343. The Divorce Parenting Mistakes Even Loving Moms Make… And What Kids Actually Need

Divorce can make moms do some wild things in the name of love.

Overprotect.
Overcompensate.
Buy more.
Say yes when we mean no.
Try to fix every feeling.
Avoid our child’s pain because it activates our own guilt.

But what if the thing your child needs most after divorce… isn’t more protection?

In this deeply honest episode of Dear Divorce Diary, Dawn, Producer Joy, and Coach Tiffini unpack the parenting mistakes even the most loving moms make after divorce—and what children actually need instead.

Because kids don’t just “get through” divorce.

They carry it in their bodies.

From anxiety, tummy aches, eczema, nightmares, shutdown, nail biting, emotional flatness, hygiene changes, and “I don’t know” responses… this episode explores how divorce stress shows up in children’s nervous systems—and why so many moms miss what’s really happening.

Inside this episode:

•  The most common ways moms overcompensate after divorce 
•  Why buying more stuff, saying yes, or overprotecting can backfire 
•  How guilt and shame shape parenting decisions after separation 
•  Signs your child may be dysregulated (even if they say they’re fine) 
•  How children dissociate, adapt, or abandon parts of themselves between two homes 
•  Why your child may not need fixing—they may need emotional safety 
•  What it means to help your child build a real emotional toolbox after divorce 

If you’ve ever wondered:
 “Did I mess my kids up?”
or
“How do I actually help them heal?”

Start here.

✨ Thursday inside Cocoon VIP:
We share the exact tools we wish we’d had earlier—the nervous system supports, emotional regulation tools, and practical resources we’d put in every divorced mom’s parenting toolkit.

Join Cocoon VIP

Transcript

Planning Day And Warm Welcome

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Darlings, we get to get together, all three of us, in real life, actual person later this week, in a botanical garden, no less. How cool are we? My soul is excited. Yes, I need the outside. Literally. So we're doing a planning day. We do these sometimes monthly, sometimes quarterly, depending on what we got going on in the pod and in our programs, right? So we're doing our planning day at a botanical garden. Super pumped. Hi, love. Welcome to Dear Divorce Diary, the podcast helping divorcees go beyond talk therapy to process your grief, find the healing you crave, and build back your confidence. I'm your host, Don Wiggins, a therapist, coach, integrative healer, and divorcee. Join me for a fresh approach to healing grief and building your confidence after divorce.

Parenting Guilt And Kids’ Anger

SPEAKER_02 1:08

So today we are going to talk about parenting guilt, children's healing needs, the ways moms compensate because of divorce issues. This came up recently this weekend, actually, um, where one of the women asked me, like, how do I help my daughter who's 16, who's just so mad at me all the time because financially I have to say no to so many things that I wouldn't have to say no to if we were still married. And I think there are infinite applications of this question, regardless of the kid's age, right? Whether it's a child who's two years old and it's like they're mad because they have to go back and forth and it's so hard. Or uh adult children who feel stuck between their adult parents, right? Where they, you know, or kids that parents sort of whether intentionally or unintentionally are sort of using as conduits. And we're not gonna talk about necessarily how you have to love your kid more than you hate your ex, because that conversation has been had a bajillion times. Would you both agree? Like you can find that conversation all over the internet, right? Let's just agree that you have to, when you're going through divorce, you have to love your children more than you hate your ex, but that is not what this episode is about. This episode is about how, from my vantage point, I don't see where very many, if any, people are really talking about what kids really, really, really, really, really, really need during this divorce recovery journey. We did an episode maybe a year ago with Reem Rauta. She's a parenting coach, and she touches it. She touches what kids need, right? She advocates for full emotional expression that starts to get into it, right? But still largely misses the boat. And we're going to talk about all the ways in which we as moms compensate in all the wrong ways. And thus Lee, right, reinforcing the problem versus resolving the actual need to recover. As young people, and when I say young people, I may mean, you know, from babies to 23-year-olds, right? 23-year-olds are still dialing in their identities for boys. Their brains have just finally, you know, finished developing. Um, I just mean right for like young people, give or take, whatever that means. Ladies, you got your wheels turning, your juices flowing. I'm ready. Joy's ears are burning steam out the what you know, like I see, see steam building, building in your brain. Yeah. Okay.

The Roles Kids Take On

SPEAKER_02 4:00

Here's my first question. If you stripped away any of the behaviors that we might see in our kiddos during let's let's say even like during shitty marriages, right? Like, let's not even just make it post-divorce. Let's say during shitty marriages, separation, divorce, and the aftermath. So it's this whole big picture, right? Because it's all of it matters and affects them. You stripped away the behaviors, whether it's tantrums or rebellion, depending on the age of your kiddo, right? Shutting down, feeling distracted, maybe looking like learning difficulties or or laziness, or I don't know, just all sorts of things that we see our kids do, talking back, anger, frozenness, you name it, right? If you strip all of those titles, those behavior titles away, what is actually happening in a child's body during this season of shitty marriage, separation, and divorce?

SPEAKER_03 5:03

I feel like kids are trying to figure out a balance between both parents. They're trying to figure out how to fly under the radar, or they're trying to figure out how to make everybody happy, their comedic relief. Kids always take on this role of having to be a support to both parents and trying to figure out how to get attention andor love for each one. And that can be a really awful dance to try to do. I feel like it's impossible. Absolutely. Yes. But they try their darndest. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:33

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 5:34

Absolutely. And then some kids, what I see too is because the parents aren't communicating properly, a lot of kids will take over that mediator role. And they'll just be the go-between with the parents. And that's tremendous pressure for a child to have to deal with. Or having to answer a million questions when your kid comes back from your ex around what foods they eat, what did you do? Who did daddy have over? Who didn't do it? Right? Right. Like, my God. Like we grill these poor children where it's like some kids are afraid to share that they had a great weekend with dad or a great weekend with mom because the other parent is gonna just the reaction. And let me tell you something, ladies. Your face says it all. Even if you say, Oh, that's great, honey. Absolutely. Your kids can immediately tell if you are flinching, cringing, whatever it is, they are watching you. They have these hyper-vigilant parts that are always watching. Correct.

SPEAKER_02 6:27

Correct. Okay, let's take it a little deeper though. What is happening in their bodies? So that's what's happening in their, you know, outward efforts. But drop it down to the body-based level.

Fight Flight Freeze In Little Bodies

SPEAKER_02 6:41

Fight, flight, freeze, fawn.

SPEAKER_00 6:45

I think I had all three. I had my girls were all three at the time, right? Because um, I had one that was super anxious, super attached, one that they they didn't feel uh safe, they didn't feel worthy, like it it it touched on so many and their little tiny little four-year-old bodies, it touched on so many facets. But the core of it was safe.

SPEAKER_02 7:18

Safety and worthiness, right? Which darlings is what we talk about with regards to ourselves as adult women having to reprogram reprogram the shit that we picked up when we were their ages. So we are here to have the conversation today about how to actually get to our children's root pain in the body, the body-based recovery from grief, loss, separation, identity rupture, all the same shit we talk about for us. Because they are people in little littler containers, little baby bodies, but they have the same needs.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

And I would challenge it's harder for them because they might not have the vocabulary, they don't have the TikTok scrolling, um Oh, education, education, right? The TikTok education. So it's I think it's even a little bit harder for them to articulate and for them to identify.

SPEAKER_02 8:29

Yep. Well, and they don't have any control over their very little, right? Very, very little control over their lives. Kids actually recover faster most of the time. Most of the time, right? And for those that don't, there are solutions even for that. But kids often recover faster because they're younger with less layers. But yes, they have different challenges than we have because they don't have control. Um, not that we do, but they don't even have control over their own bodies, right? Yeah. Okay.

Spotting Shutdown And Dissociation

SPEAKER_02 9:01

How would a mom know? How did you know? How did I know? How did we identify what it feels like to be around a child who isn't fully present? Like what would a mom notice if she could slow down enough and recognize disassociation? Or what else do we want to call that? It's checking out mentally, shutting down emotionally, checking out like a need to separate from self-awareness because the environment is too much. And so for me, it's yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:39

So me, I noticed it was a lot of fidgeting with my daughter. It was biting her nails constantly. It was picking the skin around her nails, biting the inside of her lip. There were a lot of behaviors for me where I, when I was looking at her, if I knew she wasn't still, there was something going on in her mind. Her anxiety was a little bit up. So when I would see her calm and she could just relax and sit back, that's when I knew that she was okay in her nervous system. But most of the time she wasn't. She would bite her nails constantly all the time. That one's so good.

SPEAKER_02 10:11

It's definitely one of my daughter's biggest keys too, picking her lips specifically. Yeah. And also things like not having the capacity to do tasks without support. Like she didn't have she was like too shut down to like clean her room, just really shut down and complaining a lot of loneliness, even though you know, she had pets and us and you know, just like things that look like anxiety, depression, shutting down, withdraw, that type of stuff.

SPEAKER_03 10:50

For me, it's hygiene too, you know. Like I knew, especially when my daughter was a teenager and going into those young adult years, if she wasn't showering like every other day, right? Like if she was going long stretches where she just wasn't showering, um, or taking care of herself, doing any type of self-care, like that's an indication that your child is depressed, you know, or dealing with with things that just makes little tasks feel way too hard and overwhelming. That, right? It makes tasks feel hard.

SPEAKER_00 11:18

Yeah.

Nights Routines And Back And Forth

SPEAKER_00 11:20

Um, I knew my girls were not okay by the night. Like during the day, we were um you know, we were busy doing life. We always had some kind of mud pie in the backyard or, you know, like we always were doing something, but at night when they couldn't settle, when they couldn't um routine, it was hard, like you've brushed your teeth every night for the last four years. Like this is this is something that has you know what I mean? So but they they couldn't um settle, they couldn't function in terms of a daily uh habit or whatever, much to Tiffany's daughter's hygiene. Like it just wasn't and then it was more on me to manage.

SPEAKER_02 12:11

So it was like a cycle, right? So how about nightmares, night terrors? Classic sign that they're not that they're overwhelmed, right? That there's a lot of emotional overwhelm, um, separation challenges, which are a given if kids are having to go back and forth.

SPEAKER_03 12:30

I had to pick her up from sleepovers a lot. Like it got to the point where we just agreed on a time that I would pick her up because I did not want to get the call at one or two in the morning to come get her. It was just easier for me to pick her up at 10 o'clock, you know, and just bring her home and know that I wasn't gonna have that panicked, you know, 2 a.m. call saying, Hey, come get me. She had a lot of like anxiety too at her dad's, which was difficult for me because I would get those calls in the middle of the night saying, Come get me. And it wasn't that easy because he lived two hours away normally. And so that was hard too. Like there was a hard, and then I know a lot of women describe this too, but that damage control that you have to do when they get back to your house on a Sunday to try to get them back into the routine for the week was always hell. Like it was still detoxing the sugar, detoxing the TV, like everything.

SPEAKER_00 13:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 13:18

This is where our Thursday episode is gonna be priceless because we're gonna go through the exact tools and resources we would use if we were doing it all over again, the exact precise tools that will bridge the gap between that going back and forth. Would you say that any differently, either of you?

SPEAKER_00 13:32

No, no, yeah. No, like what we wish we would have had, what we've said. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:38

So that's our Thursday episode. Yeah. Cause now we all have older kids, right? So it's like now we are figuring out what tools to use with our kids. And I even asked my 21-year-old now, which I'll share on the Thursday episode, hey, back then, what do you wish you would have had to help you navigate these hard seasons that you have now that you wish other moms knew? And so she was very happy to share those answers with me as well.

SPEAKER_02 14:00

I got chills. Yeah, I asked my 11-year-old the same question last night. So, yeah, right. Our our Thursday tools and tips are not just based on us as clinicians or facilitators, right? Or coaches. It's like includes actual feedback from our kiddos and the things that has brought them to today, right? To to truly be recovering. Okay, what about health stuff? Like, yeah, or like looping, or like, what about the kids who you ask them a question? They're like, I don't know. I just, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, right? Like, I don't know is a classic sign, like repetitive, I don't know is a classic sign of difficulty processing, shutting down, disassociation. Tiffany, what were you gonna say about health issues?

SPEAKER_03 14:44

Well, I just, my God, like she had chronic health issues from the time that she was little on up, um, none of which she has anymore. And I mean eczema, like bad eczema on her hands, where she would wear like braces or covers on over her hands because she was so embarrassed with her eczema. She does not have that anymore. She would get like chronic stomach issues, like almost irritable bowel or like awful stomach issues.

SPEAKER_02 15:11

I was that kid when my parents were going through it all. I always had a nervous stomach, nervous stomach, nervous stomach.

SPEAKER_01 15:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:17

That was her, like all the time. And then, yeah, I mean, those were the two biggest issues were her stomach and, you know, saying that she had a tummy ache or she didn't feel like going to school that day or, you know, whatever. So we dealt with a lot of those anxiety-based

When Stress Shows Up As Symptoms

SPEAKER_03 15:31

things where she would just go in the bathroom for like an hour and just sit there on her iPad. And I'm sure other parents can resonate, right? But like she would literally, and she had a lot of issues with constipation when she was younger. And one of the homeopathic remedies that she's on, it definitely helps her stomach a lot. And like I said, her eczema is completely gone. Like, that's just not an issue anymore. Um, but yeah, like a lot of those health issues that we see in our kids.

SPEAKER_02 15:57

A lot of breathing issues, like whether it's asthma or breathing-related issues, right? That's that whole cardiothoracic, like that heart center, right? So a lot of times kids who maybe they had those issues from a young age, but it gets so exacerbated during in difficult marriages and divorce and separation. Yeah. We see flare-up of those types of things. Mm-hmm. Amazing. Okay. So we ask this question so often about women. We're gonna ask it about children today. I think even when we ask it about women, just keep this in the back of your mind, loves. When I ask this question about women, like, do you do the three of us can we easily answer this question for women? And women listening, do you even know the answer for yourself, right? Because this is our bread and butter. This question is like our freaking bread and butter, what we do around here. But here we go. What do kids actually need in their bodies to feel safe again? What do kids need in their bodies? So, for us as women, what do we need in our bodies to feel safe again? And I actually have been chewing on this question all morning because I don't think most women can answer that unless it's like, oh, I need enough money, I need a safe home, I need a, and all of that is true, right? I need a secure, stable environment. I need there to not be abused in my environment, like all of that. But so often, even when we do have enough money and a safe home, we still don't feel safe in our bodies. So I think for women, it's hard to even know how to feel

What Safety Feels Like Inside

SPEAKER_02 17:32

safe in their bodies again, let alone help their children feel safe in their bodies again. So complex question. What do kids need in order to feel safe in their bodies?

SPEAKER_03 17:46

They need a toolbox. Just like we do in IFS. They need a toolbox. Done. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. That's enough with enough. Yes. So many times when we're trying to figure out how to ground or regulate as women, especially, when I ask women, what do you need or what is the thing that calms you down? So many women, again, say things that rely on external validation and other people. It's very rare that women know how to regulate themselves all by themselves on their own, which is why a lot of women stay stuck post-divorce because they keep reaching for shit, which is why you will get into another shitty relationship. Rather than just feeling their feelings. Correct. Correct.

SPEAKER_02 18:25

And working through their feelings, using the toolbox to feel the feelings and process through them. Correct. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:33

So like ultimately go ahead. Yeah. I was just gonna say ultimately your body knows what it wants to do. When I have clients text me and they say, I just feel like I need to walk, or I just feel like I need to be outside, I'm like, well, go fucking do it. Like you know ultimately what your body needs to ground itself. Kids are the same way. They know what they need, they just need permission. They need someone to come alongside them and also be checking on them and helping them develop that toolbox as well. Well, and that's the thing, right?

SPEAKER_02 19:02

It if if you're not developing your toolbox or you're not living your toolbox out loud, right? Like we do some wild healing crap. Like, and it just becomes part of the, it's just the way we do it over here. Like this is just how we live. And it doesn't matter if we were on the fifth grade field trip last week or we're at home, you know, we use our tools, period, because that's how we live, that's how we stay healthy mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically. That is how we stay healthy. So, yes, they need a toolbox that allows them to feel their feelings and they need to see you using your toolbox. It needs to be normalized. And they may not see it in both homes, but the thing that is used most consistently and helps them feel better is the thing they will circle back around to in the end. So here's part B to the question. So if kids need a toolbox and the capacity to feel their feelings in order to feel safe again. How is that different from what moms are trying to give them most of the time?

SPEAKER_00 20:05

I okay, so when I was going through my separation. Dark night of the soul. Right. I was very, very good about taking care of myself. Like I of course I wasn't perfect at about it, but um I did the EFT, I did the it was pre- it was pre-homopathy, but like I did the EFT, I did the exercise, I did the somatics, but I didn't understand that my children needed that as well. Does that make sense? Like they needed me to love them, they needed a little bit of extra grace, they needed mommy to stay in their room until they were asleep, but I didn't help them and recognize and see the matrix in terms of them. And so I'm super excited about Thursday because I moving forward, have they now have an arsenal implemented the tool toolbox. Right. But um I think it's easier for moms to understand that it's because it's trendy for moms to understand self-care,

Why Moms Nurture But Don’t Process

SPEAKER_00 21:09

right? I think moms are very good at nurt nurturing. I don't know if they're very good about processing. Processing. And I think there's a big difference.

SPEAKER_02 21:25

That's that's like sort of this whole episode, right? And I can't say enough about how as women you have to model it. You have to have to have to model it and talk about it and normalize it. There was a moment, I wanted to say even this is more recent, but like maybe two years ago, maybe not even when you were out of town for a weekend and I had the kiddos, your kiddos for a night, and there was a storm while you were away, and I was like, Oh great, I'll do a little EMDR with one of your kiddos. Yeah, like in real time, right? Yeah. Yeah. Did the tiniest bit, but it was so hard to tolerate for her, right? It's like this has to become co like because kids are loyal, right? Kids are gonna do what what you they have to know, like, oh, I have permission, right, from the people who are in charge of me to go and do this work because it's so vulnerable. It's so scary to feel our feelings. So scary to our feelings. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:26

So I would add on top of that that I think one of the biggest challenges for moms to be able to do this kind of work with their kids is the ability to hold space because when your child starts to tell you all of the feelings that they're having, it is going to stir up shame in you. It is going to stir up guilt in you. It is so hard. It's hard to hear your kids say things out loud that came from the divorce and not feel triggered by that. And so if you are unwilling to go to their dark places, well, to your own first, you can't expect to go to theirs. Okay. So again, if you are not willing to go to your own dark places, you cannot adequately support your child in the way that they need to be supported post-divorce, period.

SPEAKER_02 23:15

And this is what Reem Rowda's work, who you know, whom we love. We love Reem. This is what she talks about, right? She talks about you have to be able to hold space for your children's big feelings. But again, it still doesn't go all the way to getting to that full toolkit, especially when there's dissociation. And I don't think it's possible. I I'm gonna say something spicy right here, but I don't think it's possible for kids to have to split homes or move through any sort of high conflict divorce and not be fairly, fairly dissociated, which means you need a different toolkit. A different because this is something that they have to deal with until they're 13, 15, 18, depending on right, the laws and the state and and and the setup of the homes, right? But when Grace and I were on the fifth grade field trip recently, I watched her dissociate in Lululemon. Y'all know about Lululemon and these children. Okay, so we were in the Lululemon and she got all up in her head about Lululemon and was trying to talk me into buying her a sweater that I was not gonna buy her. Bless her heart. I did buy her a jacket, but the one that she was reaching for, she was reaching for it for the wrong reasons. You know what I mean? And I watched her disassociate in the store and I couldn't reach her. You know what I mean? Like, have you ever had tried to have a conversation with your kiddo and you can't reach them, but they're not responding. She was so flat all of a sudden, it was like nothing I was saying, even though normally I would have this conversation with her and it would make sense and it would land and she would be able to talk it out with me. And it's like all of a sudden she was like, you know, not there. I gave her a drop of our steady

Split Homes And Identity Fragmentation

SPEAKER_02 25:06

blend and boop, cleared the fog. And then later we were able to talk about for her to wear that sweater, she would have to kill off a piece of herself. You know what I mean? If you're trying to do something to fit in consistently, you have to kill off a piece of yourself to fit in. Brene Brown talks about this all the time. Right? Okay. So now imagine you leave moms, you gotta go to dads, you gotta fit in at dads. Then you leave dads, you go to moms, you gotta fit in at moms, and you're constantly killing off pieces of yourselves. Opposite selves. This is where we see so much disassociation happen in our children. And you need a different toolkit. And that's, you know, a huge crux. Like the the Thursday episode, we're gonna dig much deeper into this because, you know, it's great to give your kid a therapist, right? That's amazing. They need to have safe places to talk and process, especially when they feel loyal to both of you, right? It's great to get your kid some sort of mentor that they can talk it out with, right? But it is um great to have your kid in sports and dance and all those things because it helps them somatically process, right? I am a I really, really believe that that um outdoors fitness team, all of that helps kids process their feelings somatically. Uh but if you are not attending to their likely dissociative process, then all this shit is staying stuck in their soma. And it will come back to haunt them when it's time for them to have relationships.

SPEAKER_03 26:39

I can tell you that my daughter is one that if I would sit at the dinner table or I would take her out for coffee and we would sit and have a conversation, she's fine now, but younger, like teenage younger. How are you? I'm fine, everything's good. I'm like, she will not sit in that type of an environment where she feels like, and so a lot of times when I what I tell parents is get them out doing something that they enjoy doing. Inside, yes. So, like her and I, like she's a gamer girl, like she loves video games, and I can get down with that. And so we had so many amazing conversations over Fortnite and my old school Super Nintendo, and um, just really good stuff. Or even if I get her out in the woods and we're walking together on a hike, it will come out like word vomit because she doesn't feel like she's staring me in my face. There's nothing to worry about, you know, with that. It's like she's in her comfort zone and she feels safe enough to be able to do it. So I tell parents, like, don't just sit across the table from your kid or corner them in the car. Like that's just not a good tactic, especially if they're shutting down or they're avoidant. So getting them in a space where they can feel comfortable to open

Helping Kids Talk Without Pressure

SPEAKER_03 27:47

up. But I can't stress this enough. You've got to be able to do the work on yourself because the things that they say to you will be triggering. Because yeah, there are going to be things they carry from your ex, and there's also gonna be things they carry from you. And you have to be able to hold space to know that and to see what they're needing from you. Because yeah, you have contributed to your child's mental health in some capacity. Like no parent is escaping this. There is no perfect parent out there. Everybody needs therapy from their parents. Doesn't matter how good they were.

SPEAKER_02 28:16

That's right. And especially not the three of us, right? The three of us screwed up so much stuff. Like I just want to own that loud banner.

SPEAKER_03 28:24

My God. And I'm gonna talk about that on Thursday. Like the ways where I looked back and thought, and my daughter told me things, ways that she wished stuff would have been different, or I would have been different in this way or that way to help her when she was younger. Like, I want to share all that with moms because I wish that they were things that I would have had the balls to face back then, that I would have gotten myself right quicker to be able to get her better faster, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 28:52

I think that's what we that's like our everyday mission here, right? Is to help families get better faster, more profoundly, right? Deeper and faster, deeper and faster. Yeah, deeper and faster.

SPEAKER_03 29:05

But also knowing that it takes a village. And for a long time I felt like I had to do everything on my own with parenting. And even right before we started this podcast today, my daughter was texting Don, right? Yeah. Like it's okay to have, and there's times when Don's daughter texts me. Like it is okay to have that village, and it's okay to have a supportive group of people that you feel like are mentors for your child and you can trust to give them support when they don't feel like they can come to you or when they're needing different things. Dawn's gonna give my daughter way different feelings, you know, from a different perspective than I am. Like it, it's just, and it's no different than the women in our group, and they talk about this all the time. Joy, myself, and Dawn are all very different. We all bring very different skill sets, very different personalities. And so based on what they're needing in that moment, they know who to reach out to to get what they're needing and to feel seen.

SPEAKER_02 29:56

What's the most common way you see moms overcorrect? And how does it backfire with their children?

SPEAKER_00 30:05

Overcorrect. Uh, I had a friend who went through a divorce and she went out and bought the brand new uh Spider-Man car seat. This is years ago, so I don't even know if it's on still a Spider-Man car seat on the market, but she went out and bought because her sole focus was I want him to want this car seat versus the dad's car seat because I want him to be with B more than, you know what I mean? So it was a lot of a lot of materialistic buying, purchasing, game, you know, like trips and games and and all these things be and I think the the kind of tipping point for that is then it becomes an entitlement where it's well, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:48

I mean, yes, entitlement. And then also, though, it's reinforcing this idea that I need things outside of me to deal with something inside of me, right? Right. Which is the birthplace of codependency, it's the birthplace of addiction, it's the birthplace of

How Overcorrecting Backfires

SPEAKER_02 31:04

um low self-esteem, right? Then I'm only renting my self-esteem from the latest trend, whether it's toys or beauty or boyfriends or w concerts or whatever it is, right? It's that it's the groundwork for I can't feel okay unless I have what I want versus what I actually need.

SPEAKER_00 31:25

Yeah. And then they can even tip into manipulation between the parents. And it might not even be conscious, but like mom will take me there, mom will do that, you know. Dad does that at my house. I get to eat whatever I want at dad's house. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:39

Yes. And it was so funny because when my parents, as soon as I would call my dad and ask him for something, his first question is, Well, what did your mom say? Ah, because yeah, you know, because they didn't allow that for me. But I would agree with joy that money is definitely the number one way. Buying kids things is the number one way. And then also just going along to get along, just doing whatever they want, being afraid to put your foot down, being afraid to say no, and just kind of letting your kids parenting again from a place of shame and guilt.

SPEAKER_00 32:09

Yeah. Conversation.

SPEAKER_02 32:11

Mm-hmm. Okay. We've already talked about this from several angles, but I'm gonna ask it one final time just to see what it squeezes out of us, right? As part of the conversation. So if a child doesn't actually need more protection, I feel like we bump up against that a lot, right? Where it's like moms want to control and protect in times that they do not have control, right? So if a child doesn't actually need more protection or more leniency or more fixing, what do they need instead that moms are missing? Less codependency.

SPEAKER_00 32:47

Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 32:48

Less codependency. Uh-huh. And let me talk about this because I'm in this space with my kid and I'm gonna get super vulnerable here with a second. I have a daughter that is just turned 21 in February. You know, she has historically had issues with addiction. Okay. So now we open up a whole new avenue of, hey, I can go out and drink and there's alcohol and I can just get whatever I want. So now I have no control as a mom to be able to do any of that, right? Because she's gonna do what she wants to do. There is a difference between me protecting her and putting my foot down versus allowing her to go through the experience and to hit rock bottom on her own and to be able to step back as a parent and allow her to come to her own conclusions and reach her own thing. That was always very difficult for me because I always felt like I had to step in and fix everything instead of allowing her to be broke, disappointed, be upset, be sad, have those big feelings and not just rush in, but allow her to come to a place where she knew that she had capacity to fix it and she could do it without mom rushing

Less Codependency More Capacity

SPEAKER_03 33:54

in to do everything. We're going through that right now. That is fucking huge as a parent to step back and allow your child to come to that conclusion on their own.

SPEAKER_02 34:05

Let me give a same answer but with a different age range, right? I also wanted to control and fix everything. And I did that with perfectionism and anger. And so what what I had to first learn so that I could facilitate for my child was the capacity to feel safe feeling her feelings. And that was such a journey to go from dissociated, numb little bug. My kid loves that song, um, to embodied, present, emotionally fluid, able to discuss beliefs, beliefs about self and beliefs about the world around me, to actually feel like she's safe even when she encounters, you know, scarier, riskier, dangerous things. The ability to say, I feel loved, and I have the capacity to give love, right? I can feel mad, sad, glad, afraid, ashamed, and I can express those things with flow rather than shutting down and needing to escape those feelings. So I had to stop relying on control and anger to to generate a type of behavior which she was forcing to please me, to keep me from being angry, so that she could step into, and this is at a young age, right? Like let's say we were doing this work between, I don't know, six and eleven, five and eleven, something like that, right? So that she could step into who she was, is, and feel her feelings, and not anticipate me blowing up.

SPEAKER_03 35:42

And I think we've all helped each other over the past couple years come to that place, right? I I'm gonna tell a story. And you can cut this if you want to. But the Halloween thing is such a huge thing, right? Because I remember Grace wanted to be something for Halloween. You were like, no, I want her to be this other thing. And I that was the time when I had spent the night at your house. And I was like, dude, just let her be the thing. Like, who cares? Do you know what I mean? And so she was so excited because then she got to be the thing and you just step back and like, right? It's kind of like again, we need other moms. Correct. Yes. It's so important to have people you can trust to say, hey, is this really a hill to die on? Right, right, right, right. You know? Yeah. And it's hard as a mom. Can I just say that? It is so, and I'm saying the fucking hard, I'm f-bombing it, as a mom to know that you in some ways have contributed to the downfall of your child in one way or another. You know, I was codependent. And when other moms come to me and I can spot it like crazy, I spot it because I used to be the queen of it. And I will lovingly call it out in my clients all day, every day to say, is this a moment of codependency? Can you just let it go? Sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 36:57

I called Sydney last week and I was like, so newsflash, I'm still codependent. Oh no. Because they were able to get to deeper and deeper layers of it, right? But when you when you cut those codependent cords, what you end up sitting with is deeper and deeper levels of peace, right? And that is what we're all reaching for. I know that when we pull women, that's what they say they want. Peace, peace, peace, peace, peace, peace, peace, peace, peace. But you can't have peace when your peace is tied to what every other person on this planet thinks, feels, knows, wants, blah, blah, blah. Right. So, yes, I am still codependent. So I'm this next thing I'm saying is in the context that I still sometimes react rather than respond if my kid is doing something that causes me some sort of shame or embarrassment, right? Because I'm afraid that someone's gonna judge me based on her, you know, that whole thing, right? Okay. So I still do sometimes react rather than respond. What I'm gonna say is that I don't do it perfectly. And yet it is very easy for me to sit with and talk about I gave birth to a dissociated child who carried buckets of my trauma in her body for the first half of her life. And I think the reason that that is so easy for me to say today is because I am 100% clear that there is a path out and recovery from no matter what. I mean, the things that all of our kids have walked out, like all three of our children have walked out of, has been mind-blowing. My kid had bilateral anaphylaxis from food reactions. She had OCD and anxiety and depression, all of it, right? She was so dissociated. She, I mean, she is just like a normal all-American, I don't know what that means, but you know what I mean, like kid today and dealing with just regular basic B stuff, you know? Um and so I think the reason why I have infinitely less shame is because I'm so confident in my toolkit and she's well. And so I don't have to fear or I don't have to run away from all those things that I exposed her to because I don't have that fear anymore that she's not gonna be okay. She's I I've given her everything she needs to be okay. Now, whether or not she's okay in the long, long arc of her life is up to her. Yeah.

Hope After Shame And Hard Truths

SPEAKER_03 39:21

Yeah, for sure. I got chills when you said that because I 100% agree with that. I'm so open around the challenges that I've had with my daughter because yes, even though we're still navigating certain things, right, there is a path out and there is a way to get better. And so to the moms out there that have, I just want to echo you, I see you. To the moms out there that have teenagers or young adults that are struggling with addiction or suicidal ideation or have had suicidal attempts, I see you. I've been through it. I would love to talk to you about it, you know, because that's something that I've dealt with in my daughter that I held a lot of shame and guilt around for a really long time and was afraid to talk about publicly. And I'm no longer afraid of that anymore. And if I could help other moms out there navigate that with their own kids, I I would love that. Who would it be to maybe have your kiddo on the pod one day? Well, that's maybe love to bring her on. She would love it. Yeah, she would love it. And she would talk openly about it. Absolutely. Yeah, she would totally be down for that. Ooh. Maybe that'll be the hot the Thursday episode. Yeah, like as her struggles and yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:31

So join us this Thursday in the episode where we lay out for you step by step by step the tools that we do not go without with our kiddos. And if we were doing it all over again, the things that we would be in our must-have kit to help them navigate the pain that is difficult marriage, separation, and divorce. We love you so much. Peace.