The freedom moms podcast, coaching with crystal noelle

S03|12.5 - Bonus Episode with Crystal, The Parenting Coach

Nov 15, 2021

 

Are you struggling to implement these concepts and parenting philosophies? Changing our relationship with US, boosting compassion for US and others, setting boundaries, keeping our cool when our kids lose theirs etc. All these struggles have ONE thing in common: Think > Feel > Do. If we want to change our parenting, it all starts with our THOUGHTS.

Implementation of what we’re learning is KEY, it makes THE biggest difference when were on the path to change. Join me in a FREE workshop this month, “Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Parenting”.

Dates:
Part 1- November 23rd, 2 pm MST
Part 2- November 24th, 2 pm MST
Open coaching call/Q+A- November 29th, 8 pm MST

Click here to register: Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Parenting

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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 my program: By Design
Find me on the ‘gram: The.Parenting.Coach
My website: coachcrystal.ca
Work with me 1:1 HERE

 

 

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. 

 

Hey, I wanted to bring you a special bonus mini episode because I know you've been really enjoying all of these amazing interviews, and I'm so grateful that I've been able to interview so many great people that have brought so much knowledge to us on this podcast. But I miss just chatting with you. 

 

How to handle your child’s emotions without losing patience

And this is what has come up recently mostly on Instagram, but also with some of my clients; and I just wanted to address it because it seems to be a really common theme. So, whenever I ask, I always ask questions on my Instagram in a little like sticker box so people can let me know what their struggles are. 

And probably the most common struggle that I see is people saying that they lose patience with their kids or they lose control with their kids, they lose their temper, or they're not quite sure how to handle their children's emotions. 

So, their children will have, you know, some big explosion or some big tantrum and they're like, 'I don't know what to do here, I just can't handle this.' 

So, this is one of the things that I see most often. Now, typically, when people come, they believe one of two things. Either, (1), they think that it's their fault and they're doing a terrible job, or they think it's their children's fault and they need somebody just to come fix their children. 

Well, the truth is, it's not our children's problem. We often think, 'Okay, our kids are the problem, we need somebody to fix our kids.' Well, the good news is your kids aren't the problem, but the bad news is also that your kids aren't the problem. 

And so, when we can look inward and when we can start that healing process – and not in a shaming or critical way, not thinking, 'Oh, we're doing a terrible job and we're ruining our kids,' because that is really just going to put us in more of a shame in a more of a spiral cycle. 

But just acknowledging like, 'Okay, this is where I'm at – this is the kind of parenting that I do, this is the kind of mom that I am.' 

And also, really believing like, 'This is my best right now – with all of the tools that I have, with how I was parented, with what culture has told me about parenting, this is where I am and that's okay.' It's okay to be exactly where you are. 

I wanted to talk a little bit about this, losing patience with our kids, because this is what happens regularly. 

 

The concept of mirroring emotions

You've probably heard on my podcast before me talk about mirroring emotions

What happens is when somebody has a really strong emotion, say, your child is feeling really strong anger and you come into that situation, and you maybe felt before peace or calm or content, but they felt that really strong anger, our brain wants to match that emotion; it wants to mirror it. 

So, it's pretty easy for us to almost instantly go to that same emotion as well. The problem with this is that co-regulation or healthy co-regulation can't happen during this time. 

Co-regulation happens when an adult is calm and able to help that child through, and has a good connection of relationship with that child as that child is managing this emotion. 

Now, it doesn't mean you're saying things like, "Feel better – It's okay, you shouldn't be sad." You know, we're actually just maintaining our own feeling of inner peace. 

And through that, they feel that that container that you're holding them in is a safe space for them to be able to flip out, and lose their temper, and be angry. And they can then have the time and the space to regulate that emotion, to release that frustration because emotions always have a purpose. 

There's always a reason behind them, and they also need to be released. Often, it's the resistance of that emotion that ends up taking so long; they're just so resistant or we’re so resistant to that feeling.

 

My own experience with a difficult child, and how I learned to keep my calm

So, our goal is to help us maintain our own inner peace so that in that moment we don't lose it on our kids and just exacerbate the problem that's already there, but we're able to hold that calm presence of mind. 

Now, you're probably thinking, 'That sounds really lovely, but that's also impossible.' I remember reading all of these parenting books and thinking, 'I don't actually know how to do this. Like, why can't one of these experts just come into my house and live with me for a little while and tell me exactly what to do and say?' 

And that's because I didn't feel like I had the answer; I just didn't feel like the answer was out there. Even though I wanted to parent this way, I couldn't figure out how. 

You can hear more of my story in Season 1, Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 4. And I'd highly encourage you to go and take a listen where I talk about it in more detail. 

But basically, what I didn't realize was I kept focusing on my kid's behavior. I felt like he was the problem. It was his outbursts; it was his emotional meltdowns that were the problem. 

It was his actions and reactions that were the issue, and that we needed to find somebody to fix him. In fact, when I hired a psychotherapist to come and help us and she said like, "I work with the parents," because she was doing the same thing that I'm doing, attachment-based parenting. 

And I said, "But how are you going to fix him if you only talk to me?” She kind of chucked and was like, "No, no, it's fine." Like, you know, "Well, we're just going to chat, we're going to figure this out." 

And I just kept not understanding how that would work. Like, 'How are you going to fix my child if all you do is come and talk to me?' 

But the more that I understood and the more that I read and the more that I started shifting my own mindset, I realized that when I would enter that situation with anger and frustration – and he already had such a huge amount of anger and frustration, and my brain would immediately go that there – then I would just exacerbate it so much, and I wouldn't allow him that safe space to release the frustration that he had. 

And throughout time, it took a while of us figuring this out and kind of healing our relationship and really me doing my own inner healing that I was able to respond to him in a totally different way; and it changed things dramatically. 

I have said this on the podcast before, but his meltdowns are about 80 to 90% less severe – maybe even more so now, and also so much less frequent. Like they rarely ever happen, at least to the degree that we used to see. So, it's been a huge, huge shift in change for us.

 

Parenting tips for neurodivergent kids

And I don't know if you're listening to this and maybe you have kids that are neurodivergent – (ADHD or ASD, or maybe they're just difficult and you're not really quite sure what behaviors going on there) – but typical parenting does not work for those children. 

Typical parenting where you just, you know, have these rules and consequences and rewards and punishments and yelling – and it's really coercion – really, doesn't help in that situation. 

It just continuously breaks down that relationship. And also, over time, they're really not going to keep listening to you and keep doing what you want and doing what you say. 

 

How to parent neurodivergent kids

So, this is really the only way to do it, is to change the kind of parenting that we parent – the way that we parent, I should say. So, it all kind of boils down to this one basic concept, and it's called Think, Feel, Do

So, our thoughts create our emotions; they create how we feel inside. Emotions are like the fuel in our car. So, if we're putting a certain emotion as the fuel in our car, that's going to take us down a certain path. 

So, the way that we think creates how we feel, and then that fuels what we do – how we show up in the world. 

So, if we would like to change this, if we want to change the way that we react and interact with our children – especially when they're having these big emotions and these difficulties – we have to first look inwards at, what are we thinking and what are we feeling and how are we showing up in that space?

 

Welcome to my workshop

So, due to this, I'm going to be having an amazing workshop. If you have been enjoying my podcast and loving these interviews and loving my content on Instagram and all the other places, I would love for you to come to this workshop because implementation really is key. 

I spent years reading books and I even went to courses and listened to things, but I could never figure out how to actually implement this in my life. 

I believe that life coaching tools are the How-To, that the most effective way to raise emotionally intelligent children is to become an emotionally intelligent adult ourselves; and the way to do that is through life coaching tools, through mindset work, through emotional work, through our own inner healing process and journey. 

And I would love to help take you on that journey. So, join me and my workshop, "Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Parenting", on November 23rd and 24th with an open coaching call on November 29th. 

A recording will be available, if you can't come at that time, to anyone who registers. There will be a link to the registration in the show notes, and I hope you join me.

Also, if you don't already follow me on Instagram, go find me @the.parenting.coach. In my Instagram stories, I often ask questions about; what are you struggling with, and how can I help and support you this week? 

And then, I'll do live Q&As on Instagram where I answer those questions. So, make sure you go and find me over there as well. And I hope you enjoyed the today's episode.

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.

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