Eps 275: Solo Show How Does Firmness Show Up For You?

Transcription

Casey O'Roarty 0:04
Music. Hello, friends. Welcome to the joyful courage podcast, a place where we tease apart what it means to be a conscious parent and a conscious human on the wild ride of parenting. I am your host. Casey o'rourdy, positive discipline trainer, parent, coach and mom walking the path right next to you as I imperfectly raise my own two teens. Joyful courage is all about grit growth on the parenting journey, relationships that provide a sense of connection and meaning and influential tools that support everyone in being their best selves. Today's show is a solo one, and I encourage you to listen for how grit shows up as I tease things apart with you. Thank you so much for listening. I am deeply honored to lead you. Grateful that what I put out matters to you, and so happy to keep it coming. Thank you for who you are and for being in the community. Enjoy the show.

Hey everybody today, it is just me jumping in to chat with all of you about what is on my mind. Woohoo. The joyful courage. World is super full right now I have begun a teaching parenting the positive discipline way training with 24 amazing women who are ready to up level the impact they are making in the world. It's giving me this amazing opportunity to revisit the core concepts of positive discipline and to reflect on what makes this program so powerful and unique. It's such a thrill and an honor to get to level up new parent educators. So shout out to all of those ladies, the joyful courage, no, the living, joyful courage. Membership is going strong with vulnerable sharing and connecting on our group calls, and we have a book club this month, and we're gonna discuss Dan Siegel's book brainstorm this coming Thursday. Super excited about that. If you haven't read brainstorm by Dan Siegel and you are a parent of a tween or a teen, you have to get your hands on this book, get it, read it, then give it a few years, read it again. I'm actually on my third reading, and continue to take away so much like every time I read it, I'm learning more. Shout out also to all of the parents who showed up last week to the minimizing risky behavior workshop, what a group. I seriously love what I do, and I love that each quarter this year, I am showing up and offering some powerful, free learning to give you a little taste of positive discipline and of joyful courage. So thank you to everyone who participated in that. And finally, I want to let you know before I get into today's content, parenting for the season you're in middle school, years and beyond, is making a comeback. So I took the feedback from the parents who went through the march session of the seasons course and have added a week to it so it's five weeks instead of four weeks. Tweaked the content a bit to make sure it is ever more transformational for all of you parents. Enrollment is now open, but space is limited. Parenting for the season you're in. Or, like I said, I like to call it the seasons. Course is a five week class for parents of middle and high school aged kids. It's a space for learning the positive discipline tools that support connection and firmness as well as a gentle look at the ways we parents maybe getting in the way of our adolescents, growth and development. We will connect around the collective experience of raising teenagers. Learn about teen brain development. Consider our parenting styles embody connected firmness, which is something we touched upon in the workshop last week, and learn encouragement, tools that will sustain us in the years ahead. After going through the program in March, one of the participants shared, I have been struggling with consequences for my teens. What should they be and why aren't they working? We have been locked in a power struggle with my younger teen, and I found myself trying to force him to do what I want control instead of collaboration, this program helped me pivot away from consequences and re frame situations with a view on solutions and really think harder about what. Part of the work or choice is really mine, and which is his love that Cher another parent offered I loved how this course consistently helped me to see another way and learn how to be and remember to be in relationship with my teen and not simply trying to fix or control the challenging behaviors. Loved that feedback. This is deep, deep learning, my friends.

Okay, enough, all right, enough about all those JC things. Today I am super excited to talk about something that is coming up with my clients, as well as in my own life. I was recently on a call with other positive discipline trainers, and we were asked to really think about the difference between authoritative and authoritarian parenting specifically around firmness, firmness as an authoritative parent versus firmness as an authoritarian parent. So just to offer a little context, often in positive discipline classes, we look at parenting styles through the lens of connection or kindness and firmness. And three styles tend to be highlighted, the style that is a lot of connection and no firmness. We call that permissive. The style with a lot of firmness and no connection, we call that authoritarian. And the style of both connection and firmness we call authoritative parenting. Now, not only do these words describe parenting styles, but we could also say that they describe leadership styles. And I really like to think of being a parent as being a leader. I'm the leader in my family. It used to really bother me that authoritarian and authoritative sounded so similar. Both words describe a style of authority, just authority held and delivered in very different ways. So we're going to tease apart these two styles today. So many of us were raised by authoritarian parents, parents who were strict, controlling, made a lot of rules and dished out a lot of punishment, punitive punishment. They were firm, but maybe not as connected as we needed them to be. There wasn't room for making mistakes. There wasn't any listening to better understand us. There was a lot of rigidity my way or the highway type of mindset. And maybe as you became a parent, you decided that you were gonna do it different. You were gonna be a different kind of parent to your kids. You wanted to be connected, maintain relationship with your child, see them for who they are, hold space for them to be their fullest expression, give them lots of choices. Yes, I'm aligned with all of that. And what happens, what often happens, what happened for me and happens for many of the parents that I work with, is that when we decide to not be authoritarian parents, when we deeply value connection and our child's sense of self and esteem, we tend to swing and lean into permissive parenting because we don't really know how to be connected and firm both. And are you with me? There was a very, very valuable exploration of this amongst my peers on this call this morning. Now, permissive parenting is no bueno. Okay, it's it's no bueno without boundaries and structure, our kids really struggle. They aren't learning the life skills they need to thrive. They aren't learning to create and hold their own boundaries. They don't feel like their parents have their back in a meaningful way without a container, the container being routines, expectations and collaborative agreements and problem solving. Our kids really flail around. So I was thinking about this, like, how do i What's the metaphor here? Right? I love metaphor. So think about being dropped into the middle of an Olympic sized pool that's 20 feet deep. You can't touch the bottom, but you know, and you can see that there are walls to swim towards. So treading water in the middle of that pool. Are you feeling a lot of stress? Well, depending on how good of a swimmer you are, you might be feeling a tremendous amount of stress. But just imagine you are a swimmer. Okay, you know how to swim, you know and you know that there is safety close by right now, think about being. Being dropped in the middle of the ocean. Maybe it's only 20 feet deep in the area that you're being dropped into, but there isn't anywhere to swim to. There's nowhere to hang on to, nothing to hold you and keep you safe. Permissive parenting, while it may be full of love and creativity, is lacking in firmness and structure, and is a lot like being in the middle of the ocean. We're unsure of where the edges are, where you can take risks, where you need to pull back. So the question is, how to be firm? How to Be firm in a way that our kids continue to develop a healthy sense of self, feel listened to, attuned to and understood firmness that allows for that beautiful exploration of pushing against status quo, healthy risk taking and making mistakes. How do we do that? That's the question. Connection and firmness are often thought of as either or either. I choose connection and relationship keep my child happy by never being a no, or I choose firmness and I lay down the law, and I have to show them that I really mean what I say. Yeah, no, it's not an either or, and we're going to play with connection and firmness as a both and but before we go there, I want to share some of the ahas that came out of that discussion with my colleagues, my very brilliant colleagues. So some of the things that I wrote down as we discussed this is, you know, talking about, why? Why is it so hard right to be to to be in that space of connected firmness? So some of the things that were shared was remembering that it is not a parent's job to make sure their child is happy all the time and when we and I'll add to that when we slide into that like I gotta make sure they're happy, that's when we let go of firmness. We let go of respect for self and the situation, and put the child and their happiness first, which is not necessarily the most helpful thing to do for the child. It's not a parent's job to protect their child from negative emotions, right? Some parents it's so challenging to be with sadness, disappointment, anger when it comes from their child, and so they kind of let go of the firmness and lean into the connection and the kindness because of that discomfort that we have right. Sometimes we think that maintaining connection implies that our kids are gonna like what the outcome is, right, or creating a win, win means that everybody's happy. And I mean, we got to give a little to get a little on both sides. And sometimes that's not like, Woohoo, I gave a little. Sometimes it's like, God, I didn't really get what I want. But okay, I guess I'm going to roll with this collaborative decision that's been made. Being connected doesn't mean that your child likes you all the time, especially when we're talking about teens and tweens, they're not always gonna like you and it's okay, it's okay, it's okay. It's okay for them to feel mad at you. It's okay for them to feel like you don't get it, you don't understand. It's okay. Connection is bigger than just connecting to the child, it's also connecting to ourselves and to the experience that we're having and to the intentionality around how we are showing up, connecting with ourselves allows us to keep the greater good in mind, right?

Being firm is not the same thing as being mean. And I think a lot of us really struggle with this, because there's a lot of models of mean firmness, right? We can all picture someone like really quick, who is a mean, firm person. There's not a ton of models of connected firmness, right? But being firm is having a bigger picture in mind. It's It's knowing where you want to go and being willing again to be with the discomfort that comes up when we take that leadership. Role, and it's okay to disagree with your child. It's okay for them, for you to set a limit and for them not to like it. It's okay like you can end the conversation with, yeah, I understand that you think 3am is a logical curfew, and we don't this is a hard line. It's okay to disagree. Authoritarian parenting often comes from a place of fear. And you know, for some families, this came up in our call, and I really appreciated the sharing. For some families that fear is very legitimate. It can be life or death. Fear. For some families, it's not trusting. It's not about trusting their teens out in the world. It's not trusting the world that their teens are walking out into. Right? That fear can result in authoritarian parenting, and it's real or authoritarian parenting can show up when we believe that our kids behavior is a reflection of us to an extreme, being more concerned about what will the neighbors think than considering the needs and development of our kids and our teens. We all want our kids to thrive. We all want our kids to live into their fullest potential, and it is messy. Teasing apart the best way to get them there. It's messy. It's slippery, you know, it's it's really hard. So what about authoritative parenting? What about connected firmness? So again, I think it's important to say out loud that parents are the leaders of the family. No doubt, the difference in authoritative leadership is that it is authority with instead of authority over, do you? Do you feel that distinction authoritative leadership, authoritative parenting is authority with our kids, instead of authority over our kids. So we are listening for understanding, and we are holding space to learn more, to gather more information. We are valuing the perspective and the experience of our kids. We're acknowledging and valuing I said that already, the perspective and experiences of our kids and we are also willing to say no, not this time. No, not yet. I see you, I hear you. I know this is really important to you and what you want, and not yet. We're willing to stand in the discomfort of our kids being disappointed, angry at us falling apart, and trusting that we will both get through it, and sometimes that listening, that listening for understanding, does lead us to a broader perspective, and there are openings and we do and can say, you know, after Talking more about this, I'm feeling a little bit better about it. And, you know, there's room, there's room here to be a yes, but it isn't coming from, you know, avoiding our kids being disappointed or wanting to avoid a confrontation, connected firmness, to me, requires a tremendous amount of self regulation, it is more neutral than it is emotional. There is space for curiosity and collaboration and learning, and it feels really respectful, and it feels respectful of myself as well as the teen, the child in front of me, and listen for most of us, all of us. This is a work in progress. This is a place to bring in some lightness, some ease in the body, lots of inner reflection and curiosity. Definitely we will have. I mean, I don't know how quick you are to be a no, I'm a quick No. And I get to own that and acknowledge that and find ways to gather more information to help my kids see that. You know, their approach around certain things matters, and I'm going to want more. I'm going to want the download. I'm going to want the info. So just knowing that and working with my teens around how to be in communication about what they want and what my concerns are has been really useful. What do you think? What do you think? How does firmness show up for you. I'd love to know. I would love for you to share about it in the joyful courage for parents of teens Facebook group or shoot me an email or private message and let me know how this conversation is landing for you and what you're thinking about when you consider. Uh, connected firmness. Okay, I want to know Big shout out to my first positive discipline mentor, Jody McVitie, for her leadership and facilitation and my fellow positive discipline lead trainer candidates for all your thoughtful questions and discussion points. And thank you listener. Thank you for listening to the show each week. If you're new, hello, welcome, welcome to the community. I am always honored to know that listeners find value in the topics and conversations that I bring here. Next week, I have a super special guest that's coming on to kick off Pride Month, and I can't wait to share that conversation until then, I hope you have a fantastic week, and I'll see you soon. Okay, yay. Thanks again for listening. If you feel inspired and you haven't already, please do me a favor and head over to Apple podcast and leave a review. I'm working so hard to stand out and make a massive impact on families around the globe. Your review helps the podcast to be seen by even more parents. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Also follow joyful underscore courage on Instagram and Facebook. We love connecting with you on social media. Don't forget to sign up for parenting for the season you're in. We get started the first week of June. So time is running out. Go to joyful courage.com/seasons to claim your spot. All the love to all of you and your families this week, it is my honor to serve you. Love you so much.