KindlED
The KindlED Podcast explores the science of nurturing children's potential and creating empowering learning environments. Powered by Prenda, each episode offers actionable insights to help you ignite your child's love of learning. We'll dive into evidence-based tools and techniques that kindle curiosity, motivation, and well-being in young learners. Do you have a question, topic, or story you'd like to share with us? Get in touch at podcast@prenda.com.
KindlED
Season 1 Top 10 | #9 Emotional Regulation and Gentle Parenting. A Conversation with KJ Althoff.
We're continuing summer break with #9 of our Top 10 Season 1 episodes.
On this episode, Kaity and Adriane chat with KJ Althoff, Director of Content for Big Life Journal. This episode is all about navigating a child's emotions and how it can lead to a deeper understanding of ourselves. KJ shares her insights into gentle parenting and fostering emotional literacy in children.
This episode also explores:
- the challenges of regulating our own emotions while teaching our children to manage theirs
- how co-regulating alongside kids can create a nurturing environment
- the strategies of gentle parenting
- guiding with respect and patience
- children's developmental stages
- the impact of fear-based approaches
- and so much more!
Learn all about resources like Big Life Journal and its new platform, GrowthMinded, that offer support for parents committed to raising resilient and kind-hearted children.
So, join us for an insightful and candid exploration of emotional regulation and gentle parenting, and discover how we can create a generation that embraces their feelings with courage and self-compassion.
ABOUT THE GUEST:
KJ is the Director of Content for Big Life Journal. She has also built her community on social media with over 100k followers on Instagram, sharing about her gentle parenting journey as well as healing from childhood wounds. She has a master's degree in mental health counseling and is also a certified parenting coach. KJ and her husband, Adam, have been married for seven years. They have a 6-year-old son, who is the reason KJ began her gentle and conscious parenting journey more than three years ago.
🔗 RELEVANT LINKS 🔗
🌐 Big Life Journal
🪴 GrowthMinded
Got a story to share or question you want us to answer? Send us a message!
About the podcast:
The KindlED Podcast explores the science of nurturing children's potential and creating empowering learning environments.
Powered by Prenda Microschools, each episode offers actionable insights to help you ignite your child's love of learning. We'll dive into evidence-based tools and techniques that kindle young learners' curiosity, motivation, and well-being.
Got a burning question?
We're all ears! If you have a question or topic you'd love our hosts to tackle, please send it to podcast@prenda.com. Let's dive into the conversation together!
Important links:
• Connect with us on social
• Subscribe to The Sunday Spark
• Get our free literacy curriculum
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Katie, we have another re-release for summertime, so what do we?
Speaker 2:have here today. Today in our number nine spot, we've got episode 32, which is emotional regulation and gentle parenting with KJ Althoff. This is totally one of my favorite episodes. I feel like we were able to really get into some practical how-tos in this episode and this is something that is so vital if you're going to become a person who can really kindle a love of learning and be an adult in a child's life who can co-regulate and stay calm and all the things we want to do as parents and as educators.
Speaker 2:But before I kind of discovered this line of thinking around like working on your own self and kind of like reparenting yourself. Almost like working on your own self and kind of like reparenting yourself. Almost not that you didn't do a great job, mom, you did a great job. But like most parenting books are like about what to do at the child or what to say at the child, Like what are we going to do to child to get them to do or to not do things that we don't want them to do? But this conversation is all about like doing the internal work that needs to be done so that you can stop being triggered by all of your kids' behaviors and so you can learn to reinterpret their behavior as information, instead of like taking it personal or thinking that they are being disrespectful or lazy and things like that. What did you think about?
Speaker 1:it. It's changing the narrative of parenting being a role of control to, you know, parenting with an empowerment, and so I really like how she dives into fear-based approaches and why they're not the most effective. However, a lot of us adults, and the adults all before us, you know, there's lots of fear. I really like that and I just love how she's just, it's, like you said, very practical, Like these are very simple things that start on ourselves and how we can really just, you know, start with our thoughts and our own emotions and then, because our kids are, I love. I know this is someone else I'm going to mention who we have had on the podcast, but Ned Johnson. He came to one of our conferences and he took a sticky note and slapped it on his head and said what did I say? Under construction, and so I think it's just really important for us to understand why power over and controlling tactics and parenting just aren't effective, because our kids' brains are so underdeveloped and they're truly under construction. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2:All right, let's get to it. This is episode 32, emotional regulation and gentle parenting. Enjoy.
Speaker 3:Gentle, parenting is under the authoritative umbrella when you talk about different parenting approaches, where we see the child as a member in the family, not somebody to control, not somebody that needs to follow orders and listen. Just because I'm an adult. This is a young person who has skills to learn and they're going to behave differently because they're so new in this world. They've only been on this planet for a few years and they don't know how to behave when they're feeling angry. So it's my job to help them experience their emotion and learn how to behave differently.
Speaker 2:Hi and welcome to the Kindled podcast where we dig into the art and science behind kindling the motivation, curiosity and mental wellbeing of the young humans in our lives.
Speaker 1:Together, we'll discover practical tools and strategies you can use to help kids unlock their full potential and become the strongest version of their future selves.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Kindle podcast, adrienne. I have a really cool story to tell you. I can't wait, okay.
Speaker 2:So I think we've talked a little bit about my six-year-old and how she's like having kind of like a negative lens on life a little bit and like kind of feeling a little victimized. There are some girls in her micro school who she thinks are not being nice to her, just you know, just normal six-year-old kind of back and forth things. But I think it's really important to stop and not just brush these little opportunities to learn under the rug as like normal kid stuff. So we were having this conversation last night at bedtime. I was trying to help her see that she that, regardless of what's happening in real life, there was a story element to like her. I was trying to help her recognize her narrative and that that was causing her feelings Right. And so we had this conversation and I helped her see that and I helped her see that maybe the girls at school also have stories and you know, it's just kind of this back and forth. How did you help?
Speaker 1:her see it Like did you just tell her? Or cause I feel like with a six year old it's harder just to say hey, you have a story that you're telling yourself, so how did you do this? I'm super curious.
Speaker 2:So my four year old was also in the room and she was saying hey, the six-year-old is doing it's essentially like being about, about being left out. We'll just focus on that. We actually I did a full collaborative problem solving like what's going on? Conversation. We made a list of like 10 things that were causing conflict in their lives, and they were they were like rattling them off and I was like, every time I'd put a finger up, yep, that one got it, got it, yep. And so they felt really heard. And they, they chose one to focus on which was not feeling included, because my four-year-old is saying the six-year-old, you guys don't include me. And then that's the same story at school. Um, these girls aren't including her.
Speaker 2:So it's like look, you're being treated this way, it's making you feel terrible and what you're doing with that is turning around and giving that to someone else. So don't you think that maybe these girls are feeling left out in a different situation that we can't see, and they're turning it around and leaving you out? We're just all passing it around instead of saying, hey, let's not treat each other like this. These aren't the results that we want, you know. So what was the result of this. She, oh my gosh, like just melted my heart. She kind of just like gave me a hug afterwards and she just said, mom, can we have this conversation every night? And I said like talk about your feelings every night. And she was like, yeah, I just need to talk about my feelings every night.
Speaker 1:Oh, my gosh mark bracket. A permission to feel would be so proud.
Speaker 2:Yes, I know so I'm like, oh, that was just a good mom moment for me to realize like I need to open up more time and be more intentional about like talking about these things Only if my boys would want to talk about their feelings.
Speaker 1:It's the opposite. I'm like can we talk about these things every night? No, mom, so funny. But this is a perfect segue into who we're talking to today, because KJ Althoff. She is with Big Life Journal, but she also has her own platform and she is on Instagram. She's the gentle parent and she talks a lot about generational patterns. So I was treated this way from my parent and then now I'm unintentionally treating my child in this way and it happens in kids too. So I think we talk about this all the time, but being self-aware is huge. Okay, let's recognize this. Now what can we do about it? So can you tell us a little bit more about KJ?
Speaker 2:Yes, I can. Kj is the director of content for Big Life Journal. She's also built her own company on social media, with over a hundred thousand followers on Instagram, sharing about her personal gentle parenting journey as well as healing from childhood wounds. She has a master's degree in mental health counseling and is also a certified parenting coach. Kj and her husband, adam, have been married for seven years. They have a six year old son, who is the reason KJ began her gentle and conscious parenting journey more than three years ago.
Speaker 1:Let's jump into our conversation with KJ. Welcome to the Kindled podcast, KJ. We are so excited to have you here today.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 1:Okay, so let's just jump right in. Can you tell us a little bit about who you are and how you came to the work you're currently doing at Gentle Healing, mom and Big Life Journal, and what is your big? Why? How did you fall into this work?
Speaker 3:Yes, so I became a gentle parent a little over four years ago and started sharing my journey about what gentle parenting is and how I've been parenting my son differently, because I very much was a traditional parent, very much control-based fear tactics used and I just didn't feel right as a parent. But I was just parenting the way I was parented. So I thought that's what I was supposed to do and I discovered gentle parenting. It wasn't called gentle parenting at the time, but I just took it upon myself to do my own research and I just realized, wow, there is another way to parent children without shaming them, without judging them, without scaring them into doing what we want them to do, because it never felt good for me.
Speaker 3:So I started sharing my journey and then Alexandra is the founder of Big Life Journal, connected with me on social, and that's how I joined the Big Life Journal team. I've been with the company for over a year now and it's been life changing, because our mission at Big Life Journal matches so much with my mission my personal mission as a parent in sharing just how parents can break cycles and raise children in a home filled with love and support and still help them gain those skills that many of us didn't have as children. So that's kind of where I am in my life right now is helping parents learn how to reparent themselves.
Speaker 1:That's huge. Yeah, I had a similar moment. I wasn't as traditional. I was very positive discipline, though, so it still was. There was still this level of punishments and rewards and you know, but there was still that positive piece instead of just so much control. And then I read Dr Dan Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson's books and I was just like, oh my gosh, why am I treating my kids this way? And then, with Big Light Journal and UKJ, I have been following you on Pinterest. I love watching all of the videos that you guys put out and just all the resources you have for parents. So for listeners, if you don't follow Big Life Journal, definitely on Pinterest and Instagram. There are so many incredible resources and we'll get more into all of that as well.
Speaker 2:All right. So we want to talk a little bit here at the beginning about emotional regulation, and this might be a word that's new to a lot of our listeners. So can you define what you mean when you talk about emotional regulation and like why is that important for kids, why is it important for adults?
Speaker 3:So many of us who were not taught emotional intelligence are very reactive, right Like as parents. Our children throw tantrums and we just react. We don't even realize what's going on with our body and we just believe that we can go from zero to 10 in a split second, but we don't realize things are actually happening to our body well before we get to our breaking point. And emotional regulation is being able to be aware that our emotions are changing, our nervous systems are changing, and when we become changing, our nervous systems are changing, and when we become dysregulated, we are less likely to talk in a respectful way or behave in a respectful way. We often lose control of our own behaviors, and so if we can become more aware of what's going on with our body, we can catch ourselves sooner and we can do things to help our nervous systems regulate again.
Speaker 3:And this is so important for parents to learn to do, because we can't teach children to do this if we can't do this ourselves. We can't tell children to calm down if we are yelling at them because we've lost control, right Like it's very much contradicting to what our children are trying to learn. So if we want our children to grow up with patience and to manage their behaviors when they're emotional. We need to be modeling that to our children. So it's important for us to recognize what emotional state we're in so that we can use the tools and strategies to keep our bodies regulated.
Speaker 2:A big turning point for me in all of this was realizing that I was asking my kids to do things that I was unable to do. So exactly the point for me in all of this was realizing that I was asking my kids to do things that I was unable to do. So exactly the point you're making here. I'm telling them it's not okay for you to be upset. You need to get over this. You need to calm down. Just stop crying, like all of these things. And then I'm escalating and yelling at them and crying in the pantry, eating chocolate chips and like doing all sorts of things that I'm telling them that they need to be better than that, better than meaning, like obviously these things mean weakness and these things are not preferable Right and unintentionally teaching them that, like the feeling part of you is bad and it's not okay. And it's like if you are going to do feelings, you need to go away from me to do feelings.
Speaker 2:And what I realized is that, wow, I was not parented in a way. My parents are wonderful people. They did not. This was not part of my upbringing. Being okay with um, with feelings.
Speaker 2:If you ask my siblings I'm the youngest of six and they tell you that all of their memories of, like little Katie are just me crying under my bed because I would get my feelings hurt or something wouldn't go my way, and I didn't have any way to say, hey, I didn't.
Speaker 2:I didn't have anyone helping me, advocate for myself or understand what I was feeling or what was going on. So I would just like and the message was if you're having feelings, you need to excuse yourself and go have them somewhere else, cause they're inconveniencing everyone. Um, so I would go cry under my bed and then I'd come out when my feelings were over, when they were passed, and so I never learned how to handle them. And when my kids were doing these same things, what I was really saying to them when I was saying it's not okay for you to cry, what I'm really saying is you're crying makes me uncomfortable, because I'm not okay. I don't have the emotional capacity or skills to handle sad feelings, because I wasn't ever allowed to feel them myself. And once I realized that, I was like, oh, maybe crying is actually fine, like, maybe these things are actually good.
Speaker 1:Yes, and giving yourself self-compassion. And when we look at it from a lens of nervous system or what we know now and that's a thing, we didn't know all of these things and it wasn't inundated, we didn't have social media and just constant messages telling us about how to regulate your body. But when we look at it from a nervous system lens and we understand that such kids have a very underdeveloped nervous system and they need that co -regulation. So it's not even that what we're modeling to them and what we're telling them, but it's even more innate than that and it's like that we're constantly giving these signals and nonverbal is way more. You know, they get a lot more communication from nonverbal than they do verbal. So when we look at it from that point of view, I'm like, okay, what can I do to make sure that I could regulate myself first, Because if not, we're just going to be a hot mess all the time.
Speaker 3:We're supposed to be. We're beings that need connection, and when we are taught that emotions are bad because our parents I mean many of us were raised with wonderful people, so it's not that anyone any parent is. You know, if we have cycles to break, it's because our parents were terrible. No, not the case. I had wonderful parents as well, but they were parenting us in the way that they knew and that's how they were parented. I mean, that's what generational parenting is like, and until somebody learns to do it better, it's going to. The cycle will continue.
Speaker 3:And if we, like you said, like if we raise children to learn to cry under their beds, to deal with their emotions, that is not setting them up to be a natural person that can connect with another human being, which is what we need at our core. That and then we wonder why we have this dysfunction in relationships and we wonder why we can't connect with our partners or connect with our children or connect with our friends, and it's because we never built those skills as kids. And so I think this generation of parents today who are making it a priority to break cycles have it the hardest because they are parenting their children. At the same time they are learning how to regulate themselves, and it's hard to do that when you don't even have years of practice. Which is what we're giving children today is we're allowing them to practice all of these skills that take years as their nervous systems develop, as their brains develop, as they build those skills. They're receiving that from parents today, but we have it the hardest trying to do that for them.
Speaker 1:And we keep talking about parents, but this applies for teachers too. Think about if you're a teacher, especially in a traditional school, how many hours are you with your kids? A lot. And so this applies for anyone that has a close relationship with a child, and we know from the science and from the research and attachment research it really just takes one connection and one person. So even if a child isn't able to get it from home, they can still get it from an educator, a coach, a pastor, someone else that they're in close relationship with. And so can you share some practical tips or exercises for developing emotional regulation skills, Like how are you doing this work personally?
Speaker 3:Yes. So awareness is huge. If you're just starting and you don't know where to start, start by just becoming aware and when you find yourself triggered in a situation by your child's behavior or a child in your classroom's behavior is triggering for you, pause. That pause is so important because it prevents you from just reacting and it gives you a moment to recognize what's going on in my body right now. Am I feeling it in my chest? Is my chest tight? Is my heart racing? Are my paws getting sweaty or are they clenched? Is my face getting red? Am I feeling? Is heat rising? You want to recognize like what does it look like when your body is in fight or flight mode? What is happening? Because the sooner you can recognize it, the quicker you can do something about it and you become better at catching yourself earlier.
Speaker 3:Like I said earlier, we don't go from one to 10 out of nowhere. Your body will start to show you signs well before that, but we just have to get used to recognizing them early and then we have to have strategies in mind. So there's different things we can do to regulate our nervous system. For some people they might need to shake it out of their body, right Like shake their bodies and physically move their bodies in order to kind of shake that energy out. Or cold water is really helpful for calming your vagus nerve and calming your nervous system. So you could drink a cold glass of water slowly. You could splash some water on your face. You can, you know, put an ice cube in your mouth, something like that, to just if you're very sensory, like that's something that can really help, um, help you tell your body like I'm okay, I do a lot of the and a lot of the are so used to it now, but it really does help and I want to back up just slightly is when you said, oh, just pause.
Speaker 1:If this is brand new to you, just pausing honestly can feel very difficult, cause if you're so, if your brain is so used to being flooded with cortisol and all you know, adrenaline and all these stress hormones, when that happens that pause can be really difficult. But the more you put it's a practice. The more you practice, the easier it will become. Or what I had done when I started learning about this work is every I'm in the car a lot. So every time I would grab the steering wheel, I would take nice deep breaths and I would do like my five, six, eight or whatever the numbers are.
Speaker 1:I don't count because I have OCD and it drives me crazy but every time I grabbed the steering wheel and so what ended up happening is every time now that I get in a car, I just start deep breathing. I don't even think about it anymore. I've trained my brain to just activate that parasympathetic, which is really huge. So what are some other tools? Sorry, I didn't mean to interject, but I just want to say that we say like just a pause, but sometimes that could be really, really hard, especially if you're already in fight or flight. It's extremely difficult, or what I'll do is, if I'm already past that. I know I should be pausing, but I don't want to pause. I can feel it in my body.
Speaker 3:Yes, absolutely yes. The pause is very, very hard and the next hardest thing is knowing what to do after you pause, right, like your pause, now what? So if you don't have a plan in place, you're kind of set up to not succeed in that moment. So thinking and having a plan is so helpful. What I do, too, when I'm in that moment, where I'm like past the pause, is I will step away, like sometimes it's stepping out of the other into another room, just removing yourself from that anxious environment or even stepping outside. This is what I do.
Speaker 3:That helps me so well is going outside, taking in that, doing that slow, deep breathing with a fresh air and closing my eyes and just using my other senses and just kind of recognizing, grounding myself, reminding myself that I am safe. I will get through this. Having mantras are so important and what you're doing is you're teaching your body like this is an emotion and it will pass. No one experiences an emotion forever and that's a lesson I wish we all learned as children. But we're teaching our children now. But we just have to take a moment and just let the emotion pass, feel it, know you're safe, your children are safe and you can go back when you're ready. So you're not in that reactive mode, you're back into responding.
Speaker 1:And we can do this with our kids too. Just the other day my son started to lose it. He was already at 10. And so I literally I had to go pick up groceries. So I just picked him up and I was like I know you don't want me to put you in the car right now and within a few minutes he calmed down. If we would have stayed in the house, I bet his you know you can call it tantrum meltdown. My kids are neurodivergent, so it's more of a meltdown. What would have lasted way longer. But I just got him out of that environment and then he was like making funny faces and by the time we pulled into the grocery store he was calmed down. So it works for kids too, not just for us adults.
Speaker 2:Hey, real quick, can we pause?
Speaker 2:I know we've talked about this on previous episodes, but you mentioned the vagus nerve and something that helped me.
Speaker 2:Like people talk about deep breathing a lot, like so much that it's like, okay, I get it, you want me to breathe Like I'm not. I'm not open to that message sometimes because it's like I'm not in that world, like I don't want to, like some people, like they, I don't know, it just seems like it's not going to help. But when I learned about the vagus nerve and how that's kind of like one of the main nerves in your body that either kind of polices your safety, the safety cues that your body is receiving whether or not you're going to go into fight or flight, and it's connected to all of your organs and you can't you can't really control your stomach or your spleen right, like you can't make a decision and have that part of your body do anything differently, send your vagus nerve a different signal. But you can control your lungs and you can control your voice, and so it innervates your lungs and it innervates your voice and so, like Adrian's talking about with, like doing those trilly things, I can't even do it.
Speaker 1:Try, Katie try.
Speaker 2:Maybe when we're off camera, I will try. So, like you're telling your vocal folds, you're sending a kind of a reverse message to your vagus nerve that like, actually, if, if we, if there was actual danger here, if there was a line, if there was something that we really needed to react to, we would be having very fast, quick breathing. And if I'm, if I can intentionally slow my breathing down, that communicates to my nervous system that there isn't actually anything to be afraid of in my environment, which then backs me out of the fight or flight mode, the parasympathetic nervous system comes online and is able to help you get regulated again. And when I understood the science behind that, I was like okay, I will breathe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not just for like the woo, you know no exactly.
Speaker 3:So, so that what you explained is exactly right. Like we're able to communicate, because if we were legitimately in a survival mode, if we were in danger, we wouldn't be sitting and breathing deeply right, like we wouldn't be humming or singing or doing things. It's kind of helping to snap our body out of it because it happens. It happens so without even our knowledge, like it, just it just happens. When we're triggered, all of a sudden, our body just believes that there's a threat and we have to do something about it. And we have to learn like no, we're safe.
Speaker 3:We grew up believing that this situation, my child's behavior, is a threat because maybe we got punished or, you know, yelled at or screamed at or spanked as children when we behave that way. So our bodies learned oh, that's not a safe behavior. And when we see our children displaying it, our bodies unconsciously get into that same fight or flight feeling because we think, oh, something's going to happen, that's not safe, or something's going to happen to me, something's going to happen to my child. And when we use our tools to try and calm our nervous systems, we are also rewiring our brains to learn like no, this is actually safe. Like your body is safe where it is and everything will be just fine, and that that alone is as very challenging to do as a parent or a teacher.
Speaker 2:Can we flip this into like the child's perspective real quick? We've been talking a lot about our emotional regulation. Can we just talk about like the child's nervous system and the child's fight or flight? Like what do you, what do you see when you talk to parents?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So when parents tell, tell me that they're, that they struggle to remain calm when their children are having tantrums or when their children are doing things that are, you know, getting too messy or you know, that always comes back to when they were kids, when they did that and how their parents responded to them. And what I try and help parents see is what the child is going through Like. That is their way of processing that emotion. They are releasing that emotion, that big feeling, in their body in the way they know how, in the limited skills that they have where they are developmentally, that is what they naturally know to do when they are in fight or flight. And so parents often believe that behavior is manipulative and children are doing certain things to manipulate a situation. And I challenge them to think the word manipulate has such a negative connotation because we think when an adult is manipulative, they are doing things intentionally to you know, manipulate you and get you to do something that you wouldn't normally do.
Speaker 3:A child, yes, if you view it as manipulation, but they're doing it from a different place. They have a different intention. Their intention is to meet their need. They don't know how to communicate with words what exactly their body needs in that moment. So they go into fight or flight mode and they scream, they try to get your attention and they're basically telling you I need you, I need something from you. I don't know what it is, but my body doesn't feel right and you're my safe person and I need you to help me through this.
Speaker 3:And if parents now learn, ok, so my child needs this. I'm triggered, but I'm going to take care of myself so that I can be that safe person for my child. Are they hungry? Are they tired? Do they need attention? Do they need connection from me? What is it that they need? And we need to figure out what that is for them, because our job is to meet their needs and until we meet their needs, they're going to either continue with that behavior or they're going to shut down. So those are moments for parents and teachers to really strengthen their connection and relationship with that child, because that child's going to learn. Is this a person that can meet my needs or do I need to protect myself from them?
Speaker 2:And this gets back into how you're parented too, because I think a lot of us were labeled and shamed for those behaviors that were really just our nervous system, kind of helping us trying to communicate our needs, but then we were labeled as mean or aggressive or lazy or something like that.
Speaker 2:So then when we see those behaviors in our kids, those labels come to mind and we think this is a character issue and no way am I as a parent going to be the parent of someone who is lazy or someone who is, you know, these kind of things that are counter to our core values. It makes it difficult for us to unconditionally accept our children If we see these kinds of like character, what we, what sometimes are seen as character flaws, when really all of this stuff is just chemical and nervous system and needs. Um. So if we can, if we can also try to halt those labels, then our we will become less triggered and our nervous systems will stay calmer. If we can see that it's just like oh, they're tired or yeah, they're really frustrated and that's understandable, instead of some big scary label frustrated, and that's understandable, instead of some big, scary label.
Speaker 3:That's such a good point because, to add to that, it's that expectation, too, that parents and teachers might place on children Like, well, this child isn't like that, like you, should also be more like this child. Or you know siblings like your brother's, not like that. Why are you like that? And we start comparing children, which is also dangerous, because every child, every child, should be seen as their own person, and you could have two seven-year-olds and one could be, you know, very much more developed as far as being able to regulate themselves than this other seven-year-old. But there's nothing wrong with that seven-year-old who's still learning, and it also depends on when they start learning. So if you work with a toddler on you know, meeting their needs and helping them practice, identifying their emotions and breathing, they're going to be further along from you know when they get into fifth grade and a fifth grader has never been introduced to that. So it's every child is so different, so we need to also look at that specific child and what they need Exactly.
Speaker 2:So there are ways that we measure kits, right. There is height, there is weight, there's test scores right, you cannot? There's not, like a polyvagal nervous system development measure, right, you can't see that, you can't see their prefrontal cortex development. I mean, you can't, like, put them against the wall and you can't, like, you know, get a metric on. It is what I'm saying. So that's why we think like, oh, you're both seven, you should both be acting this way, but really there's so much development happening and not happening. The body's getting bigger, but that does not mean the brain is developing or that the skills are being developed.
Speaker 1:And we should ourselves too. I should be able to stay calm right now, Well, and I would love to talk a little bit more about reparenting.
Speaker 3:KJ. So what is that concept and how does this help with what we're talking about? Yes, okay. So what I like to tell parents is many of them feel guilty. Right, they're just discovering this new way of parenting and they feel so guilty that they haven't been parenting this way for years. Their kids might be tweens and teens, or they might be four. That guilt is there because we all want to do better, we all want to be better, and we all worry that our children are going to grow up damaged or that we're going to be traumatizing them, because we've had our own experiences and we don't want to do that for our children. And what I like to say to those parents is that the fact that you are listening to this podcast or following this account or reading the books tells me that you, innately, are a good parent. You are a wonderful parent because you could know this exists and choose not to learn more about it or better yourself. And we don't become different parents overnight. It takes so much time. It takes a lot of time to unlearn decades of beliefs that we have about ourselves and how we handle our stress and our big emotions. So we have to slowly kind of work on that and then also to build the skills. And so awareness we talked about is really important, because you also want to be aware of what is your natural tendency in those moments when you are triggered or when your child does something and you normally lash out or lose control. Like what behaviors do you do? And then what could you do differently next time? Have, have a plan, have some ideas of what you could do differently.
Speaker 3:For me, it was. I stopped using timeouts. That was my go-to form of discipline when my child was a, was a toddler, and it was. It was terrible. He was crying, I was crying, we were just, it was just an awful feeling in our household. And that was really when I started to do some research.
Speaker 3:I'm like what other forms of discipline are there? Like I didn't even know what there was. I never spanked, but I can understand you know the urge to spank your children, especially if you were spanked as a child, and so I started learning about time ins and I'm like, oh okay, so this exists and I understand why it's important. Instead of leaving your child alone with their emotions for a time out, you sit with them and you help them see that their emotion is safe and that I'm not going to love them less because they're feeling that way. We're getting rid of that feeling of you need to go deal with that on your own. You're not welcome in this family. Until you've dealt with that, it's more of I'm here for you and your big feelings.
Speaker 2:I love this example of timeout because essentially what you're telling the child when they're having a big feeling and you separate them, what you're saying is I as a parent am not capable, your feeling is too big for me and I'm not strong enough.
Speaker 2:You cannot rely on me in these moments. I can't handle it. And sometimes we'll even say that I just can't handle you. Or like you are too much right now and you, we as adults, like we are the wall between that child and the big, scary world, right.
Speaker 2:And so if you're telling them that like wow, this crying, like I can't even deal with the noise or the mess you're making, like that doesn't lead them to trust you to care for their needs and they are getting a lot of their safety cues from you when you are providing for their needs, and so, while it's totally annoying and like is triggering, like all of that's very real and we've talked about many strategies here for helping with that it was also very like I don't know just something that really changed my lens on all of this to realize like, oh, I need to be, even if I am struggling, I need to get myself together and like be the grownup a little bit, and that's like kind of almost like harsh words, but it's like they really do need us to be their grownups and we need to do the work of reparenting ourselves and growing ourselves up, because while our bodies have gotten bigger, none of this is really like fully wired in many of us, right? So we really need to prioritize making sure that we can handle a toddler tantrum.
Speaker 1:In my childhood it wasn't that necessarily I wasn't allowed to have emotions or that I was. I mean, I'm sure I was given timeouts and things, but I was raised by my dad and then every time my mom would come pick me up. I was her therapist, I was her strong person, I was the one she would just come to me, even when I was like six, seven, eight, nine. So that is something that I've had to reparent of. You don't have to solve everyone's problems. You don't have to rescue everyone, so there's different parts.
Speaker 1:I think the biggest thing, like you said, is awareness being aware why am I behaving this way? Why do I feel this way? What is this connected to? And then use these strategies and tools to be able to create new neural pathways in our brains. That's the one thing about brain science that I love is that our brains are plastic. This isn't just oh, this is just how things are. No, like we, I mean there's brain injury and things like that could that could prevent new neural pathways to be developed. But our brains are incredible, and especially when littles like their brains are the most plastic and the most durable. So it's such a great time for us to be able to pass these, you know, tools that we now know about to them.
Speaker 2:So, kj, what are some of the challenges Like when you're working with parents on all this and you present these ideas like what is the pushback, what are the kind of mountains you have to help people climb here?
Speaker 3:It's really overcoming our own limiting beliefs and our own upbringings and what we believe is true. So if, if we believe that our children are a reflection of us, we're going to have a hard time releasing those expectations of them behaving a certain way, because we worry that that's going to be seen as us being bad parents or not being able to control our kids, and if we can release the people-pleasing tendencies that we have and I was also emotionally parentified as a child, which my mom also relied on me to emotionally support her, which meant that I didn't have anyone to emotionally support me. And that's exactly why it's so important for us to develop that kind of a relationship with our children now, because we want them to grow up into teenagers that come to us when they are experiencing a big feeling. We don't want them to go lock themselves up in their rooms, because that's all they've known whenever they had a big feeling.
Speaker 1:Or go to a friend or go to a peer. What we know about attachment is that we want them to be close to us as their parents.
Speaker 3:Exactly. We want them to know. Yes, I, my, my mom, my dad, can handle my big feelings, because they handled it just fine when I was three years old. And this is a new big emotion that I'm feeling and I don't know who to turn to. Oh, my parents, because my parents have been that safe, supportive relationship my whole life, and that's exactly what we want to develop as far as when we raise our children.
Speaker 2:I want to go back to something you just said about, like if we can control our kids, then we're good parents. Teachers feel this constantly because they're like essentially I've heard the phrase before like a quiet classroom is a good classroom and like if you can keep your class quiet and control all those kids, that's what makes you a good teacher. Like, essentially, when people say, yeah, she's a really good teacher, like that's kind of what they mean, is that like they can control this class. We have this concept of classroom management and books and books and articles about how to manage all of the children and their behaviors, and I just think that that's part of the challenge in rethinking this is because if I stop using all of these harmful methods to control kids, they will get noisier, they will get messier and that will be a bad reflection on me. So we need to change that societal belief together that there's judgment in the air around that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I walk into a micro school and it is so loud. Typically, if I walk into a quiet micro school, I'm like what is happening? But my, my lens has changed of what a good school environment is. I mean, kids are creating and we have a funny like inside Prenda joke about kids running around with scissors. But one time I literally have like walked into a micro school and this kid had five scissors and he's like cutting like outside, like he was cutting a bush or something, and I just was laughing so hard. He was safe. I promise all of you that are concerned about his safety, he was safe. They were kid proof scissors.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I feel like that's just a cultural thing too, and not just American culture. There's lots of cultures that this is reflected upon, of being quiet, being still. I have a friend who her husband was from Japan and every time they would go visit she said my kids, their nervous systems are just freaking out because they are not allowed to talk at all. But it's cultural. It's not like we're trying to be bad and we're trying to do things that aren't good for kids. It's we just have to relearn as a society, not just as individuals.
Speaker 2:It's also not that kids don't need to learn how to sit still and how to listen and follow instructions Like those are all skills kids need. We've just swung the pendulum a little too far. Right Like there's a healthy medium.
Speaker 3:I think the hardest thing for both parents and teachers is that mindset shift. So you had mentioned, Katie, about the classroom expectations, that you're a good teacher if your children are quiet and in their seats and they listen to you, and that is the wrong kind of measurement of a successful teacher and even as a successful parent. So a mindset shift would be, instead of I'm a good parent, I'm a good teacher if my child is behaved, it's more of I'm a good parent when my child has felt seen, heard, loved, understood. That should be the metric that we base our day off of. So did my children, the difficult child in my classroom after his difficult moment, did he afterwards feel seen, heard, loved, understood? Did we connect? If the answer is yes, then you are an amazing teacher.
Speaker 1:So what misconceptions have you found that people have about gentle parenting? Even that, for I personally don't even use that phrase because I don't know why I was trying to dig into. Why don't? I don't like to say gentle parenting, and it's probably connected to there's misconceptions about it.
Speaker 3:Yes, there is such a stigma around gentle parenting and I know people even when I first started sharing gentle parenting. A lot of other gentle parents have now changed. They don't call themselves a gentle parent anymore because there's such a stigma out there. I am like I am still going to continue because I hold by. I stand by gentle parenting and I think the misconception commonly is that people believe gentle parenting is permissive parenting, where you know the word gentle is seen as oh, you're just oh nice to your child all the time, like okay, honey, yes, whatever you want, like I don't want to stir the pot, like as long as you're happy. And I can understand that that might be the perception people have, but gentle parenting is under the authoritative umbrella. When you talk about different parenting approaches, where we do use consequences, we do use forms of positive discipline, the difference is that we see the child as a member in the family, not somebody to control, not somebody that needs to follow orders and listen just because I'm an adult or I'm a parent or I'm a teacher, but more of this is a young person who has skills to learn and they're going to behave differently because they're so new in this world. They've only been on this planet for a few years and they don't know how to behave when they're feeling angry. Years and they don't know how to behave when they're feeling angry, and so it's my job to help them experience their emotion and learn how to behave differently. So it takes time to parent or teach that way because, yes, traditional parenting, authoritarian parenting, where you just you know you use fear-based tactics If you don't do what I tell you to do, I'm going to punish you or I'm going to take this away. You use a lot of threats and it's it's very much fear-based, so you're controlling. So, of course, you're going to see a quicker response from a child, because nobody wants to get hurt and nobody wants to feel hurt and and. But then we grow up into adults with all of these. You know issues when it comes to interacting with other people.
Speaker 3:So, gentle parents, they don't want children to feel shamed for having emotions. They help them through their emotions and they help them build skills. So it's constantly I'm constantly reminding my six-year-old to how to sit at the table when you know when we're having dinner. But I also understand his body needs to move. So that's why he's doing he's like that. It's not because he's trying to misbehave or trying to test me. It's his body has a hard time sitting still because he's six years old. So it's just constantly, you know, either helping him ahead of time, like getting out that extra energy before dinner. So I'm helping him be set up for success, but I'm also teaching him constantly repetition and eventually, over the years his body will develop more, his brain will develop more and he'll understand what is appropriate at the dinner table. But right now that's just where he is developmentally.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my six-year-old. Last night, literally, we had gotten Cafe Rio and he had a quesadilla. He would take a bite and then march around the Island, go, take another bite, march around the Island. And instead of like you need to sit down, I was like obviously he needs to move his body right now, so it's okay that he's marching around the Island and taking a bite. And then he eventually did join us and it was all on his own, versus us trying to force him.
Speaker 2:I literally just had a memory of me doing that as a kid and my dad saying like, are you done, are you leaving? And I was like no, I'm just digesting for a second and like sitting back down. But this um, like you're framing about how we see children as like a member of the family who does not need to be controlled.
Speaker 2:Sometimes, when I write about this stuff, I, instead of using children or kids, I will use the phrase young humans, because I think it like shakes people's like frame of mind a little bit because they're not used to that phrase. But when I first started doing that, a lot of our team was like that's kind of weird, like why are you saying that? I'm like because that's what they are they're young humans and we're not treating them like that. We're treating them like they're a different species, like a pet or an animal or something that we're trying to train and control, and when we really focus on how they are fully, they're not little adults, but they are our same species. Right, we should be treating them a little bit more respect.
Speaker 3:Yes, I agree with that completely.
Speaker 2:All right. So what is Big Life Journal and how does Big Life Journal incorporate all this stuff? Just talk about that for a little bit Sure.
Speaker 3:So Big Life Journal we're a company that really started off trying to help children develop a growth mindset, and so we have journals for all ages. We have kids, teens, adult journal, and really the mission was to help children develop resilience and a growth mindset, to be kind, to have confidence with peer interactions, and these journals really help children practice how to think differently and it's something that they can work with their parents on as well. And we have printables. I mean it's expanded so we have weekly Friday printables that touch on all sorts of topics and we have newsletters to help with different ages, depending on how old your children are, with a tip and a resource. And something new that we just developed recently is a platform that houses all of our parenting resources and it's called Growth Minded, and this platform has all of our printables.
Speaker 3:We've just added master classes, we have live workshops, there's two minute quick tip videos, there's parenting scripts, parenting guides, and it's really because we understand how busy parents are and they don't have time to go through hours of research that many of us have done. I've personally done so. Our platform is designed for that busy parent who has a challenge at home with their children, and they can quickly research all the resources we have related to that topic. Then they have it right there, right in front of them, they can watch the video, they can look at the script on their phone, they can download that printable and do that with their child, and it's something that we want to make as easy as possible for parents and we're continuously adding resources to it. We're really wanting to add more tween and teen content because we know that our families, their children, are growing, they're entering that stage of life and parents are needing resources to help get through that teen period.
Speaker 2:I've actually had a chance to check out the platform Growth Minded and it is really, really awesome. I've recommended it to all of our guides. It's perfect for connect mode.
Speaker 1:It's good for teachers and educators and coaches, and not just parents, because, like I said, you know, any time a person is interacting with a child, these things really matter and this reframing really matters in their development. Yes, okay, we could keep talking about these things all day long. Obviously, you could tell Katie and I love talking about emotional regulation and the nervous system and all the things, and so this is a question that we ask all of our guests. Who is someone who has kindled your love of learning, curiosity, motivation or passion?
Speaker 3:Oh, that is a really good question because there's so many. And then you know, we have the parenting space, we have the self-development space, I guess, if it's more for I guess for both parenting and for personal. If anyone's ever heard of Dr Shefali, she is somebody who she basically pioneered conscious parenting, which is also we never really touched on this, but that's also a very important way of just communicating exactly why it's so important to heal your inner child and to show, as a way to show up, how you want to show up for your children and the other people in your life. She's got so many parenting books out there. I've read them all. I can't wait to read her new one. It's called the Parent Map. The Parenting Map yeah, the Parenting Map. So good, and I was fortunate enough. Big Life Journal sent me to attend a conference that she held in Atlanta this year, just a life-changing weekend. It was amazing. So I would highly recommend checking her out as well if you want to learn more about the conscious parenting way.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. And how can people learn more about your work?
Speaker 3:You can find me on Big Life Journal. We're on all social media platforms and I'm also on Gentle Healing Mom, which is more. I share more about my healing journey as well as a parent. It's more of like my personal space, but if you're looking for resources for science-based resources for parenting your children in a positive way, you can find all of our resources on Big Life Journal on any social media platform.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on the Kindle podcast. We've loved this conversation and just want to thank you for your time. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 3:Thank you, KJ.
Speaker 1:That's it for today. We hope you enjoyed this episode of the Kindle podcast. If this episode was helpful to you, please like subscribe and come follow us at PrendaLearn. If you have a question you would like for us to answer on the podcast, all you have to do is email us at podcast at Prendacom. You can also join our free Facebook group, which is a great community of educators and parents. It's called the Kindled Collective and we also have a weekly newsletter called the Sunday Spark.
Speaker 2:The Kindled Podcast is brought to you by Prenda. Prenda makes it easy for you to start and run an amazing micro school based on all the things we talk about here on the Kindle podcast. If you want more information about becoming a Prenda guide, go to Prendacom. Thanks for listening and remember to keep kindling. Thank you.
