Speaker 1: 0:35

Welcome back to Speak Out. Stand Out. I'm Elizabeth Green, and today's guest is Shelly Robinson. Shelly is a certified conscious parenting coach who helps parents worldwide break generational cycles to fill their homes with more compassion, calm and joy, and who doesn't want more of that in their lives? When she's not cheering on parents to become more deeply connected with their kids, you can find her in the kitchen baking with her two kids, sneaking in a game of ping pong with her husband or releasing stress in her weekly boxing class. How cool is that? You do boxing too. A little bit of everything here.

Speaker 1: 1:08

Shelly, we're so glad to have you. Thanks for being here today.

Speaker 2: 1:11

Thank you, I am so glad to be here.

Speaker 1: 1:14

So you devote your life to helping parents find joy and calmness in our lives. How did you get to this point, Like where? What made you think this is what I need to do with my life?

Speaker 2: 1:25

Yeah Well, I've always loved coaching, I've always loved teaching and it just has always felt like a calling to me. Prior to becoming a coach, I was in corporate marketing for an insurance company. I had my son almost 15 years ago and it just didn't feel like a good values fit any longer and so I started kind of reinventing my life. And it wasn't really around until my second child where I started. I knew I wanted to be a gentle, kind, compassionate parent. I didn't really know what that meant exactly, but I knew a few things that I wasn't going to do right.

Speaker 2: 1:59

And then with my second child, my daughter, I just kept bumping up against this idea that maybe I was a little bit part of the problem, like when my kid. You know, when my kids were acting out or doing things that I didn't like, my tendency my default was to correct them and make them behave and ensure they were being compliant, just doing it in like a gentler way, right. And it wasn't until that second child was born that I my second child was born. I thought maybe there's something that is worth unpacking under my anger and my triggers and my reflex to be so upset when they didn't do what I wanted them to do, and so I was very new to this.

Speaker 2: 2:39

I didn't at that time know that it was inner child work or that I wasn't even really that familiar with reparenting, but I just knew there were things from my own childhood that were kind of sneaking into the way I was parenting as an adult. So I just got really curious about that, and once I get curious about something my tendency is to go like take a very deep dive. Here we are, like almost 10 years later and I'm still like so excited about this topic. But it was really an invitation to me to begin healing some wounds that I did not want to pass on to my own children.

Speaker 1: 3:13

So I'm going to just go right here. You're talking about. You know, there were some things from your childhood that you knew you didn't want to bring in. Yeah, Even if somebody is thinking well, you know what, I had a great childhood, but I still don't think I'm parenting in the best way that I can. Yeah, it's very possible right that we it's not. It doesn't have to be you had trauma or serious things happen. This affects everybody, right All?

Speaker 2: 3:35

parents Absolutely, and I'm so glad you brought that up, because in these conversations I often end up circling back around to that, because I am definitely one of those people who thought to myself, gosh, I had a pretty good childhood, I don't feel like I need to do this inner child work. It feels a little woo, you know. But now that I've been doing this for so long, I am acutely aware that none of us exit childhood unscathed, and even if it's, maybe our parents got 99% of it right. But you know, we end up encountering someone influential in our life, whether it's a teacher or a coach or someone who we look up to, that maybe misses the mark in how they're trying to influence us, right, and so those things kind of live inside of us unconsciously. And then, when they tend to bubble to the surface, when our kids do something that remind us of those moments, right, and I'll just share an example.

Speaker 2: 4:26

When my son was four, we were having this argument. This was really kind of what catapulted me into this work. We were having an argument about him getting into the bath. He didn't want to take a bath, and which is very reasonable and developmentally normal at that age, right, but he wasn't listening to me and putting that in quotes he wouldn't get in the bath, and something about this exchange over and over and over again of him not listening to me triggered something deeper than just this is kind of annoying. I wish he would just get into the bath. It was just this little Shelly kind of emerged and locked horns with my child and it was like my inner child fighting my own child because I wanted to be heard.

Speaker 2: 5:04

So there were moments in my own childhood whether it was inside of my home and I don't think it was intentional, or it was in a classroom or it was in a church where I felt like my voice doesn't really matter.

Speaker 2: 5:15

No one really wants to hear what I want to say, especially when my voice is, you know, doesn't agree with the voice in charge. So it was this like trigger that bubbled up in that moment where I was so irrationally angry with him and I screamed at him and it awoke something in me that I just I never wanted to do that again. I don't know if you've seen the movie Monsters Inc. Where Sully screams at Boo and there's this vision of him screaming at her and she's scared, and it very much felt like that moment for me with my son. He was so little and I was so big and I didn't want to do that ever again. So it really forced me to look within and say where did that come from? That's not who I want to be and that's not who I am as a parent. And so it really forced me to dig deep and uncover where that rage was coming from in myself.

Speaker 1: 6:09

And we hear a lot more about mom rage. Now it's a trending kind of topic, Absolutely, but I'm glad. I mean it sounds terrible, right, Like, oh my goodness, nobody wants to have mom rage. But I'm glad that it is a topic that is kind of trendy because it makes us feel like, even though that we don't want to be those parents, everybody falls short and if we have those moments we can fix it, we can recover from that right.

Speaker 2: 6:34

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean I I would never want to, you know, make parents think that we're going to do this perfectly. We're not, like, no matter how hard we're working and how much we're healing, we are going to mess up. I'm repairing every week. So the goal isn't perfection. The goal is really compassion, and so when we do mess up, we forgive ourselves, which gives us the capacity to repair with our child. So of course, we're going to circle back around, explain to our child that that was not their fault in any way and just make a promise and a commitment to them that we're working on improving that and giving them examples If they're old enough, like next time I'll do this, I'll step away, I'll take a deep breath, and I didn't do that this time and that wasn't your fault, and I take responsibility for that. And really it's modeling for them what that looks like, because that teaches them how to apologize, right, Because they're going to mess up.

Speaker 2: 7:28

And we are apologizing in my house all the time and I love that. And that doesn't mean we're always yelling at each other, but I just mean like there's not a lot of ego when it comes to apologizing in our house, Like my son just apologized to me the other day. I apologized to my daughter yesterday and it's. It didn't used to be easy for me. I remember vividly the first time I apologized to my son. He was two and it was like I like I wanted to crawl out of my skin. It felt so foreign and and now it's just kind of easy breezy for the most part. Most days I'm like yep, I messed up, Sorry, and we're most of the time easily forgiving each other.

Speaker 1: 8:02

What do you say to the parents that think well, if I tell my kid to get in the bath, it is their fault if they don't get in the bath right. I'm the one in charge. They're not following instructions. Why should I apologize to them? You know?

Speaker 2: 8:16

what do you say to that? That's a valid question. I think what helps to soften that sort of mindset is just better understanding the developmental expectations of a kid. So at that age of four or five, depending on what's going on like are they playing with a toy, are they really tired? Like there are just so many underlying things that could be happening underneath the surface for that child that it makes sense for them to push back and it's kind of their job. Like they're finding their way in the world, right, they're trying to find their own voice, and so to just see it through the lens of it not being personal but rather being completely developmentally appropriate, takes the sting out of it. Like, oh, they're really defying me. How dare they?

Speaker 2: 8:58

You know, that kind of authoritative, ego driven sort of approach to parenting that always ends up with just this tug of war where someone ends up crying.

Speaker 2: 9:07

It's either me or the kid, you know, or maybe both of us. But yeah, when we say you know what? Like their brains are still developing and they're still, you know, it's their job to push back. There's could be a lot of other reasons happening in the background that we don't even know about, but if we can approach it in a relational and even, dare I say, playful, if we have the capacity as the grown up not all days we do, I get that, but if we can approach it just a little more lightheartedly, it just opens up the space for the child to maybe more likely say yes, because when we're being silly and playful and we're not taking it personally, they're like oh, I feel energetically that we're on the same team. It's not, we're not against each other, we're actually like on the same team and this could, dare I say, be fun to take a bath, you know, if we can like get to that point with them.

Speaker 1: 9:55

I love how you said don't take it personally.

Speaker 2: 9:57

I feel like that's something I struggle with personally.

Speaker 1: 10:01

Even if somebody disagrees with me at times, I can take that personally and I have to tell myself they're entitled to their opinion. This is okay, they're not against me, they just disagree with me. But we can definitely take that to the extreme.

Speaker 2: 10:14

When it's our kids, I feel like oh absolutely and I think a lot of how our parents or other adults related to us in our own childhood. We don't mean for it to, but it seeps out into like how we relate to our child. So if we've got this very hierarchical, like you know, top-down sort of approach to parenting where I'm the, it doesn't mean we can't be the leader, but like I'm the dictator and they're the child and they do what I say. That comes up when we're upset, right, that we kind of it's been like wired into our brain based on how we were raised and it doesn't make us bad. It just means like we have some rewiring to do and some rewriting of patterns and that's, that's okay. In fact, I'll share an example with you.

Speaker 2: 10:54

A couple of days ago I, um, I use my kid's bathroom sometimes because it's the only bath in the house and I love taking baths and I often leave my clothes in there because I hate putting my. I'm kind of like a child in this way where I just kind of toss my clothes and I'm like I'll get to them later. It's fine. I'm a little type B that way and my son is not like that and he he's 14 and he asked me very nicely and I'll tell you where my ego and me taking it personally came into play. He said Mom, do you mind he said it so respectfully Do you mind just getting your clothes out of the bathroom when you're done with the bath, because they're kind of everywhere and it's just like cluttering up my space?

Speaker 2: 11:29

And there was a teeny part of me that was like how dare you Like just a teeny part? And I didn't say it, but it was there and I was like man after all, this time that's still. That's still as wired in there. Just a little bit. But I didn't say it, I acknowledged it and I was like good to see you. You're not taking the driver's seat right now, get in the back. And I just said sure, I'm sorry, I should have. I'm like I'm so sorry. You know, that was silly of me and I'll get them out of there.

Speaker 1: 11:57

And I haven't.

Speaker 2: 11:58

I haven't left them there since, but you know, it's just an interesting like um, it's just interesting to kind of reflect on that that none of this is black and white. None of us is doing this perfectly. We all have those little egos and, like inner voices, that kind of bubble up, and we, if we can, like you know, lean into the tools we have, whether it's breathing or pausing or a little phrase that we rely on. If we can just keep our mouth shut for like five seconds, we can almost always manage to not indulge in that.

Speaker 1: 12:25

Well, you just kind of answered my next question, but I would like to still expand on it a little bit. So let's say somebody has they're realizing, you know what, maybe I'm responding in ways that are not healthy and the way I shouldn't respond to my kids, or I'm getting mom rage over silly things, but they haven't done the work right To figure out, like, why am I reacting this way? So how do you even, like, start to acknowledge I mean you're, you're realizing, oh, I don't want to be this kind of parent, but how do I?

Speaker 2: 12:58

how do I change that? That's just who I am, right, yeah, what's like a practical first step. So so in my work, when I'm talking about raising ourselves right alongside of our children, what I mean by that is reparenting the part of you when you were a child that did not get what you deserve. That doesn't mean you didn't get anything right Again. You could have had like a fantastic childhood, but maybe you left childhood with just a few things that you were like you know what. I don't want to pass that on.

Speaker 2: 13:19

So, in order to not pass it on to your child, we first have to be able to give that to ourselves. For example, if we were raised to believe that our voices really didn't matter, our opinions didn't matter, we couldn't have a different worldview than our parents, then we might tend to like shrink and be small, and then when our children question our voice, it brings back all of that like anger and helplessness, right? So in our adult lives, how can we honor our own voice, right? And that could look like a lot of different things. That could be setting healthy boundaries, offering your opinion, even if it's different from someone that you care about, you know, just like really owning your own voice so that when your child threatens your voice or not threatens it, but you know, kind of pushes back you can stand sturdy and knowing that I, my voice, does matter and my child pushing back doesn't mean that it doesn't matter, it means he's, he or she is doing what children do, right, they push back, and so we have to be able to give ourselves those gifts that we didn't get as children, that we deserve to get.

Speaker 2: 14:25

We can do that as adults and that's the act really of reparenting ourselves. And there's a lot of different ways. I just use that voice one because I do tend to hear that one a lot. But even with anger, like a lot of kids were not allowed to be angry, it was really inconvenient, or maybe if you were a little girl, it was not very like ladylike, and so letting yourself be angry and experience that emotion that doesn't mean you harm other people, of course, but just allowing that feeling to exist and listening to the messages behind it, because often anger is a messenger, right, and often under anger there's a lot of sadness and grief and fear and it's really just a bodyguard for all of that.

Speaker 1: 15:03

And it's a completely natural feeling, natural emotion right, we all experience it. I think the key thing is how we react in those scenarios and you mentioned this just a few minutes ago and I started this podcast maybe a year and a half ago and I've talked to a a lot of people and I always say it has personally helped me so much as a parent and one of the main things that I have learned and been able to incorporate into my daily life is I.

Speaker 1: 15:26

I'm going to respond and I'm going to respond quickly, Like that's just the way I always have been, and that's not always the way we need to be. In certain scenarios it suits right, but not at all, and you mentioned just a few minutes ago, if we can just keep our mouths shut just for a few seconds, it gives us time to stop ourselves from saying something that we're going to regret and just also realize. How do I really want to handle this situation?

Speaker 1: 15:48

And I feel like I'm just now to the point in my life where I'm able to do that. I don't know if I'm a slow learner or maybe I'm just now really starting to pay attention to it but just the other day, my husband and I were having a little disagreement and I just, I just didn't say anything.

Speaker 1: 16:06

And then, and then later on he was like I'm sorry, I don't know what was going on. I just, you know, it was just kind of grouchy for a minute and it's so much like me to be like you know what about this? You know I want to say you're in the wrong, I'm right. And then that that one instance of me just not responding right there, whether it be my husband or my kids, changed the entire evening for the better, you know.

Speaker 2: 16:28

but it's hard because our little egos are just, you know, making a lot of rack and they're like I want to say something and I'm right. And if we can just like breathe through that and know that a lot of that is rooted in fear, it's so much more peaceful. And I think one of the phrases that I lean on in those moments, whether it's with my husband or one of my kids, is how do I want to feel on the other side of this? And if I can just say that phrase that takes a few seconds and sometimes that can diffuse some of my own big feelings that are coming up because I want to be proud of myself. I don't want to. I really would prefer not to have to repair. I mean, I will, of course, but I would like to handle it in a way that doesn't require an apology an hour later. So sometimes that can be really helpful in anchoring us.

Speaker 1: 17:15

Yeah, I love that. I'm going to start thinking about that and write that down, put it on a sticky note, because if we can just be a little forward thinking, it can change everything. So one of the things that we talk a lot about on this show is how to build communication skills in our kids, and I know a lot of it comes from the way we model things and the way we model disagreements and things like that.

Speaker 1: 17:36

But what other kind of tips or strategies do you have, whether it be for the way we're responding to our children or things that we're actively teaching them about building confidence in their communication skills?

Speaker 2: 17:46

Yeah Well, I think one of the most important skills for kids to learn is conflict resolution, and I, you know, of course we can model that with our partners. Sometimes it's not very pretty right. Sometimes we completely missed the mark and we're like actually don't do that. How do we just handle that? Do the opposite of it.

Speaker 2: 18:03

But, um, something that we do in our house when there are disagreements. I kind of like named it a little bit corny, but we call it communication station. I don't think my teenager like loves the name of it, but it but we started this a long time ago and it used to be a cute name. I think he's outgrown it. But when he and his sister or me and him or me and her or husband, when there's a disagreement, we just sit down at this table and we talk about it and the requirement is that you listen. So one person tells their side of the story, the other person tells their side of the story. You're really not allowed to talk and you must. You must do your best.

Speaker 2: 18:41

It's I'm not saying it's entirely possible to withhold judgment and make snarky faces. You know what I mean. It's like practicing that, like restraint and just listening with an open mind. The other person's point of view. It's there isn't really a goal. There isn't like a goal to like make it all better and hug and kiss and make up. It's really just an act of like practicing listening without judgment. And so it kind of goes back to what we were talking about earlier is like keeping your mouth shut a little bit and just listening and being and sometimes, communication.

Speaker 2: 19:12

The best kind is the listening kind, where you can just open your heart up a little bit and say, ooh, I didn't see it from that point of view because I was so angry, I could only see it from my point of view and I'm. I need to practice this just as much as my kids, right? So, um, I have to practice this with my husband and even sometimes with my kids, when my you know, if we're in disagreement about something like my, my son and I have had lots of conversation around screen time and sometimes he brings up really good points that my ego doesn't like, right, that my pride doesn't like, and I'm like, ooh, that's a really good point, and I can see that you researched that, and now I have to, like, take that into consideration because I'm trying to build a harmonious home. So, um, so, yeah, I think just learning to resolve conflict in a way that, like, allows them to practice listening without judgment is one of the best skills you can teach your kids.

Speaker 1: 20:03

Yeah, I agree, and I think listening, the listening side of the communication realm, is the hardest part for most people. Most of us can say what we want to say, you know, or we can at least attempt to it, but it is a lot harder to after you've done that, really, really listen and understand what's coming from the other side. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 20:24

These are some great tips, and you also have a toolkit that people can access. That is all about this right Helping build communication and confidence and calmness in your house, right? Tell us a little bit about that.

Speaker 2: 20:35

Yeah, I would love to. It's called the Connected Kid Toolkit and it really pulls together all of the work that we just talked about, which is not only raising your kids in a compassionate, conscious home, but also raising your little kid, little you. So there are conversation cards that allow you to kind of spark really cool conversations that you might not otherwise have with your child. And then there are activities that go along with the cards that help to bring them to life. So you're not just reading these things to your kids, but you're saying you know what we could do.

Speaker 2: 21:03

Is this really fun thing? And they don't have to know that it's necessarily bringing the card to life, but it really helps instill confidence, resilience, thoughtfulness, generosity into them, so that the cards aren't just words but they're like living actions that they're bringing into their lives. And then there's a workbook inside of this toolkit that's called Reparenting the Younger you and it's really all about connecting with that child part of yourself to kind of explore and uncover what some of your own triggers might be, what you want to tend to with your own inner child, so that you can give your children what you want to give them and be the parent you want to be, because it's all really connected.

Speaker 1: 21:44

And that's what I think you know we all want. We all want to be calm and loving and and and have our kids look back on these days, obviously with with great memories, and I wish that I would have connected with you so long ago. My oldest is 16 and he is a mini me. And so you know sometimes that, sometimes that doesn't always work right.

Speaker 1: 22:05

We have to learn how to make that work right. And they always talk about opposites attract right. My husband and I are opposites and then our son came along and he's, you know, just like me. So I had. It took me a long time to now I look back and realize the problem was me. You know what I mean it wasn't that he was just a challenging child. He was, he was a challenging child, but I'm sure a lot of that was because of me.

Speaker 1: 22:31

But we just in the time when you're in the moment in the heat of it. It's hard to realize that.

Speaker 2: 22:37

It is, and I just want to acknowledge you for saying that out loud, because I think it takes a lot of courage and humility, and the humility is the word I always say, like if you could sum up parenting in one word, or if you could sum up parenting in this way in one word. It's humility because it just requires us to just take such radical ownership of our role in the relationship. Right, and yeah, I often say to myself like maybe it's me, maybe I'm the problem.

Speaker 2: 23:04

So I love that you're willing to do that Cause that's, that's a gift that not every kid gets from their parents.

Speaker 1: 23:09

And one last thing for you. If I know a lot of the parents that listen to our podcast or have kids who are tweens and teens and so like, if they're thinking, oh my goodness, like you know, I'm realizing I've done a lot of this and not the best way Is it too late?

Speaker 2: 23:23

to fix this. Oh my gosh, it's never too late. It's never too late and it's because children never want to stop being securely attached to their parents. Now, your child, especially your teen, is never going to say mom, I really want to be securely attached to you, so don't expect that.

Speaker 2: 23:38

But like, deep down, all children, even adult children, want that secure, unconditionally loving relationship with their parents. They're wired to want that. And so, just taking ownership and just humbling yourself and saying you know what? I've learned a lot about myself, I've learned a lot about parenting and I want to apologize for whatever it is you want to apologize for, and then asking them and really bracing yourself and make sure you do this on a good mental health day for their feedback and allowing them to say like you hurt me here and taking ownership for that, and then like letting them know how you're going to correct that, moving forward. So, um, it's absolutely never too late, because you want that relationship with your kid, they want it with you and if you can find a way to take ownership for that, I, it can still absolutely work.

Speaker 1: 24:31

I love it. And if you are listening to this and you're like, yes, I really need to explore more of this, we're going to have links to Shelly's social medias and her website so you can go check out the toolkit. Lots of free resources there as well, and then opportunities to dive deeper to you know, really, like you said, reparent ourselves. This is a new, a fairly new phrase for me too. That it's just I'm just starting to hear more about, but it's just a word covering like growing right.

Speaker 2: 24:58

We just need to grow right, and that's part of it. Absolutely, yeah, all right.

Speaker 1: 25:02

Well, Shelly, thanks so much for your time. We appreciate you and be sure to check out all of her great resources and links. All right, thank you, elizabeth.