Ep 655: “Who is this kid?!” The transition of adolescence

Joyful courage today…. big sigh. It means – and I know I say this a lot – letting go. Again and again and again. Being willing to let go. Being willing to recognize what is mine to hold and what is meant to be released.

Also, from the show…. “You don’t have to stay the parent you used to be. You get to become the parent that this version of your child actually needs. And that’s the work. That’s joyful courage.”

Resources mentioned

• Transitions by William Bridges — the three parts of transition (ending, neutral zone, new beginning)
• Living Joyful Courage Immersion Week — June 7–13 —enrollment opens May 25th ($69; first 20 get a free 1:1 half-hour with Casey; sign up before June 1 for bonus audio meditations)
• Email Casey: [email protected]

Transcription

[00:00:00] Casey O'Roarty: Welcome, welcome. Welcome to the Joyful Courage podcast. This is a place where parents of tweens and teens come to find inspiration, information, and encouragement in the messy terrain of adolescence. This season of parenting is no joke, and while the details of what we're all moving through might be slightly different, we are indeed having a very collective experience.
[00:00:30] This is a space where we center building relationship, nurturing life skills, and leaning into our own personal growth, and man, the opportunities abound, right? My name is Casey O'Rourty. I am a parent coach, positive discipline lead trainer, and captain of the adolescent ship over at Sproutable. I'm also a speaker and a published author.
[00:00:53] I've been working with parents and families for over 20 years and continue to navigate my own experience of being a mom with my two young adult kids. I'm so honored that you're here and listening. Please give back to the podcast by sharing it with friends or on social media. Rate and review us on Apple or Spotify.
[00:01:13] Word of mouth is how we grow. Thank you so, so much. Enjoy the show.
[00:01:23] Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. Just you and me today. I am so excited about the content today, and to connect with you around it all. So update from my life, my son is home from college. Ian got home just the day before Mother's Day, just in time to be a part of our sweet little Mother's Day brunch.
[00:01:51] Shout out to my husband, who made a lovely meal for all of us, and my daughter came over, and it was just really special to sit around the table with my little family, eating good food, having good laughs. And yeah, so Ian's home, and to remind you, if you are just tuning in now to this show, Ian is my 20-year-old son.
[00:02:15] He just finished his sophomore year of college, and you would know that he's home because he leaves evidence, dishes in the sink, clothes on the floor of the bathroom. And as I have done before when he's come home from college, I'm recognizing that we get to be explicit around expectations. This is my space.
[00:02:40] He's no longer a kid. And sometimes, well, every time, what happens is he comes home, and he just kind of just is home and explodes all over the house. And it's, you know, we're just so happy to have him, and then slowly over the course of a few days, I notice myself being like, "Oh, God, the dishes, the clothes," like I've mentioned.
[00:03:06] I kind of start getting on his case, "Hey, don't forget. Hey, take care of this." And I become a source of discouragement while also being in my own discouragement, rather than being explicit around expectations and meeting him where he's at, where we're at, and being clear. So just today I thought, "You know what?
[00:03:32] Ian's home, and it would really serve us to have a little family meeting, a little reminder with curiosity, validation curiosity." You're gonna hear me talk about that in the show, so that we can all be on the same page, and we can kind of ease some of the discouragement he feels when I'm on his case, and the discouragement I feel when it feels like, you know, we're, it's 10 years ago, and he's forgotten all the things about how to be a roommate.
[00:04:04] Yeah. So that's what's happening. And, you know, I've got this kid who just keeps getting older, right? Today's episode is for any of you who are also watching your kiddos get older, which is all of you, right? We're all in that space, and many of us might be feeling a little bit lost about what we're supposed to do about that piece of like, okay, you've grown out of what has worked in the past.
[00:04:35] I haven't quite landed on what is useful for right now, and so we're kind of swirling around in this, like I said, discouragement. So really what we're talking about is transitions. We're in absolutely a time of year, a time of life where transition is real, and that word has been everywhere for me lately.
[00:04:56] It's, like I said, the tail end of one school year, or for some of you, maybe the, you're already at the beginning of summer break. Everywhere I look, I see parents in the middle of moving from one chapter to another. There's kids that are finishing up elementary school, heading into middle school in the fall.
[00:05:14] You know, eighth graders walking across the stage and walking into high school. There's our seniors. Oh, the seniors, right? Those parents watching these big milestones happen or not. I had both of those experiences, and I can see myself in both of those experiences. I want- You all to know you're in something big.
[00:05:39] You are in a transition with your kiddo, and here's the thing about transition. We tend to mark it with the big moments, right? Like I said, the last day of school, the graduation, the drop-off, the first day of something new. We treat transitions like an event, but transition isn't an event. Transition is a season, right?
[00:06:03] It's a whole stretch of, a period of time where we are in the work of becoming, and it's what's happening every single day in our adolescence and inside you, right? While we're folding laundry or rushing, you know, one kid to practice, another to music class, asking them for the third time to please do their dishes, right?
[00:06:29] Transition is the season that we're in. So today, we're gonna do three things on the pod. First, we're gonna actually name what's happening because I think when we can name a thing, we suffer a little bit less. The second thing is that I wanna talk about who your kid is right now, and the trap that a lot of us fall into of trying to relate to a child who just doesn't exist anymore, right?
[00:06:58] And third, we're gonna talk about how to hold onto what matters while letting go of how it has to look, because that is really the whole game. And at the end, I'm gonna tell you a little something that I've got going on really soon, a week-long immersion experience that's built exactly for right now, this season of parenting.
[00:07:17] So stay tuned till the end, and let's get into it. All right, step one, part one, naming the thing, right? Transition is the in between. So there's a guy named William Bridges, and he wrote a whole book about this. He says, "Every transition has three parts. There's an ending, then there's he, what he calls the neutral zone, and then there's a new beginning."
[00:07:46] And the neutral zone, that's the wild part. The neutral zone is where you've left one shore, right, but you haven't quite arrived at the next stop. You don't really know who you are anymore. You're not who you were. You're not yet who you're meant to become. You're in this neutral space. Now, think about that from a teenager's perspective.
[00:08:14] This is their experience all the time, not really knowing who you are anymore. You're not who you were, not yet who you're becoming. Their body is rewiring. Their brain is, uh, literally remodeling itself. The prefrontal cortex, that part that handles impulse control and long-term planning, and the is this a good idea or a terrible one, that part is doing a slow, incredible build-out that won't finish until they're, like, 25, right?
[00:08:47] Their sense of self is being constructed and deconstructed on the daily. Who their friends are, what they care about, what's cool, what's embarrassing, who they wanna be perceived as in the world, it's all in motion. And then on top of all that internal weather, you've got the macro transitions, right?
[00:09:12] Elementary to middle school, middle to high school, high school to whatever, right? Ninth grade to 10th grade, 10th grade to 11th grade. Each one of those transitions is a tectonic shift, you guys. New buildings, new social structures, new academic demands, new levels of independence, new friend groups, all of it.
[00:09:37] Meanwhile, what are we parents doing? Really, we're trying to hold things steady, right? We're trying to keep our footing. We're trying to make sure they don't fall behind, that's really scary, that they don't make any terrible choices, that they don't lose their love of reading or their work ethic or their relationship with us.
[00:09:56] We're gripping, right? We're holding on tight, and that gripping, even though it comes from love, is making things harder, 'cause here's what it's all about, and this is gonna sound paradoxical. The way to be a steady presence for your kid in transition is not by being unmoving. It's by being able to move with them, okay?
[00:10:22] Steadiness doesn't mean stuck, right? Being steady doesn't mean rigid. Steadiness means rooted enough to flex, right? Rooted enough to sway and move and be with the tides, the swells of adolescence.
[00:10:53] And I want to acknowledge something. The transition that they're in is not just theirs, it's yours, too, right? You know this, especially you women out there. Hello, perimenopause and menopause. The version of you that parented your child as a seven-year-old is not the version of you that's gonna parent your 15-year-old.
[00:11:16] You don't keep parenting from the same playbook. Right? The job description is changing on you in real time, and the really messed up thing about it is nobody's handing you a playbook, right? Nobody handed you a new playbook. So if you're tired, that makes sense. If you're confused, totally makes sense. If you're grieving what you had with your younger kiddo, that makes sense, too, right?
[00:11:47] If you feel like the ground keeps shifting under your feet, that's because it is. This is transition. You are in transition, and you're in the neutral zone right along with your teenagers. So let's do something with this. Here's what I want you to do this week. Okay? Before you do anything else, I want you to grab a piece of paper or open the notes app on your phone.
[00:12:13] Capture this. I want you to write a list. What transitions are happening in your family right now? Not just the obvious ones, but, yes, the big ones, write those down, but also the small ones, right? Maybe your child stopped doing something that they used to do. My husband oftentimes talks about how when our daughter went from elementary into middle school, all the really sweet stuffed animal make-believe play stopped, and it's still a little heartbreaking when he talks about it, right?
[00:12:50] So what are the things that your kiddo has stopped doing that they used to do? What are the things that they're starting that are new and different? How has their friend group shifted? How is their body changing, their relationship to you? Where... You know, what kinds of transitions are happening there? How has your role in their life evolved and changed?
[00:13:11] How has your partnership changed because of parenting through this season, your work, your own sense of who you are at this stage of life? Just list it, right? Don't analyze it. We're not fixing it. We're not judging it. We're not making a plan. It's really just about seeing it. There's so much in flux and in transition right now.
[00:13:33] Capture it, because when we name something, it does something for us, right? When we acknowledge what is real, and true, and honest around what's going on in our life, how we're responding to it, our relationship to things, it pulls the transitions out of the fog and puts it on a page, and it lets you stop being run by something that you couldn't quite see and start being with it, because you can finally look at it, right?
[00:14:11] And often, and this is the part that can be surprising for people, once you see how much Is actually in transition right now in your life, you can stop being so hard on yourself about how challenging it all feels. Of course it feels challenging. Look at how much is in motion right now. You're not just making it up, you're not being dramatic.
[00:14:33] So make your list. Okay? That's where we're gonna start, making a list of all those transitions. And now, let's move into this second piece, which is talking about who your kid actually is. And this is a big trap that I see parents fall into, and I have fallen into it myself, right? I mean, Rowan was over last week, and I was looking at her and listening to her, and I just was like, "Wow, you are a full adult."
[00:15:03] She's 23. Like, she's a young adult, but she's an adult, and that was almost surprising. Like, I felt like I saw her ever more clearly the other night, and it was a moment of, "Whoa, look at my grown kid." Right? But we fall into this trap oftentimes when we're relating with our kiddos, because we relate to a version of them that doesn't exist anymore, especially in the early teen years, and mid-teens too.
[00:15:34] It's easy to do, because their growth happens so fast, right? You blink, and that kiddo who loved being read to is now a pre-teen or a teen who is closing their bedroom door, right? That child who used to chatter at you the whole car ride home is now a teenager that you maybe are struggling to get three words out of after school, right?
[00:16:03] The kid that used to be such a rule follower is the one you're now getting an email about from teachers and schools, right? And that same kid, the one that loved family movie night, loved playing board games, doesn't wanna have anything to do with family time, right? And we're still walking around with this picture in our head of the kid from before.
[00:16:25] So it hurts. We get confused, we get scared, we start projecting all kinds of meaning into the behavior. If we could just see it clearly, it isn't that scary, it's just new, right? Our kids are showing us a new piece of themselves, and we're going, "Wait, what's happening? Where's my child? What did I do wrong?"
[00:16:46] But, and I'm here to invite you into this question, what if nothing's wrong? What if your kiddo is exactly where they're meant to be? In the timeline of their life, in the season of adolescence, what if this version of them, the one you're meeting right now, who might be kind of prickly or more quiet or weird or intense or distant, right?
[00:17:11] What if this version is exactly who they get to be on the way to who they're becoming? I love that. I want to give you a frame for this that's helped me so much. There's such a difference between looking at your kiddo and looking for your kiddo. Looking at versus looking for. When we look at them, we're measuring.
[00:17:36] We're measuring them against the kid we expected them to be, the kid they used to be, the kid we hope they become, or maybe the kid, neighbor kid, or the kids of your friends that you see on Instagram. We're evaluating, and whether we mean to or not, they can feel it. They know they are being measured. On the other hand, when we look for them, we get curious.
[00:18:01] We say, "Who are you? Who are you right now, today? What's true for you? What lights you up that didn't used to? What scares you that didn't used to? What do you care about that I didn't even know?" Right? That shift in posture, that looking for instead of looking at, is the entire foundation for staying connected through these transitional years, these snapshots that laid out side by side make up adolescence.
[00:18:33] And I want to be honest with you, there is grief in this work. There's grief in letting go of who they were. There's grief in admitting that the kiddo who used to crawl into your bed isn't gonna be crawling in your bed anymore, right? The kiddo who used to tell you about everything that happened at recess isn't gonna share all the details with you.
[00:18:56] That little person that you used to know, that little person is becoming something else, and there is loss in that. I'm not asking you to skip the grief. I want you to feel it, and if you need to, be emotional about it and cry about it, tell a friend, write it down, take a walk with it. Do whatever you need to do because that is, like, the crazy thing about parenting, right?
[00:19:23] We get so attached, and we fall so deeply in love with every version of them, and then teen years come, and we're like, "Wait, you loved me," right? "Why are you pushing me away?" Yeah, because I want you to make room for this new version of your kiddo, 'cause your kiddo is still right there. They're right in front of you, and they're waiting for you to see them.
[00:19:48] So much of what looks like teen pushback or teen attitude or angst or drama, when you dig underneath it, that is a kid that's saying, "See me. See me, not the kid I used to be. See me today, now. See what I'm moving through, what I'm holding." Right? See me. Because as I talk about a lot on this podcast and in my work, underneath the behavior, there's always something else going on.
[00:20:21] The behavior is the tip of the iceberg. It's what's poking up above the waterline, but underneath, there's so much more. There's feeling, there's identity, there's the question around, am I okay? Am I loved? Am I gonna make it? Right? There's so much going on under the surface for our teens, and our work is to remember the underneath when we're looking at and trying to puzzle out what we're seeing at the surface.
[00:20:54] And I'm not gonna dive all the way into that today. We've done that before, um, here on the podcast, but I want you to start carrying that question. When you see behavior you don't like, can you wonder to yourself, what's going on under the surface? What problem is this behavior the solution to? Right? Just wonder.
[00:21:16] You don't have to try to answer it. Just be open to being in the question. And here's what I want you to try this week. Once a day, I want you to ask your kiddo a question that assumes you don't already know the answer. Not a function question, not, did you do your homework? Are your assignments done? Or where are you going?
[00:21:38] Those are logistical questions, those are not connection questions. I want you to really lean into real who are you questions, right? So for example, "Hey, what's been making you laugh lately?" Or, "What do you think about that thing that's happening at school?" Or, you know, "Who are you jiving with in your grade right now?"
[00:22:02] Or, "What is something that you wish I knew about you?" Or even, you know, "What's something that is exciting to you that I don't know about?" Right? And then after asking the question, this is the hard part, zip it. Listen. Don't fix, don't correct, don't explain, don't share your opinion or your version. Don't make it about you.
[00:22:24] Just listen. Let them tell you something. Let them let you in. Let them show you who they are right now. What's your favorite song these days? And I just wanna be honest, I know some of you are gonna try this, and your kiddo is gonna grunt and walk away, and that's okay. Do it again the next day, and then do it again the day after that, and again and again.
[00:22:49] They're clocking you. They are tracking you. Even when it seems like they're not, they are. You are sending a signal, "I want to know you, the current you, the one that exists right now." And over time, with consistency, that signal will land. And you can also pair this with something I'll mention, because it's a tool that I talk about all the time here, and use constantly, when I'm doing a good job of using my tools.
[00:23:21] When something hard or surprising comes up, instead of jumping to fix it, just validate them, and then get curious. God, even as I say this, I think about a conversation I had this morning with my husband. It would've been so much more effective and helpful for me to start with validation and curiosity.
[00:23:42] It's not just for our kids. Anyway, you acknowledge what they said or what they're feeling or what they're doing, even if you don't agree with it, and then ask a curiosity question. That's it. That tiny move, validate, then ask. Validate, curiosity. It changes the entire temperature of the conversation, and I'll be teaching this a lot more in an offer that I'll tell you about in a little bit.
[00:24:06] But you can start playing with it right now. Validate, curiosity. So you're gonna ask those questions, again, with the sole purpose of letting yourself get to know the version of your kiddo that they are today.
[00:24:30] And then finally, part three of this podcast. This is really the heart of it for me. This is where so much of the conflict in the teen years lives, and it's also where there's a lot of freedom. So here's the move. We hold onto our values. We let go of how those values have to look. Ah. So let me give you an example of this.
[00:24:54] Let's say one of your values is that your family eats dinner together. That's been a thing in your house, family dinner. You killed it through the elementary years. It got a little wobbly maybe in the middle school years, but family dinner has been something you value, connection, conversation, maybe some candles, maybe all the electronics in a basket.
[00:25:16] Whatever it looked like, it was a thing, right? And now you have a high school kid, and they wanna eat in their room. They wanna eat at a friend's house four nights a week. They wanna be at their, on their phones at the table. They wanna not be at the table at all. And you have a choice. You can hold on tight to the form.
[00:25:35] We eat dinner together. This is what we do. Get to the table. And you can win some battles and lose the war, or you can ask, "What is the value underneath the form?" Right? The form is we eat dinner together. The value is connection. Connection, family, spending time together, eye contact, belonging. The family dinner was a container for the value.
[00:26:05] The container worked when they were younger and didn't have a lot going on. The container may need to evolve now that they're 14 or 15 or 16. So what does connection look like with a 14-year-old? Maybe it is family dinner, but maybe it's just three nights a week instead of every night. Maybe it's a quiet drive to school where you just exist together.
[00:26:31] Maybe it's late-night kitchen conversations when they finally emerge from their room looking for food. Maybe it's watching one of those silly animated TV shows that are not my favorite, but I know if I watch it, I get to hang with my kiddos, right, on Sunday evenings. Maybe it's a walk with the dog. Maybe it's texting them a meme during the day.
[00:26:53] The value doesn't change. We value connection in our family. The form changes, and our job in this season is to be flexible about the form so the value can survive. That's big. We're in this transition. Things are in flux. Can we be flexible about form so that the values that we hold dear can survive, right?
[00:27:23] And yeah, I get it. This is hard. I'm not gonna pretend that it's easy because the forms feel like the values to us, right? We get attached to family dinner. We get attached to our kids telling us everything. We get attached to the way we used to do the holidays, or the way bedtime used to go, or the way we used to have these great long conversations on Saturday mornings.
[00:27:46] And when those forms start to dissolve, it can feel like the values themselves are dissolving, but they're not. They're just looking for a new home, a new container, a new shape that fits the kiddo that you actually have right now. And how do we find a new container? Well, here's the exciting news. We let the teens show us.
[00:28:12] And I- listen, I want to be clear about something. I wanna be really clear. Letting our kids show us doesn't mean giving them total control of everything in the house. That's, you know, that is not my jam. That is not what I'm promoting here. It's not a free-for-all. It doesn't mean you stop being a parent, stop having expectations, stop being a leader.
[00:28:33] You are absolutely the parent. You're still in charge of safety. You still get to hold values. You still get to say no when no is the right answer. What it does mean is to pay attention to who they are right now. What do they need now? What's true for them now? Letting their growth, their age and stage inform how you love them, not changing what you love them for, but adapting how the love gets expressed.
[00:29:05] And, you know, this is what I mean when I talk about staying in relationship. Staying in relationship doesn't mean that the relationship looks the same as it always has. It means that you're willing to let the relationship change shape without losing what's at the center of it. You're willing to be in a different relationship than you were in a year ago because they're a different kid, and you're a different parent, and that's exactly how this is supposed to go, right?
[00:29:38] The parents that I see suffering the most are the parents who try to hold the form steady, who are trying to make this version of their kiddo fit the container that used to work, right? And the container keeps cracking. Parents keep trying to glue that container back together. And what I want to invite you into instead is, let that container break.
[00:30:02] Let it fall apart, and then ask yourself with lots of compassion and love, what's the value that was inside that broken container, that container that no longer could contain us? What was the value that was there, and where does it wanna live now? That is parenting inside of this transition. That's what it looks like to flex with their development, and that's what it looks like to honor who they are without abandoning who you are, right?
[00:30:35] Sit with that. We wanna honor who they are without abandoning who you are, the both and. I love it. So, here's the final tip that I'm gonna leave you with. I want you to take a few minutes tonight, this week, soon, whenever it works for you. Write down three to five values that you wanna hold onto as a family, not behaviors or rules, values.
[00:31:02] For example, connection, respect, honesty, kindness, curiosity, faith, integrity, generosity, whatever they are for your family. Pick three to five values. And under each one, I want you to write two things. First, what has this value looked like in our family up until now? What was the container or the shape that held it?
[00:31:26] And two, what might this value look like now with the kid I actually have in front of me, right? You don't have to solve all of it in one sitting. You're not gonna fix family dinner tonight. You're not gonna redesign your whole life in one afternoon. This is just a starting point. This is a starting inquiry.
[00:31:47] Because once you start to see the difference between value and form, you realize you have a lot of room. When you realize you don't have to fight about the form, you can protect the value, and that's a whole different game, right? That's a whole different mindset, and I love it. And just as we finish up, I wanna tell you about something, and you're gonna hear about this more and more over the next few weeks.
[00:32:19] Everything I just shared with you around transition and seeing who your kiddo is and holding values, it's all part of the work that I've been doing for a lot of years. And the truth is, when you listen to a podcast, that's one thing, but living into these practices is actually where parents start shifting the patterns at home, building new responses, and being supported through the messy parts.
[00:32:46] That's something totally different and much more useful, right? That's why I've begun twice a year to run something that I'm calling the Living Joyful Courage Immersion Week for Parents of Tweens and Teens. It's a six-day deep dive. In real time, virtually, a group of parents who are exactly where you're at, showing up because they love their kids fiercely, because they know something has to shift in the way they're showing up, and because they wanna do this work in community instead of alone.
[00:33:17] We meet live, and the way that the week goes, we've got a Sunday night kickoff call where everybody gets to just see each other. There's a workshop on Monday evening that lays our foundation for the week, office hours twice a week that are held like Q&As. There's a group coaching call where one person gets the coaching hot seat, and listen, watching another parent gets c- get coached is sometimes more powerful than even being coached yourself.
[00:33:46] Your own life gets reflected back to you. And then we end the week with a soul care call on Friday, meditation, journaling. Letting the week land. There's a forum that is open all week for parents to check in, communicate, connect, ask questions, get f- support and feedback, celebrate. It's so awesome, everyone.
[00:34:09] I did this last December, had a great showing. Everything gets recorded as well, so if the timing doesn't work for you, you can watch the replays. This is not your average parenting class. It is parenting work that gets into your whole life, right? Your relationship with your kid, your relationship with yourself, your relationship to the parent you want to become.
[00:34:31] There's definitely the theme of transition and summer that will be in the immersion week that's happening in June. I'm not gonna spoil all of it by going too deep in what we cover. I just know that it will be useful to you. We go deep into brain science. We talk about what's happening under the surface of behavior.
[00:34:52] We talk about how kindness and firmness at the same time is really useful. Autonomy comes up, repair, radical acceptance. It's definitely six days that will change how you move into this summer, and this, whatever this transition is, wherever your kiddo is falling one year to the next, it's gonna be amazing.
[00:35:15] And if you're listening to this and something's like, "Ooh, curious," if you're thinking, "I need this. I need to be in something like this. I can do six days," I want you to go to besproutable.com/immersion, besproutable.com/immersion. I'll put the link in the show notes. Spots are available. The first 20 people that join get to book a free half-hour one-on-one call with me, and if you sign up before...
[00:35:42] What's the date? Before the 1st of June, you also get some audio meditations, um, to prep you for our week. So, and the price point is great. It's $69 for an entire deep dive week. If you've been on the fence about this, this is your sign. Come do it with me. Come do some real work. Be in a room full of parents who are choosing growth instead of choosing more of the same.
[00:36:16] I would love to have you. And if you've been curious about the membership, this week, this immersion week, is like a month of the membership crammed into a week. So you can dip your toe in, see what it feels like, and see if it's actually something that you might want to invest in. All right? Okay, before I let you go, though, I wanna leave you with the thing that I tell myself when I start to get a little wobbly about all of this transition stuff.
[00:36:43] I do get scared. Let me tell you, I get scared. I get controlling. I get scared that I'm missing the moment, that I'm doing it wrong. I get scared that I'm, you know, that my kids are slipping away. Here's what I come back to. I don't have to be the perfect parent. I just have to keep showing up. I have to keep noticing.
[00:37:03] I have to keep pausing before I react. And again, this looks different. My two kids are college age, right? But it's also the same. It's the same choosing over and over and over again, choosing the parent I want to be in this moment with this child in this version of our relationship. Your teen is growing, right?
[00:37:22] They're growing right this minute while you're listening to me. And it's exciting. They're different than they were a year ago. And in a year from now, they'll be different still. And the real gift of this messy, complicated, sometimes painful season of transition is that you get to grow too. You don't have to stay the parent you used to be.
[00:37:42] You get to become the parent that this version of your child actually needs. And that's the work. That's joyful courage. That's it. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for caring about this so much. Let me know what you think. If you have any questions, always, always email me, casey at joyfulcourage.com.
[00:38:02] And I really, really hope that you consider joining us for Immersion Week. Just so you know, the dates are June 7th through the 13th is when Immersion Week happens. So check it out and I'll see you soon. Bye.
[00:38:23] Thank you so much for listening. Thank you to my Sproutable partners, Julietta and Alana. Thank you, Danielle, for supporting with the show notes, as well as Chris Mann and the team at Podshaper for all the support with getting the show out there and making it sound good. As I mentioned, sharing is caring.
[00:38:40] If you're willing to pass on this episode to others or take a few minutes to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, it helps other parents find this useful content. Be sure to check out what we have going on for parents of kids of all ages and sign up for our newsletter to stay connected at besproutable.com.
[00:39:01] I see you doing all the things. I believe in you. See you next time.