521: Best of 2024
Discover the Mindful Parenting Podcast's top five episodes of 2024, packed with expert insights and practical tools for parenting with compassion and connection. Wendy Snyder shares three strategies to replace punishment with guidance, Dr. Gabor Maté discusses building strong parental bonds to combat peer influence, and Dr. Robyn Silverman offers scripts for setting boundaries that stick. Ed Center reveals his journey in breaking reactive habits to stay grounded with his kids, and in the #1 episode, Hunter Clarke-Fields leads a live event on ending the cycle of yelling.
Ep 521- Best of 2024
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*This is an auto-generated transcript*
[00:00:00] Hunter: You're listening to the Mindful Parenting Podcast, episode number 521, and today is a super special episode. It is the 2024 Best of Mindful Parenting episode.
Welcome to the Mindful Parenting Podcast. Here, it's about becoming a less irritable, more joyful parent. In Mindful Parenting, we know that you cannot give what you do not have, and when you have calm and peace within, then you can give it I'm your host, Hunter Clarke-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 25 years. I'm the creator of the Mindful Parenting course and teacher training, and I'm the author of the international bestseller “Raising Good Humans Every Day”, and the “Raising Good Humans Guided Journal”.
Yesterday, I was on Zoom answering a question from a mom who had started a mindfulness practice and was struggling. And I realized how much I love that. I love connecting with people. I love answering these questions. And I want to do more of that here on the Mindful Parenting podcast. So starting right now, you can leave me a voicemail with your mindful parenting questions. If you have a current parenting challenge, If you're frustrated with some behavior, if you want to know more about mindfulness and how to get started, you can leave me a voicemail with your question. I'm so excited about this. The URL is MindfulMamaMentor.com/VM. That's MindfulMamaMentor.com/VM. If your question is picked, I'll let you know and it will become part of the Mindful Parenting podcast. Leave your voicemail now, MindfulMamamentor.com/VM
Hello, welcome back. I'm so glad you're here. A big welcome for your new listener. Actually, this is like such a perfect episode to listen to if you're brand new because it's a sampler platter of the best episodes of 2024. So this has been a crazy, amazing year. And we've had some great podcast episodes and some amazing guests, and so I'm so thrilled to share with you the top five episodes of 2024 as voted on by you, you downloading them and and sharing them around.
So I'm gonna share the episodes from the number five most popular to the number one. Most popular. And listen, if you have gotten some value from these episodes or from this podcast, please do me a favor and just help grow the show by just telling one friend about it. Share a screenshot, share a link to your Apple podcast player, wherever you're listening to it, and you can make a big difference. And I hugely appreciate it. All right, we are going to start out with the number five most popular podcast of 2024. It was episode #435, “Three Ways to Shift Out of Punishment” with Wendy Snyder. And we know that punishment is a problem, right? For a number of reasons, right? You may not want your kid to hate you. There's the guilt and the way it escalates the chaos, to name a few. But how do you shift out of that punishment pattern? Wendy Snyder comes back on the podcast to talk about three ways to make that shift and then In this episode, she also talks about what to do, a really easy tip to do instead of threats.
In this clip, you're going to hear her talk about what is punishment, and this is going to be very helpful. So let's dive in. Number five, most popular podcast of 2024, Three Ways to Shift Out of Punishment with Wendy Snyder.
[00:03:44] Wendy Snyder: Let's just define punishment. like discipline punishment so we can be rooted in knowing what we want. And so discipline or punishment in my opinion is rooted in the past. It's rooted in retribution, making sure someone pays for their mistake. It's often rooted in shame, right? Like you deserve pain and humiliation and suffering because you made a mistake.
Discipline is rooted in the future. It's rooted in teaching. It's rooted in training. It's rooted in just learning a life skill and creating habits that take time and practice. So that's the biggest difference to me. Punishment's about the past. Discipline is about the future. And when we stay focused on what we want in the future, We're able to create the life that we want a lot easier.
So really like when your child makes a mistake and you start to think about like, how am I going to handle this? How am I going to teach? You really just want to be asking yourself and focusing on the future. What is it that I want my child to be able to do tomorrow or next week, right? Being able to use encouragement versus shame, right?
You can do this. I believe in you. You are capable. You're perfectly designed to be gentle and loving and patient. You just need practice. But talking about the future and what we want for our kids is a great place to start. Because a lot of us will be focused on how it's not okay for them to behave that way.
And that's past focus, and that'll just our brains are interesting, right? Like we, we will often play out like our worst fears, and so you just want to be focused on what you want for the future. So just as a starting point, I think that's always good. Would you agree, Hunter?
[00:05:33] Hunter: Yeah. I think that's such a cool way to look at it.
I never thought about it that way, that punishment is about the past, it's about retribution. and discipline, which is about the future. It's about teaching what they need to know. So this past thing, which wasn't so great, is better in the future, right? I think that's, yeah, a really like clear, simple way to think about it.
And that makes so much sense.
[00:05:56] Wendy Snyder: Yep, and bringing in like the embodiment piece too I mean it is helpful of course to learn from the past, right? I always lying is a great example, right? Like when I'm working, when my kids were younger and I was working with lying and we even had, we had a little lying thing, gosh I guess that was probably like eight, six, seven months ago?
And we're we do revisit, like we talk about how did your body feel in that moment when you were, actually no, I just. It was like more of a hiding, but that just happened three weeks ago. It was around like Terran like spent the money I'd given for Target, and he bought like all this stuff for his friend, like junk food, and he thought I was gonna be mad at him.
It's good to revisit like how did your body feel in those times when you were holding something in or when you weren't being truthful So it's, it is helpful to be able to reflect on the past and learn from the past, but punishment, if you really look at it and how you're feeling in the moment, it's often based on that retribution peach, which really isn't helpful.
[00:06:52] Hunter: Yeah, and it's not, and I just want to say to your listener, if you're using punishment and now you're feeling bad about it, you're feeling guilty, this is what's in our water, like this is the water we're swimming in. This is the way, this is the authoritarian model that has been the foundation, of this country, which has lent to a lot of, yeah, difficult outcomes for a lot of people.
But it's not, I just want to say it's not your fault if these mindsets that Wendy's Identifying that our punishment mindsets versus discipline mindsets are your kind of go to way of thinking. This is the way, this is the culture we are in. So it's not surprising at all. So I want you to offer yourself some.
compassion for that if you're starting to hear some things that make you squirm a little in this conversation.
[00:07:45] Wendy Snyder: I love that Hunter. You're so good at reminding us about that self compassion piece. It really is so important. Yeah, it is. It's thick. It's thick. You get, I think the more you do this work, you get to you lean more into feeling powerful, which is a basic human healthy need, by being a little bit of a black sheep.
Not a little bit. A lot. Yeah. Whether it's within your family, or your church, or your community, whatever it may be. But in the beginning it feels like a little dicey and yeah, but that feeling, just honor it and know that just when you start out with this stuff you definitely, we always say the awareness goes up, spikes fast, like when you start to learn about subjects like this.
And then right behind it needs to come the acceptance. Like you have to have the awareness of Oh, I see what's happening here. I'm no longer blind to it. I see why it's not working. I see why my nervous system is so stressed and our relationship is strained. But then right behind it has to be the Acceptance of no wonder this is how I operate.
No wonder I have these knee jerk reactions. No wonder I yell. No wonder I threaten like this makes sense. There's nothing wrong with me.
[00:08:57] Hunter: The number four most popular podcast of 2024 was “Hold Onto Your Kids” with Dr. Gabor Mate. That was episode #481. And this is, if you have an oppositional child, and he talks about how the problem may not be actually in your child, but in your relationship. And he talks about the problem of peer orientation.
And how it creates competition between adult intentions and peers. And he talks about this idea of a natural parental hierarchy and how to take back our kids to promote healthy attachment with adults. So here we go. Let's dive into this segment of episode number 481. Hold on to your kids with Dr. Gabor Mate.
I had to believe when my kids were young that it was possible. for them to grow up and not hate me when they were teenagers, and not go through this thing that everyone says is normal, this, that they're going to hate you, that they're gonna rebel, and that's normal, and you just have to accept that. And I had to believe that wasn't true, and I love that you're saying that it's not true.
[00:10:06] Dr Gabor Mate: We want to, we want to support our kids in independence, but we don't have to worry about it, we don't have to push them for it, because independence is a natural agenda of, Human Development. They said if you provide the right conditions for it, it's gonna happen. So as Gordon says, and Gordon is the main author of this book, and he says, to promote independence, invite dependence.
[00:10:28] Hunter: It's so counterintuitive to most people, right? Like we don't, maybe we don't want that. Peer independence, we don't want peers replacing parents but for, that's that feels very counterintuitive, but please go on.
[00:10:41] Dr. Gabor Mate: Here's the thing. At a certain point, a child will start saying, I'll do this myself.
They're trying to choose the- you're tying their shoelaces when they're three years old, I'll do it myself. Why? That's nature's agenda, to have mastery. The kid will do that anyway. I don't have to push them for it. If the child feels secure, The more secure they feel, the more independent they can be.
So kids, when you do these experiments on attachment relationships, those kids who are secure with their parents, they'll play independently very beautifully. And when necessary, they'll come back to the parent for reassurance for a moment, then off they go and play independently again. It's the kids who are insecure who can't play independently, or who play independently, but they don't go back to the parent for reassurance.
By meeting the child dependency needs, not by making them over dependent. But simply meeting their dependence needs, you're naturally promoting independence. That's going to develop. And there's a kind of natural hierarchy in child development, as Gordon points out. It's like a pyramid, and I'm making a pyramid shape with my hands as I'm talking.
The basis of it is the attachment relationship, secure attachment relationship, where the child feels accepted, loved, not judged, celebrated, welcomed for exactly who they are. That's the basis of everything. And that's the first tier of the pyramid. That's the basis. The second tier is individuation, where the child begins to become an independent person on their own, and that happens in stages throughout childhood and adolescence.
So that one and a half year old can start saying no, that's the first step in that individuation process. Again, you didn't have to teach the kid to say no. They start saying it automatically. It's the natural independent. So the second tier is individuation. Only when they're well individuated can they socialize and that's the third tier is socialization.
If you don't have a clear sense of yourself and if you don't feel secure, then when you socialize, what will you be doing? You'll be trying to conform and fit in with the social group and not know who you are and not respect your boundaries and not know how to respect the boundaries of others. So that in this society, we tend to put socialization out of individuation.
Big mistake. We need to honor the attachment relationship throughout life, certainly through the end of adolescence. Individuation then happens spontaneously but still in the context of the adult child relationship.
[00:13:38] Hunter: Stay tuned for more Mindful Parenting podcasts right after this break.
[00:14:11] Hunter: The number three most popular podcast episode of 2024 was “Scripts for Setting Boundaries” with Dr. Robyn Silverman. That's episode 441. And, how do you do this, right? I love these practical questions of how do you set boundaries? When kids are fighting or hitting, what exactly do you say to hold boundaries around screen time? So we talk about all of these. And in this clip, you're going to hear Dr. Robyn Silverman and I talk about a script for not hitting. So let's dive into this clip of episode number 441, the number three most popular episode of 2024, Scripts for Setting Boundaries.
So let's talk about a script for how to set boundaries. to talk to our kids about not hitting
[00:15:03] Dr. Robyn Silverman: our siblings. Not that I would have ever experienced such things because my kids were always perfect. They're angels. Angels. We know, we understand that they were perfection. Times. My kids are now 13 and 14 and they still argue, I still have to set these boundaries. I'm like, I'm not even kidding. This, and these poor people are like, my kids two or three, I thought this would be over by then. Sorry. I, I don't want to burst anybody's bubble, but it is the truth. So first of all, you asked about, being that askable parent, that Part of that is not freaking out when your child asks you something, that you probably have never discussed before.
And taking a breath, as you so well do, Hunter and encourage us to and ground ourselves. And if you have a lot of baggage with a particular topic, like setting boundaries, that you talk to your friend, spouse. therapist about because when you're talking to your child about something that's emotionally charged for You don't want to be that shouldn't be the thing that comes before the words You don't want the baggage to be dropped on your child before you can actually have a conversation So that's just part of being truthful with yourself.
If you weren't given a template for how to do this with, because your parents didn't do it with you, your parents were very authoritarian, or your parents were very permissive, and you're like, neither one of those is what I would like to follow, then you gotta get serious with yourself and realize okay, I wasn't given a template, so now I'm gonna tune into what Hunter says, I'm gonna tune into what Dr. Robyn says, I'm gonna read these books, I'm gonna, get some information. And if I'm feeling really overloaded, I'm going to overload it with my friend or therapist or whomever and not with my child. So that's just like just the first caveat I would say because it can seep out so easily. Our personal baggage can seep out. Sometimes I say after it's just to say it outright this is going to be tough on me. Just give me a moment. It's okay.
[00:17:21] Hunter: Yeah. Yeah. Just name, name what's happening. I feel this is a sensitive thing for me. Because the way I grew up or whatever, just honestly name that stuff, it takes the temperature out of it. So it's, yeah, just digest it, helps us digest it. Yes. Process
[00:17:37] Dr. Robyn Silverman: it. And first of all, when, in the situation that you provided, with sibling rivalry, which is honestly one of my big triggers. I'm, it's actually such a good example because it's really humbles me and it is such a real issue throughout my life, watching my kids argue and get to that level. So first your first reaction is often, I don't want you people to argue. It's, I hate this. It's bothering me. Okay. So first thing is to empathize with your child because I know it's hard to pick a movie. I know it's hard to share your toys. I know this can be difficult to sit at this table and really want what's on his plate and not be able to take it because you're eight years.
Like you, you first start there so that your child, your children get that you get it. Because if you, if they're feeling like they have to prove their point to you, the arguing will only get bigger. Keeps going and going. It keeps going and going. So that's first is that empathy piece so that they know you're getting it.
Part of it is also being able to, and I'm sure you've talked about this, being that sportscaster so that your kids can hear what the other person is saying. Sounds child number one is saying they want to be able to watch X movie. And it sounds like Child B is saying that they want to watch this other movie and they start arguing again because he said this and that and wait, let's just all bring and let's just make sure we get everything on the table here.
So Child A wants this, Child B wants that. So that, okay. And then you can even ask. Child B, what did Child A say they wanted? And you ask the other child to say what the other child is saying so that everybody has now been heard, okay? And then you can give each child the same amount of time so that you've got Child A is, okay, Child A, tell me why you want to watch this and why you want to do this.
Child B, alright, sounds like you both want to watch two totally different things and you're arguing about it, but it sounds like neither one of you want to watch the other thing. So now we have to pick. A third movie or not do it at all and go to the park. So let's figure out what we want to do. What we're not going to be doing right now is, what we're not going to be doing is we're not going to be using our hands for hitting.
Okay. So that's first thing because we can't watch any movies or go to the park or eat ice cream or do any of the fun things because now you're making, you're trying to lighten things up a little bit.
We can't do any of these things without first sitting on our hands. And so now you're telling them what to do, right?
So we have told them what they're not to do, and we're telling them what they can do this is what we're gonna do. Okay all in favor of watching a totally different movie, then you can raise your hand. Or you could, you can wiggle your nose, right? Okay, everybody in favor, take out your tongue, wiggle your nose, okay?
And then all in favor of going to the park, and all in favor of eating ice cream while going to the park, or eating ice cream while watching a movie. And so now you've moved things along. You've changed the mood. You've told them what they can do, what they can't do. You're taking them along for the journey.
[00:21:13] Hunter: The number two most popular podcast of 2024 was “How to Stay Grounded When Your Kid is Screaming” with Ed Center, episode #439. And this was a really moving episode, and this is about, when your kid is getting aggressive, how do you stay calm? Ed shares his story of being stuck between authoritarian habits of his upbringing and learning new gentle parenting techniques, and how they actually weren't working when things got tough. So we talk about the tools to Make that space to respond rather than react. And in this clip, you'll hear me talk about my sensitivity, and we're going to talk about getting triggered. So let's dive into this piece of the number two most popular episode of 2024, “How to Stay Grounded When Your Kid is Screaming” with Ed Center:
Hunter: I'm actually, at this point in my life, grateful that I was not better at suppressions. That. I was, I've always been crap at secretions, and I'm, and I've had to figure out ways to express my feelings in ways that are healthy and to channel that and things like that. And it wasn't something that was suppressed because I'm seeing how suppression is just that so harmful, right?
And that whole the body keeps the score, right? How the body keeps the score of all those things that happen to you, even if you're not really feeling it, you're suppressing that feeling. Just to share with another. There's benefit in some ways to being more expressive. It's just, we have to like then channel that, right? Channel that in ways that are healthy.
[00:22:59] Ed Center: So you are leading me to think about what I think is the most fundamental and powerful shift in how many folks in our generation right now want to raise our kids versus how we were raised. And I think that shift is that most of us were raised by our parents with the framework that there are some good emotions and that there are some bad emotions.
And good emotions are rewarded. And bad emotions are shamed, punished threatened. And sometimes that's explicit and sometimes it's not. Whereas most of us are trying to raise our kids with a different framework that all feelings are valid and there are appropriate and inappropriate behaviors.
Yeah. And so we want to share with our kids that grief, anger, rage, hatred, lust, these are all valid things to feel and we as your parents are not going to be scared. of these emotions, and we are going to help guide you to understand that there are ways of expressing these things in the world that are helpful to you and to others, and there are ways of expressing these things in the world that are harmful to you and others.
Yes. And we're going to I feel like that's the fundamental framework, but we don't, as a society, talk about that enough, and we don't have common tools in the vernacular to address that, right? And so a lot of the work that you and I do is around that. How do you meet, The feeling of your kiddo, but also say it's not appropriate for you to do these things in class or throw things at your parents or your brother or whatever.
And particularly for a lot of the families that for my family, one, and for families that I work with that have experienced trauma or wounds in some way. How do you navigate that desire to hold a new framework when people may be getting triggered left and right in different spaces?
[00:25:35] Hunter: And we're at number one. The number one most popular podcast episode of 2024 was the live event, “How to Stop Yelling” with me, episode #437. Wow, that's so cool, guys. This is a really cool thing. This is actually a recording of my live event from Laramie, Wyoming. I had a great talk there. I really enjoyed connecting with the people.
They flew me all the way out to Laramie. It was a number of flights and it was amazing. I really loved it. Got to connect with those people. And in this clip, you're going to hear a piece of this talk where I talk about how our, about mindfulness and being on autopilot, but this was such a cool event and I'm so thrilled that you enjoyed it. That was the number one most popular episode of 2024. That makes me thrilled to no end. Thanks, guys. Let's dive in to episode 437, live event, How to Stop Yelling.
[00:27:16] Hunter: In our everyday life, we are often on autopilot, right? We're going from one thing to the next. While we're at lunch, we're thinking about something else. While we're in the afternoon with our kids, we're planning dinner.
Or we're planning the next five things. Or we're thinking the next three days ahead. We're often, our minds are in one place and our bodies are here in the present moment. Our minds can also be in the past, regretting something we have done as well, right? We're often on autopilot. And that's totally normal, that's how humans work, that's okay.
But what happens sometimes is that, our minds, just when we're on autopilot, are naturally focused on the negative, often judgmental. And when we're on autopilot, when our minds are in one place and our bodies are here, that's when we can be very reactive with our kids. Because we're not thinking about how we want to respond.
We're not consciously in that moment with our kids. So when we're on this autopilot journey, this is when my mom's voice comes out of my mouth, or my, something my dad would say comes out of my mouth. And yeah, am I alone in this or something? It's up to you to go, ok? And then what mindfulness still is mindfulness: it is a practice of deliberately putting our attention in the present moment. With an attitude of kindness and curiosity. So this is different from our kind of normal autopilot, our brains are in the future state. And what it really does, it gives us a sense of awareness and perspective. It builds a sense of awareness and we will talk about how it helps us to lower our reactivity so that instead of that autopilot reactivity, we can actually be consciously choose How we want to respond to our kids, right? We can then say, Oh, I remember that wonderful thing they taught me in that workshop in Laramie last Saturday. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna have access to this. So mindfulness helps us with this. And it helps us bring us into the present moment. I think this is so important because the present moment, when our minds are somewhere in the future or the past, Our bodies are here, we're not present, and the present moment is the only place where we can love our children.
How can you love if you are not there? We do this, right? We think, oh, I will be present with my child. I'm going to work really hard. I'm going to get all the things done. I'm going to plan. I'm going to, in the East Coast, it's always I'm going to get to the vacation in Mexico. Right?
People are like, Louie Monaghan. Anyway, I'm going to get to the vacation in Mexico, and that's when I'm going to be present. With my child and I'm gonna it's gonna be blissful even though Vacations with kids guys are not blissful Even with teenagers like it's just not it's not that much fun as you think it's gonna be But the thing is that we get to that place where we think then we're gonna be present and we were not we can't Because we've trained our minds through habit and repetition to always be somewhere else in the future, getting that to do list done, right? Mindfulness is important for that piece about being present as well.
Hunter: All right, you made it all the way to the end to the outro and you're still listening. Woot! I love that. Thank you. So cool. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you're a new listener, go back and listen to these episodes, the full episodes. They're so good. There's such great information in these. And if you're new, you might like we've so many episodes, we've actually made an easy way for you to answer a few easy questions and get a unique to you five episode playlist that addresses the things that you may be dealing with at the moment, so you'll find episodes on how to discipline without punishment, helping kids calm down, how to talk to littles, etc. So that's at MindfulMamaMentor.com/quiz. Check it out.
And thank you so much for an amazing 2024. I'm so glad we're here. I'm so glad you're here. Thank you for sharing it and helping the podcast keep going and grow. Everyone here on the Mindful Parenting podcast team appreciates it and appreciates you listening, so we wish you the best. I know 2025 is going to be an amazing year, so Jess, I will be here. I have so many great episodes for you. I have some series coming up about neurodivergent kids and more, and there's just so much good stuff to come. So stick around, stay here, make sure you're subscribed and all that, and I wish you a beautiful week, a beautiful year, And I will talk to you real soon next Tuesday. Namaste.
[00:32:24] Mindful Mama Member: 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 better parent. and feeling like you're 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 worth it. It'll change you. No matter what age someone's child is, it's a great opportunity for personal growth and it's a great investment in someone's family. I'm very thankful I have this. You can continue in your old habits that aren't working or you can learn some new tools and to shift everything in your parenting.
[00:33:28] 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 Clarke-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 too. Let me change your life. Go to MindfulParentingCourse.com to add your name to the waitlist, so you will be the first to be notified when I open the membership for enrollment.
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