Coffee with Heather :: Connection Before Correction [Mentor Series Wk 2] Ep. 581

But I think with all the pressures of performance, of wanting to get motherhood right, of being a good mom, that we often miss the most important piece of parenting, which is that relationship, that connection.

And so often one of the biggest stressors in parenting, which is behavior management, uh, just the overstimulation, the high chaos, especially if you have multiple kids, that some of the things I've learned from guests I've had on have helped me to see that when connection is happening, when relationship is there, the behaviors and the management becomes easier, and that trust relationship only leads to a more enjoyable overall experience and ultimately adults that you want to be around.

So today we're gonna focus in on some of my thoughts of things I wish someone would have told me sooner, uh, some of my own personal challenges and lies I believed, and then I'm gonna share a clip from a actual live conversation I had with Jim and Lynn Jackson of Connected Families.

For those who are newer to the podcast, I am a mom of four boys.

When I started the show, they were ages one to seven, and now they are, um, almost 21 down to 14.

And when I did start the podcast, I just really struggled with feeling like they were out of control, and it was my job to control them.

I also felt this pressure that they had to behave perfectly in public especially so that their behavior gave me an A+ as a mom.

And that just increasing pressure of things I could not control outside of me, so many things, people, [laughs] can't control people, and my unawareness of my own emotional state, my own thought processes, so much work that I had yet to do just led to a lot of anxiety and stress and definitely impacted my ability to connect with my boys.

And so I spent a lot of time working through that, um, through counseling, through, uh, 12 step with our church, through, um, inner healing prayer that I've talked about on here.

And I wrote a lot of it in my book, Don't Mom Alone.

There's a whole chapter on anger and just getting curious about why you're experiencing these extreme emotions instead of thinking, "I just gotta stop them." And then there's a chapter on discipline, which is related to me just thinking bad behavior meant I needed to have consequences, and if I gave the right consequences, then the bad behavior would go away, and my kids would look like good kids, and I would look like a good parent.

And the more people I interviewed and the more, [laughs] um, amazing frameworks and things I found, which I'm gonna share with you today, the more calm I felt and the less pressure and the more grace I could bring to our family.

So I wanted to share some of that with you today.

But the chapter I wrote on that is called Like Riding a Horse because it starts with a story from family camp.

We had an adults only horseback riding morning where we were gonna ride horses and then have this amazing breakfast, and we each got assigned our horses, and we're sitting on them, and all the horses are facing these ropes.

And then my friend next to me, her horse decides he does not like the horse on his other side, Tank.

And so her horse, Red Baron, starts moving outside of the barn.

And she's like, "What is going on? We're supposed to stay in one spot." And she starts freaking out, and the wrangler says, "You're not doing anything wrong.

Just stay calm.

Just point the reins back and gently pull Red Baron back to pointing and looking at the rope." And so she does that, and that lasts for about a minute, and then Red Baron once again wants to, starts backing up and wanting to leave the barn.

And again, the wrangler tries to give her calm, uh, instruction and instruct her to stay calm and in control.

And it made me think of parenting, how often we can on repeat be correcting and redirecting, and it starts to feel personal.

It starts to feel like, "Is something wrong with me that this behavior keeps happening?" And how important this wrangler's instruction was to just stay consistent...

Stay calm, be in control of yourself and your emotions because the horse can feel if you start feeling anxious.

And I was also thinking, like, my friend, she was probably projecting, "If this is how the horse is acting in the barn, how will he be out on the trail? And will it get crazier?" And I think as parents we do that.