Building Solid Relationships Through Positive Parenting with MegAnne Ford

In this episode of ABC's Parenting Adult Children podcast, host James Moffitt speaks with parenting coach Megan Ford about the importance of building solid relationships through positive parenting. They discuss the challenges parents face, the role of alloparenting, and the significance of breaking generational cycles. Megan emphasizes the four S's of healthy attachment—safety, being seen, being soothed, and being secure—and the need for parents to seek help from coaches to improve their parenting skills. The conversation also touches on the impact of technology on parenting and the stigma surrounding seeking help.

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Richard Jones. I am an RN with over 34 years of Nursing Experience, much of that experience working with young adults in the corrections system. 

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Transcript

James Moffitt (00:02.552)
Hello and welcome to ABC's Parenting Adult Children podcast. My name is James Moffitt and I'll be your host. Today is Friday, February the 24th and I have Megan Ford as our guest speaker today. Megan, is that two words or is that one? That's a great question. It's one word. It's one. Okay, Megan Ford. Introduce yourself to our listening audience. Hey friends, my name is Megan and I am a parenting coach. I help parents all around the world.

remove punitive punishment-based parenting and help build solid relationships through learning tools and tactics through positive parenting. It's my passion. I've been doing it for almost 23 years after my 14 year career in early childhood education as an educator. I think that the title, ABCs of adult parenting adult children,

it would be probably like, well, she works with little kids, not older kids, but the skills I teach are relationship-based. So they are most improving all relationships and all communication with everyone in your life. So I use the work that I do not only with my husband, but with the banker at the bank, people waiting in the traffic. Traffic's a big one for me. People at the grocery store or really anyone that I meet being able to help connect, listen, empower.

and build a solid relationship, whatever that relationship is. Yeah, I think our age group is like from 12 to infinity. 18, they're adults. And then after that, I have children that are 38 years old. And I don't care how old they get, they're still going to be my kids, right? Of course. And they're still looking to you for that primary source of connection. Not so much.

I'm not one of the, I'm not one of those fortunate ones. I will say, say, even if they're not actively looking and connecting, they still benefit. Cause you are the primary caregiver, right? You're that formative relationship, whatever the quality of that relationship, it's still there. Right. Okay. Good. Uh, so I'm going to read this off your bio. Uh, I think it's very appropriate.

James Moffitt (02:28.122)
Improving lives is at the heart of what Meg-Ann Ford does as a passionate parent coach. I don't think I've ever heard that word parent coach. I kind of grabbed my attention when I was reading it. Her dedication to equipping parents, families, and teachers with the skills to communicate effectively, teach with intention, inspire and advocate resonates deeply with me. She's an excellent guest. And I shouldn't have read that, but that's okay. You are an excellent guest.

Oops. Yeah. Compliment James. There you go. All right. So, yeah, when I read your, when I read your biography, thought parenting coach, dedication to equipping parents, families and teachers and how to communicate effectively. And I think that, that as parents, none of us, none of us get a

a manual, right? You have a baby and they pat you on the head and send you on your way. You leave the hospital and all of sudden you're like, we've got this big bouncing bundle of joy. And then it's screaming all night. It's going through teething and has colic and all host of things that as parents, don't really know how to deal with those things. And we have to learn as we kind of learn on the fly. And when our children turn into teenagers, good Lord.

We're still learning on the fly, right?

Yeah, I think that that is like probably one of my biggest grievances with our society is that there's so much education and support pre birth, right? You go to interview the hospitals, you learn about the birth process, you go through and some people even hire doulas and other nurses. There's a lot of information and support leading up to the event. Yeah, midwives too, like leading up to the event.

James Moffitt (04:27.382)
And then once the event happens, the birth, then you're just kind of like left on your own, right? And you say that we don't have a manual and it's actually the name of one of my programs, the manual to help you build your manual because the manual is already inside you. You inherit those tools and you inherit those beliefs and you inherit those influences. And then the manual is written in your day-to-day interactions and you are co-creating that manual with your child.

you know, their nervous system, their temperament impacts your nervous system and your temperament. And then how do you move together? And oftentimes we pull back from our own experiences, the things that we want to change, the things that we like, things that we didn't like. And that in and of its essence, the manual is that living document that's created in all those day-to-day interactions. So I think that that's a, I wish that.

Working with a parenting coach or or even reading a parenting book or or having a community around us I think I wish more people had access to that because it's a very lonely experience on Post-birth like you said you're left alone and all these right and if you've never worked with kids made my clients had never even held a baby outside of their own and me I'm nearing 40 and I got my first car at 22 and I never

didn't have a car seat in my car. Like I've held thousands of babies and worked with hundreds of parents to work in this. So I come to the game playing a different, having a different experience and exposure. And I wish more parents had that. Right. Well, I think like in the, I don't know, thirties, forties and fifties, I think some parents had the advantage of having a close knit family and they had their grandparents, the children had grandparents.

And so the grandparents helped to take care of the children. And I guess sometime around the Industrial Revolution and the Technology Revolution, both parents wound up having to go to work and somewhere in that era, there's two different eras, E-R-A-S, somewhere in those eras, I think that the, and I think it has a lot to do with the culture, the American culture in that,

James Moffitt (06:51.426)
grandparents may not necessarily live in the same parents. Families don't all necessarily live in the same home anymore. Right. Back, back during the era of the farms and stuff like that, a lot of times parents and grandparents and children all lived in the same house. And therefore it was easy for the, for the parents to look at the grandparents and get mentoring from them and learning from their experience on the fly. And I think now that in the age that we are in,

whatever age that might be. It's kind of crazy. We'll call it the crazy age or the crazy error era. don't have that connection. At least not physically. We may have that connection via Facebook and social media portals and being able to hop on the phone and do FaceTime and things like that. We have better communication tools.

just, it just depends on whether we, we embrace those tools and use them to that effect. Yeah. What the term that you are, landing on it's called aloe parenting and aloe parenting. And that's the type of, creature we are by design. That's the type of, you know, emotional connection that we are designed to be successful in is, is called aloe parenting and aloe parenting means having

caregivers that are not the primary birth parents. So having a community around you, they call it the village, having someone come around you and help raise and influence your children. And so right now, like you said, that used to be grandparents or your close family members. And now it could be your neighbors, it could be your friends, it could be your kids' teachers. Those are all aloe parents to your child.

Alloparent, I've never heard of that. Yeah, it's a term of just all the different types of parenting that all the different species and animals of the world exhibit. And alloparenting is what will help humans thrive because we are connection-based beings. We have not only physical needs, but we also have emotional needs. And so it's being able to fill both of those needs for the child. So the child has their needs met.

James Moffitt (09:13.41)
And when a child has their needs met, their emotional needs and their physical needs, then behaviors start to improve as well. Good. That's interesting to know. My wife's a special ed teacher and she's been teaching for 20 plus years. And I wish she was on this podcast episode because y'all could probably just talk up a storm about all that stuff. Yeah. Well, hopefully she'll listen and enjoy it as well. My husband's a teacher too.

teaches middle school PE. really? Mm hmm. All right. So I'm going pull from some of your questions, like how to take responsibility and stop blaming everyone else for your parenting struggles. That's a tough one. What comes up for you when you hear that question? I don't know. I've been pretty transparent with my, especially my teenagers, you know, when

When they were old enough to understand, I've always been pretty transparent and shared with them stories from the past and the mistakes that I have made. And obviously, or it's my understanding, or it's been my experience, that we typically parent the way we were parented, right? That's instinct for us, right? My father was very heavy handed with me and my sister.

He was very authoritative. He was a drill sergeant for 26 years. I feel as if when he left the training field or whatever they call the place that they do their training during the day and calisthenics and doing whatever, whatever, you know, privates do, whatever they're, whatever the drill instructor makes those people do. I think he, he forgot about the disconnect when he got in the car and came home.

And I think he's treated, he treated us kids very much like what he, how he treated those recruits. And, so he was very verbal, very loud, quick tempered, heavy handed. I knew, I knew that when we had children that I could not do that with my kids. And I knew that I absolutely could not, I had to break that generational curse and I had to not do that. Did I screw up it from time to time? Yes, absolutely.

James Moffitt (11:37.614)
When they did something that was ultra stupid and I was in the moment, sometimes I reverted to inherited tools that I was talking about. Yeah. So and so, uh, yeah, I had to take responsibility for that. And I, as a parent and as an adult, I had to learn how to develop different tools in my tool tool chest. You know, I had to develop different communication, a different communication style.

I couldn't be as heavy handed, especially physically with them. My mother used to like to slap us kids. You know, that was the way that's what she loved to do. She'd slap us in the face. He probably 20 times a day, easily. She'd get mad at us and she'd slap us. And, know, of course, you know, I was raised and, know, in the seventies and eighties, and of course we all know that the things our parents got away with back then, they'd be in prison today. Right. But I look back at, I look back and I, and I want to, maybe I'm being

too gracious, but I want to say that they did the best they could with what they had. Right. I don't, I don't, you know, I, didn't have parent coaches, you know, did have a, I did have a grandmother, on my father's side that, kind of saved us kids from some beatings that we might've gotten otherwise. Right. And, she was able to rein him in and help him to control his temper from time to time. but anyway, yeah, anger is a big.

is such a big trigger. And I just wanna say thank you. Thank you for sharing that story. I know, and you say it's in the past, but I know for many, it's still happening now. That style of parenting, the being the authoritarian and do as I say, and I control it and you listen to me or else and putting the fear. A lot of people think, you know, respect comes from fear when really we know that respect comes from love.

and comes from that relationship that respect is the outcome and the consequence of that. And so, I mean, I think that that circles back to my point that, you know, we, by who we are as human beings, we are, you know, wired for connection and we have those emotional needs and physical needs and in that, you know, doing the best that...

James Moffitt (13:59.938)
He knew how he was providing for you in a physical sense, right? You you had a home, you had clothes, you had food on the table, and he was blind to or unaware that you also had emotional needs as well, as did he, you know? So I think that, yeah, of course, doing the best that he knew how, right? And he too probably would also, if he was here,

say that he too broke generational curses, because he too could go into defense of what was happened to him or what his life was that led him there. And I think that that's the process of it. And there's such grief involved in that process of breaking the cycles and moving forward and having acceptance and even offering forgiveness, not absolution, but forgiveness for what it is and helping hold that truth as an and. They were doing the best that they knew and

it may not have filled your needs. You were still left with those needs. And I think that that brings a very tender space to the topic of parenting. And it brings a very tender invitation to hold two things at once. And the needs that I talk about a lot, I like to boil them down into four S's. This comes from Dan Siegel's work.

And if you think about building a healthy bond or healthy relationship, you can aim towards these four S's. The first S is safety. So if a child feels safe with their caregiver physically and emotionally, they don't feel a sense of terror from their caregiver, then that will help build a healthy attachment, a healthy bond. If they feel seen by their caregiver, if their caregiver can have a mental picture of what

that experience is like for the child when they do something stupid or when they are scared or when they are nervous. If they can have their caregiver say, I see what's happening. You don't even have to tell me what's happening. I see it. get it. That helps them feel seen. Also, if they have a sense of being soothed, so when they are experiencing distress, either it being stress in the teenage years or

James Moffitt (16:18.456)
friend conflicts, or if they're just feeling angry themselves, they have someone who was regulated to help them co-regulate so that they have a sense of soothing and comfort. And then the last is security, and security means predictability. If they can have some sort of structure and predictability, like they know when they're gonna eat, they know what's gonna happen, they know these kind of rhythms come into life, then there's some security in life. They don't always have to guess for things. Safety.

being seen, being soothed and being secure, then you start to build that healthy bond. And I think for many of us, myself included, my parents were blind to many of those things, right? Or they did their best. They got close, but that was still left me with a lot of unmet needs. And then I would take those unmet needs and try to have those needs met in destructive ways and unhelpful ways.

It was when I went to college and started learning about early childhood and just like how important those like zero to seven years are of someone's life, especially with their caregiver. I started to be like, oh my gosh. And I like to think my mom has been passed for coming up on 13 years. And before she passed, we had an eight year estrangement. When I was 22, called her up one day and I said, I'm not coming to Thanksgiving because I have to rebuild myself every time I'm around you. And because the more,

in depth, was going into my own healing. It was just wrecking me when I would come around and just be belittled or humiliated or kind of poked at those old tools that she had to deal with my own needs of those four S's. And eight years passed and I was dating someone and she invited us to Christmas and we went. And when I went there, I saw her as the little girl who was unwell.

And I said, my gosh, there it is. Like you, you were equally not taken care of and did your best to take care of me. And as much as I was the mirror to you, I was also mirroring your hurt and your unmet needs to you as well. And I left that Christmas and I came home and long story short, I started to repair.

James Moffitt (18:38.572)
that relationship, I started to go up and see her when she was in the hospital and go and connect to her. And we had three months together to reconnect before she passed. And I'm number four of five. And I'm the only one of my siblings that had a positive, I would say in those last three months, did I get an apology from her? No. Did I get her to see me? No. But I saw her and that in that space, even though she was my mother, I was more emotionally mature than she was. And I was able to see her and accept her for who she was.

That when she passed, you know, gave me such a sense of peace. Like she passed with peace and she passed with love and she passed with no ill will. I wasn't expecting to go there, James, but that's really what led me to do the work that I do is to hit on such a deep level that this matters. It matters on a very deep level, you know? Well, my sister and I were both adopted out of an orphanage in Germany.

My dad was in the military, was stationed in Frankfurt, Germany. And they tried to have met my mother at a bingo game. She was Austrian by nationality. She was a translator, spoke 26 languages, very sharp, very intelligent woman. They tried to have kids, couldn't, had several miscarriages. They said, hey, let's adopt a little girl at an orphanage. They adopted her. Turns around, they found out I was her blood brother, and so they adopted me too.

And so I'm very, very, I was very fortunate and very fortunate that I have been able to live the life that I've led, which I otherwise probably would not have experienced. Right. So they were, they, they provided for our physical needs, our medical care, our roof, a roof over our heads, food every day, you know, school, new school clothes and school books every year.

But the area, that they failed horribly in was they, they didn't know how to demonstrate love towards us. They didn't, they didn't, they didn't allow us to be children. was like, you're, you're to be seen, but not heard. We'd go over to relatives houses and we were, we would be told to sit on the couch, you know, put our hands around our lap, don't talk to each other. And just, we just didn't have a childhood. They didn't allow us to be kids. And, and so when I turned 18, you know, I pretty much hated my parents and

James Moffitt (21:03.447)
could not wait to leave. did everything in my power to leave. And because of some of the things that I was missing in my formative years, I was a dumpster fire. It's, it's really, it's really amazing. If it wasn't for God in my life, in my relationship with him, I wouldn't be here. I'd be in prison, I'd be dead. There is no telling. It's only by the grace of God that I can sit here and talk about these things. Yeah. And I,

I do not want to talk badly about my parents who have passed on. These people say you don't speak ill of the dead. So I don't want to do that. And I want to give them credit where credit's due. I learned some hard lessons and I learned some hard lessons that I needed to learn. And I think about 25 or 26 in Houston, Texas.

I recognize the fact that my parents weren't blithering idiots, that they were not out of touch, that they actually were very wise in some of the things that they told us kids and they tried to teach us. And I had to learn through the school of hard knocks to understand those things because I was just so wildly out of sync and desperate to be my own man and make my own decisions and not have them, not have their authoritative

control over me, right? agency, were looking for agency for what agency to be an individual and be able to make your own decisions that impact your own. my own, I wanted independence. And I think a lot of, I think a lot of preteens and teenagers, especially when they're coming into their own and they're learning how, who they are and what they want to do in life and who they want to be in life.

You know, they, they experienced that, that, um, the spirit of, Hey, I want to jump out of the nest and fly and enjoy life. And I want to do what I want to do. Not necessarily what mom and dad wants me to do. it starts even younger than that. They start to go into that developmental stage between seven and nine. They start to pull away, right? That primary connection is in that early childhood. And then once they hit seven or nine, they start to, um,

James Moffitt (23:30.239)
self-separate.

and then start to build their own identities. They start to have their likes, their dislikes, their friends. They start to look for acceptance, not from the adult, but from their peers. Gotcha. I got you. So that's when a child is developing socially on track, that's what we want to see. But again, many parents were blind to it. We don't know. don't know what that means. We don't know that, okay, that's what they're supposed to be doing. And how do I support their development?

at this stage, just as I supported their development when they were walking, talking and learning all those foundational skills. How can I support them in meeting this goal right now as well?

Sorry, was coughing off screen. No, no, that's Right here. have to tell you, your microphone is just hilarious. Why? the little fuzzy thing that's I said that is that is so hilarious.

It's like a little pot. Yeah. It's pretty well. You can almost, you can almost hang it around your neck and have it like right here to where, to where you would be picked up, you know, when you start waving it around, sometimes I'll lose you. All right. Well, I'll keep it. I'll keep it here. There you go. so another question is why, why too much information is making us more overwhelmed and less effective.

James Moffitt (24:59.627)
Too much information. we're asking, imagine if, here we go. Let's take it to a neutral setting. Let's pretend, James, that you got a check for $50,000 and you're like, great, I'm gonna go buy a new car. And you start doing your research. You're like, I've been wanting this. I'm gonna take action on it and I'm gonna do it. And you decide on the specific make and model and year of the car that you wanna go purchase.

What happens if you go to your best friend and say, Hey, I got this magical $50,000 of a towards a car and this is the car that I'm going to get. What do they say? Oh, they probably tell you about a different car. Oh, you don't want that. You want this. Exactly. Okay. So then you're like, okay, so now you introduce self doubt and you're like, okay, well, all right, maybe that's not it. So then what if you then take it to your teenage son or teenage daughter? What do they say? That's the same thing.

That's an old man's car. You don't want that. You a Mustang or muscle car or something. Yeah, right. So now you're like...

if I'm gonna please my friend, I should do this. Or if I'm gonna please them, I should do that. Or if I should, what if I'm making the wrong choice? It starts to bring in anxiety and doubt. And so you start to kind of spiral in all of these outside enforces and outside opinions. And so that can happen in parenting too, right? It can happen in, what's the right bedtime? What's the right screen time? What's the right...

level of activities to do and really the right activity and the right screen time and the right bedtime and the right everything is what's right for you and yours and what's right for you and yours to stay safe, seen, secure and soothed and to hit those four needs, right? And so I think sometimes when we start to seek outside of ourselves versus seeking someone to help connect us back into what's right for me and my relationship,

James Moffitt (26:58.081)
then we can start to go down like all of those paths. can start to be lost and end up buying a car that we didn't even want or we don't even like, and now we're resentful for it. And that's all too common in the parenting space when the advice is coming from anecdotal advice and not, know, grounded and pulling you back into those developmental stages, those emotional needs, those physical needs, and what's right for you and yours.

Well, I think in the technology age that we're in with the advent of AI and chat, GBT and all Wikipedia and all these sources out there, we can research a lot of stuff and we can, we can accumulate a lot of information.

You know, the allegory I would use is like, okay, so once upon a time, when we get sick, we'd have symptoms, right? Before AI, before chat, GBT, before Facebook, before any of that, we would talk to our parents, grandparents, aunt, uncle, say, hey, I got these symptoms. What do you think it is? And they'd give us some kind of a clue and say, hey, well, it's probably the flu or influenza or whooping cough or whatever it is that you may have a migraine, you know.

And you go to the doctor, the doctor, he diagnoses your symptoms correctly because he's a medical professional and he, diagnoses it and he provides you with treatment options that you can use. Right. So, so yeah, we're, we're an information overload just because of the information that is available at our fingertips. We, we carry around smartphones that are, are, are more powerful computers than what they had, you know, before the internet was even created. Right.

And we the microchips and these cell phones are fantastic and it just amazing what we can do with them and what kind of information we can get out of them and we can produce with them. Right. So so the problem with to me, the problem with depending on all of this information at our fingertips is how do we know what's valid and what's not valid. Right. Because all all chat GBT is doing is scraping the

James Moffitt (29:10.283)
the interwebs for information it finds in web articles, right? And so it could present you with all kinds of options, but are those options the ones that are appropriate for you? Probably not, right? Yeah, because we miss that human connection. We miss understanding you and the relationship and your values, personal values, right? It's not anecdotal advice. It's not a prescriptive advice because we all have different values and morals and

we all have different goals of what we what we're working towards. Right. so sterilize it. Exactly. It becomes information. And then we try to change things at a tactics level versus at a root level. At what level? At a tactics level versus then a root level. Okay. You inside the root inside of you.

Your personal values, your vulnerabilities, your likes, your dislikes, your hopes, your dreams. Those are all root sources, your beliefs, right? You know, if you're going out and sourcing information and information keeps you stuck at a tactic strategies by something level. Okay. You spend a lot of time and energy trying to fix, to fix cancer with band-aids essentially. Yeah, I like that. That's really good. Why haven't they come up with a, with a cure for cancer?

Now you probably don't have the answer for that, but I, I wonder about that with the technology that we have today. I'm like, uh, you would think that they figured out how to. Let's flip the question around. Let's flip the question around who benefits from there not being a cure for cancer. answer to my answer for that is follow the money. Exactly. That's it. That's it's not that there's not, there's not a cure. can't be cured. It's that there's no money in the cure. You know, I, yeah. Yeah.

and put people out of business and then there's no, there's no longevity in that game. Right. We will invest in a lot of solutions and not preventatives. And that's the work that I do. I do preventative work. I help parents come in and say, Hey, let's address these symptoms at the root course when your kids are younger and let's do preventative work right now so that you can start building new habits and new structures and new, new,

James Moffitt (31:31.361)
patterns in your family. So when they are older, you know, lot of these issues can be resolved with early intervention. Right. That's good stuff. I bet there's lots of parents listening to this that, that wish they would have had a parent coach 10 years ago, you know, or whatever, whatever the time period is. And, and guess what? There's no date. There's no time like now. Right. don't care. It's never too early. Never too late. That's right.

I've worked with parents who have adult children. I have worked with parents who have little babies. I've worked with, I've even worked with people who were the aunts of kids and wanting to improve the relationship and connection. So all different relationships can benefit from this work. There's so many different lenses in which you can enter it, but it's never, it's never too late to start this work. And I think back to, like I said,

my own mom and my own relationship with her, if at any point she would have said, hey, you know what, I'm sorry, I wanna work on it, I wanna see you, hear you, and I'm ready to try again. If it was coming from a genuine place where, not that she wanted to kind of loop me back into the circle, right, into her orbit again. But if it was coming from a general place where she's gone and done her own work, she's healed her own things and coming.

from a place of authenticity, there would never be a day that I would have rejected that. And she passed when I was 30, if that had come from an honest place. It doesn't make it mean that it would be easy, but there's never a time that anyone who had hurt me, if they were to pick up the phone and say, I've been reflecting on it and I really messed up and I'm sorry about that and I wanna repair and move forward. Yeah, I mean, what a gift.

Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. how to make parenting feel less like a to-do list. How do you do that? Cause Lord knows you've got thousands of things you've got to do every day. Well, I think that that is that's, that's a mental, mental load and family and household systems. And like, yeah, there's going to be tasks that have to like the have to do's and the need to do's. so that's part of it. Right.

James Moffitt (33:57.847)
all of that maintenance work. have a friend who runs a program and she calls it deferred maintenance. And it's just like a life. It's all of the things that you've put off. So there is like maintenance work in life, but to make it feel less like a to-do list is to connect back again to your values. Like what are you valuing? What is it that you want to make the priorities aligned to that value? And then what else can is someone else's priorities that you can drop and say, all right, this is no longer.

you know, a need or a want even. What are the things that I'm doing just because I think that that's what I'm supposed to be doing, but if I didn't have to do it, I wouldn't do it. Like, what can you drop? But I think that it is. There's things that are the to-do list, like the grocery shopping, the Monday things, the laundry, the cleaning, the, my gosh, all the paperwork from the schools and the activities and all that, going back and forth. So what are the things that are the...

values and priorities and what is it that you can just drop? You know, what are the things that you've been doing because you thought you should be doing it and then you're like never even slowed down to be like, do I want to do it or do I like doing it? Does this add value to me? And then, and then say, okay, let's not do it. is it, or is it beneficial for the, to the child for doing it? yeah. That one too. If there's, if it, if there's a benefit, I, I have heard and known of

parents that have let's say multiple kids and they'll buy a, you know, a soccer mom van to load the kids and all their equipment in it. And they, the ma is typically the moms, the moms are like just running ragged, going from one soccer game to the next or to soccer, to baseball, to football, to, know, and they're just like, you know, there's no fun in that. And there's, it's, it's very, uh, tedious. It's very, it wears you out and

Where's the kids out to the kids are like, you know, stressed and overwhelmed and well, you really want to play soccer, don't you? yeah. Well, no, not really. Can I do something else this semester? Or, know, you just you just hear stories of parents that are just overwhelmed by the load of the load that they've placed on themselves and their children by trying to get them to all of these events. What is something, James, that looking back?

James Moffitt (36:22.131)
that you fell into that trap. I didn't fall. Well, I didn't really fall into that trap as a child or even as a, as a parent, because honestly we couldn't, we could not really afford to, have our children involved in all of that. just, know, were doing good. Where, what is something that you fell into the to-do list?

You know, maybe not all the activities or sports or that, what were the, what was the thing that maybe was on your to-do list that you're looking back? You're like, you know, if I could go back, I would have dropped that. That's a good question. I don't, I'm not really sure. I know I'd have to reflect on that a little bit. Yeah. Percolate on it. I'm curious. Okay. Huh. Maybe, maybe it doesn't come now. Maybe it comes after we hop off. Okay. That's a good question.

And I don't mind questions because it makes me think it makes me more more interactive. So why quick parenting tips aren't the answer.

yeah, quick tips, right? We all want something to be solved with a pill. And I get a lot of parents who, they want me to give them the easy answer. And then I say, to give you the easy answer is going to keep you stuck doing this for much longer. So do you want the easy answer right now or do you want to put in the work and effort to build the skills so that it's easy in a year?

it's easy and you've been conditioned down the road. And I think that the more we try to grab the fast and easy, the more we consume, the more it doesn't work, the more we cycle it. And we just start to rev ourselves up, right? Again, staying at that tactic strategies, band-aid stage versus getting roots and getting quiet and starting to get down to like what's really contributing to this whole system and cycle. But

James Moffitt (38:31.839)
It's fast, it's clickbaity, it's SEO friendly to say five tips to get your kids off the screens this weekend. Someone who tries to implement those five quick tips, if they don't align to your values, align to what your needs are as a family or your child's needs are, then of course they're not gonna work because they're hollow.

And then when they blow up, becomes discouraging. You're like, okay, well, this doesn't work for my kid. My kid, again, it can even reinforce some negative beliefs about your kid. Like I knew that they're hard-headed or strong-willed. I knew it wasn't gonna work with them. See, that's just because there's a deficit in them. And it can kind of fuel these negative cycles when we reach for those quick tips. And like...

I use a metaphor with my clients often I call it Super Bowl moments and Super Bowl moments are those moments that feel like the Super Bowl. Like they are like the total meltdown at target when everybody's looking at you and you want to execute on these tools that you've been working as high pressure. It's all eyes on you. It's like when you want to be able to be on the receiving end of

all of the training and off season work and coaching and repetition is in this moment. And a lot of people wait for those Super Bowl moments to practice the skills. And if we shipped out and we think about Super Bowl, I'm not even a football person to be honest, James, but who played in the last Super Bowl? I think it was like the Chiefs? Versus. I don't know.

I don't know who the other team was either. But if you look at their team, right, their team, have plays, they've practiced those plays, they have off season training, they have coaches, they have fitness trainers, they have nutritionals, they have such a team around them. And they are practicing all the time. They have fans cheering and support plays so that when those hard moments happen, they can execute on those skills. And if you think about parenting that same way, are you waiting for that? Like they're not practicing

James Moffitt (40:46.816)
passes during the Superbowl, they're in the Superbowl because they have practiced those things. Right. Those quiet moments and those moments that are are are, you know, those moments to strengthen and condition these skills, have those mistakes, become self-reflective in that in that process so that when you're in those moments that like you want to execute on it, then you can then you can run the plays. Gotcha. Quick trips, quick tips and tricks keep you stuck on sidelines.

One of the things I thought about while you were saying all that was that you have parents that have this mentality of don't do as I do, do as I say. Right. And when you have when you have children that are spending too much time on their screens, sometimes those children are spending too much time on their screens because guess what? They see mom and dad doing it all the time. You know, they see them picking up their phone at the

kitchen at the dining table and checking their Facebook feeds or their email or, you know, text messages or whatever. so we have to be, uh, practicing. It's going to be modeling. Yep. We're always going to be modeling. Communication and learning is 80 % nonverbal. 80 % of what your child is learning from you is nonverbal. So they're watching you. They're watching your mannerisms. They're watching your facial features. They're watching.

how you resolve those moments. They're watching what you do with your time. They're not going to listen to you. It becomes very false flat when it, when you rely heavily on lectures and, telling them and commanding them or demanding them. Um, cause they're like, I'm going to call it a bluff real fast. Right. Especially when they're teenagers, have no problem with communicating that. Right. Because

teenagers, they're having a practice of again, that agency, they're feeling agency, they are having more responsibility, they're having adults in their whole life, telling them, you need to be more responsible, you need you're almost an adult, you're almost like they're getting that message. And so they're like, great, I'm going to try it on and I'm going to and then I'm going to speak up to it I see things differently and I feel stronger and see things, I'm able to call out these injustices, right? Whereas a little

James Moffitt (43:01.92)
those seeds are being planted when they're younger for both, for the kids and for the parents, right? The parents are lolling into these habits and the kids are lolling into these habits. And then they enter into the developmental stage where they're now being told different things and asked to go stand up for themselves and the responsibility questions. And even, you're part of this family, so everybody pulls their weight kind of conversations.

So then they're like, okay, great. Now if I'm going to be invited to the table, I'm going to come to the table. And if that practice when they were younger is do as I say, or I'm the leader and you have to follow me and you have to wait for me, then that's going to be what's practiced later on down the road. Then it can create a lot of conflict because it's, sending now mixed messages. saying, you're a part of this family. You put into this family.

you need to be responsible like an adult, but I'm still going to treat you as a three year old. Right. That breathes resentment. it's an angry message. Right. All right. So you're, you're talking to parents, parents of any age, but basically we're talking to older children, 12 to infinity. And we have a whole host of

parents with a whole host of problems that you're dealing with. generally speaking, what would you say to moms and dads that are listening to this podcast episode about parenting coaches and the need for that kind of help? Yeah, I think that it is a field that is emerging. It's a field that is very in alignment with a therapist or a counselor.

Although we're not therapists and counselors, we're here to teach skills and be like that football coach for the chiefs on the side of the sideline, helping give perspective and helping be that encouraging voice, helping keep you accountable to what it is that you want to do. And I think that finding the right fit is a great...

James Moffitt (45:19.232)
process and I say it and I hesitate because it is it's emotional investment finding that right fit and for you and your family. However, it can be just so truly invaluable to have that process of being self-reflective and being held in that journey and being held in that support so that you can move forward because for many they would say my children are the most important things to me and I say if that's the case.

then how are we tending to it? How are we keeping maintenance of it? How are you really reinforcing that for those hard moments? And a parenting coach could help you do that. Do you think maybe there's some sort of stigma attached to asking for help that maybe parents would hesitate to reach out to a parenting coach or a therapist? Yeah, I think that we run in a deficit model. So we think that we have to wait for some

to break or we have to admit that we failed in some way to bring in some of that outside help. However, I think that that message is coming from other people who are outside of the field. Those are people who are still never have gotten into that space. Because once you're in the space and held, those messages and stigmas are not coming from the providers themselves. Someone who comes to me and says, hey, look,

I'm really struggling. Like I really resent be spending time with my kids on the weekends. Like I dread it. I'm going to connect to them and say, gosh, that's really hard for you and for them. like, let's, you do you want to stay there? Do you want to stay in that place or do you want to move forward in it? And of course they want to move forward, but they're coming thinking, I'm going to be judged or, that she's going to think about that parent. but if we think about it, people go to the gym, not because they think that they're bad.

people go to the gym to improve, to get better. People work with a financial aid person, a financial planner, that their finances improve. All of these people are coming to improve those relationships and improve those skills. But I think that, especially when we've inherited tools of punishment, when relationships have felt unsafe to us, it makes sense that going into a space of relationship improvement,

James Moffitt (47:39.156)
can stir up all of those same feelings. Like, if I'm gonna go in a relationship, I already have a pattern that relationships are not safe. They don't help me feel seen. I don't feel secure in them and I'm not soothed by them. And so entering into a space, a new space where that's the goal to help you feel those S's can feel very vulnerable and very like, I have to admit something where really I'm looking and saying, hey, this is where you are at and let's get you to a better place. Let's get you feeling better and...

working better and communicating better and then everything then starts to improve. Good. So where would parents, where would parents find a parenting coach? Where would they look? Where would they look? many therapists, if you are already working with a therapist or an OT or speech pathologist or therapist, can make it that connection. Some pediatricians have connections to

Um, different parenting coaches, um, a simple Google search could also lead you to parenting coaches. Um, and you would find me at Be Kind Coaching.com. What is it? Be Kind Coaching.com. Gotcha. Okay. Very good. Well, I really enjoyed our conversation and, uh, I, I enjoyed the interaction.

James Moffitt (01:38:40.188)
out section of the Spotify podcast information, you'll see a website that you can click on the website or cut and paste it into your browser and you can find all sorts of information. You can see my contact, can email me, you can leave me a voicemail, you can read the reviews, you can look at the upcoming podcast episode releases, the release dates, all sorts of information on that website. And if you listen to this podcast episode, please leave a review so that future

listeners will know whether or not they want to listen to it. this podcast is for you. so anyway, I'm going to say thank you for listening and have a wonderful day. And thank you for being on this episode, Megan. Thank you so much for having me, James. Okay.