Ep #40: I Want My Child to Be…

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 to today’s episode. I am so excited you’re joining me today as we ring in October. It’s my favorite month of the year. It’s the beginning of fall. I mean, we have all things pumpkin. It’s my birthday month, and October always feels like just the beginning of all kinds of possibilities. The holidays are around the corner, but they’re not too close. Nothing stressful or busy yet.

I also love Australian Souffles212 who left a review on Apple podcast with five stars might I add. The review said, “Love the podcast under 20 minutes. Have enough time in the day to set aside 20 minutes with the kids. Then I can practice implementing what we learned throughout the day and listen again to implement to reiterate what I’ve learned because they’re only 20 minutes.” Thank you Souffles212. I really appreciate you, and I really appreciate the review. And I appreciate each and every one of you who take the time to rate and review the podcast.

I’m grateful because when you rate and review the podcast, you’re paying it forward to other families. You see when you leave a review on a podcast platform, that service is much more likely to recommend the podcast when people are looking for a parenting resource. When you take the time to rate and review, you’re paying it forward to other families and other children who really need their parents to hear this information. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you for helping to change the world one family at a time.

Souffle212, let me say you hit it on the mark. When I set out to make a podcast, one of the things that was most important to me was that the podcast be short and sweet. I always like to think that you’re listening to this while folding a load of laundry or driving to work in the morning or driving home in the afternoon or on your way to soccer practice. Maybe you’re at soccer practice.

I like to keep the episodes short and sweet so that you can get in, listen to the tips, support, coaching, and ideas, and then put them to work that day in your family. So you really hit it spot on Souffle212 when you said you have 20 minutes to set aside. You can listen and then implement what you’re learning and then listen again. I just love that. So thank you so much.

As we dig into today’s podcast, I want to ask you a question. I want you to take a moment to fill in the blank honestly. I want my child, I want my kid, I want my kids to be more what? Fill in the blank. I want my kid to be more what? Maybe more calm, maybe more gentle, maybe more assertive, maybe less assertive, more vocal, less vocal, less emotional, more creative, take more risk. I want my kid to stay calm when stressed. Maybe use a different tone. Maybe take a break when upset. I want my kid to be more what. What’s one thing you would like your kid to be more. Shout it out loud for me. Awesome.

What do you think when you hear this? You cannot expect to raise calm and gentle kids if you are not calm and gentle. Let me say that again. You cannot expect to raise calm and gentle kids if you are not calm and gentle. I saw this posted on an Instagram account a couple years ago and it hit me like a ton of bricks. Since then I’ve been observing my own parenting and those around me.

At the time, I was on vacation at a beautiful family friendly tropical resort. Remember when we used to go on vacation on the regular pre-pandemic? Yeah. So we were on vacation at this family oriented beach place. There were lots and lots of families and kids of all ages. Oh gosh I miss those kinds of vacations. Anyways, I digress.

So we’re on this vacation, and there’s lots of families. There’s this big pool. Everybody’s playing and having a good time and getting to the pool and leaving the pool. This idea I want my kid to be more, this concept became even more obvious to me as I looked around with no judgement. No judgement at all the different families.

I saw a calm mom with three kids under five all walking calmly. I saw a loud mom and dad with three girls all laughing loudly and really enjoying themselves. I saw an extended family of high energy people, and I saw teenager’s high energy. I saw mom and dad arguing and not treating each other well, and I saw two girls swatting at each other and sticking their tongues out.

If I want my kid to be calm and gentle, I have to be calm and gentle, right? I know this is true in my own family. My husband and I have an intensity that is off the charts. It’s no surprise that our boy has his own intensity that is off the chart. Extremely intense with his feelings, wants, and goals. I can see this so clearly now. Our biggest challenge as a family is when his intensity meets our intensity. Shabam, kapow, fireworks are gonna happen every time.

I often ask myself what new emotions, what new energies can I introduce to him not by my words but by my modeling. If I want him to not be on this phone while driving in the car, I need to model that. If I want him to be calm in the morning while he’s getting ready for school, I need to model that.

In a previous episode, I talked about being mindful of what we model for our kids from a standpoint of what not to do. If you don’t want your kids to yell at each other, you have to make sure that you aren’t yelling at family members when things get stressful. If you don’t want your kids to be punitive with each other, you have to check in with yourself and ask yourself, “Am I being threatening or punitive with them?”

What I also know is that we can set an intention and model for our kids what we want them to be, do, and show. As parents, we’re far more effective modeling behaviors for our kids than commanding behaviors. Kids do what we model, not what we say. Let me say that again. Kids do what we model or show them, not what we tell them to do. The truth is our kids don’t do what we say. They do what we do.

So it’s very important that we understand how our kids learn and that we understand that they learn from what we’re showing them. Our kids are not intuitively born with knowledge. They don’t understand values. What they are is really good learners. They learn 100% not through what we say but through what we do. They don’t have the ability to discriminate or filter or judge. They learn from how we model things, like how we show up in times of stress, our reactions to mistakes, how we handle meltdowns, how we handle conflict, how we treat each other, how we support family members, etcetera. Their brains learn from what we model for them.

Let’s say you want your kids to be on time for everything they go to, but specifically you would like them to be on time in the morning on the way to school. Are you showing them what that looks like? Are you getting up early enough and allowing enough time for things to be calm in the morning? Are you planning ahead? Are you allowing for a cushion or are you winging it?

Are you getting up with no time to spare and no time for distractions? Then when a distraction comes in like you burn the toast or you forget to make the lunch or you have to iron something, you’re frenzied, behind and stressed. If we want our kids to be on time, we have to show them what that looks like.

Let’s say you want your kids to practice something like piano or chess or soccer. Do you practice something on the regular? Do you make it a priority? Do you set time aside? Do you talk about it as a family? Let’s say you want your kids to take breaks from technology, from their phone or their iPad or watching YouTube or Netflix. Or you want them to take a break from gaming, right. Let’s say you want your kids to take breaks from technology. What are you modeling? Are you taking a break? Can you set your phone down for periods of time and walk away and do something else?

Let’s say you want your kids to be a good friend. You want them to really understand friendship and be a good friend to their peers. Ask yourself, what are you modeling? Are you a good friend? Are you dependable? Do you lift your friends up? Do you say kind things about them? Do you say what you’re going to do? Do you keep their information they tell you to yourself? Are you modeling being a good friend?

Let’s say you want your kids to stay regulated when things don’t go his or her way. Do you model out loud how you deal with your frustration by saying things to them like, “You know, I’m feeling frustrated that the dishwasher isn’t working. I’m squeezing my fists and taking deep breaths to help my body. I’m staying calm and regulated when I get super frustrated.” Are you modeling that for them?

Let’s say you want your kids to normalize mistakes. Not be so upset when they make a mistake, take responsibility, ask forgiveness, or make the mistake correct and then move on. Are you normalizing making mistakes in your household? Are you talking about your mistakes out loud as though they are normal?

Let’s say you want your kids to enjoy downtime. Do you have scheduled family downtime? Do you sometimes model for them just hanging out on the couch and doing nothing, or are you busy all the time? Always doing something. Our kids don’t do what we say. They do what we model.

Let’s say you want your kid to stay calm when chaos breaks out. What do you model? Are you able to stay calm when chaos breaks out? Do you model things like, “I’m feeling overwhelmed. I’m going to pause and take a few minutes to calm down before I continue.” Our kids don’t do what we say. They do what we model. Said another way, we have to walk our talk.

So if you’re talking about things to your kids, please make sure you’re walking your talk. Please. It is one of the most effective tools you have as a parent. Model what you’d like to see from your kids. You cannot expect to raise calm and gentle kids if you are not calm and gentle. You cannot expect to raise kids who are good friends if you’re not a good friend. You cannot expect to raise kids that take downtime if you don’t take downtime. You cannot expect to raise kids that stay regulated when chaos breaks out if you don’t stay regulated when chaos breaks out.

See how this works? I know. I know. It’s so easy and so hard, right. It’s so simple and so complex. Ah the duality of this. Ah I feel you. I understand. I struggle at times with it myself, but we can do this. We can do this.

Okay. Now onto your homework. Simply fill in the blanks. If I want my child to do more, what? Fill in the blanks. I must show him/her/them what? I’d love to hear your answers. I really would. We’re going to post a couple times this week over on Instagram at the_peaceful_parent, and I would love to hear your answers.

I know that together we can all grow as we become mindful of the power of modeling. We set our intention to model what we’d like to see in your kids. Yeah? Awesome. Okay. 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.