Sheila: Welcome to the Bare Marriage podcast.  I’m Sheila Wray Gregoire from baremarriage.com where we like to talk about healthy, evidence-based, biblical advice for your sex life, marriage, and your parenting.  

Rebecca: Parenting.

Sheila: And that is what we are talking about today.  I am joined by my daughter, Rebecca Lindenbach.

Rebecca: Hello.

Sheila: And we, of course, have written a parenting book, She Deserves Better, which we coauthored.  Yes.  We did.  Don’t forget about it.  

Rebecca: Well, I know about She Deserves Better.  I don’t consider it a parenting book.  I don’t know.  It is a parenting book, I guess.  Yes.  It is.

Sheila: It is.  And two of the things that we are really passionate about are evidence based, so we want to look at what survey results say.  We want to look at what studies say.  We want to look at what peer reviewed research says.

Rebecca: Mm-hmm.  And also we’re passionate about connecting you to people who are doing good work in those spaces.  There’s a lot of—I will say.  People ask us, “Oh, you should talk about this.  And this.  And this.”  And I’m like there are people who talk about this that are doing a great job and are putting as much work towards learning to be experts in that area as we are learning to be experts in the areas of evangelical sexuality.  So we have a guest today who we’ve had on twice before.

Sheila: Mm-hmm.  Wendy Snyder from Fresh Start Family Online.  And she’s just been—she was really helpful for us personally and for you when your kids were little.

Rebecca: Oh yeah.  I used a lot of Wendy’s stuff with my kids.  I still do.  I mean they’re five and three.  

Sheila: Yeah.  And we just think that she talks about firm and kind discipline so well and how those things interact.  And so we’re going to be bringing her on in a moment.  Before we do that, of course, we want to say thank you to our patron group because their money helps support what we do every month.  And you can join for as little as $5 a month.  And our Facebook group is an awesome place to come.  It’s supposed to be our safe space, and I think it pretty much is our safe space on the Internet.  And lots of amazing conversations there.  But even more importantly—at least I think it’s more important.  Our patrons are what fund a lot of our work.  And we are very grateful for that.  And if you want to give more, I know the end of the year is coming up, and lots of people do have some charity money left to give.  You can get a tax receipt within the United States if you give to the Good Fruit Faith Initiative of the Bosko Foundation.  And that supports our work.  I’ll be sending out some emails about that soon, but you can see the link in the podcast notes if you want to support what we do.  Other ways you can help us, of course, review our books on Amazon and Goodreads, review this podcast, mark it five star, and just share our stuff.  Whenever you see us on social media, hit like even if you don’t comment.  Commenting isn’t even better.  But hit like and share because the more engagement that you give us the more people will see our stuff.  So if you want people to see our stuff, engage with it when you see it on social media. 

Rebecca: Feed the algorithm.

Sheila: Feed the algorithm.  That’s it.  And now let’s bring on someone whose algorithm that we think that you should feed.  So here is Wendy.  I am so glad to bring on the podcast again today someone who is a big friend of our podcast.  Wendy Snyder from Fresh Start Families.  Hi, Wendy.

Wendy: Hello, ladies.  I am so thankful and honored to be back.  Excited for this conversation today.

Sheila: Yeah.  You’ve been on twice before, I think.

Wendy: I think so.  Yes.

Sheila: Talking about what it looks like to have firm, but kind, discipline, which seems like an oxymoron.  People might think, “Well, how can you be both firm and kind,” but that’s the whole point.  

Wendy: It is.  It is.  I love that topic so, so much because it is possible.  And it is beautiful when you hit the groove with that.

Rebecca: In our previous conversations with Wendy—with you, we’ve talked a lot about the—going from the authoritarian side of parenting to what we call authoritative or gentle parenting, right?  So for people who don’t know or maybe who haven’t heard those, there’s three general—well, there’s four parenting strategies that psychologists have identified.  There’s authoritarian, people who are really strict where there’s really strong rules, where the kids can’t ask questions.

Sheila: Where it’s about controlling your kids really.

Rebecca: Exactly.  Yeah.  And there’s are marked by—

Wendy: Usually lots of fear and force.  Yeah.  Mm-hmm.

Rebecca: Yeah.  And these families are marked by what the psychologists say is high control low warmth.  Does not mean the parents don’t love their kids.  The relationship is marked by high control low warmth.  Then there’s permissive parenting where it’s the opposite where the kids kind of rule the roost, right?  So there’s high warmth and low control.  The kids are kind of allowed to do what they want.  And then there’s authoritative parenting, which is a mixture of firm boundaries with warmth from the parents.  And that is—  

Sheila: Firm, but kind.

Rebecca: Exactly.  Firm but kind.  That is one that research, for literally decades, has found has the best outcomes.  The fourth is called negligent parenting where it’s not really marked by control or warmth because the parent is not really present whether emotionally or physically or—and anyway.  So that’s where there’s like three methods of parenting, and then there’s nonprinting.  But authoritative parenting, for decades—this is not new stuff, guys.  For decades has been found to have the best outcomes for children.  And most recently, it’s kind of been rebranded as gentle parenting in the Internet vernacular kind of thing.  So for anyone who just needed a crash course on what are we talking about, that’s the concept that we’re talking about.

Sheila: Yeah.  And we’ve talked to Wendy before.  We’ve talked to you about spanking and how to get away from spanking because that doesn’t tend to work and has been found in multiple huge studies to actually do more harm.  If people are okay even if they’ve been spanked, they’re okay despite the spanking not because of it which is a big—

Wendy: I reference that study that you did all the time to students.  So yeah.

Sheila: Well, yeah.  Gershoff’s meta-analysis of 160,000 in 2016, very, very important study.  And we’ve talked about that a lot.  We’ve talked about the problems with authoritarian parenting with you, and I talked about it a couple of months ago with David and Amanda—is it Erickson?  No.  

Wendy: Yeah.

Sheila: From Flourishing Families with their new book.

Wendy: Love them.

Sheila: Absolutely.  So we want to tackle a different subject with you today, Wendy.  And, Becca, I’m going to let you describe it.

Rebecca: Okay.  There are so many people who because of this cultural shift away from authoritarian parenting strategies where you aren’t bragging about beating your kids anymore.  Let’s call it what it was.

Wendy: Yeah.  Whooping.  Jokes from the pulpit about whooping.  That was my old church.

Rebecca: Exactly.  Exactly.  Right?  We’re walking away from that as a culture.  But as a result, a lot of people don’t like gentle parenting because they think it’s permissive.  Or they don’t know how to have boundaries with being authoritarian, right?  And we wanted to talk about how do you know if you’re a gentle parent or a permissive parent and what are the differences?

Wendy: Yeah.  Great question.  I feel like you will feel it in your body.  Because permissive parenting, you will not feel like things are going well.  Most of the families things are not going to go well if you’re on the permissive side.  And especially if you have a strong-willed kid, it just leads to a lot of problems, and you will feel a dissonance in your body because you will feel disrespected.  And you also will be living most often in what we call protective or closed down behaviors where you’re withdrawing.  You’re maybe people pleasing.  You’re avoiding conflict.  All of those things cause the human body to not be in thriving mode but instead more in suffering and, again, a dissonance because it’s not who we were designed to be.  All human beings were designed to feel powerful, valuable, unconditional love.  These are some of the—to belong.  These are some of the basic needs that we learn about in the positive psychology of this work that drive our behavior.  So in life when you are doing anything, parenting is a big part of it for many of us.  When we feel powerful, when we feel valuable, when we feel like we belong, and when we are connected with our little ones, and yet, we are feeling valuable and confident, that’s where—and connected with God, that’s where you’re going to feel like you’re thriving.  But permissive parenting happens a lot because I think—I just love to give so much compassion to the parents who fall into that because a lot of times they’re just pendulum swinging away from the type of hurt and harm that was done with them.  I have so many private students in membership, in my high level certification program, that actually many of them found me through you guys.  And we do a lot of work around unlearning what was taught to them, what was done to them when they were little, what they were conditioned to believe especially when it comes to their nervous system.  And when you have kids of your own, a lot of times parents know that they don’t want to repeat the generational cycle.  And their relationship with God and religion is so different, and they are very clear on that.  But they don’t know how.  And so in the beginning before you’re educated on how to do it, it makes sense why you would pendulum swing to permissive because you just don’t have the power struggle dissolving tools yet and that firm and kind method.  So it feels easier to just give them the jelly bean to stay in bed, say, “Fine.  You can have the iPad as you go to bed,” or let the kid get the—whatever it is.  So it makes sense.  I want everyone to just understand that.  And yeah.  There’s been a lot of the world that has come hard into the gentle parenting world.  It’s heartbreaking.  It’s infuriating.  And so many times it’s just—couldn’t be further from the truth, what they’re talking about.  It’s really clear that they’re not just not on what true gentle parenting is, right?  I know a lot of people like Dr. David and Amanda—they’re really getting away from the term because it’s been so misconstrued.  And that is heartbreaking, but it’s okay.  We use different words so people can feel more comfortable.  So here, at Fresh Start Family, we really like the term powerful parenting because it relies on relationship and it relies on firm, kind leadership.  And those two things together is really what creates magic in homes and keeps us connected with our kids, connected with God, helps us raise children in a faith that they don’t have to heal from.  

Sheila: Wouldn’t that be nice?  

Rebecca: That is such a low—that’s a great statement.  But I will say that feels like such a low bar, doesn’t it?  (cross talk) Good line.  Goodness.

Wendy: Well, that is Meredith Miller.  That is Meredith Miller’s book.

Rebecca: Raise your kids with a faith they don’t have to heal from.  Exactly.

Wendy: Yes.  Cheers, right?  Amen to that.

Rebecca: Yeah.  I know when I—I’ve seen a lot of people talking about gentle parenting and saying that it’s unreasonable or it’s permissive because, quite frankly, there is a lot of gentle parenting advice online that does border, if not fully encroach, on permissive parenting.  There are some things that I see that I—make me so frustrated because I can see these parents, who were raised with abusive, frankly, parents, who are so scared of becoming abusive to their own kids, that they follow all these not actually gentle parenting strategies that end up meaning that the kid is ruling the roost, right?  Which is not healthy for the child or the adult.  I forget who it was.  It may have actually been Dad talking to me about permissive versus authoritative where it’s like the question is if you feel like your kid is calling the shots then you’re permissive parenting even if you think you’re doing the right thing.  If your kid is in charge of when they are going to bed, whether or not they clean up their toys when you ask them to clean up their toys, whether or not they are respecting your physical boundaries, if you’re telling your kid, “Hey, mommy doesn’t want you to climb on her right now,” and he keeps climbing on you, and you feel like you’re powerless to stop it, that’s a sign that you’re not actually gentle parenting.  It’s permissive parenting.  But something I see online that makes it so hard is that there’s all these arbitrary rules on a lot of gentle parenting accounts on TikTok especially that just aren’t necessary.  Like telling people, “You must speak to your children in a singsong voice, or else you can’t expect them to listen to you.”  

Wendy: There are accounts that teach that?  I have no exposure to these accounts.

Rebecca: One of the largest—at some point, I’m going to go off on this account in the Patreon.  So if you want to hear me and Joanna and maybe Dad go off at some point—one of the largest TikTok gentle parenting accounts, which is run by someone with a PhD in education by the way, does all these things like, “Brush teeth first, then bed.  Brush teeth first, then bed.”  And the kid is like, “I don’t want to.”  “Brush teeth first.”  If you had done that to me, I would have just lost it.  I would have found that annoying.  I’m like that seems disrespectful to my child.  But I’m picturing all these poor parents, whose kids are not listening, who are not brushing their teeth, who are not going to bed, sitting there just like, “I was told by this doctor in education I have to sing.  Brush teeth first, then bed.”  And no.  You are allowed to be assertive.  You don’t have to just keep doing these hat tricks until your child magically listens or just does what they wanted to do in the first place, and you feel good about it.  I think that’s where it gets so confusing because we’re told to be gentle.  But we’re not told what gentle actually means, right?  And yeah.  And that’s a really good litmus test for me is when I know—when my kids—when—I’ll throw my daughter under the bus because it’s hilarious and not at all embarrassing for her.  Connor and I look in her room to realize she has 37 stuffed animals in her bed.  We realized, oh, she’s in charge right now because my daughter is a child, who knows the names of all 37 of the animals.  And if she can’t find one of them, she loses her ever loving mind at 9:00 at night.  And it’s underneath the other 36 stuff animals on her bed.  So our rule is she’s allowed to have 5 animals on her bed, and 37 is a specific number.  It is a real number that we counted once.  But these check in tools where we’re like, “Oh wait a second.  We are no longer in charge here.” 

Sheila: Okay.  So I want to do the brush teeth first then.  Okay?  So Wendy, imagine, hypothetically, that you have your five-year-old grandson and your three-year-old granddaughter sleeping overnight tomorrow night.    

Rebecca: Who could possibly have a five year old and a three year old?

Wendy: Who would do that?  What amazing grandmother would do that?

Sheila: And that these children don’t always like to brush their teeth.  How would you handle that?

Wendy: Yeah.  Well, I would first off do some education.  Help them know from your perspective why cleaning our teeth is important.  So in our world, we believe all parents and all grandparents—first and foremost, we’re just teachers.  That’s what we are.  Everybody.  Everybody is just teaching.  That’s so much of what parenthood is.  And you’re going to have a different way of teaching them about why the mouth should be clean than mom is, right?  And so you just want to bring in some education on why do we have this interesting human behavior where we’re brush our teeth every morning and every evening.  Maybe show them some of your cavities.  Just last year I got some silver ones redone.  But if you have a silver one, that’s a really great one to show them because they can see it clearly, right?  But, hey, just want to show you.  This is an example of what happens when dirt stays in there, right?  In the crevice happens and whatever.  And the way they do it is they take a drill, and it’s humane.  But this is what dentists do, and this is what I went through.  And so I’m here to help you get to avoid that and keep your teeth clean.  So you don’t have stinky breath, right?  When you go to the dentist, it’s easy peasy clean, and you’re back home to watching your favorite cartoon and playing in the backyard.  That’s just one example of education.  It might take you three minutes.  It might take you four.  You might want to show them a picture of what a cavity looks like, if you don’t have one in your mouth that’s silver.  And then you make an agreement.  “Hey, okay.  So cool.  We can watch a show.  We can watch a movie.  And when this is done, we need to make an agreement that we’re going to do A, B, and C to get to bed because we want to have a peaceful evening and fun and connection and laughter when we go to bed versus drama and tears because I only get to have you guys once every few weeks.  And it’s important to me that we feel connected, and we all get a good night’s rest.  So can we make an agreement?  Does that make sense, kiddos?”  And they’re going to be like, “Yes, Grandma.  Awesome.”  Then when you go upstairs and if there is pushback, that’s when we bring in empathy.  “No wonder you don’t want to brush your teeth.”  We often encourage parents to look at what could actually be happening for this kid that’s not just this kid is being a rascal and trying to be difficult.  But a lot of times kids are super sensitive, right?  They may be don’t like the feeling of it on there.  Or the toothpaste grosses them out, whatever it may be.  Just try to get in their shoes and say, “Hey, I know this isn’t your favorite thing to do.  You’re not crazy.  You’re not an alien.  Sometimes I just want to fall into bed too.  And what was our agreement?  Okay.  So do you want to do it quick like a cheetah, slow like a turtle?”  Because slow like a turtle is what we want in that situation, right?  We want them to brush their teeth nice and slow.  But most of them are going to choose fast like a cheetah.  “Or do you want to do it on your own?  Or do you want to have me help you?  These are just one example of empowerment prompting strategies whereas most parents and grandparents, if we’re being honest especially if you were raised in the evangelical church, you’re going to move to threats with an expectation of immediate obedience or you are failing, right?  That’s a lot of conditioning.  So we’re going to move a place of I have an opportunity to teach my grandchild why dental health is important.  And I also have the ability to influence him to cooperate or—and her to cooperate in a way that’s what we call true power versus false power is when you bring in fear, force, overpowering threats, or bribery is the other way to do that too with dangling carrots.  But that’s just some examples of how we would tend to consistent patterns of pushback.  And then in the moment, how do we use connection based, firm, kind leadership to get them to cooperate?

Sheila: I remember when Alex was three we had you on, and Rebecca was having trouble where he wouldn’t take his shoes off when he came in the house.  And so you told her to get the agreement before he even went outside.  And then when you come back in, what’s the first thing we’re going to do?  We’re going to take your shoes off.  And so then he went and played.  And it worked, and she couldn’t believe it worked.  But getting the agreement beforehand really—yeah.  Setting the expectation.      

Rebecca: I was going to say.  With the brushing teeth example too, there is the threat of, “Oh yeah.  No.  We’re going to brush our teeth.  And if you don’t brush your teeth, then I’m going to be very angry, and I’m going to yell at you.  I’m going to brush your teeth for you anyway,” and get all rough.  There’s also the side where it’s like, “Well, if you don’t want to, then I guess you can go to bed without it,” and then that teaches the kid, “Oh, I can just say no.  And I do have to do the thing.”  And for the grandparents, who only have the kids once, there’s not much you can really do about that.  But as the parent, I know that what we found very good is often you can just wait the kid out.  That is a—“Oh, you don’t want to brush your teeth.  Well, we brush our teeth before we read stories, and we only have so much time to read stories.  So Daddy is going to go read stories with Vivian now.”  I mean theoretical child.

Wendy: Right.  Theoretical.  Exactly.    

Rebecca: “Daddy is going to go read stories with your sister now.  And you can join when our teeth are brushed.”  Dad’s calling out, “One story done.  Only one left,” right?  “I don’t want to brush my teeth.”  “Well, do you want to read stories?”  “Yeah.”  “Okay.  Well, you have to brush your teeth first.  So do you want to brush your teeth?” 

Wendy: I love it.

Rebecca: And, usually, they learn that they have to brush—and you know what happens if they don’t brush their teeth?  They didn’t get to read stories.  

Wendy: Exactly.  So let me tell you the strategy behind that.  So what you’re doing is sequencing versus threats.  That’s what we teach here.  Sequencing is, again, true power.  That’s like I’m going to set the firm, kind boundary.  First, we buckle our seatbelts.  Then we drive away.  It’s very different than if you don’t buckle that seatbelt you’re going to get a spanking.  If you don’t buckle that seatbelt, you will not get iPad time tonight.  If you don’t brush your teeth, you will lose book opportunity tonight.  It’s just a very different tone.  And a lot of strong-willed kids will push back even harder on the threat.  So instead, it’s like, “Okay.  We’ll chill.  I’ll sit here and pray for a few minutes.  Or do my breathing that I’ve been trying to do all day.  And I am going to have a firm boundary that we’re not leaving until it’s done.  Or you’re not—whatever.”  And it works incredibly well.  But that is called sequencing.  And then the logical consequences, which, I know, will maybe have a little event to talk more about those—but logical consequences is when that agreement isn’t met then the logical consequences, which is when we step in with a related, respectful, reasonable, and—I always forget the last four R that I teach.  But those things.  When it’s related, we step in, and we have a firm boundary.  And that means we really were serious when we said bedtime is at 8:00, and lights are out.  So if you miss it, the time reading books, that’s okay.  You can make a different decision tomorrow.  But in this work of powerful parenting, we’re removing the shame.    We’re removing the harm, fear, hurting, humiliating, intimidation.  We’re just removing that.  And we’re letting a child own their actions.  And so tomorrow you get to make a different choice.  That’s all.

Rebecca: But I think the big thing is we’re not removing the negative feeling the child experiences because they made a mistake.  And I think that’s where a lot of people, who misrepresent gentle parenting as permissive parenting, miss.  It’s like your kid might cry because he missed story time.  And that’s okay.  That’s actually him learning.  Hey, I don’t like this.  You don’t need your kid to go to bed hunky dory happy.  They are allowed to feel the negative repercussions of their actions.

Wendy: Beautiful.  Yes.

Rebecca: That’s actually a healthy thing and shielding our children from that is often wrapped up as gentle parenting where your kid shouldn’t ever feel shame for having pushed another child.  And shame is a deep word.  But the true meaning of shame is in chagrin.

Wendy: Guilt.

Rebecca: Is important.  Chagrin or guilt.  That’s actually a necessary thing for our kids to learn.  And so if you’re—I just want to say to the people listening.  If you’re listening to some of these not—these permissive parenting accounts that are calling themselves gentle parenting and the goal is to remove the child’s negative experience, that’s not actually authoritative parenting.  We’re not shaming kids, humiliating kids, purposefully adding negative stuff.  But we’re also not saying, “Yeah.  You pushed a kid, and they don’t want to play with you.  And I’m not going to make them play with you.  You pushed them, and you get to feel bad about that.  And that’s okay because we cannot push them next time.”

Wendy: Yeah.  You mentioned sadness, Rebecca.  And in our world, we teach all emotions are healthy and honorable and helpful.  Sadness is an emotion that shows how much you care.  So when you have a kid that’s sad when he goes to bed because he made a decision to take 10 minutes to brush his teeth versus 2, what—we always say that sadness is an emotion that shows how much you care.  So he cares about spending time reading at night time and connecting with his mom and dad.  He or she, they care about books.  They are from this family, let’s say.  They care about books.  But that’s a beautiful thing.  So to allow our child to feel sad and then let them steer the ship of, “Okay.  Tomorrow if you want to replace sadness with happy and joy, you can make a different choice.  However, our job is the firm, kind leadership of we will brush our teeth before we go to bed.  And we’re going to work as a team to get it done,” right?  And then I love it.  Yes.  Please let’s let children feel guilty.  Shame, we know, is a totally different thing.  But guilt is beautiful.  Guilt is healthy.  Guilt will drive you to make amends and make different decisions tomorrow.  

Sheila: Mm-hmm.  Mm-hmm.  One of the things we were talking about before we started recording was Rebecca was saying to me that a lot of permissive parenting techniques marketed as gentle parenting techniques only work if you have one child.  Because as soon as you have two kids, you can’t be taking two hours to get a kid to bed.  You can’t be taking an hour to cajole kids to eat their vegetables.  It just doesn’t work when there’s two kids.  

Rebecca: Mm-hmm.  And what that ends up happening is that then all these parents just feel like total and complete failures because they’re like, “But I can’t sit with my child for an hour and a half while they have a meltdown.  I have two other kids.”  So are my kids just not able to have a healthy home?  No.  Gentle parenting techniques work with you—if you have many kids.  It shouldn’t be that you don’t have time if you’re parenting your children.

Sheila: Yeah.  So let’s take dinner time.  Let’s imagine that you have—let’s say a nine year old and a six year old.  And they’re picky eaters.  Okay?  They’re just picky eaters.  

Rebecca: This one is not my kids.  This one is me.  

Wendy: Okay.  Yeah.  Picky eaters.  Yep.  That’s a whole thing, whole industry of experts out there around picky eating.  But let’s go with it.

Sheila: Yeah.  And you just want to have a nice dinner as a family.  It’s important to you to eat at the table.  But the kids are making it miserable, right?  They’re not eating.  They’re crying.  They’re complaining.  They’re wanting something else.  They’re wanting you to get up and get them a peanut butter sandwich or whatever it might be.  How do you handle that if you want your family to have a nice dinner?

Wendy: Yeah.  Well, that’s a really deep one.  And I’ll tell you why.  I remember having one of my worst parenting moments ever.  I had just had my second child.  He was a baby, and we were bouncing him on the ball at the dinner table when Grandma was over.  And we all know that when there is a fishbowl of anybody watching you’re more likely to be triggered and react in ways because you often are feared—scared of judgment, right?  Our Grandma is amazing.  My mother-in-law is the best mother-in-law you could ever imagine in the planet.  But we’re bouncing a colicky baby on a ball.  Stella is three.  And she just won’t sit still at the dinner table.  And I remember just losing my mind.  And that was back before we understood, and we’re trying to figure out how to do this whole firm and kind thing.  And I remember marching her up to her room like either forcing the time out.  Maybe locking her in her room telling her she was going straight to bed.  And I remember my sweet, amazing mother-in-law—she—I came downstairs, and I was just like, “This kid.”  And she was just like, “I think I need to go.  I’m really uncomfortable with what just happened.”  And it was one of the most impactful things for me because I realized that, to her, it wasn’t the end of the world that the three year old wasn’t sitting still at the dinner table.  I was in a very dysregulated nervous system state.  And I was making it mean so much more than what it needed to be.  We had a colicky newborn baby, for the love of God.  Maybe we just lighten the load and the requirements and the rigidity.  Is that—I’m probably saying that wrong.  Of parenting.  Rigidity.  And just enjoy letting Stella be a little bend with parameters meal or something.  Or let her bring a book to the—let her sit down and whatever.  Read her books on the ground or something and just be excited that her Grandma was there.  She was in a transition phase with a new baby.  So I say that because dinner table has traditionally been spun as this end all be all children have to be perfectly eating their meal.  And we are going to have this lovely conversation with husband and wife while these children are present.  And it’s like—I’m not saying it’s not realistic.  But it’s just—yes.  There are things we can do to help our children learn to love food even though they often have sensory issues.  True picky eaters often struggle with anxiety.  True picky eaters got a lot more going on than just being a pain in the butt when it comes to not liking peas or whatever.  But I think general guidance or feedback would be to detach from the complaining and the begging and just let them know really clearly.  “Hey, I get it.  I get that you’re not super stoked on the chicken and the peas.  And the answer is no.  I’m not getting a peanut butter and jelly.  So you have a choice.  You can either sit and sit with us and maybe grab a book to enjoy while we’re finishing dinner.  And/or you can eat them fast like a crazy chicken.  It’s up to you.  But we are going to enjoy a family meal.  Thank you for being part of this team.  And it’s okay that you don’t like what I cooked tonight.  It’s okay,” and then detaching a little bit.  So dinner time, again, is a sticky one because we have these ideas around what it should be to be a great dinner.  But there are seasons where kids are just not going to eat a ton for dinner.  There are other ways to get nutrients and vegetables and provide healthy eating for them.  But often it is the power struggle that creates the arguments and the bickering and the patterns at the dinner table that we have power to change when we lead the way with a different response.  Oftentimes, we really are engaging in the drama.  And L. R. Knost, which I love quoting.  You guys know when I speak with you I often quote her.  But she has a beautiful quote about it’s our job to bring calm to the chaos, not add to it.  That’s not the exact—it’s something around there.  But it’s so great to remember that we’re the ones with the fully developed brains.  Mirror neurons are flying all the time with our kids.  And so we—

Sheila: Explain what you mean by that.  Explain what you mean by that.

Rebecca: Yeah.  Yeah.  Explain mirror neurons.  Yeah.

Wendy: So we are bouncing off of each other’s energy, so to speak.  I mean humans are energetic beings.  We really are.  And the brain—I just was at a doctor, kind of scientist, healthy aging seminar two nights ago.  And he was talking about the work that the Health Map Institute has done where they are now proving with MRIs that our—when we’re close to each other, you—us right now probably even being on Zoom in Canada and San Diego, our heartbeats are probably aligning.

Rebecca: I’ve seen that.  Yeah.  It’s really cool.  

Wendy: It’s amazing.  But parents traditionally think that if they want their—the child has to respectful and calm, and then we’ll be respectful and calm.  At that event the other night, I had a—there’s a few women.  And one was like, at the end—she’s like, “Hey, are you Fresh Start Wendy?  I’m a podcast listener.  And great to meet you,” and it was so fun.  But she was telling me a story about how her husband is waiting for the son, the teenage son, to change his attitude, and then he’ll treat him in different ways.  It’s usually just not the way it’s ever going to go.  We are the ones with the logical developed brains.  Yes.  We carry a lot more baggage.  We have years and years and years of cultural conditioning and nervous system dysregulation that we often have to unlearn and get our own support to handle.  But really the most powerful way is to show up the way you want your children to show up, and they will match that a whole lot faster than you know.  But if you are meeting them with irritation, annoyance, frustration, threats, overpowering, there’s a good change they’re going to mimic that either in the moment.  And they might mimic it with whining and—but they’re still engaging in a power struggle.  It’s still a match of the mirror neurons, if that makes sense.  They’re just showing up feeling—getting that need to feel powerful met, they’re getting it met in a different way.  But really, honestly, a lot of times especially at the dinner table, everyone is getting the need to feel powerful met in an unhealthy way.  And we get to change that by choosing different strategies to feel powerful.  And then that changes the whole dynamic and cycles in a home.  And over time, the dinner table changes.  But it doesn’t change overnight usually.

Rebecca: Taking it back to what you said about brushing your teeth too though, one of the things that—when I was in university—because, again, I want to emphasize this.  Everyone thinks gentle parenting is like a last 10 years type of thing.  It is not.  It is a decade long thing.  

Wendy: Ancient.

Rebecca: Yeah.  It’s ancient, but it’s been in the literature as authoritative parenting for decades.  Decades now.  One of the things that my profs really hammered into our heads to explain authoritarian versus authoritative versus permissive is authoritative parents—their rules are there because they make sense.  And so because of that, they don’t really need to budge from the overarching actual reason behind the rules.  So for example, with the dinner table stuff, you can do exactly what you said about the brushing your teeth where it’s like, “Hey, I know you want to eat nothing but peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  You need to have protein in your diet.  This is very important.  Your brain is developing.  You need healthy fats that—and you can get some in peanut butter.  Yes.  But you cannot live on peanut butter alone, right?  You can have these conversations about it that are actually education and not just about you have to because I said so.  I also now—and some parents are not comfortable doing this.  My eldest is definitely a strong-willed kid.  Both me and my husband were, so he comes by it honestly.  

Wendy: Love it.

Rebecca: Second isn’t weak willed either.  I think she’s actually the strong-willed one.

Wendy: Of course, she’s not with this lineage.  There’s no way.

Rebecca: No.  Exactly.  But my five year old response really, really well to conversations about budget and money.  I know that this—not everyone is comfortable doing this, and that’s totally your prerogative.  But we are very upfront with our son.  I’m like, “Yeah.  We have to have a certain amount of protein.”  Chicken is really (cross talk) in Canada.  Beef is really expensive here.  And we have a lot of beans.”  The kid hates beans.  Okay?  He does not like beans.  I am not going to stop feeding him beans because our budget cannot allow for us to have good quality meat cuts whenever my kid needs protein, right?  And we had that conversation with him.  I’ve taken him to the grocery store, and I’ve shown him a can of chickpeas.  And I have shown him a thing of chicken breasts.  And I can say, “You don’t have to like it, bud.  You don’t have to like it.  No one is telling you you have to like it.  But we are telling you you got to try it.  You got to put some in your belly because your brain can’t get the nutrients unless you put it in your belly.”

Wendy: Great example.

Rebecca: (cross talk) that kind of stuff as well because I think a lot of times kids often think, “But I don’t like this, and I like other things.  And so why can’t we just have that all the time?”  And getting to explain to them, “Well, there’s nutritional reasons.  But also there’s money reasons.”  And not in a way that scares kids because talking about money can be inappropriate if we put the burden on children.  But it’s also really important as they grow up.  You know how many kids are 18 and they don’t know how to budget?

Sheila: You know what we did?  We had this thing that we did for a couple of years with the kids—while the girls were teens where every night we would try to figure out how much this meal cost per person. 

Rebecca: Not even per person.  You did it per serving because you’re like—we have leftovers.  So let’s figure out how much.

Sheila: Yeah.  They quickly learned which ones were a lot cheaper than other ones.  So when they went to university and they had to cook for themselves—  

Rebecca: Exactly.  I learned if you add corn and peas and carrots and potatoes to a casserole with chicken instead of it only being chicken you can get that bad boy down to (cross talk) percent cheaper.  The chicken is the problem here.  

Wendy: You’re right.  And to your point, Rebecca—so that’s a great example of firm boundary, but there is room to share the power.  And here’s how.  What would it look like if we took a few—even if it’s 10 to 20 minutes to cruise Pinterest on the laptop each week and see if we can find some fun recipes for chickpeas that might be more fun for you because I need your help.  I think you could probably come up with some creative ideas.  And together we could learn to make these chickpeas amazing, but I need your help.  Right?  Can you be in charge of when we go to the grocery store you’re going to grab—my Love and Lemons cookbook.  It has a chickpea salad that we eat on sourdough instead of tuna.  And it has all these ingredients, right?  So when you go to the grocery store, you put them in charge. But then any—when you have a strong-willed kid, any type of empowerment or teaching them how to feel powerful in a healthy way, you’re going to get an uptick in behavior.  You’re going to get an increase.  And that will kind of even out the whole—tough, right?  We’re having chicken.  We’re having chickpeas.  And I’m willing to make this something where you feel more empowered because it makes sense to me why you don’t like them.  And that’s okay.  And there’s things we can do to work as a team.  And I would probably benefit too because then I’m not bored with the recipes, but I need your help.  Strong-willed kids, any child, but strong-willed kids especially will be like, “Oh yeah.  Put me in the game.”  And so that’s a great way to share the power in that situation.  And often, it will give you some movement in the push back and just lighten their shoulders a little bit.  Strong-willed kids, their soul will relax as soon as they are given a little bit more power, which is very scary to a lot of people.  They see that as weak.  We see it as strong.

Rebecca: Can I tell you something you guys did well by accident?

Sheila: Sure.

Rebecca: Okay.  So talking about this food stuff, okay.  Because this was when I was older too.  We want to talk about some examples from when people aren’t toddlers because we talk about toddlers a lot, and this is a great one.  You know what you guys did?  And this is because Dad is picky.  I watched my father eat a bunch of food he didn’t like at the table.  

Wendy: Nice.

Rebecca: He doesn’t like celery, right?  And he didn’t particularly like broccoli.   

Sheila: Or cucumber.

Rebecca: He didn’t like a lot of stuff that you served because you’re like, “It’s cheap.  It’s good for you.  You’re going to eat it,” right?  And I saw that the grownups had to do the same thing.  And in our house, I eat fish.  My children know I hate fish.  I hate fish so much.  It is my least favorite food.  Nothing about it is good.  Why am I chewing on something that (cross talk)?

Wendy: You’re crazy.

Rebecca: And is weirdly salty, right?  I don’t enjoy it.  But I eat it.  It seriously is.  Put a bunch of paper in your mouth for awhile.  Eventually, it becomes the texture of fish.  Anyway—  

Sheila: I love fish. I love fish so much.

Rebecca: Here’s the thing.  (cross talk)

Wendy: Me too.

Rebecca: – that I don’t like fish.  Alexander likes fish.  And so he’s at the table, and he’s seeing that mommy is eating it.  And the entire time, “Daddy, you made this meal.  Mommy thinks it’s not good.  Mommy thinks this is a bad food.  Mommy doesn’t like this food, but Mommy is eating it.”  And he talks about it the whole time.

Wendy: That’s hilarious.

Rebecca: If there is not a double standard—because I think a lot of times, if you had to eat a bunch of food you didn’t like every single night, you would probably whine too.  Grownups get to eat what they like because we’re the ones who cook, right?  And so I think if you’re saying, “Well, you have to eat this because it’s good for you,” well, are there any foods that I don’t particularly like but they are good for me and I should have more of?  Let’s put those in the rotation, right?

Wendy: Yes.  I’m trying to do that with sardines right now.  My naturopath is like, “Wendy, eat the sardines.  You need them.”  And I’m like, “I can’t do it.”  But now I feel empowered to do it.  I’m going to do it.

Rebecca: You feel empowered.  Awesome.  

Sheila: Yes.  That’s perfect.  Okay.  Let’s take another scenario.  How about kids sort of that 9 to 11 year old age where they get really into video games or they’re just engrossed in something, and it’s really hard to get them to stop or do anything they’re supposed to like homework or come to the table or clean up, chores, whatever it is?

Wendy: Yeah.  Yeah.  So there’s a few things with technology that you can do.  But first off is to really change the paradigm because parents, in general—I think the majority of us carry a tone of irritation, frustration, and probably disgust, if we’re being honest, about kids with video games.  And we forget that we pay for the Internet.  We put the device in their hands, and we have handed them a highly addictive, dopamine inducing product that we paid for.  And then we get mad that they become addicted to it.  So I’m always a fan for redesigning our paradigm and remembering that we also quite often are struggling with technology addiction.  We often—I’m speaking for myself because I’m actively working on this.  I mean I have mentors that I work with on this.  And I’m like why is it that—for me, it’s hard to stop working at 3:30 p.m. when it’s time to go do carpool.  There is an addictive quality to working.  There’s an addictive quality to video games.  I am a big fan of putting ourselves on the same playing field as our children because a lot of times kids, especially strong-willed kids—they are hypocrisy, drug sniffing dogs.  And if there is hypocrisy happening in the home, they will push back harder.  And so you just want to be honest with yourself.  When they come home and they’re like, “Hey, mom. What are you doing?  How’s it going,” and you’re finishing a text, are you immediately, instantly—or are they like, “Mom, mom, mom, mom,” and sometimes you’re like, “Yeah.  Yeah.  Yeah.  Hold on.  Hold on,” right?  Does it sometimes take you a minute to stop what you’re doing?  The answer is probably it does, if we’re being honest, right?  We’re learning to prioritize the human connection over that.  We’re learning all the things.  So with that said when we see misbehavior in a different light, when we see it as communication, when we see it as kids learning life skills versus purposely being disobedient, pushing our buttons, naughty, selfish, all the things, then we feel a little bit more empowered to work with them in creative ways.  So one of the things I teach in our technology lesson inside of our private membership is a thing called bridging.  It’s kind of bridging the gap.  A lot of times parents will use technology as your kid will do it and you get the free time, right?  And the connection is distant.

Sheila: Oh yeah.  Yes.  Yes.

Wendy: Right?  That’s what we’re doing.  And bridging is just coming and sitting down next to your kid and saying, “What are you playing?  Show me.”  And maybe you take two or three minutes and you can—right when you sit down you can give them an option.  “Hey, do you want to turn it off now?  Or do you want to—three more minutes or five more minutes to be done?  Which one do you choose?”  Yes.  Your strongest willed ones might say neither.  And you can say, “Okay.  I get it.  And you need to choose one, or Mama will choose.  Which one do you choose,” right?  We could coach all day long on choices.  But when you sit down and when you do that bridging activity, it slows down your nervous system.  It reminds you why you had children in the first place.  It is safe to slow down and connect and care about what they care about.  And yeah.  They really like Minecraft.  They really love the dopamine hits that they get.  And what if we just shared with them for a minute?  As soon as you have that connection built a little bit, you’re going to have an easier time when it’s then time to execute on the agreement.  Again, a family, who has really educated themselves on how to be a firm and kind parent who has a safe home with compassionate discipline and strong leadership with connection, all the things, they’re going to be making agreements out the yin yang.  We don’t have iPads unless there’s agreements.  That’s just what you do.  You breathe.  You walk.  You exercise.  You drink your water.  You make agreements with your kids.  And especially around a highly addictive device that’s probably, I think—the data has probably shown—I’m making this up.  But I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s as addictive or more addictive than cocaine.  I don’t know.  You tell me.  You amazing research women, maybe there’s—I would guess.

Rebecca: It’s definitely highly, highly salient in the environment especially to brains that are specifically designed as—children’s brains are designed to grab onto salient things and try to figure them out.  So it’s definitely more distracting and more intensely distracting, again, for kids than for adults.

Wendy: Just interviewed a therapist yesterday that specializes in polyvagal parenting that he is studying—his book is around polyvagal parenting.  And we talked about teens.  When dopamine and impulsivity collide, that’s the teen brain.  And so we know that the dopamine for them they feel it on way—high scale and low scale.  They get huge surges of it.  So it just makes sense why turning it off would feel like death, right?  So you just want to come in empathy, agreements.  And then we teach a process called the four step firm and kind process in our firm and kind parenting blueprint where it’s like you make the agreement.  Then you use empathy.  No wonder you don’t want to turn it off.  You’re not an alien.  It makes sense.  This game is rad.  I give you this.  You don’t have to say.  But makes sense.  You’re probably addicted.  Makes sense why you don’t want to turn it off.  I am with you.  I feel the same way sometimes with my phone.  And what was our agreement?  So do you want to put it in the charging dock, or do you want me to?  Do you want to hand it to me?  Or do you want me to go ahead and take it out of your hands?  Something like that.  But choices are that last step, and that usually will get a kid to move to action way easier.  But that takes courage to withhold from the threats and the bribery, which, if I’m being honest, a lot of parents aren’t willing or they see it as, again, I don’t have time.  But when we live in the paradigm of I don’t have time, we then create patterns that create this rushed existence.  And it’s just not worth it.  We had kids because we wanted to raise human souls.  And yes.  Sometimes you’re going to need to slow down and connect for two to three minutes instead of just expecting the instant obedience, which I really love having learning myself about how—when you look at the word obey in the Bible, it’s got whole different meanings than what America has made it to be.

Rebecca: I like how you said, though, you have—it takes two to three minutes because I think that’s one of the misunderstandings is I think a lot of people, who—and I know this because I’ve talked to many people who are in my situation where we’re youngish parents, right?  And a lot of people aren’t like me.  I was gentle parented, right?  But a lot of people come from places where they are reacting to the authoritarian nature of their childhood.  And what they hear is I need to emotionally connect to my child, and it will take as long as it takes.  And eventually, he’ll turn it off.  But if your child was asked at 4:02 to off the Nintendo Switch and at 8:47 decides to turn off the Nintendo Switch, that’s not a sign that the parent is the one who made that call and helped guide the child to be able to get through a healthy decision making here.  It doesn’t matter if you are having long emotional conversations with them for the 4 hours and 45 minutes.  It shouldn’t be that long.  And I do want that to be a message too.  If you’re finding that you’re having these really good connecting conversations but you have no time to do anything else or it’s really overwhelming and you feel like but every time that anything happens it’s like 35 minutes of my day gone, that’s actually not a sign that we’re being firm and having boundaries here.  That’s actually a sign that we’re allowing our child to walk all over our boundaries.  One of the myths—this—our people like myths.  We talk about myths a lot.  My professors and (cross talk) dad—whoever doesn’t know.  He’s a pediatrician.

Sheila: Yeah.  My husband is a pediatrician.

Rebecca: So he deals with parenting stuff all the time, right?  But my prof said one of the biggest myths about permissive parents is that they don’t have consequences and that they don’t yell.  That’s not what happens.  Permissive parents let the kids get away with stuff.  And the kid gets to call the shots and like, “It’s fine.  At least, they’re giving me time off.  Okay.  Turn off your Nintendo.  Okay.  They’re not.  But whatever, I’ll just go make dinner.”  And then eventually, they snap.  And they’re like, “No more electronics.”  But that’s not a realistic agreement like you’re talking about here.  That’s not realistic.  So then what happens?  Mom can’t keep that up.  And so the kid learns, “Well, I just need to wait Mom out.”  It’s not I’m respecting Mom.  I’m just going to do it.  She’s going to be mad for 20 minutes, and then I’m just going to get to play my game, right?  And that’s where that agreement comes in where it’s got to be realistic.  If you’re someone who your kids have been playing nine hours of video games every day on the weekends, going to a 30-minute video game time is probably not going to be realistic for your family.  You can figure out an agreement with an end goal of having maybe an hour and a half of screen time a day.  But if you want to do this in an authoritative way, please don’t set yourself up for standards that you’re not able to keep because then you’re just going to slip right back into permissive parenting.  

Wendy: Yes.  It’s so true.  I think what a lot of people are probably trying—again, I don’t have any exposure with those accounts.  So it’s so interesting when I hear people talk about people misrepresenting gentle parenting because all the accounts I follow are spot on brilliant.  They’re just brilliant.  But maybe that’s just my circle.  But I think what they may be trying to communicate is when it comes to emotional regulation you really need to let go of forcing your kid through that.  And, again, I specialize in helping a lot of the parents who are healing from the evangelical and fundamental religious—it is so thick that yes.  Do the boundary.  Turn the device off.  Turn the TV off.  And then when your child is upset and has a reactive response or an aggressive one because, holy smokes, the families I work with—the ending, the reactive, aggressive, overpowering, hurtful patterns in their family legacy, whew.  It is an intense journey, and it takes time.  And it takes patience, but you must stop overpowering and hurting back.  That is the essential step that you need to get the support to do.  So yes.  Do the firm boundary.  Don’t take four hours to let the kid keep playing the video games.  And that child must learn how to get through what we call the rainbow of emotional processing or moving through.  Becoming an emotionally literate person means you’re able to get this surge of emotions and get through them on your own without being stopped which is what most of us happen, right?  If we were freaking out, somebody couldn’t handle it.  And they would come in and say, “You either stop your crying now, or else I’m going to give you something to cry about.  Or if you don’t stop yelling, then boom.  You’re going to get this, that, and that.”  And then the child never learns how to move through it on their own.  So the accounts and the colleagues that I—type of people I interview for my show and that I run with that’s what we’re talking about when it comes to enduring—endurance because a child—they have to learn it.  So there’s modeling involved.  There’s all the things.  But yes.  You follow through.  They aren’t allowed to just keep doing whatever they’re doing.  But just the emotional reactivity is an intense journey and the rainbow is essential because, at the end of the rainbow, is a pot of gold.  And then you can work with a kid to say, “Look.  You can do this.  When you feel hurt,”—the whole punishment cycle that’s been spun in the Christian world as godly discipline it’s just hurting back.  We always teach with revenge misbehavior has—just has a mistaken belief that when I feel hurt I must hurt back.  Often because that’s what’s been modeled to me.  And the punishment cycle just keeps it going round and round and round.  So that’s an example of a cycle that you have to just stop engaging with and choose a different way if you want your child to learn how to process the feeling of hurt by not hurting back.  But in the beginning, that can look explosive.  And you need mentorship and support on how do you get through that without the panic button going off and you moving to the old school methods of I will stop you and—or else, right?  Because then the cycle is just going to keep going to your kids, your grandkids, your great-grandchildren, and it will never end.

Rebecca: What I find so interesting that I just thought of as you were saying that, Wendy, is that if we look at the extreme of like—yeah.  The typical authoritarian response is you’re not allowed to feel like that because it inconveniences me, right?  And so I’m going to punish you.

Wendy: And it’s scary.  Yeah.

Rebecca: And it’s scary.  Yeah.  Because it affects me, in essence.  You’re not allowed to feel like that because it affects me, so I’m going to punish you for that.  Ironically, the permissive says the same thing.  You’re not allowed to feel that sad because it makes me feel bad.  So I’m going to appease you, so you don’t feel that sad.  And the healthy is in the middle where I’m going to be with you as you get through that emotion in a healthy way that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m going to hold your hand during an hour and a half long screaming fit, but it does mean that I’m emotionally present.  And I’m here for you.  And that’s what’s so hard to do.  And you are totally right.  That’s where if you’re someone who doesn’t know but how do I—how am I there for them without making them feel better, without appeasing them, or without just getting angry and screaming at them to get a grip, that’s where the mentorship programs can be really helpful because there are a lot of people who are like, “How do I figure out what the right way to do this is?” 

Sheila: Mm-hmm.  Mm-hmm.  

Wendy: And when the triggers are so strong.

Sheila: Yes.  And again as we said earlier, we have this free webinar with Wendy where she can talk about some of that.  So if you are—if you really want to dig deeper into what is firm and kind discipline, what does gentle parenting really look like, I will put a link in the podcast notes.  And you can sign up.  It is next Tuesday.  So it’s 10:00 Pacific, 1:00 Eastern, 1:00 p.m. Eastern.  If you can’t—I don’t know what time that is in Australia.  It’s probably the middle of the night.  Sorry about that.  Last one the Aussies could come to because it was at night.

Rebecca: Poor Australians are so used to converting time zones.

Sheila: Brits missed the last one because it was in the middle of the night.  Brits can come to this one because it is at the right time for Brits.  You’ll be eating dinner.  And the rest of Europe.  So sign up.  If you can’t make it live, there will be a recording available.  But, of course, if you’re there live, there’s always prizes, and it’s more fun.  So yeah.  We will put the link in the podcast notes.  Okay.  I think the pushback that we often get though is but we don’t want our kids to think that we’re weak or to be pushovers.  And if we’re not making them do something—if they are actually—have the choice, then aren’t we abdicating our authority?

Wendy: Yeah.  It’s a good question.  And the answer, in my opinion, no.  When you learn to share power and influence people with true respect and dignity, that is the most powerful people I respect in this world.  The people who do use fear and force and intimidation and shame to influence I just don’t see them as truly powerful.  And those type of overpowering situations only happen when there is a difference in power levels, right?  It makes sense that you can do that to a kid that’s 50 pounds and you’re 150, 200 pounds.  You hold all the money.  You pay for their housing and their Internet or whatever.  But it doesn’t work as well once people become teenagers, right?  And that’s why the work that so many people do in the first decade of their lives as parents and the first decade of their children’s lives it pays off big time once you have young adults because then you have actually taught a child how to respond to you because of your true power in their life which comes from them watching the way you act and the way you speak to them and setting firm boundaries and rules.  And so your authority, in my opinion, becomes even greater, right?   Because you’ve actually been willing to do the work versus just rely on what we call external controls, which I suppose it is a way of power.  But it is not sustainable.  And it leads to things like world wars, right?  I mean I always Nelson Mandela as an example, right?  He led South Africa in a much different way than we’re seeing leadership right now in different parts of the world.  It’s just incredible when you look at what true power and firm, kind leadership where you are influencing through relationship, connection, integrity.  It’s just amazing.  So I don’t believe that you’re giving up authority.

Sheila: And that’s how God does it.  That’s how God does it, right?  Through relationship, connection.  And I want to echo what you said, and I really hope listeners hear this is that I’ve really enjoyed the teenage years with my girls.  I don’t remember a time when I had to discipline you.  I probably did.  I honestly can’t remember though.  Maybe you can.  

Rebecca: I don’t remember either.  I don’t remember.  I remember being mad because you didn’t disciplined Katie to the extent that I thought you should because I was so (cross talk).

Wendy: That’s so Stella.

Rebecca: Yeah.  Wendy is like I see that.  Yeah.  No.  But that’s the thing.  I don’t ember.    

Sheila: Yeah.  I don’t remember.

Rebecca: And we weren’t wild terrors.  We were great kids.

Sheila: Yeah.  You guys made really good decisions.  And we had a lot of fun together.  We went on talks and talked every day.  The teen years were really nice.  And I have a friendship with both of you today.

Rebecca: Well, and I think a lot of that is because you both—you and Dad both—you always treated us with respect.  Always.  But also you did teach us how to treat you with respect too, right?  And I think that’s where it’s missing in the conversation too is the one side that’s used to, like you said Wendy, using threats and power and control.  That’s not a respectful way to get someone to do what you want to do.  We all know that inherently.  That’s the kind of thing where we say, for pity’s sake, if you’re—in any other relationship whether it’s dating or job or friends, if you had someone who was threatening you and trying to punish you in order to get you—them to do what they want, we’d be like that’s a red flag.  That’s a toxic work environment.  That’s an abusive relationship.  That’s a frenemy, right?  We’d say whatever it is.  But for parents, we’re like no.  It’s God ordained.  No.  That’s not actually it.  But on the other side, I also know that if you’re a parent who doesn’t enjoy parenting it also might be because you’re letting your kids walk all over your boundaries.  It’s not positive to have someone who is not respecting our boundaries.  

Sheila: Or a three year old where it takes three hours to get them in bed at night.  

Rebecca: Yeah.  That’s actually not teaching them to not care about your boundaries.  That’s the thing.  We are the first person who teach our children consent.  And that’s something that I’ve been reminding myself because I have a five and a three year old, right?  Where it’s like I’m the first person who teaches my kids consent.  If I say, “Mommy doesn’t want you to climb on me,” and then I let them continue to climb on me, that teaches them something about how they are supposed to treat other people.  Or I can say, “I don’t want you to climb on me,” and then, oh, I’m going to physically take your hands, remove you off of Mom.  And if you still try, I’m going to leave the room because no.  You don’t get to do that to Mommy.  And Mommy is going to drink her coffee while it’s hot.  You can play.

Wendy: And not spill it on myself.  

Rebecca: Exactly.  Right.  And that’s something that I know has been so helpful in having those really tangible things to picture where what am I teaching my child about respecting people’s boundaries when I try to coerce or threaten my child.  But then also what am I teaching my child about respecting other people’s boundaries when I’m allowing them to walk all over mine.

Wendy: And here’s the thing that I—let’s just cover this conversation in compassion because here’s the honest truth.  My daughter is almost 17.  I found this work when she was 3.  My son is almost 14 next week.  And I dip into both of those still sometimes.  And especially when you’re first starting changing up the way—from the way you were raised into a different way that’s firm and kind, relationship based.  We’re going to have many moments where we’re like, “Oh, we’re being permissive here.”  I can tell you right now.  We’ve probably slipped into a little bit of permissive when it comes to the house stuff and more of a nagging, irritated, bitter about some of the house stuff lately.  And also it’s the conversation in our house right now, right?  My daughter trains 50 million hours a week for beach volleyball.  So we’re trying to have compassion, but yet, be firm and kind.  And one week we’ll be like, “Crap.  We’re being permissive.  We’re getting walked all over.”  And then another week we’ll be like, “Okay.  This weekend family meeting.  It’s time to get back on the firm and kind ground.  We’re going to create a plan.  Work as a team.  Teach.  Blah, blah, blah.”  And then there’s still times where I might still go back into my autocrat, reactive mode, right?  Thank God after 14 years it happens way, way less.  And I can tell you that my intention is very strong, right?  Once you become fluent in this work, your intention is spot on.  You’re very clear on the type of parenting you want to do.  And then there’s just going to be moments where you’re like boom.  I swung there.  I swung there.  And I’m not going to beat myself up.  That’s a huge part of this work is when—Brené Brown has proven it for us through her social research.  Shame is not an effective motivator for change.  So we don’t beat ourselves up.  We just realize, oh, this doesn’t feel right.  This is out of alignment.  Feel like I’m doing all the housework.  And the kids are just playing video games or whatever it may be.  I feel like this is permissive.  Or whoops.  Kind of freaked out last night.  Lost my cool.  Yelled.  Put a finger in the face.  Grabbed the wrist too tight, whatever it may be.  Now, today, I get to make a fresh start.  I get to realign with what are my values. What is my faith?  Am I actually living the fruits of the Spirit, right?  When I look at that, is that a goal for me?  Am I living that?  Am I enjoying that?  And if the answer is no, then we’ve got work to do, and that’s okay.  That’s being human.  That’s being human, right?  And what a beautiful journey of education and growth.  I mean I couldn’t think of a more beautiful journey than to do that along with these little human souls and now grand human souls that we’ve brought into this world that we get to grow and figure out what it looks like to be in relationship and have conflict and not always want to do stuff and still do it and become part of the team and be a contributing member to society in a way that honors God and honors our neighbors.  What a journey.  But we all are going to fall off at times, and we get to choose if we get back on and what we go for.  But it often does take support and learning, and that’s why we’re having our free workshop.  Come learn with us.  Get exposed to some new concepts.  Ask questions.  It’s going to be really great.

Sheila: Yeah.  Awesome.  Well, thank you so much, Wendy.  The link to that free webinar, which is next Tuesday at 10:00 Eastern, 1:00 p.m.—no.  10:00 a.m. Pacific, 1:00 p.m. Eastern, 6:00 or 7:00 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time. 

Rebecca: Maybe we’re wrong.  (cross talk)  I don’t know.

Wendy: Amazing you guys know that.

Sheila: And where can people find you, Wendy?

Wendy: Oh, thank you so much.  Freshstartfamilyonline.com.  Come find me on Instagram.  Fresh Start Wendy.  We actually have a new YouTube channel for the podcast.  Fresh Start Family Show.  But where you can really find me is in this free workshop with Sheila.  That’s where you can find me.  So come there.  Come and give a classroom—I’m going to be doing live Q&A at the end.  And it’s going to be really just a great community, a sacred, safe community to be in.  I know  a lot of families listening—they don’t have a safe space to ask questions and do things outside of the box that what might be being taught in the pulpit or in their church or even their extended family, right?  Their mom, dad, cousin, sisters, aunts, uncles.  So this is a place for you to come and be in safe community, to learn and grow and ask questions, and be a real human parent where compassion is going to be just the tone of the workshop for both you and your children.

Sheila: Love that.  All right.  Well, thank you so much, Wendy.  It was great having you.

Wendy: Thanks, girls.  

Sheila: If you’ve been finding this conversation helpful, we have something amazing for you so that you can learn even more.    

Rebecca: On November 19th at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Standard Time or 1:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, we are hosting a free webinar with Wendy from Fresh Start Family, the guest of this podcast, where we’re going to give you information about what this whole gentle parenting thing is all about, what it actually means to be firm and kind, and to give you the tools that you need to start doing assertive parenting without the power struggles.  

Sheila: Yeah.  Which is so key.  Without the power struggles.  So we have a link where you can sign up.  Again, it is totally free.  And you can find that link in the podcast notes.  We would love to see you there.  Thanks for joining us on another edition of Bare Marriage.  

Rebecca: Yeah.  What I really love every time Wendy is on is that there is just so much compassion there.  We all come into parenting with our own baggage.  And you love your kid.  You really do.  And we’re all going to—because we love our kids, we’re all going to screw up in different ways, right?  And I love that whenever we talk to her she’s always like, “Hey, you’re too authoritarian, or you’re too permissive.”  There’s no judgment here.  There’s just encouragement and excitement as we move forward.  

Sheila: Yeah.  And that’s what we can all do is we can all move forward.  So yeah.  Check out the link to the webinar in the podcast notes and links to other—to the rest of Wendy’s social media channels so that you can follow her.  And just think more about how we can parent the next generation so that they will not have to have a faith—to heal from.  I love that.      

Rebecca: Faith they have to heal from.  Yeah.  

Sheila: I love that.  So thanks for joining us on Bare Marriage.  Next week you and I are doing a really fun conversation. 

Rebecca: Sounds great.

Sheila: We’re doing—yes—one on shame but in a totally different way.  And it was an awesome conversation.  We’ve already recorded it.  So you’re not going to miss next week.  The week after that Keith and I are taking a deep dive into Marriage on the Rock by Jimmy Evans.  Yeah.  We read it.

Rebecca: Scary noises.

Sheila: It’s a thing.  It’s a thing.  I honestly think he meant well.  It’s just—ugh.  So join us.  We’ve got lots coming up on the Bare Marriage podcast.  Bye-bye.

Rebecca: Bye-bye.