#99 Parenting on Purpose with Bev Aron

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Hey, this is Melissa Parsons, and you are listening to the Your Favorite You Podcast. I'm a certified life coach with an advanced certification in deep dive coaching. The purpose of this podcast is to help brilliant women like you with beautiful brains create the life you've been dreaming of with intentions. My goal is to help you find your favorite version of you by teaching you how to treat yourself as your own best friend.

If this sounds incredible to you and you want practical tips on changing up how you treat yourself, then you're in the right place. Just so you know, I'm a huge fan of using all of the words available to me in the English language, so please proceed with caution if young ears are around.

Melissa

Welcome back, everyone, to Your Favorite You. Today, we are so lucky and I am delighted to have you all get to meet and know one of my mentors. Her name is Bev Aron. Bev has taught me and so many other Coaches how to be better Coaches. She is a Coaching Ninja, for lack of a better word. And I participated in her deep dive coaching certification back in 2021, and Bev helped me to make sense of myself so that I can help my clients make sense of themselves. So I'm just so deeply honored to have you on the podcast. Bev, thank you. 

Bev

Thank you, Melissa. What a beautiful message. Thank you. 

Melissa

We're going to chat about a talk that you gave to coaches way back in 2021 about parenting on purpose. I use these concepts that you shared with us in that lecture so much personally with my own two boys and also when I'm coaching my clients. 

So you told us during that talk that your own children have told you that you need to write a parenting book. And my immediate thought was, I want that. I just want Jack and Owen to think “My mom should totally write a parenting book.” So. But first, I want my Your Favorite You listeners to get to know a little bit about you. So I'm gonna start with my favorite question. 

My podcast is called Your Favorite You. So is my group coaching program. So please tell us a little bit about your favorite version of yourself, Bev. 

Bev

Oh, I love that. 

OK, so my favorite version of myself, what a fun question, is that I lead with love and an intention to make the world a better place by making people feel better about themselves in all aspects of my life.

So as a mom, as a person about the town, as a coach.

And the more I learn about spirituality, about the brain, about our nervous system, the more equipped I am to do that. And the more I understand how important it is for us to all have that front of mind.

So my career is I founded the Deep Dive Coach Institute and that was really a combination of 12 years of coaching following what I've been learning and then being able to incorporate everything I've been learning from all my my areas to have that lead with all my coaching, with all my teaching and I have my advanced training, which I loved having you in. I also have a monthly learning series for anybody who wants to learn more about how to bring this philosophy into their lives for children.

And I have a grandchild who is my current love of my life. And so yes, adult children, the most fun ever, the reward. Total.

And so my favorite version in that respect is they just want to hang out with me, which is such a dream in all the ways. They're all over, you know, the world and the country. But it seems like hanging out with me is a fun thing.

So yeah, I think that's probably enough.

Melissa

I love it. Yeah, I think that may be why I resonate so much with you, because when I came into coaching.

As a client first, before I was a coach, one of the things that I set as an intention was that when my children no longer had to or were forced to spend time with me, that they would want to. And I think that I have made that a reality and I'm very proud and very happy that I knew to make that intention.

Bev

Yeah, I love that you did that because it's so long-term thinking to have that. And then it informs all the things we do each day in order to make. If that's the goal, how we interact with them will be very intentional.

Melissa

Right. Exactly. So good.

OK, so I legit took 5 pages of notes during your lecture, so I'm going to prompt you. And kind of remind you what you said if you haven't listened to your own lecture in the past several years.

And then I'm going to ask you to kind of expound upon it, if you don't mind, and then we'll see where it takes us.

So here are my notes, just so you know, Bev, like I took notes of your notes and everything. So one of the things that you said was that children are pre-programmed to be civilized and productive. And as a parent, that leaves you free to do very little. They will emerge as they're supposed to.

Can you say something more about that?

Bev

Yes. So I trained before I became a coach I was a speech pathologist and I trained in South Africa. In South Africa, speech pathology was part of the arts and psychology. So we learned a lot about development here in both Canada and the US it's more of a science degree.

So I don't think there's as much of the sort of cognitive development and that I think that informed my belief that children are born with a certain ability cognitively and emotionally designed to get them what they need at the time and it develops as as it should stages.

And so I made-up this idea because all our ideas are basically made-up.

That they are, you know, they're designed to want to be certain, be social, be accepted, but not immediately. Immediately. They're just designed to want to like, just be their own wild savage selves.

And so I think a lot of conflict in parenting that I hear from my younger nieces and nephews and and and and friends' children is. I have to, they have to learn. I have to teach them how to become that way.

So if I'm trying to teach them how to become civilized and socialized and fit in when they're not cognitively or emotionally ready, there's so much conflict, which if conflict was the way, what are you going to do?

We're parents. We got to do what we got to do.

But if it's not necessary and they're programmed to emerge that way, then we just get to sit back and enjoy and love that sort of savage, self-centered, crazy experimental stage, which I think is them figuring out what is my uniqueness.

So that feeling is just designed to make us just relax and love on them and relish them.

Because as you and I know from coaching adults, Melissa, the thoughts that all of us adults are operating on about the world and about other people, about ourselves. We got them when we were at that young age.

So if, you know, just the idea that if our children are are getting the message, I am relished and adored and fantastic as I am, that's what they're going to be telling themselves when they're adults or when they're in school and they're maybe not getting that messages from everybody around them.

So it's like a beta concept that's fun and that seems to work based on my children.

Melissa

Well, and I think it's interesting because I don't know if you find this, but I think a lot of the coaching that I do boils down to talking people out of the idea that they are somehow not enough or that they are too much to handle.

Bev

Exactly. Exactly. 

Melissa

If we can help them with this concept when they're young. And like you said, you know, I'm a pediatrician by training. So yes, total developmental, you know, I'm right there with you.

And like asking a three-year-old to be able to regulate their own emotions so that I don't have to have any emotions as their parent is not a fair ask.

Bev

It's not a fair ask for either the parent or the child. So the parent can just go, this is completely how they should be at this age. This is the program emerging.

Parent relaxes, child gets that message, they regulate together and they just enjoy that interaction of whatever the child's doing.

Or if it's an interaction that's not enjoyable for the parent, the parent at least just gets to be there with the child without worrying, “Is my child going to be a sociopath when they're older?”

Melissa

Yeah, that classic fast forward like that our mother brain tends to do. Like if I don't nip this in the bud now, then they're gonna be, you know, having all these problems in the future. And it's just not true.

Right. It's not true. And so the thought, oh, this is how they're supposed to be now this is the program emerging. They can just, you know, have the parents be relaxed about it not being that they have to fashion it. It's all gonna be just so much more enjoyable and fun.

Melissa

Yeah, I love it.

OK, the next thing you said is that the thoughts that we think about our children matter. Our behavior doesn't cover up the thoughts that we're having.

Bev

Right? Well, I think probably the way for us to all think about it is us probably with a parent, usually the mother, the, you know, the mothers.

So the primary in most situations or a significant other if there wasn't a parent. And knowing what they're thinking of us, whether they say it or not. I don't know if you have that experience, but I kind of have that experience of there were certain things that were very valued in my family. South Africa was a very materialistic society. So being fun was, I mean, just if you think it's important here and there, it was, you know, absolutely paramount and just sensing, for me, sort of disappointment or shame when I wasn't because my weight always went up and down and not having a word need to be said about it.

So I think if we can remember that, then maybe it will help us understand with our children. And I think some children are maybe more in tune with their parents than others.

But you know, also as adults, right, we're so aware of people's… I think another thing I learned in speech pathology, which I don't know if it's still that stat, but like communication is 80% nonverbal and 20% what we say.

Children who are sort of pre-verbal or less sophisticated verbally, maybe that's even more.

Melissa

Yeah, they're sensing your vibration, your vibe more than what's coming out of your mouth. And the confusion that happens, I think, when there's a mismatch between the vibe and what's being said.

Bev

Yes, so we need to work on what we, on our real beliefs about them, not just the words we say.

Melissa

Yeah, so good. I love it.

Okay, you ready for your next point?

Bev

I am.

Melissa

The thoughts we offer them about themselves matter. They can either help them evolve or not.

Bev

Yes, yes I love this question because, you know, there's so much about how much praise and what does it do to them. And so, the idea behind coaching is that our thoughts cause us to feel a certain way and then behave a certain way, and that's the outcome we get in the world.

So my understanding as it's been taught again, I think this is all just kind of made-up is: until seven, we have no filter. So whatever important people say to us, it just becomes our thoughts. That's what we operate on for the rest of our lives. Unless, you know, we have an inflection point where we get coaching and we start to examine them and as you say, that's we're sort of helping people.

So the ongoing message we call like a self-witness in our brain is the words that we were offered, belief, description of ourselves as young people.

As parents, we have a lot of responsibility to be very intentional about the words that we offer our children. I know it's a big responsibility. I don't want anyone to freak out, but the way we do it is we work on our thoughts about them.

If this unique person is the most magnificent, precious being in the world and it's going to change the world for better, what we say about there it’s naturally just going to be offering thoughts of great belief, the thoughts we want to feel warm and belief and potential and then they matter. That's kind of the flavor that they grow up and then that's how they see the world. And so that's how they are right.

Melissa

Well, and I think that, you know, as parents, I think one of the things that you said later in the lecture and that I've heard now multiple times that helped me like relax about that because my children were way past seven when I heard this lecture and I was like, oh God, you know, I'm like, I fucked it up royally. There's no turning back, you know, but.

One of the things that you offered and that has been offered many places is that you don't have to get it right 100% of the time. You only have to get it right about 60% of the time.

Bev

30%.

Melissa

Oh, I see. I screwed it up. So yeah, it's even better.

Bev

Even better. Yes.

That idea comes from the whole attachment theory, right? That, you know, when they studied babies with secure attachment, the parents were kind of getting it right, as in being available, being present 30% of the time.

Melissa

OK, see, even better.

Bev

Even better. The other thing to help is that.

Coaching is based on the premise that we can change our thoughts about ourselves. So let's say you're listening to this, your children are already teenagers. They have certain thoughts about themselves. We get to inject thoughts of belief and positivity into them now with everything we say, as long as we believe it.

And then you know what happens in their brain, right? We don't know which ones they'll grab, which ones they'll reject. But let's say 30% of the time, or maybe they're teenagers, 60% because you know. 

Melissa

They need extra love.

Bev

Let's say we're able to really find belief in them and therefore convey that it could totally change their self witness. So it's never too late. If it was, coaching wouldn't be a thing. We wouldn't be able to help people.

Melissa

Right, right, right. Well, that's what I always tell people. I'm like, wouldn't you love to get a call from your parents saying, hey, I'd like some do overs for the things that I did. So if you need to offer yourself do overs now with your teenagers, like no problem.

Bev

Every time, every time there's an opportunity, every interaction.

Melissa

Yeah. The other thing that I think that's interesting about this that when you were talking initially, I thought, you know, what if you could see your children as your greatest teachers?

Instead, we're thinking we need to teach them, they need to learn. It's like, “Oh no, like, I need to learn. They can teach me.”

Bev

Yes, right. So I think the best way to think about that is every time I'm in front of my child and I'm feeling anything other than love, adoration, gratitude for them. It means I'm thinking something that I want to examine. And it's often about the rest of the world. What will the world think? What do they, you know, how will they judge this child?

Because I think that we're programmed to just feel very connected to our children by and large and see their magnificence. So anytime we're thinking, it's a beautiful way for us to go and examine what societal thought am I adopting that is making me feel anything other than this pure love for my child. And then do I want to adopt it on purpose?

Melissa

Right. Yes. Here at Melissa Parsons Coaching, we call it what kind of societal bullshit am I believing?

Bev

Yes. Exactly. What a beautiful question to ask ourselves anytime we feel uncomfortable. I love it. What kind of societal bullshit am I thinking? I love it. Brilliant.

Melissa

Yes. There is a swearing disclaimer at the beginning of the podcast, just so you know about.

Bev

It's all the same to me.

Melissa

OK, the next thing you said was eyes to each other. More than anything else, our kids want our attention and our positive regard and to remember that in their minds, negative attention is better than zero attention.

Bev

Yes. So I learned that from Rudolf Dreikurs, a book. He wrote a book called Children the Challenge. It's very old. Actually, it's like 60 years old.

Melissa

Oh, I have it on my shelf.

Bev

I mean, it's just groundbreaking. So you have to take the examples with a, you know, and some of the examples are a little extreme. But the idea I got from it is that children want attention more than anything else, which makes sense. So if they don't get positive attention, they'll start behaving in a way they will get negative attention because at least they're getting our attention. Which then I learned from attachment theory and relational neurobiology, which I was very excited about, is if they're not getting our attention they don't get a sense that they exist. And then, you know, then there's such despair.

And so that helped me understand why, oh my gosh, they would rather have somebody yelling at them and punishing them than nothing. So, the most impactful thing for me was don't pay attention to the acting out because we don't want to magnify that or reinforce it. So anytime we do, I don't know about you, but my experience was it was never effective.

Whatever solution I came up with, they would find a reason, another problem or another reason, because they didn't want the solution. They wanted our attention.

Melissa

So amazing. Yeah. And I think one of the things that I try to teach my people, and I know you do the same, is, you know, when your child is in an obvious stress cycle, the best thing that you can do is to hold yourself in high regard and high esteem and. You know, regulate yourself as much as possible.

What most of us do instead is I'm also going to join you in this stress cycle and I'm going to then be in fight, flight, freeze, fix, you know, appease, whatever.

Bev

Right.

Melissa

Yeah, you can just see it snowballing so quickly and, you know, it's like, okay, I can take myself out of this and still give attention to this person who needs it, but without joining them in the stress of it all.

Bev

Right. And the way we do that is by believing nothing's wrong. Their current stage of development, cognitive and emotionally, is?

Melissa

Yeah.

Bev

It's how they deal with frustration. That's how they deal with disappointment. Nothing's going wrong. This is going right.

We don't have to start getting frantic and worried and hysterical. Then we just look at this poor little being that has no skills for dealing with disappointment and they shouldn't. We'll just come out naturally and then we just get to be with them and love them.

Melissa

Yeah, so beautiful. And I'm often telling my clients like your toddler actually has it. Right by feeling all of their feelings and naming them and, you know, instead of pretending like nothing is happening or shoving it down or numbing out with food or television or, you know, whatever it is that they're choosing to numb.

Bev

That's true, Melissa. That's such a beautiful way of thinking about it. They just don't have a way to express it other than. But the child we should be concerned about is a child who isn't doing that. Because that's the one who's learnt in some way or another. There's no point.

Melissa

Yeah, it's not safe to do that.

Bev

Yeah, exactly. So can we make it safe by convincing ourselves that it's OK, that this is appropriate, this is the way it should be?

Melissa

Yeah, and it's so funny because of course the toddler or the, you know, six-year-old doesn't give a fuck what society thinks and they'll do it out in public and they don't have all of that pressure. And the moms or the parents are like, what is happening? It's like, oh, this is supposed to be happening.

Bev

Right? And we have to be able to deal with all the other people's looks and what's going on behind us and just kind of shut it all out and like, zoom ourselves onto our toddler. I used to be that parent. If a child was having a tantrum or something, I'd be so disdainful. And now that I understand this, I go to the mom and I go, “Can I help you? What can I do?”

And I feel like that's just like a little, a little bit of love for her to say, like, this is OK.

Melissa

Yeah. I used to tell people in the office, you know, anybody who looks at you with disdain at the store or, you know, the mall or wherever. Like either they've never had children and they have no idea or they've just totally forgotten what it's like, you know, to have kids that age. 

And you know, there's just so much pressure now, I think, on young parents to be Insta-perfect. And I just, I just feel like it's so unnecessary to have all that extra added pressure. So I feel for the young young parents.

Bev

I know and I think there's a lot of fear. Like I have a niece who has young children and she said to me, I think her husband said to me she would love to have a relationship with her too who are now young like you have with your older ones. But she's not able to take what I offer her if she asks me for advice or you know if we're somewhere and her little girls kind of doing what she should do, testing.

And there's so much fear in her that even though she, I'm sort of her role model for what she wants, she's not able to take what I'm offering because there's just so much fear that it's going sort of against the grain or against what's being taught.

But I do have to tell you something very hopefully. My oldest daughter, the one who has my baby, the love of my life. She's a very rational person. She's very intellectual. So she listens to podcasts a lot on parenting. And of course there's podcasts of every philosophy, but she's listening to the ones that reinforce this way of parenting. And there's science and there's research. She keeps coming to me and going, mommy, how did you know all this? I was like, it was very intuitive for me. 

But now, I mean, and I had some books that I read, you know, the books that I mentioned, but now it's being proven in studies and and and it's being reinforced.

So for people who want some sort of reinforcement, you feel like they're not alone. They look up things like parenting on purpose, intuitive parenting, you know, being with your child in a tantrum. There is so much support.

Melissa

Yes. Oh yeah, yeah. I love directing people to Becky Kennedy. She's an amazing child and adolescent psychologist and who. A lot of these same, you know, messages and that type of thing.

Bev

Amazing. I can get you more names if you like.

Melissa

Yeah, we can put them in the show notes. Yeah, that would be great.

OK. The next thing you said was the eight and two rule. So no good result comes from shaming or isolating our children. It doesn't lead to thoughts that are healthy. So for every two negative, shaming, rejecting interactions you have with your child. You have to have 8 positive, connecting, loving interactions.

Bev

It's stronger than that, Melissa. OK, so I got this from a book by Sarah Hannah Radcliffe and it was called Raise Your Kids Without Raising Your Voice. I do have to give a disclaimer that I don't love everything in the book. There's a lot about sort of punishment and consequences, which I don't agree with, but this idea, the 80/20 rule, the reason I think it's so important and freeing for us as parents is it gives us permission to ignore a lot of what we think we should like respond to.

So you know the 80/20 rule, it's the Pareto principle. It's used for lots of things, but here it is. It's even stronger than you say: For every two corrections or directions or instructions which have to be just loving, chatty, connecting.

So say “Put your shoes on.” That's one of the two.

Melissa

Wow.

Bev

Don't talk back to me about that. That's the other one. So that means until I've done 8, “How are you?” “How was your day?” “I love you.”

It doesn't all have to be crazy. It just has to be an interaction where it's like connection and for what we would call sort of positivity.

Melissa

So good.

Bev

I love it. Oh, and then she says with teenagers, it's 90/10.

Melissa

Yeah.

Bev

Teenagers for every one correction.

So what that led me to do was, you know, if my child had one particular, he would speak like a little suddenly to me, you know, in that sort of voice. Um, I think if I hadn't read this book, I would think you have to speak to that every time, right? It's rude. They need a little blah, blah “I'm the parent.”

But if I'd already given one instruction or direction, I was like, oh, this parenting expert told me to let it go. And then I would just respond to what she was saying without commenting on the tone.

Yeah, for me, because who wants to be constantly correcting the child's tone of voice?

Melissa

Well, and I mean, if you have a teenager, you know that you could be constantly doing that.

Bev

No fun for us.

Melissa

So good. OK. And then the sixth thing that you said was that no one knows or understands my children better than me.

Bev

Yes. So again, this is my belief. Made it up.

The mother and the mother's intuition. It's paramount. 

I just love that thought. It feels very solid and grounding to me. I know not everybody has a mother raising them, but then my belief is that gift passes to the person who is raising the child.

I just love that thought because if I looked around at me, the teachers, my husband, often the way I wanted to do something or the direction was different to the experts or other family members. But it felt so strong in me and it enabled me to raise all four children very differently according to what intuitively, I knew they needed.

And so I often talk to people who, you know, the school's telling them one thing, the psychologist telling them one thing. It just doesn't land. They feel very anxious about it, very uncomfortable, but they're like, they're the experts.

And so that belief could enable you to choose a path that feels more loving, more peaceful, more reinforcing. Even though the experts may not think it, because the experts are going against, you know, acting on current information, which changes all the time

Melissa

All the time.

Bev

But our inner wisdom, that's like… That’s solid. What we need. I feel like again, I want to believe that as a mother, I was given all the wisdom to raise this child that I got.

And so that's always going to work.

Melissa

Yeah, I love that. It kind of also speaks… And not even a little bit, but a lot to the idea that we're gonna have a different relationship with each of our children.

Bev

Yes.

Melissa

And I think that somehow, somewhere over along the way, we got the message that it needs to be fair. And I don't love that. It doesn't feel right to me. And like, it could never be fair.

Bev

Correct. And so if we believe it should be and the child goes, that's not so and so got this. We would respond to that right with inadequacy and then it just becomes a whole big complicated thing. So if we just know in ourselves, my goal is that each gets what they need from me and it's not going to be the same, it's not going to look the same.

And so it might appear unfair in that minute in time to that child, but I'm just seeing the bigger picture like you said, this bigger intention that, you know, as adults, we're going to all be friends and we're going to love to be with each other. Then it could calm us down when they say that. And then we just have a way of responding that doesn't engage with this idea.

Because I'm with you, people think it can be fair. At any time one needs more than the other. We're responding, one we feel more connected to than the other. We're just– we're humans and that's what's going on. 

Melissa

And that changes over time too. I can remember when the boys were growing up, I would be having trouble like in my own mind with one of them and I would like the trouble would pass and we would fix it or whatever. Something would happen and it would get better and I would be like, “I can relax.”

And then the next one came and it was like, you're, you know, you're funny, you don't get to relax. Like now I've got something, you know, and it's like, oh, there's probably always going to be a little bit of something and that's OK because we can handle it.

Melissa

And the way to keep it fluid is to be careful not to label our children. So we label this one, maybe that one's the difficult, that one's the perfect, that one's the savior. There's 5 roles that are in, I think family therapy and contrary on the person I read about it with, I apologize.

But I think that the danger is the minute we label them even in our minds, although usually if it's in our minds we say it, then it causes that relationship to be a little stuck and they have to keep playing that role and we keep responding to them in that role.

But if I just understand, as you said, it's just fluid, it's just going to change and this one's going to get more for me now and that one's going to get more later, then, you know, it keeps the child being able to just emerge as they should be.

Melissa

Yeah. And then I think if we go back to my idea that there are teachers, it's like, oh, I'm learning from this one now.

Bev

Yes. Isn't that beautiful? So humble also, right? A way to think about parenting.

Melissa

Yeah. Another thing that you said that I find myself coaching my clients on a bunch is that you do not need to be your children's referee. So the words that you used were bliss when they fight.

Yeah, this came from Dreikurs' book as well, where I think he gave this phrase and I just used it. My experience was I was a terrible referee and everyone around me also was because we think we're being, you know, very impartial, and you tell me your side. We always have a side. We always believe who did it wrong. And no matter what solution we offer, they don't want it anyway cause they want our attention.

So when I read this and I was like, oh, I don't actually have to. When they're having a problem and they come to me, the phrase I learned from the Strikers book was, “Darling, I know you can handle this.” It's very loving, but it's also very clear.

“But mommy–”  “Sweetheart, I know you have got this.”

OK, maybe they're still fighting and maybe there's still something going on, but I haven't come in to cause more damage by taking a side by fake, you know, by clearly not getting it.

And also because what we learn is all they want is our attention. They eventually stop fighting. It's to get my attention when I'm not giving them attention and then they don't get it. It was crazy.

Melissa

Yeah. This one really hits home with me because I had the boys on the podcast.

Bev

I love that.

Melissa

I called it mom fuck ups part one. And the way that I got them to come on was to say you can tell the whole world, everybody, the millions of listeners of your favorite you like how I have screwed up as a parent.

Bev

Oh my. That is beyond awesome.

Melissa

Yeah. And I really did want to hear from them and it kind of goes to. Speaking of labeling them, right, you know, my older son who is, I'm going to label him right now. He's sensitive and you know, he takes things to heart. And when I would try to referee them when they were younger, the message that he always got was basically you're the older brother, you should know better, you know, and I think I even use the word like you're being a bully to your younger brother, you know, that type of thing.

And the fact, like one of the things that he brought up was, you know, it really hurt me to be labeled as a bully, you know, when I was younger and interacting with Owen. And by the grace of everything, they're best buds now. And you know, they really like each other. And I mean, they still like, give each other a hard time every chance that they get and you know, that type of thing. But they're supposed to.

And so I think all the times that I went in and tried to referee, like you said, I got it wrong.

Bev

As we do.

Melissa

Yeah. And it's just like, oh man, like and and even like when they have the, you know, instant replay and they slow-mo everything down in sports, like they get it wrong part of the time then.

Bev

And our intentions are the best.

We think we must teach them negotiation. We must teach them how to settle things. We must make sure they don't kill ourselves. Our intentions for anyone to see they're the best.

It's just that I have not found or seen a way to do it effectively. So this podcast gives you permission to just sit back and totally love on them unless there's blood and also separate.

Then you're not going to become activated. You're going to be calm. They're going to be doing their thing. When they eventually come to you, they can come sit on your lap and get hugs. And there's been no sort of rupture of the relationship.

Melissa

Yeah. One of my neighbors, Kelly. Hi, Kelly, if you're listening.

When the kids were little, you know, it was loud and they live right next door and the windows are open and there's all this screaming and I went out and apologized and said they had just moved in. I'm like, “You're gonna hear a lot of yelling from the person's house.” Like, you don't need to call the police, right?

Bev

It's all we do.

Melissa

So she has, I know she has three children who were older than mine and she said that her pediatrician back in the day told her that it wasn't the type of interactions that your children have, but the number that makes them close. So the more interactions, even if they're negative ones your kids have, you know, the better.

And you know, obviously if there is true bullying going on or something like that, then you want to step in, I think. And like you said, if there is blood or broken bones or, you know, bodily harm we probably ought to step in just for safety reasons, but I do love the idea of being able to be in bliss when they are duking it out

Bev

Doing what they do. I love that thought that the pediatrician offered because then. It offers us the opportunity to say, oh, they're interacting, this is good. And then we calm down and then the atmosphere in the house at least is calm while they're doing what they do. And then when they're done, we're all whole.

Melissa

Yeah. And I think I'm just thinking of it just this moment. Like you could think about that with your kids too, like the more interactions that we have, whether they are positive and or negative in our own brains. The closer we have the opportunity to be with them, yes, they're still engaging with me. There's hope.

Bev

Even if the engagement feels maybe rude or attacking to us, they're still talking to me. And we just welcome that. And that could maybe also help us calm down and receive it in a way that's not adversarial.

Melissa

Yeah, I love that. The other thing that you said that blew my mind was. Whose dream is it in terms of, you know, we have dreams for our children, we think we're supposed to.

And you kind of redirected us to think about you can have dreams for how you want to be as a parent, but your dreams for your children really are not relevant.

Bev

Correct. I think probably the best way for us to avoid that is to have dreams for yourself. Always have dreams for yourself as a parent, and then, you know, let them emerge as they do.

And we will, right? We'll have ideas of what we think they should do and dreams, but we just want to keep reminding ourselves. Just how does that feel when you have a dream for your child? It feels, you know, a little sort of tight, I think, because we know that we have no idea how they'll emerge.

Melissa

Yeah.

Bev

Want to keep pushing them towards it? It's going to sort of interrupt that connection.

Melissa

Yeah. I used to tell folks in the office, you know, when you have a baby, you basically are given a seed and you don't know what the seed is going to turn into. You could be growing a pricker bush or you could be growing a mighty oak, but your job is to provide it with sunshine and water and light and love and all of that, right? And you get to see what emerges like you don't get to pick your seeds.

Bev

I love that. What beautiful messages you gave your parents.

Melissa

I know. I was a damn good pediatrician, if I do say so myself.

Bev

Amazing. That advice could have changed the course of a child's life.

Melissa

Yeah. Oh, for sure. For sure.

And I think another thing that you said that made me think of something was I think as moms, we are socialized to not have dreams for ourselves, like to give up dreaming for ourselves so that we can raise our kids.

And you know, so I think sometimes that message gets mixed up with instead of having dreams for yourself, you should have dreams for your kids, and that should be good enough. And you know, if you've raised a successful person, then you're good enough, right?

Bev

I think you're right. We do want to dream. So if we're taught not to dream for ourselves, we're gonna put our dreams on our children. But just that idea, as you're saying it to me, that feels so dull and, you know, heavy. And that's how we know this is not an idea that's gonna lead to the best outcome for us, our children, for our parenting.

Melissa

The other thing that you said was teens are perfect. And we kind of talked about it a little bit, but listening to the content of their words and not the tone. They’re programmed to be sulky and defiant. And their messages go away but will you drive me to the mall?

Bev

Yes, exactly. That's the title of a book by, I believe it's Michael Wolf. I'm gonna get you all the accurate references. He was a Canadian parenting columnist and he wrote a book “Get out of my life, but can you first drive me and Cheryl to the mall.” And his idea is there's nothing more conflicted than being a teenager because you're starting to individuate, want to become dependent, but you're totally dependent on your parents for everything. So this conflict is what makes them kind of sulky and sullen towards us because we're the reason they can't totally individuate. I mean, of course, right? We have to be, and it's all right.

So the advice I read from him that, you know, changed my life together with the 90/10 was pay attention to their words, not the tone. So they're, you know, they're like, and all I'm hearing is, can you take me to the mall? Yes, darling.

It's not easy. It is not easy. It's easy for a while. But if it carries on, you know, could start to recover because we also want positive regard, right? We're human. So it's definitely a challenge and it's the challenge of the time.

And the idea is the relationship is paramount as a teenager because of all the conflict and the changes they're going through. So once you lose the relationship, then you've lost them.

So what are we willing to do to keep the relationship? Are we willing to question all our thoughts about they should respect me?

Are we willing to challenge all of that to keep that relationship so that if there is really a struggle, at least they know I go to like my parents first.

Melissa

Yeah. I always wanted to be the soft place for them where they knew that I could handle anything that they brought to me because I didn't want them to feel like they needed to hide or lie. Or even though I know, like lying makes sense and their sneakiness makes sense and, you know, all of that.

Bev

But that they don't think they need to protect you because you're fragile. And I think that's where, you know, if people listen, coaching with you would really help if that's a struggle they're having that you're having in the moment. Strengthen yourself so that they can, you know, bring you whatever they have and you're their soft place.

Melissa

Yeah. I think coaching really helped me see that it wasn't their job to make me happy.

Bev

Correct.

Melissa

Like my emotions are an inside job.

Bev

Correct. Or to feel respected. Feel like you're doing a good job. That’s not their job at all. Their job is to be in turmoil for a few years and out of it the best they can.

Melissa

Exactly.

OK. Has anything changed since you gave us this lovely lecture back in 2021? Anything that has come into your horizon that you're like, oh, I definitely would have added this in.

Bev

If I think the main thing really that I would add in is kind of what you touched on before. Wherever you're at in your parenting, the last thing we want to do is make you feel as a parent that you've been doing it wrong, because that will just make you so much less connected to your wisdom. 

Relationships are fluid. The messages in our brains are fluid. And what we want to do is give you the idea you can trust your desire to just love on your children and appreciate them and adore them. And at any time of your parenting, that is always going to be the best way.

So however it's been, it doesn't matter. It was meant to be that way.

I love this idea. I heard it somewhere. Maybe I'll offer this to close. And again, it's totally made-up, right? But I love it and I don't even know where I got it from. Might be a Jewish belief, I'm not sure.

But the idea is that before the children are even conceived, they're a soul. So this is a little spiritual. And if people don't believe this, it’s just the idea, they kind of look down from wherever, say from heaven and they and they like circle us. They go, I want those parents or I want that parent.

And so, again, made-up. But what I love about it is if you decide to adopt that. Any mistakes you made, anything you did terribly, anything you wish you'd done differently, anything they tell us we should have done differently. My thought is always, so obviously this is what you needed for your growth. And I would say to my kids out loud, thank you for picking me to be your mommy.

So when they call me, I'll be like, this is what you get. So that's probably if we can just leave people with that.

Melissa

I love it. Thank you so much, Bev.

If people want to learn more about you, if they want to, you know, hear, keep up with what you're doing, what's the best way for people to do that?

Bev

Yeah, sure. So if they just go to my website, it's bevarin.com. 

If they want to sign up for my list every Friday, they're going to get a Friday coaching insight, which 

Melissa

I love them.

Bev

Do you love them? OK, I love that you love them.

So yeah, it's for coaches, but really it's for anybody who's interested in inner growth. And then once a month, they'll get a very short video on how to dive deeper with their inner work.

And the best way to really learn about how I think about things is to join my monthly learning series, which we're going to be selling next month in August with a really amazing offer.

Melissa

I love it. We will all wait with bated breath to find out what it is. I love it. Thank you so much for offering your insight and wisdom and your beautiful brain with all of us. I appreciate it so much.

Bev

Thank you for having me. It's been so fun. I love you.

Melissa

All right. I love you too, Bev.

All right, Your Favorite You listeners, come back next week for more amazingness. See you then.

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