Ep #160: Modeling: The Most Powerful Parenting Tool

Welcome to Real World Peaceful Parenting, a podcast for parents that are tired of yelling, threatening, and punishing their kids. Join mom and master certified parent coach Lisa Smith as she gives you actionable step-by-step strategies that’ll help you transform your household from chaos to cooperation. Let’s dive in.

Welcome, welcome, welcome. Welcome to today’s episode. I am super excited to be with you’re here today because this week marks the three year anniversary of Real World Peaceful Parenting. I know many of you have listened to every episode and been here from the start.

So I say well done you, well done. If you’re just tuning in, or you’ve only had the chance to catch a couple of episodes, welcome. Glad to have you here. Join us on this incredible ride called raising our children. I’m super excited to bring content to you each week that supports you, coaches you, and shares new tools with you. That’s my mission with each and every episode each week.

Now recently, I was asked why I chose to be a parent coach. I thought it’d be a really great opportunity to bring you kind of the why behind what I’m doing here. Initially, I became a parent coach for my own benefit. I have always been my best client. As a former dominant parent of an incredibly strong willed child, I wanted to, no, make that I needed to parent differently, and I knew it in my heart just like you might know it.

After my own amazing transformation in my parenting and with my family, I realized I wanted to share the tools of peaceful parenting with everyone. I wanted every family to have access to a better way of parenting that leads to deep connection and peace in the home. I wanted to help you be a cycle breaker, to change the trajectory of your family.

Now many years later having worked with thousands of families around the world, it is the current events of today that really motivate me or keep me motivated showing up here week after week to do this work here on the podcast with my coaching clients and inside my community called The Hive. It really is my mission to show up and help you create that lasting connection with your kids at any age.

What I know about lasting connection is that it isn’t going to happen without everyone feeling seen, heard, and valued, your kids included, and without everyone working to get their needs met. My mission is to help you understand every behavior communicates a need, and your kids are just trying to get their needs met and uncover their feelings.

When we feel heard, we can feel others. When we can meet our own needs, we can honor our feelings and respect other’s feelings. It all starts at home with modeling. It starts with you, the parent or the caregiver. As parents, we are the first and most powerful teachers of our children. We show our children how we feel about ourselves, how we feel about them, and how we feel about others. We do this through modeling.

I like to say kids don’t do what we say. They do what we do. We teach our children how to show up in the world when we honor their feelings and needs or when we don’t honor their feelings and needs. Here’s what this has to do with current events today.

I look at some of the leaders in the world today, some of the influencers, some of the people leading countries and movements and corporations and groups of people. I wonder how they would show up differently if they had felt heard as a child, if they’d gotten their needs met when they were young. I feel pretty confident that we would not be in a state of divide and hate today that we’re in if this were true.

I feel like we are in many ways less connected than ever as a nation. I don’t see empathy and compassionate listening and compromise. I see a lot of adults who have no idea how to access their feelings and meet their own needs, let alone try to access the feelings and needs of others. I’m sure it’s because that’s what was modeled for them as kids. Based on brain science, I’m sure they’re modeling that same thing for their children now.

Here’s the truth. Kids do not do what we say. They do what we do. They do what we show them, and it’s called modeling. Let me say it again because I need you to hear this and really understand this. You can talk to, lecture, command your kids all you want, but kids do not do what we say. They do what we show them or what we model.

Now, let me define this for you. In the context of parenting, modeling refers to the act of demonstrating behaviors, attitudes, and values that you wish to instill in your children. It involves being a positive role model by showcasing desired traits and actions with the expectation that your children will observe and emulate these behaviors.

Let me say that again. In the context of parenting, modeling refers to the act of demonstrating behaviors, attitudes, and values that you wish to instill in your children. It involves being a positive role model by showcasing desired traits and actions with the expectation that your children will observe and emulate these behaviors.

Modeling is a powerful parenting tool as it allows children to learn by example, shaping their understanding and appropriate conduct and values based on the actions and attitudes they observe in their parents or caregivers. Modeling is where it’s at. You want your kids to do something, model it. You want your kids to not do something, make sure you’re not modeling it.

Let me give you an example. Have you ever seen little kids, like three, four, five, six year old little kids playing house where one of the kids decides to be the mommy and the other decides to be the daddy? Have you watched them play? Have you listened to the words coming out of their mouth? They act out, or roleplay or play, what is being modeled for them, and it’s utterly fascinating to observe and watch. Yeah? Kids don’t do what we say. They do what we model. So now some important questions. I want you to take inventory. I want you to ask yourself these questions.

Do you like what you’re modeling for your children? Do you know what your children need? Can your children access their feelings? Are all feelings welcomed in the home? Do you model joy every time you see your kids? Do you model patience when something goes wrong? Do you model being on the phone in your car? I hope not. But if you do, it would be good to realize that your future drivers are going to do what you do, not what you say.

Do you model talking smack about people in your life? Do you model yelling when you get frustrated and things don’t go your way? Do you model accepting people, especially your children, just as they are? Do you model that mistakes are normal and happen to all of us? Do you model for your kids to be kind to others and solve problems without violence? Do you model apologizing when you make a mistake?

Do you model love and acceptance for yourself, including your body, no matter what it looks like? Do you model good conflict resolution with your spouse and other adults so they can see what that looks like? Do you model taking a moment to regulate yourself when you’re triggered so your kids can see what that looks like? Do you model being a good friend? Do you model naming your feelings in scuba diving underneath your own behavior to the feelings and needs so your kids can see what that looks like?

Remember, your kids aren’t going to or much, much, much less likely to learn any of these skills or tools if you, yes you, aren’t modeling these for them. It does not matter what you say. Let me say it another way. Your kid’s best chance, absolutely best chance to learn these skills and tools, is for you, yes you, to model these at home. Don’t focus on what your co-parent is or isn’t doing, is or isn’t modeling. At a minimum, your kids can have one parent that’s modeling the things, the traits, the actions, the ways of showing up that you want for them by you modeling it for them.

Now I know firsthand the effort it takes, the courage and the commitment to change the direction of your family, to take your children in a new trajectory, to point your family in your new trajectory for generations to come.

What I know is it all starts with modeling, with taking that inventory and asking yourself questions, by observing yourself and what you’re modeling in the home while you’re parenting, while you’re being in community with your children. But it’s so worth it. It’s some of the best work you can do while here on the planet. I know. I speak from experience.

So back to my why. It’s the current events of today that really motivate me to show up here for you week after week and to do this work, to help people like you get on the path to peaceful parenting, to show up and help you forge lasting connections with your children at any age.

Because what I also know and believe to the core of who I am is that peaceful parenting changes the world one family at a time. Your kids and my kid and the current children of today are the leaders of tomorrow, and I dream of a world of peaceful leaders that while going through disagreement and conflict and tragedies, that these peaceful leaders, these future leaders of tomorrow, will be able to access their feelings and needs.

I mean, can you imagine that? Dream with me for a moment. That the generation of kids that we’re raising right now feels seen, heard, and valued, can access their feelings, and know what they need. The world would be a different place, right? Oh, I think about this all the time.

So what’s holding you back from modeling intentionally the things you want to model for your children? What’s holding you back? If we go back to the definition, modeling refers to the act of demonstrating behaviors, attitudes, and values that you wish to instill in your children. So what behaviors, what attitudes, and what values do you want to stop modeling? What behaviors, attitudes, and values do you want to start modeling?

What do you need to showcase as desired traits and actions that you know your children are going to observe and emulate? I really want you to take a minute to think about this. Maybe jot it down, figure out what you want, and start to model that for your kids.

Now, maybe you’re looking for some support. Like, “I get this, Lisa. Conceptually, I get it. But I’m not sure how to implement or how to model new things for my kids. What I really struggle with is how to stay calm when things aren’t going their way or my way.”

2024 is the year of self-regulation, and I want to model that more than anything for my kids, Lisa, but I don’t know how. Or maybe your challenge is you don’t know how to stay in your higher brain, which is calm and responsive, rather than reactive, when your kids are storming. Or maybe you don’t know how to set limits that peacefully stick without having to model yelling, threatening, or punishing for your kids and still get them to do what you ask.

Well, here’s the thing. If you’re struggling with any of that, believe me, I totally understand it. I used to struggle with it too. If you are struggling and ready to do it differently then you must join The Hive right now. The Hive is my membership community where you get hands on support, where I coach you and show you exactly how to model the behaviors, attitudes, and values that you wish to instill in your children right now.

Inside The Hive my role is not only to coach you, but to also provide support and hold you accountable as you undertake the journey of modeling new behaviors, new attitudes, and new values in your children. As you learn the powerful tool that modeling is, as you learn to lead by example, and shape their understanding of appropriate conduct and values based on your family and what you believe. Where you really help them understand right from wrong and turn on the internal compass.

If this speaks to you and you’re ready to take on this task, you’re ready for this journey, you’re ready for this transformation, then you have to join The Hive right now. Because The Hive was specifically created with you in mind to help you transform your family and put your family in a new trajectory for generations to come.

Picture for a moment, if you will, having a parent coach always within reach, convenient and budget friendly. My goal is to provide you with ongoing support, ensuring that whenever a new or recurring parenting challenge arises, I’m right there to guide you towards a solution and a tool. I want you to seamlessly continue on your path to peaceful parenting, building on the progress we’ve made together, and consistently applying these invaluable tools.

The best way I know to do that is to extend a personal invitation to you to join The Hive. So if you’re ready to do your best work on the planet and point your family in a new direction, then you must join The Hive right now. To learn more and click on the link to join, I want you to go to thehivecoaching.com. I will see you there.

So as we begin our fourth year of real world peaceful parenting, I hope you’ll join me each week. I absolutely adore you. I love how you show up. I love being here for you. I love coaching you and sharing the tools along the way. As we begin our fourth year and take on 2024, the year of self-regulation, I want you to know that I’m here for you. That I will continue to bring you ideas, examples, tips, tools, coaching, and transformations along the way.

We’ll talk more and more and more about modeling. Because as a parent coach who’s been doing this for a really long time, what I really understand is the value of modeling. Your kids aren’t going to do what you say. They’re going to do what you do. So I really invite you to be intentional with what you show your children. You’ve got this. I know it. Until we meet again, I’m wishing you peaceful parenting.

Thanks for listening to Real World Peaceful Parenting. If you want more info on how you can transform your parenting, visit thepeacefulparent.com. See you soon.