Parental Perfectionism

In this heartwarming episode, clinical social workers Heather and Kristina respond to a thoughtful question from a listener about the pressures of parental perfectionism. Together, they explore the impact of negative self-talk on parenting and offer practical strategies for managing disappointment while embracing our imperfections. They share the powerful reminder that making mistakes is part of being human and how these moments of misstep can help children learn empathy and resilience. They also discuss the role that societal expectations play in perfectionism and offer thoughtful ideas for how to redefine what success in parenting truly means. With a focus on the importance of community support and the wisdom of mentor parents, Heather and Kristina remind us that connection and presence with our children are far more important than striving for perfection. Full of personal stories, professional insights, and a lot of encouragement, this episode offers a refreshing perspective on the messy yet beautiful journey of parenting.

Gear Up! Adventures In Parenthood is recorded and edited by Dave Purnell and produced by Jen Plante Johnson for the ODC Network in Holland, Michigan.

The ODC Network is a non-profit organization that strives to advance outdoor education and conservation in West Michigan.

Since 2000, The ODC Network has served over a million people through hands-on, outdoor learning experiences and conserved thousands of acres of native habitat through restoration and preservation projects.

The ODC Network’s vision is building a better community by connecting people, land and nature. To learn more and get involved go to: www.odcnetwork.org.

Transcript

Kristina  00:00

Today, Heather and I are talking about perfectionism in parenting, something many of us feel pressured by, especially in the early years. A preschool parent reached out sharing fears about failing and not getting it right, despite their best efforts.

Heather  00:15

It's so easy for us to get caught up in thinking we need to be perfect. But the truth is, everyone messes up, and that's okay. It's part of the process. 

Kristina  00:25

Exactly. We can't be perfect parents, and that's an important lesson for our kids too. By owning our mistakes, we model resilience, empathy and self compassion.

Heather  00:37

And there's so much value in messing up in front of our kids. It normalizes failure and shows our kids that it's safe to try, even if things don't go perfectly.

Kristina  00:48

When those high expectations creep in, it helps to reframe our thinking and focus on connection, not perfection. And leaning on other parents for support can really help. 

Heather  01:00

Yes. Parenting is about being present, not perfect. We don't have to get everything right all the time. And we certainly don't have to do it alone. 

Kristina  01:08

Exactly. Today's conversation is a reminder that parenting is about connection, compassion and showing up for our kids, flaws and all. We're so glad you're here to talk about how we as parents can really give ourselves much more grace along the way.

Heather  

Welcome to Gear Up! Adventures In Parenthood.

Kristina

A podcast where we explore the struggles and challenges we all face as parents. We'll share ideas and offer tips and strategies for raising happy, healthy children. My name's Kristina Boersma

Heather

And I'm Heather Bouwman. Kristina and I are clinical social workers who've been working with families and children for a good long minute. We're Support Service Directors for the Early Childhood Network of ODC Network in Holland, Michigan. And we get to support parents and children as they navigate the tricky terrain of raising children and growing up in today's world.

Kristina

We're here to help unpack the hard stuff and connect with the joy of parenting. 

Heather

Are you ready? 

Kristina and Heather

Let's hit the trails.

Heather  

This project is made possible by the ODC Network, an amazing nonprofit organization based in Holland, Michigan, where we get to work supporting preschool aged students, their teachers and their parents.

Kristina  

The ODC Network is all about nurturing the community and the next generation through a wide variety of innovative nature-based initiatives.

Heather  

Please visit www.ODCNetwork.org to learn more about the ODC Network's mission and impact. Kristina, we have a question from one of our preschool parents who also listens to this podcast. I'm really excited about this. I'm so glad that she emailed and wanted to ask her question and gave us permission to share it. 

Kristina  03:07

We get tons of questions from parents, right? 

Heather  03:09

We do.

Kristina  03:10

And I love that. I love that. It's the piece of being part of the village.

Heather  03:16

Yes, being in it with them. Absolutely. So I'd love to read her question, and then we'll go through and we'll answer. She has three or four questions within this email, so I'm just gonna go ahead and begin by reading her email. 

Kristina  03:29

Yep, great. 

Heather  03:30

It says: "Hi, I'm in my fourth year of being an ODC preschool mom. I'm so grateful for what it's meant to my family. I've also enjoyed the parenting classes that I've been able to attend in person." That's really sweet. Thanks for saying that. So nice. We love our parents that come to our classes. "No surprise, I've loved the podcast this year. I'msomeone who learns constantly about parenting and also everything else in life, and I love all the information and perspective I can get. I woke up with a big thought this morning and wondered if you'd address it sometime in the podcast?"  Yay. We'd love to. Yes. "My idea is to address self talk or narratives in our mind when things don't actually go well in parenting. Parents my age get a lot of information, and I love it, but of course, we still fail sometimes."

Kristina  04:24

We all do.

Heather  04:25

"And I can often feel so disappointed in myself. I would love to hear the two of you address this, and I'm certain other parents in my generation would too. I love my kids so much, and I absorb so much parenting theory and advice, it's devastating to me when I can't do it as well as I wish, especially when it really matters. I know how to say sorry. I know how to course correct. I just need a good self talk about the big picture of parenting when I know I'll never be perfect, 

Kristina  05:01

Wow. This is such a vulnerable question. 

Heather  05:07

It is.

Kristina  05:08

 I applaud her for her bravery in asking, and it's something that we all-

Heather  05:16

deal with

Kristina  05:16

-experience. Yes. 

Heather  05:18

Absolutely. I think that's the first thing is: you are not alone. I think every single parent has felt this way. We all question these things. I didn't do that right.

Kristina  05:28

Have I seriously messed things up? So this mom asks really great questions, and she listed like, four different questions,

Heather  05:38

And we broke them out

Kristina  05:39

Yeah. And so we're going to answer those questions that she asked. 

Heather  05:42

Yeah. I'll start with the first one. We want to talk about, what are the positive sides to messing up sometimes. As a parent,

Kristina  05:50

Look for the good, baby. Look for the good. Messing up is something that we all do-

Heather  05:55

Parent and child-

Kristina  05:56

And will continue to do, so embracing it's pretty important

Heather  05:59

All humans.

Kristina  06:01

 Yes, no one is perfect. But what's the good side of messing up? It's good for our kids for a number of reasons. First of all, it gives them access to our humanity. 

Heather  06:13

Yes. Our human-ness. Yes, right? Like we're imperfect, yeah, and they didn't come with a manual.

Kristina  06:20

I remember. I have a vivid memory of when I recognized that my mom couldn't fix everything. I thought she could fix everything in the whole world. I thought my mom was always right. I thought everything she did was the best all of that. And I remember vividly when I recognized that that wasn't true anymore, and that kind of rushed your workshook my foundation. And it's not that she had intentionally sheltered me as her child from her humanity. It was because that's what you believe when you're a little kid. So messing up and acknowledging it and being able to say, "Whoa, that did not go the way I thought it was going to." It connects our children to our humanity. We are notperfect, and it allows them to experience some empathy for us, and it normalizes messing up. We all fail, sometimes. Things do not go as we planned, sometimes. But what are you going to do when that happens? We're going to hopefully own it and get back up, try again, make repair. 

Heather  07:35

Yeah, it's so true. It's I think I've said it to my kids forever and ever and ever: it's not that you fall right, it's how you rise. So we get back up.

Kristina  07:44

Yeah. And so when we mess up as parents and we acknowledge that with our kids, it demonstrates vulnerability, it demonstrates courage. It demonstrates that we don't have to be perfect. It demonstrates that we can mess up and still start again. It normalizes that, and it creates a safe place.

Heather  08:04

And I think it ultimately brings much greater security in the end, because the sky doesn't fall, the world keeps on spinning, because there will be things for us and for our children that feel like they are really big things in the moment. And then when we get a week out, two weeks out, a month out, and you look back, really wasn't that very as it was in that moment, it's that perspective, right?

Kristina  08:35

Yep. So one more thing. Well, a couple more things before we move on to our next question that I want to make sure that we cover is that messing up and being vulnerable with our children about that teaches them how to offer empathy and compassion and forgiveness if we need to ask their forgiveness for something

Heather  08:57

Which are really wonderful qualities and characteristics. 

Kristina  09:00

Yes, and they get to learn those things within their family first, right?

Heather  09:04

Before they go practice in the real world. 

Kristina  09:06

Yeah, and doing it keeps us humble, right? We are not perfect parents. We do not have all the answers. We are gonna muck it up. And at least what I've found with my daughter is she is incredibly gracious. 

Heather  09:20

Children are.

Kristina  09:21

Incredibly gracious and reassuring to me when I screw things up. Yeah, children are, and 

Heather  09:28

They love us.

Kristina  09:29

And it models resilience in the face of failures or mistakes. And we can even give voice to it for our younger ones. It's like you had talked about in a previous episode, about how you kind of narrate through life, and that helps our children gain their language skills and things like that. But even being able to say out loud like :"Ah, rats, that didn't go the way I thought it would, but that's okay."Or "That didn't turn out quite as I thought. I'll try again." And seeing those things out loud.

Heather  10:03

Because they're watching what we do in those moments. Yep. And it's like, are we going to cry? Are we going to crumble? Can we laugh about it? How do we rise?

Kristina  10:14

And you can cry or crumble, just don't stay there, right? Be like, I'm so disappointed, right through the tears. But I learned something. Every failure can be seen as an opportunity to learn. So it's like I didn't fail. I learned 27 new things, the 27 times it didn't work out right. So reframing that into the growth mindset. 

Heather  10:36

Not what did I do wrong? What will I do differently? 

Kristina  10:39

Right? What can I learn from this super important so to the mom who asked the question, what are the positive sides of messing up as a parent? There are a plenty.

Heather  10:51

Yes, and the real opportunity for growth, parent and child. And to demonstrate that for your child, the healthy normalizing of it is really, really good. 

Kristina  11:02

So the next question that this mom asks is: "How do we handle our own high expectations and perfectionism?"

Heather  11:11

That's one sentence, but it's such a huge question. 

Kristina  11:14

Oh my word, yes. 

Heather  11:14

So there's a lot here to really think about. And I think we begin best when we define what parental perfectionism is, and you've already said there's no perfect parent. Perfection doesn't even exist. It's unattainable. It is too high of a standard. It's not reachable, no. So it's understanding that number one. And I think defining it as trying to be the perfect parent while worrying about one's ability to be one is the really the best way to define parental perfectionism. We're sort of living in this I'm trying to be perfect while simultaneously knowing I can't be yes because no one can, which feels like a hamster on a wheel. And it is exhausting, right? 

Kristina  11:19

It is exhausting. And for me, the whole foundation of that is fear. Well, because if I mess up, what? 

Heather  12:18

Yes. And so there are two components to it. And the one is the exceedingly high expectations that are unrealistic, So demanding. Demanding goals. Demanding standards. And then two: the fear of failure. The fear of failure. And oh, when fear gets wrapped up into stuff, it feels really big and really cocky. 

Kristina  12:41

Yeah, it does. And I always think of fear as being this thing that keeps you kind of cramped and insane. You can't be free. No, too fearful of what might happen

Heather  12:53

And fear, the definition of it, is "significant and persistent worry about not achieving your goals" in this instance, likein regards to this perfection. So this fear is truly a failure, and to have significant and persistent worry that doesn't help us as parents, be our best. It feels so heavy to me, doesn't it to you, too? It feels just like we're slogging through when we have this persistent weight and pressure on us. So worry about not being good enough, doubting ourselves, wondering what we should have done differently, afraid to make mistakes, and fear that our children will not turn out the way we want because of something we've done.

Kristina  13:39

And one of the things that I've learned being a perfectionist myself is that for me, and I have apologized to my daughter for it, and I fully own it that has bled onto her, right? And even though I didn't intend it, because I don't want her to be perfectionistic. I don't want that for her life. Boy, those high, high standards that I have for myself and others is something like when she asked the question, how do I handle that? Yeah, that's a really good question, because we can say, Yeah, I know I'm a perfectionist, and I don't want to be anymore, and I want to not pass that on to my children. But how?

Heather  14:20

Yeah, it's so tricky. I want to go back to the high and demanding goals. Okay, good, because we have a society that pumps us with the beauty of all things in life and the perfect life, right? So it's our job to go back to what we want in our foundations, what do we want to teach? What do we want to live into? So the high and demanding goals part of the parental perfectionism can land either on the parent or the child. Like always wanting as a parent to be at the top of our game. Always demanding that we're in a good mood. That everybody's happy. That is not realistic life to do all the nice things. My mother almost loses her mind that at times I use paper plates. I'm gonna say that differently. Lots of times I use paper plates. She thinks they're straight from the devil. Yeah, like, she just doesn't like it. And I, I set one on fire in my microwave the other day because it was a really pretty Christmas one, and it had that metallic in it, yeah, literally caught fire, oops. And then I still ate the food. And my husband was like,"That had to be toxic." Well, real life, I was hungry, and the food didn't catch on fire, just that little plate, slide it off onto a different one. 

Kristina  15:42

Oh, my word. 

Heather  15:43

So you can see this perfectionism thing I gave up on a long time ago.

Kristina  15:49

Yes.Yyeah, yeah, yeah. 

Heather  15:50

But that's the reality is that we're pumped all the time with the beautiful table settings. My family meals, if we had potatoes, they were eating out of a pot. Yep, it wasn't a glass crystal, anything.

Kristina  16:04

In your family growing up, or in your family now?

Heather  16:07

Now.

Kristina  16:07

Yeah, but what about your family growing up?

Heather  16:09

Um, no, we ate them out of the pot then too. But if it was like Sunday dinner or a holiday, ooh, it was like, get out the fine china, like we're doing all that. Yeah, nope, the fine china is in a box that has been passed down for generations on a shelf continue to be in the storage room. Like, if we use a hard plate, it's a good day, folks, yep, and we could trip ourselves up on that stuff, yeah, with even, like decorations for holidays, right? We just came through Christmas and that it has to be so perfect. And we want the perfect food and the perfect home and the perfect Christmas card photos. It robs our joy of being present for so many moments. 

Kristina  16:52

It does. And the quest is so deceptive, because you can be lulled into believing it's possible, and it's not.

Heather  17:03

No. It makes me think of like food commercials when you know they have the perfect stack of pancakes, but you see the behind the scenes, and that's not syrup, it's motor oil. Yes, it's thicker. Yes, it's like, these are two things that are the same. These are homemade pancakes and these are TV pancakes. Yes, this one tastes good. This one is inedible because it has motor oil. It's toxic. It's the same thing, right? It's reminding ourselves that so much of what is put in front of us isn't actual, real life, and that we shouldn't try to achieve it.

Kristina  17:40

Yeah, completely agree. So how do we manage? 

Heather  17:45

Well, let's talk about, what are some of the signs that someone is perfectionistic? Walk us through like, what does that look like?

Kristina  17:53

Just like you had said, we set unrealistically high expectations for ourselves and for others. We are very quick to find fault. I have been accused of being negative, and I'm really not. I'm like this eternal optimist, like my husband, he'd be like chin on the floor when he hears me say this, because I'm incredibly optimistic, but I am a critical thinker, and I'm critical of errors. I expect excellence.

Heather  18:24

Yeah, and that partly is because of your temperament, right? We're both idealists. We both love to grow people. We really are constantly growing ourselves. My husband will say to me, "Sometimes I think you're too hard on Ava." Oh, yeah, she trains, she competes, yeah, I find that so interesting, but I have to listen to him, right? He knows me better than anyone. He's in my company, probably more than anyone else. And if he's saying that to me, he's saying it for a reason, so then I really have to be like, "Huh? I wonder what it is?" And I'll ask him, "So what is it that you feel like is too harsh?" And he's like, "You just have really high expectations." And the thing that I have to remind myself is: she already sets high expectations herself. I don't need to up the ante. 

Kristina  19:16

No, you're right. So we perfectionists, right? Have exceedingly high, unreachably high expectations for ourselves and for others. We tend to be pretty critical of mistakes. We can procrastinate on stuff because we fear failure. So it can be hard to start things or try new things because we might not be good at it.

Heather  19:40

You know what else we're not very good at? 

Kristina  19:42

Tell me.

Heather  19:43

Receiving compliments.

Kristina  19:44

Amen sister well 

Heather  19:46

Or it just feels uncomfortable, right?

Kristina  19:47

Right. I absolutely agree. And perfectionists aren't great at celebrating their achievements. I remember you had to, like, drag me to graduation when we graduated with our masters because I'm like, "It's not that big of a deal." And you were like, "No, we are celebrating this accomplishment." Perfectionists don't tend to focus on or even enjoy celebrating their accomplishments, because in their minds, many times, they could have done better.

Heather  20:19

Even with this podcast, people will say, I don't know if they say it to you sometimes, like, "Yeah, they have their own podcast." Not about you and I, they're talking about someone else. And every once in a while, I'm like, "Huh. So do we." Yeah, I don't even really think about it, because we're just doing it right? And it's just us. It's just us doing this, and it's not a big deal. I don't think anything of it until somebody else says it about someone else. And I think, "Oh. Huh. So do we."

Kristina  20:46

And when you're a super high achiever and you don't try things that you're not going to be good at, and you've never had to really face, I mean, I think every play or musical I tried out for, I got the part that I tried out for tricky. Every job I've ever applied for, I've gotten.

Heather  21:01

Me too. Played sports. Made the team. Started. It was easy, right, right. High School? Never really had to study. Guess what? Got to college. Had to study. That was a learning curve. And that's the discomfort right? Where all of a sudden it was like, oh, everything else just kind of always fell into place. And I really have to work at this now. Because I hadn't really had to work at it before.

Kristina  21:30

Yeah. And that can be kind of a crisis of identity.

Heather  21:33

Yeah. Because I was like, "Oh, am I broken? Why is this so hard for me? Am I not smart?" 

Kristina  21:38

Yep. All right. So now that we've gotten all into our perfectionistic selves, we've got to talk about the question that she asked: how do we manage it?

Heather  21:48

How do we manage it? How do we manage it? Yeah, we have to recognize it first and foremost. 

Kristina  21:53

Girl, a good old consciousness raising. 

Heather  21:55

Absolutely. And what that means is we bring it to the forefront of our consciousness. And when someone brings it to our attention, like my sweet husband, who probably is gonna dip his toe very gently into that and be like, is this gonna land or is it gonna go off like a bomb, right? I think we're all kind of like that. And to be able to say, Okay, if he's telling me this, or if it's somebody else telling us, that we don't just get defensive, we're able to take a look at it and pick that up and assess.

Kristina  22:28

We need to be aware right? When that perfectionism rears its ugly head. And intentionally reframe it. 

Heather  22:35

And so we have to find what works for us. What is going to pull us back to reality and get us out of that headspace.

Kristina  22:44

Practicing saying things like, "that's good enough." 

Heather  22:46

"I'm gonna be done with that now. This is no longer serving me well." And sometimes it's being able to say "I tried it,and by gosh, I'm really proud of myself. Didn't go as I thought it was going to, but I tried, and at least I stepped up to the plate I got in the game." I didn't just not ever try, because I was fearful that it wouldn't be perfect.

Kristina  23:12

 Yep. Well, and I think as perfectionists, we need to be aware that we can get into this all or nothing, all or nothing, kind of mindset. And instead, we need to intentionally shift ourselves to reasonable time, reasonable effort, not it has to be done 100% or don't even bother.

Heather  23:36

Right. We gave it our best go, and now we're gonna be done. We're gonna lay it down. I know, for me personally, and I think this is so true for so many people, is that we suffer in silence. As parents. there are things that we're going to wonder, like, Did we really mess that up? Is my child going to bear the brunt of that decision, or of how we did that, or whatever it might be, those things are very real feelings. But I think we can trick ourselves that we're the only ones feeling that way. And this is where you go back to your village. You lean on that village, and you go there. You get vulnerable, you have honest conversations, and when you create that space where you can be honest and truthful and vulnerable, what I've always found and always observed is that somebody else is always feeling the exact same way. They're carrying the exact same worry, or they're worrying about something that might be slightly different but with the same intensity. And there's real power in not feeling like you're the only one, but so often that suffering happens in silence and alone because

Kristina  24:58

we want. To have this social media life,

Heather  25:02

yes, where every perfection, yes, yes, great.

Kristina  25:05

And life's a carnival and everything else, and that's just not life. 

Heather  25:10

Nope, there will be days there will. Mama said there'd be days like this. And sometimes I'm like, “Oh, she didn't say there'd be a lot of days like she said there would be some days, but there are a lot of days like this. I saw something recently Simon Sinek, who is a great leadership speaker, and he was telling a story about one of his really good friends reaching out to him when she was having a really hard day and they hadn't connected because the text that she sent him only said, Hey, do you want to hang out tonight? And he was so upset that he had just missed this, because he's like, how did I know that that text was you sort of crying out for help? Yeah? Because it sounds just like, Hey, you want to get together. Yay, you got some extra time. Been a long time. Yeah, yeah. And so he was like, we need to come up with a way to cue each other that this is an SOS like, I need you type of thing. And so she had read somewhere. His friend had read, and this is him telling the story that eight minutes is all that it takes eight minutes of time from another friend to not feel alone in a moment of stress, in a moment of need. So the two of them eight minutes we can all step out of our lives, wherever we are, for eight minutes. And I think this is really important to remind our kids of too This was friend to friend. This could also be parent to child, because it's the exact same concept. It's being able to have someone devote eight minutes to your moment of need, and to be able to hear it and just be present for it. I never really got that. Do you remember when people started saying, Do you have time to hold that space? Yes. I was like, what does that mean? Do you have time to hold space for this? I was like, I don't know what that means. This is what it means being able to for eight minutes hold the space of I'm going to be present, fully present, fully present for what my friend or my child or my spouse needs right now. Not going to give advice. Nope, I'm going to listen. Yep, I'm going to be kind of a passive participant, but actively listening, yes, fully present, yep, not giving advice, not solving problems, just being there. So they came up with the code. Their code is, now, do you have eight minutes and then they know, oh, this is a time of stress and a moment of need, right? 

Kristina  27:58

One of those conversations that I need to have, I need to know I'm not alone. 

Heather  28:01

And  we can step out of a meeting for eight minutes. We can leave our work day for eight minutes. We can pull alongside the road,

Kristina  28:09

Or we could say, “I need eight minutes.” Sometimes today great doesn't have to be this moment, but I do need eight minutes. 

Heather  28:17

Yeah, you have to be able to say what you need, and then knowing, you know, going back to the vulnerability, the ability to be vulnerable, and not that you're going to be that way with every person, certainly not right, right, especially if you're an introvert, because that's hard. But there are the people that hopefully we have in our village that we can say, you got eight minutes.

Kristina  28:41

Yeah, Mama down. And I need to know I'm not alone. Hey, listeners, we're so grateful to be part of your village. If these conversations and episodes have been impactful to you, we deeply appreciate your support to continue doing the work we love so much for such an amazing nonprofit organization, please visit www.GearUp-podcast.com to make a tax deductible contribution. Thank you. So I thought this was super cool. My mom actually had like a mentor mother. I love this. I do too, and my mom was a mentor mother to other younger mothers. Say what that means? Yeah, so this is how I have understood it in my life. This is how I kind of view it as this mentor mother is somebody in your life that you really look up to as a parent. You look up to the way that they have lived out their values, you really look up to the way that they engage with and have relationships with their children, and it's somebody that you can go to who's just a little further along

Heather  29:54

Maybe 10 years, like they've been there, yeah.

Kristina  29:58

Recently enough, right? You. And to be able to go to them and say, Can I come to you as a mentor? Will you help me think these things through? 

Heather  30:07

Yeah. Can I tap into your expertise, and your lived experience, right?

Kristina  30:11

Because you had said earlier, you know, sometimes something happens and it's a really big deal, but, like, a few years down the road, you think that was not a big deal, and that mentor parent can offer reassurance, they can help you see, like, oh, that's going to be okay, right? That felt like a big deal. Really big, right? Now that's not going to feel so big down the line. And again, our village is so important. I think that mentor parent can be part of our village. If there's somebody that you have or that we find in our lives who we really look up to in that way, and can bounce ideas off of can go and say, Man, oh, man, did I screw it up today. It's another really valuable piece. 

Heather  30:59

It  is, and it brings great comfort. I know with the learning issues that my kids, some of them, Zack especially, getting through high school, was getting through school, just he did not like it, and to be able to say to other parents, oh, that was my boy, too. And guess what? Yeah, he's on the other side of it. Don't stress too much over it. Don't lose too much of your life to that, because we have to remember that in the hard such amazing skills develop. And that's the thing that I see with my Zack, that he came out so strong because of some of that adversity, yeah, and he's so skilled in so many ways that serve him so well in life.

Kristina  31:46

Heather, I don't know if anybody else needed to hear that today, but I did. Oh, yeah. Oh, baby, straight. We're all crying straight to the heart. Oh, seriously, there we go.

Heather  32:02

Okay, mentor parents, they're a treasure. 

Kristina

They are a treasure. 

Heather

Get yourself one.

Kristina  32:09

So I think our mother had one more question. 

Heather  32:14

So the next question she had was: When I do what the experts say, and things still hit the fan. What? Then? What then? Yes.

Kristina  32:24

Well, in this mom, I really appreciate her. She is a super intentional parent. She loves learning. She seeks out information on how to-

Heather  32:37

She's us, let's be honest. Yes, she is, and we really appreciate, I mean, she really isn't in real life, but it's very much how we went through our parenting journey, right?

Kristina  32:46

And she's looking for those experts, and, boy, they're everywhere, and what they tell us is discrepant, right? Yeah, it's like, W”ell, you said to do this, but you said to do this, and now I don't have no idea what to do.”

Heather  32:58

What's good in one minute is not good in the next, or for your child-

Kristina  33:02

Isn't necessarily good for my child, all those things. So one of the things to remember when you've followed what the experts have said and things still hit the fan, is to remember progress over perfection. Always we're making progress, even if that progress is holy moly, I'm not going to do that again.

Heather  33:25

And we tend to in our minds when we make a shift, think it's because we've reconciled it in our mind and we've imposed some sort of something for change. We think it's going to happen immediately, and it does not.

Kristina  33:43

Does not. It gets worse.

Heather  33:48

Oftentimes, when we make a change, because it rocks the whole system right, all of a sudden there's a shift, and everybody feels that, so everybody's trying to realign. And so oftentimes it does get worse before it gets better. But then also, we are not very good at recognizing little growth. We want something to be eliminated, right? Because we made a change, and that's not how it works. And we have to remind teachers of this all the time. As we build skills, it's like, oh, but this growth occurred, and this growth occurred, and this that's huge growth.

Kristina  34:28

Yep. And again, going back to are we making progress? We are making progress

Heather  34:33

Recognizing that every step of the way, and if stuff hits the fan, what do we always say?

Kristina  34:37

Get back to the basics. Wipe yourself off, get on up and try it again, yeah, and go check out the basics. How's your attachment? How are they sleeping? What are they eating? How much time outside? How much time and technology? Are they hydrated? Because sometimes things hit the fan, many times, because one of our basics is kind of out of whack. So get back to your basics. Give yourself permission to really know it's not always going to go well, and I am wary of people that call themselves experts,

Heather  35:13

Yeah, because we can't adequately prepare for everything, there just isn't an answer for everything, no.

Kristina  35:19

And you can't be all knowing of every situation and every circumstance and every individual.

Heather  35:24

Can I tell a little story about Ava and her horse that happened over the summer? I'd love you to do that, hopefully this will illustrate how we can't be prepared for every situation. Ava competes. It was a terribly windy day. It was an outside competition. She's in the arena. I think it was the second to the last event she had done really, really well. She was really feeling good about where her standing was. Like I said, it was a terribly windy day. I don't know if you know anything about horses, they don't love wind. It just they feel it on their bodies. They hear it. It just puts them, spooks them a little bit it does. And when horses are in numbers, they respond to everything around them, much like children. I'm amazed at the similarities between the two. So she's out there, she's in a pack of horses. They're all competing in this arena, and a huge wind gust comes, and she is towards the back, maybe second or third, but in a group of about 12 or 15 horses, two hats, cowboy hats fly off the riders and competitors ahead of her. One hits her horse straight on the nose, on the nose, yeah, bounces off. Another one hits his leg. At this moment, they're all in the pack, and I see her, he spooks. I see her feet out of stirrups, and I think, oh, and my husband and I are watching this, and I say, her feet are out of stirrups. She's gonna go, she's gonna go. She's not gonna stay in that saddle. Yep, she stayed in the saddle. She recovered. But the whole crowd was just like, yeah, because it was and so then again, horses react to that, because the energy has just gone money, and the riders ahead of her have lost their hats. They're looking, where's my hat? Horses are trying to maneuver around the stuff. She gets them back under control. She comes out. I can see the tears. I can see nothing she could have done. It was nature. It was the wind, right? And I say to her, remarkable number one, you stayed in that saddle. Number two, you got that horse under control, and she's losing it. Well, I don't know if you know anything about horses, but when the rider is dysregulated, you also have a dysregulated horse, yeah, because a horse can feel a fly on its tiny and when you're on that horse, and you're, you know, over 100 pounds, and you're in a saddle, that's a lot of weight on a horse, and when your body tenses, they feel they feel it huge, because They can feel something as tiny as a fly. So I say to her, I hear you. That was really hard. You did remarkable. I want you to breathe. And people are approaching her saying, that was amazing, blah, blah, blah, and she can't even hear, right? She can't even hear in this moment because she's fighting back the tears. And eventually, as we got over to the trailer, it came out and it was loud and it was, you know, she's very emotional. And so I said to her, “I want you to get off your horse.” And she said, “No, I needed to.” And I said, “These are the choices: get off the horse, and I will get on him, or you take him and walk him out. He can't have you on him like this.” And she did. I was like, do your breathing? Calm down? Yeah. And so she did, and I took him and just put his head, because he's completely dysregulated, and she's breathing. I'm like, “Just breathe.” I take his head against my chest, and you don't know how heavy a horse's head is until it's on your chest. And what he does is he goes, and I look at her, because to anybody in horse world, that's a release, yeah? It's like his version of a deep breath, yeah? And I look at her, and she was like, “Dang it, my mom was right.” And I don't know anything about horses, but I knew that. Because, again, it's almost the same as humans. We all need to just go sometimes and release it right? And to pause and to realize we in those moments when our kids can't she couldn't have done anything differently. She didn't do anything wrong, but she was in the midst of a bad situation. And in those moments, are we going to be like “you better not get disqualified” because she went too. Handed in her reigns, so she got D cubed. Yep, it was terrible. Yeah. So she got totally. D cubed. She knew it was coming, but she had to do what she had to do. And so as a parent, I just had to say to her, your horse is your priority. Get back to your central nervous system regulated. We're gonna let that fall away. Yep, think that's a good lesson in life. 

Kristina  40:14

Yeah, it is. So when things hit the fan, guiding your child through that, remaining the captain of the ship, and honestly, sometimes you just gotta laugh. And I'm not talking about the situation with Ava and Atlas, you've handled that beautifully, obviously. But sometimes when stuff goes kerpluie and it hits the fan, sometimes you just have to laugh.

Heather  40:39

Yeah, laughter is a huge stress reliever. 

Kristina  40:44

Yes, this mom asks one more question, yes, and boy, when I read this question, I really hear her vulnerability. It's a big question, and it says: What will save our family and keep us connected knowing that we won't always get the techniques right?

Heather  41:03

Yeah, children are so wonderful because they love their parents implicitly, like it's just they love them and they're so gracious. And when we screw it up, like you said about grace, it's okay, mommy, it's okay. Yeah, they're so willing to move on and give grace. And it goes back to they see all of what we do. They see us build those foundations. They've been spectators to all of that. Yeah, so you rely on your foundation, sturdy as that foundation, right?

Kristina  41:44

Getting back to the foundations, yeah, like reaffirming those things and and I think the other thing we do, and that kind of saves our families, even though there's going to be trouble and difficulty and we're going to screw things up, is being part of that village, right? That it's not just our family that messed this up. It's like we're in a community, a village of many other families, and we all screw it up sometimes, and kids make mistakes, and we all can just love each other. So holding firm to your foundations and being in community with that village normalizes so much of it.

Heather  42:22

And if you've grown up in a home where there were wildly high expectations, it becomes a commitment to break that cycle, to see and recognize the dysfunction in it, yes, and say, I want to do it differently. And even if it's us and it's like, this is not healthy. I don't want to do this to my children. It's being able to recognize it and say, ”I won't do this.”

Kristina  42:49

And understand that that's not comfortable, right? Recognizing that and then saying, “I'm going to do it differently.” Because the fiber of your being wants to do it the way you've always done it, and it wants to be perfect.

Heather  43:03

And sometimes we just have to zoom out of our own life. 

Kristina

Oh, Ain't that the truth. 

Heather

Zoom out of our own life and think, Okay, if I had a friend that was feeling this way and saying, How do I know? How do I know that my kids are going to remain connected? What would you tell them? Yeah, sometimes we need to be our own best friend, and we need to be able to zoom out and be like, I have done good things, and they will hold true. Our kids are going to be who they're going to be. We cannot control them, right? We cannot control another human being. All that we can do is trust that we gave at our best. We've taught them well. 

Kristina  43:44

Our children know they are loved and unconditionally

Heather  43:48

Yes and that will carry them.

Kristina  43:51

I'm so grateful that this mom, who we really admire, reached out with these questions, and that she was willing to have us share our responses to the questions that she had. What an honor. Yeah, and I mean, it's helped me, right? And if it helps somebody else, that's a beautiful thing, too.

Heather  44:13

One of the really beautiful things about having that village is considering how our friends see our children, it can be such a good reminder. One thing that our friends did for us was take opportunities to share with us what they appreciated about our kids. Oh, boy and man, would the world be such a wonderful place if everybody did that for each other, to just call out, hey, you've got a great kid. I noticed the other day when I had 12 inches of snow in my driveway, they came and they shoveled my walk, or they did this, or they're always so friendly we pass in the drive or on the road and they're waving like crazy, just those little things. Uh, to say, I got to interact with your child, yeah. And it was so cool, what a great kid. Because if we did that more for each other,

Kristina  45:12

Oh, yeah, the world would be a different place. And that is one of the ways we can zoom back out, and get a different perspective on our child, on our own child, because we're in it.

Heather  45:23

We're in the grind. Yep. And when you get those nuggets from your friends, it is like, write that down, put that on the calendar, put it in the gratitude journal, because I'm gonna go back and be reminded that so and so sad. Oh, what a great kid. 

Kristina  45:44

Yeah, the other thing to put in that journal or on your calendar is, even if it's, you know, little growth, small steps, write it down, baby, because it matters, and we celebrate those things. And when it can feel like we're stuck in the same place. We've been in the same place forever. 

Heather  46:03

You can look back and remind yourself that often time before huge leaps, we regress a bit. Remind yourself of that growth is coming, the big leap is coming. Write that right in there, so that that too is a reminder that's just kind of always playing in your head.

Kristina  46:21

I think one of the things that is helpful for us to remember is that we don't need to be an expert in parenting, no, to be a remarkable parent, that we don't have to always do it right, to have amazing children and a great relationship with them. Really, when it comes down to it, we need to be and we get to be with them, with them, yes, in the mess, in the struggle, in the weeds, we get to be with them. Get to be their lighthouse. Yes, and you're in it together, so reminding yourself that I don't have to get it all right all the time presents. Just be present and connected with my kid. Yes, winning. 

Kristina 

Thank you so much for joining us for Gear Up! Adventures In Parenthood. I'm Kristina.

Heather  

And I'm Heather. And we're so grateful to join you on your parenting journey, until next time…

Heather and Kristina

See you on the trails!

Kristina  

The Gear Up! Adventures In Parenthood podcast is brought to you by the ODC Network in Holland, Michigan. It is produced by Jen Plante Johnson, recorded and edited by Dave Purnell, with original theme music by Dave Purnell,

Heather  

The ODC Network is a nonprofit organization that strives to advance outdoor education and conservation in West Michigan.

Kristina  

Since 2000 the ODC network has served over a million people through hands on outdoor learning experiences and conserved thousands of acres of native habitat through restoration and preservation projects.

Heather 

The ODC Network’s vision is building a better community by connecting people, land and nature. To learn more and get involved, go to www.ODCNetwork.org.