't-
she was a disappointment or she was like, never said anything, but yet she was able to give words to that. And so, you know, as parents, we kind of want to be aware that even if we're maybe trying to shove things away, the kids pick up on it, you know, just like you do with another human. If someone's talking to you and you think, you know, I can tell you're thinking this about me. can read between the lines. Cause that is what I was feeling. I just wasn't saying it. And then like you said, I did start to soften. If I go back to that metaphor of opening the hands,
I purposely started focusing on metaphorically opening my hands, being receptive to her perspective. All of a sudden I was like, yeah, I was curious. this is interesting. I didn't think of this. That you and I, in our attempt to model how to do things well, we're also not connecting with her on how ⁓ the journey's challenging and it's hard. And there are times you aren't gonna like things and that's okay. Yeah, we were modeling.

Kyle And Sara Wester (15:48.910)
so to speak, a good attitude, getting things done. were neglecting maybe, or it would have been helpful to model, oh, things can be hard, and we can gripe and complain to each other, we can vent, and we can go do that hard thing. We don't always have to smile on our And you know what's so funny about it? Really, she wasn't even complaining necessarily about the task. She was complaining about how we approached it, and how she just wanted us to take time to...
slowly invite her into it rather than just throw it on her as soon as she woke up, right? But then what that led to, and I want the listeners to kind of hear this, is as I stayed in that receptive open space, Sarah, and I started to be curious about how our experience wasn't all that different from her experience, then that opened up my ability to kind of reflect back to my childhood and start thinking, how was this handled when I was a kid? And I was thinking, oh, that's where some of my confusion has come. As a kid, cleaning looked like...
My mom going to work on the weekend, my dad being given a cut, like my mom saying to my dad, I want the house clean, it's messy, you know? And this happened like once a month. And my dad would then, get up kids, it's time to get this house clean. And every one of us were like, this sucks, why do we have to do this? And we were all very upset, it was grumbling, complaining. So partly in my mind, I'm thinking, we don't want a home like that. So we don't approach it that way. I don't want her to do it because I'm...
yelling at her and telling her to get it done. ⁓ I'm wanting this to be different. ⁓ And so I'm thinking like, that's why you and I were so intentional in our ⁓ 20s and our 30s of creating healthy habits to shift how we see cleaning, know, how we do ⁓ chores or errands, you know, we don't see them as things that we have to do. We try to switch into things we want to do, you know, and to therefore help us find more joy or find more goodness in those moments, right? ⁓
But in that effort to do that, the realization hit me too, that there was a lot of judgment I had towards my dad about those moments. And I felt like what was triggering in me is I had made this judgment that I'm not gonna do it like my dad. I am gonna do things different than him. And yet in this moment, I was actually talking to her in a very simple way so my dad would have spoken to me. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because you repeat those, those same voices come up for you again because...

Kyle And Sara Wester (18:12.930)
that little child is still you, right? When we always hear about the inner child that we don't just turn 18 and ditch the kid, those voices, those messages, that wiring, however you want to say it, it's still there. And you were operating from that. ⁓ know my, my wiring was ⁓ we, mean, it was a fine tune machine in my house. We did get up and clean and, it was really beautiful. wasn't a terrible thing, but ⁓ in that, ⁓ I wouldn't say
I, my, my takeaway was also, ⁓ didn't matter if I didn't want to do it. My feelings didn't, ⁓ you know, I was like, ⁓ if I had a feeling of, I don't want to do this. It was just like, shove that down ⁓ instead of being able to give voice to it. know, that my takeaway was, okay, I just need to be quiet, be good, go get the thing done. Yeah. Push through it. Yeah. ⁓ And, ⁓ so then ⁓
I look at her and think, why aren't you just being quiet? Just get it done. Who cares how you feel, right? Cause our feelings don't matter. ⁓ And so task, get it done. Yeah. And that, and make things easy. Right. Cause I kind of sometimes will operate from a just make things easy, make things easy. ⁓ and so I was kind of speaking from that inner voice inside of me. Well, and also on top of that, I'm thinking too, there was ⁓ some time in my teenage years,
where my mom was having to work several jobs and my dad was unemployed. And so I had this judgment on my dad for, my mind, in my kid mind, that he was being lazy and he wasn't keeping the house clean. ⁓ So in my mind, part of being clean and a clean husband, you know, to organize my stuff and I didn't want to be that way. never wanted you to see me as a person who was not clean and organized and had my stuff together. So there too, there was this, ⁓ I was trying to tell, once I was able to see this and this came to me,
in this conversation. know, it was almost like I started completely unaware. Then it was like, I was able to almost have this backup out of body experience where I kind of watched myself a little bit and were like, what are you doing? Why are you talking like this to her? And then it was finally this complete awareness ⁓ of, a second. Yes, there is a lot of positive motivation here to be a healthier person, to have healthy habits, to see life in a way where I'm not griping and complaining all the time.

Kyle And Sara Wester (20:33.454)
⁓ But it is also driven by this negative judgment to not be that way that I thought my dad had been right and somehow I'm gonna be better than that and That's what I think that's where the shame is coming from that I'm keeping on her That's where I'm getting mad at her if like don't be like that. Don't let yourself be like this ⁓ Just like you said almost same thing you're saying stuff that down and just do it. You know, ⁓ don't be lazy You know and and once I was able then
to see that and then voice it to our daughter, you could see her countenance also shifted. ⁓ She no longer was closed off, her hands were open, and she was actually very interested in this whole insightful journey. ⁓ So I think just step back from the actual conversation a little bit, it's that if you can start to feel, kind of tune into yourself a little bit, it's slowing down enough to go, wait, wait, what's going on inside of me?
If I'm frustrated, angry, disappointed, ⁓ know, kind of tuning into that a little bit and slow things down enough to realize what beliefs you're acting from, what feelings, what's hurt inside of you, you know, what, cause if you're angry, they're frustrated, whatever, there's something deeper than that. So just take some time to dig, dig through it. And we slowed down enough to have that conversation. So if you're thinking about what tangibly this looks like.
And I'd say we have a lot of practice with it. It's not always easy. And sometimes if you know the brain states, if you've gone pretty far into that upset, it's going be much harder to get yourself out of it. You might actually need to step away. We didn't, in this case, need to step away. I we also were supporting each other as you were opening up and she was opening up and we were able to come together and do that more. So just from that step back, that's what was going on from just a step by step.
model. so with all that, I what started out as an opportunity for complete ⁓ disaster, which could have been like such a harmful moment with our- What's wrong with you? ⁓ know, shame. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It would have been bad for us and her ⁓ ended up within about 15 to 20 minutes being an opportunity where we were giving each other hugs at the end. ⁓ She went up.

Kyle And Sara Wester (22:51.124)
and cleaned her room. ⁓ She felt heard, she felt seen. I think we both had a chance to do some of that inner work of, yeah, I actually don't need to operate from that fear or from that belief. ⁓ Yeah, I was actually at the end, I said to her, thank you for sticking in that. I really appreciate that. It would've been easy for you at any moment to just be like, I'm out. I don't wanna be part of this conversation where both of you are teaming up and basically saying I suck in that moment with not so many words.
But ⁓ I thanked her for sticking in it. And then I thanked her for allowing me the opportunity to come to that realization ⁓ of this thing I hadn't thought about. That really, this thing that I had just prided myself on, like I just do it this way, really was also motivated from this other place that I probably need to do some ⁓ healing. Some It's not like, check that box, done. We'll never rise again. But it's definitely there. definitely just, it's that increased awareness. And then you're able to move through it and release it.
Well, so if you have a pen and paper or you're just listening I want to give you the five steps. Let's take those five So we kind of watched the tape we went through the story I hope that was helpful to you to kind of see this was just you know a few weeks back and this is something that happens, know a few times a month these kind of things happen, you know, and there are opportunities because we see them as opportunities to really better understand ourselves and better understand our kids then we can have the successful endings where the same thing we wanted to accomplish was accomplished and
but it was not done through fear and shame. was instead, we were able to eventually get there, even though we leaned on the old tactics and then moved into connecting ⁓ through it. So the five steps that we came up with, step one that we did, was kind of, ⁓ you kind of framed it as notice the signal, know, kind of notice ⁓ what I noticed was I definitely was getting more tense. I definitely was ⁓ not actually tightening my hands, but felt that way. My voice was getting more stern.
and more angry. And to me, that was the signal that I was definitely slipping into a you against me type thing, you know, and, and, and you might ask yourself this question. What am I believing right now? ⁓ What does this remind me of? You know, where's this coming from? know, those kinds of questions. Yeah. And, and, and, I just can't say it enough. Like this can be really hard in the moment for me. It was just, it's, it's just when I feel like, great. You know, kind of just like,

Kyle And Sara Wester (25:15.186)
Do we have to do this? I just want to get the, you know, and so that's kind of my signal that, maybe I don't want to go down that road, you know, because I've got lot of crap to get done today. Yeah. This isn't gonna. Yeah. Yeah. I love that step too. So after you've noticed the signal, you've noticed that, I'm getting triggered. I'm definitely escalating. I'm turning against my kid. Number two is take a moment, take a breath and name your experience. You know, like say something, you might even just do this in your head. This is something that was helping me.
Once ⁓ my daughter was saying about this idea how she feels lonely in this moment, it's like, wait, this isn't about them. Like this is about me. ⁓ I'm making this about her, but this actually isn't about her. This is about me. And then that's where you can use something like the technique like name it, detain it, ⁓ something like, ⁓ she was saying this basically, I feel unheard, ⁓ but basically I was feeling afraid that I had been failing her as a parent. I was afraid I was becoming
like those negative parts that I saw my dad. ⁓ if I could name it, detain it that way. Yeah. Yeah. And, I know if something comes up in you right now and you think, yeah, but their behavior needs to be addressed. If I'm focusing on me, I'm not going to address their behavior, ⁓ but, if you'll just like give it a chance, ⁓ really, anything we're ever worried about with their behavior is still just coming through our filter. We need to be very aware of our filter because otherwise we,
can address the behavior you want to say in coming from that space instead of really thinking about this person in front of you. ⁓ And you want all that clutter. You don't want a boss coming ⁓ at you about something when really it's because he has five other employees thinking about, know, that you're like, yeah, you're stressed about that. Yeah. So you want them to kind of have dealt with themselves, have dealt with all the other baggage they have.
And so then, because you, I guarantee you come, you know, you will approach the child, the child and the situation differently than if all of that is there. ⁓ And just knowing if I can look at it and feel one way and then bring three other parents in the room and they'll have completely different reactions to the same thing, it's telling me it is about me. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and then also you want your kid to learn how to take responsibility for their own behavior instead of blaming you for it. So in the same way, we want to model that to them. Yeah.

Kyle And Sara Wester (27:36.590)
So step three is reparent yourself in the moment. So what does that mean? Well, it means give yourself some compassion. You know, imagine speaking to your younger self. And that is kind of what I was doing. I was thinking like, what happened to me in these moments? And you were saying that too. What was it like when we were asked to clean and kind of tell yourself it's okay to feel this way. You are safe now. You're not being attacked. You don't have to give into fear in that moment, but you want to be able to just give to your child.
what you wish you would have been given. ⁓ Okay. And number four ⁓ lead from calm and not control. So that's eventually what we were able to do is ⁓ I was definitely out of control. I was letting my emotions take over the car, take, take, you know, kind of driving the wheel. And I was just a passenger watching about watching my frustration, anger, take control. But once I was able to sit down and really listen and like a guys, a lot, lot of times for all the listeners, if you take a moment and shift,
from winning this argument or being right and just seek understanding, you'll find sometimes this calm naturally starts to happen. Because now my approach is different. So I started to calm down because I started to get curious. And that helped me then reflect. And that kind of slowed it all down. And I wasn't going so fast. So you're going to shift from reaction to curiosity. Maybe ask your teenager, can you help me understand what happened? And avoid blaming instead.
seek clarity, seek connection. ⁓ And, and this is where, it's do a little, another little, if you have something coming in and it goes, no, then the kid just gets away with everything. ⁓ This, that's not what happens in this scenario because it ends with, like you said, this, the two words that jump out is you, you, one, you maintain connection and then two, you're still, you're, lead. So you lead with connection. ⁓ did the task get done that we needed to get done? Yep. Yep. Yep. But we were able to stay connected.
Instead of it being do this or else or that everyone's got ⁓ angry upset feelings. There's big, you know, disruption in our relationship. The rest of the day could go crummy, you know, whatever. None of that took place because of this walkthrough and, and that we were able to do these things while maintaining connection. So it doesn't slip into permissive parenting. ⁓ and so it doesn't end. So if there's a piece of you, cause I know a lot of us ⁓ think, yeah, but yeah, but

Kyle And Sara Wester (30:0.526)
⁓ Just to kind of we know that Sarah that step five is set limits with empathy and because of what we did ⁓ She was also able to set limits with us, ⁓ know in the sense of like she was able to say by the end We were like, well, hey, we still want the room done and she's like, yeah, I'm gonna go up and get that done now Okay, we want it done before lunch. Okay, cool. So we set those limits But then she was able to say hey when I come down in the morning Could you not just throw all this stuff on?
So then we both were able to feel heard and both able to set limits on how we want to be treated and how we want to be spoken to. And that was very helpful to us because I didn't even realize that we were doing it. And we created a plan together, which is really amazing. It's amazing to with all ages, but I really love it in the teen years as they're preparing to, you know, go out in life. So I want to wrap it up by saying this. These moments for us are not failures and that's why we're sharing them with you. They're
We seem as growth opportunities and we kind of want to do just to see in almost real time what that's like for us because you, you, we are rewriting the story. We're modeling to our kids how to own our feelings, how to repair and how to lead with connection and love. So every time you pause, reflect and reconnect, you break the cycle. You change it. You give a new opportunity to create a new story with your kid. This work isn't easy, but it takes courage, bravery, and it matters deeply to them.
⁓ Okay, so we hope it encourages you that we are not selling perfect parenting We're not doing permissive parenting But we are passionate about starting with change begins with us ⁓ and that will then help the kid own their own stuff and then we can come together and Co-create a different way of doing those moments, you know, so we appreciate you listening to our story today. Hope that was helpful ⁓ Definitely put those five steps into effect today when you have opportunities with you know conflict
and see how it helps you better understand yourself and how it changes those moments with your kid in the future where they're like, they're actually excited to follow up on that conflict because they're like, yeah, we're both gonna grow and understand each other better and we'll actually become closer rather than turning into another more lecture and all that kind of stuff. All right, okay. So thank you so much for listening and we hope you have a wonderful day.