Katrina is a mom to 2 kids, a 9 year old daughter and a 3 year old son. She is currently struggling with balancing her time between her 2 kids and managing her daughter’s stress related to her spouse’s recent injury.
412: Navigating Turmoil with Love: A Guide for the Tween Years
On-Air Coaching
Katrina’s family has been through a lot of turmoil and now her 9-year-old daughter is struggling with a dive in her self-confidence, anger, and some major doubts. How can Katrina show her tween loving acceptance while also guiding her through “bad” behavior moments? How can they repair their relationship after years of battles?
[On-Air Coaching] Navigating Turmoil with Love: A Guide for the Tween Years [412]
Read the Transcript 🡮
*This is an auto-generated transcript*
[00:00:00] Hunter: You're listening to the Mindful Mama Podcast, episode number 412. Today is a special on air coaching session, Navigating Turmoil with Love, a Guide for the Tween Years.
Welcome to the Mindful Mama Podcast. Here it's about becoming a less irritable, more joyful parent. At Mindful Mama, we know that you can. And give what you do not have. And when you have calm and peace within, then you can give it to your children. I'm your host, hunter Clark Fields. I help smart, thoughtful parents stay calm so they can have strong, connected relationships with their children.
I've been practicing mindfulness for over 20 years. I'm the creator of Mindful Parenting and I'm the author of the best-selling book, raising Good Humans, A Mindful Guide to Breaking the Cycle of Reactive Parenting and Raising Kind Confident Kids.
Welcome. Welcome back, my friend. I hope that you are doing well. Listen, if you haven't done so yet, please make sure you're subscribed. Don't miss the episodes. And if you have ever gotten any value from this episode, please go over to Apple Podcasts, leave us a rating and review just helps the podcast grow more.
We have grown all the growth organically and your review makes a huge difference. Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart. In a moment, I'm going to be sitting down with a listener, Katrina, who is a mom of two kids, a nine year old daughter and a three year old son. Who is currently struggling between balancing her time between her two kids and managing her daughter's stress.
So you're going to hear that Katrina's family has been through a lot of turmoil and now her nine year old daughter is struggling with a real dive in her self confidence. She's having anger and some major self doubt. So we're going to talk about how Katrina can show her tween loving acceptance while also guiding her through her bad behavior moments.
So we're going to talk also about how to repair a relationship after years of battles. If you have a tween now or will have a tween in the future, you are definitely going to want to listen to this episode. So join me at the table as I talk to Katrina in this special on air coaching session.
Welcome to the My Full Home podcast, Katrina. I'm so glad that you are here and for this on air coaching call. This is super cool. So you have two kiddos, Abigail and Jameson. Tell us a little bit about you and your family and what are some wins that you guys have?
[00:02:45] Katrina: So I am a home health nurse. I work in the neighboring county that we live in.
Married. We have, like I said, two children. My daughter, Abigail is absolutely. Amazing. My little boy is absolutely amazing also. And I want to start by saying that, the reason why I wanted to come on here was because of Abigail the trouble we're having with her. However, she can be the most amazing, wonderful, beautiful child in the whole world at times.
But it just seems at times that we're having trouble. My husband was in a hunting accident about two years ago. He fell about 20 feet. Out of a deer sand and shattered his calcaneus bone, which is your heel, which we did not think was going to be that big of a deal. And it happens and you realize it's a very major injury.
So we're about two surgeries in now. It was not life threatening, it was just very life changing for quite a bit of time. So with that. My little boy was about 10 months old when that happened. So Abigail had a lot of changes happen right at once. After my husband failed, we were about four months non weight bearing.
Following the second surgery, he was about three months non weight bearing, and that really changes what you can do in home with your family and children. So some of the wins I say is. I've been listening to the podcast and I've been trying to implement that in, through our lives. Recently, I've started having Abigail, when we get into arguments, I'll have her go upstairs.
I'll go to my room. We both go to our rooms. So she doesn't feel like I'm punishing just her. And lately, after she goes to her room, she'll go up there for a few minutes, come back down and say, mama, I apologize. See where I did this wrong. And I just want to say, I'm sorry. That's very mature of her.
Yeah, she is. She's nine, but she is one of the most mature. She will wake up in the mornings, get herself up, get her little brother up. Fix him breakfast, fix her lunchbox and his lunchbox, get his clothes out. She is the most mature nine year old. But at times that completely changes. And I don't know if that is normal behavior for her age or if it's something bigger.
Following everything that happened with her, she has developed a lot of doubt, a lot of self confidence issues. And that is a really big concern for me. Yeah.
[00:05:30] Hunter: I bet. Okay. So how do you see these doubt and self confidence issues? Firstly, wait, before I say this, I just want to acknowledge the wins, like she sounds awesome.
She's so mature. She's taking so much responsibility. She's taking care of her little brother. She's fixing breakfast. She came down. She'll come down and apologize to you. She has a lot of maturity. She wants to repair that relationship. She obviously cares about, wanting to, be close to you and she's nine now.
So she's entering that tween time. And that's wonderful that she wants to maintain that closeness now. Yeah. You have some awesome wins going for you. You had a lot of tragedy and challenge with the accident, but you're also like, you're growing, you're learning, you're not letting it keep you stuck.
You're taking steps forward. So I just want to acknowledge all those wins, Katrina. They're really great.
[00:06:26] Katrina: And she was a only child for six years. We had decided we wanted no further children. She was perfect and beautiful, and we never needed another child until she wanted a sister, and then she had a brother.
So that was a hard pill for
[00:06:42] Hunter: her to swallow. That's hilarious. Okay. All right. So tell me about how is this, you're saying she's after. The accident and things like that. You've seen this doubt and lack of self confidence come through. And so what does that look like? What does that sound? And what is it about that makes you so worried?
[00:07:02] Katrina: It's just seems like everything. If I show Jameson any attention at all, then I don't love her. He's my favorite. I don't care for her. At school, she has a lot of trouble with nobody likes her. Nobody wants to play with her. I have reached out to her primary teacher and her after school care teacher, and neither of them see any of that within her behavior at school.
They both state that she is outgoing, she's social, she has friends, she plays with everyone. But when we get home, she cries almost every single day. Everyone hates her. She has no friends. She, none of her cousins like her, which is not true, but she says that none of her cousins like her. They're all mean to her.
And then recently she started having a lot of body image issues. We were talking a couple nights ago and she just cried on my lap for 20 Her arms are hairy and her teeth are big, and she has freckles on her face. And she specifically said, I have elephant legs. Now she is not an unhealthy weight child at all.
She not skin and bones, but she is a very healthy weight child. She's not any of that. And she's gorgeous. She's beautiful. But it just seems if all of, and also with me, if all of my attention isn't on her, if we go for a girl's day. And then I get a phone call from my husband and my little boy wants to speak to me, then I don't love her because I'm taking her time and I've ruined girl's day.
[00:08:43] Hunter: That sounds incredibly frustrating and sad. I imagine it's really heartbreaking for you to experience
[00:08:50] Katrina: this. It is, and I am someone who thrives off of criticism. If you tell me I can't do something, I'm going to do it 20 times over. She's not like that. She very much. Thrives on compliments and telling her she did great and good.
So for a long time, I was more of the critic until I realized that was not helpful. So I've tried to change that recently. I've tried to make sure that I'm giving her more encouragement than. Pushing her, but it just, it seems like the self doubt and the self confidence level is just continuing to get worse.
And I don't know if that has to do with wanting the attention to follow my husband's injury, because a lot of attention was on him. And then also a lot of attention was on my little boy because he was 10 months old and, he could not do any, he couldn't do anything. I had to care for him.
[00:09:52] Hunter: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, sounds like there's a whole bunch of things that have happened here. And there's a lot of a lot of hurts that have happened under the surface maybe for Abigail and they think and I imagine right now you all did what you had to do to take care of, to get through these moments.
We obviously can't turn back time. So this is probably, it's gotta be incredibly, I imagine you're feeling really helpless about this because it's like what do you do? You wanna support her. And you want her to thrive, and yet you're seeing all this sadness and this hurt in her.
[00:10:34] Katrina: I feel like if I would have did a little more with her, reached out for help more when this initially started, then maybe she wouldn't have these feelings. But, we were just barely making it at the moment, just trying to make it through daily life. I will say recently, my husband did have a mad day where he could not walk.
And when, you could tell he was hurting and upset. And my little girl, when she saw him, she got very upset. She started crying. So she come back downstairs and had a balloon and just wrote on the balloon, bad things happen to good people. Life isn't fair and just drew a face on it. And then she kicked and punched and slapped this balloon for probably an hour.
And I just let her do it. I didn't know if that was a constructive way to release anger. She wasn't hurting anyone. She wasn't hurting herself. I just let her get it out, but I don't know if that was a sign that something really bad is going on or if she just had a moment and just needed to release
[00:11:43] Hunter: what she was feeling.
Yeah she's definitely expressing what I think is healthy here is like she's. She's talking to you, she's expressing stuff, she's coming to you, right? This is all, that's all really healthy. Now, Katrina, one thing you said is like you thrive off criticism. Now I'm want to go into I want to understand a little more about you and like the way you were raised and the, the culture that you were raised in.
Were you given a lot of criticism? Was, were was your upbringing a more authoritarian? How would you describe that? Definitely
[00:12:22] Katrina: more authoritarian. We are in the South, so we had to respect our parents and we got spankings. And I would not say I was raised with a lot of criticism.
My mother was absolutely wonderful. She did not work for most of my younger years. And she, when we did finally go to school, she. Decided to get a job at the store beside the school so that if the school caught on fire, she could come and rescue us. So she was a wonderful parent. But still it is the South and you had to be respectful.
You could not disrespect your parents. And, but I wouldn't say that I was given a lot of criticism. I guess I'm very type A. I like things a certain way. I like things to be put away. I like for things to be done in a certain order. And I guess that just comes along with that.
[00:13:25] Hunter: Stay tuned for more Mindful Mama podcasts right after this break.
Not to go into it too deeply, but I was spanked too and my, and what we know from the research is that like when kids are hit, like that's fear, right? You I remember being totally afraid of my dad, like raging down the hallway and is not what kids need developmentally, right?
Like we, for them to be able to. That's definitely an adverse childhood experience if you're like fearing your parents, right? It's a trauma on the small of some degree or another maybe a little small T trauma or a big, you know Rather than a big T trauma of You know, whatever but that is a trauma and that can really affect us And it sounds like you're saying You know your type a you like things a certain way so it sounds are you saying that like when Abigail's little you're you want, things a certain way.
And so she was receiving maybe a lot of criticism from you. You were that kind of thing. You were saying that, is that what I'm hearing? Yes.
[00:14:38] Katrina: Yes. And not intentionally bullet, even now I won't, and podcast about. Children and chores. I want her room clean. I want her bathroom clean. So I've tried being a little less hands on with that.
I ask her to clean her room. If it's not clean, then I'll shut the door. She does have to do her laundry. I do ask for her to have all clothes peaked above the floor because we have a little robot vacuum. But if something's left on the counter, I expect her to put it away. And she sees that as I'm always criticizing her.
That's not, I don't feel like I should be criticizing her. I'm just asking her to throw away the strawberry container that she left open on the counter. Or,
[00:15:31] Hunter: I'm like, I'm totally in that with you just yesterday. I'm like, here's the pile of things that you've left in the downstairs. Cause I like a tidy house too, because that does help. Lead to, it's like a D stresses, right? When we have a lot of clutter around, like our brains register it as stress and things like that.
So that's all fine. It's just a matter of we want to, it sounds like Abigail right now is needing a lot of support, right? Sounds like she's needing a lot. What I'm, if she's feeling a lot of doubt, a lot of lack of self confidence she's not feeling. She's it sounds like she's not feeling the love in some ways, like she's. She's not feeling, one of the biggest things our kids need from us is that unconditional love, right? I love you no matter what. I love you no matter whether you're messy or dirty or whatever you are, like whatever size you are, whatever shape you are, all of those things, right?
And sometimes we can assume that our kids know this, but then but then they may not, and it sounds from what I'm hearing is that she needs a feeling of like unconditional loving acceptance of who she is. And she sounds like she might be needing, there's, I don't know if you've heard this analogy, but it's so simple.
And I think it says so much, right? The relationship bank account theory, which is analogy, which is that, if you have a bank account, you got to put in way more deposits than, so if you have a cushion when you withdraw. And actually, the relationship research bears this out that our kids need like five positive interactions for every one kind of negative interaction, right?
So I don't know as I talk about this idea of like acceptance, does this kind of like ring anything in your heart and your mind? Does it sound like that might feel like it, it might be right for Abigail? It does.
[00:17:42] Katrina: However I struggle because I want to give her all this encouragement and love, but what do I do when we're having trouble?
Do I not discipline her because of her behavior? Because I'm trying to fill this bank account? Or do I let the behavior go unnoticed because she needs the support? That's where I'm having trouble. I don't want to be the main mom or the mom that is, punishing her all the time or disciplining her all the time.
But I also. There's certain things she has to do. She has to be respectful. She can't push her brother. And I don't know how to continue to give that love or that support. Not love. Cause I always love her. I don't know how to continue to give that support and still let her know what I expect.
Sure.
[00:18:37] Hunter: Yeah. Yeah. That's a real struggle, right? Okay, so what to do when she's having trouble? What to do when there's behaviors that are really frustrating? This is a great question because you want to support her, but you want, you don't want to let her run ramshod over the house. That makes a lot of sense to me.
Okay, so when you think about the idea to discipline the root of the word discipline, right? It's like disciplinist, right? It's the same as the root of the word disciple, and it means to, to teach. So to follow, to teach. So we want to, sometimes like in our culture, like we have, when we think about discipline, we think about teaching and we've, we have been steeped in an idea of teaching that is that we want to we want to like make kids averse to negative behaviors and we want to make them like, we don't want to reward positive behaviors.
But unfortunately, though, this kind of reward punishment. Way of doing things that's totally normal in, in a lot of places is is actually can undermine kids motivation to cooperate because it's when you have a cop who's monitoring speeding, then you like speed up after she sees you.
You go by the cop who's monitoring speeding, right? Like You don't have that intrinsic motivation, right? We want to have, we want to teach her. So if we think about the idea of discipline is to teach and to follow, we want to teach her what are the positive behaviors. So let's take an example of like how we can put this all into practice, right?
Like showing her that loving acceptance. And holding boundaries for behaviors that that interfere with other people's needs in the household. So can we get into a concrete example? Do you have any?
[00:20:35] Katrina: Let's see. So just recently I asked Abigail to do her laundry. Oh no. I'm sorry.
Abigail started doing laundry at the house. She put the clothes in the washer, put the clothes in the dryer. Put the clothes in the washer did not put the clothes in the dryer for, two days later, I realized he had started laundry. So I said, baby, I said, if you're going to start laundry, you have to finish it.
It's just, it's part of the job. If you don't want to finish it, do not start it. So then she got very loud and she started yelling. She said that. So I was glad that I helped her, but if she wasn't going to finish what she started out to do, I asked her to go to her bedroom, and then she started stomping, arguing, she said, this is why you don't care about anything I do, this is why no one likes you, this is why I don't love you, and I said, no, you need to go to your room, you need to go to your room now, and she fought me on it, no, I'm not going, I don't want to, but you have to, so that took some time to get her up there, but it was just something simple as, don't start the laundry if you're not going to finish it.
And like I said, I told her I'm proud of you, baby. That was a big job. That was a wonderful thing to do. Bullet. She took that as criticism.
[00:21:53] Hunter: Okay. Cool. That's gotta be so frustrating for you, right? Cause you're just teaching her like, this is how life goes. You have to finish laundry. We don't want moldery, nasty clothes, right?
So when she got loud, you said to go to her room. And so this is this is one of the things that. For you that go to your bedroom. This is a place where I think we could make a positive change in this. So when she got loud, what did she just got like an attitude and was like when you say that point, like she, she got an attitude and was like, I don't know.
I don't. Why are you criticizing me? That kind of thing. You hate me. And that was when she was saying that kind of stuff. Yes. Okay. So this is great. So this moment is definitely not a moment that we want to punish our child for or tell them to go to a room for because right now, when we say go to your room, we're separating from them, we're communicating non acceptance.
And this is a moment where she's at her ugliest. She's having a really hard time. She's having a reactive moment. And this is a moment where we need to actually We want it like she's bringing the fist, right? And you're bringing the other fist, right? You're like, nope, you're not gonna respond to me that way and I'm bringing it, you know So and in fact what she's saying in this moment, is that I'm Like she's basically saying do you love me even though I'm?
Loud and miserable, like when we have the worst behavior, that's when we're feeling the worst, right? When she's yelling and feeling miserable, she's feeling the worst. And right, and in those moments, she's yelling, so you're probably getting triggered, right? Your stress response is happening. Your nervous system is feeling threatened.
And so you're, for, if it were me, I would probably. I feel like my body would want to yell or threaten, like those are like the default modes like that I would go into if I were being yelled at and my kid were getting loud. Is that kind of so for you too?
[00:24:05] Katrina: Yes. And that is why I asked her to go to her room because I knew that if she sat there and continued to yell, I was going to lose my temper and I was going to yell also.
So I was trying to put some space between us so that we both could cool off. Relax. And then we could talk about it later, but it just continued to escalate.
[00:24:27] Hunter: Okay. Yeah. So this, that was really smart move where you wanted to cool off and relax and talk about it later. Cause it shouldn't be such a huge, big deal.
What I would encourage you to do in that moment, say, Whoa, you want to, instead of so it, an alternative response in this, a moment like this would be to like describe what's happening, right? Whoa, you're yelling. I'm feeling upset, you're yelling, this is escalating, right? You could just describe what's happening non judgmentally it's you're yelling, I'm feeling upset, this is escalating, I need a break, because I don't want to yell at you, okay?
What I would do is describe and then say, I need a break. And I know this sounds sometimes like when we're in this mode of like we're in this battle mode with our kids, it can feel like, oh, but I'm letting my child win in that moment if I do that. And that's not true. This isn't a battle. You guys are on the same team.
You are on her team. And because you are, because you love her, because you want to teach her, because you want to show her, that you want to model healthy emotional regulation for her. You're going to say, I need a break and you're going to go do what you need to do to calm yourself down.
You're going to. Do longer exhales than inhales because that's like a body hack that puts your body out of the fight, flight, or freeze response into the rest and relax response. You might even shake it out, shake, go to your, the bathroom or your room, shake out your hands, shake out your arms.
And there's this I, I talk about this book sometimes we have in our bookshelf called why zebras don't get ulcers. And it's like zebras after they're all super stressed, they shake like they shake their whole body. That's what dogs do, right? When they're stressed, shake it all out.
It's the same thing for us. Stress is a physical energy where your muscles are tightening in your body, your heart rate is raising, you can shake it out. So you're going to do all the things you can do to bring yourself back to regulation so that you can use your whole brain and you're not reactive, okay?
And you can do that in front of her or you can do that by, whatever gets you there, right? But you're going to downregulate. You're going to describe what's happening, and I need a break, and then you're going to down regulate. Okay? And you're going to say, you might even say to yourself, this is not an emergency.
Okay? This is not an emergency. Because your brain is ah, we are being attacked, nervous system, we're being attacked, we have to attack back. And that's like kind of what's. When you everything's getting escalated, so she also needs maybe tools to downregulate too that you can go to, but let me just check in with you.
How are you feeling about this idea so far? What in your brain is saying, wait a second, this isn't going to work. Tell me about all of this. I just,
[00:27:41] Katrina: I feel like she's going to, if I do it in front of her, she's going to be mad because I'm frustrated and I say why are you mad? Why are you mad?
You hate me. You hate me. It's okay. Just a simple breath of, I'm frustrated. If I walk away, I'm worried she's going to. Follow me.
[00:28:02] Hunter: Please continue. So
[00:28:05] Katrina: those are just my concerns with that, but sending her to a room is still a fight also. Sometimes she'll go very willingly.
Sometimes when she's very upset she will fight me. She'll say no or say please and don't see me or she'll walk away and not go to a room. Even if I've told her, so I just need to lock
[00:28:26] Hunter: myself in a bedroom. Yeah, she's nine. You can totally do that. The truth is like when you send her to your room, you then put yourself in the position of having to be the enforcer, right?
Then you're the cop and she's the prisoner, and basically this is totally like what has been handed down from generations and generations from our parents. It actually doesn't work as far as teaching her anything, right? You want to teach her to put the, to finish the laundry, and in that moment when she, when we punish her, we made, we make her feel bad because she's yelled and stuff like that.
She then her nervous system. goes into fight, flight, or freeze. She's very stressed, right? You can see that. Then she can't access any of her, the slower parts of her brain. She can't learn anything when she's stressed. So if your goal is to teach her something, she can't learn anything. And ultimately putting her to a room is making her simply resent you.
It's undermining, it's damaging your relationship. And when you damage your relationship, then she has less motivation to cooperate. So it is it's actually like doing the opposite of what you want, right? It seems like that's like kind of what our parents did, but it's actually not terribly effective and it doesn't teach them anything and it doesn't make them want to cooperate with us.
So it makes them a little more selfish because they say. Oh, she hates me and I'm he's hurting me, that kind of thing, right? It's it feeds that, that whole narrative that she has been telling herself. So I would encourage you to stop that as, as fast as you can and and instead take care of yourself, right?
Instead, I need a break. I need to take care of myself. I don't want to yell at you. I'm not going to send you to your room, but I need a break. I'm going to go walk away. Okay? Okay. Okay. And then we had to put some deposits in the relationship bank account so you guys can get back to an equilibrium where you can talk to each other without her freaking out, right?
And one of the things, it may be, maybe she, your daughter, maybe it might be helpful for her to get a counselor, right? She's been having all this self doubt, you're worried about her, that kind of thing. That might be a really smart idea.
[00:30:52] Katrina: We just, we're in a very rural community, so there's not a lot of options available.
We didn't really feel like after four or five months that we were getting anything out of it. And we went together and that was the whole purpose. I just, I won't, I don't want. I have to be the parent now, but at some point I want to be her friend. I want to be the person she comes to. I want for us to have a wonderful relationship.
And that was my concern. I'm scared that if we continue on this path, that she's not going to come to me when she's older. She's not going to consider me a friend. So that's why we began that. But it's difficult because of where we live. So I have thought of looking into maybe online options, like TELA therapy.
[00:31:40] Hunter: Yeah, maybe look into that. So I'm going to just put that out there that I think that would be positive for you, but it's, but there are a whole bunch of changes you can make right now that can make your relationship closer now because she is so close to the teen years and you don't like when you have bigger kids, like when they're teens, there are bigger problems.
You don't want her to just be resenting you and the methods you're using now, when she gets into the teen years and then she's, you have no influence left, right? The more you use power, and by power the punishments and the threats, and taking things away from her, the less influence you have.
The more you use power, the less influence you have. Now you may feel like you need to use power, In some situations, but if you can do it as sparingly as possible, and maybe even not at all, that's going to help because you're in a relationship now, you're going to be in a relationship with her for the rest of your life and and you're always going to be mom, maybe you'll be, and, but you can be friendly now too.
So I just want to say you don't have to think of this separation necessarily right away. So there's a tool I want to give you to help repair this relationship. And I would invite you to consider a letter of beginning anew. I would invite you to write a heartfelt letter to her and in that letter, it has three parts.
The first part is going to be, you're going to water the seeds of her flower or just express appreciation. You're going to express all the things you appreciate about her. She's done a lot. She helps a lot. She's had to deal with a lot, right? But don't just all, don't talk about what she's had to deal with.
The first part is just appreciation. Just pure appreciation, it's your chance to acknowledge the things that she does or has done that, that are help, that help you and that are positive and all those things. And the second part, you're going to express your own regrets. You're human, so you will have these.
We all do. But I would in particular express, I imagine you might have some regrets about like the way this has escalated, right? I'm hearing that a little from you, right? There might be some regrets there. And that's okay. It's okay. You're allowed to be human. And we all make mistakes and you're allowed to, and we can always turn things around.
Okay. So we can always begin anew. And that's one of the beauties of this. Okay. So you're going to express your regrets in a really heartfelt soul to soul, not roll to roll way. Not like from mother to daughter, but from me, Katrina to you, Abigail. Okay. Okay. And the third part, you're going to express your hurts and difficulties, and you're not going to do this in a blameful or accusatory manner.
You're gonna just lay out there what are the difficulties that you're having now and express your hope to move forward in a positive way, right? And what's nice about this, like, when you express your appreciation you're seeing all of her, not just her challenges, and you're seeing her beauty, too.
It may make her open to hearing the things. When you, then part two, when you express your regrets, you're saying, I'm not perfect. I'm human. I have regrets too. That makes her even more open to hearing things. And then you get to part three, you express your hurts and difficulties. She might be open to hearing them, right?
Because you have become human or really, open and vulnerable. Yeah, stay
tuned for more mindful mama podcast right after this break
And so what would you want to express in part three to her?
[00:35:49] Katrina: I guess just mainly I said our relationship when it was Me, her, my husband, we were very close. We did more things together. Now COVID did mess that up a lot, but just that maybe I haven't taken the time to be more with her and that she doesn't see me.
As someone she can come
[00:36:12] Hunter: to. Okay. That sounds good. And that sounds like part something you're going to talk about in part two, expressing your regrets. For the hurts and difficulties things, this is the place to talk about when she's having trouble, when you're both having trouble, right? So you want to say, Hey babe, and you're obviously in your house.
It's incredibly hard for me when. We have a challenge and you yell and I want to turn that around, I'm going to be working as hard as I can to take care of myself, to take care of my feelings and to guide you, not punish you to not yell at you and all those things. I'm hope you can also practice that with me.
Like you can also, I want you to know that you're incredibly valuable. You're all these things, but also, I need time with your brother. And when I need time with him, I want you to know that doesn't mean I don't love you. You want to say all of these things straight out in this letter.
And what's nice about a letter form is that she can read it in her own time and process it and respond to it in her own time or not respond to it. It may just be, and you may say, Hey, you want to talk about this? And it may be that she doesn't and that's okay, but you're going to do your best.
To begin anew, to begin a new foot with this letter and this experience with her. And I thank Al for having me. How's this all landing with you, Katrina? Really good. Very
[00:37:54] Katrina: helpful. I just felt like I just didn't know where to turn. I keep reading all of these different things, listen to all these different podcasts, and I just felt like I was trying.
Everything all at once, and I didn't know which, what to follow or what not to follow. So the clarification on when to send her to a room and, taking the break. I love that. Yeah, because I can see now how she may feel like, when she goes up there she's still mad at me. She's mad because she feels like I'm not giving her that love when she's expressing that frustration.
[00:38:32] Hunter: Yeah. And that's going to be incredibly hard. I just, that's going to be super hard. Like your habit is when she gets mad, you get mad, right? That's normal. That's like what most of us do. Yes. And so I just want to acknowledge that this is going to be an incredibly hard thing for you to do.
You're going to need support. I would encourage you to talk to your husband, play him this podcast and whatever. And just so that you can, get the support you need, because it's going to be hard. Like You may have family members who say, Oh, she spoke to you so disrespectfully, you should spank that girl or send her to her room, right?
And I want you to know that even though that happens, you have the science on your side, right? Like you have to understand her nervous system, her, she needs like that attachment to you. She needs that loving when she's at her worst. She needs her, you to love and accept her as she is, even though you don't have to put up with.
You don't have to put up with an attitude or, like you shouldn't put up with disrespect. So there are, but right now she's internalizing all that and telling herself the story that she's horrible. And that's why this is happening, right? And and that's heartbreaking, right?
And we don't want that, but she's nine and you can turn this around. So this is going to be super hard, but it may be like the most. Significant like thing that you guys do in your relationship at this really like crucial point, right? She's at the cusp. She's a tween She's just out of moving out of childhood She's at the cusp of adolescence and she really needs you.
[00:40:19] Katrina: So if she is Disrespectful I still need to voice how I feel that I'm getting frustrated and I need a break And just walk away and then come back and
[00:40:33] Hunter: discuss yeah. When everybody's calm, come back and say, Hey, when you talk to me like that, I felt hurt. It made me not want to be able to like, hang out with you in that moment.
And I'd like us to be able to speak to each other in a better way, right? So when my daughters tell me give me like that or have in the past, like giving me like I've gotten some of that, 13 year old attitude kind of thing. So what I do when that happens, right? Our feelings are like an iceberg and right at the tip of the iceberg above the level of consciousness is anger and frustration, right?
But then there's all these feelings like below the iceberg, underneath the level of consciousness where it's like we're feeling sad, we're feeling helpless, we're feeling, hurt, right? So these are all the things that are underneath. And so when we're talking to our kids, so when my kids have given me an attitude or some, or spoken to me disrespectfully, I've said, Whoa, when you talk to me like that.
Which is a non judgmental way of describing what's happening, right? When you talk to me like that, I feel hurt. So I'm going, what I'm going to do is I'm going to express the emotion underneath the frustration. And I feel hurt, and it's hard for me to hang out, be with you right now, and what's, Effective about that is that our, and I didn't do it perfectly.
Just want to let you know it didn't happen all the time, but anyway but what's effective about that is that there's nothing to fight against, right? Like you're just expressing your honest feelings and you're telling them how their behavior affects you honestly and congruently, right? And so when you let her know how the behavior affects you without being blameful, without being accusatory, with being open and vulnerable instead of bringing the two fists together, then there's nothing to fight against.
And there's just learning. And it really diffuses that kind of thing. It makes it because when you bring, defensiveness or whatever, or anger to their anger, it always escalates, right? So you want to actually be open. And vulnerable, and that defuses all of that it lets those, all those stuff dissipate.
Does that make sense? Yes. Yes. Very much. Wow. Katrina, I'm so glad you were able to come today and talk about this because I feel like you're sharing really open and vulnerably, and I think that this is going to be so valuable and so helpful for a lot of people. You've had incredible challenges in your life.
You had this major accident. You've had this, you have this daughter who's suffering and who's really challenging. You've seen this plummet and her doubt, her self confidence and this doubt arising and we talked about what do we do, right? How do we show her acceptance when she's having trouble?
What do we do about discipline, right? What do we do about teaching? And how do we take, deal with these situations? We also talked about the letter of beginning anew. So I'm wondering from you, what is, what are you going to take away from the session today?
[00:43:51] Katrina: That I need to stop disciplining or punishing her and put more to this bank.
I felt like I needed to tell her what was not up to the standard I thought it should be when that was just continuing to hurt her. I was. I guess still in that criticism mode, because that's how I thrive, that I wasn't giving her what she needed.
[00:44:19] Hunter: Yeah. I think those are great takeaways. Do you think you'll do the letter beginning anew?
[00:44:24] Katrina: Yes. A hundred percent. And I also want my husband to do one also. Ew.
[00:44:30] Hunter: That's beautiful. Yeah. Really, this letter can be done. It's so nice. Thank It can be done, you to your husband, us to our parents. It's really cause it can be very cathartic to do this kind of thing. But that's beautiful, Katrina.
I'm so glad to hear it. I'm, will you promise to write me an email or something in three or six months and let me know how things are going?
[00:44:53] Katrina: Yes, 100%. I have such high hopes that, hopefully changing a couple of these ways that our parent will really improve our relationship because. That's all I want is for her to feel loved and happy and safe at home.
I want her to feel that when she's here, even if she thinks the world hates her, mommy and daddy and Jameson are the ones she can
[00:45:21] Hunter: turn to. Yeah. Yeah. That's beautiful. Yeah. Keep that intention in mind. That's really lovely. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you sharing your story and coming in on the Mindful Mama podcast to share this.
I think it's gonna help so many people and I think you're super brave and awesome for doing that. Thank you.
I hope you enjoyed this episode and got something great out of it. Something you're going to take home that is going to help you and your family. And I want to continue to thank you for your reviews that you leave on Apple Podcasts. It makes such a big difference to the podcast. I appreciate it so much.
I want to give a shout out to GinaGMom23 who left a review, an five star review and said, Mindful Parenting, Mindful Mama. And she said she found the podcast, Searching for Parenting Podcasts. It has become my favorite. I wish I had found this podcast years ago. It's completely in line with my parenting beliefs and philosophy.
I listen to the podcast and inspires me to write, I have a blog. It has also been a great way to start my day to set intentions. Thank you, Hunter. Thank you, Gina G Mom. I really appreciate it. So please do leave a review for the podcast. It helps the podcast grow more. And of course, we'd love to hear your feedback.
Tag me on Instagram at mindfulmamamentor. And I am wishing you a great week, my friend. I'm so glad you're here to listen. I'm so glad you're here to share the podcast and share the message that we have of mindful parenting. We're transforming. The world, I believe that's part of a movement. You're a part of it.
You're listening. You're part of it too. And when you share, you really become part of it. And it really helps to change things for families and for kids all around the world. It's so global. So that's amazing. Yeah, so I hope whatever you got today, you got something that you can take and put in your pocket.
Some little nugget maybe you'll discuss with your parenting partner and if you have one and something that'll help water your good seeds. I hope that, the work that we do here, my team, this whole team of people puts this out for you and Chelsea and Alex and Emma and Lynn, all these people. I hope that the work that we do.
Has inspired you. That's why we do it. So anyway, wishing you a great week. Can't wait to connect with you again. And I'll talk to you soon, my friend. Namaste.
I'd say definitely do it. It's really helpful. It will change your relationship with your kids for the better. It will help you communicate better and just, I'd say, communicate better as a person, as a wife, as a spouse, it's been really a positive influence in our lives. So definitely do it. I'd say definitely do it.
It's so worth it. The money really is inconsequential when you get so much benefit from being a parent to your children and feeling like you care. Connecting more with them and not feeling like you're yelling all the time or you're like, why isn't this working? I would say definitely do it. It's so so worth it.
It'll change you. No matter what
[00:48:48] Katrina: age someone's child is It's a great opportunity for personal growth and it's great investment in someone's family. I'm very thankful I have this you can
[00:48:58] Hunter: continue in your old habits that aren't working or you can learn some new tools and Gain some perspective
[00:49:08] Katrina: Everything in your parenting.
[00:49:13] Hunter: Are you frustrated by parenting? Do you listen to the experts and try all the tips and strategies, but you're just not seeing the results that you want? Or are you lost as to where to start? Does it all seem... So overwhelming with too much to learn. Are you yearning for community people who get it, who also don't want to threaten and punish to create cooperation?
Hi, I'm Hunter Clark Fields. And if you answered yes to any of these questions, I want you to seriously consider the mindful parenting membership. You will be joining hundreds of members who have discovered the path of mindful parenting and now have confidence and clarity in their parenting. This isn't just another parenting class.
This is an. Opportunity to really discover your unique, lasting relationship, not only with your children, but with yourself, it will translate into lasting connected relationships, not only with your children, but your partner to let me change your life, go to mindful parenting course. com to add your name to the wait list.
So you will be the first to be notified. When I opened the membership for enrollment, I look forward to seeing you on the inside.
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