S03|02 - Parenting with Emotional Intelligence with Lauren Pace

Lauren is a mom of 3 kids, 6 dogs, a few chickens & 500+ pheasants. She’s a former preschool teacher who’s always working on a big project. Lauren has an MS in Child Development and is working as a behaviour coach to support parents in understanding challenging behaviour.

What we dig into in this episode:

• What emotional intelligence is and why it’s so important
• How we can support our children in building their emotional intelligence skills
• How to hold space for their emotions in the moment and do the “teaching” later

Find Lauren here:

Instagram: @xolaurenpace
Instagram: @parentingbigemotions
Website: www.xolaurenpace.com

Lauren is offering $30 off her course, Parenting with Emotional Intelligence!
Click the link below and use the code: “CRYSTAL30”
Parenting with Emotional Intelligence

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I would be honored to be your coach and help you get the changes you want to see in your life. The tools that I talk about in my podcast and use in my coaching have completely turned around my life and my relationships with my children. I know what it takes and how to make it happen. You can use the links below to get more of my content and to learn what we do in my program By Design. I love helping women tap into their inner expert and build radical connection in their relationships with their children.

Link to membership: By Design
Find me on the ‘gram: The.Parenting.Coach
My website: coachcrystal.ca

 

 

Episode Transcript

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Hey, I'm Crystal, a certified life coach and mom of four. In this podcast, we combine radical connection and positive parenting theories with the How-To Life Coaching Tools and Mindset Work to completely transform our relationship with our children.

Join me on my journey, unleash your inner parenting expert, and become the mother you've always wanted to be. Make sure you subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast and rate this podcast on Apple, and check out my transformative monthly membership for moms in the show notes.

Hi there. This is Season 3, Episode 2, Parenting with Emotional Intelligence with Lauren Pace. 

 

Meet Lauren Pace

Lauren is a mom of 3 kids, 6 dogs, a few chickens, and 500+ pheasants. She’s a former preschool teacher who’s always working on a big project. Lauren has an MS in Child Development and is working as a behavior coach to support parents in understanding challenging behavior.

All right. Hi Lauren. Thanks for coming on our podcast today.

 

Lauren Pace: I'm super excited. This will be so fun.

 

The importance of Social and Emotional Learning

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah, I'm so excited too. I have been following you for years. I've been in your Facebook group for a long time; I just feel like I know you, so I'm so excited to have this conversation today. 

But for other people who may not know who you are, I would love for you to tell us a little bit about you, your background – and specifically, how you got into what you do now, what it is that you do, and kind of your journey there.

 

Lauren Pace: Yeah, so when I was in college, I originally wanted to do Special Education; and so, I got involved with that and was a preschool teacher for kids with autism, for the first couple years of college. 

And in that program – when I was working there – I realized I really love this age, and I really love behavior. But I wasn't necessarily wanting to become a Special Education teacher in schools – so I switched to Child Development, and I became a preschool teacher. 

And I was working for several years and had a really, really, really difficult class one year; and like, it made me cry every single day. I'm like, 'I don't know what to do, I'm failing these kids.' 

And that's when I started to really learn more about behavior, learn more about positive behavior support and some ways to teach, like Social and Emotional Learning, because I feel like a lot of times in schools, we're so focused on the ABCs and the Maths and this--  

And it's just so much more important-- It's absolutely more important for kids to learn social and emotional skills because when they're developmentally ready, they can learn the academic skills. But if they can't even get through a class because they're so upset about a problem, then they're not going to learn anything.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: 100%, and even when they like become adults, like you can have all of the academic skills in the world, but if you don't have Emotional Intelligence; you're not going to have successful relationships, you won't be able to hold a job, you won't connect with people. So, I love that you said that. Yeah.

 

Lauren Pace: Yeah. So, I just realized how important Social and Emotional Learning was, and that's kind of what my focus was. I had my son-- Oh no, I didn't have my son yet. I got pregnant; I was 38 weeks pregnant, started grad school, studied behavior in people's homes – I do it still for the university in their center. 

And just really help families and teachers to work with kids' behaviors in a way that supports them, instead of shames them.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: I love that, 'A way that supports them instead of shames them'. Because I think that as a society, we do that so often that we're just like, 'This isn't okay, like you have to sit still, you have to listen to your teacher, you have to be quiet, you have to stand in line.' 

And even not just in school, but like in so many other settings, that's just what we expect. And when we have those expectations and then our children don't meet those expectations that even if we don't like outright tell them that that's what we think, they totally sense that energy from us; and so, they're going to feel like they're not accepted.

 

Lauren Pace: Absolutely. And like a lot of times, we see that behavior as disrespect when in actuality, these kids don't have the tools that they need to self-regulate their bodies. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yes. 

 

Lauren Pace: So, they might want to be doing it, but they just, they absolutely cannot; they don't have those skills.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah. And it's so hard to remember that in the moment. Like yesterday, my kid was freaking out – I have four of them and this one is eight – and he really struggles with Emotional Intelligence skills and he's like, you know, losing it. 

And even me, who is a Parent Coach and who does all these, you know, training and reads all these books, I was like having such a hard time remembering like, 'Okay, wait, no, he's not trying to do this, he can't do this, he can't not do this right now.' Like, he is just really struggling. 

And so, it's hard for us – in the moment, as parents – to remind ourselves like, this is not being disrespectful, because that's typically what our go-to kind of thought is.

 

Lauren Pace: Absolutely.

 

Lauren Pace's area of expertise

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Okay. I love that. So, what do you do now then? Like, what-- Kind of, what is your area of expertise?

 

Lauren Pace: So, a lot of what I-- Well, okay, so I focus on the age, usually under-five. It applies to under-eight, but my examples are usually under-five because my experience is under-five. 

But in that age, we try to figure out why they're communicating or what they're communicating, what their behavior – like, why they're behaving the way they are, what they're trying to gain from it. 

You know, like for example, if a child is constantly hitting or whatever, 'Are they hitting because they don't have the skills to communicate? Are they hitting because they have a sensory need? Are they hitting because of this, that, whatever?' 

Once we can figure that out, then we can support them with the skills that they need. So, a lot of my focus is on understanding what the behavior's communicating, and then giving them skills and support – especially emotional skills, emotional regulation skills – to get through those big moments.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Oh, that's so good. I love that. So, do you typically do that like one-on-one with parents or are you working like virtually? Do you work in-person? How does that-- How does that work?

 

Lauren Pace: So, I do it in a university setting where I observe and then I meet with a teacher, and we come up with a behavior plan. So, that's how I do it there. I do some online coaching or more coaching. But what I'm kind of moving towards is doing like monthly webinars to get as many people help as possible. 

And then if they want more support from there, go into a more like in-depth course on self-regulation or on – like coming back to calm during tantrum, stuff like that. I'm trying to like focus on specific skills that so many parents need to reach a wider audience and help people just-- I'm actually developing an app right now so that you can just do it on an app, which is really exciting.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Cool. That is so cool. Oh man, I'm definitely going to check that out. So, tell me when that's done. That sounds awesome. Okay. 

 

What is Emotional Intelligence?

Crystal The Parenting Coach: So, for listeners who might not totally know exactly what Emotional Intelligence is – when we talk about how awesome that is and how effective it is and how social and emotional skills are so much better than academic skills, so much better of a focus for us – do you want to just explain to the listeners what really is Emotional Intelligence? What do we mean by that when we talk about it?

 

Intelligent Quotient (IQ) Vs. Emotional Quotient (EQ)

Lauren Pace: Okay, so I'm just going to kind of back it up with something that we understand; so, IQ. IQ is Intelligent Quotient. Okay. And our IQ cannot be changed; we're born with our IQ, that is what it is.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah.

 

Lauren Pace: EQ is Emotional Quotient; and EQ, you actually can change, which is super cool. So, you're not born with an Emotional Intelligence and you're stuck at that level. Whereas IQ, there's some people that are gifted and some people that are just like average; and emotions, we can continue to grow and develop and support. 

So, EQ is the ability-- Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is the ability to identify and manage emotions of yourself and emotions of others.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Right. All right. I love that. I remember in university studying the difference between IQ and EQ, and kind of what helps and what changes and stuff. So, I love-- I love talking about it as well. 

 

How can we accept children's big emotions, and help them with their behaviors?

Crystal The Parenting Coach: So, how can we accept and create a healthy environment for our children's big emotions when they're having those, you know, tantrums or meltdowns - or struggling with behavior like you mentioned, like a kid who's hitting in class over and over again while still helping them with behaviors. 

So, kind of being able to accept these emotions, but then also helping them with behaviors.

 

Lauren Pace: Okay. So, the way that I would recommend doing it and the way that I tried to do it, like you said before, even though we're parent/coaches, we do this, it's not always easy because we have to be in tune with our own triggers and our own emotions. 

But the way that I would recommend is you go to the emotion first, and then with the behavior. So, what's happening when kids are having hard behaviors, tantrums, when they're just emotionally aroused in any sort of way, is that their brain is in fight, flight, or freeze mode. 

So, sometimes they're fighting, sometimes they're running away, sometimes they're just freezing and they're refusing to do what you're saying. And it's actually not them being stubborn or defiant, it's them, their body, their biology shutting down or fighting back because what happens is our brain is told something's wrong, and so then it goes into this mode to protect us. 

And like in ancient societies, that's how people survived. If they saw a bear, they'd go into fight, flight or freeze in their adrenaline again and they'd, you know, overcome this. But now, that's what modern anxiety is; that's what our emotions are. 

They turn on to fight, flight, or freeze mode. And we're in this mode and a lot of times we're like, 'No, we have to pick up your sister right now because this, this, this, and this. But the kid who's going to fight, flight, or freeze is not hearing the reasoning at all because they're in the emotional place in their brain. 

So, if we go to them first with emotion and say, you know, "It is so-- It seems like you're really frustrated right now, and it seems like you're really mad and your body just feels not very good, do you need a hug? How can I help you? Let's do this; let's take a breath, let's calm down." 

And then, once they have had that validation and that moment to feel their emotions, then you address the behavior. So, they're not getting away with what they did, but trying to address it when they're freaking out still is not going to actually help fix anything at all.  

And so, yeah, this definitely can be really difficult, but I mean, I can share a story if you want.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Definitely. I would just want to mention like, because my audience might remember this or not, but I've talked about how when we're in our emotional brain, we're not in our logical brain. 

So, the reason why you're not addressing that behavior then is because no teaching will happen because they're not logical at all. And it also gives us time to kind of calm down and to move back down to our logical zone so that we can have a great conversation about it. But yeah, I'd love to hear a story.

 

Lauren Pace's own experience with Emotional Intelligence as a mom

Lauren Pace: Okay, so this just happened last week – well, two weeks in 4th of July weekend. Okay. So, if this isn't September, this is going to be very different. So, get yourselves into Fourth of July weekend. Okay. So, there's lots of fireworks for staying up late. There's lots of, you know, family. 

You're with people that you're not with so often. There's a lot of just outside stimulation that children aren't used to. So, for me, I love July. July is my favorite month of the year, but it always starts off with a bang, literally, because with kids it's very hard, with young kids--  

Older kids, I'm sure it's a lot more fun. With young kids, it's really hard to do Fourth of July holiday and then still like have fun the next day – because we're staying up so late and you want them to skip fireworks, but they're crying. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah.

 

Lauren Pace: So, we went into the 4th of July weekend and we were playing at the park; and my son and my daughter, they were fighting over this blow-up alligator in the stream. So, they wanted to go up this canal and ride it down up the canal, ride it down. And Mary, my daughter who's three, she wanted to carry the alligator up and my son also wanted to carry the alligator up. 

They were fighting over it and I was like, 'Okay, it's Mary’s turn, Mary’s just going to do it.' So, Mary took the alligator up and then all of a sudden, she's screaming. Okay, so I'm here with my three-month-old baby on my chest. She's screaming in the water and then she's screaming so, like, panicky that she falls into the canal. 

So, I like to give my baby to my friend, run in; and I'm drenched, she's drench, my son's already drenched from riding the alligator. And I get there and I think, 'Oh my goodness, it's just a weed, Siz. It's just a weed. It's okay, come here. Do you need a hug? Look it's just a weed.' 

And I was like thinking she was screaming because there was a weed. No, there was not. She was like, 'Charlie hit me.' And I was like, What? My son had thrown a rock from down the canal because he was mad about this alligator, and hit her in the head. 

And so, once I finally, I see blood dripping from her head and I was like, 'Oh, oh great.' So, she's like my most accident-prone child – she's three years old – has already had two broken arms, stitches, and then I find the injury and I was like, 'Well, we got to go to InstaCare because it's cut bad enough that she's going to need something.' 

Anyways, so I grab my daughter and I say, "Hey Charlie, go get in the car." And in this moment, with Charlie, the one who hit her in the rock with the intention of, you know, his anger, releasing his anger – like, that's not appropriate, right? 

Obviously, it's not appropriate that he did that. At the same time, I am like developing a course right now on regular emotions and setting boundaries while still accepting feelings and I'm trying to like think of all the steps in my head because I'm like, 'Holy crap, I'm going to lose it on my kid.' 

 

How to hold space for our kids' emotions in the moment, and do the “teaching” later

And so, I was walking back to my car and was regulating myself. So, in that moment I was like, 'Calm down, Lauren. Mary’s not dying. Charlie did something, and he's already feeling guilty about it. Like, calm up.' 

So, then when we got to the InstaCare, he wouldn't even get out of the car because he was so embarrassed that he did that thing. At this point, I didn't take away screens, I didn't, you know, all the like punishments you think of like, ‘You're grounded for a week' or whatever, it's like hard when they're four. 

But anyways, I was just like, 'Charlie, I know that you weren't trying to make sissy bleed, and I know that it doesn't feel good inside.' I'm like, 'How's your body feeling right now?' He's like, 'Not good.' 

And I was like, 'It really doesn't feel good when we hurt people.' And I connected with that emotion first. And then once he was calm, once he was in the doctor, once we had taken probably 45 minutes since the incident happened, then I brought up, 'Okay, well, we never throw rocks.' 

And I set that boundary and I, you know, made that behavior very clear. So, it wasn't me ignoring that he had done that, it was me making sure he was in the state to hear that I was setting the boundary. And he already knew at that point that he was never going to throw rock again because he saw what could happen.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah.

 

Lauren Pace: Anyway.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: So, the learning had already happened, right? 

 

Lauren Pace: Yes.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Like, he'd already-- He'd figured that out. But if you had interjected in the very beginning when you were like beside the stream and he's still feeling super angry; for one, you're super emotional, he's super emotional – there's probably a lot of yelling that's going to ensue. 

He's going to, you know, feel a lot of anger, then he's going to feel a lot of shame; and he might have actually missed the learning opportunity because of such intense emotions that were happening, and it would've just disconnected your relationship there. 

So, I love that you were able to regulate yourself, help him to regulate, help him to learn overtime, but most importantly you, you know, managed that relationship the whole time. Like he never once felt, felt like, you know, 'My mom doesn't love me anymore or I'm not accepted, or whatever.' Right? He was able to keep that relationship the whole time.

 

Lauren Pace: Yeah. And I think too, like in the moment if I was trying to deal with his behavior, because a lot of times you’re like, 'Well, he just did that, I need to deal with it right now, immediately,' then I probably, it would've turned to him being mad at me – whereas I wanted him to kind of just feel the consequence of his own choices. 

You know, like sometimes we try to come in with our own consequence, but then natural consequence that they're feeling is enough of a teaching moment for them to be like, 'Okay, I really don't want to feel this way again.' 

But if he's like mad at me because I  took away his video games, which we don't even do with his, but if he is mad at me because I took away his video games or something like that, then it defeats the whole purpose of him feeling that guilt and that embarrassment and all those things – and having his emotions teach him about his actions and his choices.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah. The learning happens so naturally, and we think it doesn't. I always see these comments of people using "natural consequences", and I'm like, 'No, natural means it has to happen without you, you don't go in there and do something.' 

And they're like, 'Well, this is natural', or 'That's natural'. But I love how you explain that. Like natural consequence there was like, he naturally felt the emotion, the guilt from what he had done. 

He saw the blood, he saw the pain that she had to go through, he saw that you guys had to rush to InstaCare. Like all of that happened already, and the learning had already happened. 

And so, and then you set that boundary of like, 'Okay, we don't throw rocks,' which he probably already knew by that time, but you verbalized that to him; and so, you're able to maintain attachment and maintain connection the whole time, and the natural learning still happens. 

We often think we have to like do all these things, right, interject in all of these ways when the learning just happens. So, I love that. Thank you for that story. Okay. 

 

Tips on how to manage emotions

Crystal The Parenting Coach: So, next question is, what are some ways that you feel like, or I guess tips that you would give us, some action tips that you would give our listeners because they're probably sitting and thinking, you know, 'This is great to do but I can't do that, right? In that situation I would've just lost it. I can't--'  

You know, maybe they have a hard time managing their own emotions or managing their children's emotions. From what you've seen and what kind of tips you give to teachers and parents, could you give us one or two kind of action tips that we could use?

 

Lauren Pace: Okay, so I think the very first thing is a mindset change. So, have you heard around, you know, Instagram and just in books, holding space for emotion? So, holding space for emotion means you're making room for those emotions to happen. 

It's creating composure within yourself to accept that big emotions are going to happen; and it's waking up in the morning and not thinking, 'Oh, it's going to be a perfect day if my son does this, then it's going to ruin it.' 

It's thinking, 'Oh, this day's going to happen as it's supposed to, and sometimes big emotions are going to come up and I'm going to be there for them.' So, I think the very first step is to gain that understanding and that mindset within ourselves that behaviors, hard, difficult behaviors are going to happen every single day; it means nothing against who we are as parents. 

I saw this quote the other day and I loved it; it says, "The sign of good parenting is not child behavior, the sign of great parenting is parent behavior." So, our kids are going to behave in so many different ways all throughout the day; and it's our job to show up and help them and be there, and hold that space for their emotions more than anything else ever. 

So, then, like I said before, then go to the emotion, connect with the emotional brain, and then address the behavior. So, those are the three things that I would say.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: I love that. So, if parents are struggling with that, because I, I think that those tips are super, super helpful just like, you know, releasing the expectation of their behavior. Like noticing like even when you wake up in the morning, 'Okay, this is probably going to happen.' 

 

Advice for moms that struggle to deal with their kids' behavior on a regular basis

Crystal The Parenting Coach: And if a mom is really struggling with dealing with that kind of behavior on a regular basis, what do you suggest? What's kind of an action tip that you would, that you would give them?

 

Lauren Pace: What I would say, is give yourself, first of all, grace, but then, also, time. So, whether that is trading with a friend where they have time with your kids, you have time with their kids; or getting a babysitter or you know, getting some sort of self-care for you because if you're showing up all the time for your kids and never showing up for yourself, you're going to get burnt out. 

It's going to be very difficult to hold this space. And so, a lot of times, we think that we're not being a good parent if we're passing them off to a babysitter, but making that time for you is so important for Emotional Intelligence.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah, because if you're feeling good and like calm and relaxed, there's a lot better of a chance of you dealing with it like you did in that hard situation where you were like, 'Okay, what do I do now?' 

I often think to myself, this a similar situation happened to me recently and I was thinking to myself, 'What would I tell a client right now?' Like, my mind's going crazy and I'm like, 'Hey wait, what would I have be--' I even thought of a specific client that I've worked with, I'm like, 'What would I be telling this couple?' 

And I was like, 'I would just tell them to like leave it be, not say anything about this right now.' And I went and started like washing dishes; and as I was washing the dishes, I was just breathing. I was like, 'Breathe in, breathe out,' like focused on my breath; and I was able to calm myself down, go help the child that was, you know, sad about it. 

And then the child that was kind of being the aggressor or whatever, it gave him that time to calm down; and he came back and apologized to me and apologized to her, and the whole situation turned out so good. 

But if I had interjected when I was feeling really emotional and not taken that time for myself to calm down, it definitely would've not turned out in that way; and there has been times in the past where I have not done that. 

And so, it's so important, though, for us to feel like nourished and taken care of so that we can do that, because it's hard. It's hard when kids are like screaming and yelling and throwing, and there's, you know, blood or there's fighting or whatever. 

And it's hard being a mom of a toddler or several toddlers and maybe you don't get enough sleep and maybe you don't feel like you have time to take care of yourself. So yeah, I totally-- I love-- I love your tips there. Is there anything left that you want to, any knowledge left you want to impart with us before you go?

 

Lauren Pace: Just, people have been sharing their experience with me about, you know, tantrums and using these skills instead of punishment and trying really hard to accept the emotions. I've just been seeing that when we value the relationship over compliance, it leads to cooperation; we get what we want, and we still have such a good relationship with our kids. So, that's all that--

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yes, yes, 100%. I always say relationship over behavior modification. And when that's always our focus and that's always our goal – even though we don't always do it right every time – it's just so much better for everyone involved. So, I love that. 

Before you leave, I would love for you to tell us a little bit about how our listeners can connect with you; I'll make sure that we have it in the show notes as well below. But if you want to just tell us a little bit about how people can connect with you, how they can work with you, all of those things.

 

Lauren Pace: Okay. So my Instagram is XO Lauren Pace; and I also have an Instagram with two other colleagues, and it's called Parenting Big Emotions. So, on both of those pages, I talk about behavior, I talk about emotions. But on the Parenting Big Emotions page, we have a Parenting with Emotional Intelligence course which is really, really awesome. And if you want, I can give you a coupon for $30 off for your listeners.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah.

 

Lauren Pace: You can use that if you want. Anyways, you can find me just on Instagram, and that will lead to anything else. If you do not have Instagram, just go to xolaurenpace.com.

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Awesome, xolaurenpace.com. Okay. So, we will have all of that linked below. And thank you for coming on today and sharing all this with us, I think it was great.

 

Lauren Pace: For sure. Thank you.

Crystal The Parenting Coach: I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Make sure that you give it Five Stars on Apple, and check out my monthly membership for moms in the show notes.