
The Spiritual Parent: Mindful Tools for Raising Spiritual and Conscious Kids
Sacred Tools. Soulful Connection. Modern Mysticism for the Parenting Path.
Welcome to The Spiritual Parent, a heart-centered podcast for parents raising sensitive, soulful, and intuitive children in a world that often forgets the sacred. Hosted by Carrie Lingenfelter—former educator, mother of two, and spiritual guide—this space offers grounded, loving support for those who feel called to parent as a spiritual practice.
Each week, we explore the unseen layers of parenthood: energetic connection, intuition, ancestral healing, and the soul contracts we share with our children. From solo episodes filled with channeled insight and practical tools, to deep conversations with mystics, healers, and visionaries, you'll walk away with clarity, confidence, and a deeper connection to your own inner wisdom.
This is your invitation to step fully into the sacred role of The Spiritual Parent—and to raise the next generation with intention, presence, and soul.
The Spiritual Parent: Mindful Tools for Raising Spiritual and Conscious Kids
Intuition Unplugged: for Conscious Parenting with Katie Turner
Dive into our enlightening conversation centered on the profound connection between parenting and intuition. In this episode, we explore how parents can effectively utilize their innate instincts to make informed decisions amid societal pressures and expectations. Our guest, Katie Turner, shares her personal journey of awakening her intuition and weaving it into her holistic approach to parenting.
Discover how often the pressures of parenting can lead to feelings of guilt and inadequacy, creating a barrier to understanding and trusting one's internal voice. We discuss the nuanced concept of "good enough parenting," illustrating that perfection is unattainable and acknowledging our feelings as valid is crucial for our children's emotional development.
We delve into practical strategies for nurturing your intuition and address the challenges of modern parenting—encouraging conversations about feelings and experiences, while also providing children with boundaries and resilience as they grow. As Katie unfolds her insights on blending her psychological background with holistic practices, we prompt listeners to understand their intuitive signals better and integrate them into their parenting styles, ultimately fostering deeper connections with their children.
Join us in this thought-provoking journey, and learn how to reclaim your innate abilities while navigating the beautiful complexities of being a parent. Subscribe, share, and leave us a review to support our podcast community!
Connect with Katie Turner:
*Website: https://katieturnerpsychology.com/
*Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katieturnerpsychology/
*Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KatieTurnerPsychology/
Quiz time! Take my new Spiritual Parent Vibe quiz and meet your magical type:
https://www.tryinteract.com/share/quiz/683e320bf64af70015fae432
New! Conscious Family Travels Channel on YouTube with Carrie:
https://www.youtube.com/@consciousfamilytravels
Connect with Carrie:
*Website: https://hearttoheartlife.com/
*Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thespiritualparent
*YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheSpiritualParent
*Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/The-Spiritual-Parent/61554482625081
*Email: info@hearttoheartlife.com
**Please remember that the information shared on this podcast is educational in nature and does not constitute licensed mental health advice. If you need such advice, you should speak with a licensed professional about your unique situation. Thanks so much happy listeners.
© 2024-2025 Heart to Heart Life LLC
and so then my own spiritual awakening started happening and it really changed my sense of reality, like my own intuition started opening up. Um, I explored that step like as a very separate personal exploration piece for a number of years as a registered, like health professional. Again, we are evident like we're bound to evidence-based practices only, so you can't bring in just anything. So it was a long journey of developing those skills. For myself, being like this is real, but how do you make sense of it? How do you get stronger in this? How do you get stronger at interpreting it?
Katie Turner:so it's actually helpful versus when your rational mind's getting involved. And and then it was a number of years as well, too, to seek other training, like mentorship certification, to be able to do it within psychology as well.
Carrie Lingenfelter:Hi Conscious Parents. It's Keri here and I am here with a little info about raising our mindful kids. I've got some tips and tricks about breaking free of the box and becoming who you are and teaching your kids how to do that along the way. Join us becoming who you are and teaching your kids how to do that along the way. Join us Hi there and welcome back. I have a treat for you guys today. I have Mrs Katie Turner here, who I love blends her background in psychology and child psychology and works with adults as well and brings in the holistic approaches. I love bringing in the holistic mindsets and pieces and so, katie, thank you so much for being here today with us.
Katie Turner:Yeah, thanks so much for having me.
Carrie Lingenfelter:Yeah, it's been really lovely to connect with so many people that have these backgrounds, and I myself have the speech therapy and teacher background and I love blending in some of the evidence-based things that I've seen and then some of these intuitive pieces that have been so prevalent in my life. I was going to ask you how did you end up bringing in the holistic side for yourself and as a practitioner of it basically.
Katie Turner:But I my background psychology first, so masters of science and psychology, more research like evidence-based approaches, didn't believe, didn't have a strong background growing up any, anything like that I thought. I thought a lot of the stuff was woo if people believe in it, if it helps, great. But I unintentionally stumbled into my own spiritual awakening when I was early in the field and kind of burnt out and a little and a bit disillusioned with only the conscious mind focus alone, like the limitations I was seeing in the field. And in hindsight I was engaging in a lot of practices that actually do help open up that connection. I just didn't realize that at the time. So things like meditation, like energy work, breath work, like lots of meditation, um, and so then my own spiritual awakening started happening and it really changed my sense of reality, like my own intuition started opening up.
Katie Turner:Um, I explored that step like as as a very separate personal exploration piece for a number of years as a registered like health professional. Again, we are evident, like we're bound to evidence-based practices only, so you can't bring in just anything. So it was a long journey of developing those skills for myself. Being like this is real, but how do you make sense of it? How do you get stronger in this? How do you get stronger at interpreting it?
Katie Turner:So it's actually helpful, versus when your rational mind's getting involved. And then it was a number of years as well, too, to seek other training, like mentorship certification, to be able to do it within psychology as well wow, I love that.
Carrie Lingenfelter:Yeah, so you brought in some of those pieces as well. You got the certification in those areas as well. I love that. And so with connecting with your intuition, I love to talk about that with parents a lot. I, for just a little background. I was very in my head when I became a mom and trying to do all the perfect things and live in the perfect box. I thought that would be what my kids need and my kids really resisted it. It was really cool and that's when I had my spiritual awakening, which has continued, and I even grew up spiritual, so it's so easy, even when you're grown up with it, to get back into your mind. Is there anything that you would tell parents as far as connecting with their intuition and what you've seen or what you feel like they could hear?
Katie Turner:I think there's just so many layers to it. I think one thing nobody really tells people like you can go to the baby classes, you can get prepared, you can learn about parenting, all the things, but nobody tells you like actually becoming a parent is going to bring up your own stuff and bring access to your own stuff in this very intensified way that if you weren't to become a parent, you probably wouldn't have it hit you as hard. So there's always a bit of a balance of okay, what if this is our own childhood stuff that's coming to the surface, that like we're now in the adult position, like processing it from a different way as we're also parenting. I think there's the piece of working with our actual nervous system and how our bodies and brains store more intense emotional experience differently than positive emotional experience is a big one for parents because it's not just about having the tools and being like I want to talk to my kid like this or react this way. We all have trigger points where it's our own nervous system to regulate and work with the triggers that come up for ourselves in parenting.
Katie Turner:I also think, like I worked a lot with women Women still are, in our culture and society, the main ones who seek out help and have less stigma around that.
Katie Turner:But I work with men as well too, and I think we can get so individualized of think it's our own personal problem of I'm being too hard on myself. I have all these impossible expectations as a mom, but it's so cultural and systemic and, like this time period, I do a lot of work with cycle breakers and there is this shadow side to it that people don't really talk about, of like when you know, okay, there's epigenetic trauma, what we're passing down to our kids. It can go so far to the other side of I don't want to do anything to screw them up that it's paralyzing for people or there's a lot of shame with it. And I've I work with women so often carry these impossible standards of I'm not doing enough and this like mom guilt which isn't actually guilt, like guilt is as a pure emotion is I've done something wrong or against my value system, and guilt is meant to motivate us to do better. If our kids steal or lie or throw something, if they feel guilty, it's not a bad thing.
Carrie Lingenfelter:We're like hey that's good, you're not a psychopath, let's work with that. Let's not a bad thing. We're like, hey, that's good.
Katie Turner:You're not a psychopath. Let's work with that. Let's not go into shame or blame you, but be like how do we move through this and actually apologize. What do we do differently next time? Guilt has a purpose to it, but most moms it's like this cultural shame and women and moms carry that and I've never seen a case of dad guilt in the way moms carry it. Usually if men are coming into therapy with I don't feel good about this. It's okay. There's usually actually something going on. It's usually not this crushing societal weight of impossible expectations of I should always be regulated, I should be having a career, I should be doing all these things with them, I should give them one-on-one attention all the time and never lose my temper. I think there's all. And with the intuition piece there's always sorting out all the external noise and belief system stuff with what's actually true.
Carrie Lingenfelter:Yeah, I feel like when we're building up that intuition piece, it does make it so much easier when you are feeling that triggered piece, like to connect with yourself and be like what is triggering me right now. It's made it so much easier for me I have I'm a sensitive, highly sensitive person and then raising two highly sensitive kids and married to a highly sensitive person, so I think just that intuitive piece it's I'm starting to get to the point where I can hear it so much faster as I continue to build it. Okay, this is this moment that is making me want to yell right now. Or, yeah, is it a trauma piece for me? Or is it simply like that I'm feeling overstimulated or the screaming is just taking over my kids? Screaming is too much for me, so it's really helpful in that way for me.
Katie Turner:For sure and I think that, like mindfulness, like that awareness and self-reflection and what's going on in my internal world is a big one because in into a pure intuitive information comes through our sensory, like it comes in different ways.
Katie Turner:A lot of it's finding our dominant ability and like continuing to work with that. It's usually easier when it's something that's not high stakes or like we have a lot of emotion invested in. So practicing with it it's keep it light, have fun. We want it for the bigger things of should I do this or that, keep my kid in this school or stay with this pediatrician? But it's it's often harder to get that access when there's a lot of emotions involved and that's where it is such a dynamic process of being like, hey, what's this bringing up for me? All that old like belief system stuff, our own nervous system stuff, it's almost like static on the radio signal line. If we can, the more we can clear that, the more of just knowing can come in and we need space to get out of our rational mind, like walks, meditation, something.
Carrie Lingenfelter:Yes, the space is so helpful and, like you said, we put so much pressure. If we're trying to figure out something like changing their schools, which we went through last fall mid-year, we did have so much pressure and then it just shut us down and we got so stuck where we couldn't hear. But I think, knowing it's not something, if it's going to happen it will. Maybe you'll see signs several times or maybe it will continue to. It's always a process too.
Katie Turner:Sometimes we just want the answer. Our intuition doesn't follow our logical, our ego mind is like just tell me what to do. And intuition is more a process. It's more like how do we feel, moment by moment. I'll often compare it to almost like a GPS system or a compass, but it only tells you like turn left, right now. It doesn't tell you like all the steps that are going to come up. So we often have to still be in the process, like talking to the school, being like is there anything we can do? Let's give this a try. Let's start looking at other options.
Carrie Lingenfelter:Let's go to their open house, because it's all a feedback loop. Yep, yep, yeah. And for us it came three different times. It wasn't like, it was like just it just kept bombarding us. It was like this person said this, then my son said this and yeah yeah, it's nice. It's okay if you make the wrong decision, like you're still going to have chances the volume will come up.
Katie Turner:It's not yeah yeah.
Carrie Lingenfelter:So I love that because it takes away some of that pressure if I don't make it right now, we're gonna lose it or things. So, yeah, if is there a piece that you would tell parents for kids that if parents want to help their kids to keep these conscious pieces, I feel like my kids I don't know about you, but so many kids and my kids have these conscious pieces that they're born with and these questions and wanting to connect with others and these pure hearts. I really am focusing on trying to help my kids stay conscious into adulthood.
Katie Turner:Yeah, that's amazing. Kids stay conscious into adulthood. Yeah, that's amazing. I think even just that alone is like such a game changer, because it's a relatively new shift in parenting, where emotional maturity, self-awareness, self-reflection those aren't strong skills for most of our parents' ancestors. If we go back a few generations, there was a lot of survival. There wasn't a lot of knowledge. We have the double-edged sword of almost too much information and knowing what to sort through and not getting paralyzed by it but it also is positive of at least there's options, at least there's tools.
Katie Turner:So for anyone who's doing their own work and already aware of it, I'm not as worried for their kids, because it's like if they know when their stuff's too big and they're going to get their own adult support for that. A lot of it too, I think, is like for sensitive kids. They pick up on so much of what's going on and I think all kids do so it but the adults, if we're cut off from everything, if we're in our heads, if we're not connected to our own emotions, if we're not taking that responsibility for our own emotional regulation, maturity, it's like then kids they learned, they get the message not to trust what they're sensing and feeling. So there's a line of even really sensitive kids, if you still need to be the adult, even really psychic or gifted kids, don't ask them questions that are not developmentally appropriate for them, even if they get answers and other pieces, if go to someone else, for that that's not, it's not developmentally appropriate, even if they can channel or connect with other things. But I think the piece is like as an adult we can validate of yeah, I'm just stressed today, but it's not anything you're doing so we can validate of, yeah, what you're picking up is correct, but still developmental, appropriate boundaries, and the adults are in charge of doing this and we can do our best to advocate for them, to help them get through situations.
Katie Turner:But parenting is almost like this ongoing one of my mentors explained it as this ongoing relay, baton, relay, toss where you're constantly being like am I holding the bar? Or like when is it time to pass it over to you? When do I have to let it go? When does your child have to actually take it themselves? Because as they get older, it's like then we need to actually it's not just about not doing anything that's going to traumatize them. We want to teach them resiliency as well and, like how to advocate and ways, be a guide to help them think about the world in a different way.
Katie Turner:Um, because I think it's like we didn't necessarily need the world to not be like to be completely accommodating, of sensitivity and everyone getting it. But if there was like one or two safe adults who could be like, oh no, like it's not okay if an adult yells at you like you didn't do anything, like yeah, maybe you should have been listening in class, but that's not an appropriate reaction. Like that's it makes sense. You feel upset, like adults are responsible Cause I was like into adulthood when I realized, oh like not. All adults are actually emotionally adults.
Carrie Lingenfelter:Oh like not all adults are actually emotionally adults. We're all growing and changing and, yeah, I think that's an interesting piece because I think, even as parents, we start to see our parents in a different view. Right, and that's healing in itself as well.
Katie Turner:Yeah, and triggering and healing.
Carrie Lingenfelter:Yeah, it's very true.
Katie Turner:Yeah, cycle breakers are often like in the middle, like gentle parenting their own parents and their kids, and they're like this is a lot.
Carrie Lingenfelter:We need support systems too oh my gosh, I love that. I hadn't thought about gentle parenting our own parents, but that is yeah. Instead of heart-to-heart parents, it's like heart-to-heart people, connecting with everyone.
Katie Turner:When people who are taking that, who are responsible for their own energy, who are who can reflect, who like to self-reflect, who are growth oriented, who are like working towards more emotional maturity. I think we need those networks, yeah, yeah, even if they're just a few. Yeah.
Carrie Lingenfelter:Yeah, that's totally. I love that so much and I think that that connection, like you said, having that person to turn to and being able to acknowledge what's going on in our kids' lives and it gives them so much, so many more tools in their pocket, versus putting on these layers of protection that we had to remove as we were adults and going through our own spiritual awakening process yeah, so I really love that.
Katie Turner:And it's not just because it's like parenting's almost like two arm hug. You have the love and the limit part too, so it's like we need both and I think some of it too is like there's times for protection and there's times to get involved and like advocate, protect your kid. But there's other times where it's like we are raising them to be adults in the world as well. So we want there's some. There's times for mama wolf energy, where it's like lick the cubs, cuddle them at home and then nip at their heels to have them run. We have to work with them and that's where the intuitive piece is knowing your kid, knowing their temperament, knowing how and having support to be like okay, when do I push a bit more? And when they're not comfortable with it, when this isn't what they want to do, when instinct is because we can over correct if we didn't get enough, if we had things too hard.
Katie Turner:One way, it's very easy for people to swing almost in defense. The other way, of no limits, or I don't want to say no to them at all or make them do hard things because no one protected me or advocated for me. Versus now, how do you be there for them and then also challenge them to grow, to grow the resiliency within a zone of comfort, because spiritual beings in a human nervous system it's like part of being here in this world is some level of emotional overwhelm or trauma. We don't want to be the main source of it, but it's like we want them to be resilient and be like, if bad things happen in life, you will be able to get through this.
Carrie Lingenfelter:Yeah, I love that so much. I think I was talking to somebody. Actually, several parents have told me they were latchkey kids as well in the 80s and 90s growing up, so I feel like we had this huge shift and now we have and I don't know if that's where the helicopter mom came into play, right, or even like the positive parenting piece I feel like so many people have shifted into the opposite extreme.
Katie Turner:Some of it goes too far where it's like very supportive and like helicopter parenting is a lot of research that shows it's not helpful because you have less confident kids. You have less resilient kids, like they do need to make mistakes, like we want them to know. I mean, got like some of the good enough parenting research or common parenting research is responding to them about 30 of the time and again our intuition will know like they really need me.
Katie Turner:Right now. I need to drop things and go, versus no, they're uncomfortable, they want me to drop things and go, but they can wait this out and it's actually going to be good for them and I need to go manage my anxiety or what's like. How much of this is my own stuff coming up? But again and again, I find this is also tends to be more of a case for women than men. There's, of course, going to be differences. I'm not saying all men are all women, but moms often go one way to the other where they're very soft, very gentle. There's great stuff around attachment, parenting Okay, this is why we don't do this and very gentle.
Katie Turner:But then it can get to this point where it's like I have told you 15 times, pick up your stuff, and then it's like aggressive, and then the kids are scared. They do it, but then it swings back and mom feels super guilty and horrible. But it's also that's part of finding that firm the mama wolf nip at the heels, energy of enough. Sometimes it's time for a boundary, and this isn't mean, but it's healthy for them, it helps reduce their anxiety and it's part of your own self care. So you're not getting to the point where you're losing it, which is okay, because you've said it a million times and they actually have an adult mental capacity. This isn't that they can't regulate it. They're actually pushing a limit here.
Carrie Lingenfelter:Yeah, definitely. Our gifted kids that are coming in their brains work so quickly and they are on it. They're looking for those right Like how far can I push?
Katie Turner:mom, all the best.
Carrie Lingenfelter:I am getting out. Yes, totally, I love that limit piece because I feel like so many times, yeah, we do go to that opposite, that extreme, with the attachment, parenting, positive parenting, those pieces, and we leave behind those limit setting pieces. I've also spoken with my son, who's nine, and I mentioned to him mom's going to support you, mom's going to help you. I'm here. Part of my job also is challenging you and I've told him I'm watching your body to see if you're ready for a challenge and I'm going to try to choose those moments appropriately for you. That's part of my intuition that I'm using, like you said, and knowing those times, but also it's part of my job to help you become an adult and part of that is challenging you.
Katie Turner:And, yeah, yeah, I've had similar conversations more at a lower developmental level for my four and five-year-old too. To be like this is part of loving you.
Katie Turner:And like I, know this is hard, but we're going to talk about this because, like I love you, I want you to have friends. We can't treat our friends like this, even if we don't want to have this conversation, like we'll have it in smaller bits, we'll thinly slice it, but like we're having this till you're, till you get it and you're nicer to your friend, next time we have a play date and then it does click it and they do better. But it's like sometimes there's stuff that's uncomfortable and they don't want to do it.
Carrie Lingenfelter:Yeah, and I love you had mentioned love and limits and in my mind I was thinking for adults, setting limits, because that's been something I've had to learn as well. I know you're mainly focusing setting the limits with the kids, but do you also talk a lot about that for setting limits for mom? Yeah, I work a lot with.
Katie Turner:I'm highly sensitive and empathic as well. That's what I specialize in working with mainly, and so I find a lot. I've even got more specialization and even personality disorders and the impact of that because I find a lot of the clients that I work with sometimes there's stuff going on in their own life and sometimes the stress level for them is dealing with emotionally immature adults that have a more kind of significant role in their life whether it is like an ex-partner, co--parenting in-laws like a boss, because the just the stress of those dynamics is so much higher than regular conflict.
Katie Turner:If you're looking at high levels of immaturity and reactivity or if you're getting into suspected personality disorder territory, it's like a whole other pile of chaos. I think the piece with the limits part like a lot of it. It is really it's love and limits and it's limits, limits in service of love, because it's really more of a.
Katie Turner:I like some of Brene Brown's research where she was following wholehearted living people and she had her own kind of hypothesis of maybe they're spiritual or they've gone through something, and then her research found that they were the most boundaried, and she's she was surprised by that, but it's, if you're really clear on this is what I allow and don't allow and this is what happens if you cross that not as an ultimatum or I'm angry with you, but it's okay, we'd love to see you for the holidays. There's going to be no drinking, all right. Okay, then you can't come. It's your choice. But if your drinking has been a problem and it's causing dysfunction at, you can choose if you want to attend or not.
Carrie Lingenfelter:Yep, yep, I love that. And there's so much personal growth that goes in these limits too. Last night I went to dinner with my husband and they were trying to sit us outside because they gave away our table that we had reserved inside and my husband said no, I'm not sitting outside, it's 50 degrees, please find us something inside. We had a reservation and I was blown away. I was like, wow, normally your people-pleasing tendencies would have just put on a jacket, suffered, and I think my parents, we would have ended up sitting outside and I was like, thank you for this.
Katie Turner:I didn't realize how much people-pleasing there was going on in my life yeah, and I love that because I do a lot of work with, again, highly sensitive people. I think we tend to take on too much for other people or feel really bad about things and carry too much emotional responsibility for others. Especially if we're respecting our own boundaries and are not at overwhelm ourself or out of patience, then we can set the limits in a more loving way. There's no harm in asking and adults, we can separate that a lot easier where it's not about losing your mind and yelling at the hostess.
Carrie Lingenfelter:Be like where's our table.
Katie Turner:But it's not about losing your mind and yelling at the hostess, be like where's our table, but it's no, actually we're. This isn't really okay.
Katie Turner:This is why we ask we can be kind, we can treat you like a human being and still ask for what we need yeah and I think that's what often what we that's what we want to teach our kids to do is be like how do you stand up for yourself and still be a good person? Give people the benefit of the doubt until they've really shown you otherwise, and then when do you need to maybe protect yourself?
Carrie Lingenfelter:Yeah, yeah, I love that. So I was going to shift into a different area. You had mentioned, good enough, parenting, and I love that term. I use that term with my podcasting too. It's okay, I'm going for a B level podcast here. We're just, we're doing, we're getting our message out there. What does it mean in the parenting setting?
Katie Turner:More of the research about good enough parenting is kids don't need perfect parents and there's no such thing. Right, there's not perfect people, but now I'm forgetting the researcher name on it. I'd have to look it up. But it's more about good enough is like we respond enough. It's about some of the research is about if you respond to about 30% of the cues or their wants for attention it's a relatively new generation that kids get the amount of adult attention.
Carrie Lingenfelter:Yeah, they do now.
Katie Turner:Okay.
Katie Turner:But I think it's about again and the work when I'm working with clients. I really want to break it down to be like I think it's a piece of as a parent or as a mom, like when your kid really needs you and you need to prioritize them. Yes, they're the center of your world, in the center of your little family solar system, but there's times where it's okay if they're a little bit anxious at school, but they're okay, you can finish up your workday and they can ride out the day and be a little uncomfortable.
Katie Turner:If it's dangerous and it's unsafe and it's traumatizing for them. That's a higher level of intensity and anxiety. That's okay, we got to do something about this and this needs to be addressed. If this is an unsafe, dangerous situation, we are not comfortable. This is really not good for them. Versus okay, they can handle this. If they're crying for us, it's usually our parent instinct almost knows this is more an emergency. They really need me to drop stuff. I might need to take that day off, work tomorrow. Other things versus this can actually wait. Or they're like bored and they can. I can finish making dinner and they can entertain themselves and if they want to wine, they can wine. I can set a limit here.
Carrie Lingenfelter:Yes, yes, I love that that's so perfect Cause, or perfect that's so wonderful Cause. We are trying to stress that perfection so often. So, yeah, what does it look like to increase presence, so switching gears when we're having the time to sit down and be engaged? What does that look like?
Katie Turner:yeah, I think it's really not. No phones, phones away, phones are a big one. Trying not to multitask, sometimes we have to because it's just modern day life is different than past generations too. Most families have less and less support. You usually don't have the same village, so I think it's doing it's going to be different for every situation, so I'm very careful of that. Like I don't have the same village, so I think it's doing it's going to be different for every situation, so I'm very careful of that.
Katie Turner:Like I don't want to shame anyone, or because it is conscious, parenting is also a privilege the resources you have the access to either financial support, actual practical support. I would be a far worse parent if I was in more survival mode and couldn't afford help or other things. I think it's. I don't want to dismiss that because what our, like our level of access and privilege is really going to dictate, like how can we take care of our nervous system? Are we sleeping enough? Are our basic needs met? That is all foundational to be regulated ourself.
Katie Turner:But I think, in terms of the present piece, it's more about like when are those moments that you can really connect with them? And I often talk with parents about if you can schedule your day around, like when your kids are more likely to open up, like a lot of research has shown, like dinner time, like rituals of connection, stuff are really important. So it's like, where are those family rituals where you do have that one-on-one time Like? Is it like bedtime routine, meals together when you can it may not be every day like morning routine? Um, kids and teens often they'll often open up more as they're going to bed, where it's like really inconvenient for parents. But if you can or if you have the flexibility, I try to say okay, if we can, within reason, schedule our own day and make spaces for this, because we can always get kids to open up when they don't want to, but then, right before they're going to go to bed, they're like oh, this happened at school and you're like okay finally yeah can we build that?
Katie Turner:into a bedtime routine then, so we have some chat time perfect.
Carrie Lingenfelter:I love that yeah it's so true when they finally feel comfortable and they've let everything from the day go.
Katie Turner:Yeah, someone would be like I gotta go.
Carrie Lingenfelter:It's time for a kiss now.
Katie Turner:Good night, we don't have time to talk about it now yeah, and sometimes it's just like active communication as they get older. It's not always about fixing. You can add even young ones. You can ask I think mine as young as four or five. I was with certain things. Some things I was like okay, I'm like I'm talking to the school or the daycare, this needs to be addressed. Other things I was like do you hear some things? You could try more peer stuff. That's just harmless, little kids figuring stuff out.
Katie Turner:It's okay, let's go over some ideas. Do you want me to talk to the teachers?
Carrie Lingenfelter:no, not yet. Okay, I won't, I don't have to right now.
Katie Turner:If it gets worse I might have to, but so you can. Kids can really kids and teens really do understand limits of confidentiality. I think you can have those conversations early on and continue them into teenage years because also former latchkey kid and I think, a lot of parents it's really cool to see a lot of parents doing things differently where they're like as my kids get older, I want them to come to me to still be the adult to still be like there's going to be times where I'm going to have to, might have to tell people, or or like we might have to get people involved here.
Katie Turner:It's not the like for me. Growing up, there was like the parents who were like friends with their kids and they did whatever and they were like the cool ones. And now, as an adult, I'm like, oh no, that's not. That seems so fun when you were a teenager, but not now. Or the other side, where it was like, okay, they don't know what's going on, like they're weird, like they're either strict or controlling or they're being lied to because it's not safe to actually tell them what's happening okay, or we just don't talk about this, and I think like, especially as you get into teenagehood, it's like I want that relationship with my daughter.
Katie Turner:I'm like I want you to come talk to me about whatever is going on. I want it to be safe, like it doesn't mean there won't be consequences, or like it doesn't mean I won't ever tell anyone else, but there's going to be limits of safety around that, because I want to help you navigate some of these decisions, especially when it gets more serious into teenage years, young adulthood, if it's like dating, sexual activity, drug use, and I think you can start that really young.
Katie Turner:Yeah, yeah Like the like not reacting, but being like okay, sometimes we need to do this, and here's what's going to happen but giving them some respect in the process.
Carrie Lingenfelter:Yes, yes, I love the not reacting piece too. That can be challenging at times, but, yeah, staying a more neutral party in it. Yeah, yeah, that was so helpful today. Katie, thank you so much for being here. I will include everything in the show notes and I have. I'll include your book. What was the title of it? Again?
Katie Turner:It's F, toxic Spirituality, and then my website also does. If people want to start connecting with their intuition, it has a free place on there so you can see what your dominant intuitive type might be. And then like, right now it's set up so there's like a free six week challenge Okay, some journal prompts so people can just because, again, it's like a muscle, the more you pay attention to it, the more it'll start opening up.
Carrie Lingenfelter:Perfect. I am going to check that out myself. That's wonderful. I'll include that in the show notes as well. For everyone. Thanks so much for being here today. Thanks for having me. Well, that's a wrap. Thanks so much for tuning in. Changemakers. This is Keri, and if you haven't done a review for us five stars and a little few words about what you've enjoyed in our podcast episodes, we would really appreciate it. If you guys would like to ever message me, I would love any questions you have or any feedback. At info at heart to heart lifecom, we also have a brand new website which we're super excited to share. It's hearttoheartlifecom. Thanks so much for tuning in and happy life, happy times. Changemaker families.