Eps 104: Kristin Hovious is on talking about making amends and repairing relationships

What does Joyful Courage mean to you?

What joyful courage means to me is that there is a consistent opportunity to practice repair.  That is always worth it – it’s so important in the whole trajectory in our lives together as human beings.  If we can be joyful in repair then maybe we can also turn the corner and be joyful about mistakes.

 

Where to find Kristin

Selchicago.com

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Transcription

Casey O'Roarty 0:02
Hey everybody, welcome back to the joyful courage podcast, a place for information and inspiration on the parenting journey. I am your host, Casey o'rourdy, positive discipline trainer and parent coach. I am so glad that you are listening in, and I just want to give a special shout out to all the listeners that are new. If this is your first show, welcome, welcome, welcome. I'm so glad that you found me, and please know there are loads more shows to listen in on. So make sure that you get subscribed to the podcast and you can just scroll on down and it's a feast. It's a feast of goodness. In the podcasting world, just find shows that speak to you and listen, listen, listen. Catch up. If you find yourself laughing, taking notes or excited about what you hear on today's show, please do me a favor and pay it forward. Share this episode with your friends, your families, your neighbors, the other parents in the preschool class, your sharing is the reason I'm able to show up for you each week, and I'm so deeply honored to do so. My guest today is positive discipline trainer Kristin povios. She combines a career of teaching and serving with her passion for creating mutually respectful environments for families, children, classroom and schools, in her collaboration with teachers, administrations and families, Kristen's goal is to help facilitate opportunities for adults and students to become compassionate leaders, with the hope that doing so will help build more peaceful communities. She serves on the positive discipline Association's board of directors as and is an approved vendor for Chicago Public Schools. Kristen also is a committed teacher with over a decade of experience in Vocational Adult Education, serving Chicago's board of a Institute as both educational director and adjunct faculty with an understanding and dedication to lifelong learning, Kristin is also pursuing academic coursework to complete a master's in education. She found the work of positive discipline during her research for Chicago public school options for her two elementary age kids who remain both her best teachers and the encouragement for her continued learning. She resides in Chicago with her husband, children and evolving menagerie of animals. Welcome to the podcast, Kristen,

Kristin Hovious 2:34
thank you, Casey,

Casey O'Roarty 2:35
so glad to be glad you're here too. Please share a little bit more. I kind of just gave your life story, but we're all good.

Kristin Hovious 2:41
It's a long Rio. I'm so sorry.

Casey O'Roarty 2:44
Please share anything I left out about your journey to doing what you do.

Kristin Hovious 2:49
Well, I found positive discipline when I was looking for where my my kids were going to school. Chicago is a vast, vast place, and my both my husband and I are not Chicago natives, but we really wanted public school to be where our kids were, and it was. It's just really, really important to us being citizens of the world, to be citizens in our public school system. So as I was doing some research, I found this school called Ravenswood, and Ravenswood is a positive discipline school. I had no idea what that meant, so I ended up calling the school administrator and saying, Tell me about this positive discipline thing. And the assistant principal got on the line, and I said, What? What's it look like? Give me it sounds great, but give me an example. And so he said a bunch of fifth graders were having a problem, and a lot of them were getting hurt on the playground while they were playing football during recess. And we could have just stopped football, but that didn't seem very fair, or give them an opportunity to do any problem solving, so they had this thing called a class meeting, where they decided to have one person every day be the referee, and then they checked in the next week and there were no people, no more people getting hurt. I said, this sounds great. So we were able sometimes Chicago Public School Choice is also known lovingly as Chicago Public School chance, because it's a lottery system, and we were lucky enough to get both of our kids who are currently in third grade and second grade in when they were in first grade in kindergarten, and then I became a parent educator. So

Casey O'Roarty 4:42
you you find the school with this whole positive discipline thing your kids get in. So I'm guessing you must have gone, did you find like, were you curious? What was the kind of where did you go as far as parenting went? Sure.

Kristin Hovious 4:57
So at the same time, the. That I was finding this great opportunity to be in schools and classroom what's called Classroom Management and learning about social emotional learning. I also was completely struggling as a parent, totally just like and not necessarily paying attention to my own gut. I was listening to a lot of other people in my life. It's like you should do this and you should do this, and really struggling, especially with my daughter, who was the younger of our two children, and made her presence known in the world, and sometimes it was very inconvenient for me. So as I found this thing, I also found that they did this thing called Parent Training, and so I enrolled in a course, and I became a certified parent educator and read books and found resources and started my journey to be a positive discipline parent. And I really adopted it in November of 2013 and my husband adopted it in May of 2014 and that was an interesting five months in our family.

Casey O'Roarty 6:08
I laugh because I know Kristen's husband, yes, he is a good guy. It

Kristin Hovious 6:14
just took him a while to understand that kind and firm does not mean permissive. And so the other thing that we found as a family is that we were not living in our family. We thought it was a really good idea intellectually, that mistakes are opportunities to learn, and we were not living that in our family. So mistakes became these really big deals like, you know, spilled milk right after I'd mopped the floor was enormously awful, right, right? Such a big deal. And finding that my my peaceful parenting self, made me want to learn more and want to share more. So I started teaching parenting workshops. And Ravenswood was wonderful because they in their school improvement plan, they wanted to teach parenting workshops. So I said, I could do that for you. And my fabulous principal said, what else can you do? So I kept volunteering and offering and learning more and diving in, and now I'm a positive discipline trainer, and I have become a CPS vendor, and I'm teaching parenting classes, and have an opportunity to bring this work to the administrations of other schools who are interested in building these intentional, mutually respectful environments, which is so not easy, right? Because it really is challenging to change the language about how we are with children and share our power, yeah, and so I'm still learning how to share our power, oh, yeah, in our family well, and

Casey O'Roarty 8:01
I so appreciate two things that you just spoke into one, talking about your husband and the kind and firm piece. I think that, like, you know, I think of that pendulum Right? So there's kind over on this side, and then it swings way over to firm. And often we as humans are either or, and it's just this, this continuous practice to try to just do small swings right there in the middle, right right there in the middle. The both and is so can be so tricky, because we have such poor models,

Kristin Hovious 8:36
right? And I, and I think so the other side of me is an anatomy teacher, right? I spent 10 years working for in a working to teach, basically emerging adults massage skills, and I was the science teacher. So I I taught the anatomy classes, and I so appreciate this, this diving into the brain science about how we act and what happens to us neurologically, when we are threatened, and what happens to our bodies and what happens to our thoughts and our ability to find the nice things that are going to build relationships over time, and how when we're really angry, we cannot find

Casey O'Roarty 9:26
that connection. Well, I think that plays into the mistakes piece too, right? I mean, it's like so connected when and I, and it's interesting. Years ago I was at so listeners, the positive discipline Association, every summer has a think tank, a conference for all the educators and trainers to come together and learn. And I remember this one particular exercise, I think it was led by Kelly Pfeiffer, and she had all these numbers one to 10 on the wall, and she asked all these questions, and people lined up on the range on, you know, not buying. In it or fully bought, right? And so one of the questions is, how committed are you or how deeply Do you believe that mistakes truly are opportunities to learn? And I watched this group, right? I watched this group of trained positive discipline people spread out, right? You would assume like, Oh, of course, this is what we teach. We're all a 10 on this one. And no, and you would have been so surprised by who was where. And I think it just speaks into, you know, that whole concept of, there's what we know to be true in our minds, but then there's like, how we feel or be in the moment of our hearts. And it's really, you know, it's not enough just to say mistakes are opportunities to learn. It's okay. So now there's spilled milk all over the floor. How are you going to respond to that? Right? Like in the moment stuff of, oh, here's one of those practice opportunities together. Well,

Kristin Hovious 11:00
I think, I think this the kind firm piece. There's a trip up sometimes that we have this idea of kind, where that kind

Casey O'Roarty 11:12
is nice. Yes, totally it's not. And

Kristin Hovious 11:15
and it is kind is very nice. That's, that's another meaning for it. And I think in the positive discipline sense and in this brain science sense, we have to be connected totally. And so I've started to change my language from kind and firm, and this is after spending time with some other people who I just so appreciate the idea of connection and accountability.

Casey O'Roarty 11:42
I like that. I know who you were hanging out with.

Kristin Hovious 11:46
I was so but this, and I think that really helps when we look at the societal piece of consequence, right? So you made a mistake. So what's the consequence going to be? Because that we pay for our mistakes in the world like in the bigger world, right? And or that's what we're used to saying. And when I'm talking when I'm personally taking responsibility for my mistakes and repairing the mess, messiness that I or the chaos that I've created in my relationships. When I make a mistake, sometimes I have to be accountable for that, and so I'm keeping myself accountable as but also trying to reconnect at the same time, which has totally changed the way that I apologize for wrongdoing,

Casey O'Roarty 12:39
right? And that's really what we're going to talk about on the show today. But before we get there, I just want to I'm connecting some dots here too. So I love that what you just said about connected and accountable, because when we think of consequences, it's often, you know, a dressed up word for punishment in a lot of minds, not not our minds, but in like sometimes, but when you start to think about, hey, if I have to be accountable, if I have to fix my mistakes, repair relationships, sometimes repair objects, if I need to come, kind of come clean like that. In and of itself, is a consequence, and that's actually a place where we can learn and grow and develop more life skills when we look through that lens. And that's what I really appreciate about what you said.

Kristin Hovious 13:36
Well, when we I love that, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna use that probably tonight when I'm doing some teaching. Thank you. Welcome, appreciate you.

Casey O'Roarty 13:46
Mutual. But

Kristin Hovious 13:47
the when we talk about, I think sometimes when we talk about the word consequence, it's almost like consequences like quicksand, or consequences like wet cement and you put your foot in it, and you could get stuck in it where, when we have accountability, for me, the idea of accountability is the person who made the mistake and the person with against whom or to whom the mistake was made, with whom the stake was made, there's an opportunity to smooth it over, like the person who's setting the concrete. I'm sure there's a tool for that, right? What's the tool for setting concrete? And once you put your foot in it, you can then smooth it over, not like it never happened, but truly making it repaired, well.

Casey O'Roarty 14:40
And let's dig into that, because that's what we're going to talk about. That's our real topic for the day, and and it's one of those tools that I like to say is all about human relationships. So yes, we talk about it in positive discipline. Discipline. We talk about it with parents and teachers in their relationship. With children. But as many of you who followed me or have been positive discipline students know, we call it parenting, but really it's humaning, right? It's human relationship skills. And so the tool that we're going to talk about making amends, also, like you refer to it recovering from a mistake, or, as we say in our house, making it right. It's an actual positive discipline tool. So tell the listeners a little bit like about the logistics of making amends, or the RS of recovery. We call it a lot of things right? What are the steps to that? We'll start there. I

Kristin Hovious 15:47
so the steps as I as I walk, the walk in my family when I'm trying to make something right,

is to first number one, make sure that everyone is ready for an apology to be connected. So if, if one of the two people, or sometimes one of the four people, depending on how big the mistake is in our in our little tribe here in Chicago, which is includes my husband, my son and my daughter and myself, if it's a big one, we all have to be ready, and we all have to be calmed down. So number one is just making sure that we're ready for that reconnection. So number the second step for me is to actually reconnect, to sit at eye level, and I like to think about it as heart level, because I like my kids, so make sure our hearts are about the same level. And I don't have to be in front of them, but I can often be beside them and tell them, you know, I really want to reconnect with you. And then that third R for me is recognize I made a mistake, that awareness that I know I made a mistake and that I speak it, and so then I say what it was, whatever it was, and recognize what, why I think what I did was not right, not trying to defend it, right? I'm sorry I was angry and I did or I was hungry often, but it is hungry, and I did this, but I did this and owning it, and in the future, whatever I'm going to do in the future. So I'll be happy to share a picture of this with your listeners, but there was one day, and it was I know, back in March that I know it was not a really good, positive discipline morning, getting the kids off to

Casey O'Roarty 17:56
school. I have a story to share when you're done. So yes, please share.

Kristin Hovious 18:01
So how those things work, right? All my little R's is I printed my one of my children really loves animals, and she loves the sloth, so I wrote her, I print. I found this really cute artwork of a sloth, and I printed it out, and I created this card, and it says, I'm a little slow. Sometimes I feel awful about this morning. I am sorry. It was a mistake to make you feel bad. It was a mistake to yell, and it was a mistake to blame. In the future, I will work quicker to catch myself and my lid. We could talk about that in a second, in my lid quicker and cool off before I say something mean. I hope you can forgive me. Love mom, and I was able to tuck it into her lunchbox so that she actually found it at lunch. That's so sad. She didn't know I went back to school after dropping her off, being so me, so, you know, it's so I she was going to be cooled off. Number one, yeah, I recognized the mistake I reconnected with her, that the sloth I was hoping, anyway, was reconnecting with her because I found something that I knew that she liked. I apologized for the action, and I was very clear about what I did that was a mistake, and I resolved to do something in the future.

Casey O'Roarty 19:33
I love that. I love that so much, and I really appreciate that first piece around everybody being calm. I think that we are all so anxious to get moving and wanting everybody to be on our agenda and our time. I my story which I shared, I think I shared it on a Facebook live a few weeks ago. But, you know, I have a 14 year old, I have a teenager, and so we're bumping up against all the typical teen things. And. All the I think probably our typical parent fears, well, I'm bumping up against that she is not and she doesn't have a few years. You're right. Anyway, there was something came up, and we were talking about it, and I slipped into fear, and I just kept going on and on. And I remember in my mind thinking, like, I really want her to get this. I really want her to understand the depth here. And I just was like, on and on until it kind of took a turn where it became hurt, like, kind of passive, aggressive, hurtful. And then I just knew I had to walk out. She got she teared up. And I was like, Okay, well, now I'm done. I'm just gonna walk away. And I walked away and got it together. And a little while later, I walked and she was in the bathroom brushing her teeth, and I walked in, and I just stood there, and she looked at me, and she was teeth brushing, and I said, Well, I want to, I want to make it right with you. And she's brushing her teeth looking at me, and she has a Sonicare, and so every time the Sonicare died, she turned it back on. And I just stood there, and I was like, Really, you're just gonna keep turning it on. And she kind of raised her eyebrows, and, you know, was like, gave the the teen, like, yeah, look to me. And so I stood there for a while, and then I said, Fine, you know, and I walked away. And as soon as I walked away, she turned off her toothbrush, and she said, No, wait, come back, which was like both of us. I felt it energetically, both of us releasing, you know. And then I got to say, hey, you know, I just went on and on, and it got hurtful, and it was not helpful to you, and I'm really sorry that I treated you like that. I got caught up in my fear, and it's not okay to to make people feel the way that I made you feel. And I'm sorry, right? And then, and then done. We were Oh, and I, you know, and I was like, and I'm, you know, it's gonna be a long road here. I'm really gonna practice recognizing when the fear creeps in and gets in my way, and I'm gonna do my best with that, you know, and yeah. And then we hugged it out and everything, you know. And then we were, like, back on that solid ground with each other and able to move on. And I think that because that practice has been a part of our family since the kids were so little, it's a pretty quick recovery. You know, most of the time it's a pretty quick like we can find our solid ground is so our foundation is so solid that even when it gets Rocky, we're pretty you know, it's easy to find our footing again, which I'm grateful for, which I'm grateful for. And I love that as trainers, we both. You know, we get to facilitate this work for others, as well as in our own home. What are you noticing? What comes up in your classes? What do you think gets in the way around making amends for people, where do they get hung up?

Kristin Hovious 23:07
Well, I think the first place that we as adults get hung up is being willing to have our children, whether it's our students or our children, see us making a mistake for a while, it hasn't been really until recently that my husband and I have strong conversations right where We don't agree with things in front of the kids, because they sometimes, they have, they now trust that we're going to come back together no matter what we say. And sometimes there's this concern of, oh no. I could see it in Julian's face, like, are you Oh no. So I think that there is this idea sometimes that we have to have this facade of adults have it all together. And really the opposite, in my experience, is true. In my belief is true that them that when our children see adults, be able to make mistakes and recover from mistakes and share the power of a heartfelt reconnection apology, because it's not just sorry, right? That's important, and it's not a walk over there and say you're sorry. No, I there was a lot of that I remember sort of, I have an older brother, but he's six years older than I am, so I can remember that I'm sorry, and feeling that it wasn't real, right? And knowing that it wasn't real. And so dad actually did. More damage to our relationship, our sibling relationship, than it did good. So I think that you said this already, we want to. We want to rush and get through things. And so if the apology could be really fast, then fine. So that's the second thing. Is that we want to rush and and this stuff takes time. It takes time to find your words, because first you have to not be mad. And there's a it's probably that when you did something that's that was damaging to the relationship, you did it when you were mad, so you have to calm down first before you can even recognize and have awareness that, oh, man, what I just said that was probably hurtful, because it's really hard to be empathetic when you're so mad. And

Casey O'Roarty 25:48
don't you think also, like, I think, yes, and we feel like it has, we have to recover so fast, and we don't, you don't listeners, listen to us. It's okay, even if it's the next day, even if it's the afternoon after school, after having a tough morning, right? It's the power is. It's not about like some quick turnaround.

Kristin Hovious 26:15
Can I say something else about that, even if it's years later, and so I mentioned that I didn't find positive discipline as a parenting style until my children were five and four, and when my little girl was three, I needed to bathe her. She was really dirty, and she did not want to take a bath. And I had not found my graceful self yet, and I was not at all playful and so but I was very respectful. I did not want to take off her clothing in any sort of rough way, but I did want her hair to be washed, because I think it probably had some lots of dirt, mud, whatever it was, you know, probably sand. We were at the beach, so I remember her screaming and because usually adults are bigger and can lift children, who are three up, I plopped her in the tub. I said, I'm sorry you don't want to take take a bath, but it's right now, now, because I had to do whatever else I had to do. So fast forward five years. My children are now eight and nine. They are still kind of reluctant bathers,

Casey O'Roarty 27:38
traumatized

Kristin Hovious 27:42
and you know, who knows? Right? Knows, but, but I had the opportunity. I was alone, my my thought, my father, oh, sorry, Peter, my husband, um, my husband was traveling over Mother's Day, so I actually had the opportunity to be like a solo parent on Mother's Day, which was awesome. And it we all had to bathe. It was hot. We all had to do it. And as I was cleaning up the kitchen, I had this thought about that day in the tub. And I was cleaning, cleaning up the kitchen. And I said, if you guys have a minute, I have an apology that I have to have with you. And sat down after I finished wiping things up, I said, I am sorry. They looked each looked each other like she hasn't done anything yet today. And I said, when you were three, I plopped you in the tub, and I, you know, I watched you with Arielle. Do you remember that? And she looked at me, and her eyes got big and wide, and Julian said to me, mommy, I was I wanted to stand up for Ava. Wanted to stand up for Ava, but I was really afraid that you would put me in my room until I say anything. And I, you know, I don't know. Does he remember that? Does he not remember that, like really, or does he remember that feeling? I don't know if he remembers the moment or the feeling, but I just went with what he said, with he remembered the moment, and I said, I'm sorry I was doing the best I could with the tools I had at that time, and I know that. What I know now I would not do that again. Yeah, and what I was doing was setting the stage, because if they're if they're worried about bathing, now, I know what's going to happen to them in the next few years, their bodies are going to change. Really gonna get smelly, right there. They're not there yet, neither one of them who are Motley but I wanted to be able to like i. Had that thought. And guess what? This week, they're just trotting to the tub and taking a bath by themselves. Well, is that a coincidence, or have they let that? I don't right. Who knows.

Casey O'Roarty 30:13
But energetically, I just love to think about what's happening energetically with our kids when we can, when you connected like that with them, like the energetic release. I had a gal in one of my classes who her the struggle was teeth brushing. Right one day when one parent helping parent, she was getting help around her son and teeth brushing. And then a whole a couple weeks later, we were in class, and somebody brought up, like, just random techniques that are hurtful that parents use, like saucing. Have you ever heard of saucing, where you put hot sauce in their mouth for making a mistake? Oh, God. So the same mom was says, well, there was that one time I put hot sauce on his toothbrush. And I looked at her, and I said, Wow, I wonder if that's connected to why he now doesn't like brushing his teeth, and her whole face changed, and it was like she had never put those two things together. And it was really helpful, because it became less about her taking it personally and him just being defiant, and more of wow, we have some like, there's healing to be done there, and that's what I'm hearing in your story, is like an opportunity to heal A past wound,

right? So that's awesome. And

Kristin Hovious 31:42
our CH and that our children, here's here's another, like when we go back to recover to something. I think another thing that gets in people's ways of having recovery connection or having recovery conversations is that we don't want to ruin a perfectly good day or perfectly good moment, perfectly good 10 minutes of time to go back and recover like everything's fine right now. Why would I want to go back to that place? And in our family, we've gotten over that. But I think that that is a hurdle that we have that people new to this idea of connection and accountability can trip up on, because if it's going really well now, why would I want to bring something up that's tough and that can be the moment to bring it up, because everything is calm and The brain is is actually able to hear it. I do think let's go back to the to the weekends conversation I have with my kids. I asked them if they would both be willing to have a recovery conversation. And that is something that I learned, believe it or not, reading the autobiography of Nelson Mandela, which is he? He believed that apartheid ended for one one of the reasons that he was able to bring that that huge social change in a country, is his ability to have a conversation about the conversation,

Unknown Speaker 33:22
I love that.

Kristin Hovious 33:26
And you don't know what someone else is going through in their day. You really are ready to apologize, but they may have 16 other things on their mind, and they can't even listen to you,

Casey O'Roarty 33:41
right? Or as they become teenagers, I think that asking permission for that conversation, and when you get a no, I'm not ready, and it feels like, oh, like, what? In my experience, it feels a little hurtful to receive, which is a great indicator to me that my child is still hurting, and so the follow up just becomes, well, let me know when you're ready, right? Let me know when you're ready. And I think that, going back to what you said about not wanting to bring something up when everything's going so well, like really getting curious around that, you know, because I think that that is a reflection of how pain, the pain that we feel around our mistake the adult versus the right thing to do, which is to model one on one hand to model but on the other hand to heal with the child. Like you can be uncomfortable and you can make amends, but discomfort is not like that's not, don't let it be a roadblock. It could be a speed bump. But, you know, discomfort, I think, is a place to get curious, not a place to stop.

Kristin Hovious 34:50
Oh, this is where you're I have to say that being in this conversation just can show. Up, like, there are a couple of recovery conversations that I'm actively avoiding having. Like, Oh no, I want to do this today, but there and often I can have recovery conversations with kids, right, and, and, and some of the like recovery conversation with with peers or someone that I have not I've got some physical distance with, that might be adults in my life to get curious about that too, just for my own self and I, and being aware of it can it can be uncomfortable. And being able to practice being in that discomfort and saying the words anyway, is where some real growth has the opportunity to occur. And then I think I had to look at my own personal response to forgiveness, yeah, which is, which is something that I am actively looking at, right? Like to really forgive someone. Um, it has the opportunity to stand in their world and truly believe that they were doing the best that they could with the tools that they had at the time that anything happened.

Casey O'Roarty 36:33
Yeah, and forgiveness isn't condoning whatever hurt has been inflicted on you. It's really releasing yourself from allowing that experience to continue to hurt you, right? That was deep. Did you write that down?

Kristin Hovious 36:48
I'm going to record, reread this, or re listen to it and write that down at that very moment. Thank you.

Casey O'Roarty 36:55
And I think, Oh, this is so juicy, right? And I think, too, you know when I'm thinking about one conversation in particular that I need to have. You know, there's also the story that I create about what my mistake means about me, which, and it's simply a story, right? If I didn't follow through with something I said I was going to do, if it took a turn and and in the end, I didn't follow through, I get to, I can that's a that's a neutral, like, that's just what happened, right? And then, as the human looking at that, I get to either decide, I get to decide the story I tell about that, and it's so easy to slip into, oh, I suck. I'm the worst. I failed, right? And this other person is going to think that I suck and that I'm the worst and that I failed, or I can choose a different you know,

Kristin Hovious 37:46
or that I'm a I'm going to interrupt you for a second, or that I'm a fraud.

Casey O'Roarty 37:49
Oh yeah, oh yeah. I'm very familiar with because,

Kristin Hovious 37:52
yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 37:54
I think all of us educators, you know, we have those really tough moments with our kids, and then it's like, oh my gosh. How do I how is it possible that I people pay me money to teach them full disclosure? Listeners, this happens? Well, that's

Kristin Hovious 38:08
it's funny, because I don't, I feel like I'm so transparent about the foibles that I have with my kids that I never feel like a fraud in parenting, in the parenting stuff. But for the other adults in my life who know that this is what I do, and then I'm really so committed to having mutually respectful relationships. Okay, so

Casey O'Roarty 38:29
in that experience with the adults right in our life, where things get messy and we don't show up as ourselves, where has that? Where has that shown up for you, and what have you done about it? So

Kristin Hovious 38:43
the most recent experience Casey, that comes to mind is really with my parents. Now I'm like, Eck, do I want to send this to my parents for them to listen to, but I will. They came to visit the weekend after the inauguration, and for us, the election was very different in our house, right from how our my immediate family, with my husband and my children experienced the election, and how my parents experienced the election, we both had really different feelings about the outcome. One of us was happy, one of us wasn't. And what I find is in my work, I can sort of be a buoy above all of that fractious conversation and drop in and get really curious and not get so bogged down in the emotion and with adults that I'm really close to, sometimes my tools and all the tools that I use professionally evaporate personally and the conversation that happened back in January when. Parents were here, was not productive and was, frankly, really hurtful. I was really hurtful to them, so I just recently saw them, and I was not able to have a conversation with my dad, because he was going through his stuff, and we didn't have a moment or time, but I was able to have a repair conversation with my mom, where I had already regathered myself, right? That, that, if we're talking about ours of recovery, and I made myself really rational before I started it, and I recognized with her, I really, really stepped in it and was unkind to you the last time we were together, and how that happened and how what that resulted in is the whole weekend was about us, about me, really, and my resistance and my anger at you, Instead of any questions or conversations or curiosity I didn't use the tools that I had, and I'm so, so sorry. And what I resolve in the future Mom, this is really the way I was with her, and it's so fresh because it happened yesterday morning. But what I really, really resolve with you is to show up and ask questions and really be curious about where you are and and what you're what you're coming where you're coming from, without judgment, because I want to know you.

Casey O'Roarty 41:41
How was that received

Kristin Hovious 41:44
so gracefully, so beautifully. There was so much hurt, I mean, and, you know, January and yesterday. And for the listeners, my yesterday was the last week of June or the last week of July. So that was six months of sitting

Casey O'Roarty 42:01
on it, yeah? And,

Kristin Hovious 42:02
and where I go back to that is that with the people that you love and the people who are most important to you, even if you don't love them, even if you are in relationship with them, right? Whether it's your adult colleagues or, you know, who, whomever you need to have these repair conversations with. It's never too late. Yeah, love to recognize when you are calm, and maybe asking them if they are also calm, so asking them for the invitation into the conversation. But it's never too late to practice repair,

Casey O'Roarty 42:38
beautiful. Love it. So in this context of repair and relationship, Kristen, what does joyful courage mean to you?

Kristin Hovious 42:52
So I don't think that repairing relationships comes naturally or easy to us. It is a practice. And so in the context of repairing relationships, what joyful courage means to me is that there's a consistent opportunity to practice repair, that it's always worth it, that it's not it's so important in the whole trajectory of our lives together as human beings, and it helps to you know, if we can be joyful in our repair, then maybe we can also turn the corner and be joyful about mistakes. And those two really weave together like longitude and latitude, and they can hold us in this sea of uncertainty that

Casey O'Roarty 43:51
was deep.

Kristin Hovious 43:53
I liked it. I don't know if you saw the interweaving of my fingers, but I did.

Casey O'Roarty 43:59
My fingers are all together like I love anything that's gonna interweave and hold us beautiful. Thank you so much. Well, where can listeners find you and follow your your work and what you're doing in the world?

Kristin Hovious 44:13
So I'll make sure that I get the right facebook follow in the show notes. So please look, because I don't, I'm I'm practicing my skill and building my skills at Facebook. So I'm not sure what it is. I think is my website, although I know and my website is www.se, l chicago.com, and that stands for social, emotional learning. And the coaching that I do for parents and for community leaders, including school leaders, helps adults build their social emotional skills and really looking at all of these opportunities to build skills. Awesome. Yeah.

Casey O'Roarty 45:00
Great. And if people want to work with you around coaching, they can just find you

Kristin Hovious 45:04
on your website. They can find me on my website. Great. Well, thank

Casey O'Roarty 45:07
you so much for being with me. Kristen, this was so great. Casey,

Kristin Hovious 45:12
you are such a big part of growth, my own personal growth, and I am so honored to be with you. Thank you. You

Casey O'Roarty 45:24
music. Wow, big. Thanks for all of the candid sharing and information that we just got with that interview with Kristen. I'm so grateful that she took the time to come and be on the show with me. I love talking about making amends. This parenting tool was one of the most powerful pieces to shifting the way that I was being and the way that I was holding relationship with my kids. This was big, big, big for me, and I am thrilled to get to talk about it. So yay. Well, I just want to say thank you to all of you for showing up and listening into my conversation. I'm so, so grateful for the listenership. Next week, I'll be back on with a solo show. I'm really looking forward to that and digging into one of the challenges that's showing up in the live in love with joyful courage Facebook group. So if you're not already in that group, head on over there, ask to join. You'll be accepted. And it's really a community of parents who are looking for support and celebration from a group of people that are like minded and really on the journey of joyful courage inside of their parenting. If you are not already a subscriber to the show, and what that means if you're a subscriber, that means that you have an app on your phone or tablet where the show just automatically comes to you each time I publish a new one. If you're not already doing that, then head on over to iTunes or Google Play search for joyful courage and subscribe. Do it. Do it. Do it. And I also want to invite you, if you listen to the show today and it was and it landed for you, if it really resonated with you, but you're still stirring around in the how do I do this? How do I put this into practice? How do I take action on this? One on one, coaching is absolutely going to support you in that, if you are having some feels around, what it means to own your mistakes, if you're feeling like you're really out of control or not or not, if you're just feel like you need a little tune up, all of that is what one on one coaching will support you with. It is your space and time with me to really craft and be intentional and nurture your relationship with yourself, your relationship with your family and the way that you are currently showing up in the world. So if one on one coaching is something that you are interested in, please shoot me an email at [email protected] we can have an exchange. I can give you more information. We could even do a 15 minute exploratory call where you can ask questions, find out all the logistics around coaching. Just shoot me that email [email protected] and I am happy to talk more about it with you. Yay big. Thanks to my team, Chris Mann, the man at pod shaper, for being my super amazing producer and making the show sound oh so good. And my behind the scenes, Mama Anna Proctor, for all she does in support of my work and for to my community. Thank you all of you out there listening and commenting and sharing, the only way that this work can really have the impact that it's meant to have is if we pass it around. So Big. Huge love to each and every one of you. Thank you for sharing, and I will see you next week.

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