Paging Dr. Mom

13: From Control to Connection: A New Way to Parent Without Guilt with Kristin Schmoke

• Angelle Downey • Season 1 • Episode 13

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What if your child isn’t the problem—and neither are you?

In this episode, parenting coach Kristin Schmoke shares how she shifted from traditional discipline tactics to a more connected, collaborative approach that transformed her relationship with her son. We talk about ego-centric parenting, mom guilt, why behavior charts can backfire, and how real change begins when we stop trying to fix our kids and start getting curious instead. If parenting feels like a power struggle, this episode will give you hope, perspective, and practical tools to reconnect.


Resources + Links:

✨ Kristin’s website

✨ Instagram: @kristin.schmoke.parenting

✨ Listen Up! – Kristin’s online parenting course: Listen Up! Course

This episode includes a paid partnership with BetterHelp. Click the link, betterhelp.com/drdowney, to get 10% off your first month.

Click below to purchase the 365 day journal I created called Enough As I Grow. I am a proud affiliate partner with Amazon and will receive a commission from purchases at no extra cost to you.

🖋️ Enough as I Grow 365 day Guided Journal on Amazon

Email: drangeladowney@gmail.com
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🎵 Music: Upbeat Strings by Evan MacDonald

SPEAKER_01:

What if the way we've been taught to parent, especially in moments of chaos, is actually disconnecting us from our kids? I'm joined by parent coach Kristen Schmok, who takes us on a powerful journey from behavior charts and burnout to collaboration and connection. If you've ever felt like you're failing, like you're doing everything right, but it's still not working, this conversation is going to give you a whole new perspective on parenting, self-leadership, and healing relationships with your kids, starting with yourself. Hey, hey, I'm Dr. Angela Downey, and this is Paging Dr. Mom, the podcast for women who are juggling careers, kids, chaos, and cold cups of coffee. We're talking about the real life behind the resumes, the messy moments, big feelings, and how to stay human when you're doing all the things. If you've ever felt like the only one trying to keep it together, you're not. We're gonna laugh, cry, vent, and thrive together. So here we go. Hello to all my busy mamas. I'm Dr. Angela Downey, and I'm so glad that you're hanging out with me on Paging Doctor Mom. This podcast is for all of us who are just trying to keep it all together while juggling kids, careers, and whatever else life throws our way. We're gonna be exploring those moments that we definitely wouldn't be putting on our resumes. I want to introduce you to today's guest. Kristen Schmok is a mother of four parent coach, teacher, DYIer, and nature lover. She helps parents replace quick fix discipline with connected, collaborative parenting. With 25 years as an educator and a parent, Kristen has had the unique opportunity to observe child development at every stage, allowing her to refine her approach and support families wholeheartedly. She's been the exhausted mom, the teacher trying to manage it all, and the woman carrying the invisible load in motherhood. What I love about her approach is that it's not about perfection. It's about connection. She brings honesty, compassion, and practical tools that I think every mom needs to hear. Hi, Kristen. It's so great to have you on Paging Doctor Mom today. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_00:

I'm doing great. I'm so excited to be here. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, no, I'm glad that we finally get to connect. So maybe we can start by having you introduce yourself and tell us about your journey to becoming a parent coach.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, sure. I'm Kristen Schmoke. I am um a wife. I'm a parent of four. I have um I'm a teacher. I am a certified parent coach. And I always like to say I'm a DIYer, uh, extraordinaire. That means I'm I'm way underqualified, but I go in at it anyways, because I love to do it. And then I'm a gardener and a nature lover. And I became um a parent coach through actually my oldest child. I always say God gave him to me to prove to me I didn't know squat about kids, because as a teacher, of course, I was a perfect parent before I had my own children. And then I had him, and uh, he proved me wrong in many ways because I, you know, I knew that I could um I got all the hard students and I got all the challenging situations in the classroom. I could handle anything. Um, so here we are. And it was very humbling. Um, but I'm really glad that I was available to learn new things and it really completely changed our relationship.

SPEAKER_01:

So yeah, that's a great combination being a teacher and a parent. You must have tons of information and strategies that people can use.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01:

So you've experienced being both a full-time teacher and being a stay-at-home mom with some side hustles. So, what are some of the challenges that you experienced with both of those?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, um, so being a working mom, right? The guilt of not being able to attend all of the classroom events or the sporting events or whatever's being scheduled at the school that interferes with your workday, or when your child cries or calls you crying because they forgot this really important. I always feel like it's an accessory for dress up day that I get the phone calls for, or it's uh homework or anything, and you're like, I'm sorry, I I can't leave work to go get that. And your kids having to go to child care after school because you have to work and you can't pick them up right away. There's a lot of like, I think mom guilt around that, like not being able to be a part of that as much as if you were a stay-at-home mom. But then when I was a stay-at-home mom, all I thought about was, well, I wouldn't say all I thought about, but there were definitely moments where I was like, all I do is laundry and make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. My brain is turning to mush. I know I'm made for something more. There's gotta be something intellectually stimulating that I can do with myself while I'm also raising children. And I think often sometimes just feeling like I'm just a mom can be really hard to feel like it's not enough or I'm not doing enough. Um, at least that was my experience.

SPEAKER_01:

It's like you lose one of those roles that were really important to you.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, you lose part of your identity.

SPEAKER_01:

Mm-hmm, for sure. I I did not do very well on on maternity leave because I missed that interaction with other adults and um getting out there and having that rewarding feeling of working and putting in a good day's work. It does come with some challenges being at home all the time with your kids.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. And feeling productive. Because when you're home with little ones, you definitely don't feel productive. At the end of the day, you look at your house and go, what tornado hit here? Um, I didn't get a single thing done off my to-do list. And also knowing that that's okay. I think both situations are hard and beautiful.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Sometimes I'd have a hard time getting out of my PJs or brushing my teeth if I knew I didn't have anywhere to go or anybody to interact with. I just didn't do well being a stay-at-home mom. I think it's different for everybody. So it depends on on who you are and what you value.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, and I think it's it's okay to shift, you know. Like I I started off taking a maternity leave, and then I had a second child, and then I stayed home. But I got asked to come back when my second son was three weeks old. And there was a time where I considered going back because that felt easier to go teach a classroom of 20 first graders rather than sit here with a screaming three-week old and an 18-month-old. And I was like, well, surely that's gotta be my calling is to go back to school. Um, but in the end, I'm I'm glad I stuck it out because I learned a lot during that time that I would have missed otherwise. I would have probably continued to go on believing that I was an amazing parent who got, you know, because I was a great teacher. And really, I didn't I didn't I didn't get that opportunity to grow if I had gone back to work so early. I ended up going back later. I feel like my journey as a teacher and as a parent has been like, work for a couple years, stay home for a couple years, work for a couple years, stay home for a couple years. It's kind of ebbed and flow. So it's nice that it can change.

SPEAKER_01:

That's okay. You can shift any time, right? We have that that that freedom. Um, I know for myself, my second child, it was my partner who stayed home and took a paternity leave. So that was that was really great to have the other parent get involved as well. It doesn't always have to be mom.

SPEAKER_00:

100%.

SPEAKER_01:

You mentioned trying to apply some of your classroom management skills at home and and how that backfired for you. So can you walk us through what that looked like?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, absolutely. Um, like I said, my my oldest child had some some hiccups in his education, and um I was mortified as a mom. I was like, oh my gosh, she's getting in trouble in school. Like, we're stopping this. So, of course, I created a behavior chart, like any good teacher would do from the early 2000s. I created a baby behavior chart, and we had it on the refrigerator, and he came over at home every day, and he would circle the smiley face or the the flat face, it just had like a there was no smile or frown, or he would circle the frowny face and he would basically grade himself on certain categories, and then I would grade him based on what the teacher had told me, and we'd talk about things. And that's really great when you're trying to control your child's behavior. But the reality is your child's behavior is telling you something, it's either telling you that they don't have the skills yet to do something, or that they're feeling a certain way, and you're not receiving the message correctly. And I didn't know that at the time. I just wanted him to stop doing it because I was embarrassed. Really, it wasn't about me. It should have never been about me, it should have always been about him. And I thought by using my teacher skills that would be benefiting him so that he could fit in, so he would be socially accepted, so he would be considered the good student for the teachers. And again, none of that was about him, and I complet completely missed the messages he was sending.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. So he's working to get these gold stars and make you happy, but whatever it is that's bothering him isn't being dealt with at the time.

SPEAKER_00:

100%. And I'm actually teaching him how to mask himself.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. How do you think that impacted your relationship with your son?

SPEAKER_00:

It absolutely impacted our relationship, especially as he got older. He was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes um uh about 12 days after he turned nine. And so I already had a habit of trying to control him, right? And then he was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, so then I really tried to control everything. I control it, tried to control the food he ate, I tried to control the amount of water he drank and everything. And and all of a sudden, the message I was thought I was um conveying to him was, I'm here to keep you safe. I'm here to support you, I'm here to keep you alive. This is my job. The message I was sending him was, you're not safe in the world, and I don't believe you can handle it on your own. And that was not my intention, but that's the message he received from my almost overbearing and um overcontrolling behavior. Because look, I went into survival mode, right? When a loved one gets sick, especially with like a um incurable disease, it's manageable, but it's there's no cure for it. Um, you're like, I got this, I'm gonna be there for him, I'm gonna do it all. And it's all good intentions until you start to see the effects. And so he started to um to push back on that, on that behavior. I'm I'm actually really glad he's super stubborn and he's super confident in himself. And and and if he hadn't been, if he'd been a really easy child, I could have just plowed over that and would have missed the lessons. But he pushed back on me, and it was because of that that um I, of course, took him to all the doctors trying to fix him. Because I thought for sure there was something wrong with him. Maybe he's uh maybe he's on the spectrum, maybe he's, you know, got this like aggressive anger disorder. Maybe he's got, you know, got to go see occupational therapy, maybe he just has to see a therapist, maybe he has to see, you know, all these things when really um, again, I never looked at my relationship and what I was doing. And once I started looking at what I was doing and how I was impacting his experience, or how is how I was ignoring his experience, that's when everything started to change.

SPEAKER_01:

Type 1 diabetes is tough. It affects families. So it impacts your child, it impacts you, and it impacts your entire family. And it's hard to it's hard to manage. So I can understand like how scary it must have been for you and your child's not understanding what's happening. So you're putting in all these rules, and all of a sudden you're sticking them with needles uh constantly. So that's a big life change for him, and on top of that, someone's now controlling his life. So I I can imagine how difficult it was for every person involved in that relationship.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely, and especially like he was nine, so he was just getting that point where like they're starting to become a little bit more independent, and it's like almost like took back all of that independence. Um, and was there was mom always available for when the school called or when he was at a play date or any of the things. I joked at the time, although now I see well that really wasn't that funny. But I have four children. Um, and I joked that I spent 98.5% of my time on my oldest son, and I spent the other one and a half percent on the other three combined.

SPEAKER_01:

That must have been hard for you. Like there must have been some guilt involved with 100%. Feeling like you were there for your younger kids either.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, and also like the sheer exhaustion of having a child with type 1 diabetes, like having to get up in the night, um, and how having to always be on. Um, I told the school nurse she wasn't allowed to call me. She could only text me because a phone call from her signaled to my nervous system that something was really bad.

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

That like if it wasn't bad, just text me so I can read it, then I know like this is not an emergency. But if I got a phone call from her, like I felt my system just go, emergency.

SPEAKER_01:

He must be dying or something.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01:

So talk to me about egocentric parenting. What does that mean to you?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that means that I'm parenting for me, not for my child. I am parenting so that my ego or that I feel safe. So, in the situation with my son, I was controlling all the things so that I felt good, but I eliminated the part where he would feel good. So, egocentric parenting to me is like even as simple as it doesn't have to be type 1 diabetes. It can be trying to get your child out the door so you can be on time somewhere. It can be not wanting to give your child the blue plate when they ask for the red plate and they already have the you know the red plate. Whenever you're starting to use sentences like, I need you to stop, you know you're in egocentric parenting mode because you're starting with, I need, and it's funny as a teacher, I find for a while I found myself doing that a lot. I need you guys to just be quiet a minute. I need you to listen for a minute. Those are words that come out of the mouth often, and we don't we aren't even aware of it. You know you've gone into egocentric parenting when you start the sentence with I need.

SPEAKER_01:

But sometimes we do need that. So how do you how do you find that balance?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I like to say to parents, get curious about the child's behavior because when you're saying, I need, you're no longer available for the other person. You're in like survival mode, so that's signal to you like, hang on, I'm I'm I'm perhaps needing a moment to just check in with myself. And then you can ask questions like, I'm curious about what you're doing right now. Can you tell me more? I'm sure there's a really good reason why you want the blue plate. Tell me more. And even little kids at three and four, they can tell you, the blue plate, I always get the blue plate at lunch. The red plate is Griffins. You know, like like they they have this, they have a story, and we're often eliminating or ignoring their story or their perspective of life when we go into egocentric parenting.

SPEAKER_01:

It's nice when you get a gr better understanding of why your kids want things done a certain way, and then and then it's easier for you to buy in later or make it so that they can get what they want if it's if it's reasonable. But how can moms spot when they're falling into this trap of egocentric parenting?

SPEAKER_00:

Um when they start the sentence with I. When they when they really have a desired outcome, like they want to control the situation, that's when they can recognize and be aware, like, oh wait, hang on, I'm gonna, I'm gonna just take a beat. I need to pause and check in with myself because we're only one question away from understanding. And here you're not understanding um because you're in survival mode, even in a simplistic manner. I always like to talk to parents about, you know, especially like as middle school students and high school students want to go do something, like maybe they want the keys to the car for the night, or they want um a certain video game, or they want a phone, and you don't feel like you want that, and you're like, no, and rather than just like instantly blanket and statement with it, then you get to have that conversation with them of like, hey, convince me, convince me why you need a phone, convince me why, and you get to have that collaborative conversation instead of that blanket no, because those collaborative conversations are open to connection, they're open to seeing the other side, they're open to this understanding that your perspective is not the only one at play here.

SPEAKER_01:

I think as parents, like I always thought of it as I'm trying to prepare this person for the real world and the world that's out there. And in the real world, I mean some people might tell you no, but a lot of times you need to kind of plead your case or explain to people why you want certain things. So that is also teaching your child how to be an adult and and how to survive out in the bigger world.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, negotiation skills are a key component of life, right? Whether you are in um a relationship with your parents or you're in a relation, a romantic relationship, a relationship out in work uh with your boss, or um you're trying to uh plead your case for uh a promotion, there it's everywhere. It's really important for for parents to recognize that this is also a life skill. And allowing the discord between people to happen in a way that doesn't have to be um angry or aggressive. It can be from a place of, okay, well, maybe we can compromise that.

SPEAKER_01:

You've said that you had to go first, and that's a really powerful shift. So, what was going first? What does that look like?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I mentioned earlier that I had took my son to a bunch of different doctors and I was trying to fix him because for sure he was the problem, right? Because uh I had a challenging child and everybody feel bad for me. My life is so hard. And really what I needed was to take personal responsibility. And so by me going first, after I after I had exhausted taking him to all the doctors, and still we found that we were at odds. Um, I was like, all right, something different has to change, something different has to happen. And I found myself enrolling in a um parent coaching certification class. And it was as soon as I started viewing him differently and viewing myself differently that everything changed. I realized that all he had been doing, because all children are just reflections, like they're all mirrors, right? They're reflecting back to us the parts of us that we don't want to see. And the reason we get mad at them is because we don't want to see those parts. They're the parts of us that we don't like, the parts that we've hidden away and tucked neatly in a corner and they stay there. But when our children see them in us and they reflect them back to us, we get mad at them and make them the problem. Well, I realized or I started to face my own insecurities, own thoughts, recognizing how often I was beating myself up every day and starting to no longer see him as the problem and start to go, okay, there's a solution here, and I get to be a part of it. How am I going to be a part of that solution? How can I show up differently in this moment? Because the way I've been showing up doesn't and hasn't worked. We have that history, we have that data, it's not working. How do I get to show up differently? And when I show up differently, it's almost magic because it's this relationship that was contentious and power struggles and and full of I'm gonna say resentment because he was a teenager. Um I all of a sudden showed up differently, and it was an instant melting of all of that. And it felt so good. Why would I ever go back?

SPEAKER_01:

How do you start that shift? Because obviously he's upset with you and he's just pushing back. He wants nothing to do with you anymore because of this I don't know, maybe we can call it controlling behavior that's been between the two of you. This power struggle. So you start showing up differently, meaning I'm assuming you get curious about what's going on with his life and why he's doing certain things. Like how what does that look like?

SPEAKER_00:

Those first couple steps to Yeah, I think the I think the first step is really noticing the thoughts that you have about your child. Like start to recognize all the times you're calling them a pain in the butt in your head, you're calling them lazy, you're calling them confrontational, you're calling them expletives in your mind. And start to recognize that every time you do that, your brain looks for ways that that's true and looks for more ways that that is true. But two things always exist at the same time. He's also being a really kind, compassionate, helpful person at the same time. I'm just completely disregarding them. I'm ignoring them because I'm feeding or fueling those labels of laziness, confrontational, challenging. And so parents, for the first step, start to recognize the things you're thinking about your child. When my child was going into his teenage years, I remember having a really hard time with him. And I think I saw in Pinterest somewhere to cut out hearts and put them on his door, and so I cut out construction paper hearts, and it was around vacation or Valentine's Day, and I put like one word, one word that I wanted to impress upon him, or some of them were true, but some of them I didn't believe to be true at the time. And I put them all over his door, and I mean I did it for all four of my children, but specifically it started because of this child, and you know, it's interesting because he left him up, he never took them down.

SPEAKER_01:

Interesting.

SPEAKER_00:

They stayed up, and then the cool thing was every time he walked into his bedroom, he saw him. Every time I walked by his bedroom, I saw him. And then I started to see the ways he actually was a good big brother. I started to see the ways, he was actually helpful. I started to see the ways, he was actually compassionate. Whereas before I had not seen those in my everyday life, and so while I thought I was impressing them upon him, I was actually impressing them upon me to start seeing. And it was a it was a huge gift. And once I started shifting those labels that I was using on him in my own head, everything changed.

SPEAKER_01:

You were able to speak to him differently, and he was able to receive those messages a little bit better.

SPEAKER_00:

He was absolutely more open because he could no longer feel that energy behind the anger that I had towards him of being this challenging child. And and and also like I was the victim here. I was the victim. The reality was I was never the victim. I always had agency. I had given my power away to think that he was in charge of how I chose to feel. And none of that was true. What was true was I actually got to be aware of my thoughts, I got to be aware of the ways I felt, and I got to be aware of the ways that I interacted with him. And once all of that changed, he could no longer feel that energy from me. Like he could feel that energy of dislike from me, which no parent wants to admit that you dislike your child, but he made life really hard for me. I'm really glad he did. I'm really glad he did, because if he hadn't, I wouldn't be here.

SPEAKER_01:

There was something going on uh that needed to be changed or altered or shifted a little bit, um, because he was probably not feeling all that great about himself or great about the relationship that the two of you had.

SPEAKER_00:

Of course. Like, can you imagine like feeling that your your parent doesn't like you? I mean, how awful. Like that that feels terrible. I'll tell you what, we have an amazing relationship now. It's it I I love it. It's great. It's so much more open, it's so much more light, it's so much more accepting. And because of that, um, he gets to be who he is, and I love him unconditionally in a way that I didn't even know that I was conditionally loving him before. I didn't know, but now I know.

SPEAKER_01:

What does connected collaborative parenting look like?

SPEAKER_00:

It looks like parents taking a beat, pausing before they respond to their child, and interrupting an old pattern of reaction. That's where it starts. The second step is asking questions. I'm sure there's a really good reason why. Tell me more. And I'm missing something here. Can you tell me what I'm missing? Because we want our child to have these opportunities to express their experience with us. And also the key component is remembering that your child doesn't need to be fixed because they aren't broken. And that I think is the key component. We as parents want to rush in and fix things and make it better. A lot of us feel uncomfortable when our children cry, they have big emotions, and maybe they're hitting and screaming, and we just want it all to stop. Rather than allowing them to have that experience, we want it to stop because it feels uncomfortable for us, and we want them to return to happy because happy feels good. But when we go in and try to fix it, we send we unconsciously send the message that they're broken. And the truth is none of us are broken. We are all whole, we have nothing to fix, and our emotions are normal. It's part of the human experience, and we get to have them. And also, some parent might be listening to this, be like, Yeah, well, Kristen, my kid hits me while I'm while they're crying. Okay, great. They don't get to hit you. You get to stop that. You do get to defend yourself, you get to allow them to be upset and say, I'm gonna let you sit right here, I'm gonna be close by, but but but you can you can cry over here and I'll be nearby, but you don't have to put up with a child beating you up. I'm not advocating for that, but what I am advocating is for a parent to meet their child where they're at, sit with them. Have you ever had an experience where you're really upset and perhaps a loved one comes in and and they instantly want to fix it and they want to like make it all go away, and you can sense that, you can feel that. And at the end of the conversation, you're like, but you still don't get it. That's how your child feels. But then you have somebody else who comes and sits along beside you and just says and lets you cry, and they say, I could tell this is really hard right now. And you're like, Yes, it's really hard, and you cry even harder and it all comes out, and that relationship feels so much more connected than the one that where they rushed in to try to fix it. Allow the emotions to happen. It's totally normal, it's totally expected, and it's part of the human experience. And I think sometimes we forget to normalize emotions other than mad, sad, and glad, right? Yeah, those are like the acceptable ones.

SPEAKER_01:

I think back to like comments that I may have heard uh growing up, like you think you've got it hard, or this this is fine, like don't worry about it, it'll just get better. It just like it wasn't helpful, those comments.

SPEAKER_00:

Or even you're so entitled, you don't know how good you have it, right? And I would say that's discrediting your child's experience for your own. That's not seeing your child for who they are in this moment. And I think sometimes as parents, we think that who our child is in this moment is who they're gonna always be. And this is just a snapshot. This is just a moment in time. This doesn't mean it's who they are forever. It just means they're having a hard time with friends right now. It just means they're having a hard time with school right now. It just means they're feeling really bad about themselves right now. Because we all have those moments where we feel that way too.

SPEAKER_01:

And we all need to learn to. To manage those emotions and those feelings?

SPEAKER_00:

I wouldn't even say manage them, because manage puts out the impression that we have to control them. What if we all allowed them? What if allowing our emotions was normal? But even more so, what if just acknowledging the fact that we had feelings and we talked about them and we named them and said, I'm feeling really frustrated right now. I feel like you're not listening to me. What if we used words that expressed that? It allows for that normalcy to happen. But when like our our children can feel it when we ourselves as adults are shoving emotions down. But our children, they feel it from us because they feel that energy, but they can't name it because outside I'm saying, I'm fine, I'm fine. And so now they're confused. And so now they don't know how to feel. But because our children reflect back our emotions, we look, they look to us for co-regulation for how I should feel in this moment. Should I be scared right now? And if I'm swallowing that fear and I'm going, no, no, we're good, we're good, we're good. The children are like, yeah, but I have this feeling inside of me, but I don't know how to I don't know what to name it and I don't know what to call it. And you're saying it's fine, but it definitely doesn't feel fine inside of me. So it must be something wrong with me.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, when you say you're fine, you don't look fine, right? They're gonna feel those vibes, those bad vibes. And if you can't tell them what those are, then they don't know what to expect.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and you can do it with in like a child-friendly way. You don't have to say, well, I'm fearful for all the really big things that are happening in the world. But you can and name them, because we don't need to know all of them, but you can say, you know, mommy's just just feeling sad right now, or mommy's mommy's feeling scared for the people who are in danger. Like you can leave it simple. It doesn't have to be detailed oriented and give all of the the reasoning about scary details. Well make it age appropriate, but also make it known.

SPEAKER_01:

When we started the conversation, we talked about some of the challenges of being a working parent, a full-time working parent, and having that that guilt for not being there for your kids. A lot of my community, female physicians, they're carrying chronic guilt for having to work. So sometimes they're feeling like they're failing their child somehow. So, what would you say to the mom who's listening, who's just trying her best but feels like she's not doing enough?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, I like I feel that question so deep, right? I and and I don't think you have to be a physician to feel that way. Um I think you can have mom guilt and be a stay-at-home mom. What I would say to that is really all the guilt is is showing up. It's it's it's showing up because of an insecurity you have that you're not enough. And because you already feel not enough, you're allowing yourself to buy into that story that you're still not enough. And what I would say is what we need to do as moms is practice loving yourself more. Because when you love yourself unconditionally, that resonates and that hits with your child. They feel that. Because having guilt is just feeling like you're not enough for your child. When really you're exactly what your child needs, you're exactly who your child chose because they needed the experiences that you were gonna provide for them to get in this life. And when you can sit and really practice loving yourself, I'm talking about the thoughts in your head. Be an inner bestie instead of an inner bully. When you are beating yourself up, you're being a bully to yourself. Acknowledge, like, you know, that didn't go the way I planned, but I did my best. An inner bestie is going to be cheering you on and saying, hey, we'll get them next time. Hey, do you know how amazing you are? Did you notice like what you just did there? That was so awesome. Your besties there cheering you on. What if you looked like your own inner bestie?

SPEAKER_01:

I was my worst critic, and it just led to me feeling like I wasn't good enough as a mom, as a doctor, as a as a partner. It really left me feeling like I wasn't good enough anywhere that I that I was. And it's like this cycle because now you you start beating yourself up even more.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. And your child can feel that too. They can sense it. They don't make sense of it, but they can feel it. And when you can go on and cheer yourself on and know that at the end of the day, you did some good things, you're training your brain to see all the good things instead of all the bad things. Because two things exist all the time: the good and the bad, and you get to choose which one you want to see. And I think it's really important to know you have agency over this. You chose to work. There is nothing wrong with that. And I would say it's even harder in today's landscape. My experiences with my children, there is constantly something going on at school where you are expected to be present for. It's hard to have a full-time job and show up for the Halloween party, for the pep rally, for the homecoming parade, for the parents' breakfast, for the like all these things. They want you to work like you don't have kids. And have kids like you don't work. You get to decide what works best for you and feel confident about it because you do have agency and you do have choice. But you have to love yourself enough first.

SPEAKER_01:

Self-compassion will go a very long way.

SPEAKER_00:

100%. Be out there giving yourself a high five every time you do something good. Writing it down if you can't remember it in the moment. Just like make a note and go over it at the end of the day. Or maybe there's a day you can't find anything that you did good. Maybe you keep all of your good little they they give me just like little minor things. Whatever you're working towards, keep them in, keep a note in your phone so that the days that you're feeling like you're really beating yourself up, go read them and go, oh wait, look how far I've actually come.

SPEAKER_01:

If you're thinking negatively about yourself, you're gonna go out there and you're gonna look everywhere that you can look to find proof that that is true. But if you start thinking positive things about yourself, then you're gonna start seeing the areas where those things are true as well. It's just you're just looking for different things. And that can be something positive or negative.

SPEAKER_00:

100%. 100%. And same for your child, right? Like we talked about that earlier.

SPEAKER_01:

In your work, what's one parenting myth that you wish that we could collectively let go of?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I like to say, and I've already said it here today, but your child's not broken. They don't need to be fixed, they need to be seen. And in a world where our children feel more alone than ever, and yet more connected than ever. They need their parents to be a safe place. They need their parents to really see them and their challenges and not judge their challenges, but to just say, okay. And know sometimes we're going to change because we're going to fix them by what are we going to do differently? And sometimes we're going to just sit with them and wait until our child's ready to make a move. And knowing they're not broken and you're not broken matters.

SPEAKER_01:

It does. It does matter. So if you can go back in time and whisper something to yourself during one of those hardest parts when you were parenting, what would you say?

SPEAKER_00:

I would say the most generous thing I could do for myself, or you can do for yourself as a parent, is to take care of you. Nobody's coming to rescue you. Like you have to take care of you. And being a parent can be hard, it can be all-consuming, and we want to give, give, give. But if you're not giving to yourself first, none of it matters. Because then you show up as an exhausted parent who yells a little too much. You show up as a parent who avoids certain situations or scenarios. You're a parent who can't handle the overwhelm. And life is gets lifey with kids, right? And if you're not taking care of you, your capacity for life goes down. Your capacity to hold those moments. And when you can really pour into yourself, you have more stamina, more availability for patience, more availability for problem solving, and being available.

SPEAKER_01:

So, how are some of the ways that you take care of yourself?

SPEAKER_00:

Good question. Um I take breaths, intentional breaths throughout the day. And that looks like putting a hand on my heart, closing my eyes, closing out the stimulation of the world for a little bit, and breathing in nice and slow for just a couple breaths. And that reset is so good. I feel like the little triggers or the little like micro triggers throughout the day kind of melt away. Like those little things that might like irk you just a little bit, but you didn't completely lose your mind over it, they kind of build up over time. And then eventually you you blow. But when you sit and you just sit and close your eyes and put your hand on your heart, you reconnect to your body, and you remember who you are. You remember you have choice, and you remember, like, oh, I actually haven't had any water today. I'm gonna go take care of me and drink some water now. Or I haven't eaten yet, or showered. Like these are these are important things too. So I like to I like to breathe regularly throughout the day. Um, and I find that to be the magic pill for parenting we've all been waiting for.

SPEAKER_01:

I've I've started paying more attention to my body. So it used to be that I would think to myself, oh, I need to go pee. And then like eight hours later, I still haven't gone. And now when I when I feel that I'm like, I need to prioritize myself. And sometimes that just means going to the bathroom when I know I need to go and not not holding it in just to see that one extra patient that then turns into like five extra patients and actually taking that time to pay attention to my body, what is it telling me? But you can't do that unless you take like a break to really check in with yourself and take those five minutes to go to the bathroom or have that drink of water if you're feeling dehydrated, because it's really easy to start ignoring some of those cues that your body's giving you.

SPEAKER_00:

So it's more about advocating for your own needs. Um and and when I say take care of you, I don't talk I'm not talking about a weekend trip to Tahiti. I'm not talking about um a day at the spa, although those are great if you can.

SPEAKER_01:

They are great, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

But those are not sustainable in the everyday moments. And what I'm talking about is the everyday moments where you get to take care of you and your child.

SPEAKER_01:

Kristen, I love quotes. Is there a particular quote that you love and would like to share with us?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, um it's interesting. I find like I'll use quotes often, and then when somebody asks me, I forget. Um, but I really love this Brene Brown one. Of course, she's, you know, she's the goat in when it comes to this kind of work. Um, but it's connection is why we're here. Um, it's what gives us purpose and meaning to our lives. And that always lands for me when I'm in the hard moments of parenting, and you're like, wait, connection's why we're here. This this is this is this is the work I'm to do, is the connection part, so that my child can feel connected with and seen and heard and held in all the ways that they need to be and know that they are enough.

SPEAKER_01:

I love Brene Brown. I've got a sheet of like a whole bunch of quotes of hers. I love her book. She's a she's a great author. So, how can listeners find you?

SPEAKER_00:

Um, so I am the head parenting coach at Empowered Educator, um, which is a really magnetic company that's doing great things in the education world for not only teachers but um parents as well. So you can find me over at empowerededucator.com. And I'm also on Instagram at kristen.smoke.parenting. And those are the two places I pretty much exist.

SPEAKER_01:

Amazing. And you've got another a course that's coming up for for parenting called Listen Up.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. So we're launching an asynchronous course, so it's a video course called Listen Up Strategies for Parents Raising Empowered Children. And that is launching soon. And you can find it over at empowerededucator.com. You can sign up now and get the emails. And um, we're really excited for what that's gonna bring to parents.

SPEAKER_01:

Fantastic. I'm gonna make sure that uh all of those links are in the show notes, so it'll make it easier for people to find you. Kristen, thank you so much for being here and for sharing your story with such honesty and heart. Your work is a reminder that real change doesn't start with fixing our kids, it starts with understanding ourselves. And I know that my listeners are going to be walking away feeling seen and supported and more hopeful. And thank you to all of you who are hanging out with us on Paging Dr. Mom. If you enjoyed today's episode, go ahead and hit follow or subscribe so you don't miss what's coming up next. And if you want to keep the conversation going, you can find me over on Instagram at dr Angela Downey. I would love to hear from you. So take care for now, you're doing better than you think. That is it for today's episode of Paging Dr. Mom. If it made you smile, nod along, or feel just a little more seen, then go ahead and hit that follow button and share it with a friend who needs to hear it. Take care for now, you're doing better than you think.