#48 Amazing Advice I Gave You As Your Pediatrician

 Hey, this is Melissa Parsons, and you are listening to the Your Favorite You Podcast. I'm a certified life coach with an advanced certification in deep dive coaching. The purpose of this podcast is to help brilliant women like you with beautiful brains create the life you've been dreaming of with intention.

My goal is to help you find your favorite version of you by teaching you how to treat yourself as your own best friend. If this sounds incredible to you and you want practical tips on changing up how you treat yourself, then you're in the right place. Just so you know, I'm a huge fan of using all of the words available to me in the English language, so please proceed with caution if young ears are around.

Well, hi there, welcome back to Your Favorite You. I did a podcast a while back about the shitty advice I gave you as a pediatrician. We will link to that in the show notes so that you don't have to go searching for it. Although, I got to say, if you are new to the pod and you have not gone back and listened to the earlier episodes, I do believe that they are totally worth your time.

Okay, back to today. I forgot to record the episode that I promised back then about the things that I would absolutely double down on, that I used to tell people in the office all the time. So, this is the amazing advice that I gave you, the advice that I would double down on, the advice that I would give even more firmly now, knowing that, knowing all that I have learned about trauma and about how we form as humans.

So, if I were still practicing pediatrics, these are the things that I would try to convey to you at each and every visit. Number one, you are doing a good job. Anytime a mama or a daddy brought their kiddos into my office and they were worried if they were doing a good job, I would tell them that, just by virtue of being in my office with their kiddo, worrying about doing a good job, that told me all I needed to know to assure them that they were in fact doing a good job.

People who aren't doing a good job, don't worry that they're not doing a good job.

Now, does this mean that you get it right with your kids 100% of the time? No, you are human, and you are going to screw up. Some days are going to be great and some days you are just going to be satisfied that everyone is still alive at the end of the day, and that can be enough. Remember that we only have to get it right with our kids about 67% of the time in order for them to have a secure attachment with us.

So, the other 33% of the time is going to be you messing it up, you apologizing, you starting over, asking for a do over that type of thing in order to repair your relationship with your kids.

This leads to number two. The more that you show that your kids that you are human and that you sometimes mess things up, the more it allows for them to be human and know that they are safe, even if they screw things up every once in a while.

Please let them make mistakes. When the stakes are low, they can come to you, tell you about how they messed up and show them that you were there to help them figure out how to repair a situation.

This will lead to them trusting you when they're older, when the stakes are larger, if you instill in them the belief that everything is figure outable and we can figure this out together, they will be much more likely to come to you when they are older and need help, instead of hiding the shit from you because they think that you might freak out on them. This goes back to number one.

Sometimes you will freak out on them, but you can always say I didn't handle that the way I wanted to. Can I get a do over, please? Number three, this one is huge.

You guys, if you want teenagers and young adults who are natural leaders and not followers, if you want teenagers and young adults who aren't afraid to speak up when they see something that's not right, that does not go along with their values, if you want teenagers and young adults who have healthy boundaries and aren't afraid to enforce them, you need to be able to regulate yourself.

When your three-year-old is throwing a tantrum, you need to be able to remind yourself of this. When your five-year-old is refusing to put on a coat, even though it is negative bajillion degrees outside, you need to remember this.

When your six-year-old is throwing a fit about not wanting to get in the bathtub and then, 20 minutes later, throwing a fit about not wanting to get out of the bathtub, all of these things are normal for the future leaders of the universe, and remember that every action that they take when they're young is just a call for more love, especially the negative actions that they take when they are doing this.

I would ask you to get curious instead of furious. I just made that up, isn't that genius? Curious instead of furious Curiosity would ask what does he need right now that he's not getting Aside? The next time you are throwing a tantrum, I would offer that you, too, can get curious and ask yourself what do I need right now that I'm not getting?

It could be sleep, food, hugs, water, more fun and play. You get the idea. Tantrums are always a reason to give more love, not less. One final word on this for now. Remember that when your kiddos are quote unquote misbehaving, they are often being resourceful and creative and independent. These are traits that we want to cultivate in them, not ones that we want to smash down.

Okay, number four kids who feel safe with their parents also feel safe. Let's start at number four. This goes along with number four. Kids who feel safe with their parents also feel safe showing all of their big emotions.

I swear I don't know how many times I said in the office, and I will shout it from the rooftops right now, or at least to those of you listening to the podcast today Kids have it right by expressing all of their emotions out loud and in living color.

At some age we are all socialized away from this, and we become young adults and eventually grown adults that attempt to hide or squash our feelings, even the ones that feel good in our bodies. I am constantly coaching my clients to help them get back in touch with their feelings, and I would love it if we could somehow never lose touch with our feelings in the first place.

Kids know that it is safe to feel and express any emotions, that their big feelings don't scare you, that you can handle anything that they need to express.

Number five Good Lord, please be mindful of the words you say to your kids. Tell your kids you love them. Tell them again and again. Offer them hugs, offer them snuggles, as long as they will still take them when they're sitting around, when they seek you out, ask them what's on their mind. You only have to ask once.

You don't have to badger them about it. Let them know that you're interested in them and their thoughts. Express interest in the things that interest them, even if you don't get it, Maybe, especially if you don't get it. Tell them that there is nothing they could do to make you stop loving them and mean it.

The words you say to your kids matter. The thoughts that you offer to them about them over and over and over again will become their beliefs about themselves. It's okay to offer them warm, positive beliefs about themselves and about other people in the world and the world at large.

I can remember so many times in the office a kiddo was, you know, not wanting to interact with me, as they shouldn't. I'm an unknown adult. This was usually a kiddo that I had never seen before. That was one of my partner's patients and a parent would say, oh, she's my shy one and I would just lovingly correct them.

You know, if you keep offering to her or him that he's the shy one, even when he wants to act out and be not shy and be bold, he might hear your words in his head I'm the shy one, I need to be shy or whatever it is. You get the idea, but this was just something that I saw over and, over and over again in the office.

So just remember the words that you say to your kids, especially the thoughts that you offer to them about them. They are so important.

Number six please teach your kids that it is safe to trust themselves from an early age. If they don't feel comfortable to go out on the gym mats right away at gymnastics class or out onto the soccer pitch at Pee Wee Soccer, teach them that it's okay to watch and see what happens and then to go out if and when they're ready.

The price of them not having the ability to trust themselves when they are older is way higher than the price of them not knowing how to do a handstand rollout or how to dribble the soccer ball at age five. If they don't want to give Aunt Sally or Uncle Bob a kiss, or if they say they don't want to be tickled, by all means please don't make them hug or kiss people they don't want to, and let them know that you will stop tickling them when they say stop Trusting their inner.

Knowing their gut is a hell of a lot more important than your great aunt or your great uncle's feelings.

Number seven, you don't have to referee. Your kids fight. Siblings are going to fight. They are supposed to. Unless there is blood involved or you're seriously worried about physical harm coming to one or more of your children, it's okay to say to them I trust you will work this out If you remember, back to the podcast that I did with the boys or that the boys did with me.

Actually, when kids are fighting, it's very rare that we actually have any idea who started what, and we usually get it wrong when we try to guess. So when they come to you fighting or tattling on one another, instead of trying to referee without the instant replay, offer to them that they can handle it on their own and that you are confident that they will figure it out together.

One of my neighbors said to me once when the boys were young and screaming at each other very loudly at our house hi, Kelly, if you're listening, that it's not the type of interactions that your children have that will make them close, but the number of interactions.

Therefore, the more interactions they have whether they're getting along well and its positive interaction or they're arguing, nitpicking, teasing each other the closer they will be. I have found this to be true with my granted limited experience of two. They are close after many, many, many interactions.

Number eight you cannot give a flying fuck about what other people think about your parenting. Virtually everyone you meet is going to have an opinion about what you're doing. You have to decide what works best for you, what works best for your family, and go with that until it doesn't make sense anymore, and then you can decide to do things differently.

Remember the people that are staring at you out in public either have so much empathy for you because they remember what it is like to parent in the wild, or they don't have kids, so they're clueless as to what they would do.

They can say all the pretty things they want, but until they actually experience their own child going stiff as a board as they try to strap them into the car seat at Target on a 95-degree, 80% humidity day in Ohio in August, they really have no business chiming in.

That story is a bit overly specific for a reason. So, it's either that they're being empathetic, they don't have kids, or they've completely forgotten what it's like to have a gaggle of young kids who are depending on them. Your relationship with yourself and your relationship with your child is the only one that matters.

Your relatives, your friends, your coworkers, the randos at Target can all go to hell.

Number nine. It is not up to your kids to determine your worth or your value to the world. If you are trying to live vicariously through your kids, stop and do some work on yourself. You are not as unhappy as your unhappiest child. That is some bullshit.

It is not your kid's job to make you happy. Your happiness is an inside job. Only you can make that happen for you. You have so much power to create the exact life that you want for yourself. It's never too late for you to do that.

I think that this is where a lot of parents get tripped up. They think that their chance for a life that they love might be over, so they have to live for and through their kids.

Once your kiddo is wiping his or her own butt, you have very little power over them, unless they are legitimately afraid of you, which most of the people I cared for is a pediatrician, and virtually all of my clients don't want. They don't want their kiddos to be scared of them.

What you do have power over, though, is creating your life as you want it to be. Spend your time and energy on your own life instead. Okay, folks, that's all I have for you today.

I packed a lot into a short episode, so you might want to bookmark this one to re-listen to a few times and, of course, if you want one-on-one coaching with me on any of this, or really anything in your life that is leading you to be less than your favorite version of yourself. I am your coach.

Please go to melissaparsonscoaching.com, to the Work with Me page and get yourself on my calendar. I would love to chat with you about all the ways I can help you.

Thank you for listening to the podcast and loving on me all the time.

Now that my group launch is closed, I am opening up two spots to work with me one-on-one. If one-on-one coaching is more your jam, please reach out to me to book a consult by going to the website melissaparsonscoaching.com, and clicking on the Work With Me tab. I would love to discuss with you how I can help you on a one-on-one basis. Talk to you soon.