S08|18 - Real Talk: A Dad's Journey Through Parenting Challenges

 

One of my favourite episodes by far, is this honest and tender-hearted conversation that I have with my husband on the podcast. We open up about the tough moments of parenting, managing neurodiverse challenges, and our own personal change and growth over the years. Meet JD Haitsma, my hubby (who is very much NOT a parenting coach). 

In this conversation, we get into: 

• JD’s perspective on parenting years ago when I first learned about connection and attachment. 
• The difference between living from the belief “Why wouldn’t this happen to me?” versus “This shouldn’t be happening to me”. 
• Modifying behaviour (like is so often done with animals) vs helping our children to BECOME.
• What changes have happened as we’ve parented differently, and what to do if those around you disagree with you.
• How children are natural learners and are innately good… and why this belief creates changes. 

Connect with JD through his website.
Website: https://www.thecoachsupport.com
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Crystal The Parenting Coach: Hi, I'm Crystal The Parenting Coach. Parenting is the thing that some of us just expected to know how to do. It's not like other areas of your life where you go to school and get taught, get on the job training, or have mentors to help you, but now you can get that help here.

I believe that your relationship with your children is one of the most important aspects of your life, and the best way that you can make a positive impact on the world and on the future. I've made parental relationships my life study; and I use life coaching tools, emotional wellness tools, and connection-based parenting to build amazing relationships between parents and their children.

If you want an even better relationship with your child, this podcast will help you. Take my Parenting Quiz, the link is in the show notes. Once we know what your parenting style is, we will send some tips tailored to you and a roadmap to help you get the most out of my podcast.

 

Real Talk: A Dad's Journey Through Parenting Challenges. 

This is one of my favorite episodes, by far; it's an honest and tender-hearted conversation that I have with my own husband on the podcast. We open up about the tough moments of parenting, managing neurodiverse challenges, and our own personal change and growth over the years. 

Meet JD Haitsma, my hubby, who is very much not a Parenting Coach. 

In this conversation, you'll hear his perspective on parenting years ago when I first learned about connection and attachment and kind of his own opinion about it. And also, the difference between living from the belief "Why wouldn't this happen to me?", versus "This shouldn't be happening to me", and what a huge difference that makes in life. 

We talk all about modifying behavior like is so often done with animals like monkeys and dogs, versus helping our children to become something. 

What changes have happened as we parented differently? And what to do if those around you disagree with your parenting styles or parenting opinions. 

How children are natural learners and are innately good, and why this belief creates changes in parenting. 

 

Hello, all you lovely listeners, and welcome to today's podcast episode. I'm really excited for this one. And if you're a dad or if you have a dad in your life, this one is going to be so good for you…so, make sure that you share it with them. 

And if you have been enjoying these podcast interviews and episodes, I would love for you to share, like, subscribe, do all the things, send it to a friend because all of that just really helps get this word out there…gets this type of parenting style more common, and we'll just help the world a little bit at a time. 

So, I'm excited for this episode today because I've been trying to get this person on the podcast for a long time – years, in fact. I just went on to Apple Podcasts this morning and was like, I wonder how many episodes I've done. And up until this point, I think I've done over 150; and have been doing it for over three years, which is wild – I didn't even remember that, had it been that long. And I guess I'll just surprise you with-- I'll just let this person introduce themselves.

 

What JD Haitsma does

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Go ahead, introduce yourself.

 

JD Haitsma: Okay. Hello, my name's JD and I'm Crystal's husband.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Usually when it takes me a while to get somebody on the podcast, it's like a famous author or something, something really amazing. 

 

JD Haitsma: I'm famous.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: You are famous.

 

JD Haitsma: I'm amazing also.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: But I have wanted to have him on the podcast for a long time because I think it's more common to hear from moms in this space…to coach moms in this space, to talk to moms about connection-based parenting. It's not as common for there to be information for the dads to the dads. 

I actually do work with quite a few dads and quite a few couples, and talk to dads about it often. But I think that it's really cool to hear the dad perspective on connection-based parenting. And I think that this is going to be an awesome episode to hear JD's journey through this whole process of our changing our parenting, and then also just parenting now. 

So, why don't you just maybe introduce yourself a little bit, whatever you feel like you want to say about you.

 

JD Haitsma: I thought I just did that. So, I'm JD and I'm Crystal's husband. I've got kids. What do you want me to say?

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Okay, well, I'll introduce him for him. So, he also works from home with me. He works with a platform called Kajabi; he does websites and tech stuff for coaches. And so, we just finished traveling the world for the year, and that was available to us because we both work online. Up until that, he was more in the business type world of things. Has a degree in Economics and Finance, and then a Master's in Business. 

And I think probably has a little bit more of a structured or linear type brain, whatever brain it is that I don't have; we're very different when it comes to that. So, I think this will be interesting also for those of you that maybe feel a little bit more like that, a little bit more linear in your thinking.

 

JD Haitsma: Great job, babe. That was a good introduction.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: That was a good introduction. It's almost like I haven't done this for a while, like 150 times or more. Okay. So, thank you for being here. Thank you for being willing to come on. And I think that this is going to be really powerful for the dads out there. 

 

JD Haitsma's perspective on parenting years ago when I first learned about connection and attachment

Crystal The Parenting Coach: So, if you could go back years and years ago – back to the very, very beginnings of when we were first parents, which we didn't really plan on…it was kind of accidental, but it was lovely – and I want you just to tell me, kind of, in the first several years of parenting, what parenting was like before we found out about connection, attachment, all of this parenting stuff?

 

JD Haitsma: Well, I felt at that time that my job as a parent was to teach our son everything that I could so that he would be able to be as smart and capable as possible, and that people would like him so that he would know how to act around people. 

I also felt like my job was to protect him and provide for him; and also, I guess to make sure that he didn't do awful things that bothered people or disrupted society. So, I kind of feel like that's what my job as a parent was, to do all those things. And what parenting was like was mostly just like a never-ending job of always having to do stuff that I didn't get to decide.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah. I think that I don't ever remember having a lot of conversations when we became parents about what kind of parents we wanted to be or how we wanted to parent or what our values were. 

And like even what you just mentioned and like, that's kind of what you felt like your role was, I don't think we really ever verbalized any of that. Like, none of this was very intentional. We got pregnant shortly after we got married. 

 

JD Haitsma: Yeah. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: And I was in university, so it wasn't really like planned either – so it, kind of, just sprung up on us.

 

JD Haitsma: Yeah. I just felt-- We didn't talk about any of those things; they just are the things that I felt like I should do and what parenting was about. I saw being a parent as an opportunity to make the world a better place by producing a human that was better than me.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah. That's interesting. Looking back on those days when, like what you said, you're just constantly doing stuff that's out of your control, right? Especially our first few years, we had a baby that was colicky; and he moved from being colicky to being like the most wild toddler ever – just really busy running. 

I remember one morning, I had slept in; I don't even remember if you were home or if you were at school, and I got out and he had taken the yogurt from the fridge and just spread it all over the house – like he was trying to eat, but then he just also--  

Like he'd got in a chair, pushed it up to a fridge, like grabbed this giant thing of yogurt and just put it everywhere. And he wrapped Saran wrap everywhere. Like, there were so many times where life was just very chaotic, and it was just a lot of us like dealing with feeding and sleeping and tantrums and all of that; and it was a lot more like, I guess physically demanding. 

I don't know if you remember, but at some point-- I don't even remember how old our kids were; I don't know if it was when Asher was in kindergarten or not. But at some point, my parents had come to us – I don't know if it was just to me or if it was to both of us – and kind of said like, "We didn't love the way that we parented, and we have learned a new way and we would love to share it with you." And gave me that book, Hold on to Your Kids by Dr. Gordon Neufeld. 

Do you remember that at all?

 

JD Haitsma: I remember when that happened. Yeah.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah. So, from your perspective, at that time, did anything change? Do you remember changing, like, what you felt about parenting? You hadn't read the book; I read the book, but I kind of shared a few clips with you.

 

JD Haitsma: No, no. I remember your parents said that; and you read the book and you liked it, and you're like, "We should start doing stuff like this." 

And I was like, "Sure, fine."

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: I was like, "Sure, fine."

 

JD Haitsma: Yeah. I don't-- I don't remember thinking really much about it.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah. And I did think a lot about it, but I feel like back then I had no idea how to implement any of the-- It was more like a parenting philosophy, kind of, that they taught. 

And I was like, 'Yes, I love this. I love that it's focused on a secure attachment. I love this idea of relationships mattering most.' 

But I honestly don't think it really changed our parenting at all. I don't-- I don't remember any shifts at that time.

 

JD Haitsma: Yeah. I don't-- I don't think there were any shifts. I remember the only thing that it really changed was like, you started feeling bad more about things, I think, because you're like, 'Oh, it's not supposed to be like this.'

 

What changes have happened as we’ve parented differently, and what to do if those around you disagree with you

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yes. Okay. Yeah. I think that is very on point. I think that I then had this higher ideal or standard of parenting that I hadn't had before. So, there was things that I like felt bad about when our kids were little, and I knew I didn't want to just be yelling at them or whatever. But I definitely felt like I had a much higher vision of what I wanted parenting to be, which meant that then I was like much farther away from that vision. 

So, I definitely felt a lot be worse about myself and parenting, which is interesting because you read parenting books to try to support you – and that is a beautiful parenting book – but I really did feel like I had no idea how to do what they were talking about.

When did you start to notice any changes in parenting? Like, at what point in our parenting story did you see anything change or shift?

 

JD Haitsma: I'm not sure. What do you mean change and shift?

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: So, within how we actually did parent, so we'd read about this style--  

 

JD Haitsma: No. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: -weren't really doing it that way, at what point did you notice how we responded to the children start to change – either me or you, or both of us?

 

JD Haitsma: The only things that really come to mind are when like big incidents would happen. But in order for those big incidents to have gone the way that they did, we would've had to have start before that because it's not something that just changes instantly when you decide to start doing something or to start parenting differently. But, I don't know-- I mean, it's been many years; I can't really put my finger on the year that we started actually--  

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: It started shaking.

 

JD Haitsma: -having different behaviors in ourselves.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: I remember, only because I remember working so hard at it on my end; I will put a little addendum here that JD is much more naturally patient and levelheaded and – I don't know – grounded, I guess, than I have been. 

I've been a lot more up-and-down with my emotions; I think there's lots of reasons to that – I think personality is one of them, but I think that that made a difference because I think it took a lot more for you to get dysregulated than it did for me. And maybe you don't remember this. Yeah.

 

JD Haitsma: My personality made it a lot easier to accept and adopt this parenting style when you started talking about it because about, I do remember when you read the Neufeld book and other books…and you started saying-- and you're like, "Alright, this is the philosophy." 

I remember thinking to myself, 'Well, that makes a lot of sense, why wouldn't that-- That seems like a great way to do it.'

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah. And I think that--

 

JD Haitsma: It wasn't something that I resisted.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah, you definitely did not resist it at all. And I think part of that is how your own parenting was a little bit different, and I think your parents were a little bit more that way. And so, for whatever reason, I definitely think there wasn't a lot of resistance of like, 'This doesn't make sense at all and we shouldn't do it like that.' That wasn't where it went. 

I think it was harder for me to adopt to actually do those strategies. And I remember when we were living on the other side of Canada – and for me that was my own parenting rock-bottom where I felt like things were really awful – JD was not around for that because he was commuting like sometimes an hour-and-a-half each way every day, and usually gone for like 12 or 14 hours a day – so, almost every day of the week.

So, he was not really around for that part of like, the heaviness, which is also probably why it was a lot harder. But I do remember talking to you about these hours' long meltdowns that we were having during the day and that I didn't know how to respond to them. And I remember you specifically saying something like, "Well, don't say anything, just don't do anything. Like, it would probably be better if you just walked away." 

And I remember being like, 'No, but I have to like tell them that what they're doing is not okay, and I need to teach them…and like, this is not okay behavior.' And I was really like pushing in on it. And I think you already kind of saw like, 'It's not helpful…what you're doing is not helpful, you should probably just chill out.'

 

JD Haitsma: Yeah. I remember being at school and having you call me, and tell me how terrible it was and say I have to like stop what I'm doing and come home right now because somebody's going to die if I don't. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah. 

 

JD Haitsma: I remember thinking like, 'Just leave him alone, just let him be.' 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah.

 

JD Haitsma: But those were definitely-- I think that was the turning point because that's probably when it got or became the most intensely difficult.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah. And looking back, I think it makes sense why it was intensely difficult because I don't think I realized how difficult a move across the country leaving all of your family and friends would be on our kids – and especially when they were little and they probably couldn't verbalize that – but I think it probably was harder on them than we thought.

 

JD Haitsma: Yeah.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: So, at that time when I was kind of like calling you in distress and like, 'This is not going well.' 

And I remember you constantly saying like, "Just leave him alone, just chill out." 

Eventually I was able to start doing that, little bit by little bit; and I noticed a big change within that year. So, that would've been like 2017 to 2018; that's when I started to notice, over time, that his-- especially this one neurodiverse child we were dealing with at that time, which there's been a lot more since then, but his behavior had gotten so much better over that year. 

And I remember thinking, all I did in those first several months literally was just like, walk away. Like, do what you said, like' just walk away, pause, chill out, not respond – just kind of let him be. 

And in the moments, I would also think like, 'Well, how can I make this a space safe?' So, I would try to make it as safe as possible before I did that. But I really didn't say or do anything, I just kind of left it. 

And I was really shocked looking back over the course of the year on how their behavior had changed so much during that time because I just didn't think that it was going to-- I didn't think that that your way of doing it was really going to do anything. But it really did because I didn't realize that how my emotions were just agitating the problem in those moments when they were feeling strong emotions.

 

JD Haitsma: Yeah. Walking away from contention always makes it better; that's just something I always knew.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah. Or like, instead of me-- Even the beginning years of our marriage, I came from a much more tumultuous household, I think, than my husband did. He had one sibling and his parents; and our home was just always loud, always busy, and often quite dysregulated. 

And so, I think that when we first got married, I was a lot more like fighty and JD would be a lot more like, why are we fighting about this? Like, why can't we just talk about it? Or like, let's talk about it later when we're feeling better. Like just a little bit more chill about life. And that really started to shift things for me in the beginning of our marriage, even before we were dealing with parenting.

 

When JD Haitsma started to notice changes during parenting

Crystal The Parenting Coach: So, fast-forward, fast-forward, when did you start to see changes with the kids? When did you start to notice that things were changing for them or within parenting? Like from your perspective, what was-- what was happening over those years?

 

JD Haitsma: Well, something that I was very instructive but also difficult to deal with when we were in Quebec and dealing with-- and our child was having those experiences was, oftentimes, I would come home and that our child would be in their bedroom – and maybe they'd be still crying or maybe they'd have stopped – but he'd just be so sad, and he'd be so happy to see me and he'd feel so bad about the things that he did and was just so relieved to have me there because I just wasn't a part of any of the things that that went on. 

I remember that, on a different note, that was kind of a difficult thing because you always felt like you were the bad guy and I wasn't. But the only reason that – and we talked about this – but the only reason that he felt that way towards me is because I wasn't the one that was there during the day--

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Mm-Hmm.

 

JD Haitsma: -to cause all of the troubles that happened. If I was there and you were gone, then you would've been the one that he wanted when you came home. But those things helped me to see that these experiences that he was having was just a reaction to the experiences that he was having during the day…and how he dealt with the frustrations and disappointments, difficulties that he was facing. 

And it wasn't like, because he was a monster or because he hated anybody or because--  

 

JD Haitsma: He was trying to do it on purpose. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: He was trying to do it. It was just he was going through really difficult things that brought out the worst in him. And it's really easy to understand just because I've experienced it myself, that when you're going through difficult things, that's when it's easy to let the worst part of you out, and to show.

And as I've matured through the years, it's been easier for me to control that part of me. And in children, I just think it's unreasonable to expect that they can control those things because of how difficult it's – but also like, it takes time to learn how to do that. 

And so, as we started doing things to try and make it easier for him to just exist in the moment while he was dealing with those emotions and stresses…and just allow him the space to-- I guess what he was doing was like processing them or whatever, in those moments. 

The less we interfered with that, the quicker he was able to go through it. And also, as he grew up and matured and learned…he also developed-- he became better at dealing with that. But it became pretty apparent that the less we interfered with his process of going through those experiences, the faster they were able to be resolved.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: I want to point out a couple things. In those moments, like if you're listening to this podcast and you don't have a neurodiverse child, you might not have experienced something like this, but a neurodiverse meltdown can be very, very intense emotions in pretty extreme ways, and sometimes violent, and several hours. 

And so, and it was every single time, at least in our home, immediately followed by this really intense low and this really intense sadness and shame for what they had done. And you might not be privy to that; with your kids, you might not see that that's happening – but I think it's such a sweet example here. It's because he wasn't in the intense emotions that he was able to come home and see that. 

And as I paused and walked away and, kind of, left this child alone, then I would come back later and kind of discuss things with them…I was also able to see that part – to see how sad they were, to see how terrible they felt about themselves and the behavior that had happened because they didn't really feel like they were in control in that moment. 

And to see that it never was something that they were choosing; they weren't ever choosing to be jerks, they were never choosing to be mean, they were never choosing to be rude or violent or whatever was happening; that it really was just this inability to regulate. 

And in those moments, like JD said, we used to just kind of pause and walk away; and that's kind of all we did until we would reconnect afterwards. 

But over time, I feel like as I learned a little bit more regulation myself, I was able to do a little bit more. Like sometimes I would stay there with them or sometimes I-- And this is for their kids as well, but-- Or say something like, "I'm here, I'll be right outside when you need me."

But also respecting their wishes, because a lot of times they really did just want to be alone. 

And like JD, I just noticed, over time, their ability to regulate would get so much better. And I remember over the course of that next few years, that the meltdowns would get so much less, so much less, so much less; and it would get a lot better. 

But there definitely was still times where, once or twice a year, there would be some kind of big extreme blow up. And we would try to do the same thing that we had done before; let's just see how we can kind of manage our own emotions, kind of step away…let them process in the way that they need to, and we'll reconnect and talk about it later.

 

Things JD Haitsma has noticed since changing the parenting strategy

Crystal The Parenting Coach: What else do you want to say about that? Since then, like, that's been a long time and we've done a lot more changes in our parenting since even then.

What kinds of things have you noticed in either our kids or ourselves when it comes to parenting?

 

JD Haitsma: Well, I'm amazed at just how our things have come and how well our children are able to behave. So, I think that's awesome. And I'm really grateful for that. There's always a little bit of hesitation when you commit to a certain philosophy of things, and you're hoping that it's going to work out--  

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah.

 

JD Haitsma: -or wonder if-- wonder what's this actually going to going to be like. And for us, it's really worked out very well. So, I'm happy with that, for sure. And I think that it's always been just a battle-- not a battle, but an intentional process within myself to just try to recognize that kids are kids; and to me, that means that they're going to do things that adults don't like.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Mm-Hmm.

 

JD Haitsma: And also, to me, it means that it should be okay; it's fine. And the difficulty at times is just, to not get angry about actions or results of actions. Sometimes sucky things happen, that's fine. 

And a lot of times, when I start to feel anger about a moment come up…I try to recognize it and then just acknowledge that it's not needed. And I think if you can just stop being angry about things, that that alone will make a big difference in your kids' behavior.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah. And I think that sometimes we don't really have control over whether or not we're going to feel angry about something. But if we can just pause in that moment and go do something else instead of reacting to the anger, that can be really helpful.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: And also, if you're listening to this episode and you're like, 'Okay, well how do I just stop being angry?', just type in angry or rage on my podcast page, on the blog…and we have several episodes specifically digging into why that made you angry, why that's a trigger for you, how to move through that, and several processes to do that because it's much easier said than done. 

Like, 'Oh, well, we just won't be angry.' Okay, well, how do we do that? 

But we answered that in some other episodes.

 

The difference between living from the belief "Why wouldn’t this happen to me?" versus "This shouldn’t be happening to me"

JD Haitsma: One of the things that you mentioned in the beginning of the episode was that I'm more naturally calm and whatnot. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah. 

 

JD Haitsma: And I'm not sure why that is, or I'm going to claim that that's because I've done things to become that way. But something that I remember dealing or doing a lot when we first were married – and even before that, just in life as I was growing up – but whenever difficult things would happen to me, I would always just think like, 'Why shouldn't this be happening to me? Why would I be special that something like this wouldn't happen? There's no reason that I shouldn't have this difficulty. Like, it's just; difficulties are part of life.'

And so, we wouldn't-- We wouldn't be able to sleep at night and we'd spend hours on a yoga ball, trying to get our baby to stop screaming; I just feel like--  

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Hours.

 

JD Haitsma: Like, why wouldn't this be happening? This is-- This is just part of life. And I feel like just accepting--  

Because a lot of times, it's the other questions like, why is this happening? Like, this is crazy. Like, my kids shouldn't be screaming while we're at the grocery store, or they shouldn't be making lots of noise while we're at church, or they shouldn't be doing all of these things. 

And again, I don't know why, but I've always just looked at it the other way; and be like, 'Of course, this is happening, why wouldn't it?' You know? 

And I've looked at it under that light, it's helped me just to not be so upset about things.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: I think that's really potent because looking back on things, oftentimes my thought-- And we know if you've listened to this podcast for a long time…our thoughts create our feelings, our feelings fuel our actions. 

So, our thoughts really are at the core of so many things. That my thought was always, 'This shouldn't be happening to me… this isn't okay, this isn't fair, this should not be happening – this child should be sleeping, this child should not be responding this way.' And so, I think there was a lot of resistance.

And then also just not being able to process the emotions that were coming up because I wasn't really accepting things. And so, I do think that's a huge difference. That's interesting to note that that's kind of how you just responded to things and saw difficulties, because those difficulties always do happen to us.

 

JD Haitsma: Yeah.

 

How parenting our first child helped us to parent our other kids better

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Moving on with kind of like chronology of what happened next too; we moved back to the other side of Canada that we're from in the western side of Canada, and ended up having more neurodiverse kids with very similar behavior…and responded to them in a totally different way because we had had so much practice doing this. 

I remember, specifically, this next child of ours having just some huge meltdown – and I don't remember how old they were at this time – and I just remember being like, 'Oh, wait a second, this is where I don't try and teach them…where I don't try and convince them, where I don't try and do anything…I just need to let them be.' 

And the more that I was able to do that with them, they would diffuse so much more easily; and not because it wasn't just as difficult for them, but really it was my response to it. 

And as I saw that happen, I was like, 'Oh yeah, I know this. I remember this. I remember what helped here.' And it was so difficult to do. It still is because we're still dealing with another other child that has a lot of these same similar behaviors. But it's just been really good practice for me in reminding myself, like in the moment is not when I do the teaching…it's not when I try to discuss things when I'm feeling those high emotions and they're feeling those high emotions – and then just kind of to move through it. And I think it's made a big difference. 

In our kids' behavior too, you kind of mentioned like, 'We didn't really know how this is going to turn out,' but I think they have turned out to be pretty lovely humans that get along well with each other, with us. We all like being around each other. Well-regulated, for the most part. So, it really has--

 

JD Haitsma: Yeah, it's been really beneficial to be able to "start" a child with this type of parenting because I feel like we've averted just a lot of difficulties. But it's also I think really important to recognize that-- I don't remember how old our child was when we started doing this our older children, but we were able to like convert a child into it--

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yes.

 

JD Haitsma: -so to speak. You don't have to start from the beginning, definitely made a difference; it's made things easier. But, this type of parenting change entered our child's life mid-childhood, and it's still-- It course-corrected a lot of things. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah.

 

JD Haitsma: And with our younger children that, we've had a lot more practice with these philosophies. And I've benefited a lot from you being so interested in this because I never would've been interested in any of these things; I would've just parented the way that I naturally did and--  

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah.

 

JD Haitsma: -accepted whatever it was and not tried to do anything different. But you've spent a lot of time learning about parenting and whatnot. And as a result, I've learned a lot; and I'm sure I know more about this type of stuff than most people do just because I hear you talk about it on your podcast all the time and you're just always talking about this stuff to people, whenever we go anywhere. 

And so, I've learned a lot from that also, which has been beneficial and helped me to understand more of the intricacies of it, and whatnot. And not just have a general idea and impression about, 'Well, let's just not get angry…there's more to it than that.'

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah. And I want to mention too, like he kind of said like, we kind of did this halfway. Our kid was already, like, kind of halfway through the childhood years when we even started; and it took us-- took us a while to really get there. But we were really blessed to be able to have a child that we mostly started in this kind of parenting modality probably around their pretty young years, maybe two. 

And such a huge difference; like this child after a meltdown instead of feeling really terrible about themselves, calms and knows that they need snuggles…know that they need connection. 

And even while we're connecting will say things like, "I wasn't actually mad at you, mom – I know, looking now back on that, that I was really hungry," or "I was really feeling tired", or "I felt really sad that this person said this to me". 

And is able to verbalize names of emotions, what they were feeling, what was happening within them; like the most emotionally intelligent child ever, it is like phenomenal. 

And I'm sure some of that is, again, just like personality and who they are. But I think a lot of that really is just like the things we talk about, how we do things…and it being so different, vastly different from like our oldest child who somehow is like graduating school and leaving us, which seems bizarre, but seems crazy that it went so quickly, I guess. 

But to see such a difference between that. And then also I think what you said was really important in that like, it's not too late either. Like I say that a lot on the podcast, but really, you can start at any point.

 

The importance of changing your parenting style

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Okay. So, I want to ask you a couple more questions before we leave. We're almost out of time. But one would be a lot of people, I think I-- And I hear this more often from dads, but I think from moms as well, would say things like, "Well, how I was parented was just fine. Like, why do we have to change things? Like, why can't we just keep things the way that they were? Why do we need to parent in a different way? Like, what's even the benefit?" 

And what would you say to that?

 

JD Haitsma: I'd say that's totally fine. If they want to just continue being the way they are, let him be I don't get involved with other people's business; that's your job.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Can you tell he's not a coach?

 

JD Haitsma: I think that-- I think if somebody is looking for a better way, this is it; but if somebody isn't open to the idea that there's a better way-- The world is round, even if you think it's flat…but I don't care if you think it's flat.

 

How children are natural learners and are innately good… and why this belief creates changes

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that I've done a podcast episode called Getting on the same page with your partner, and kind of, the gist of it is like…try stop trying so hard to change them and to get them to see the world the way that you see them. 

And as I've done that, I've noticed that I am able to influence people more because I'm not trying to control or force or push my opinion on them; and they're able to just see it in a more natural way. So, so I agree; don't just try and force your partner into it.

 

JD Haitsma: Yeah. And I mean, if people-- I mean, it's hard to change if you're the type of person that really gets angry by your kids' behaviors; that's a difficult thing to try and change in yourself. And unless you're willing to try and change that, this probably isn't going to work for you.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah, it won't-- There definitely has to be the willingness there.

 

JD Haitsma: Yeah. And in the same sense, if you're the type of person that gets angry about your kid's behavior, the idea of like, 'Okay, well, I'm just going to back away from my kid and let them pose their own things and not get mad at them when they do something wrong,' because you probably feel like you getting mad at them is teaching them something. Then the idea that letting go of that is actually going to change their behaviors, is like way out there.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Way out there, mm-hmm.

 

JD Haitsma: I think that it's easy for me to see that this is like a great way to do things; I'm not going to say that it's for everybody because everybody is a big word – but it seems like I can't imagine anything else working better in our situation. And it's not my job to change people's minds. If someone was like that and they didn't want, they were like, 'Change my mind.'

I'm like, 'I'm not going to, go get your mind changed somewhere else.'

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: So, my husband and I, like I said, are very different, for a lot of reasons. And I would say this is the best way of parenting for everybody; and not the best as in like, there's one way to do it. But I think doing your own work to do the healing that's inside of you that needs to be done so that you can parent it more naturally in this way is helpful for everybody. 

But like you said, it's not something you can just try to change somebody's mind or convince them of. And the more that I've gone into that – like, I'm not going to try and change this person's mind, I'm not going to try to make these people around me see that my way is the best way – I'm just so much more comfortable and at ease with my own ideas, with my own opinions and with how I show up in the world.

 

Modifying behaviour (like is so often done with animals) vs helping our children to BECOME

Crystal The Parenting Coach: The one last thing I wanted to bring up was sometimes people don't understand how kids could learn if you're not teaching them through force, through coercion, through – not even just yelling, but like – being really firm, or through using rewards or punishments, consequences…taking away iPads, taking away friend-time, grounding, all of the modalities that we're used to being parented with and that you and I were both parented with. 

One of the questions I get, I think, again, from dads often, and moms, is, 'Well, then how do you teach them?' Like, how do you expect your children to turn into those good humans that you wanted at the beginning of the episode…how could that possibly happen if you are not using these outside structures or more firm ways of doing it?

 

JD Haitsma: Yeah, that's a-- That's a good question. I feel like you can teach a dog or a monkey to learn behaviors – like respond to prompts – but so like, sure, you probably could teach your kid to behave a certain way…but, is that what-- I don't know. It seems like if all you're doing is teaching them to behave a way, you're not really teaching them anything. It's just like a Band-Aid. It's like kind of a facade.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: You're not teaching them to be way. 

 

JD Haitsma: Yeah. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: You're teaching them to behave a way.

 

JD Haitsma: It's like, 'Oh, look at all these tricks my child can do…they can sit still and they can do all these things – like, they've gone to kiddie school.' 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yes.

 

JD Haitsma: But I think that kids will just learn. I think that a kid, child, is just like a young human; and an adult is just like an old one, and that they really should be treated the same. Like, I wouldn't go to my friend's house or go to one of my coworkers and treat them the way that the parenting style I think you're talking about would suggest that you would treat your kids. I don't think that age is a reason to treat somebody different. 

And that's just because I've seen the behaviors and the actions, and I've heard comments and the types of things that children can say really have shown me that they are capable of, understanding…and that they are as complicated, and as mindful as adults can be. They can say very insightful things, and they can really perceive and understand a lot more than I think maybe some people give them credit for just because they're young. 

And sometimes people will be like, 'Oh, they need to respect me.' 

Like, 'Well, maybe if you respected them, they would respect you,' but like, you don't respect people that are adults that don't respect you…so, why would you think a child should respect you if you don't respect them? 

And I'm not sure-- I'm not sure why, but I just believe that kids will learn; when they do something wrong, they know that it's wrong – when they do something right, they know that it's right. 

And it takes time to learn how to control yourself; and so, you're going to do lots of things that are annoying and wrong while you're trying to figure that out. But I think that it's just the ability to learn is just kind of innate inherit in all children.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah. And I think I want to mention too, like, I think JD has had this belief of like, people are good and people learn. And it's really been powerful for me because even though I am a Parenting Coach, I still have parenting struggles all the time…and I'm still a very imperfect human and a very imperfect parent.

And I remember just a few weeks ago really struggling with a child of ours that we were talking about; and we're just like, I do not-- I was like, 'I do not know what to do with this child. They are, for sure, doing this on purpose.' 

Again, going back into the mindset that I'd been in for so long. And I remember you just sitting and saying to me like, "They're a good person, I know they're a good person." 

And in that moment, I didn't want to hear it; and I was a little bit mad about it that you said it because I wanted you to be on page with me being mad about it – but I knew that what you said was true…and I knew that about this child, that they really were such a good person and that they were going to learn and they were going to grow and they were going to get there. 

And so, to have somebody on my side that's able to remind me of that in the moments that it's hard for me to remember has been really powerful, and I think has really shaped my ability to be able to parent in the way that I want more naturally. And so, that's one of the reasons I wanted to bring you on the podcast today, so that you could kind of see the behind-the-scenes of like--  

This is another-- This is another reason that I'm able to do this, is because I have-- I have somebody alongside me. And you don't need to have somebody on board all the time. 

In fact, I think if you don't, just like stop trying to get them on board…stop trying to expend your energy there and just focus on what you can do. 

And I also-- I hope this is helpful for some of the dads out there that kind of feel that way…like, 'How do we know this is going to work?' 

We've seen the end of it, and we just feel so strongly that it has been what has shaped our children's character. And we get told, literally, every country we go, how wonderful our kids are, but like, "Your kids are so well-behaved," or "They're just so kind" or "They're so confident" or "They're just so easy at speaking to people from different cultures or different ages or whatever". And I don't think that is just a coincidence I think it has to do with the environment that we try to create, that we imperfectly a lot--  

 

JD Haitsma: Yeah. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: -emphasis on imperfectly, create.

 

JD Haitsma: If there are any dads out there listening – I would just – and you're thinking like, this is whack, I would just-- I would just try to say, just consider the idea that you don't have to get so upset when your kids do something that you think is bothering someone else. 

A lot of times the reason that, I would get upset is because I was like, 'Oh, my kid is doing something that's bothering somebody else, that's impacting someone else's experience in this place that they should have the right to be able to experience without whatever burdens I think my kid's putting on them.' 

And there have been places where I've been bothered by other people's kids and how childish they were acting, so I'm not saying that doesn't happen, but I just think that as dads we have a tendency to blow those situations out of proportion. And that it's fine for kids to be a little bit more like what you would expect a kid to be out in public than we might think it is.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah. I will add coach speak to that in that like, if somebody's being triggered by a child's behavior, it doesn't have anything to do with the child; it has to do with the parent. And yes, sometimes it is loud; and yes, sometimes it is annoying…but children are literally tiny humans that are learning and growing and trying. 

And if you could look at their brain and see the lack of brain development that they have in that moment, you'd probably be like, 'Oh yeah, I get it. Like, this part hasn't connected to this part.'

 

JD Haitsma: I'll also add that I've been out in public and been quite bothered by how adults have been acting too.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: [laughs] That is the best quote ever. Yes. Yeah.

 

JD Haitsma: It's not just kids that disrupt public. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah. 

 

JD Haitsma: No, that's just public gets disrupted because there are other people there. That's why I like going to the mountains--

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah, because we're all humans

 

JD Haitsma: -because there's no one else there.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah. And adding coach speak to that one too is that like people are doing-- are behaving in ways that they know because of how they were raised and because of what's going on in their brains and all of those things. And so, I think that is really potent too; it's not just kids that disrupt other people's behaviors, it's adults also. 

And I think a lot of times we're triggered by that because we worry about fitting in or what people think of us or-- That goes-- That goes more deep into what it is that I talk about on this podcast. And so, I am glad that you--

 

JD Haitsma: One more thing. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah, go ahead.

 

JD Haitsma: One more thing.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yes. Yes.

 

JD Haitsma: I also, just going back to these public situations and everybody probably has lots of memories of things like this, but it seems easier to accept a child's disruptions in public, in general, because they are children. 

Most people don't expect adults to have child meltdowns in tantrums in public, but they do; and that's fine. And it might just because of the way I view parenting, but I always find it maybe-- Well, it makes me a little bit sad, but I also, I understand and I find it more disruptive when a parent starts acting like a child towards their child – who's acting like a child – to try and stop their child from acting like a child. Because usually a parent will do it even more to try and stop their child from doing it the little bit or the lot, that they are. And so, it's like--

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: He's describing me right now, by the way; this is how I hear.

 

JD Haitsma: I understand what they're doing because I've done it; I've made more of a disturbance trying to stop my children from making a disturbance, to stop the disturbance they're making. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah.

 

JD Haitsma: And I've seen lots of parents – not just that, but dads – making the ruckus to try and get their children to stop making the ruckus they're making. And it usually-- Again, I don't like you saying the words always, but that type of intervention usually just makes more of a disturbance that you were trying to avoid, anyways.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah. There you go; parenting in a nutshell, you don't even need to listen to any other podcast episodes…you can just listen to that last 30 seconds – when we behave like children towards our children, then it usually just makes their childish behaviors increase. 

 

So, thank you for being on the podcast. Thanks for sharing just kind of your experience with all of this, because I think it's an important piece; and I think that we don't often hear from the dads and from what's happening on their side of things. So, thank you for being here and having this conversation with us and sharing with us. 

 

How to connect with JD Haitsma

Crystal The Parenting Coach: And I would ask you-- Usually, at the end of my podcast, I say, "Hey, where do you want people to connect with you?" But JD does not like social media.

 

JD Haitsma: I don't.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: No. And if you follow him on social media, he won't check it. If you message him there, he won't get it; I might occasionally check it for him, so he'll get it.

 

JD Haitsma: I will, eventually.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: I don’t know.

 

JD Haitsma: You can email me; I check my email, always.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: If you want to get ahold of him, just get ahold of me. But if you're interested in working with him…he does do websites, landing pages, tech for coaches and online entrepreneurs using a platform called Kajabi – in the US, they call it Kajabi. And he is really good at what he does, so if you want to connect with him, I can find a way to connect you with him. 

Thank you for being here, and thanks for listening; and we will see you next week.

 

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