Fostering Stronger Relationships with Our Teenage Kids

Exploring the intricate relationship between parenting and business with Braxton Storm, LCSW, founder of Calm the Storm LLC.

Kaila & Braxton discuss the importance of emotional regulation, setting boundaries, and fostering autonomy in children, particularly teenagers. Braxton emphasizes the need for collaboration in parenting, the significance of modeling behavior, and the power of repair in relationships. The conversation also touches on the evolving role of fathers in parenting and the challenges of transitioning between work and home life.

Takeaways

• Parents need to balance autonomy with boundaries for their teenagers.
• Collaboration with children in setting boundaries fosters better relationships.
• Modeling emotional regulation is crucial for teaching kids how to manage their emotions.
• Repairing relationships after conflicts is essential for healthy family dynamics.
• Empathy and ownership in parenting lead to more responsible children.
• Transitioning from work to home requires closing open thought loops.
• Dads are increasingly taking active roles in parenting, challenging traditional stereotypes.
• Preventative measures in parenting are more effective than reactive ones.
• Children learn better through questioning rather than being told what to do.
• The emotional needs of children are as important as their physical needs. 

ABOUT BRAXTON STORM

Braxton Storm is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and owner of Calm The Storm LLC, a private practice in Henderson, Nevada. With over seven years of experience, he specializes in helping children, teens, and their parents overcome both past and present barriers to create healthy, lasting relationships with themselves and others.

In addition to individual therapy, Braxton has been featured on multiple parenting podcasts and has developed an eight-week, parent-centered course that empowers parents to:

•Recognize how their current behaviors impact their children

•Understand the deeper roots of those behaviors

•Learn practical strategies to heal and strengthen their relationships

Braxton’s work extends beyond the therapy room. Through his fast-growing social media platform—reaching thousands of parents weekly—he shares relatable stories, practical tips, and strategies for fostering connection and resilience in families. His engaging content and real-life examples help parents feel understood, supported, and equipped to navigate the challenges of raising children in today’s world.

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LINKS

@Braxton_Storm on Instagram

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Transcript

0:02

oxytocin is a neurochemical that all of us have. the connection chemical. oxytocin between a mom and a child is released when they're physically close and emotionally close. you feel connected in that way. For fathers, we feel more connection with our children when we're playing. research shows that like 10 minutes of undivided attention builds lasting relationships with children, which is crazy. 10 minutes, most of us spend hours. But in a way we still beat ourselves up, right? Welcome back to the Bringing Up Business podcast, where we talk about business and parenting. You are in the right place if you are a parent and want to be a business owner, or you're already doing both, but you want to level up or at least find a little more balance, whatever that means. Today's episode is a very special treat because we are going to talk about something that deeply affects us in business, but seemingly has nothing to do with it. special team. We have other special that we have with our kids. If you have a preteen or a teenager, then you probably already understand how important this is. But if you have a younger kid, how our kids interact with us can leave lasting effects on us that bleed over into our work. Today's guest can probably also highlight at least 15 other reasons why this is important, because he specializes in helping teenagers and their parents. His name is Braxton Storm, a licensed clinical social worker. He is also owner of Calm the Storm LLC, a private practice in Henderson, Nevada. Braxton, I'm so glad you could join us today and welcome to the show. Thank you so much, Kaila, I really appreciate you having me on. This is going to be great. yeah, yeah, I'm looking forward, too, and honestly, selfishly, I've been wanting this episode to happen because I've got a little guy, as you know, he's almost three years old. And I've got, I don't know if you know this, but I have three goals for him. My first goal is to just keep him alive. It's a pretty low bar, but uh if I've kept him alive for the day then I've done my job, My second goal is to... oh be able to raise him into a capable adult, someone who can handle himself and be able to go after what he wants, right, reasonably and respectfully, and also live in relationship with other people. That seems to be a really important part of business and our personal lives. So that's my second goal for him is to raise him into a capable adult. And my third goal is to be able to feel connected and close with him when he's older and vice versa. want him to be able to come to me if he needs anything or you know, I just want that relationship to be close. yeah, I want this. I want this episode to happen. here let's do it Yeah, yeah. So let's first dive into the common struggles that parents seem to face with their teenagers. what are issues that you have noticed? You know, I think that's a really good question. To answer that, I think we need to understand that the role of a parent, especially a teenager, but in the child's life over just generations has changed, right? Just purely based on technology and access. So teenagers, what I find is that they want autonomy, right? That's like number one for pre-teens and teenagers. They're starting to get into that adult mode a little bit. And what I find is that parents are very hesitant. to allow that to happen, right? So we want a lot of control and it's not control in terms of like, we wanna make our kids feel bad, but we're just really scared of decisions that they might make. And so we try to mitigate everything, right? Like if we can mitigate pain for our kids, then that helps us as parents to feel safer. But what kids really do need, teenagers in specific, is they need to be able to learn, right? They need to be able to use their autonomy in ways that are... not so helpful and helpful to them so that they can experience life, right? Because that's the best preparation for adulthood. And so that's probably the number one challenge is how do we balance autonomy with boundaries as parents, right? How do we maintain connection while also setting up boundaries for them? And the illustration I like to use is like, I say this to parents, if you were a bowling alley, you guys as parents would be the bumpers and your child would be the ball, right? In life it's the, The lane. And the ball is going to go down regardless and you as parents don't have to handle the ball, right? The bumpers aren't like on the ball all the time. But when the ball bumps against the bumper, right? That's the boundary of a parent, right? That's, it's okay to have those, right? So for example, you might say uh to a child, just the example that comes to mind is like, You can hang out with so-and-so and so-and-so at this, you know, this day, but you don't have to dictate exactly what they do or where they're at or all the different things. But like, you can just set up boundaries, right? For food, you can say, hey, like, you can choose, you know, one thing out of the five things that we have on the plate today or whatever, right? Like, instead of controlling everything and making sure that, really, because that's, we want to feel better as parents, but it's not helpful. Right. So what does that boundary setting look like in practice? How does that work? Do you just tell the kid what you want and then the kid's just going to follow it and all as dandy? how does that work? Well, that's the balance, It's like kids want autonomy. So it's a child's job to push boundaries and it's our job to uphold them, right? So that relationship, we call that misbehavior, but really that's a healthy relationship developmentally. If children are pushing boundaries and we're not upholding them, that's where we get into trouble. That makes sense. Absolutely, that makes sense. So we might be misconstruing the boundary pushing, which is the child's job. That's what they're supposed to be doing as misbehavior. What can it look like to uphold a boundary in a way that works with the kid, right? Like, do we need their buy-in or how does that work? I think collaboration is always helpful, right? So I talked a lot about this on my social media platforms. When we collaborate with kids instead of dictating what they do, then it's much more helpful. like you said, buy in. When you're setting up boundaries, You're the gatekeeper of boundaries, but it doesn't mean that you can't collaborate with your kids in creating them, right? So you could say something like, hey, something that we value as parents or as a family is whatever, honesty, rests, whatever, right? What do you think would be an appropriate boundary in our family for you as a child as it relates to this topic, right? So for example, we believe that we need to get adequate rest. You want to go to bed at 12 o'clock. We think you should go to bed at nine o'clock. What do you think about like meeting in the middle somewhere, right? And that doesn't always mean that everything has to be a collaboration, right? Like we don't walk in the road. Like that's not a, that's not a boundary or like something that's negotiable. We just don't do that. But most things can be negotiated, can be collaborated with. that's so interesting. It's so interesting to hear the word negotiation when it comes to boundary setting. Because I think of, as a parent of a small one, I think of negotiation as this unfortunate thing that now I have to deal with as a parent. Like I just want my kid to put on his shoes and get out the door. I don't wanna negotiate. this whole business deal with my kid in order to get from A to Z. So there seems to be a bit of a reframe with negotiation as more of a collaboration, right? It's having our kids be a part of that safe boundary setting process. Am I understanding that correctly? I think so, yeah. And it's always easier to be preventative instead of reactive. So meaning what that means is like with the shoe situation, I run into this all the time. We're running late, we're busy, right? We need to get out the door. I did very little to prepare my kids for the demand of the rush, right? But now I am like expecting them to just like fall in line and do all the things. Sometimes that's needed, like we said, but really we got to own the fact that like we probably procrastinated getting ready. Right? And so we can't expect like our little child's mind to adapt to an adult's need, right? Like we need them to get ready, but they're not even there, right? Like, so we got to own that. We might be late, right? But it's not their fault because they didn't get on their shoes most of the time. It's usually like, we probably didn't prepare them, right? We didn't, we didn't talk to them about it. We didn't let them know what the schedule was. We didn't, you know, whatever it is. Right, right. There has to be some sort of a transition for our kid. Yeah, yeah. What I've been practicing, I mean, you tell me what you think about this. What I've been practicing with my toddler is, hey, in five minutes, we're going to start getting ready to go to grandma's house or whatever it is, right? Like, you know, maybe, I don't think he understands time and I don't know when he will start to understand the concept of time, but. my saying that seems to kind of help? I mean, do you have any other tips for how to better transition our kids? No, that's what's recommended. That's what I do, right? With the little kids that I have. My oldest now is to the point, in particular, it was difficult with watching shows or movies. whenever, like we have a time limit on how much they can watch and whenever it get to that time at first, we would just beg, okay, it's time to turn off the TV. And that was extremely difficult, right? Because it was like now, right? We have to do it now. And they weren't prepared for it. So what we started to do is like, hey, you have 10 minutes. 8 minutes, you 5 minutes, 8, you know, 2 minutes to have it turn off. And that just goes better, right? Because they understand, maybe they don't have a concept of time, but they understand that it's running out. Right, right, we're kind of walking them into the next step instead of expecting them to just jump into the next thing, which, know, right. with a jump, that's extremely difficult for us as adults. That's hard. was just thinking that, yeah, even as adults, it's so crazy because as parents, uh we can default into thinking that our kids who have lived a fraction of our lifespan can be at the same level as us. And yet even as adults, we still struggle too next. usually struggle with the same things, it's just the adult version. Ooh, say that again. We usually struggle with the same things. That's just the adult version. Yeah. that. I mean, if you think about like, with negotiations, if you have a boss that just bosses you around and tells you what to do, you're likely not going to stay, right? But if your child has a hard time with you bossing them around, that's misbehavior. Ooh, ooh. We are just like, okay, now we're like cracking into these societal norms a bit, right? so say for example, we're at the grocery store and we see someone who's having a hard time with their kid, like their kid is having a moment, right? And you I've been that parent where my kid is having a moment in public and I'm so worried about other people judging me or... looking down on me, looking down on my kid saying, he's a bad kid, quote unquote, bad kid. But in reality, these kids are just developing and being kids, having their moments. Yeah. And I mean, we have to realize, like, children, especially younger children, like you had mentioned before, like, their brain isn't even close to fully developing, right? But usually, like, when there's an eruption, it's hard for parents, at least the parents that I have worked with, it's hard for them to keep their cool. And we say things like, you're making me do this, or you're making me mad, it's an externalized reason why I'm doing this. It's not actually the case. Usually it's like you're triggered, right, and you're choosing or you don't even have a choice sometimes, you just haven't healed enough and so now we're just reacting, right? But again, like we have to model what we want our kids to do, right? In the grocery store, if we lose it, when they lose it, they're gonna lose it, right? Right, right. So thinking if we're in that moment, say our kid is grinding our gears and we're about to explode or maybe we have already exploded, what is the most conducive way to handle that for the relationship? How do we deal? So I think I'll answer that by saying what's not helpful first. I think sometimes we want to extinguish our child's behavior first, right? So we're heightened, they're heightened. And we want, we say things like calm down, go to your room, whatever. Again, something that's not modeled is very hard to sustain. So with your child, if you're in a heated argument or tantrum or something, you might say something like mommy or daddy is feeling mad. I need to take a break, right? Or mommy and daddy are just having a hard time in this conversation. I need to cool myself down, right? And you can let them know what you're going to do, right? That's awesome. If you can verbalize, like, I'm going to go outside for a second. I'm going to go get a glass of water. I'm going to go, you know, to the bathroom, whatever. Demonstrate for them and verbalize to them what you're going to do to calm down. Sometimes like, timeouts are helpful in terms of like you individually take your time out so you might just say like hey I think we all need to take a break right we need a timeout for a second that can that can also help to like separate and then come back together you never want your heated nothing logical is gonna resonate there Yeah, yeah, my husband and I figured that out many years ago. It just doesn't work. So it's about catching ourselves first and saying, I'm starting to feel, I feel this tightness in my chest. I feel this warmth in my head. I'm starting to lose it. And then figuring out a way to verbalize that to our kid and say, hey, look. I am starting to feel out of control. I'm starting to feel upset, whatever that is. I need a moment. I need to take a break. Yeah, yeah. is there, are there different ways to say that to kids at different ages? I mean, does that, how does that shift? That's a great question. So a couple thoughts on this one. The reason I start with parents is because you need to model something like if you're not able to do the thing you're asking your child to do, it's very rare that they're going to continue doing it. So I have a lot of parents who bring their kid in and say, hey, like I want you to work with Zoe, for example, and she has emotion regulation issues. Usually the first thing I say if they call me is I'll see you and your spouse in the first session. And they're always like, what? Like, Zoe is the issue, right? She's the one that has problems. And what I find is that the same problems that Zoe has, right, the same issues with emotion regulation are just really like, they're just translated through the parents, right? The parents have the same issue. And so if we work with parents first, then children, 90 % of child behavior, misbehavior, changes and adapts when parents work on themselves, right? It's crazy. So if we're able to recognize what we're feeling as parents, like you said, like, I'm feeling warm, or I can tell that I'm about to explode. If we can slow down enough and get to a space where we're recognizing that, that's golden, right? I mean, that's amazing. Because then you're in charge of the trajectory of this interaction, right? You can leave. You can take a break. And then you're modeling for them, right? And then when you come back, you can help them, right? You can say, hey, Zoe, I noticed that your face was really red when we in your fist work clenching, were about to throw the toy. What do you think you were feeling? you don't know? Okay, let's talk about emotions, emotion 101. What are emotions? How do they feel? What do they look like? What are the names of emotions? And then a redo might be followed up with, if we were to redo what just happened, could you just tell me what you were feeling and I can tell you what I was feeling and maybe we could do something. Maybe we could tell each other that we're gonna take a break. Let's redo it. Whoa, this is, it's enlightening. It's equally enlightening and also just so foreign. This is a completely new idea. At least for me, I definitely did not learn this back in the 90s. mean, there was just explosion, explosion happened, everybody's upset and then that's it. You move on to the next part of life. Yeah, yeah. Now, How does, so if we don't, if we don't catch it in the moment, right? Say we're upset, we're about to explode, but we just don't catch that nearing of the edge and we end up going over the edge with our kid, then what? Is it too late? Have we damaged our kid forever or what happens then? I love that question. So here's the thing, right? Like we can talk about skills and strategies and like the ideal, but the truth is we're human and we're going to make mistakes. I was just talking to a dad the other day that said like, you know, and I know the stuff, I know how to do it and I still mess up, right? And that's the beauty of parenting is that it really like, yes, you're going to mess up and your child actually needs to see you mess up. But what comes next is really crucial and that's called repair. Dr. Becky Kennedy in her book, Good Inside, talks about this. And it's crucial. Every relationship, this is just an example, but if you had a friendship or maybe a parental figure who did some really terrible stuff, never repaired with you, just kind of hurt your feelings, really made you feel down. But years later, they came to you and they said, you know what, for the last 40 years, I've thought about that interaction or those interactions with you. And I have put in some work, right? Like I went to therapy and I really have changed the way that I see life and myself. I've learned to regulate myself. And I just want you to know, like that was not your fault. Number one. Number two, this is what I'm going to do differently next time. If you give me a chance. Number three, like I'm just really sorry. Who wouldn't be like, gosh, like, yeah, let's do this. Right? Like we want that. We want connection. We want to feel seen. And so the beauty of parenting is that you can repair, right? No matter what, I mean, there's some extenuating circumstances that are harder to overcome. For most parents, the yelling or screaming or, you know, big loud emotions and stuff like all of that can be repaired through, right? It's vulnerable. It's difficult for parents to do that, but we can totally repair with our kids. Ooh, it's the allowance to be human that makes me so uncomfortable, but it's also so comforting. It's this really weird dichotomy of like, wait, I don't have to be a robot? That's kind of nice. But also I'm so used to being a robot. Like how do we, you know, how do we live in this new world? Yeah, yeah, it's definitely challenging. I can also see that translating very well into work. for watching. if we're running our business, we have a team working for us and we come off a little harsh with a directive or we respond in a funky way to someone else, right? They come to us and they do something and we get upset by it. Now we're all riled up. Well, we still have the chance to repair on the backend. And I can imagine too, you're going to somebody, you're saying,"I'm sorry." It's really hard for them to stay upset with you. Right, especially if you've put in the work, right? Especially if you've like recognized what you did and made a plan to do something different, right? And being able to express that, like that's security, right? That's safety. And the key of repair isn't like, we sometimes say to our kids like, sorry means you never do it again. I don't know if that's true, right? You're going to make mistakes. I think sorry means that you make a plan and you actively try to achieve the plan imperfectly. Right? So I think that's a key part of repairing and being sincere. Yeah, yeah, making that plan. it sounds thoughtful, right? You've actually put thought into the future of that relationship. You're thinking, okay, this is how I can avoid hurting this person again. And this is what I'm going to verbalize to them. And what's nice about that too is by vocalizing your plan, you can maybe possibly invite collaboration too with the other person. That's it, right? I mean, we're trying to model the behavior we want from our children. So if we're wanting them to apologize faster and recognize what they're doing and recognize, you know, have empathy for the impact on others and all of those things, we better be doing that ourselves, as parents. Ooh, ooh, that makes sense. So, say we're at the playground with our kid and our kid does something really funky to somebody else. How do we walk our kid into repairing that and fixing what they've just done? I have little kids and we've ran into this before. generally the ideal might be that you take your child and just go sit down where you're sitting and walk through with them what they experienced just now. Like my son, tell me what happened. I saw something, that kid's crying, can you walk me through what happened? And then usually when they walk you through what happened, you can follow up with like, what do you think would make that better? Again, teaching them problem solving skills, teaching them empathy, helping them to have that collaboration with you and autonomy, right? Okay, well, like if you think that going and apologizing and inviting them to play with you in a safe way is the best option, like, are you gonna do it? Like, how could we do this? How can I support you, right? You want me to hold your hand as we walk over there? Okay, let's do it. Wow, what I'm hearing from you is more questioning and less telling. So it's more, hey, how do we do this thing? What do you think about instead of just telling the kid, hey, go say you're sorry to the other kid? Yeah, because you're not when you say go do this, right? Obviously, again, we're imperfect. I'm not saying you're never going to you should never say that. But when we do say those things, that's forceful, right? So when we force kids to do something, it's the same thing as if someone forced us to do something like we're not generally going to learn anything. We're not like I try to teach parents and remind myself like through my parenting, what skills are being developed. Or am I just controlling behavior? Because controlling behavior doesn't generally work. But if I can teach them skills in a variety of settings, then that's going to last longer. That's becoming someone. And so just being forced to do something. Right, right. And I'm seeing a parallel between parenting and leadership at work. And with the parenting, here you and I are talking about how to form these questions so that our kids can develop a skill set and eventually be more self-sufficient, right? At work with our team, we can practice that in a similar way. Obviously, at work, it's less behavioral. We're not focused on that as much. Hopefully, hopefully not. But we're more so saying, hey, I have this project. This is the end goal. How do you think we can get there? And by that, now we're inviting this synergy, this dance with us and our team member. I can also see that giving them a sense of ownership and empowerment too. Yeah, you want to get their buy in. Right, right. There's that word, buy in. If you, I mean, if you look at companies just globally, like the shift from like the normal eight to five, like Sydney office type of a thing that's shifting overall, right? You see a lot of, a lot more creativity, a lot more autonomy, a lot more buy-in. One example is like Google, right? I've never been on a Google campus before, but I've, I've heard how cool it is, right? Like how relaxed the environment is and how creative it is. And some people might criticize that and say, well, like, maybe they're not learning X, Y, or Z. But Google is a pretty successful company, and most people who work there love their job. And they're invested in it because they feel a part of it, not just like they're being told or forced to do so. Right, right, right. It's like setting this blank canvas and allowing the artist, allowing the team member to work their magic. Yeah, very cool. So earlier we were talking about transitions and how that can affect our mood, our kids' mood, and how we go from A to Z. I have noticed Personally, when I transition from work mode to parent mode, I do this multiple times a day because I have a weird desk schedule. But when I transition from work mode to personal mode, I have a really hard time going into mom mode and saying, okay, I've got to stop thinking about all of the work stuff. Now it's time for my kid and to pay attention to him. So. Do you have any ideas, tips for how that transition could be a bit more smooth? So I mean, that's a common thing for most people, most professionals. My office is 30 minutes from my house. So when I go home, it's like I got three minutes to transition into dad mode. But what I found, I was listening to a podcast the other day, and someone suggested that when we have a hard time transitioning, it's because we have open thought loops. Meaning, if we haven't closed out the day, right? Or at least, answered the unknowns, then it's really hard to transition into something else. So what I've done is like made a plan, usually like midday, like kind of do checkpoints throughout the day of like, okay, like what am I trying to accomplish today? And then answer like the unknown. like, okay, if I can't do this and I can't do that, like, what's the plan for it? Right? Well, I'll do it tomorrow. Okay. So like everything has an answer. And then if it doesn't have an answer, like it must, like that's just something for later. And so when I transition into home, like I can be 100 % there because everything at work had an answer. Ooh, I love that. it doesn't mean it's done, but it has an answer. Like, yeah, there's some sort of plan there. Oh, I love that. That reminds me of the zero inbox method. My VA taught me this and she helped reorganize my entire email inbox earlier this year. So what you do is you create different folders. One is for delegating, one is for do it later, and then the rest are just like delete junk, get rid of. They don't need to exist in your brain, right? So what we could be doing to transition from work mode to personal mode is create a zero inbox method So just like how I go through all of my emails and I say, can I answer this right now? Nope, I can't, I've got to do that later. can this be delegated? that's gonna go in the... the delegation box so that ultimately my inbox is at zero and now I just have folders that are delegated to and allocated to. With my tasks, I could be doing the same thing. So it's like, hey, this task doesn't need to be done during my personal time. In fact, I don't want it to be done during my personal time. So this is what's gonna happen. I'm either gonna get to it this afternoon or tomorrow or whenever I'm gonna delegate it or... Maybe it's just not that important and doesn't need to be done at all so it can go. I think that's a really key part, at least for me, that's been successful. But it's not always easy, right? Again, like, we're not aiming for perfection. The transition generally is hard from work to home, but there are things that make it a little bit easier for sure. Yeah, yeah. Thank you for sharing your insight on that. So. we had last spoken, it was just you and I, one on one offline, you had mentioned a Pew Research Center report in 2013 that states, men spend three times more time caring for their children now compared to 1965. what is the highlight of this research report? What makes it so significant? as it applies to our family life and our business life, you know, what is, what are we finding here? I think a couple of things. One, I think that men in general are starting to prioritize family, right? Which is awesome because the research also backs the need for a father figure in the home. And so I think that that's probably number one. Number two, I would say that fathers and children are starting to connect more, right? And we're, as a father is vulnerable, there's like nothing more powerful than seeing a father engage. in healthy way with their children, right? And from the child's perspective, it's the same. so fathers in general have a harder time connecting and being vulnerable. But when you do, like that feeling of connection is really what, in my experience, every dad has ever wanted. And so they're starting to see the reward of that connection with their children. Two, think from a business perspective, we're probably starting to recognize that when things are We used to think like if things go well at work, then naturally like I'm helping my family, right? But I think it's reversed. Like when we're connected at home, the drive for success in other areas, I think is amplified. That's been my experience. It's just like you do way better at work, especially like, you know, for entrepreneurs and things like the drive after feeling connected to what's most important. I think it's important. That is wild to think about because from my perspective as a female, seems like for males, historically, it's go out and hunt and that is the source of value for being a man. But now we're kind of flipping this on its head and saying, well, wait a second, if we are connected at home, we can actually go out and hunt more. that is so fascinating. What do you think about that? I love it. think that for me, you know, speaking for just myself, when things are going well at home, right, like me and my spouse are on the same page and my kids and I feel connected, it's much more motivating to go do the things that I'm passionate about because I have a purpose, right? It's not just to make money or to, you know, something like external. It's like that deep internal connection that I have with myself and with my family. And it's like us doing the thing, right? Like, I think that that's... That really just makes the difference for fathers in general, but probably parents and business owners. okay, say if you're, you're, you're a father, you have a full-time business. takes up your, your entire day and you've worked your entire day. Now you get home and you have, you know, X amount of minutes to spend with your kids before they go to bed. know, how, for, for, for that sort of a schedule, how can a father relate with his family and connect with his family? What are some ideas or strategies? So it's interesting, specifically for dads, oxytocin is a neurochemical that all of us have. And we felt like the connection chemical. So oxytocin between a mom and a child is released when they're physically close and emotionally close. So when you feel connected in that way. For fathers, it's when we're playing. So we feel more connection with our children when we're playing. So that doesn't mean that you have to like play all the time, right? There's other research that shows that like 10 minutes of undivided attention builds lasting relationships with children, which is crazy. 10 minutes, most of us spend hours. But in a way we still beat ourselves up, right? But usually what I do like last night, I run a full-time business and I get home. We usually eat dinner, do something like that. And then like... We just play, right? Like have fun. That doesn't mean you play all the time. That doesn't mean you have to do all the things. But show your kids you're 100 % there, right? And do what's comfortable to you, given your emotional and physical stamina at the end of the day. But just show them you're there, right? You can do whatever's comfortable. again, kind of going back to our previous conversation, like are we 100 % to the places we are? So it's play, it's spending that undivided attention. And play may not mean play catch, right? Go out to the backyard and play catch. It could look like hanging out with your kid while your kid is putting a puzzle together. I don't know, right? What are some examples of play? I have some social media content revolving around bedtimes. Like, I think sometimes we're at the end of our rope, but if we just like can get to a place where we can enjoy that experience at bedtime, there's like some of the most rewarding conversations, especially as your kids get older, that I've had with my oldest during that bedtime phase, like. we're just sitting on the couch like we just read a book and he's like hey dad can I talk to you about whatever you know like that was something that wouldn't have happened earlier in the day when his siblings and everyone you know where it's chaotic but I think connecting with your kid looks a lot of different ways and social media doesn't help right like there's a lot of expectation but just being there right like whatever that looks like in your family just be there show up That is so relieving because you mentioned earlier, we spent hours and hours with our kid and we still beat ourselves up. And I definitely, I definitely experienced that where I have a five hour block where it's, I keep the kid alive. Like that's my, my turn to keep the kid alive. And a lot of times in that block, there are other things that have to get done. We got to keep the household running. We got to. I don't know, go shopping for the birthday gift or the whatever. Like life has to keep going too. And so it's keeping the kid alive on top of the things. And I do feel bad sometimes when my kid comes up to me is like, hey, can we, can you play with me? Can we play trains or whatever it is that he wants to do? And I'm just like, "not right now, not right now." And so it's like, sometimes I grapple with, okay, should I capitalize on those moments where he wants to play with me and he asks me for play or is it okay to say not right now? Like what is the balance there? So my wife's really good at this. And I do the opposite. I ask them if they want me to play with them. And my wife always says, kids need to play with themselves and with other kids as well. So she always suggests waiting until they come to you. Let them be themselves. And when they need something, let them come and ask you. Now, if you can't do it in that moment, maybe instead of saying, "I can't right now," you might say something like, "hey, give me five minutes." Again, like. going back to those thought loops, right? Like, let me close up whatever's doing or put a pause to it so I can transition effectively. Because then you become resentful if it's like, you're always asking and I'm always in the middle of something. Like, let me close it up, right? Let me stop chopping the thing or let me finish the call I'm on. And then after that, I can, again, be fully with you, right? And that doesn't mean you're fully with them for 10 hours. Be with them and then say, hey, I'll play with you for 10 minutes and then mommy's got to go do something, right? That's beautiful. Thank you for that guidance on how to rephrase. And ultimately zooming out, that is the kindest thing to do, which is being honest with our kid. I've got to take five more minutes to wrap up this thing, close this thought loop. We don't have to say that, but that's what's happening in order to be fully present with you and give you my 100 % attention. So I love that. I love that. Well, that all said, let's go ahead and dive into a quick lightning round. So first, what prompted you to start your practice? So I never wanted to be a therapist. I just had a mentor in my master's program who kind of asked me to sit down on the session and that really drove the rest of my career. And then as a kid, I grew up in foster care, so stable parents wasn't something I was accustomed to, but I was very passionate about having being the dad that I wanted, wanted, right, as a kid and helping other parents to do the same. It's beautiful, it's beautiful. What would your advice be to someone who wants to start their own practice? That's a good question. One, get a mentor. Get someone that can walk you through things. I love doing that for up and coming business owners, practice owners. But I just kind of learned everything on my own, right? And like ask questions as I could. And it's a lot easier just to have someone there that can help walk you through. What has been your biggest business win so far? ah I would probably say that right now in my career, I'm really satisfied with where we're at. ah I'm doing a lot more speaking arrangements and things like that. And that's kind of what I'm really passionate about. It's like spreading my message out to a wider audience. And I'm finally getting there. took years to get to this point, but it's really cool to be where I'm at. You did that. You did that. What has been your biggest challenge so far? I would say that the biggest challenge of owning your own business, especially for a sole provider is that exact thing, right? Like it's all on you. No one's going to save you from it. Right? Like you don't, if you get fired from your company, it's because you, didn't do something right. Like it's, it's on you. So, uh, I think just like keeping, like you said, keeping your kid alive, keeping the business alive and keeping it thriving takes a lot of effort, right? And takes a lot of energy. and that growth period is really difficult, but ah it's definitely worth it. How do you think you're able to grow despite the challenge of growth? What did you do to grow your business? I mean, I use this word a lot. I didn't use to like this word, but like it's a hustle, right? Like you got to run and you got to, you just got to tap doors and, and open opportunities, right? Like I was just talking to someone the other day, like I've cold emailed and called so many people to get opportunities, right? And that's like, that creates stuff, right? Like the squeaky wheel gets the grease kind of a thing. Um, yeah. That's not always comfortable for a lot of people to put yourself out there. Social media was not something that I wanted to do. I just started in July. But it's, I should clarify, it something I wanted to do, but I was so uncomfortable with it. But now doing that, I should have so many opportunities to connect with wonderful people, including you, through social media. Do the thing that is most uncomfortable, and it usually will yield positive results. I'm surprised that you just, I'll say just started your social media endeavors because your social media is, it's juicy. You have a lot of content and a lot of engagement. You're crushing it. Yeah, I'm trying. mean, not all reels are the same, but we try our best. Absolutely. And have there been any marketing strategies that you've tried that are just flopping? They didn't work for you and your business. you know what, I will say that I've been pretty lucky in terms of the therapy, like doing individual and group therapy. Um, that's never really been a struggle to get clients. Um, I would say that now like kind of getting into like a broader audience. it's just hard. Like you to connect with the right people, right? And not, not all people are receptive to your message nor does everyone want to talk to you about what you're doing. Um, but that's just kind of part of it. Yeah, yeah, ultimately, and what is your dream for your business and for your family? I think that my dream for my business is to be able to get to a point where I can take my family, because therapy is pretty confidential, but if I was doing more speaking arrangements and had a broader audience, taking my family to those things, I think that would be so fun. I've been at a couple of times to conferences I speak at and it's just, I want this to be a family affair for sure. So cool. Braxton, where can people find you if they have any questions or maybe they're seeking therapy? Yeah, so on Instagram, I have an Instagram @braxton_storm, or underscore storm, and then commonstormllc@gmail.com. Happy to consult or you can reach me there. Amazing. Thank you so much for your time today sharing all of your wisdom. I am feeling inspired as a mom particularly because now I feel like I have more tools to do this job at least a little bit better, whatever that means. Thank you for having me on,