Episode 329: Parenting With Confidence Without Messing Up Your Kids with Wendy Snyder

What happens when you know the old “because I said so” parenting style isn’t healthy…but you also don’t want to raise entitled little tyrants? In this episode, parenting coach Wendy Snyder joins us for a deeply practical, heartfelt, (and hilariously honest) conversation about strong-willed kids, emotional regulation, yelling, boundaries, anxiety, and what healthy authority actually looks like in family life. Together, we unpack the difference between authoritarian, permissive, and powerful parenting—and why so many parents swing wildly between all three. From power struggles and picky eaters to shame spirals and unmet emotional needs, this episode is packed with compassionate, evidence-based wisdom that will leave you feeling both challenged and hopeful. If you’ve ever wondered how to parent with confidence without fear, guilt, or constant battles, this conversation is for you.

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LINKS MENTIONED: 

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Transcript

Sheila
All right. So you want to parent your kids well, but you don't want to repeat the same mistakes your parents did. What do we do when we know that spanking doesn't work? And requiring instant obedience can be a problem long term, but you don't want to turn the other direction and just be a total pushover. That's what we're going to talk about today on the Bare Marriage podcast.
 
I'm Sheila Wray Gregoire from baremarriage.com where we like to talk about healthy, evidence based biblical advice for your sex life and your marriage and all of that, kind of has repercussions on your parenting, too. So we have an amazing parenting coach and author to talk to us today, Wendy Snyder, who's been on the podcast several times, and I'm so excited to bring her to you.
 
Before we do that, just a special shout out and thank all the people who make what we do possible, our Patreons and those who donate to the Good Fruit Faith initiative of the Bosko Foundation. That's what allows us to do our research, to get our stuff in peer reviewed journals, to do our translation work. And you'll be hearing more about what we're doing in Spanish coming up pretty soon, and more, so if you want to join our patron for as little as $5 a month, you get access to our incredible Facebook group.
 
Or if you have some money that you want a tax-deductible receipt for, please consider giving to the Good Fruit Faith initiative of the Bosko Foundation, and you can find more in the podcast notes. And now, without further ado, here is our interview with Wendy.
 
Okay people, we are so thrilled to have Wendy Snyder, our favorite parenting person from Fresh Start Families, on the podcast. Wendy. Hello.
 
Wendy
Hello ladies. Thank you for having me today. I'm so happy to be here.
 
Sheila
We are trying to figure out if this is 3 or 4. We think it's your fourth time here.
 
Wendy
Oh, and what an honor.
 
Sheila
People have just really related to so much of what you've said and but yeah, different ways of doing parenting and rethinking how we're doing parenting and you. Your new book is out next week. It is officially here.
 
Wendy
It is officially here, ladies, I get to be in the Author Club now. I have, I know, cheered you guys on through many of your books that you've put out. And this is fun. This is fun to put your body of work into pages and get it into the reader's hands. So I'm excited to be here and talk about this new book.
 
Sheila
I'm going to do a test for you. Okay. Do you know what your subtitle is? So the title is Fresh Start Your Family. Right. Do you know your subtitle? Because I can never remember any of mine.
 
Rebecca
We don't know any of our subtitles.
 
Wendy
Are you kidding me?
 
Rebecca
No, we can't remember them.
 
Wendy
Powerful Parenting to Restore Peace in Your Home, I have really? I used to refer to my body of work as positive parenting. And now I've really just settled into the term powerful parenting. Because I feel like it really represents well what we do here, because we help parents step into true power, a power over system which is pseudo power.
 
It's not sustainable. And yeah, it's actually weaker in the end. So true power comes through relationships. It comes through connection and compassion, empathy, firm kindness, all those types of things. And that's what really puts you in a position where you can influence people in your life with dignity and respect, instead of power over systems or tools or ways of being right.
 
Rebecca
And I like the power mentality, because my biggest gripe with a lot of the way the parents have talked about online is that when we use words like, like a lot of the very accurate and correct gentle parenting vernacular can often feel like you're supposed to do permissive parenting because it sounds so soft, instead of it being something that is firm and kind while also soft.
 
Yes. And so I like the differentiation, I like it.
 
Wendy
I knew you would
 
Sheila
Now we're going to jump in. Becca's got a bunch of questions here for you, and we're trying to focus on some new things today because we've had you on several other times. But before we jump into that, I just want to get some definitions down. Yes. Because I think that's really important. So when we're rethinking parenting, we have tended to see parenting in one of two ways, right?
 
Either you are an authoritarian parent where it's about power over. So I'm the parent. You do what I say, you listen,
 
Rebecca
or else
 
Sheila
or else, right? Or you're like, oh, my sweet little baby. You know, I'm not going to have any boundaries. I just want to see you happy, which is permissive parenting. And we're not we're not going for either of those. We are going, what are we going for, Wendy?
 
Wendy
We're going for democratic firm and kind parenting. And so that means there are going to be very strong boundaries. Many of the people in our community are really working joyfully. We say we've really replaced hard work with joyful work over the years. They are working joyfully to really be firm around some very strong boundaries, like helmets are an example, tech boundaries are an example.
 
Whereas a lot of people in their community have seen this happen and roll out in my own kid’s communities with friends, most people are not having very strong boundaries, in my opinion, around the things that really matter. So we are proud. We try to use the data to drive the more like the firmest parts of our work. But yeah, we are very, very firm in our boundaries.
 
So there are very strong boundaries, but there's limits with the connection and the explanations. So we really help parents dissent from those belief systems that a kid should just do what they're told because we're the boss. You don't question authority, right? Like it's just not the way it works. And especially the strong-willed kids, who a lot of the people we support, have at least one strong-willed child.
 
They just don't accept that very well. But when you educate them and when you see educating them, even if that takes telling a small human seven, 17, 27 times that, that's when it actually sticks and the life lessons becomes sustainable long term versus the instant obedience, or just having them submit because they're scared of you, or they're scared of a consequence happening.
 
Sheila
Now. One thing that I really appreciate with your work is you're saying that a lot of the changes that we need to make, our understanding, our own triggers and our own, the reason that we that we panic when our kids aren't obeying. And you said this really early in the book that that the narrative that we have and I remember having this narrative, I totally had this narrative that a misbehaving child is a bad child and therefore I am a bad or failing parent.
 
Wendy
I mean, I think most of us still have that paradigm. Yeah, right. Yeah.
 
It clicks in fast, right? And that is why you are more likely like if you really look at your patterns and your behavior, if you're in the grocery store and someone's watching you and like, not smiling, right? Like I try to if I'm in Target or the grocery store or say to a mom, you're doing a great job or a dad, hey, you're doing a great job.
 
I see you, right? Especially if I see them staying compassionate and patient. But a lot of times, if we see that person looking at us like the fire just, and then we're more likely to grab the wrist and speak through our teeth and tell them if they don't freaking listen right now, they're going to get some like it just you can tell it rises when you have an audience.
 
I do, I think I write in the book, you write a book for two years and then you also teach to thousands of students. You forget what you write and what you don't. But one of my worst moments as a parent was, I was my kids fighting in a field, literally like a farmer's field. We used to go get our stuff every week from our farmer Ryan.
 
I was picking flowers. It was like so peaceful, and I was practicing my tools. And one of the tools that we teach in section four of the book is to teach kids how to fight fairly, versus to teach them to stop fighting. Right? To expect children not to fight like that is beautifully setting kids up for knowing how to do peaceful conflict resolution in the world, which is so important.
 
But so they're out there, they're bickering as I'm cutting my flowers, and I'm kind of just doing my work. I'm pausing. I'm. I'm Wendy, it's not a four-alarm fire. They're going to work it out. They have sticks, you know, and they're probably like eight and five at the time. And I'm doing okay. You know, I'm like, these kids are annoying right now, but like, it's okay. It's not. They're literally in the middle of a field. Like, this is the perfect place to practice letting them work it out. And then I looked over and there's this couple. And they had they must have had a house in the back property down the long driveway. And they were sitting there with their arms crossed, just staring at my kids.
 
And I looked at them and I was like, oh, hi. They just have no smile. And oh my gosh, I was so triggered. I spun into get in the car now, I was so mad at them. And then I literally like, I don't tell these stories that I tell in the book with like pride. I tell them to help people feel less alone.
 
But I kicked my daughter out of the car. She's a drummer. I pulled up to the school of Rock and I was like, get out now! I was a teacher by this point, guys. I was a teacher of this work, and I was like, get out now, through gritted teeth. That's what I inherited. Is this like, if you say it like this, it's not as bad, right?
 
And she was like, mom, I'm sorry. And I blamed her because she's the oldest, like all the classic stuff. And I was like, shaking. But I promise you, you guys, it's because there was an audience, right? Like it just made it worse. So it just goes to show you that, yes, we inherit these belief systems. And it's not only just from our parents because I know you did a great job parenting, Sheila.
 
It is from culture. It is from culture. Right? Like it is just this, this concept of you need to have control of your kids. And if a kid is having an outward expression of unhappiness or not being perfect, you know, we know that the high control religious stuff really ingrained this in so many humans. But man, it's, we get to swim upstream against that and learn how to dissent from those belief systems, because a misbehaving child actually equals a communicating child, equals an empowered parent who can use firm and kind connection based tools to solve conflict, to dissolve challenges, and to teach important life lessons with dignity and grace.
 
Sheila
Yeah, I love that. Okay. One more clarification before I turn it over to Becca for questions. What is our aim, Wendy? Because I think the aim that many parents have in the in the short term is I need kids who will obey me right now. But as a parent, that's not actually what we're aiming for, right? Like, what is our ultimate aim as a parent?
 
Wendy
Yeah, the ultimate aim, in my opinion, is long term, sustainable, intrinsic motivation, intrinsic self-control, being aligned with your moral compass and your values and the way God designed you to be, which I believe for every human being is loving, kind, compassionate, empathetic, smart, powerful, right? Like we want our children to learn how to do life without us needing to air quotes, Make them. And when you have an instant obedience model, it runs on a power over system. So the way the child becomes conditioned to behave, the reason why they behave is because they are scared something bad is going to happen to them if they don't, right? And so not only is it often physical or mental, right? Mental would be like, I'm so disappointed in you or shame on you.
 
What's wrong with you? Physical is obviously corporal punishment, hitting, flicking all those things. We have many chakras, I've recently heard in the Hispanic community is like the sandal way to hit. But then there's spirituality which is like God so disappointed in you or I'm hitting and harming you because God told me to, and we just don't want our kids to be doing the right thing in the world because of those reasons.
 
We want them to be doing the right thing in the world because they know who they are and they have the skills of how to. It's really easy to make a kid feel bad about their mistakes, but really, in our world, that's just a mistaken belief that you have to make a child feel worse in order to make them behave better.
 
It takes more effort and intention and courage to teach them how. So here's how you keep your hands to yourself when you're having a disagreement with your sister. Here's how you still do your homework or clean up your bedroom, even though to you it doesn't matter. And to me it does. Here's how you move through the emotion of hurt or anger in a way that respects yourself and others.
 
Instead of rolling your eyes at me or being disrespectful. Right? Like all these examples. But we really, when we focus on the life skill of teaching, of how the how to it just creates kids that are like very intrinsically motivated to do to do good in the world and also to stand up against systems of injustice. And that's another huge thing that I would add to this, is I want to raise children who understand that no is not a bad word, that have the courage to see that conflict is just a part of life.
 
It is not a four-alarm fire, and we all have the ability as human beings to approach conflict respectfully. But when you grow up in an autocratic home, conflict is dangerous, right? If you make a mistake or if there's conflict, like, yikes, it's so gnarly. There are all different forms of gnarly, but it's yucky. No one wants it. Don't do it. But when you grow up in a powerful parenting system where there's democratic, firm and kind parenting, where there's connection, where there's respect, where there's compassionate discipline, you realize all conflict, you can actually resolve it. It might be uncomfortable, yes, but I have so many examples of where either students or kids or my own kids or even myself now, at 49 years old, after doing this work for 15 years, realize it's okay. This is uncomfortable, but I'm going to address it with this person and we're going to talk it out. We're going to figure it out, and then we'll come to a solution. So we teach kids to win conflict resolution, peaceful conflict resolution. So those are some of the long-term goals.
 
And what's fun ladies is that and I know you experience this too Sheila, because you've got a full-grown kid and you really were like an og of this work before this whole industry existed. It sounds like this is really the way you parented, but to have Stella now be 18, to be practicing there for this for 15 years, and to see all of it come to fruition is so beautiful because for so many years this was just an experiment.
 
I'm like, am I drinking Kool-Aid? God, are you sure that I should tell the teacher, like, we're not going to turn in this homework packet? Perfectly done. Like there were just so many moments where I'm like, oh God, like, what am I doing? What if the kid grows up to be an entitled brat? What if they blah blah blah?
 
But no, she's 18 years old. She heads off to college here that next fall, this strong will of hers that, thank God, this body of work and so many mentors taught me to nurture and build up instead of break. I mean, everybody and their uncle when she was three years old, when I was trying to figure out what to do with this kid, just hit her.
 
Here's the Christian book air quotes, Christian book that'll teach you how to get a stick or a switch from your backyard. Don't be afraid to show her who's boss. Make sure you break her will early. Thank God, we didn't do that. God brought in this work. She was three years old again. Now she's 18 and she was able to use that strong will to attain her life’s dream of becoming a Division one beach volleyball player in a college that's ranked in the top ten in the nation, and becoming a Division one athlete in general, is a feat that less than 1% of high school athletes attain.
 
But it's just one example of how sitting at this place in my career and my motherhood journey, it's just fun to get to tell people, man, you can trust it, it works and it is the direct opposition or it is the direct opposite, I should say, of instant obedience.
 
Rebecca
Now, that actually is a perfect segue into the first question I wanted to ask you, which is, you know, we talk a lot about how one of the reasons why, like authoritative parenting or power parenting, whatever we want to call it, often feel so scary to people is that you don't get the instant obedience. Yeah. So it feels like you're doing it wrong for a while.
 
-So my question is, what timeline is actually normal to expect to see changes in behavior? Like at what point should parents who are trying something new realize what I am doing is not working because it is a long-term pro. It is a long-term project, but they're also should like what's the what's the point where if there's a parent who says, okay, I'm trying to like, listen, I'm trying to be compassionate, at what point do they realize I'm not getting any results here? What kind of results?
 
Wendy.
Well, if they're not getting results, I often will say, let's look at the modeling, because a lot of times it comes down to paradigm shifting. Like, what are you believing in? your head is happening? Like, we have so much power in our minds, and I will say our nervous systems too. But also the modeling is just where I've been blown away with, like how much stuff changes when the parent is able to humble themselves and say, okay, if the kid doesn't have this life skill yet. Am I willing to really look at where it could be being modeled? And if you ever have examples as we're talking here where you're like, okay, cool, Wendy. But this one is not right.
Like we're, we're really not modeling this. Right. But like where could it come from? Sometimes it's culture, sometimes it's even cartoons. Right. That can be modeling aggression or just being a modern-day little boy in a culture that, like, teaches them how to solve conflicts in a certain way. But a lot of times it comes down to the parents I work with who have the quickest willingness to go humble and admit, oh, I'm here, raise my hand.
 
They will get the results faster. I think a lot of people will bang their head and think, oh, it's not working. If they're not like if they have blinders on and they're not able to see any of their own patterns. So if and if they are still punishing, if they are still using threats, for example, and they're not quite understanding that those will create strains in the relationship and make it really hard for the air quote system to work the powerful parenting system versus the authoritarian system, then it just it just can take longer, right?
 
So the sooner you're able to see humility as a strength, it is a superpower, right? Mother Theresa talked about how it literally can change the world and also see vulnerability. To get the support that you need to change the belief systems, to look at what the undercurrent is. That could be driving the whole it's not working like fear, right?
 
So many people I know in your community, in my community, were raised with such high levels of fear that when fear is like driving the ship, of course you're going to think it's not working. Of course you're not going to be able to see the little pockets where you're like, oh, that's crazy. The kid just asked his sister, can I have a turn when you're done? Versus like, yanking the toy, you're more likely to miss it if you're caught in the like, oh, catastrophizing, it's not going to work. Nothing works for me. Something bad is going to happen. I'm going to get hurt. So I don't know. Those are just some of my thoughts. But you're right. You're right. Rebecca. It is a marathon, not a sprint.
 
And so you want to look for any of the little successes that you can stack to, I think give your nervous system the assurance that it is safe to do something that is very countercultural, to do something for many of your listeners that is very different than how you were raised, because the nervous system will want you to stay in the path that you were conditioned in the first decade or two, because to the nervous system, it's always going to choose a comfortable hell over an uncomfortable heaven.
 
So if patience, compassion, firm boundaries without aggression and emotional literacy were not a thing in your home, when you go to do that with your kid and you don't get like first time instant, your nervous system is going to be like, no, no, no, no, no, this is not safe. Go back like revert, revert, revert. Let's just do what we know.
 
Yelling gets respect, right? Like so. So yeah, a lot of grace, a lot of just expectations, honestly of failure. Failure is unfinished success. That's just the best way to learn is to try something new, have it not work. And then instead of catastrophizing about it, saying, what can I do next time? And this is where great coaches are just listening to shows like yours consistently with beautiful authors and experts.
 
What can I do next time? That's going to give me just a little lift on this particular tool to work a little bit better, but to the humility of like, there probably is something that I'm doing that's maybe like not having it work so well.
 
Sheila
Okay, I have to tell you what this experience I had, this isn't related to parenting, but I'm going to bring it full circle. Okay, so I'm getting ready for the final episode, podcast episode of the season, which is coming up in two weeks. And Keith and I are going to be listening to some clips. We got to choose some, and we're going to be commenting on each other's.
 
And a bunch of people sent me this clip from a woman in Australia who's getting quite big, and she I don't even remember what she was going on about. The subject doesn't even matter. I know it was something offensive, but it's not the subject that matters. She literally yelled from the stage at the congregants for an entire minute. She was yelling, and the music that they put with this reel was almost like jaws. Like it wasn't jaws, but it was like it was intense. It was intense. And I'm like, listening to this thing. My heart rate's going up, like my cortisol levels are up, you know, are up. And I'm not even paying attention to what she's saying.
 
It was just like, this is stressful listening to this woman, you know. Yeah. And I think, like, I know I did that to you when you were.
 
Rebecca
Yeah.
 
Sheila
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
 
Rebecca
Like, to the extent that. Sorry. I'm going to throw you under the bus.
 
Wendy
That's funny.
 
Rebecca
The first one of the big fights that Connor and I, consistently get it for the first year of marriage, I was like, I just want you to care about this relationship. He's like, I do care. I'm like, then why don't you yell?
 
Wendy
We'll create awareness. I love this and to be able to laugh at ourselves
 
Rebecca
I was just like, that's so messed up.
 
Wendy
But you know I love that you could see it.
 
Sheila
But I did like it when I didn't have the tools. Right. So. Well, like, well, majority of my
 
Rebecca
Definitely 100%, of my parents were authoritative parents on the measuring scale from all
 
Sheila
This was my thing because I didn't have emotional regulation of myself. And whenever the girls were picking at each other, I did see that as like I panicked. I'm like, oh my gosh, they're going to grow up and they're going to hate each other, you know? Yeah. Oh my gosh. Like they're going to, you know. And so it was my reactivity that was causing me to yell that was causing all this. And you talk about this a lot in your book about, you know, just understanding everyone's motivations.
 
You need to understand your kids’ motivations, being interested in your own motivations in that moment to and so and understanding like why you're yelling because yeah, if you're like a five-year-old kid and your parent is yelling like this woman was yelling like, yeah, you're.
 
Wendy
You're going to learn that's how you get power, right? Like, we often say that kids who struggle with power struggles really well, they often have a mistaken belief that in order to feel powerful, I must overpower others, because that's what's been modeled to me. So as much as we hate it, I mean, I know there are people that want to argue with me about this, but it really is like 99% of the truth. The apple doesn't fall far, like I hate it, but it's just like it really doesn't. My sweet. She's probably 75 now. We've been in this house for 20 years. She dropped that on me like, gosh, Stella's 18. So it was 15 years ago. We were out front and she's been a preschool teacher for a long time. And one day we were chatting out there and she's like, how was your day, Mary Sue? Just from Minnesota. She got the funniest sense of humor. She's like, oh, fine. She said, I had parent-teacher conferences today, and I got this one little boy. She was a kindergarten teacher at the time. Man, he is a tough cookie. And she said, and we had parent teacher conferences, and this couple sat there and I could just tell, I could tell they had no idea.
The apple doesn't fall far. They hadn't gotten that memo.
 
At the time. I was so offended because I had this three-year-old that was like air quotes, out of control and reactive and like, just did what she wanted, right? Like, and my God, the last 15 years has been the most beautiful season of growth for me to realize. She's literally my exact mini human and I love her. Yeah. And I love her so much. And through her learning to love her. I love myself so much now. Like, I'm just. It's just tit for tat. It's like I have learned. She is so perfect. I am so perfect. Not because we're perfect, but just because of the way God designed us. We have crazy justice buttons. We cannot handle inequity or inequality.
 
We are like spicy women. We are competitive. We are so determined. We will fight for something we care about to our grave. And we are very opinionated. We are backseat drivers. If you're driving with us, good luck because we're going to be like so anyways, yeah, the apple doesn't fall far and I don't know how we got on that subject, but it's good.
 
Sheila
But it is understanding what it is. Okay, I want to read this one thing and then I'm going to turn back over to you. Sure. So understanding your kids' motivations. I thought this was really interesting is that kids themselves have a whole bunch of needs that are that God put in all of us. And when our kids are acting up or just even if they're not acting up at the moment, but like when things just don't seem to be going well, you know, we need to ask ourselves, what are our kids needing that they're not getting right now?
 
And you said four big ones: the need to feel powerful, right? So the need to have agency, I think they need to belong, the need to feel valuable and the need to be unconditionally loved. And that often when a child is acting up and one of those things isn't there, you one or more things isn't there. If we can in those moments, if we can, if we can ask ourselves, okay, what is my child, what are they feeling the lack of right now, you know, and I think we have an uncomfortable time doing that because we see things through a sin lens like, oh, my kid is just being bad, right? Like, my kid was just born with inherent sinfulness. And so they are just choosing to be bad. But when we look at child development, you know, it's usually that there's an unmet need going on there and our child has learned to handle that in a negative way. I do too.
 
Rebecca
I also think that it's hard for people who are more my age, not as much because of the sin stuff all the time, but actually because of the way that parenting stuff is often talked about online. The idea that if you don't meet one of your kid's needs, you are causing trauma. Yes, you are damaging them. And so the idea that my child is not receiving and is not their cup of feeling valuable is not full means I am actively abusing my child, right? When you read like that's how it feels when you're young.
 
Wendy
Boy that you need to do more, you need to do more. You're not doing enough.
 
Rebecca
You're not doing enough to see this parent over here is making her child feel valuable because she makes goldfish crackers every morning out of her sourdough leftovers. Yeah. So, like, look at how valuable her child must feel. Right. And I think that it comes from both sides. Right? Where it's like, we blame the kid because, like, well, you shouldn't have you shouldn't feel like that.
 
That's just you being selfish or it's also this fear of, okay, but if I acknowledge that my child has unmet needs, that means I am a negligent, bad mother whose causing trauma I am. I am actively harming my kid because of how intense the online discussions are, because that gets into the one thing that I really liked about your book, which is that a lot of parenting books, including Gentle Parenting Resources, use so much fear mongering to convince you that what they're doing is correct.
 
And what I really like is how often in your book you're like, okay, and then here's all the ways it's going to go wrong, and here are all the ways that you're gonna do a quick reset if when it goes wrong and not if it goes wrong, when it stops working, when you start getting into these behavioral issues.
 
And so I wanted to actually give you a second because we are doing this interview about your new book. I wanted you to actually give our listeners an overview of how your chapters are structured, because that was one of the things I really liked about your book, but how it's kind of broken up in each chapter, and the last one is always when it goes wrong, what do you do? So do you mind just giving us a quick overview of how your chapters are structured?
 
Wendy
I would love to. Yeah. That section you're talking about, Sheila, is I mean, Rebecca is. But what if in parentheses things get messy and every single chapter has that. It also has journal pumps prompts for reflection and integration. We have a QR code. You can download all those so you can write it out. You can actually write it out instead of just being like, oh, that would be cool if I reflect on that on my own kid and then you're like and moving on to the next book, right? Like, we really want parents to implement this stuff. So we tried to set it up where you don't feel alone. You don't feel like a failure. Well, to me, failure is just unfinished success. So being a failure doesn't even it doesn't even matter, because all of us, when we're learning new skills, are going to experience a lot of failure.
 
But you don't feel alone. You don't feel like an idiot. You don't feel like you're broken. You just realize. And really, the way I structured this book is really through so much personal storytelling that I always teach from a lens of storytelling and humility and vulnerability, and it's just become very comfortable for me. And I just love it because I know that it works so well, right?
 
It just works so well when I write the story of, I left bruises in this book, people, and I've written that article online. It's a simple Google, but like people respond, they guess what they do. They match the humility. They stop defending and justifying. They match it right because it's beautiful. It's connecting when we're real with each other and we're like, hey, we don't have it all figured out. Or here's all the examples of where it went south and it really was a hard time or a regretful decision I made as a parent or whatever. And then here's all the stories of like, where, where the, the tools like you can see the we especially in the compassionate discipline chapter like we walk you through like here's all these examples that are like, you cannot argue that the long term sustainable results were off the charts. Effective, right? But I did after saying that I do want to come back to that. The whole thing that you're speaking to Rebecca of like this concept of like you're not doing enough. Right? And like the shame of, like you need to do more. You might be adding harm or trauma to your kid. We like to teach it here as you don't need to do more.
 
You just get to make a decision on what with all your education of what you feel like is going to be effective or ineffective. Right? So if we all say a million words a day, we're never like, we don't need to say more words. We just need to ask ourselves; do we want to say some different words?
 
Do we want to switch it up? Do we want to get curious and find out what happens if you lean into using encouragement versus praise? Encouragement is something we write about in the book. Like, I'm so inspired by you. Wow, you did it. How does that feel? Tell me how you got that A, Holy smokes you got a C, you almost had an F. Wow. I'm inspired. I know that was hard vs praises like good job, you are such a good boy, now you get 10 bucks,  because you got an A. Grandma's going to be so proud of you, right? There's just a difference. But like, you get to choose. Do you want to do it differently?
 
And then really in this book, I try to like driving home. One of the main overarching parts of our work is reducing both shame and blame. So that means you don't get to do either. So when you are blaming others, you are in a disempowered mindset, like you're just going to be in a more learned helplessness state.
 
It's going to feel like nothing I'm doing is working. If this kid just changes, which is exactly where I was when Stella was three, all the way up till probably five. I mean this work. Once I started learning, it changed. But if this kid would just change, my life would be easier. That's kind of to blame, right? Or if my husband was more supportive, or if my church wasn't so gnarly.
 
So it's just kind of like we get into these blame patterns, it's very common. And then it just becomes like the way of being and shame is on the other side of that, where we blame ourselves, right? Where it's like many people who grew up in autocratic homes, this is so natural because when you make a mistake or when you are perfect, boom, the correction, what's wrong with you?
 
Why can't you be easier? So that's what becomes our inner voice. And Brene Brown has done a really great job of proving catastrophic to positive change. So say you want to if you look at like, say, discipline and you're like, oh, I hate putting my kid in time out, I hate hitting them or thinking that I have to, because that's what my church teaches and I really want to change.
 
But every time they mess up, I have this knee jerk reaction where, like, I raise my hand without even thinking, if you beat yourself up and think you should be doing more, or that you're doing it wrong, or if you're stuck in fear of judgment, it like it just the behavior doesn't change, right? So I love that you feel a connection to my work, because I really try not to have any of those lenses.
 
Right. We're not blaming parents. We're not blaming kids. We're helping everybody to eradicate shame and just be able to honestly look at the model and ask ourselves, is it working? Am I getting the results that I want? Does it feel in alignment with my moral compass? Do I feel like I'm mimicking or in alignment with the life of Christ like?
 
And if the answer is no, it's okay. You're not a failure. Just be willing and open to learning how to do it differently. And I think that just opens doors to different results. So thank you for letting me just speak on that, because it's important for me to hear that some, you know, in your generation can come across like that.
 
Rebecca
Yeah. Well, I think because that's a lot of what we do here is obviously evidence based obviously. Yeah. And I think one thing is that if you're trying to live an evidence-based life, you have to be willing to accept the fact that you are, in fact, part of the evidence of your own life. And so you can't just sit around and learn helplessness, blaming everyone else, like you can't say a whole thing was like, well, if everyone else changed in my life it would be better.
 
I'm like, yes, that's not going to happen. I have a really funny example that just happened to us like two weeks ago that fits this. Okay, so I wrote about it in the newsletter too. I have been in charge of food in our family for a very long time. We noticed over the last year my children just stopped eating vegetables. I'm being a little bit hyperbolic, but anyone who is six and a four-year-old knows I'm not that hyperbolic there.
 
Wendy
A 15 year old isn't far behind Rebecca,
 
Rebecca
so they just became even more picky than they ever have been. And it was just awful. And you know, I'm like, why won't my kids eat? Why do they cry at mealtimes? Why is everyone so frustrated and stressed and it's awful and they won't eat their healthy food? And then Connor, my husband, very lovingly fired me from the kitchen because he was like, you are not cooking consistently, and we're having a lot of easy meals that are not healthy. And you're stressed about it all the time. And so then, like you were saying, I wasn't bringing the greatest energy to the table. It was like, I made you something to eat. I finally made something to eat.
 
Wendy
I can relate to that.
 
Rebecca
A lot of that stuff. And we've been moving for like at this point four months or something like renovation being renovated. It's been an awful quarter of a half of a year at this point. And anyway, Connor fired me fully from the kitchen and he's been doing it, and it totally shifted the dynamic. And what do you know, there's still some tears when there's food we don't like.
 
Both of my kids now eat beans. Both of my kids will now eat food. My son, who hates potatoes now, will eat potato leek soup. My daughter will eat chili. These are things that I would not have dreamed of three weeks ago. And Connor is
 
Wendy
A great example.
 
Rebecca
Because I had to realize that when it came to food, I was genuinely, fully the problem, because this had been on my docket the whole time and I had not done it because of the way that I was just not able to in the current stage of life. And so Connor was like, let me have a go at it. We switched everything up and it started working.
 
Sheila
And to be fair, you took on other tasks. It wasn't like that. The laundry
 
Wendy
Of course, yeah.
 
Sheila
And stuff like that
 
Wendy
you traded a little bit.
 
Rebecca
Yeah. But also like that's just. Yeah, but in terms of that like Connor was just like we needed to switch something up. And so now I'm doing laundry and a bunch of other stuff that was his job. And now he's doing this. He taught me a lot of how to use a drill.
 
Wendy
That’s a great example.
 
Rebecca
I know I'm the handyman now. Yeah, Connor does the kitchen and I'm the handyman. But this is an example of how, like, I was genuinely just so angry with the kids for not eating what I like, not eating nutritious food, not wanting it when I'm also modeling, getting drive through whenever I'm tired because I don't want to cook.
 
Wendy
Great example. Yes.
 
Rebecca
You know what I mean, and so then. Connor. Yeah. And so it's worked a lot better. And even just the fact that we're all eating around the table, the same food now, and we're not modeling that some foods are better than others, but we all eat the same thing. And what do you know, all that stuff actually works when you actually do it. And we're talking about what you're saying about not having that learned helplessness, which I was dealing with for years, like I was in the learned helplessness with the food, where it's like my kids are just picky. I don't know how to deal with this. If they would just, they just need to eat their food better. They need to figure this out versus like they were eating food like a year and a half ago. So what changed? Right. And when that mentality shift happened it actually changed. So I just wanted to say, like, if you're one of the listeners who likes evidence-based things, part of being evidence-based means having humility and looking at where we actually are in the evidence. Yes, and yes, and particularly flattering. And that is okay.
 
Wendy
Yep. And you learn over time how to speak to yourself when someone calls you out or says, hey, this is not working, you've kind of started to use an angry tone or annoyed or irritated. That's a big one as parents, right? Annoyed, irritated, frustrated. There are actually tones that we teach. But you, you learn through this type of work to show yourself compassion. And it's different than justifying or defending, right? It's more just like this makes sense, Rebecca. Remothering, Right. We would call this again in your guy’s situation, you just need to be much because Sheila was such a rad mom. But there is always some because we were raised by human parents. Remothering is like this makes sense why you got into this pattern.
 
So nothing is wrong with you. You're a great mom, man. You kept those kids alive. On the way to go now, go enjoy putting in your AirPods and doing the laundry instead of cooking. And take a break. Like, thank God for your husband, right? Like, but you get to fill your mind with just different things, not more things. But the thoughts are just not like, well, that was embarrassing.
 
And yes, it's humbling, right? But when you realize you're part of the problem. But it's also I find it the more you do the work, I find it really empowering where you're like, oh, I actually we as leaders of our home, the adults, the grownups, and a lot of times it's I, I can I have so much power in changing the dynamic and it's no longer like this. Oh, my God. Like, it just feels so yucky when you feel like you have no power. And when you're in the blame cycle, it feels like you have no power. You know, like nothing's going to change because these three-year-olds are insane. But instead you're like, when you step into empowerment and you're like, oh, let's just see how it works if we switch this thing and then boom, there, there it is. Great story.
 
Rebecca
Talking about empowerment, we've talked with you on previous podcast episodes about things like how to help kids who are hitting without spanking, all that kind of stuff. One of the things you talked about in your book, which I thought was really helpful and I haven't seen a lot, is I wanted to talk about what parents can do or rethink or address with a lot of those helplessness behaviors from kids, instead of the power and the strong willed. What happens when the problem behaviors are like I can't, or regressions and that kind of thing.
 
Wendy
Yes, I love these categories so much. So in the four categories of misbehavior that we teach in this book, attention and inadequacy or comments, some of those more like in that category we're talking about really, it's inadequacy. But I'll speak to how it sometimes gets combined with attention. And then the other two are power and revenge. And of course, I do speak so much to power and revenge, and especially in our community, because we help so many parents of strong-willed kids whose kids just live in power struggles like that's the misbehavior of choice.
 
They're going to live their whole life there. They do. All, all of our kids will do all the misbehavior in their lifetime, but a lot of times they settle into one and it becomes a little bit of their pattern. But the inadequacy kids. I love helping parents with them so much. A lot of times. Again, a lot of times the apple doesn't fall far.
 
So if there is a kid that is struggling with anxiety or feeling really fearful about things like going to a new camp or, you know, feeling like they can't ride the bike or they give up when they're learning to ride a bike or learn how to read our power kid, Stella. That was like the two situations we saw it show up in the inadequacy patterns were when she learned to ride a bike and when she learned how to read. Besides that, But our little guy, he's now 6 to 15 years old. He was the one. Separation anxiety was gnarly between the ages of like four and a half and like six and a half. My gosh, it took so much endurance to get through that.
 
And this category is so sad because, you know, as parents, it's just heartbreaking to see your kid in a state where we're going to talk to the attention side of it. Because, Sheila, sometimes these kids are really annoying, and that's usually when they're more in attention. But it's just it is literally the way we assess it.
 
If you feel annoyed and irritated, your kids are doing attention misbehavior. And so that's like when the kids like, no, I can't tie my shoe. You do it for me. You do it right. Like that's more they when they when they have your attention and when they're feeling loved through you giving more and more and more and doing it for them.
 
We treat that with redirection for attention strategies. But the true inadequacy is the kids that really just start to believe that they can't, that they're incapable. And we find, again, if the parents can just humble themselves and say, is there anywhere where I have the same patterns, where I feel a little bit of a victim mindsetty? And for me, for many years I didn't totally see it because I am this strong willed, go getter, type A person. But then I realized through the years I actually had a victim mindset around money. Like it always felt like there's never enough. And poor me and this industry is so hard. No one wants to buy parenting courses. And then I realized, yikes. Like that is really a state of just not empowered, right? Not believing that I could.
 
And so that's always helpful. I also realized that I probably had a little level of high functioning anxiety that I was able to just kind of work through and actually then start to see it in my family lineage. And now I realize, oh, my mom probably just always struggled with high functioning anxiety. My dad just would always call her a nervous wreck.
 
But now I realized, oh, she probably just struggled with anxiety her whole life. And so through all of that, we were able to really help our little boy and the and the and the way you do that with that type of misbehavior is you a. help them work on their inner voice and then b. you help them start making small steps towards success.
 
Sheila
How would you like to bring Bare Marriage to your church? On October 2nd and 3rd? We are doing an incredible simulcast event on Friday night, October 2nd, we're going to be doing our sex talk for women, and it's such a fun night where I will talk about all of our findings regarding sex. And you can invite your friends; you can have an amazing outreach event at your church. And then on Saturday all day, we are doing a one-day marriage conference.
 
Keith and me, based on our book, The Marriage You Want. You can get this for your church. It's a great way to take us to your church without having to pay a whole ton of money. And we're not doing a lot of speaking and traveling right now, so this may be your only chance. So check it out. The link is in the podcast notes, and we would love to join you on October 2nd and 3rd.
 
Wendy
So if you know one of my favorite stories, it actually came from one of my mentors who I studied under for many years. She had four boys that she used for this work, but the one came home from middle school one day and he was like, really quiet in the car and he wouldn't really talk to her. And she was finally like, dude, what? Come on, you got to talk to me. What's going on? He was like, why did you give me such a long name? Christopher William Walton was his name. And they used to call him Tuffy, their nanny. They were a big NBA family. And so they traveled a lot. And they had a nanny, and she used to call him Tuffy.
 
And the teacher would not let him, right? Tuffy? He had to write Christopher William Walton. And you could tell he went into like, oh, God, I can't do this. I'm not enough. Right? Like I and he was mad. He was silent, mad. And she started working with him slowly. And they just over the week I mean, he was still little at this point. He was probably six and they just started one at a time. So they learned and it was in cursive. Right? This was back in the day when you had to write in cursive. You remember that Sheila, you and I had to write in cursive. Rebecca, you probably never did.
 
Sheila
I actually think they should bring it back
 
Rebecca
I'm making my kids learn cursive.
 
Sheila
But anyway, that’s beside the point.
 
Wendy
 That's cool. That's cool. But the first night they worked on Chris. Right. And then the second and third night was Christopher. And then the third night it was William. And then by the end of the week, he was able to walk in and do the whole thing. But that's kind of one of the strategies. Or if a kid is constantly saying, like, I can't clean up my room, it's too overwhelming.
 
You know, a lot of kids have a pattern of destroying their room and then it feels overwhelming. You can help them break it down into small tasks. Or a kid who is like, you're trying to get them to go to bed at night without needing you to lay down. If you've gotten into that pattern, the same thing you can do night one, snuggle night two you can go to the end of the bed. Next night you can sit on the floor, next night you can be at the door while you're praying or meditating, whatever is or falling asleep. And then you can be outside the door. Then you can use the little old school telephone thing like. So you can just break it into smaller pieces.
 
And then the other side of that is, is just helping children understand from a young age that their inner voice is something that is malleable, that is not set in stone. And again, oftentimes they inherit it from us. So we get to take responsibility for some of that and just say, you're not alone. I struggle with this too.
 
One of the examples I give of this, I think I wrote this in the book, is something I used when we were going to the zoo and places, you know, when the kids were little. And I, we live in a circle, and I would leave and I would always forget something. Right. Sunscreen, water bottle. And I used to say, oh, I'm such I there was a time when I said, I'm such an idiot.
 
There was another time when I would lighten it, say, I'm such a ding dong. And I learned that that was teaching them to have a strong inner critic, and I replaced that with, whoops, I made a mistake. And so I started saying out loud to them, whoops, I made a mistake. I'm going to circle around. No big deal.
 
As time went on, I caught myself in another one. There was like Terran had mouth breathing for a season, and we were trying to get him to, like, breathe out of his nose and do myofunctional therapy. And he had to wear this tape at night. And I remember walking past his bedroom and saying out loud as I looked at him, oh my God, I'm literally the worst mom on the planet because I had forgotten to put his mouth tape on. And it was. And I that by that time I had been teaching this to for a long time, and I was like, oh my gosh, like, that's aggressive. And I talked to myself all the time now. And I was just like, oh my God, sweet mama. Like, oh, you're the best, mama. You just made a mistake, right? This is where the word remothering comes in.
 
And then I just got to redo it with myself and say, it's okay, you made a mistake. You got a lot going on. But that will teach a child to then have the inner voice that's an inner cheerleader versus the inner critic in those moments when they're like, oh my God, I signed up for baseball camp. And I said I was okay with no friends.
 
And now we're driving and I'm like, losing my Ish because I'm panicking. I can't do this. I'm going to have no friends. Like all of that helps with that, if that makes sense. So that's how we teach about inadequacy.
 
Rebecca
Yeah.
 
Sheila
I love that. Yeah.
 
But it's so hard. It's so hard with those kiddos.
 
Rebecca
Yeah. I think also because there's the desire to rescue. Right. That's how you talk about it. Yes. Because what I'm going to be real honest, as someone who has one kid who's on one side of the spectrum in terms of these behaviors, and someone is another kid who's on a completely opposite side of the spectrum, there is one kid who I am far more than be like, you're fine, deal with it. And the other kid who I want to step in and be like, it's all okay and get permissive a lot. And it's the inadequacy, right? It's when you have a kid who's aggressive and power controlling, you kind of start veering towards authoritarianism. Whereas when you have a kid who has these inadequacy or attention seeking behaviours, you often are pulled towards more permissiveness, which of course, for both of them reinforces the misbehavior.
 
Wendy
Yeah, it's so true. Stella has gotten really good. This is what you get good at when you do this work is letting your children, like, say things and you, you stop saying that's not true. So she's said to us many times, you're so much easier on Taryn. You take his side more, you're harder on me. And for years I was like, oh, that's not true, right? You're totally equally loved. And then I found humility to be like, I can totally see how that's true, that you're accurate, and I'm going to work on that. I'm going to really work to, like, use the same tools with both of you and hold you just as accountable as I hold you.
 
And, you know, like all those things. But yeah, they present differently. And it is sometimes, I think honestly, a little easier to give grace or like help to some of the ones that are softer personalities, you know, for being honest. But I think inadequacy does play into it too.
 
Rebecca
Talking about the softer personalities as well. Yeah, we always talk about aggression, right? So I want to talk about the different side of it. I wanted to know, like you talked in the book about how to communicate with your kids about boundaries and stuff that does not need to be a hostage situation. You are not trapped in 57-minute feelings talking every single time that your kid has to change their behavior here. Here's the example I wrote out from your book you were talking about, and I'm paraphrasing. This is not the wording from the book I love you said that you can get your kids attention. Tell your child, for example, a screen time that they have until the end of this episode to watch TV, and then after that, you don't have to negotiate about whether or not the TV gets turned off.
 
You can just let them know, oh, the episode is over. Do you want to turn off the TV or should I? And then if they don't turn the TV off, you can just turn it off because you have communicated about it. And I wanted to know, do you have some examples of hostage situations that you often see with kids? And what can parents do to exude confidence in their knowledge that they are the mom and dad instead of getting into those power struggles?
 
Wendy
Yeah, there's two ways I'm going to answer this. One of them is really around finding confidence and letting your kids be unhappy. So we're going to talk about that and then b. reframing also what we label when it takes longer than we want. So I'm going to go back to that one. So with the first one, yeah, the follow through is really where I see a lot of parents’ struggles, especially the ones that know that they don't want to repeat what was done to them. And then they might swing a little permissively. Right. So it's like and it just makes sense. These parents aren't like I want to be permissive. They just don't know how to yet. So they swing permissively because they're really trying to be patient and compassionate and empathetic and like, not be the hammer. But it often leads to the teakettle effect, which is you try to like to keep it here and like and then boom, you lose it and you end up yelling again, right?
 
And it's just like this cycle. So with the follow-through and this works really well with what we teach in the firm and kind of step process to setting firm limits section of the book is if you can get into a habit. So it becomes a language of yours to make proactive agreements quite often as much as possible. Whenever there is a repeatable thing, a repeatable challenge, you make agreements. You educate your kids. Here's why I care about TV. Here's some of the science and the data that shows or. And really, in my world, the thing that most parents are struggling with is technology, right? The interactive games, the iPads, those are way more concerning to me than the TV.
 
TV is like, I don't even care about TV anymore. Honestly, it's more about interactive stuff. I know you have little kids, but you make the agreements. This is why we have such strong boundaries around this that when you're in nature and all the things, this is what it does for your body. When you turn off the TV and you go outside and you climb a tree, or you find a ladybug, or you feel the sunshine on your skin, guess what? Sunshine has vitamin D in it. Like how amazing that God gives us sunshine, right? You educate. This is why instead of because I said so. And then when the moment comes and they push back you right away, move to empathy. No wonder you don't want to turn off the TV. You love Bluey. I love Bluey too, Louise. Awesome, right? Whatever your show is. And then right away you move to engaging their critical thinking skills, which do you remember what our agreement was? Even the smallest kids will remember if you make agreements in a calm time and you know them and teach them why, and then you move to the last step of, okay, so here's our choice.
 
Do you want to turn it off or do you want me to, you know, do you want me to carry you, or do you want to walk? And so that's kind of a little structured. If people can memorize that one, it works really well. And then there's just going to be those moments when you're not, you didn't do it. And so you're just like, hey, we had this agreement quickly. We're going to watch a show and then it's time for dinner and then you follow through. So the parents who struggle to follow through are where that like it persists. Right. And so what happens is when you go to when you turn it off, let's say if they didn't choose to, the things you can say is it's okay, you're upset.
 
You get to choose. You can choose differently tomorrow. It's okay. Right? Like one of our dads a long time ago that told a great way of doing this was his kid was in the bath. He was like, hey, let's get out, it's time for books. And his kid was like, no, I want to play more. And he's like, okay, well, you can go out now and we have time for books, or you can stay in the bath, and we won't have time for books. He chose to stay in the bath. He went to bed. He's like, okay, books. And dad's like, no, no books. Lights out. He's crying, crying, crying, crying and crying. Calls dad back in and he's like, daddy and his dad had been in this work for a little bit, so he knew to like, hold space, listen to him, and he goes, what's wrong, buddy?
 
And he goes, I'm just so sad. And he goes, oh yeah, why? And he goes, I'm so sad about the choice that I made. And his dad was tempted, you know, from the old school way to be like, well, if you listen next time and do what I told you, then this wouldn't have happened. But instead, he was just like, it's okay to be sad.
 
You get to make a different choice tomorrow. And he let his kid go to bed crying, but he followed through, right? So yes, the back and forth can be really exhausting. But like in those moments, it is just so important to up your tolerance of your kid being unhappy. And we do all of that without aggression. Right? Like we're not you know, you noticed he's not like once you bring in the aggression it all of this goes out the door. It's just it's not going to work anymore. The other thing I wanted to say is that there are times when I'm really going to encourage people to just bite the bullet and let the conversation be long.
 
So when she was about that age that was in the height of despair around, we were holding strong and not allowing her to have an iPhone till high school. And even back then we were the black sheep, right? Like I remember learning about the wait till eighth pledge organization, and that was just when the information was starting to come in about the data and the research around everything.
 
And we decided like, hey, let's reach out to people and say, hey, do you want to do what's it called, like a little pocket or a little band together? And all of our girls will wait till high school, right? And they'll all be together, so they won't feel alone. And everyone was like, yeah, no thanks. And so Stella ended up journeying through middle school without an iPhone when everybody around her had the iPhone, had social media, all the things. So we had so many tear-filled conversations at night where she would just challenge my decision. Challenge our decision. Beg me, please, mom, please. You don't understand how hard it is to be a kid without these devices.
 
And I think that was an example of what I'm talking about, of I just got to hold space for her to tell me how unhappy she was, how hard it was, how it just contributed to her feeling like, you know, an outcast and the volleyball team, like no one would even communicate with her because she, like, she refused to use the kid safe device.
 
Like we had a gab and a true me for a while, and she was just too embarrassed to use that, like it was just some of the most beautiful. When I look back on our season of those awkward years together when she was 11, 12, 13 years old of just staying connected, even though the answer was not going to change.
 
And it was really important for her to see that she's allowed to push back on boundaries and challenge the system and make her case right. And that's like, I've seen that now she's not afraid to use her voice and say, like when her high-level athletic volleyball club says that in a match, she was targeted more and then she doesn't get chosen for the A squad for the next thing she does.
 
I've seen her scheduled meetings with the head directors and head in with all of her data that she's compiled and said, I'd like to respectfully disagree. I think you've got the data wrong here. I was targeted less. I had more points in this game. Right. And it just worked out really well. So the point being is I know sometimes it can sometimes it is hostage negotiation. And it's just like, no, we're done. We're moving on. It's time for dinner. TV is going off. It's okay. You're unhappy. You're going to bed. It's okay that you're sad. And then at other times, it's like, I'm going to sit here with you because I can tell this is really painful, that you're the only kid at the skate park that has to wear the helmet, that you have the strictest parents in town around the safety stuff. And that's got to be hard. And you deserve to be heard. And you're not alone. And I promise you, you're going to be okay because your mental health and your brain health are more important to me than fitting in right now. And I promise you, I will hear from you. And the answer is not going to change. So I just wanted to add that little tidbit.
 
Rebecca
Yes. Yeah, I love that. I love hearing from you, but the answer is going to change. I know a silly little one that we've been, because you talk a lot in your book about how, yeah, the way that we act sets the stage for how our children respond. And also a life skill that I want my kids to have is also to understand that the way that they treat people also impacts how people will then see them. And a silly little one that we have found gets us out of those hostage situations without it being like blame or shame or a shutdown of emotions. I just ask them, what lesson do you think you're teaching me right now?
 
Wendy
Oh, I like that Rebecca.
 
Rebecca
With tech and stuff. If they're watching a show and we say you have 30 minutes to watch a show until dinner, and then at the 30-minute mark, they start fussing and screaming. I'm like, what do you think this teaches me about letting you watch a show before dinner?
 
Wendy
I love it, I love it.
 
Rebecca
And that has started then being like, okay, we’ll turn it off. Because they are thinking They're thinking, and they're like, oh, what message is? Because I'm like, because what I'm learning right now is I. I can't trust you with screen time, or the rest of our evening is going to be ruined, because of your screen time. Or we won’t be having a good time
 
Wendy
Or screen time is too addictive. That's exactly the time that is too addictive, right? That you're not ready for this. Too much for you to handle. I've put too much on you. Right? Like that can be a learning experience too.
 
Rebecca
Your brains are getting overstimulated and this is a problem. And now the rest of our evening is going to kind of suck because of the fact that we let you watch too much TV.
 
Wendy
Yes. And then you're taking ownership. Yeah.
 
Rebecca
If when we turn off the TV, you guys can show us that it doesn't really cause a melt down, then that shows us that we're watching the right amount of TV.
 
Wendy
And I love that.
 
Rebecca
It's very funny that one actually has worked quite a bit with both of my kids, without them getting panicky or feeling embarrassed. That's more of a realization like, oh, I actually can communicate what I want from my parents with my behavior.
 
Wendy
Yes, you're engaging their critical thinking skills too, you are engaging in their critical thinking skills, which is beautiful. I love it
 
Rebecca
I'm wondering, as we're wrapping up this whole thing, what I want to know is when you're talking, when there are parents who are listening, who are wondering what are some easy things that they can look for as they do this Fresh Start to Your Family system, the powerful parenting system. What are some easy things that they can look for? That's evidence that you're doing it. You're doing a good job.
 
Wendy
I love this question. Okay. I'd say the first thing that just popped into my mind is that you start to see your kids admitting fault, taking responsibility for their mistakes, and they stop hiding and lying. This is a huge one in our community that we see that kids just start feeling safe, being imperfect and making mistakes, and that just leads to a faster resolution and faster teaching, right?
 
So that's huge. Let's see. Another one would be your kids starting to say how they feel, because emotional literacy is such a very large part of our work when human beings know how to assess how they're feeling and know what to do with that, know how to process it in a healthy way. So the main five are happy, mad, sad, hurt, scared that we teach and each one of those feelings has a fantastic pot of gold on the other side when you process it in a healthy way.
 
For example, anger is often where justice is born. So right now we're living in a time where many of us are very angry and very scared and like there are beautiful things when we move that feeling through and then do something with it. We use our voice. We advocate for change. We stand up for our neighbor, whatever it may be.
 
But when you start to see your kids saying how they feel. So, for example, I had a teacher once, one of my most moving life coaches in my life. We finished a program together for a weekend and he looked at me and he said two things. Wendy, when are you going to believe you're a great blank mom?
 
And it really hit me. It was one of those moments where I was like, normally you might say, oh, thanks, I know, and I really knew what he meant because I hadn't believed it to that point. And I was like, thank you. Okay, I'm going to work on that. And then two, he said, I believe one of your biggest jobs in your life is going to be to teach Stella how to feel scared.
 
And because I had worked a lot on that, no one taught me how to feel scared. When I was young. It was just weak. You're weak if you feel scared, like, buck up, but you pull your boots up. Be strong. I grew up in the country. I used to drive in the back of pickup trucks. A country of Maryland grew up with an older brother that was really rough. So I did that. And nowadays she'll say, you know, especially if she's got an attitude or something, she'll say, mom, I'm sorry. I just, I feel like I might feel scared that, you know, I'm going to be forced to do this or something. When we were looking at colleges and she was feeling pressured that she should consider a Florida school, that was an example where she said, okay, wait, wait, let me.
 
Sorry. I just feel scared right now that I'm being pushed into something, right? But like when kids start to say how they feel, it's always like it leads to healthy conversations. And that's a really good one. So taking responsibility. Oh, and then also I would say if the skill is changing, if the behavior is changing. Right. So an example I tell you in the book is one of the times we used compassionate discipline to teach was when I dropped Stella off. I'll make it short here. I still dropped off a band one night. She's a drummer. And I said, whatever you do between pizza and band when she was 12, don't cross the road here.
 
This literally like you could die, kid. Like this scares me. Don't do it. Cross over there. Go out of your way to go to the crosswalk. I had a feeling she was going to fall. To fall victim to peer pressure. She was like six kids. I parked and watched her. She crossed in the wrong place, and it was like. Oh. Shoot, right. And, you know, could have done a whole bunch of stuff there. I could have embarrassed her. I could have pulled up and blah, blah, blah. But instead we went home that night, and we had one of those long conversations of like, okay, we're going to need to do a redo. And then I got to hold space for her where she just bawled for like an hour.
 
You don't understand how hard it is to have parents who are so strict. These kids like it, it's just like. And I just got to listen and say, that makes sense. And my child, you're going to cross the street at the crosswalk, and. Otherwise you're not going to pizza before band, right? And tomorrow night or Thursday night we'll go back and you can try again. That's what we call redo. She went back and I pulled into an area where she couldn't see me. I said, I love you. And she did it right. She read, did it with friends. She spoke up and said, hey guys, I'm going to walk to the. And they were like, okay, we'll walk with you. No big deal.
 
She got her nervous system, got to see it's safe to be an outcast or whatever. And then a few months later, Terry was at a stoplight. She was biking to school on her e-bikes. We live in, like the e-bike capital of the world. Here she was biking to school with all these kids. They looked at the light, and they went through the like, not a walking guy, right? So it was like a time when they were probably just like, oh, we can get through without the right time of the walking guy coming on or whatever. And he said he watched Ella; she could not see him and she kind of looked and then she just stopped. Let all these kids go. And she waited for the light to turn.
 
And then she proceeded to school. The point of telling that story is the answer, Rebecca. One of them is, you see the behavior change, right? But it's when you're not looking. It's when they're not scared. She didn't do that that day because she was scared she was going to get her e-bike taken away or scared that she was going to get her iPhone or iPad taken away.
 
She did it because we educated her on what traumatic brain injuries are. And you know what? We lost a 12-year-old just one year ago. This sweet girl, Emery, lost her life. She got hit by a car. We lost another 14-year-old on an e-bike two years ago. These kids of mine are educated on how to take good care of their bodies. That's why the behavior changed, right? So those are some examples that come to mind on how you know, it's working, so to speak. But you have to look for them because again, if you're caught in the scarcity and the fear and you haven't healed and worked on your nervous system and eradicated the shame, you will see all the areas that it's air quotes not And there will be some. There will be. My kids. You know, honestly, if you saw their rooms right now, guys, you would probably think I'm a failure. They're not perfect at cleaning their rooms. They're not. And if I had a different brain, I would probably be focused on that. When I choose not to be, I choose to be focused on all these areas that I'm like, wow, they have learned these important life skills that I'm so thankful that I got to teach them in this way.
 
Sheila
So awesome. Yeah, yeah. So okay, the book is Fresh Start Your Family by Wendy Snyder. It is out next Tuesday. Is it?
 
Wendy
May 26th?
 
Sheila
Yeah, May 26th. But you've got some really awesome pre-order bonuses. So you only have like five days people to preorder this book before the bonuses go away. So you can still order it when it's up. But if you order it now, you're going to get some extra stuff. So what are you going to get Wendy?.
 
Wendy
Yes. Thank you Sheila, you are going to get our guided printable journal and implementation guide, which my team and I had so much fun putting this together at. As you said, as you noted, Rebecca, at the end of each chapter are these prompts and action tips and this downloadable guide. I promise you it is so beautiful. It has so many printables, and it has so many visuals that you can put on your fridge, and you can put in your car, or you can have screensavers to put on your phone, and then you can actually fill out some of these prompts.
 
So you're creatively and critically thinking about how I would teach you applies to your unique situation. So that's my favourite one. We also have some say this Not That flashcards. And then yeah, I think I think those are the big two. And then, you know, you can get invited to join the launch team which has some other perks. But at this point it's probably almost time to just focus on those bonuses. And I really do think they're great. So yeah. FreshStartFamilyonline.com/preorder . I'm Fresh Start Wendy on Instagram. There is Fresh Start Family Show that you guys have both been on. Yeah, come find me. Come learn.
 
Sheila
We will put all those links in podcast links. So get the preorder bonuses. We got the links to that in the podcast notes and where you can preorder the book. And of course, if you're listening to this after May 26th, you can just buy it, and it will show up very quickly. So yes, we will have all those links. So Wendy, thank you. Always a pleasure to have you. I love your wisdom.
 
Wendy
I am. Thank you guys. I am so thankful to you and your support through the years. And I just love. I always love our chat. So thank you again for having me and all your support.
 
Sheila
I appreciate Wendy so much. She's one of my favorite people and we love having her on the podcast, so I hope you've appreciated this interview. Take a look for her book, Fresh Start Your Family. The link is in the podcast notes. And remember, our simulcast event is coming in October, so it's your chance to get our sex talk for women there or our marriage conference.
 
Tell everyone that you know and see if your church, your small group, your women's ministry, your marriage ministry, even if you're a counselor, maybe this is something, especially the sex talk, that you could offer to the women in your practice who are just having trouble with figuring, figuring it all out, an obligation, sex, etc. we're going to be tackling all of that.
 
So take a look in the podcast notes. It's really affordable, and we want to bring as many churches on board as possible. We're also going to be able to switch it for time zones, so it'll work wherever you are in the world. So take a look. The link is in the podcast notes, and we will see you again next week for another edition of the Bare Marriage Podcast.
 
Bye bye.