Ep #106: How to Stop People-Pleasing: Leveling Up as a Parent

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 so excited to be with you here today. I know. I know. I’m like a broken record. I say it every week, but every week it is 100% true. I’ve declared 2023 to be the year of leveling up. I’m going to level up many, many, many things in my life, and I want you to consider leveling up as well.

2023 has the opportunity to be the year of leveling up our parenting. I was thinking about you in the shower today, and I was thinking about leveling up. If you level up your parenting 1% every week for 52 weeks, next year at this time, you will be a completely different parent. You will experience intense connection and cooperation with your kids. I want that for you. Yes, you.

So my ask is do something, one thing every week. Come and commit to listening to this podcast every single week on Wednesdays when it drops. Sign up for one of my classes. Sign up for something that is going to help you level up your parenting in a small way. You will be very surprised how small shifts can have a giant impact in helping you be the parent you’ve always wanted to be.

So my commitment to you in 2023 is every week I’m going to do my absolute very best to continue to bring you incredible topics here in this podcast. I’m going to challenge myself to uplevel the content even more so that I can bring you the thing each week that you’re going to commit to that’s going to create the change in your parenting, that’s going to be the 1% level up.

Today kicks us off in the greatest of ways. Today I’m going to talk about people pleasing our worth, how to make that shift and think about our worth differently. I’m going to kick it off today by leveling up the podcast here in 2023. So let’s dig in.

Many of us were raised and conditioned as children to believe our value is proportionate to how “good” we are. Our value was directly linked to things like serving others, being the good girl or boy, getting good grades, doing well in sports, complying with the demands of our parents without complaint or hesitation, and putting on airs that we were happy all the time.

It may not necessarily have felt like love, much less connection, when we pleased our parents, but at least we felt some sense of value when we did things right and we were good, and maybe even more value when we got labeled the good kid, or the smart kid, or the easygoing kid, or the kid that saves their money, or the non-impulsive kid.

If you think about it, this correlation between children’s behavior and contentment of parents happens sometimes subconsciously. When our children are joyful, compliant, thoughtful, respectful, get good grades, do well in sports or music or an extracurricular activity, we can’t help but smile and respond with lots of hugs and praise.

Conversely, when we’re being raised and we make mistakes, when we’re dysregulated, when we’re storming, when we’re talking back, when we’re sad are generally in a bad mood, when we forget to do things we were told to do, many of us were made to feel that we had no value at all.

I’m not saying our childhood wounds can be healed by blaming the people who raised us. That’s not what we want to do. Or that we were all raised by malicious people. I truly believe our parents did the best they could with what they knew. But let me ask you this. How different right now would our world be if we raised all of our kids worldwide to feel valued even when they showed us their shadow side or their underdeveloped brain?

Like really think about that? What if every human being believed that their value was not tied to how they showed up in the world. This is what I want to shed some light on in today’s episode. What we can do to help our children feel valued.

Now I am here today to tell you because some of you may not know this, but let me say it in a very clear way. Your value is not determined by how clean your house is, by how good your dinner looks and tastes, by how patient you are with the storming child or children, by how much they like the gifts you give them, or how willing they are to drop everything, or how willing you are to drop everything when a friend or your mother-in-law calls. Or how often you can stay regulated in the midst of triggers.

None of these things, not a one of them, determine your value. These things do not determine your value. Your value is not even determined by your thoughts. You are valued because you exist. You have great worth because you breathe and have life in you, and you are enough. Your worth, yes you right now, no matter what happened this morning. No matter what happened yesterday, your worth is indisputable. No one can minimize or take it from you. There is nothing you can do or not do, be or not be, think or not think to be worth more than you are just as you are.

Let me repeat that because I really want you to hear this. You are valued because you exist. You have great worth because you breathe and have life in you, and you are enough. Your worth is indisputable. No one can minimize or take it from you. There is nothing you can do or not do, nothing you can be or not be, nothing you can think or not think to be worth more. You are worthy just as you are.

When you accept this and believe this, your parenting will change. Even if you’ve never thought this before. Right now you can change what you think, and you can accept and believe that you are worthy because you exist. As a result of this, your parenting will change. You will level up. This can be your 1% change that levels up everything in your life, but especially your parenting.

Let me ask you this. Do you often feel pressured to do things right in the eyes of other people? Are you often parenting in a way because you want to avoid the eyes or the judgment of other people? Do you often feel pressured to never make mistakes? Or are you often concerned about not disturbing or inconveniencing other people?

I know that feeling. That used to be me. When your child is causing a scene in public or backing up the putt-putt line because he refuses to move on until he makes the shot he wants to make, do you feel pressured to parent him in a certain way in order to please the people waiting in line? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you might be able to relate to the identity of being a people pleaser. I personally am a recovering people pleaser.

People pleasers try to prove their worth by being good and doing right. According to, and listen to this, according to the assumed thoughts of others. People pleasers try to prove their worth by being good and doing right according to the assumed thoughts of others. Others being parents, in-laws, your sister, your best friend, your child’s teacher or coach, and sometimes even complete strangers.

So people pleasers try to prove their worth by doing it right based on the assumed thoughts. I think she wants me to parent this way. I think she’s judging that my kid is melting down in aisle six. I assume they think I’m a bad parent because my kid keeps doing his putt-putt shot over and over and over again, and he refuses to move to the next hole until he gets it right.

People pleasers often need validation from others in order to feel confident that they’re doing it right. When they’re not getting that validation or when they assume they’re not getting the validation, people pleasers become fearful, dysregulated, and triggered when they don’t get the validation they’re looking for, or when they are told they’re doing something wrong. People pleasers require external validation of their goodness.

Now, I know some of this is hard to hear. I know. Or maybe some of you are hearing it for the first time, and I’m blowing your mind. I get that too. I get it. Again, former people pleaser right here talking to you. Now, when you’re requiring this external validation of your goodness, this is where your parenting comes in. As we all know when we get triggered or when we don’t know what to do, we typically react to our child’s behavior instead of respond to it from a neutral regulated higher brain way.

As a side note, one of my biggest goals in 2023 in helping you uplevel your parenting is to constantly be teaching you, supporting you, and guiding you to move away from reacting to your kids behavior and instead respond. So what happens is our reactions then over time contribute to and influence the thoughts of our children, who may consequently feel like they are bad, incapable, or having little value. Do you see the cycle?

When we are people pleasing, when we are wanting external validation from other parents, from our coparent, from our in-laws, from our child’s teacher or coach or the people at putt-putt golf. The young group of 20 year olds at putt-putt golf just having a good time. When we require that external validation from others and our kid is doing something “wrong” by storming or refusing to move on or melting down, we get dysregulated and triggered, and we react to our child’s behavior.

Our reactions over time contribute to and influence our child’s sense of their own value. Do you see where you can break that cycle? Check this out. When you rely on external thoughts of others to measure your own self-worth, your internal compass is dulled. Relying on validation from others and needing them to like and approve of what you do means you are relying on them to create and support and give you your value.

Ah, it’s so important that you hear this. You are overriding your own thoughts and internal compass to count on others to judge, decide, and validate your worth. When this happens, you are giving the power of validating your worth away to others instead of accepting your innate worth given to you simply because you’re here and you exist. This is not the legacy or model we want to pass on to our children. We want our children to develop their own internal compass based on a strong sense of worth and value. Yeah? Yes. Give me a big strong yes. Yes, Lisa. Yes.

Okay. So how can you polish up your internal compass, trust it, and stop people pleasing and depending on external validation to feel self-worth? Well, it starts with baby steps. Baby steps. Leveling up 1%, little, teeny baby steps. The first step I want to encourage is for you to practice giving your own thoughts and internal compass equal airtime and respect as you give to the thoughts and opinions of others.

Now I know it’s not realistic or practical to completely in a snap of a finger, completely ignore what other people say. So that’s why I say equal airtime. You don’t need to completely ignore what other people say, especially if you’ve been in a cycle of depending on external validation for your own self-worth for a really long time. Okay. So you don’t need to completely ignore what other people say.

You can still take their point of view into consideration, but I want you to move towards claiming at least 51% of the vote for yourself, 51% of the vote, when it comes to how you think you’re doing as parent in human being. You want to just give yourself 51% of the airtime and everyone else 49%.

Now let me warn you. As you start to rely more and more and more on your own internal compass, you’re guaranteed to make more and more mistakes. You heard me. You will definitely get some things, maybe many things wrong, and that’s okay. Many of us, again, speaking from experience here, many of us have been conditioned to fear doing wrong things because when we do them wrong, we don’t get the validation, and we hate feeling like we have no value.

So for that reason many of us have learned to pass all responsibility for our actions on to the validator or the authority figure in our lives. Whether that was a parent, or a boss, or a mentor, or a coach, so that when they got something wrong, they had to take the heat for it. Over time, we’ve grown comfortable, and not having to take responsibility for ourselves and our own mistakes because we were only doing what the authority figure told us to do. That feels safe. That feels protective. So it’s hard for many of us to pull away from that security.

But, but, but listen to me. That security does not build character. It does not build integrity. It does not build a sense of value or self-worth, and it dulls the strong internal compass. It does not teach us how to make our own mistakes, learn from them, and grow.

So here’s your leveling up or your homework for this episode if you choose to accept it. Practice, practice, practice listening to your inner voice. Everyone has one, I promise you. Every single person. Now your inner voice, the volume of it, may have been turned down so low over the years, you may have to listen hard because it’s so incredibly quiet, that internal voice. But practice listening to it.

And make mistakes. Make lots of mistakes, and own up to them, learn from them, make small adjustments, and move forward. I’m a big fan, as you know, of Maya Angelou saying, “When we know better, we do better.” So make small adjustments and move forward. Model all of this for your children. The goal is not perfection. The goal is self-worth.

The goal is to decide you are worthy because you are here. Not because you’re mistake free, not because you’re a good girl doing everything your boss asks, not because your children are so good in public, or they’re good at grades, or they’re good, they’re smart, or they’re a good athlete, or they play the violin well, or they’re always helping other people. You’re worthy because you breathe, because you breathe.

Your children are worthy because they’re here. Not because they’re compliant, or they’re easygoing, or they bend, or they do what you ask the first time. The child that doesn’t do what you ask and is defiant and doesn’t want to wear certain clothes to school or won’t put their shoes on is not less worthy. We are worthy because we are here. We have to believe this.

If you grew up in a different model, work on shedding that model. If you grew up in a home where you got a lot of validation because you were the good kid, or you didn’t get validation because you weren’t the good kid, or you didn’t get validation because you weren’t motivated, that is an old story that you can let go of any time. You are worthy because you’re here, period. That is a complete sentence with a period at the end. I am worthy because I’m here.

The goal is to build brick by brick by brick a big, big strong wall of value and worth by telling yourself over and over and over again. Literally brainwashing yourself to believe I am worthy because I’m here. Every one of my kids are worthy because they’re here, because they breathe.

Now that doesn’t mean we turn into permissive parents. That doesn’t mean we don’t coach our kids to get the shoes on when we ask, right. But it has nothing to do with their worth. The kid who doesn’t put their shoes on the first time has the same amount of worth and value as the kid who does put their shoes on the first time. When we believe we’re worthy because we’re here, we work to trust our own internal compass.

One of the best ways you can create connection and cooperation with your kids and at the same time level up your parenting is to believe I am worthy because I’m here, and my kids are worthy because they’re here. One of my dreams is to raise a generation of children into adults who feel valued because they breathe.

Take that in for a moment. Can you even envision what the world would look like? Honest to goodness, it brings tears to my eyes and a big lump in my throat to just dream about 10/20 years from now, a generation of adults I roaming the earth worldwide who feel valued because they’re here. When they make a mistake, they learn from it, they adjust, they forgive, they move on, but it doesn’t impact their value in any way.

Listen, I want that for you and your kids. I want that for me. I want that for all of us. I’m so excited to be your guide this year to help you really understand that you’re valued because you’re here. And every week bring you tips, ideas, and support that are going to help you up level your parenting 1% every week. 2023, the year of up leveling our parenting. It all starts here with deciding that you’re valued because you’re here. So are your kids, every one of them.

So good, right? If this episode really spoke to you, send me an email [email protected], and let me know that you’re valued because you’re here. Or slide into my DM over on Instagram @the_peaceful_parent and tell me. Shout it from the rooftop. Lisa, I am valued because I’m here. My kids are valued because they’re here. They all have the same value. Let’s claim this out loud. Let’s rejoice in this realization. Join me, will you? I’d love it. I’m so proud of you. All right, until we meet again, I’m wishing you peaceful parenting.

Thank you so much for listening today. I want to personally invite you to head over to thepeacefulparent.com/welcome and sign up for my free peaceful parenting minicourse. You’ll find everything you need to get started on the path to peaceful parenting just waiting for you over there at www.thepeacefulparent.com/welcome. I can’t wait for you to get started.

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.