KJ Dell’Antonia is the author of How to Be a Happier Parent and the former editor of the New York Times’ Motherlode blog. She continues to write on the personal and policy aspects of parenthood for the Times and other publications and is the co-host of the #AmWriting podcast. Find her at kjdellantonia.com
Relisten: How to Be a Happier Parent (153)
KJ Dell'Antonia
Find yourself constantly irritable? Wish that you could enjoy parenthood more? That’s the place my guest, author KJ Dell’Antonia found herself in. So she set out to find the answers to frustrating struggles like chores, discipline, screen time, and more.
Join in on this fun relisten about how to get through the toughest parts of parenting and find yourself happier on the other side!
Relisten: How to be a Happier Parent w/ KJ Dell'Antonia
Read the Transcript 🡮
*This is an auto-generated transcript*
[00:00:00] Hunter: Hey there, it's Hunter, and welcome to Throwback Thursday. Most Thursdays we are going to re release one of my favorite episodes from the archives. So unless you're a longtime listener of the show, there's a good chance you haven't heard this one yet. And even if you had, chances are that you are going to get something new listening to it this time around.
[00:00:17] KJ Dell’Antonia: We need to have discipline. We have to learn discipline. As adults, we need to discipline ourselves not to yell at our children often. So we're, our toughest moments are when we're disciplining ourselves to discipline them in an appropriate manner.
[00:00:33] Hunter: You're listening to The Mindful Lala Podcast. Episode number 153. Today, we're talking about how to be a happier parent with KJ Dell’Antonia
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 to your children. 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. 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 at MindfulParenting.com 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. Hey, welcome back, dear listener.
If you're new big welcome to you. I am So glad you are here. In just a moment, I'm going to be sitting down with K.J. Dell’Antonia. And she's the author of “How to Be a Happier Parent”, which is a great book. And she's the former editor of the New York Times Motherlode blog. And she writes about parenting for the New York Times and other. And this book is fabulous.
I'm going to talk to KJ about some things that are going to help us be happier as parents. Who doesn't want that, right? This is for moms, this is for dads, this is for people dealing with kids. If you're finding that you're constantly irritable, You want to enjoy parenthood more, then this is really the place for you.
And this is the place KJ Dell’Antonia found herself in. And me too! We talk about some of the answers to frustrating struggles like chores, discipline, screen time, and more. So I invite you to come join me at the table as I sit down with KJ and talk about we have this fun conversation about how to get through the toughest part of parenting and find yourself happier on the other side, right?
So look for, talk about discipline and the idea of looking at discipline as teaching, just like we did in our Just Two Episodes Go and How to Discipline, episode number 151. We talk about why you should want your kids to screw up on your watch. Pretty interesting. And we start off with a conversation about activities and sports and how they really are actually more demanding these days.
And now, join me at the table as I talk to KJ Del Antonio about how to be a happier parent.
KJ, thanks so much for coming on the Mindful Mama podcast. Thanks for having me. As I told you, I'm loving your book, How to Be a Happier Parent, and it's a lot of fun and you cover a lot of things with this. All the tough stuff. A lot of them. A lot of them. Yeah. Like chores.
[00:05:55] KJ Dell’Antonia: Yes.
[00:05:56] Hunter: Greens. Siblings. Discipline.
And sports and activities. It was interesting because I guess like my kids aren't that into sports and activities because I was thinking like, oh like chores, that's hard. Like discipline, yeah. Like screens, this is hard. Siblings, oh. But the sports and activities like, so what made you include sports and activities in there?
Like what? Oh, that's
[00:06:18] KJ Dell’Antonia: so funny. And also like somebody asked me recently, she said, do you have anything about like the tough conversations we have to have? And no, that never. occurred to me, so I guess same thing. I included sports and activities because to me, in watching other parents and other families, putting a lot, putting more than a reasonable amount of time into your child's sports and activities seems to me to be a consistent route to Sometimes unhappiness and sometimes just a feeling of like your life being off balance.
And I am somebody with four travel hockey playing kids, so I see a lot of the sports side of it, but I intentionally set out to I talked to parents of, dance families, lots of soccer. Boy, if I think hockey's crazy, soccer seems to see hockey and raise it a couple of crazy points. And. I talk to a lot of music parents and it's not so much, I mean it makes us happy to see our kids doing things that make them happy, but there's a real culture around sports and activities that's not about making kids happy, it's about making people money, so getting caught up in that sort of culture.
Yay, we're gonna learn to play violin, but that means, it used to mean like you took a lesson with the violin teacher. Now, it's almost always Suzuki, and it's in her music center, and the music center wants your child to have their lesson every week, and they need to play in a group. And, they need to maybe audition for this state thing and that national thing and this local thing and it just becomes nothing simple.
[00:08:03] Hunter: You said in the book it really has changed. It's gamed up. Yeah. It's changed. It's different from when we were kids. Because we think, okay. Yeah. Yeah. It was fun. It'll be fun for my kids, but it's different. It's, the stakes are higher these days. It is different,
[00:08:16] KJ Dell’Antonia: and kids are often talked to in a different way about it.
The people that lead it I mean, if you asked them, if you said, is this meant to be fun, they'd be like of course it's meant to be fun. They don't talk to the kids as though this is a fun activity that they're participating in. They talk as though it needs to be like the top of their I've had somebody say to my kid, if you can't do hockey and music.
You have to choose. 11. No, I do choose, I choose not you. That's what I choose. On behalf of my child, I choose something else. Yeah, everybody feels oh, it's your passion, you have to put everything into it, and it's just you have to be a passionate sucker.
[00:09:01] Hunter: Yeah. It's interesting, because I get so frustrated with that, because I, for me, it really hit home.
I remember a really influential book for me, speaking of parenting, so it's Simplicity Parenting, and I read it when my daughter was young, and I really it made so much sense to me that kids brains are pretty chaotic when they're pre adolescent, and they need that free play and that unstructured play so that they can learn how to organize the world in their life.
And then around, 10, 11, et cetera, 12 plus, and then getting into adolescence. Kids brains are, like, they need that structure, because their lives are crazy, and that structure is really helpful and grounding for them. So they always got so frustrated that, that it's oh, you have to start gymnastics when you're
[00:09:46] KJ Dell’Antonia: five, or soccer when you're five.
Or you're never going to the Olympics. Typically, the right answer to that is, yeah, she's never going to, he's never going to the Olympics. And then, yeah that, yeah, so there's this push. Everything starts earlier. Everything, if you don't start playing hockey or skiing or playing the violin by the time you're three, you're never going to amount to anything.
And you just want to say amount to what? I was hoping to amount to somebody who knew how to play the violin.
[00:10:16] Hunter: Yes, I would love that. I want like a violin player friend who can come to my house and can be like, let's whip out your fiddle. Dying to have friends in my life.
[00:10:28] KJ Dell’Antonia: There just aren't that many things left that People are expected, or kids are expected to do Just for Fun, and there is, there's just, you can see it.
It's a visible, objective push to start everything earlier and do it more frequently, more than just a couple times a week, and it's changing. It's taking away the kids opportunity to find their own things. It's taking away their opportunity to have that simple time that, and as they get to be teenagers.
They don't get the downtime, and the amount of stuff that spreads out into is extraordinary. The first chapter in my book is mornings, because mornings are really Yeah. Mornings are awful, right? They just are. Everybody has to be somewhere earlier than anybody wants to be anywhere, and it's typically tough.
But one of the reasons mornings are tough comes back to sports and activities, because when we fill up our schedules as adults, as kids and as teenagers, what happens is we get home at night and we don't feel like we're off the clock until nine or ten, when we finally shut our laptop as adults or finish our homework or, get out of play practice on top of volleyball practice as kids.
And our brains desperately just want to or Netflix or read or, lay on the floor and bounce a ball into the air. We just, and we're going to take that time. Like we're going to find it. Nobody lets that time go. And so then, it's 1130 and you got to be up at six and that's it.
So much for getting enough sleep, so much for having a good morning. And then the next day, the whole thing just starts all over again. So that. Those sports and activities, when they get a little out of hand, they really crawl into every aspect of our family lives in a way that our parents typically just did not experience.
I had this great conversation with somebody who played soccer and she played all through high school and then played, I, I don't remember if she played college or not, she played all through high school, pretty serious, like varsity soccer or something, and she called her mom and she said, I was just, my friend asked me to ask you, did you, ever go to my practices?
And her mom was like, You played soccer?
She rode her bike to practice. She went out, because they don't think it'd be as cool. Student's life, but her parents just let it be a huge part of her life, wasn't it?
[00:12:57] Hunter: It was her own thing. That's crazy. That's something I, talk to my clients and my students about you have permission not just watch your kids practices.
That's a great time for you to go for a walk, to do your own dentist yeah sure, watch a game, but why watch a practice? Let it be the their child's own thing. It sounds like you, from reading, How to Be a Happier Parent, it sounds like you are You're advocating for parents to protect their own time and to protect Very much I
[00:13:26] KJ Dell’Antonia: talked about this from the kid angle and the better for the kids angle that it is, but it's so much better for us if we don't get too emotionally involved. And it's better for them. They don't need to emotionally involved in their sporting careers at, age 11. Yeah. You don't need to watch them practice.
Honestly, you don't need to go to all their games. I took my child. to a hockey tournament this weekend, they played seven games in three days. I was present for all of those games, what with, the whole meeting to drive him and everything. I had knitting, I had a podcast.
[00:14:02] Hunter: I would not have watched seven soccer games.
I'd have to be like a zen master to watch. I would be a zombie by the end
[00:14:09] KJ Dell’Antonia: of that. I do love to watch him play. He's good. He's having a great time out there. It's And I actually have grown to really enjoy the sport because I've spent a lot of time watching it. But I'm not just gonna do that. Sometimes I go to Starbucks.
And, get some work done. Sometimes I sit in the corner with my laptop. Sometimes I watch Marie Kondo on Netflix. I don't, and I have said to them, if you're playing because I'm watching, you're not playing for the right reason. Yeah. That's, that should not be your goal. Sometimes I'm watching.
Sometimes I'm not. Yeah.
[00:14:41] Hunter: Yeah. With my daughter's horseback riding lessons, it's only half an hour once a week because it's a very expensive sport, right? But it's I got that one. I got that sport in my life too. Yeah. Sometimes I'm there and sometimes I go for a run and I want her to just do it for her.
But so yeah. Okay. So create some boundaries around these sports, create some boundaries for the sake of your kids, for the sake of you, for everyone to be happier. Don't let it. Intrude into overwhelm your whole life. It's not worth
[00:15:08] KJ Dell’Antonia: that, basically. No it really isn't. And kids can, love something and be passionate about it and be great at it.
And maybe don't do it at whatever high level that they want to, not that you do, without, So you're doing more than helping them do the things that they want to do.
[00:15:25] Hunter: Yeah. Yeah.
Stay tuned for more Mindful Parenting podcast right after this break.
[00:16:07] Hunter: So you have four kids and I definitely want to speak to you about siblings and things like that and I want to speak to you about discipline but I'm curious about what was it like you're obviously Passionate enough about parenting to write this wonderful book. I love the book. How were you raised?
Did you have siblings? How did your parents parent you? I did not have
[00:16:30] KJ Dell’Antonia: siblings. I'm an only child. I grew up in a really loving two parent household. Both my parents worked, took me everywhere, which is the advantage to having just one child. And I watched them, they were, it was the 70s, the 80s, they were working hard.
They were advancing in their careers. I, we went from to having a nice lifestyle. And I was there for all of that. Watch my dad lose jobs and get jobs. And just I don't know, I felt like a, an interest. I was a part of their adult life and I also had, my own. My own thing.
I liked doing theater and plays and certainly they came when I was in things, but they didn't come to, yeah, I just, things were just different. You had to get your own rides, places and stuff. The people parented differently back then. And I remember they both liked to play tennis.
And so as a child, and especially as an only child with nobody to play with, I spent a lot of time like, sitting very bored in indoor tennis facilities. I remember what the curtains were like that separated the courts. That's, I still don't like tennis. The courts, I remember having the balls roll out and shoving them back under the little curtain and what it smelled like back there.
It was, it's not a bad memory. It's just, that's, I remember the park in the summer where they played and I would go and be the old wander around the park by myself.
[00:17:48] Hunter: Was it hard when you started having, poor kids obviously there, when the siblings started to interact with each other in the natural way that siblings do, fighting, what it's like average once an hour or something like that, the siblings fight?
Was that, were you like, oh my gosh, is this okay? Is this normal?
[00:18:05] KJ Dell’Antonia: Yes, I did find it and I still do. I still probably overreact. It took me a lot of learning to learn to step back from that. And I've sometimes thought that's because I didn't have siblings myself, but I've talked to other parents and I think it's just hard to watch your kids be cruel to each other.
And I've finally gotten to a point where I can let the basic stuff, like you, they just come in and it's they come right in with, why are you wearing that? Why are you eating? They just, they walk in from after school and turn on whoever's there and just, it was like, why are you approaching your sibling in that way?
But I don't know, because they do. And if I leave them alone, they stop. And if I get involved, they don't stop. I have just summed up my advice for older siblings, my advice for people with younger siblings.
[00:18:54] Hunter: So with older siblings is step out of the way, take the audience away.
[00:18:58] KJ Dell’Antonia: Yeah. Either you take the audience away or.
You take them away. It's all of them. All, all of you stop it. Both of you stop it. Both of you, my kids share rooms, so I can't necessarily split them up by setting them in their rooms, you go in that room and you go but it has to be, it has to be equal because I find so often that it feels like you know what's wrong, like you know whose fault it is, right?
Like you, if you're standing in the kitchen and one of your children is innocently in your mind sitting there eating potato chips and watching a movie on their iPhone and the other one walks in and says, why are you eating that? That movie's stupid too. You're like, turn on the one that just did that, right?
Yeah. You don't know. Yeah. Is, what happened 10 minutes ago or.
[00:19:42] Hunter: Yeah, or at the bus stop.
[00:19:44] KJ Dell’Antonia: Really, yeah, you never really know what's going on.
[00:19:49] Hunter: So with boys or siblings try to step out of that judgment role. Step out of that judgment role and that's a relieving advice, actually.
It's chill out, take a back seat a little bit.
[00:20:00] KJ Dell’Antonia: Yeah, the greatest that I did I talked to a ton of people for writing that chapter because God knows I do not feel like an expert in sibling rivalry and one of the best things that was said to me was just, the time to intervene is either never or when they start annoying you.
Not the fact, not that you're upset that the way they're treating each other, if they're annoying you, then it's, cut it out, or, okay, fine, nobody gets to watch TV, or whatever it is, but it's not, it shouldn't be about their exchange so much as it is about protecting
[00:20:30] Hunter: you, yeah, protecting your needs and what's going on for you, yeah, exactly.
So then, is that when they're little, yeah,
[00:20:39] KJ Dell’Antonia: when they're little, you have to teach them I mean you want to teach them to, to work out their differences in ways that aren't physical. And it's going to be physical more often than you want. And everybody I've talked to a lot of people who are surprised by just how much shoving and nipping and kicking and the phrase, don't stop licking your brother.
I don't know why we have to say that as often as we do in our house. Yeah. So when they're little, it's much more. about trying to get them to work it out and give them tools to talk to each other differently or to understand each other or to listen to each other. But then when they're older, they may not use those.
You just have to know they've got them. And if it gets
[00:21:23] Hunter: resort to, yeah. Yeah. I find myself like I found myself translating a lot. What your sister's trying to say, yes, is this. And what she said is this. This is what she's saying. I'm translating the unskillful language into here's some skillful language.
This is hear it, right? And then
[00:21:42] KJ Dell’Antonia: Be it. It's I think your sister's upset that you're playing with her friend. Without her or whatever, is there any way you guys could include her? And if not, maybe, could you include her later, or could you do something later, or could you explain why, I don't know.
That's not the best example, because it's taking sides, which you don't want to do. But yeah, it's very much. I think that Beth would like to play with her friend by herself, but I'm getting that you would like to play with them, and how can we work this out?
[00:22:11] Hunter: Acknowledging that problem in a skillful way.
Yeah, that's exactly what we talk about in Mindful Parenting. So this is this leads us really beautifully into, it's we're galloping around your book, into discipline, and I'm was very Happy to read the discipline chapter because you started off really wonderfully.
You started off talking about what, how, over a thousand people responded to this survey saying that they, people hate enforcing rules. They don't want to, I hate punishing my child even if I know it's for their own good. And this, and it's this idea that We don't question this idea that we have to punish our children, right?
That seems to be the given, but you push back against that given by talking to Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg. So let us know what he said, because I love this so much. Yeah, it's really interesting.
[00:23:01] KJ Dell’Antonia: I don't know that I would have had a discipline chapter. It wasn't really on my radar as an individual topic. To me, discipline is an interesting word because like you said, it can be punishing or it can be, it's teaching and it's also, it's a noun, right?
Like we need to have discipline. We have to learn discipline. As adults, we need to discipline ourselves not to yell at our children often. So we're, our toughest moments are when we're disciplining ourselves to discipline them in an appropriate manner. So I don't know that I would have put it in.
I just thought it came with chores and with everything else, but everybody just, it was such a consistent response. I hate enforcing the rules. I hate making my kids do chores. I hate making my kids, Do this, I hate, yeah, it was this, I hate making, I hate forcing, I hate insisting, I hate punishing.
Yeah, and I reached out to Ken, who's this lovely expert, has a couple of books on his own, and just a really special guy, and I expected him, he's usually very sympathetic, he's usually oh, yeah, that really is tough. And this time he was like, Oh no, discipline's not hard because discipline's what you're doing all the time.
And I was like, Oh no, that didn't make me so bad. Discipline is teaching. You think the stuff that we are thinking of as discipline, the punishing the punishment. The grounding, the moment when your kid has spent 333 on in app purchases on iTunes. That's the tip of the iceberg. He said all the other stuff where you're teaching them, talking to them about why you make the choices you make, and what you want them to do, and the sort of affirmative, how to resist the in app purchases, and how to moderate your internet time if that's what you're talking about.
Just all of that. He said that's all discipline. You can't think of it as just Having the chores and setting them up and teaching them to do it, that's all discipline. The moment when you have to punish them for not doing that, if that's, the way that you've gone in your house, that's discipline.
That's just like the tip of the discipline iceberg. So he said you have to think of it as like this, I'm gesturing which doesn't help people who are listening to us, you have to think of it as this continuum of teaching and explaining and then stepping back to see how they do on their own and then coming back and teaching and explaining again.
And when you think of it that way. Even the moment when you have to enforce the consequence, or maybe you have to raise your voice because this is an appropriate moment to show your kid that they have upset you or disappointed you. It doesn't feel as bad when you think of it as all part and parcel of the same thing.
[00:25:39] Hunter: Yeah, that root of the word disciple, someone who's learning to, or disciplinous is to, is that teaching. So it's all part of that. So in, in those tough moments, we were teaching things still in that moment. It's a continuum of that teaching. And you talk about like, how we're modeling personal responsibility and guiding our kids towards self control.
You talk about, beautifully, about self discipline, right? And trying to get ourselves to that place where we're modeling the full response or good response.
[00:26:15] KJ Dell’Antonia: The thing about discipline is it doesn't happen when you're, like, your kid doesn't typically screw up when you've just stepped out of an hour long yoga.
Unfortunately. You feel warm and, patient and everything in your day has been going well because, of course, they often are feeding off of us and then no, the moments when you're called upon to do these hardest decisions, Things, the times when the worst thing has happened or you've been, those are invariably at the end of some long, horrific day of other, yeah.
It's really hard not to react rather than respond not to straight to, often, a lot of us were raised in more of an authoritarian, a my way or the highway kind of household, and even if you weren't necessarily, that was the response when we were kids, that typically the idea back then was, like, parents thought they knew what to do, and the thing was, if Hunter screws up, I punish Hunter, and then she doesn't screw up again, and that was pretty much the end of it that's what they were expected to do, and they typically did it, so it's really easy to fall back on that.
When you're feeling stressed and that's, it's just the go to rather than whatever might be more appropriate. Whether it's, okay I'm really angry at you right now, you head for your room and I'm heading for mine. It's not like I'm sending you to your room, it's like we're splitting up for a minute while I think about what we do next because this is really bad.
Which is way different than, go to your room and wait for me! He has some of us experience, I think, the same kinds of moments. You just gave me a flashback. And my heart's pounding. Yes, exactly. Exactly, but, and it's funny because it's the same you're asking the child to do the same thing, but the message is just different there.
It's, what you have done is very serious, whatever it is, and so serious that I can't even react to you without going and thinking about what the right thing to do is, also because I'm really angry. And, and that's also a great demonstration, I'm really angry, and so instead of doing the thing that, that immediately springs to mind, whether it's physical, or yelling, or anything else.
I'm going to go over here and you're going to go over there. That's what you would like them to do for their brothers and sisters, right? So you're setting that example.
[00:28:36] Hunter: Yeah. Yeah. You're modeling in every moment. And that's a really intense, natural consequence, really, of something like if a child has done something really intense, if my parent had to say, I am so angry right now that I need to take a break from you and go for a walk or go breathe or whatever.
And we will come back and talk about this later. That's sinking in. It's not like there's a
[00:29:00] KJ Dell’Antonia: it doesn't feel like it, but our kids care what we think. They want to please us. They're naturally inclined to want to please us, even as much as they act as though they're not. Like, when we are that upset, no matter how cool they are acting, they are bothered.
And if they're little, they're really odd. Honestly, sometimes when they're little, what you have to do is go giggle. You're like, this is really serious what you have done with my lipstick on that toilet, and I'm gonna go think of it, because I just had to go laugh. So those are the good moments, but yeah.
Then when you get to the big ones, it's the same, it's the same deal. And then, the other thing Dr. Ginsburg said that really made me feel bad about even some of the real doozies, some of which I've already paced as a parent, some of which I have not yet, is, look, you really want them to screw up on your watch.
I don't know, if they're gonna, if they're gonna, I'll just give you an easier one, if they're gonna stay up all night and fail a test because they played Fortnite until three o'clock in the morning, you want them to do that ideally in middle school, but even in high school before college, right?
Honestly, if they're gonna drunk drive, and get caught, you want to do it while they live with you and you can take away their car and you can, and you can do all the things that you have to do at that point to get them to have a more serious and appropriate relationship with alcohol and driving and whatever else is going on.
You don't want them to wait until they're college or adults when you can't, you don't even have a shot at protect, helping, and protecting them, so as hard as it is, One reaction at that moment is gratitude, but you get a chance to help them learn to handle it. I'm not saying I wouldn't have that reaction, but, oh, you dragged them around. Took that away! Oh,
[00:30:48] Hunter: thank you. I love that, though. No, that's a really profound message, though. You really want them to script on your own watch. That makes me think of, it's similar, but obviously nowhere, but my daughter's in a monastery school at 11, and so she's in a class with fourths, fifths, and sixth graders, and what I think is so brilliant about what they do.
is that in that class, they give them a planner and they say, this is all the work you need to do for this week. And this is a planner and this is how we do this. But they basically let them figure it out and fail and mess up and work through that whole process of organizing their own time when they're 4th, 5th, and 6th graders.
Which is Oh my gosh, this is brilliant. This is something we need to do and mess up at in 4th, grade, not when we're 18 and we're like, we have to get to Chem 102 at, University of Delaware, right? It's yeah, exactly. But you really want them to script on your own watch. I think that's really helpful.
And You also said, Dr. Ginsberg mentioned that, we need, it's not like this idea of our expectations, right? That we tend to, she said that it's not if our child would do something that's over the top and infuriating, it's when. So we need to expect that it's when, and you also talk about how generally our expectations are too high.
Like we, I think and I see this with parents of little kids, we think okay, you know how to get yourself dressed now, you'll do it forever and ever on your own, forever and ever more,
[00:32:11] KJ Dell’Antonia: whatever. What cracks me up, and I do this, I see it in myself, is that How long did it take me to learn that if the say the person checking me out at the grocery store is really nasty, for me to be nasty in return only adds to her unhappiness and mine.
Only leaving, leaves me walking out that door feeling horrible. I would say I was At least in my late thirties, by the time I sorted that one out, right? And yeah, we think our kids should get that. Yeah, I know. Like maybe your friend was having a bad day and you don't need to yell back at your brother or whatever.
It's just some things we can say it and say it and say it and they are hearing us. They're just not either capable of doing it or they're just not doing it yet, right? Different life stages, too.
[00:32:57] Hunter: Yeah. And we need to expect the repetition. And I love that you have another former podcast guest, Joanna Faber, in your book.
Who wrote How to Talk So Little Kids Will Listen, which I can't remember what episode number that is, dear listener, but you can find it. It's just wonderful. It's a wonderful interview, but the talking about the, if you know you're gonna repeat yourself a bazillion times on this anyway, you might as well be repeating something that's skillful that they can learn.
So rather than, don't. Don't be such a slob. Just be gentle with the, or whatever it is, like putting that language in the positive. That's beautiful. I love the reminder that yes, we are just going to have to repeat ourselves a lot.
[00:33:41] KJ Dell’Antonia: And that's the thing. about chores too, to just, leaping willy nilly into yet another chapter is that the helpful advice that I got around chores, and this was really all from parents who felt, who had kids who did chores, which I think is lovely.
He said, look there's two things here. There's whatever the chore is. You want the child to empty the dishwasher, right? And also you want them to like, Do it without being reminded and with a pleasant attitude. One person, the person on the other end of that conversation is yeah, forget the second one.
Just let that go. You're going to have to remind them 250 times and then they don't have to like it. They just have to do it. Just don't, and don't expect them to do it without being reminded. Not going to happen. Just not going to happen. So remind him in 56 ways and just let that piece of it go.
That's not that's not your goal. That actually really changed my relationship and my husband's relationship with getting our kids to do chores, just releasing the feeling that we had failed if they weren't remembering to do it on their own.
[00:34:45] Hunter: Yeah. It's not a reflection on us if they're not remembering to do it.
They're just human kids that don't want to do it. I don't want to do it.
[00:34:55] KJ Dell’Antonia: Yeah. That's, if I thought that if I didn't empty the dishwasher, eventually someone else would come along and do it for me, that may be why our Christmas tree is still up. I may be thinking that somehow that's gonna happen for me.
[00:35:09] Hunter: Don't believe them when they promise to feed the cat without rebuffing them. Yeah. Yeah. I say but the chores are still an important thing too. This is, it matters a lot. Like it matters to. People's success in life and a lot of it really makes a big difference. What did, tell us more about what you learned about chores.
We're going to give up thinking about a pleasant attitude. We're going to give up.
[00:35:34] KJ Dell’Antonia: We
[00:35:34] Hunter: just
[00:35:34] KJ Dell’Antonia: want them to do it. And yeah, there's a little bit of research out there that suggests that kids who do chores, especially if they start at a young age, they're just they're generally more successful in a lot of ways at school, in relationships, in later life, in early jobs, but we don't need that research.
Really, we don't. Cause you know that when your kid has another kid over for dinner, and that kid gets up and clears their plate, That's much better than the kid who just leaves their plate behind and walks away. That's, we, you don't want to raise the one that just, you don't want to, you don't want to raise the kid who thinks that the dishes just walked their way into the dishwasher or who's never cleaned a bathroom or who doesn't know how to do both.
You're raising the worst college roommate ever if you're, not doing some of that stuff. It's just, It's important for kids to learn to do this stuff. It's important for them to learn that making a house and a life work requires that you do some things that you don't want to do, which, can involve the dishes or the bed or the laundry or whatever.
It's just, we all do it. And it's also, this sort of comes full circle to what we were talking about at the beginning with the sports and activities. I think that what happens when we don't give our kids any form of chores, when we don't expect them to help us with the very complicated work of having a household and feeding people and keeping things, clean and under control.
Everything begins to feel lopsided. Like it doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel right that you should think of what's for dinner and shop for what's for dinner and work to earn the money for what's for dinner and then cook what's for dinner and then at the end of it, clean up after what's for dinner and put all the dishes back and then you get up the next morning and do it again.
When you find yourself in that position, it doesn't feel happy. It feels wrong. It's a recipe for
[00:37:30] Hunter: resentment.
[00:37:31] KJ Dell’Antonia: It is. It really is. And I think sometimes we don't even realize. That's not saying don't ever cut your kidney slack. Or, don't ever do anything for your kid. It's just saying expect them to be a contributing part of your household and honestly you'll both be happier because it doesn't really feel good to be the person who's not contributing either.
[00:37:54] Hunter: Stay tuned for more Mindful Parenting podcasts right after this break.
[00:38:33] Hunter: Yeah, it helps them and it helps you. We will repeat ourselves. We'll insist. And get this, and it's part of just, it's part of that discipline. If discipline is teaching, we're teaching them how to be
[00:38:43] KJ Dell’Antonia: and you're hopefully teaching them self discipline that they will do these things themselves when they get older.
Again, how long was it before I figured out that I really was happier if I did the dinner dishes right after dinner as opposed to waiting until the next morning, when I'm a single person? I don't know, but I probably didn't do it right away. Yeah. We think we just say it once and then they should know because we've learned that it's the right thing to do, but that's not the way it works.
[00:39:09] Hunter: That's not the way anyone learns. Yeah,
[00:39:14] KJ Dell’Antonia: there are like six soda cans, I realized, in one of my children's drawers. So three of my children share a bathroom and one of them has a bathroom that she uses on her own. And this has to do with who's having to share rooms and that's a complicated thing. equation of fairness, but it's considered fair in our house.
I went into her bathroom the other day and there were three empty soda cans in a drawer in the bathroom. Seltzer cans, or I was just like, they must have been seltzer, or I would have been freaked out about it, but still. She's not saving them. It's not like that's for a recycling drawer either.
There's also a ratty tube of toothpaste.
[00:39:50] Hunter: I was just like, oh, I'm not looking at this. So we have all these things. We have these are our responsibilities, right? These Helping our kids, teaching them to do chores, insisting that they do chores, teaching them through those tough moments and all those things.
And these are these things that help us, help it make us happier as parents. But you also mentioned some of the things that are I like your mantras, one of them that I really appreciate was soak up the good, right? And this idea that, Our brains are wired to see the negative and see the problems.
And I like that you invite us to lean into the things that are good and try to mark them and remember them. That is truly life changing.
[00:40:36] KJ Dell’Antonia: When you, our minds are, they're designed to watch for the bad stuff for starters. And also lots of us, and I definitely count myself among us, we have this magical feeling that if we think of the thing and we worry about it, we are somehow preventing it from happening.
We go down every disastrous road of, I don't know, I'm a child, this math worksheet is a catastrophe, she didn't finish everything, and that means, in fourth grade she won't be promoted to the early fifth grade math, and you don't get to the fifth grade math, you don't do algebra earlier, and then you don't do geometry in eighth grade, and then you're not in honors math in high school, and you never get to the top of it.
KJ, you're stressing me out. See? Yeah, I think, but that is the way that our brains just are naturally wired to work. There are all these great quotes attributed to a zillion different people that are basically like, I have endured a million terrible things, none of which ever happened, because we have health.
How many, how many car crashes has your brain taken you through that you never actually had? If you can stop that cycle and start yourself with more of a things are good right now cycle. Yeah, this is a bad math worksheet, here's my healthy child sitting at our kitchen table under our complete roof after a lovely dinner, in pretty much exactly the life that I'd imagined where I have the child and the roof and the dinner.
This is pretty great. Five plus two is still not eight, but that's okay. Even when those really, even when you've got that sort of kid that's just like weeping in your arms because their friend has been truly horrible to them. If you can just take a little breath and go, this child that I love has come to me in this moment when they're unhappy, it's okay to feel happy about that, even while you're holding the unhappy child.
This is. This is meant to be the meat of our lives. This is the sort of, it's a very dense time. There's a lot going on. There are a lot of people who need us right now. And that is both really hard and really lovely. And Soak Up The Good is just an invitation to take your brain and remind it.
Remember that this is also really
[00:42:45] Hunter: hard. How do you do that for yourself, like, how do you remember to How do you stay grounded, balancing writing, and parenting, and traveling for your hockey game? Your kids hockey game?
[00:42:58] KJ Dell’Antonia: I really have learned while through that. So that's a bunch of questions.
So when it comes to soaking in the good, I really have made a point of trying, and I don't know that I set specific moments, although you you know what I did? I had a bracelet that, and I still have it, it says An Ordinary Day, because you know how that is, you get that phone call after which nothing will ever be the same, and I'm sure you've had that phone call and will all have it again, whether it's a kid that's broken their leg or a relative that you've suddenly and unexpectedly lost, you get that phone call and all you want back.
Is that moment 10 minutes ago when you were frantic about what was for dinner and your kids were having a fight in the backseat? That was good. And so I have a bracelet that says ordinary day and that's, when I look at it, it's a reminder. Reflect on this moment that you're going to wish you had back.
when, when things are not so great and ordinary.
[00:43:55] Hunter: And yeah, Thich Nhat Hanh, the Zen teacher, he says to appreciate your lack of toothache, to recognize that there are all these things working for you right now that we're not. I
[00:44:05] KJ Dell’Antonia: have put up post its and I have set Phone Reminders. I have done a bunch of things, over the years to, to remind myself to take those little breaths.
One that I don't recommend is that iPhone app that tells you, remember you're going to die every five times a day. I tried that and I was like, This is not making me so happy. And it keeps doing it right before I get on planes. And I don't know how to recommend that one, but it works for some people.
You can just search it. iPhone app that tells you're gonna die. It's out. So I've set a variety of, I like post it notes. Those are a great way to do it. And at this point, it just comes naturally to me to look at the subs. But that's a huge change for me. I was not, I did not, If I'd embarked into this book as a happier parent, I probably wouldn't have written it.
I would have written a different book. This is the book I needed to help me to find the joy in the family life that I really, I wanted, but I wasn't having very much fun with. And then as far as hockey trips go, I enjoy those by finding things I want to do on them. So we were just in Rhode Island and There's a Korean fried chicken restaurant in Rhode Island that's like the best Korean fried chicken ever in the history of the world.
All week long, all I could think about was it's called Denden Chicken. Oh, now I'm looking all up. Yeah, it's so good. But all like, all week long, it was like, and while I'm in Providence, at some point I'm going to find it. Flake off from this talkie tournament, get myself some chicken. And yarn stores and bookstores and chocolate stores and I can tell you all kinds of small, fascinating little places to go in a zillion hockey towns across New England because, and my kids know that's what they're in for.
[00:45:49] Hunter: So you take care of your needs. So part of what it, you're saying, I'm helping you out, but I've got some, you've got my own life, I've got my own needs and I'm going to take care of my needs too.
[00:45:58] KJ Dell’Antonia: Yeah, if we're going on a road trip, I get to control the radio, and I get to choose a lot of the destinations.
We could go to Buffalo Wild Wings with your team some of the time, but some of the time you're going to do this with me. And it depends on the kids. Some of my kids really, thrive. They really want to go where, they want to go try the new place. They want to go do those things. And then, other times, and sometimes it's the same kid, just different times.
They want to go with the team and sometimes I just throw them in with another parent. Yeah. Go do something else for a little while.
[00:46:27] Hunter: And do you have any kind of regular practices in your life and your daily life at home that help you stay sane and grounded and appreciating the good stuff? Besides your post it notes.
Yeah,
[00:46:37] KJ Dell’Antonia: besides my post it notes and my bracelet, which I do still wear. I did have a meditation practice for a while. I'm not doing it right now. Right now, I've been doing the 30 days of yoga with Adrienne. Oh, no, I have heard about Adrienne. Okay, Adrienne is great, and she does a free 30 days of yoga at the beginning of every year, and last year I didn't make it, but this year I'm on day 21, I think, and I, so I'm hopefully gonna make the whole 30, and then I'm hoping to make that a regular practice, because it's got a very meditative effect.
aspect to it.
[00:47:08] Hunter: Yeah, moving meditation. Good for you. Good for you. Awesome. Wow. So we, we didn't get to screens, so maybe another time.
[00:47:17] KJ Dell’Antonia: Screens are really hard. That's,
[00:47:19] Hunter: They're a tough one. Really hard, but it's going to be okay. That's Bye. Bye. Your wonderful book. Actually, I feel like it's interesting because as a podcaster, I get lots of books sent to me and I've seen lots of whole books on screen time that are helpful, but I think that your chapter is very helpful.
So go by KJ's about how to be happier. So you were not so happy and these tips and these mantras, they brought you around to the other side. You're feeling more content, appreciating the mama life. Much more. I will say my kids
[00:47:55] KJ Dell’Antonia: also
[00:47:55] Hunter: got a lot of
[00:47:56] KJ Dell’Antonia: help. Yeah, that helps a lot. Are we kidding?
Or it can. Sometimes I talk to people who say that, they're not enjoying their time with their teenagers. And this is a book that's really geared towards parents of kids from like 4 to 16. It's that, that middle of your family life. Yeah, but definitely, I did end up happier.
I don't think it's just that they're older or just that, other circumstances have changed. I think I'm just genuinely gonna get to own it. I'm actually more able to be happy even when things aren't great.
[00:48:28] Hunter: Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. It helps to figure some stuff out. You feel like, whoosh, and then that helped that ruminating mind too.
You're like, oh, yes, I don't have to figure everything out. I don't have to jump in with these siblings and you just, you're done, all that stuff. So this has been so much fun. KJ, I really enjoyed talking to you. I really enjoyed how to be a happier parent. I think it's wonderful. I think it's a great.
Contribution to, what you've done is a great contribution to our conversation, to helping people stay grounded when, the whole world feels, turns upside down. There's so much pressure on us. What you're doing is really taking off a lot of that pressure. And I think that's a real, that's a real gift to be able to do that.
[00:49:08] KJ Dell’Antonia: Thank you. That is the hope. We've got the cards that we've been dealt. It'd be nice to change some things about. society and culture and the way we approach parenting. But meanwhile let's do right by ourselves so that we can also do right by ourselves. So if people want to reach out and talk to you about the book, where can they find you?
https://kjdellantonia.com/ is the easiest way. I've got an email. It's not weekly. It says it's weekly. If you sign up for it, it's really not. Sometimes it's monthly. It's sporadic. But if you're on that list and you reply to it, you always get me directly, and I am on social media in a variety of ways, although in pretty light ways, cause I'm using my social media a little more mindfully at the moment.
[00:49:51] Hunter: Good for you. Good for you. Yeah, this is, this has been a pleasure, I really enjoyed it, so thanks so much for being on the podcast. Thank you.
Thank you so much for listening. Don't you love KJ? I love her. She says discipline is about teaching. Obviously, I really resonate with that and it's really, this is, this message about chores is coming in from a lot of places and KJ says it so well, so you should definitely check out her book.
[00:52:15] 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 to your children and feeling like you're connecting more. With them and not feeling like you are galling all the time, or you are like, why isn't things working? I would say definitely enjoy 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 great investment in someone's family. I'm very thankful I had this. You can continue in your old habits that aren't working or you can learn some new tools and gain some perspective to shift.
[00:53:18] 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 practice. 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 program. I look forward to seeing you on the inside. MindfulParentingCourse.com
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