Episode Transcript
[00:00:09] Speaker A: I get so mad at myself when I do something that I know I shouldn't do, but I do it anyway. And even though I know God extends grace to try again, it's not always easy to accept it. It's even harder to give that grace to other people who don't make the choices that I want them to make, even when those people are in my own home and family.
If you can relate, this one's for you. I'm Kristin Mauchar Young, and this is Becoming Church, the podcast where we discuss how the message and movement of Jesus is not just about becoming Christians, but about becoming the church. Each week, we explore conversations around faith, culture, and the evolving church. Today, parenting coach Wendy Snyder is back to move us out of shame, reactivity, and power struggles so we can rebuild a family structure rooted in peace, empathy, and mutual respect. Instead of beating yourself up for the parenting choices you've made in the past, you can learn to parent differently in the future with kindness, confidence, and joy.
Wendy Snyder, welcome back to the Becoming Church podcast.
[00:01:11] Speaker B: Thank you for having me again, Kristen. I am so grateful to be here.
[00:01:16] Speaker A: I'm so glad that you are. And we are going to talk about your new book.
[00:01:20] Speaker B: Your first book, right?
Yes, my first one. This feels wild. It's officially out in the world. And, yeah, these things take years to write, right? So it feels very surreal. It's actually out there. It's landing in homes across the world, and it's just a really fun time to be celebrating this information, getting into the hearts and homes of so many.
[00:01:43] Speaker A: That's awesome. Well, you and I just jumped off of an Instagram live, so we spent like 15, 20 minutes going over common parenting phrases that you told us for either helpful or harmful. And so I joked and I was like, we're healing millennials in real time.
[00:01:58] Speaker B: But that was a fun game. I loved it. I loved it. I felt like the bearer of bad news, though. It's like, oh, harmful, harmful, harmful. No, but.
[00:02:08] Speaker A: But listen, I think, and I said it then, and I'll say it again here for, for this audience, what is so great about what you do, and not just in this book, but for the years that I've known you, is even when you say, like, hey, here's a thing that's.
First you tell us why, which is so important. You tell us why it's harmful and what it's accidentally communicating. But then you also give us another option, like, here's what you can say or do instead.
So you never leave parents feeling stuck in shame or guilt. Or thinking that they're bad at it or anything. Like you just have really figured out how to, I mean, coach people through.
[00:02:44] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I think, I think my secret is really, I think my special sauce, when I look at like the last decade that I've been teaching and writing in this book and the feedback that I get really is the humility piece and the vulnerability piece. And people love to hear about all of the moments where I didn't get it right, where my nervous system took over and repeated the exact same thing that was done to me growing up. And, and I think just people really appreciate that and they feel safe once they start to realize, oh, I'm going to hang out with the parent coach. That's not, there's no judgment. And also at the same time, someone that's going to be really honest and say it's harmful, right? Like it's harmful. And when we get to all be at choice, do we want to, do we want to use it as a tactic? Do we not?
But to have both of those combined, I pray, just really gives people clarity that like, I, I, I am a very honest person.
And also he let me give you an example of like how I did the exact same thing for years and still still have my moments where my nervous system takes over and chooses what I would call the comfortable hell over the uncomfortable heaven. And that's kind of just a trippy thing that our bodies do based on the conditioning from the first decade or two of life. It's. Even if something is hard and creates chaos or disconnection with our kids, our bodies, we will choose that path because it's very safe. It's kept us alive, it knows how to do it. And so it just takes so much bravery to do it in a new way and to have the humility to say, hey, I'm willing to admit, like, huh, I might be doing some things that I now realize are not creating the ecosystem and the relationships that I want. And I'm willing to just talk about how that might look to do it differently.
[00:04:37] Speaker A: Yeah, well, there's so much grace in that too. I mean, the idea that our bodies are conditioned and our minds, right, are conditioned to go to what we're used to, what has been modeled. I saw a quote once and I'm going to butcher it. And I don't even remember who said it, but it's stuck with me enough that it basically is like whatever your first thought is, is what you were conditioned to think, and then your second thought is then what you are like Choosing to do about it and think differently instead. And, and so actually that's so true.
Yeah.
[00:05:08] Speaker B: And the thing like, you know, to remember about the nervous system and the perfect design, like God really designed our bodies so perfectly because it is doing its job right. Like it is designed to keep us safe. So when I walk down the hill with my two big dogs, I live in Southern California. We have a lot of coyotes and a coyote, this just happened a few months ago, or a rattlesnake. Both have happened in the last few months. When they come at me, my body reacts with like a visceral, visceral, primal, like, do not touch me. And I mean, the rattlesnake, I just got away. But the coyote, I was able to like puff up my black lab was able to. I mean, we let that coyote have it. But it's just a great example of like God designed our bodies perfectly. There's nothing wrong with our bodies.
The nervous system is so smart. And like all of this processing of information that happens in the nervous system is like it, it's so we can go out in the world and just do things. We can drive a car, we can pick up our child when they're running in the street. We like, you're. You don't have to think so hard about stuff. And human conditioning is a real thing. So especially as soon as you bring in fear and power over who it does a number. And so yeah, I just think that's important as we start this conversation is like, God did a great job with the body. It's just humans. Like we just got to look at what did we add to that? That's cond it to see certain things as safe when really they actually are causing harm in our lives and our relationships.
[00:06:41] Speaker A: Yeah, that's good. And I know that you've got a lot of those practicals and things that we can do in your book. Before we jump into that, give us a little bit more insight into your family. Like how old your kids are now and maybe how old they were when you realized that you needed to shift something in your parenting.
[00:06:59] Speaker B: Yeah, it is weird right now. I feel like time is going so fast.
I turned 49 in a few weeks and I'm like, this feels weird when, when your kids get older. Right. Like the second decade, I feel like really goes fast. The first decade is slow and the days are long and the years are short. But. But that second decade, everything just really speeds up. And so I found this style of parenting again, firm and kind. Connection based parenting. It is not Permissive. It is the farthest thing from permissive you could think of. We spe lot of time teaching parents how to be more firm with their boundaries, especially boundaries that have like data and research tied to how it keeps children safe and protected.
But I found this, this style of parenting when my daughter was three. I thought I was going to lose my mind. My second had just been born and I was just trying all the traditional stuff.
Everyone, I just left my, my corporate career and was staying full time home with my kids and it was, it just got bad fast. And if I said go right, she would go left. If I said don't pull the dog's tail, she would it harder. If I said don't touch the baby, she would shake it till he almost fell off the changing table. And I was like, what is happening? Right? And I started asking everyone, neighbors, bosses, friends, and literally Kristen. It is wild when I look back at that season how pretty much everyone gave me the same advice.
Don't be afraid to show her who's boss. Make sure you break that will young. Don't be afraid to hit her. My neighbor was like, hey, here's this link for this air quotes Christian book online on Amazon that you can. It'll teach you how to use a plastic switch or a branch from your backyard.
And every time she acts up, you just, you know, you just get her with the switch.
And he had a little, I think they were about 8 and 11 at the time. And I'll never forget the day my kids were really little and they, the girls would come over and one day we were in the hot tub and they, we were playing and you know, and I said, the 11 year old, I'm like, oh my gosh, you have a really bad sunburn on your nose.
And I'm like, what happened? And I will never forget the, the look. This little girl, 11 year old, she might have been 10, she looked down, she could not look at me.
And she was like, yeah. And she was so filled with shame around her nose peeling.
And I just remember thinking, oh my God, this is so sad. I cannot listen to this advice that causes a child to believe that this mistake, like, whatever. I could just feel the energy from this sweet girl.
So anyways, oh my gosh. It was such a real moment in my life that I was like, I don't want to do that to my children. It's just a sunburn. Sweet girl. Maybe you didn't listen when your parents said put the zinc on. It's okay. You made a mistake. Right? Mistakes are just opportunities to learn. It's going to be okay.
And so, thank God. I walked into Stella's preschool the next week or soon after that, and there was a sign. Free parenting class. I started learning this work. It changed our whole life. I became a teacher, then I started teaching. And now Kristin.
It's crazy because Stella turned 18 a few months ago. She's graduating from high school the same week that the book comes out. She'll walk. I know she'll walk across that stage on Friday. And she really is my muse. She's the reason why I'm a teacher. She has been my greatest teach.
God blessed me with this beautiful, strong willed, feisty, determined, gutsy, out of the box, like, just incredible child to be part of my healing and growth journey. And God has chiseled me in so many ways through parenting. Stella. But she graduates from. From high school this week, and she has used that strong will that, thank God, we were taught how to nurture instead of break.
She's gone on to.
To land her dream for college. She wanted to be a Division 1 beach volleyball player in college, and she got recruited this last April to be a NCAA Division 1 beach volleyball player at a school ranked in the top 10 in the nation.
And we're still pinching ourselves because we're like, oh, my gosh, it worked. It worked, right? Like all these years of taking this little girl that was the most likely to say no in a room, she was the most likely to push the boundaries. She had this strong voice, was very opinionated. She knew what she wanted. She was not afraid to challenge authority or like all these tools that we learned through the years on how to work with her.
It's just so cool to see it come to fruition. So that's been really exciting to just kind of have that happen. And she'll go, she'll go to school in the fall, and that's kind of surreal. And my little boy's 15 now. He is 62 and thriving in life, too. He's a totally different personality, which is pretty wild. And this work has just really helped him too. And then, and then we have our. Our parenting community of thousands of parents from all over the world who have also used these strategies to just completely change the dynamic and the legacy within their family. So that's kind of in a nutshell, how I found it where I am now. And yeah, it's just definitely feels like a full circle moment right now.
[00:12:35] Speaker A: Oh, well. And then you took all of that coaching and all of that goodness, and then you Put it into your book. Fresh start your family.
So what ages do you cover? Like who exactly is this book for?
[00:12:46] Speaker B: Yeah, it really is for all ages. I know, I know. It's like it is, it's. I think what's cool about the book is you travel through my own parenting journey with me. Right. So we go from when I found the work when Stella was three all the way up to the point we're at where she leaves for college in the fall.
And everything that we teach is strategy, right? So for example, replacing punishment with compassionate discipline, it is all strategy. We teach you the four R's in order for something to be a teaching moment versus a moment where you're essentially trying to make a child feel worse in order to make them behave better. It's got to have the four R's. It's got to be related, it's got to be respectful, teach responsibility and it's got to be reasonable. Right. Like that's an example of the strategy. And it's going to be different whether if you're applying it with a toddler than it is if you're applying it with a 15 year old. Again, this book is littered with stories of both of those, both of those, you know, and in between all age groups. But it is the same theory. It is based on relationship. We say that rules plus relationship equals respect, rules minus relationship equals rebellion. That's why you see a lot of kids who were raised in the high control, especially high control religious world or families.
The rebellion in the teenage years is kind of wild. And if it's not outwardly publicly facing, a lot of times it's inward and it's hidden and it's just, it's. It's wild to see what happens the long term effects of those power over systems. Especially when you combine indoctrination about fear and shame and, and God wanting a parent to hurt and harm their children and calling that love. Right. So anyways, I. Lots of theory but it all. And then lots of examples. So it really is all age groups. And then we have grandparents who read the book too.
My sweet neighbor who is probably like 72 now, she just finished the book yesterday and she was just saying, gosh, I wish I had this when I was younger. Right. With her boys. But she still has grand boys that are teenagers and when they visit her she's really interested in making sure she stays really connected with them. And of course like there's going to be correction moments. But so anyways, every age group. I'm serious.
[00:15:11] Speaker A: Awesome. Well, and I think that's what makes what you do different than like, the traditional parenting book that people have probably read and then put down. Because I love that it can apply to all ages. Because you are. You're teaching a strategy. You're not teaching a specific. Like, it's brilliant. It's really brilliant. You keep, you keep mentioned a couple times here and when we were doing the live on Instagram about like, high control religion. So I want to know how Christianity and like, your neighbor, you know, gave you a book on how to effectively hurt your child in the name of Jesus.
How has Christianity played a part in developing, like, this style of parenting?
[00:15:52] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh.
Okay. Well, it's just been everything I remember years ago. So it was like, right about that time when I was starting to take classes and, and we were.
Let me think about that. Let's see. At that point, Stella was three. Yeah, we. I think we were just beginning, like, our evangelical time. So we spent about a decade in the evangelical church. I started out my journey. I came to Christ at 19, disciples of Christ Church, went into the evangelical world for about a decade. And then full circle moment when I kind of got kicked out bit from the evangelical church for saying out loud that I was an inclusive Christian.
Long story. But yeah, then God brought us right back to.
[00:16:37] Speaker A: You weren't planning on going back club.
[00:16:39] Speaker B: Oh, my God, so painful. And now it's like, oh, this is a badge of honor. But God brought us right back full circle moment to a disciples of Christchurch here in San Diego. Now that my mind is blown, I am like, oh, my gosh. Justice, joy, inclusion, Jesus. Like, I'm like, ah, thank you, God. Anyways, back to those days.
I remember, so I was studying this work and I was like, wow, this is amazing. But I could feel in my body that it was. Felt a little different than what I thought the church was teaching. Again, I wasn't raised in this, that stuff, but I knew enough to know that there was a difference. Right. And then one day I remember somehow I discovered the book called Jesus the gentle parent by L.R. nost. And to this day, I feel like she is the goat.
Because that day when I found that book, I remember calling my husband Terry and just being in tears and being like, oh, my God, babe. Like, I found the book that, like, explains everything about why this is so Christ centered and is so biblical and, like, everything's gonna be okay. Because, like, I felt like there was something in my body that was like, this is. I'm. I'm loving what I'M learning over here. But something tells me that my church is going to say different things about it.
And then that book came along and I was like, oh, everything's going to be okay. Soon after that, that's when I founded Fresh Start Family, developed my own Christian parenting program called Jesus Guided Parenting that we just gift to our families that are inside of our programming.
And so it was so beautiful to build that out. But that is a book to this day that I recommend every Christian parent picks up. I think it is the perfect compliment. Jesus the gentle parent to frustrate your family.
Also, if anyone was raised in the high control stuff, the Myths of Good Christian Parenting by Marissa Burtz and Kelsey McGinnis is like the modern day favorite. But that original one, yeah, yeah, it's so good. But that original one by lr, she just, she does such a great job. She has a lexicon in the back that teaches you the Hebrew, Greek and English translations of those big, big scriptures that are traditionally used to justify hurting and harming children.
And it is just wild when you learn through that book and everything just clicks in. And so for me, that was everything. That was when I finally was able to like fully be like, okay, I'm going to build this organization and.
And I really do feel like I owe it all to lr, who was kind of the original writer.
And now, thank God, there's a million books that will help us understand why this style of parenting is actually so Christ centered and biblical and how to take those scriptures that people use to justify the hurt and harm and compassionately address those and say, hey, let's sit down and have coffee and I'll explain to you what I've learned that those mean and all those things. So yeah, it's, I think it's just the most Christ centered approach and it just makes so much sense. It's. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand why this is in line with the way Jesus lived and taught. Yeah.
[00:19:55] Speaker A: But you do have to be open to seeing it. And I think like there's so many people deconstructing so many things right now.
And it is because, right. It's like, here's what we were given, here's the what we were told to like blindly believe and it all. Well, I think especially with parenting, it ties back to who we believe God to be. And so like I for most of my life thought God, even as a goody two shoes kid, I thought God was just like waiting for me to mess up so that he could Punish me. And if that's who we think God is, well, then of course that's how we're going to think. We show love to the kids that we love.
And so it wasn't until I was able to change that that I could change a lot of things about my faith, but my parenting, you know, being one of them.
[00:20:36] Speaker B: Yeah, it is, it is so thick. Right Again, it is.
I feel like the high control circles let it. And it's. I'm not even talking about the like deep fundamentalist circles. And I've got plenty of friends and colleagues and homies in that world that I'm just like, wow, that's intense. Right? And then there's just the standard, right. Evangelical take that is intense. Like they, they really are preaching it from pulpits. They really are.
You know, and then, and then there's just the standard cultural, cultural stuff that's like, yeah, you know, like if a kid doesn't listen, then you just smack them. Right. And I know last, last week at church, one of our co pastors, we were just grieving together in San Diego. We had a shooting at one of our local mosques. And it was, you know, everyone. I mean, it was just the tears and the weeping. This last Sunday was so intense. But our lead co. Lead pastor Janelle, was just encouraging us all to like, look at our hearts where. And ask God to work on our own hearts where we still believe violence or aggression is necessary. And I, of course, am sitting, I'm a front rower. I'm just sitting there, like, parent.
[00:21:53] Speaker A: Hi.
[00:21:53] Speaker B: Parenting. Parenting. Parenting. Right? And she did say it like, she did say, she listed all these ways of, like, where are we still holding on to this belief that you need violence? Like, you have to have violence to get what you want. And then she did say, you know, like, do you still believe that, you know, if the kids are fighting in the backseat, you just, they just smack them. Right. Like, but in the parenting world, it is one of those, those deep, centuries old conditioning that, that violence, aggression, power over, is necessary to some degree to raise good human beings. And I pray that my body of work and the humans that I've raised just shows humanity that it's just not true.
[00:22:32] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
Oh, my goodness.
Well, I want to know. And I'm like, all over the place. I'm trying to figure out where I want to go here because you can see so many good things.
But I think part of that is that, like, fear leads us to want to control. Right? Like, we think that safety is tied to knowing, like, not Just where our kids are, but what they're thinking, what decisions they're going to make. And so we try to like train them right into this particular viewpoint, which I don't think is entirely bad. We are trying to guide them. But what is the line, Wendy, between disobedience and kids needing to figure out who they are?
[00:23:10] Speaker B: Yeah, good question.
[00:23:11] Speaker A: We talked about punishment. And so I'm like, what? Let's start there first.
[00:23:15] Speaker B: Yeah. And I'll say it aloud again just to make sure I understand. What is the difference between disobedience and kids learning who they are? Okay.
[00:23:23] Speaker A: Like I think kids make a mistake as they're figuring it out. Right.
And sometimes kids just blatantly lie to you because they just want to blatantly
[00:23:33] Speaker B: lie to you, you know. Yeah, there it is. Okay, there I can, I can grasp onto that one.
Okay. So, so yeah, the thing is, is that, so what, what we teach in, in section one of the book is about the under roots of misbehavior, the underlying causes. Right. And the way God just rooted in, you know, trusted psychology at this point. All of the work we teach here is based on the work of Dr. Rudolph Dreikkers. He was a renowned mid century child psychologist and just really helped us understand human behavior and development. And he was kind of the OG the goat.
All based on adelarian psychology. But to help us understand that all of us, all human beings are just trying to get our needs met. And the biggest needs are the need to feel powerful, the need to belong, the need to feel loved and the need to have value. Like those are some of the biggest needs that all day long we are going to get met in one way or another. And grownups are no different than kids. And so we will all experiment with how do we get those needs met. And so that's, that's all misbehavior is, is even, even in the times when we think, oh, a kid is doing this just to be a pain in the. But it's just not true. It's just a belief system. They're just trying, it's just communication. So we say the old school belief system is a misbehaving child equals a bad child equals a bad parent. And that's where this concept, like that's why you have this knee jerk to control, right? Like that's why you might yell is because yelling is like a pseudo way of to feel powerful. It's like you think you are powerful in that moment, but really you are losing power every time you rely on Fear to make your child, child submit. So, but we, we all like the, the bad parent being associated with a bad kid. That's why you are more triggered in the grocery store or at Thanksgiving dinner to revert back to the old way versus like if and you're in the house alone. I have a great story about that in the book.
But anyways, so the new belief is a misbehaving child equals a communicating child equals an empowered parent who can teach with firm kindness the important life skill or the missing life skill the important life lesson. And so my teacher, when I was studying this work, said something. I mean, she said so many powerful things to me. One of the most powerful things she said that has stuck with me forever is Wende, you have to trust in the humanity of your children.
And at the time when they were little, I was like, yeah, but you know, and as they've grown up, I'm like, like, wow, it really is true. God's God really knows what God is doing. Like, it's the development that happens in a human being when they are supported through their mistakes and they are offered compassion and firm kindness. And yes, discipline. Discipline is so important.
Some of my students that struggle the most getting results, they don't have the follow through with the discipline. So we spend a lot of time helping them feel confident handling conflict. Right.
Avoiding conflict is one of the biggest consequences of being raised in an autocratic system. Because conflict growing up was awful. So you grow up to be a parent and you're just like, oh, so you'll, you'll start to believe that discipline is this awful thing and then you have to make it this awful thing so you then get to avoid it. Right? So yes, we follow through with discipline, but when kids are met with, there's nothing wrong with you, you're not an alien that feeds into their belonging. Hey, guess what I stole when I was your age too.
[00:27:19] Speaker A: Yeah, Yeah.
[00:27:20] Speaker B: I, I tell my kids the story. I stole a cup from Disneyland when I was in the ninth grade. You're not a bad kid. You're not crazy. I experimented with drugs and alcohol. I've called people's names. I got fired from a job because I talked about my boss behind her back. Like, you're not an alien. There's nothing wrong with you. And here's how God designed your body. And here's why you feel like crap when you lie. Here's what did you learn from this mistake? What is your goals? How are you going to do it differently tomorrow? Here's the logical consequence and the redo or the role play or the activity that we're going to do.
I tell so many stories about real life, examples of redos and role plays and compassionate discipline from my own life in this book. But here's what's going to teach you how to make a different decision tomorrow.
And here's why.
You are going to feel more in alignment with who you are and who God designed you to be when you behave in this way versus behaving in this way. But you're not crazy. There's nothing wrong with you. And a lot of times it's just a kid seeking to feel powerful too often in a system where they feel powerless. And that's what autocratic parenting does. If you have punishment present, if you have yelling, raising your voice, intimidation, shame. What's wrong with you? That was a big one in growing up in an Irish Catholic house. What is wrong with you? Shame on you. The shame is thick.
But they will find ways to feel powerful if they are not feeling empowered in the relationship with their parents. And it'll just come out in ways that you don't like. So you might as well learn to share the power, we say. And when you discipline with compassion and just treat them like they're normal human beings who make mistakes, in our world, mistakes are just opportunities to learn. That's all they are, right? Like, that's why when a baby learns to walk, we. We don't like when they trip and fall. We don't say, you, you idiot. Like, what are you thinking? We're like, hey, welcome to life. It's gonna take you a while. You're gonna fall down a lot.
And we're here to help you learn.
And here's why you want to steady yourself and bend your knees when you're on a hill.
Here's how you protect yourself when you fall, right? Like, it's the same concept, but it just culturally becomes a lot harder when your kid's 12 or 9 and you think they know better and you think they're doing it just to push your buttons and get away. My mom used to have a saying, get away with bloody murder. I don't know if that's an Irish thing. I'm like, mom, that's so weird. Why do you say that? But you think I'm gonna let you get away with bloody murder? I'm like, okay, weird. I just was trying to have fun with my friends, and I snuck out when I was 13 years old. Like, I was not trying to.
Yeah. So does that answer your question? A little Bit. Yeah, yeah, it does.
[00:30:06] Speaker A: It does. It does. Well. And I love that you said that we have to trust in the humanity of our kids.
[00:30:10] Speaker B: Kids.
[00:30:10] Speaker A: Because again, I think God trusts in our humanity and he lets us make mistakes. And guess what? There's grace. And there are, yes, sometimes natural consequences, but also.
[00:30:21] Speaker B: Yes.
Yeah. And the thing is, is you mentioned natural consequences, which is in the toolkit that we teach for compassionate discipline in section four.
Life is one of the greatest teachers. As long as shame is not present. When shame comes into the picture, a human being will stay stuck in the behavior. They will not change. And Brene Brown has. I've cite her many times in her research in this book. It will pause. Like, it will stop the forward progression. And that is for both the parent and the child.
So the game becomes, how do I help a child feel like there's nothing wrong with you?
And we're going to keep doing the same exact thing over and over again until you learn to solve your problems with peaceful conflict resolution and your words and self regulation versus your hands. But there's nothing wrong with you. You are in a family where you've watched your mom struggle with reactive parenting for five years. Of course you're a hitter. Of course you're a biter. Right? Like, so the shame has got to go away or else the behavior won't change. And we teach a lot of different ways do that. But Brene Brown's research has been really great to prove to us that that's a fact.
[00:31:39] Speaker A: Okay.
Okay. So I'm going to tell you a story and I'm going to let you coach me in real time here, please. I love that because when you were here a couple years ago, you did that. I didn't know you were going to do that, but I thought that I was sharing this, like, brilliant example of my own mothering with you. And you very graciously used that to explain to me the difference between, like, natural and logical consequences. Cool. And then you broke my brain when you said, said, Kristen, I would encourage you to think that you actually never have to punish your children.
[00:32:07] Speaker B: And I was like, I remember this now.
[00:32:10] Speaker A: My eyes. I just get like, I should go back and watch the interview. Because I'm sure I'm like, what?
But that has stuck with me. And it truly changed. I mean, from that day, Wendy, like, from that day. Like, so. Because it's my podcast and I get to get free coaching. This is what we're.
[00:32:26] Speaker B: And it helps people. It really does. I love it when hosts do this because it's the best way to help help the listeners.
[00:32:32] Speaker A: So my kids now are. I have now pre teen and teenage daughters. All right, so we are in this like next phase of life.
And when they were little, my education background and psychology, all things like I had the charts and the role playing, right. And the boundaries and the expectations and all of that stuff, but it's not working now like it did when they were younger.
And so what I find now, and I'm trying to like, how to say this while protecting my kids, is that sometimes things are stay hidden.
So maybe they will go to a friend's house and make choices that I wish they would make differently or they would make choices at school that I wish they would make differently. But they don't come home and tell me this is what happened.
[00:33:16] Speaker B: Yeah. Am I.
[00:33:17] Speaker A: Are you following me?
And so I'm like, how do I. I want them to make independent choices, but it's hard for me to coach them into what maybe to do differently when I. They're not telling me what they did.
So I'm like, have I.
[00:33:31] Speaker B: And are they lying or are they just keeping it from you?
[00:33:36] Speaker A: Let's say both. Sometimes it's. Sometimes it's a deliberate lie where then like you can very clearly see that this isn't not the truth. And then other times it is just an omission where, you know, I'll find out later from another teacher or something else.
And, and those aren't even necessarily, I wouldn't even say disobedience, but just from like you used to tell me everything, like why? What did I do? Like, how have I failed? And of course I'm taking it personally,
[00:34:03] Speaker B: you know, well, how do I coach
[00:34:05] Speaker A: them when I don't know what's happening?
[00:34:06] Speaker B: Yep. Here's the thing that I want you. A few things that I want you to know.
So when a kid lies or omits, right. Doesn't share everything with us, it is usually a sign that they are scared of something bad happening. Right. So judgment, punishment, losing losing rights, losing privileges, all that kind of stuff. Right. And so it kind of makes sense why they do it. Right.
And so it also.
[00:34:38] Speaker A: I'm already crying. Look at my eyeballs.
[00:34:39] Speaker B: Oh no.
[00:34:41] Speaker A: It's good. It's so good.
[00:34:42] Speaker B: Good, good, good. I love it when I make people cry. It means I'm getting somewhere. Please let yourself cry. It's really good. That's like as we said, I think it was on our live.
Healing. Healing through feeling important.
So.
So the thing is, is it makes sense why human beings do it again, they're at an age where they are experimenting with how do I get what I want, how do I feel powerful, how do I feel like I belong? And if you're in a system at all where there ever has been punishment, right? And we often say that core beliefs are set by the age of seven in most humans. And so if you grew up in a home where there was timeouts and punishments and you lost privileges, that sticks. And it's don't panic because when kids are raised in this work, their brains are so plastic and this, they're perfect. They're in the season, you're relearning, you're redoing, you're doing so much. They're going to be just fine.
It's those of us who have to do the rewiring in our 40s and 50s, that's like a lot harder. But when kids are little, but that first seven years conditions them in a big way. And now they're at the stage where they're just experimenting with like, like how do I get what I want? And also how do I avoid pain, how do I avoid suffering?
And the second thing I want to say is even the highest level of homes with this fluency, okay, so I'm at the point now where I am perfect. Like I am fluent as heck.
Kids are still gonna do this, right? So I can think of two situations where I'm like, like, oh my gosh, we found out later in life that Stella had, you know, hidden something that was really intense, that I was like, oh, so and so it is just normal. I just want you to understand even the highest level of fluency, like where, where there's no punishment. So today on my podcast as the book comes out this week, my husband and I recorded an episode 15 years of no punishment that we're celebrating today. Now that doesn't mean I didn't. I have some slip up moments where I reverted and almost punished. That's like a lot of my story. But really the belief system that we did not need to make our children feel worse in order to make them behave better. Today we, you know, this celebrated 15 years.
Still my children would hide stuff, right? So when that happens, we want to just see it as not a four alarm fire. And we just want to talk with them and let them know, right? Like hey, so this is the phrase that I love to use with kids so you're not in trouble.
And it makes so much sense why you didn't tell me this because I think what you were probably scared of was that that I was going to either judge you or judge your friends. Like that's a big one. When kids withhold stuff they. At that age, the, the sense of the need to belong is so intense. Like I remember middle school, oh my God. All I wanted was a pair of guest jeans with that triangle on the butt. I'm very old and I just wanted, like, I just wanted to be liked and loved and fit in, right. And I just, you know, and I see it really thick in my kids now is, especially when they were in middle school. It's like the, the judging of the friends was so scary. Like they just want you to. So anyways, we. Long time ago, my teacher used to always cite this study that was done at a school here in San Diego, Torrey Pines High School in La Jolla, where they asked a thousand teenagers, who would you love to come to if you have a problem? And almost all of them said, my parents. Parents. And then they said, who do you actually go to when you have a problem? And almost all of them said, anybody but my parents.
Because they'll either lecture me, punish me, stay up all night worrying or try to fix it. And I just, it's just easier not to come to them. And so it's just good information, right? It's like again, we're just, we're just normalizing the kids behavior and then we are going to handle the conflict because. Because as we recondition our nervous systems as adults, we can realize that this is not a four alarm fire. This is normal human behavior. And we're just going to help our kids understand that they actually are safe with us. And that also I like to add, we know every, like we find out everything now. There was that one thing story I'm thinking of with my daughter that I truly did not know. I had not found out what had happened. But most of the time, 99% of the time we're like drug sniffing dogs. We just know everything. We're omnipresent.
So like we're gonna find out, right? Like it's just gonna happen.
So here's, here's what I found out, right? And let's just talk about it. You're not in trouble. But I did hear that this happened at recess and just tell me like how are you feeling or what caused you to do that?
[00:39:29] Speaker A: I think I just get frustrated where I'm like, I've done that already. Do you know what I'm saying? And it's that same idea, right, of like quote unquote, they should Know better where I'm like, I've given her the
[00:39:38] Speaker B: lesson and she keeps doing about this particular thing. Okay. So let's keep going with it. So around this particular thing. So this is where you might have been talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talking like the Charlie Brown teacher.
But the consequences are not there.
[00:39:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:39:54] Speaker B: Okay. So where's the redo? Where's the role play? Where's the imprinting on the brain? Where is the. You might get to a point and this is very common if you've been teaching and talking and teaching and talking and role plays and some redos. And then you also look at your own behavior. You always like, this is like the essential thing. You cannot do consequences with your kids until you are 100 certain that you are modeling the exact behavior and that you are not white lying anywhere that you are not.
Whatever the behavior is, you want to clean that up and tell your kids very openly. Like before I come down another day on you, I realized here's where I, I do it. And so I'm working on myself first. And then in a week we'll come back to you. Right. So that, that's the most powerful thing you can do to change your children's behavior. But if you are not doing teaching activities.
Yeah. There's a good chance your child might keep doing it because you probably are leaning permissive. Kristen.
[00:40:57] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:40:58] Speaker B: So the question is, what would a logical consequence be?
Is it like I did a. I, my example was a role play. I'm sorry, was a reaction do.
[00:41:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:41:08] Speaker B: Your other examples of logical consequences is makeups. So say you found out like there was a, something happened on the recess in my kids elementary school. Taryn wasn't part of it, thank God. But there was kids making like racist remarks. And there was this one kid, man, God, watching him evolve in the like grow up and his parents doing nothing. And it was a whole thing.
But that like having a kid that would be involved in like comments or things being said, stuff coming out of their mouth. You can do makeups, right? Like if you, if you are a kid who made a mistake of contributing to hate speech, let's say like this week, someone I really admire, Valerie Carr, was like organizing let love notes and letters to be wrote to the Islamic center and the children and families there who have been traumatized. Like you would like doing a redo where you. Or an activity that would be more a makeup where you just do an act of love and service for the world or for the person that you harmed as a way to retrain Your NER like to rewire yourself of, like, I want to behave differently in the future. Right. So does anything come to mind there as far as a logical consequence goes that or sometimes you do want to hold back. Right. Like, so say if you've, if you let your kids watch YouTube or, or have access to the Internet on the weekends where you're like, I'm realizing you're seeing some stuff.
[00:42:38] Speaker A: Yeah, right.
[00:42:39] Speaker B: That is contributing to this. That's on me.
So we're gonna take a break. We're gonna do four weeks screen free this summer.
And I need you to understand that this is very serious for our family values. This is behavior that I am not okay with, and you can be very unhappy about it. And we are going to practice what it looks like to, to abstain from the type of messages that normalize the behavior that you're falling victim to because you're a kid. Right, of course. Right. So is your mind going a little bit with the ideas there? You gotta follow through and have some actual teaching versus just talking.
[00:43:16] Speaker A: Yeah. No, that's so good. That's so good. Well, and, and again, to go back to like, the why does this. Is this important and what do I want her to do instead? Like, I need to be able to tell her both of these things.
[00:43:27] Speaker B: So, yeah. And it might just be practicing in the home and she might balk at it and she might be like, mom, this is so stupid. And you're like, it's okay. Do you know that most of your friends, they're getting, they're, they're getting grounded. They're, they're getting shame, they're getting hit still.
Like, I had a girl write into me once on a meta post that was like, this is so stupid. I got given the belt Till I was 17 years old and I'm fine. And I'm like, oh, sweet girl, if you got given the belt till you're 17, whatever your parents was doing was not working. But you can tell your kids, you know, in most of the homes, in most of the homes of your friends, just want you to know this is what's happening when they get air quotes caught. Like, in our home, we're not doing that. And before we turn on the TV this weekend, before you head out for your date with, at the mall with your buddies, we're going to do a role play and you're going to be fine. We can do it fast, we can do it slow. Which one do you choose? But we're going to practice what it looks like to do it different.
[00:44:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:44:32] Speaker B: And then even if they roll their eyes, you thank them and you make an agreement about how they're going to behave and you see them off.
[00:44:40] Speaker A: Oh, make an agreement about how they're going to behave. That's really good too.
[00:44:43] Speaker B: We teach a whole four step strategy on agreements in the book. That is life changing.
Hey, I like that.
[00:44:50] Speaker A: Well, you talked about regulating yourself and I know that there are parents listening who know the feeling. Right. Like the adrenaline spikes and they seem to just react without even being able to think through what they were going to do. How do we as parents regulate ourselves in real time when we just, you know, think everything is a four alarm fire?
[00:45:09] Speaker B: Gosh, this is the number one pain point in our community when parents come to the table and are just again, have that humility piece, which I believe is a superpower to say, yikes, man, I'm really reactive. To relearn, to unpave, to unlearn is really intense and it just takes time.
And so I think knowing in the, in the calm times, this is not a four alarm fire and having a plan on what you're going to do in a calm time. If you can say with either a spouse or a coach or a mentor, if you're in a program like mine, say it out loud. Here is my agreement with myself. Right. Like here's what I want to do. We teach a pause button or a stop sign in the book that gives that like what to do in between the stimulus which is the misbehavior behavior and your response.
[00:46:09] Speaker A: Right.
[00:46:09] Speaker B: It's. We talk about Viktor Frankl's work.
His work was so amazing. He wrote the book Man's Search for Meaning. But so you want to have that plan and then just know in the moment you are going to have that feeling.
And that's where you, you can bring in some of the nervous system regulation stuff.
You know, we talk a lot about nervous system regulation in the book and in our work. And I think if you can get, if you are really someone who is like, like I am the yeller, the grab the wrist too tight, the revert to punishment, I can feel the body take over. It would serve you really well to also have a nervous system mentor. Kate North Rib is great for that.
Sarah Tacy is great for that.
But to be able to choose something that is accessible fast. So for me, Kristen, that's always been nature.
So if I can get my feet in the earth, if I can feel the wind on my skin, we always say nature soothes all of our souls. Especially our children, but all of our souls, even right now, like a really solid nervous system regulation strategy is just to source nature out my window. So my office, like, I can see the wind blowing in this tree, and the tree doesn't have to try so hard to bloom and grow. Like, it just knows what to do. And so it's just kind of a way to like, ground yourself back in. I believe God, God blessed us with earth and nature and like the symbiotic relationship between plants and soil and the sky and oxygen and all these things for this purpose.
But another option is something we again teach in the book that is really helpful is this physiological size. So it's just like two breaths in, you hold it. So the top hold it. An extra sip, and then you hold it and then and out your mouth.
And then.
And then just remembering that in between that that stimulus and response is your power to choose. And that is where true power lies. But yeah, it's. It's a lot. It's just gonna be honest with you. Like, it's a lot to repave it. But just one simple step. Action. Last thing I will say, Kristen too, is, is like when you do start to create that space between the stimulus and response and you have any success. So even if you stepped to the right for two seconds before you yelled at your kid or shame them, it's really important that you celebrate it and that you're like, look, Bodi, you have been conditioned all these years. That puffing up is strength, that intimidation is strong, that you know it's godly to make sure that your child knows.
And you tried today, like, you took you one breath, like, that's a big deal.
The compassion we find, is what gives you the strength to do more of it tomorrow. And that's both for success you have with any tool, but especially when it comes to the self regulation piece.
[00:49:14] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I think a lot of those too. It's realizing. And you talk about this in the book, how it's like inner wounding of our own, of as the parents. Right. The things get triggered. And so sometimes that reaction is not even, yes, it's about the kids, but it's also like something within us always. So maybe also therapy would be great, make us all better parents.
[00:49:36] Speaker B: Yeah, A lot of times, honestly, it comes down to emotional literacy, too.
In the book, we touch on emotional literacy. And I really think if a parent can just get at the basic five happy, mad, sad, hurt, scared. If you can understand what does it feel like in my body when I feel hurt, hurt, is an emotion that shows the tenderness of your heart.
And it's usually an inside job with God, in my opinion, to, to process that and nurture that. There's usually a lot of remothering, re fathering that comes in to process hurt.
Scared is an emotion where bravery is born from some like no human in the world was ever brave and courageous without feeling scared.
Anger is usually where justice is born. It's where someone sets the firm kind limit from. Is usually from a place of anger or mad and then hurt. Scared, mad, happy, sad and then sad. Shows how much you care, shows how much you love. But a lot of times those biggest triggered moments, what I find after a decade of helping thousands and thousands of parents at this point is a lot of times there is a deep, deep fear of failing. Something's wrong with me. I, I like scared. I am not enough scared.
Like I, I. It's crazy. Nine out of ten times when we do the deep work, we have a deep healing weekend that we do in person.
That is a lot of times what comes out. Or it's like hurt. But no one taught you how to feel hurt in a way that respects yourself and others. Hurt is often emotion that we see in kids.
There's a mistaken belief, and this usually comes out in revenge, misbehavior, whether that's on the grand scale of war or whether it's in like, you know, in the home. But there's a mistaken belief that when I feel hurt, I must hurt back often because that's what's been modeled to me. And so you just start to realize, oh, okay. We are capable of processing those emotions in ways that respect ourselves and others. And a lot of the times it's just this feeling of scared. I'm failing. And once you realize there's nothing wrong with you, you.
[00:51:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:51:44] Speaker B: You're just a human parent.
[00:51:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:51:45] Speaker B: And yeah, your kid is acting up in the grocery store right now and you are tempted.
Yeah. To respond to that or react to that trigger. But really, if you, if you slow down, it's, you're probably scared of judgment.
[00:51:58] Speaker A: Oh, for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Wendy, this has been so good. I'm taking all these notes.
My last question for you because the podcast is called Becoming Church. How can the people listening become the church to the people around them?
[00:52:13] Speaker B: My gosh, parent, all of us right now. I know, I love that.
Yeah. I think, you know, just the, the idea of like loving your neighbor, there's so many ways to do it, but I think that our, our children are like our Closest encounter with neighbors, right? They just live in the bedrooms next door.
Right in our. Next door to our bedroom. But these little souls that are so imperfect, being raised by us perfectly imperfect parents, but to learn how to fully support and love and give grace and be firm with these little neighbors, to then be able to expand that into our world, into our communities, with our actual neighbor, right? Who consistently doesn't do X, Y and Z that you want them to or whatever. And then to extend out to your greater community, to extend out to the world or the people in your life that don't believe the same things or are doing things in the world that you may feel harmful. I think starting with our kids as, like, you know, Mother Teresa always said, if you want to change the world, go home and love your family.
And it's like becoming church is just knowing that, like, in my opinion, we all are interconnected, right? Like, I think of the aspen tree grove that's like, I think still to this day, one of the largest living organisms on the earth. And from the top, it looks like they're all separate, but on the bottom, underneath, they are all interconnected, right? So we may think that overpowering a child into submission is like, well, we got them to put on their shoes and get to school on time and that their suffering is not going to affect us. It does. It does. Right. And so to be able to practice these little humans that give us this opportunity to practice loving our neighbors, well, and then that from there radiates out, and then we just get to be in this ecosystem where we're constantly giving and taking. We're taking care of each other. I believe that that is a way to, like, honor the love and life of Christ through our lives in a really organic way. Because our kids will give us plenty of practice.
Yes, they will. In those moments when it feels hard to Air quotes. Love your neighbor. I don't know. That's what came to mind. That's my answer. I love it.
[00:54:44] Speaker A: Listen, there's no wrong answer. There's def. There's like, no, and there's no one right answer. So I think that's great. Well, I will link up the book and your website in case people want to work from you, work with you, or learn more from you. But thank you so much for being here. Thank you for putting so much good into the world and into our families.
[00:55:01] Speaker B: Thank you, Kristen. I am so grateful for your work and your voice and your podcast and your church. And I just feel so much less alone in the world, especially right now, knowing that you're out there and we're we're doing our work side by side.
So thank you so much for having me. Yeah, go get the book everyone. Frustrate your family. Powerful currenting to restore peace in your home.
Available anywhere books are sold. And we've got some fun bonuses if they want to come to the website. Freshtartfamilyonline.com book just come give us your order number and we'll throw some bonuses on top of there that you'll really love. Thank you. Love it.
[00:55:37] Speaker A: Well, thank you for sitting through my parenting lesson or therapy session, whichever it ended up being. I hope that you too were able to find your own takeaways to build deeper connections with your family.
If this episode or any episode of Becoming Church has helped you to show up in the world with a little more compassion, love, courage, or hope, I would love for you to let other people know by leaving a review on Apple or Spotify. Even if that's not the platform where you listen. It's simple to do through the link in the show notes just like arg79 who said I love the Becoming Church podcast. Kristin is personable and fun to listen to. The variety variety of guests has been good and I love the flow of conversation. This is exactly the representation of Christianity I was looking for.
Your reviews determine if this show gets recommended to other people who are also looking for this kind of Christianity. If you know the comfort of finally realizing that you're not alone in your beliefs, then you'll know why it matters that these people find Becoming Church. So I will thank you in advance for taking the the time to leave those five star reviews. Until next time. Thanks so much for listening and keep becoming the church of the people around you.
