195: Raising Good Humans Every Day with Hunter Clarke-Fields

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Hello, and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. And today we have a familiar face back with us again, Hunter Clarke-Fields. Hunter is the author of Raising Good Humans which we have spoken about before. And she's also the author of the new book Raising Good Humans Every Day: 50 Simple Ways to Press Pause, Stay Present, and Connect with Your Kids. She hosts the Mindful Mama Podcast and is a mindfulness meditation teacher. She's a parent of two active daughters who challenged her every day to hone her craft. And as part of her self-care, she likes to do Scottish country dancing, which I looked up and I enjoyed some videos of that last night. Welcome back Hunter. It's great to see you.

Thank you, Jen, happy to be here.

So you've written two books that have what we have to say is rather similar titles. So can we start out by understanding? What's the difference between these two books? Why did you write a second book that is on the surface when we just look at the title is very similar to the first one?

Yes, very similar. Well, Raising Good Humans is it kind of pulls together the essential tools I think that every parent needs and the tools we teach and mindful parenting, which are like mindfulness tools to help us calm our stress response and take care of our feelings, and communication skills, skillful communications. So it's mindfulness and skillful communication, I really wanted to like hone in on what is super essential. And with Raising Good Humans Every Day, I got to expand upon that in a bunch of different directions, because this is a book that has 50 short chapters. So it has these chapters that are like three to four pages long so you can dive into it at night before you go to bed and you have accomplished something and expands, I talk about mindfulness and skillful communication, but also about different areas that we have agency in as far as our home, our schedules, all kinds of different things that I've learned in the 10 years I've been doing the mindful mama podcast.

And so it's designed as this book that you can dive into at any point. You can just read a chapter when you need a tiny bit of inspiration. And it's designed to take these lessons I've learned from all these experts and bring it into a really, really easily digestible piece that you can then pause with and work with throughout your week. And, you can put it in your purse.

Yes, you can. You just showed me the book before we got on if you want to hold it up. And if you do have Raising Good Humans there as well, and you can kind of put one in front of the other like you did for me. Yeah, so if you're watching this on YouTube, you can see that Raising Good Humans Every Day is small. It's a little approachable book.

And as Hunter said, the chapters are super short. So you can just read one on a train ride or in five minutes in the bathroom, or you know, whatever's going on in your life, you can fit one of these chapters in. So 50 chapters sounds like a lot. But it's really not. They're really short. So I wonder if we can start at the beginning of the book. And I'd like to spend most of our conversation kind of working through some of the tools that you use in the book, so that we can kind of get a sense for what are some of the things that I'm going to get out of this book, if I read it. And you open up with the idea of control, and that we want to control our children. And we also want them to control their selves so that we don't have to feel so bad so much of the time. So why doesn't that work?

I know what we're taught, I mean, it's kind of like our society sets us up to think that we should be able to control our kids, right? Like we should at least be able to control our kids. Like I remember thinking that. And it is it's like a whole set of because it's totally not true. You can't control your kids. They have you know, you learn by the age of two, like they have their own minds and they have their own agendas. And they go about meeting their needs in lots of ways that are like messy and irritating and frustrating and things like that. And they're not puppets, we can't control them. But what we can control where we do have agency is over ourselves and over our environment, right.

And so like for instance, You know, one of the things I noticed when my daughter, my oldest daughter was like around four. Her one year old sister, like, messed up something she was playing with in the playroom, and I walked in there, and I saw her like, I hadn't heard her barks of otters at her sister, "Why did you do this up, up, up up, but you should pick that up right now. But But..." I was like, Oh my God. That's what I sound like. Isn't that interesting? Okay, yikes. But I had to realize in that moment is that I can't control the words that are coming out of her mouth. Like, in fact, I had tried to kind of teach her some words to say to her sister, but that was useless as long as I was not using those words. So it was a big wake up call for me to change the way I was speaking, because that's where I did have the most agency and the most control was in how I speak. And then that is like a two for one deal, because then you're modeling it for your kids, And they learn it.

So yeah, it's about focusing our energy where we do have the most effect, not wasting your energy on the part about trying to control exactly what they say, but be effective with your energy and think about where you do actually have the most agency in your parenting.

And I think that idea can be really counterintuitive for parents because we were controlled, right? Because our parents said to us, you need to change your behavior. And so of course, unless you learn something different than natural thing to do is to try to change your child's behavior. And I think parents who are new to this kind of might think, well, if my child didn't do that thing, then I wouldn't. Yeah. So their thing is coming first. So if they would stop doing that, then my thing wouldn't happen. And you're saying is very different from that, right?

Yeah, I mean, we come from this, like behaviorist kind of mindset in history, right, where we want to reward some behaviors, and we want to discourage other behaviors. And this works well with dogs. But the thing is, kids are going about meeting their own needs. And really what we want to think about the I think, what we want to think about the word "discipline." And it's not really about like when we think about punishment as discipline, that's not actually that effective. Studies have shown that punishment actually could make kids less likely to want to cooperate with you in the future. So if we are thinking about our kids' behaviors that are messy, annoying, irritating, getting in our way that we what do we want to think about in that moment, we want to think about what what do they need to learn?

And I love the idea of going back to the root of the word "discipline." And it's the same root as the word for the word "disciple." And we can think about discipline as to teach or to have them follow a leader, right. And so in those moments, when our kids are doing all kinds of messy, unskillful, frustrating, irritating things, we want to teach them something different, right? Like, we want them to learn something different. It's not about just discouraging the behavior, it's about letting them know that their behavior has consequences on us and other people around the house. And these are those consequences. And here's how you can meet your need instead, right? So what do they need to learn in that moment is really, how I think is a major shift that we're kind of been modern parenting we're taking is like, yeah. We're teaching our kids how to get along in the world. And to answer that question, what do they need to learn is much more effective than to just trying to control them.

Yeah. And I think that also links to the topic of chapter three, right, which is about how much we worry about the lessons that we want them to learn. And if they don't say, "please," if they don't say "thank you," if they don't apologize to us or to their siblings, then if they don't do it now, they're never going to learn how to do it. And I think you're arguing that maybe the time that we spend worrying about that is not the most productive use of our time. So how can we worry less about the actual lesson that we're trying to teach our child?

Yeah, I think that that's true, but we are where we get kind of caught in the weeds, right? We forget that we're like, oh, in this moment, my child's not apologizing. My child is beating up their sister. They're going to be a sociopath in 10 years, right? Like, that's always what we go to is like. My child's gonna be a sociopath. I think it's much more helpful to remember that kids' development takes so much time right like, it takes years and years and years. And even adults it takes repetition to learn a lesson. And so for kid it takes even more repetition to learn a lesson like the old idea of like you just, I'm just going to say it once is not very well thought out. It takes a lot of repetition for kids to learn a lesson. And we have to, it's hard because we're asking if you're a parent, right, who's shifting your parenting into something that's more connection-based and relationship-based, and less like power-over and fear-based, right? You may be diving into the unknown. You may be in a situation where it's very different from the people way and people in your culture the way they're parenting, or the way your parents parented. And you may have yourself or your partner saying, like, "Will this really work? Are we just are we messing up our child, right, because it's so different from what everybody else is doing?" And it does take time, it takes time and repetition for those lessons to sink in.

But I want to tell those parents, particularly that the research is on your side. And this is what Jen is excels in, of course, and you're here at the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. So you know this, the research is on your side, but I want to tell you that as a parent, who like well, when my second daughter was born, I remember going on a walk, and meeting these new parents in the neighborhood, and talking about parenting with them and learning that they never use timeouts and thinking, Oh my God, I am not going to let my child run roughshod over my house. That's crazy. They're nuts. And then learning more and then actually having now my kids are 13 and 16. I never used timeouts. I've never used punishments. And I want to tell you from the other side, that it works like parenting has gotten easier and easier as time goes on, like the connection-based parenting that Raising Good Humans Every Day is about,and that Jen's podcast is all about, it takes more effort in the front end, but your effort is pays off in spades, as your kids get older. And it gets easier and easier as time goes on. And my kids do not hate me now that they're teenagers, which, for me is like a giant win.

Yeah, and I know a lot of parents are listening to this have children who are yet on the younger side, right? They may be still in the thick of potty learning of, you know, no, I'm not doing that, or rolling on the floor tantrums or, you know, being feelings, all the rest of it. And so, so getting that view of where are we going with this is really kind of cool. So I want to dig into that a little bit actually. I'm curious about how your experience with your children when you were younger, because you've been doing this for so long, has set you up? Like what do you look back on, and you think, "Oh, my goodness, I'm so glad I did that"? And are there things that you look back on, and you think, "Oh, I wish I had done it in that way and that would have made a lot of difference?" What do you would look back on with regret and also with a sense of kind of gratitude and thank goodness?

Well, I think I do I am like really thankful every day that I was able to calm my temper because I really had a bad temper. I yelled. And I was able to call my temper, I really was able to learn to regulate my nervous system, and communicate more skillfully. And that has paid off in spades like that, I just feel so so grateful that these relationships are some of the closest that I'll have in my life. And I'm incredibly grateful for that. There are definitely things I look back because I didn't do things perfectly, and regret for sure, for sure, for sure.

So I'm like the Mindful Mama mentor and what I didn't know was that it would be very helpful to introduce some of these tools for calming your stress response and those mindfulness tools and things like with your kids in the positive, calm moments in mature moments, and I tried to introduce them in the challenging moments when I thought they needed them. And that has made my kids allergic to mindfulness for the moment. So there are, you know, my 16 year old has like some health problems and some chronic health problems that she's really been challenged with over the last several years. And I could see, I could see how these things would help her so much. And she's so so resistant to it. So this is a we'll see what happens like check in with me in five years on what what how this is going. But um, but I wish I had introduced them these regulation tools when they were in like the calm, happy, cuddly moments, rather than in the difficult moments for sure.

Yeah. And it's I imagine that that's one of the hardest parts of parenting and I'm thinking of my relationship with my father where he's tried to tell me things nd I haven't wanted to listen, particularly when I was in the teenage years, and I'm sort of projecting forward as well and imagining that that must be one of the hardest things where you think that you can see a way that that things will be so much easier for your child. And they are unwilling or unable to take that on at the moment. And there's nothing that we can do about that. It's sort of like being powerless with our toddlers, but in an entirely different way.

Yeah, yes. And it's true that bigger kids have bigger problems. They're not as intense and in your face all the time, but yeah, and that powerlessness is true. Like, you can't, yeah, you can't, I can't make them do the things that I think would help. It's so frustrating.

Yes, And all part of being a parent, right, we can't know how they're going to come out. We can't know that the things that we're doing now are going to have an impact later on. We can only get there and see it for ourselves. And so you mentioned your anger. And that was definitely something I wanted to talk about because that kind of little nuggets of that pop up throughout Raising Good Humans, and also the new book as well. And in this book, you sort of give some little nuggets of information on kind of how that happened in your family of origin, and, and I'm wondering, can you tell us just a little bit about what was it like for you being a highly sensitive child? What was that experience like for you? And how did the people around you, your parents or caregivers support you in that? Or how did you want to be supported and maybe weren't supported in that way?

I mean, I think I actually my brother told me this our dad at the other day, is that when he was little, he kind of held everything in and he had his father but he apparently, and my dad once told him that he loved how like, quiet he was when he asked him about his day because he would ask me and then I would just be like telling him all the things and complain and like all this stuff, and I was so overwhelming that he was like relieved when my brother would speak to it would did not have much to say to him, which is terribly sad, actually anecdote. But yeah, I think my I was a lot.

I think I was actually yesterday, right before recording this, I recorded an interview with Dr. Gabor Matta and he brought me through this idea of like, we were talking about the idea of trauma in our early in our childhood. And I was spanked as a child to, you know, as a form of discipline. And, you know, I remember being terrified in those moments. But I also know, as I was kind of thinking about this situation, because my father had this big temper, and he would spank me when he was really angry. But I was thinking that something that was actually very protective, for me, was the fact that I was really a fighter. I was really like, I was really mad at him for that. And I really fought back. And I really actually continued to express my feelings sort of throughout my life. And ultimately, I ended up expressing my feelings through artwork and things like that, And looking at my anger than my energy and all these feelings through the lens of like understanding other animals and mammals who have aggression and things like that, and trying to understand it. Because I can see that the suppression of those feelings can lead to so many problems, right? That energy going inward, can lead to health problems and all of these challenges. And one of my challenges was like, my expressive anger, right? I didn't need to learn to like practice restraint, and to process the energy of anger and frustration in a different way, right, in which I did learn to do. But I'm, in some ways grateful that I never turned it in on myself, I was always able to kind of express it. And yeah, I'm kind of losing thread of my now I'm answering your question. But yeah, And my family of origin, there was a lot of a lot of big feelings. For sure.

So hearing you describe that, I'm just amazed that you were able to continue expressing your feelings in this way, right? Because everything in our culture tells us it's not okay for female-identifying people to express anger. It's not even okay for you to feel anger, nevermind to express it, and that you continue to feel it. And that you I mean, almost used it as a protective force against somebody who was trying to train you to stop expressing their anger, and that it didn't consume you and that you have been able to navigate how to continue to express that anger in healthy ways as an adult, is I mean, it's kind of amazing. There are so many ways that that could have ended really badly, right, in expressions of anger towards yourself or towards other people. So I'm just in awe of the power of you. That has continued to go down that path.

It's a fluke of, you know, who knows why like, causes and conditions that kind of led to that but yeah, it's been interesting for me to see as I've grown and done this work and worked with so many parents and moms, particularly, to see how hard it is for us to accept these things. And the weird thing is, is this like, paradoxical nature, like, as we learn to accept that our feelings that we design that we turn we deem undesirable, like aggression and anger, and all of these things that as we learn to accept them, then it actually settles down, right? It's like, actually, then we can work with it. And it's this, there's a saying that I really like that. The idea of walking with your shadow in front of you, and the idea of though your shadow is behind you, it's big and scary, you know, it's you don't don't want to look at it, ah, then when you can walk with it in front of you, you can see it there, you can deal with it, and it has less of an impact. And that's kind of the paradox of it is that as you start to say, "Okay, I got this anger. This is what's in me," right, like, alright, you know, this is what, what the habit was in my life, then, then we can work with it. Then we can deal with it. Yeah, easily.

Yeah. And of course, also the, the incongruence of your father's anger being expressed to you don't feel anger, don't feel, don't express your anger, right. And of course, it was okay for him to express that because he's identifying, and it's not okay for you to express that. And now you wrote in the book, you have a highly sensitive child of your own. So how is that played out as you've been learning all of this stuff about yourself, and now you have a daughter that I imagine probably reminds you very much of yourself? What is that like for you to parent that child in particular?

I mean, she's been like, she's been my greatest teacher, for sure. Because she was not having any of what I was given. When I was like a young parent, she was like, it, she taught me to change my ways, because it felt so bad. You know, I mean, for one thing, and I was very in tune with was like, my feelings and my emotions, and it felt so bad to try to, like dominate her, because that was like, just the habit that was coming out of me. And that felt awful. And it was, you know, I could see it was messing up our relationship, and, and all of that. So she became this teacher for me, and this incredible, incredible catalyst. You know, she still is she's got highly, highly attuned BS meters, and she's just fine. When sometimes, like, I remember, we would have trouble because I would be practicing, to respond in a more skillful way, right. And as you start to practice to respond in a more skillful way, if that is not your native language, as it was not mine, you know, I learned a lot of defensiveness, but I did not learn a lot of empathetic responses. So I would practice this. And it would not necessarily be like my most natural language, and she'd be like, don't talk to me like that. You're not like, you're not you're not being like she would, if I was like, in any way trying, she would kind of see it, you know, she would see us kind of not being real or authentic.

And so we've, it's interesting, because we've talked about that as she's grown up, and I've said, I'm really trying to not like respond to you and some of the ways that my parents responded to me, and that's why you see me kind of responding in these ways. And she's can learn to luckily kind of understand that and see sort of the value in in that as well, that it matters to me a lot like, how she feels and that has kept us close, ultimately. So it's okay to go just to share that story to say that okay, it's okay for you, dear listener, to go through your awkward trying the responses phases and having it sound like a little awkward out of your mouth, that's okay, you know. Keep going.

Yeah, yeah. And that even if it you never fully get to the point where your young child can hear this authentic empathy that is probably there in you even though it's having a hard time coming out, that you're still laying the groundwork for you know, when we're having these conversations that feel kind of weird to you child, you know, this is what I'm trying to do. This is so important to me, that we have a relationship where we can be honest with each other and I'm trying so hard to not react in these ways that I was trained to react. And that you can still have a relationship that's grounded in those values even if the words still feel a little scripty when your children, right.

Yeah, yeah. And you can you can say those things just as you said, you know, Jen and and be authentic with your kids. I think one of the things you know, the greatest things that I have picked up over the years there was a an author who wrote a book called Soul to Soul Parenting, and it's like the idea of soul to soul versus role to role. Like you you can be you your authentic, imperfect, trying human "you" relating to this other person who is a whole uncomplete person of themselves, even if they're a child, rather than "I am mother" who is this ideal relating to child, you know, like when we can step out of those roles and be authentically ourselves. And then we're really connecting at a more heartfelt level.

Yeah. And I think that we parents sort of have this idea that we need to have their perfect response to our child. And I've certainly seen the power of stepping out of that role. I love the soul to soul rather than the role to role when I can step out of my parent role and say, "I'm having a really hard time with this, because I would have been punished if I had spoken to my parent the way that you just spoke to me. And I don't want to raise you in that way. And still, I'm having this big reaction." And our children, like they get that right, they get that that's not a rehearsed statement for me. That is what's actually happening for me right now. And they're like, "Oh, okay, yeah, I see you, I relate to you, as a human being I get this is hard, I still want that thing, I can relax for a little bit while you think about it." And it just sort of diffuses the whole situation, if we can peel back that veneer of "everything's under control" and expose the "actually, we don't really know what we're doing and we're figuring it out as we go along." Our children really respect that, I think.

And I think what like kind of what's underlying all of this, this conversation is this idea of our intention, right. And if we can come to it with an intention, I want to be real, I want to connect with you at a soul to soul level, right? Like I want to, I want to be authentic with you. And sometimes like, so in mindful parenting, we talked about these communication skills and sometimes I want to say like, the words don't matter as much. Get into your body feel the sense of what you feel like if you're practicing listening, if your kids having a problem, for instance, and you're trying to find like that perfect way to respond, get out of your head for that perfect way to respond. And instead, just be in your body and listen and be present. And the idea of just being present in the difficulty, that the intention to just be present, that can be the thing that is really what's needed in that moment.

Like I remember not too long ago, my daughter had a issue with my husband and I and her swim practices and this whole thing that was going down. And I found it really uncomfortable, that she was really upset at us. And so I was like I had the bruise. I was like sweeping near the doorway, as she's, like spoken, kind of yelled and was upset. And then I realized, Oh, I'm sweeping. But that means like, see if I can be there for her. And I sat near her on the ottoman, and I touched her back, and she pushed my hand away, she didn't want that. But then I sat near her. And all I did, I didn't try to fix anything or do anything, I just sat in my body, and breathe and felt my sensations in my body and practice to, you know, like breathing in, I'm like a mountain. Breathing out, I feel solid, and just listen to her, just hear her. And it was like the temperature just went down. And it wasn't like any thing any like, thing that I didn't try to fix her change her at all. I just tried to be in my own body and be there be present. And that the intention of that, that is such a heartfelt intention. And I think that if we can remember, get underneath all those sorts of strategies and things like that and get into that heartfelt intention. That can be incredibly powerful.

I got goosebumps when you explained that. Yeah, and I think an important thing to point out there is nothing about the situation changed. All that changed was what you brought to that situation-- the way that you showed up in that situation. And that probably my guess is transformed the ways that you were able to interact with her and I get to go out on a limb and say that maybe you found a way that actually works for both of you and meets both of your needs because you were able to be truly present with her.

Sure I mean I think so but I also think that like you know we can feel each other's feelings like human beings are pour our emotions are contagious and porous, right and all of those things like you know, and especially that little kids right like they need to borrow our calm. But also our teenagers do. It's kind of funny you know it's our adults do, right. If some you have an adult who's really upset if you can be that calm one in you know, that can be contagious. We inter are with each other and just the the feeling each other's energy. I mean, it sounds a little woowoo but it's real. Like not, it's actually quite practical in some ways.

Yeah. And so, I mean, I think when I see parents struggle with this kind of thing is it seems like there's so much to do, right? There's so much time pressure, maybe a parent is single parenting, maybe there are two parents in the family, but multiple children, all parents are working, and it seems as though we have to wring every single moment of productivity out of the day, right? I mean, you could have swept and listened to that conversation that the sweeping would have been done, the conversation would have been had. And so you know, you chose not to do that. You chose to focus on one task rather than on two tasks. And I do want to acknowledge that you and I have a lot of privilege right in our lives. But I also want to try and see how can we support parents who have so much going on that it seems as though there's no time to stop doing two things at once, and to do one thing at once, to navigate a situation where being present is actually really helpful?

I mean, it's a great question and I'm glad you acknowledge that privilege. I mean, the thing is, like in the United States, parents have like zero safety net. We have zero support. I have a friend who lives in in the Netherlands had high quality childcare from the moment her child was born, is so different, right? So the stresses that we are under as parents put on us by our society and culture, are unprecedented, really, in human experience, right on Earth. We've generally humans would have so much more support than we have now. And that's heartbreaking and frustrating. But then we have to say, Okay, well, where do we have agency again, right? Like, where what do we have control over? I may not have be able to control that I have to work two jobs. But where you do have control is that some of your mindset around busyness. And by just one, you know, it's important for us to realize that like we were trained to be efficient to be busy to get stuff done. I mean, if you're anything like me, like we this is something we prize in our culture, sweep the floor while listening, right? Like, do those two things. And I, you know, I remember I used to, like my daughters would go to this Montessori school that's like about a block from my house and I would, it was only three hours in the morning. So I would run home, I would literally run home so that I could get what I needed to get done in these three short hours. Until I realized, like, at one point, I realized, okay, like, I'm feel frantic, I feel totally crazy, okay, instead, I'm going to actually practice what I preach. And I'm gonna practice like some mindful walking on this tiny short walk home. And it was very uncomfortable. I made myself walk slowly, I listened to the birds, I felt my feet on the ground. And I didn't get home in the same amount of time, it took me longer. And I ended up getting more done because my brain wasn't in panic mode.

So we have to realize that every time that we're hurrying, our stress response is activated. Because if the if an ancient human hunter gatherer human was rushing for any reason, there was probably they were probably in danger right? There otherwise, there was no reason to rush. So our nervous system registers hurry, as a threat. So anytime you're in a hurry, your nervous system is registering, this is a threat, and you then thereby have less of like your full brain to focus with. You're less effective. When we can see start to see our hurry, as a choice, right, like, I am gonna get to the one place to the next place, but I don't have to hurry, but when we can see this hurrying as a choice, and we can start to practice slowing down in little moments where we are able to, then we can start to focus more effectively on our tasks. It's kind of like the way mindfulness practice is like a paradoxical practice that gives us more time as we spend five minutes meditating every day. It kind of gives us more time because we're so much more effective.

But I think that, beyond that, sort of like the logistics of hurrying and how it affects our body and things like that, I think more importantly, is this idea that if you have a little kid, you know, you have 18 summers with them, you have like something like 940 Saturdays, right? The time goes quickly, I can tell you from the other end, like the time goes quickly, and the only way to be present for that time is to be present and you can't love your kids in the future. Right? You can't squeeze in loving and being you can only do love them in the present moment. And when we are in the habit of efficiently getting all the things done, next thing, next thing next thing, then we get to that moment where that we have allotted to be present and enjoy our lives, maybe we're on that vacation by the lake or whatever, your brain can't stop, then, because you have trained it to go, go, go go. So then you start doing all the things. You start sweeping the cabin floor, whatever it is, right. And if we don't practice it on a regular basis, we won't be able to have the ability to slow down and stop. And actually slowing down and stopping does give us more time. But more importantly than that, it's the only place that we can love our children and really be with them.

So I think for me, that's the overarching thing. But I do, I do have a problem with squeezing. I have had to like, it's like a commandment in my life that I've worked with, like, "Thou shalt not squeeze." Personal commandment of mine,"Thou shall not squeeze." But I also tell myself, there's more than enough time for everything important. There's more than enough time for everything important, which is a mantra that is ultimately ends up being true, basically, all the time. But yeah, the unimportant things can drop away.

Yeah, I love that rides on what's defined as important, I think. And I guess I also want to touch on the fact that the being present can feel uncomfortable. And I think, and you gave the example of, you know, you tried to be present with your child in that difficult moment with the swim example, you put her hand, your hand on her back, and she pushed it away. And it would have been very easy in that moment to say, well, this isn't working and to disconnect And to walk away. And where I see it come up for myself is when I after I've had a difficult interaction with my child or with my partner, and I am feeling dysregulated, I will notice myself reaching for my phone, reaching for social media, as a distraction. As a, you know, I'm going to look at this for five minutes, and then I'm going to feel calmer at the other end. And now that I can see myself doing that I can take steps to think, Okay, what's happening here? Why is this hard for me? What is it that I really need right now? What am I distracting myself from? And take steps to be present with that rather than using social media to distract myself from that, but I just want to kind of acknowledge that it's hard because our culture trains us, "Don't be present. Distract yourself, ignore it, just make it go away. Everything will be better."

It's uncomfortable. Yeah. And our brains or, you know, nervous system tells us to, like go forth in the future plan, plan, plan plan, right. Like, it's true. It's like not really the most comfortable thing. But ultimately, it's so rewarding. Yeah, but you're right. It's not comfortable. Yeah. But then we can be there be there when we really want to be there. We can collectively know, unfortunately.

Right? Yeah. And I think a big part of this chapter on this is on asking for help. And common thing that I hear from parents that I work with is well, I don't live near family. And so I don't have any help. So I'm curious about how you ask for help.

We asked for help, like, in I don't live near family, either. My parents are seven hours away from me. And yeah, so one of the things that we did is we asked for help in the community, right, like so I was a stay-at-home mom, yet at the same time, I could see myself in this experience of me being home with this baby toddler, preschooler, etc. Patsy it's driving me bananas. And so I was like, Okay, I need help. I need brakes. This is really important for me to not be freaking out on this small, innocent child. So one of the things I think is super important that is the baseline for this is to give yourself permission to ask for help because it's, you're gonna be a better parent, when you have breaks. That's just the way it works, like when you have time to pressure release valve, all of that you're going to be a better parent.

And then, when you don't have family nearby, like you do have to be creative about it. One of the things I encourage people to do is actually, like, make a list of 10 ways that they could get help for their kids. And 10 is a really hard number of it's like, way too many, like people are like, Oh, what am I gonna do, like, bring an alien from outer space to watch my child. You have to be really creative to actually make a whole list of 10 ways. And that's the point is to like, is to just because a lot of us say Oh, I don't have family, or this babysitter is too expensive. And then they stop. And really we have to push ourselves to get more creative because we don't have that we don't live in the Netherlands. If you do live in the Netherlands, I'm so jealous.

Anyway, but but yeah, I mean for us and my family like I I signed up at the YMCA. My kids didn't love child care. She's a highly sensitive kid. So I put her in for 10 minutes And then they come get me she because she was crying And then I put her in for 20 minutes, and then they'd come get me because she was crying. And then, you know, eventually she learned to tolerate childcare. Baby number two liked childcare actually. So it wasn't like a universal experience. But but I knew that an hour this child being uncomfortable, this is so worth it, right? Like it was so worth it on all the levels, right.

And then another thing we did is we had a homeschooling family in our neighborhood and I had this 12 year old homeschooling girl, who was I swear she got to become president one day, because she's so smart and savvy. But anyway, I would have her come and play with my kids while I did things around the house. And later when she got older, she did babysit babysit for real, when we left, but it was so nice to just have somebody there, you play with the kids, I'll do all these other things. So we made it a priority, you know, and when we had more resources, my husband got a raise and his job, he said, I have this race, what are we going to do with this and said, we're going to put this towards babysitting, because that is gonna give me the most bang for our buck as far as like our happiness and well being at this time, you know? So, you know, I, we have to get creative, I think about it in some ways. But really, it's so much better for kids, for you to be a whole healthy, happy human being than to be with them every second.

Yeah. And I love the example of the exercise of coming up with 10 ways to address this issue. And I think that links to another idea in the book of beginner's mind, right, if assuming well, I know what's going on in the situation, I know that one way to fix there so one way to fix this is that I can have family close by and then I can have time off. And if that's not possible, then clearly there is no way out of the situation. Whereas your exercise kind of forces people into beginner's mind. Well, what if what if that wasn't true? What if what if I had no idea that that was the only possible answer? What can I come up with? What creative ideas can I come up with? And I'm curious as other other ways that beginner's mind has helped you in being more creative in finding solutions to challenges?

I think for me, it's the way it's helped me. I think a lot has been in counteracting my kind of tendency to sort of like judge the judgment. So for me, what has helped with is like in observing my kids, observing their behaviors, and letting myself be open-minded about it, I wonder what this means. Or I wonder why my child is doing this. And noticing if I'm projecting, like 12 years down the road, some nefarious future for my child, because they're doing this and then instead just kind of being open and also being open to a little bit, you know, more to who are they now, and also, I mean, guess for me, it for me, it translates into a mindset of open to possibilities, like everything can constantly change. And in fact, so for me, one of the ways that's come up is, like I said, my daughter has been dealing with, like a chronic illness issue that for the last couple of years. And it's really helped in being open to open to all kinds of possibilities with it open to the possibility that it will just go away, I'm quite open to that possibility. Just trying to be open to what she's saying, to try and to get past my own assumptions about it, and to really listen to her, rather than go into my own decisions about what I've decided about what this says, you know, and and it's been very helpful in not getting bogged down in worry, and deciding what these these things mean, as far as these challenging things.

And ultimately, I mean, isn't that all we any of us want? Isn't that all we wanted, when we were children? Isn't that all we want now is is just for someone to be with us, to not fix the situation, not tell us what to do, but just to walk next to us for a while and be there and support us. And so, you know, for parents who are listening to this with younger kids, thinking teenage years are so far off, I can't even think about that right now. Just the being there just to being present, I think is going to be such a key idea to help you get into that relationship where you can be present with your children, even in the teenage years, even when the problems get big. And to have that relationship where not only do they not hate you, but you actually have an awesome relationship that is grounded in trust and respect, which it really sounds like you have

Yeah, practice it now and it will give free later I mean practice being present now, practice listening to the stories of bluey or whatever you're hearing stories about, you know, practice really being present and listening now and then they will, they'll talk to you forever. Yeah,

Thank you so much for writing this book Hunter and for being with us to talk about it today.

Thank you so much, Jen. Thank you for having me on. I really appreciate the time and and also, I appreciate all the work you do. So thank you so much.

Yeah. And so listeners can find a link to Hunter's new book, Raising Good Humans Every Day: 50 Simple Ways to Press Pause, Stay Present, and Connect With Your Kids at YourParentingMojo.com/Hunter.

Hi, I'm Emma and I'm listening from the UK. We know you have a lot of choices about where you get information about parenting, and we're honored that you've chosen us as we move toward a world in which everyone's lives and contributions are valued. If you'd like to help keep the show ad free, please do consider making a donation on the episode page that Jen just mentioned. Thanks again for listening to this episode of the Your Parenting Mojo podcast.