Ep #242: Are You ‘Doing Parenting Wrong’? The One Shift That Changes Everything

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 energized to be with you here today, and I wanna start with something that happened recently that completely stopped me in my tracks. And honestly, it made me realize just how much language shapes the way we think about parenting. You see, recently I posted something on LinkedIn about my own personal parenting journey.

How I’ve come to understand that parenting isn’t just about my son, about his needs, his emotions, and his growth, but parenting is about me too. It’s about how I handle hard moments and work through the parts of myself that get triggered by the parenting struggles, and maybe you can relate to that. The Post actually got a lot of attention and feedback.

And one of the responses was a woman who wrote, I strongly object. She wrote to parenting as a verb. You need to know, Lisa, that parenting is a noun. And at first I was like, okay, grammar, police, what’s going on here? But then I sat with it and I realized that this person just handed me. The perfect example of why so many parents feel stuck and frustrated.

Maybe you’re like, what girl? I don’t even know what you’re talking about. I get it. Just, just hear me out here. Because here’s the thing, my friend, the way you think about the word parenting is either keeping you stuck or setting you free. I know that’s heavy, right? But it’s true. Today we’re gonna dive into why this distinction matters way more than you think, and how making this one simple mindset shift can transform everything about your relationship with your kids, and maybe even yourself.

Let me paint a picture of what it looks like when we treat parenting as a noun. Okay? So when parenting is a noun. It’s something you have, it’s a role you step into. It’s an identity you wear. I am a parent. This is my job. I do parenting to my child, and in this model, the parent is the fixed authority figure, and the child is, well, they’re the object being shaped, molded, corrected, and managed.

It’s what we used to call child rearing. It’s literally raising children like we’re training animals. Sound familiar? Because that is absolutely the model I grew up with. I grew up in a house where fear and intimidation were the main parenting tools. My caregivers, and listen, they were doing the best they could with what they knew, but their approach was very much, we are the parents.

You are the child and our job is to make you behave. The focus was entirely on behavior management. Stop crying, don’t talk back. Do what we say. Follow the rules. Reach the goals we set. And if you don’t, well then there were punishments and sometimes harsh and painful punishments designed to make sure that I fell in line.

And you know what? That created in me. Well, it created a people pleaser, and I grew up afraid of my own shadow. Literally, literally. And I wasn’t very good at thinking for myself, speaking up, pushing back. But I definitely grew up with a lot of fear. I was afraid of taking risk. I was afraid of going fast. I was afraid of trying new things.

I was afraid of getting hurt. I was afraid of being left behind. I was afraid of making mistakes and disappointing people, and the list goes on and on. But here’s what’s so fascinating. In that old model, in that old paradigm, there was no attention being paid to what was happening inside me or what was happening inside the adults.

No one was asking themselves, what fears are driving my parenting decisions? What triggers am I bringing to this moment? How is my own unhealed scuff affecting how I show up for Lisa? And in that old parenting paradigm, the parent was supposed to be the finished product with all the answers, and the child was the work in progress.

But my friend, come on. Let’s be honest. That is not how any of this actually works. It’s not, I mean, think about it. When you try to manage your kid’s behavior, how does that go for you? Do you feel more connected? Does managing them parenting them as a noun make them more cooperative? Or do you just both end up frustrated?

Because what I see over and over and over again, and maybe you’re experiencing this too, is that when we approach parenting as something we do to our kids. Tasks to be checked off. We end up in these exhausting cycles of command and control and resistance and power struggles become the norm, and connection gets lost in the correction.

And we wonder why we feel so disconnected from our kids and why they don’t come to us when they’re struggling. And why? Family life feels like a constant battle, and it’s because we’re operating from a paradigm that was never designed to create connection in the first place. I feel like I need to say that again.

It’s because we’re operating from a paradigm that was never designed to create connection in the first place. Now, let me share with you what changes everything. What if parenting isn’t something you do to your child, but something you’re in with them, what if it’s not a static role you step into, but a dynamic, evolving relationship that grows both of you?

Yeah. Okay. Let me tell you a story that perfectly illustrates this shift. As Malcolm got older, and in this example we’re talking about junior high age, so you know, 10, 11 to 14, something really interesting started happening. Remember I said I grew up absolutely paralyzed by fear and y’all, I’m not kidding, my own fears for my son often lurked in the background of my parenting and.

Often influenced my approach and my decisions in ways I didn’t even realize. But Malcolm, his fears seemed to lessen as he grew. And you know what started happening? Malcolm began calling me on my fears. He refused to let my unprocessed stuff dictate his life. I remember one specific moment when I was trying to talk him out of something.

I can’t even remember what it was now, but I was coming from this place of what if you get hurt? What if something goes wrong? And he looked at me and he said, mom, that’s your fear, not mine. And he was absolutely right. In that moment, Malcolm became my teacher. He was showing me that my job wasn’t to protect him from every possible risk, which let’s be honest, is impossible.

My job was to process my own fears so they didn’t limit his growth. That’s when I understood what it really means for parenting to be a verb. It means I’m not just shaping my son, he’s shaping me right back. If I’m open to it, it means this relationship is growing, both of us. It means I don’t get to stay static while I try.

To parent him, change him, help him grow and evolve. Recently on one of our hive coaching calls, I witnessed this exact realization happening in real time. One of our members, let’s call her, Debbie, was sharing about her morning routine struggles, and she was telling me how every day was chaos. There was yelling, everyone was running late, and she was really triggered by this.

As she was talking through it, she suddenly stopped and said, oh my gosh. As I’m talking to you, Lisa, I’m realizing this isn’t about my kids being slow. This is about my trigger around being late. I’m bringing my own panic to this situation and getting dysregulated, and my kids are just responding to my dysregulation.

They’re joining me in my own dysregulation. It’s coming from my triggers about being late for things. That’s the aha moment right there. That’s the shift from noun to verb instead of my kids won’t cooperate. It became how is my own trigger affecting this dynamic instead of I need to fix their behavior or demand that they’re on time.

Or try to control everything it became, can I take a step back and look at what I’m bringing into this moment? The truth is, Debbie didn’t need new consequences or better rewards or stricter rules. She needed to understand how her own unprocessed stuff around being late was creating the very problem she was trying to solve.

And here’s what’s beautiful about this shift. When she started approaching mornings from a place of curiosity about her own triggers instead of control over her kid’s behavior, everything changed. The kids started cooperating naturally because mom wasn’t in panic mode all the time. That’s parenting as a verb.

It’s recognizing that this relationship is a two-way street. It’s understanding that as much as I’m influencing my kid’s development, they’re influencing mine. Now, I know what some of you might be thinking. Lisa, this sounds like you’re making parenting all about the parent. What about the kid? What about what they need?

What about their responsibility? What about their side? I mean, Lisa, my kids do need to get to school on time, and I get why it might sound that way. Here’s what I wanna be crystal clear about. Recognizing that parenting is a verb, doesn’t mean centering your needs above your child’s needs. It doesn’t. What it does mean is it means recognizing that your emotional regulation, your healing, your ability to stay present and connect deeply impacts what your kid or kids experience emotionally, intellectually, and physically.

Let me say that again because it’s so important. Your unprocessed triggers, fears, and unmet needs will show up in your parenting unless you recognize and work on them and will absolutely shape how you show up for your kids. A hundred percent. When I was operating from my own unhealed fears. What was Malcolm experiencing?

He was experiencing a mom who was anxious, overprotective, helicoptering, and constantly communicating that the world was dangerous and that he needed to become hypervigilant. And let me say, that was not serving him. It was limiting him. Totally. And he wasn’t having it, fortunately for he and I when Debbie was bringing her panic.

About being late to those morning routines. What were her kids experiencing? They were experiencing chaos, dysregulation, storming, and the message that they were the problem that wasn’t helping them learn. Time management. And it was teaching them that mornings are stressful and mom can’t be trusted to stay calm and lead us.

And here’s the beautiful flip side. When you do your own inner work, you become more attuned, more responsive, and more able to meet your kids where they are from a regulated place and guide and lead them. When I started processing my own fears, I could see Malcolm more clearly. Honestly, I could celebrate his courage instead of projecting my anxiety onto him.

I could appreciate his curiosity. I could support his growth instead of limiting it with my own unhealed stuff. Now that Debbie is able to recognize her triggers around being late, she can approach mornings with curiosity and creativity instead of panic and control. This is the heart of peaceful parenting.

It’s understanding. That your emotional regulation is the foundation. It is the main parenting tool. Your ability to stay present with your own big feelings is how you teach your kids to handle theirs. Your willingness, look at your own patterns, your own triggers, your own unmet needs. That’s not selfish.

That’s the most generous thing you can do for your kids, because our kids don’t just learn from our words. They learn from our energy, our nervous system, our way of being in the world. It’s called modeling my friend, and they’re constantly absorbing how does my mom handle stress? How does my dad deal with disappointment?

What happens in our family when things don’t go as planned? They’re watching and what we do is way more powerful than what we say. So here’s my question for you. What would change in your home if you approach challenging moments with curiosity about your own triggers instead of control? Yeah. Alright, let’s get practical.

How do we make this shift from parenting as a noun to a verb? I know I’ve gotten you all fired up on the concept. Let me help you make the shift. So here are three questions that change everything. Question number one, what am I trying to do to my child versus what am I experiencing with them? So what am I sound like is instead of how do I get them to stop this?

Try what’s happening for both of us right now. Question number two, what’s getting triggered in me right now? This is a game changer. When your child pushes your buttons, get curious. What button just got pushed? Is it about defiance, emotions, messiness, control? What just got pushed and why? And question number three, how is my inner world affecting this moment?

No judgment, just awareness. Am I bringing anxiety? Am I bringing fear? Am I bringing anger? Am I projecting my needs onto my kid? It’s a good question to ask ourselves. And if you’re thinking, Lisa, this sounds amazing, but I need help doing this inner work, then I wanna invite you to join us inside the hive because it’s inside the hive.

Just like Debbie. Where I will teach you how to transform your parenting by doing your own inner work with strategies personalized just for you. Together we practice recognizing triggers, regulating your nervous system, and showing up as the calm, connected parent you wanna be. Because here’s the truth, I know you wanna feel more connected to your kids or you wouldn’t be here.

Most of us were never taught the path to connection. That goes through your own healing. In the hive, you’ll learn exactly how to identify your triggers, process your unmet needs, and approach parenting as the dynamic, reciprocal relationship. It really is. So if this feels like your moment and you’re ready to do this inner work.

I want you to run. Don’t walk, but run straight to the hive coaching.com to learn more and join our community of parents who understand that growing themselves is how they grow their children. I cannot wait to meet you there. So is parenting a noun, a verb? Well, for me, and I hope now for you, it’s a hundred percent a verb, and that shift changes everything.

Remember, parenting isn’t something you do. It’s something you’re in. When you shift from seeing parenting as a noun, a role to experiencing it as a verb, a relationship, you’re actively creating, everything changes everything. This is when power struggles begin to fade. This is when cooperation grows. This is when you show up.

Curious about your own triggers. Instead of controlling their behavior and connection becomes the foundation. So cooperation can naturally follow your child. Doesn’t need you to have it all figured out. They need you to be willing to grow alongside them because here’s what I know. As much as you’re shaping your kids, they’re shaping you right back.

That’s not a bug in the system. That’s the whole point. Yeah. Awesome. Okay. Until next time, 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, visit the peaceful parent.com. See you soon.