To Our Core with Katie Murray
This podcast creates space for us to peel back the layers, drop the mask and stop performing. To Our Core is where we uncover who we really are. With humour, heart and real talk, Katie Murray helps you to ditch self-sabotage and step into your most bold, unapologetic, authentic self.
To Our Core with Katie Murray
Episode 33: The Standards We Set For Our Kids... That We Don't Live By
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This episode explores the balance between guiding our kids and practicing self-awareness, all within the context of modern parenting challenges.
Main Topics:
- The impact of parental screen habits on children’s perceptions
- How perception is projection: understanding our triggers
- Modelling emotional honesty and repair
- Shifting from control to connection in parenting
- Practical strategies for embodying our values daily
Connect with Katie:
Welcome. This is to our core with Katie Murray, and this is the place where we peel back our layers to uncover who we really are at our centre. At our core. And think of it as a chat with your bestie, the one who can make you laugh until your belly hurts, who is ridiculously unfiltered, and will lovingly call you forward to help you cut through the noise and get real with yourself. Around here, nothing is off limits. And we are mixing this up with equal parts of humour and heart. So let's dive right in. Okay, hello. Drop yourself in because this is gonna be a spicy one, because I'm starting with a personal confession. And I think that this might create a moment for people where they might feel a little bit triggered. Because there have been many moments, many, many, many moments, where I have literally told my kids to get off their screens or their devices while I am literally standing there holding my phone. I might be replying to a message, or I might be Googling a recipe for dun dun, or I might be quickly just checking something. And like, let's be honest, sometimes I might also just be mindlessly scrolling. And in the moment, I can justify it because I'm an adult and I have responsibilities and I am doing something important, particularly when I am like running a lot of my business from my phone. I might be sending an email to a client, or I might be in my DMs on Instagram, or I might be creating some content. So this is my work, this is my job. So I'm I'm actually, you know, this is purposeful. Yet if I zoom out for just a second, just a little memento. What they, my kids, are actually seeing is I'm just on my phone telling them not to be on this. And I've been thinking about this a lot lately. And I want to be clear, it's not necessarily from a place of guilt, although mum guilt, you know, can come in fast and hard. Uh, for me, I've really been shifting from a place of curiosity, asking and reflecting on this, from a real genuine interest in tell me more from a place of internal knowledge and wisdom and resources that I believe you hold, that I hold. How often are we holding our kids to a standard that we're not actually living ourselves? And maybe just even hearing that question makes you feel a bit uncomfortable. So I'm just going to do a disclaimer. None of this conversation today is about being a bad parent. It is about, however, acknowledging our humanness. And this isn't just about screen time. It's about all the ways that it can show up. It's like when we tell them to go outside and move your bodies. Yet we ourselves have probably spent most of the day sitting, whether it's at a desk or in the car. We encourage our kids to regulate their emotions, yet internally we can be running a full-blown thought spiral over something that happened earlier in the day. Replaying conversations, overthinking, getting frustrated. We tell our kids to be present in the moment. Yet often what I see in other human beings who are adults is that our minds are already on to the next thing, far from presence.
SPEAKER_00We ask our kids to be respectful in how they speak. Yet we snap when we're overwhelmed or short in patience.
SPEAKER_01We encourage our kids to take breaks, to take a rest, to not push themselves too hard, yet often we rarely extend that same permission to ourselves. And again, this is not coming from a place of judgment. I stand here alongside you all. If this is resonating with you, know that I see you in this because I feel it in myself. This isn't about catching yourself out. It's about noticing the gap between what we value and what we're actually living. So let's be very real for a second, because this is where it can get a little bit funny and also perhaps a little bit confronting. So strap yourself in. We tell our kids drink more water whilst we are chugging down our third coffee and wondering why we just feel a bit off, agitated, jittery. Or we encourage them to get enough sleep, yet we are staying up late, scrolling or watching just one more episode. We tell them to tidy their room or their personal space, yet we can instead find ourselves stepping over the same pile of stuff in our own space for three days, promising ourselves, we'll we'll get to it. And we ask our kids to often try new things and step out of their comfort zone. Yeah, we may be avoiding the email that we don't want to send or the conversation that we don't want to have. And we tell our kids not to quit when something feels hard. Yet, how often do we actually mentally check out when we're feeling overwhelmed? And one of the biggest ones, we tell them to be kind to themselves, to believe in themselves, and yet the way we speak to ourselves internally, oh God, that can sometimes be brutal.
SPEAKER_00Our kids are incredibly perceptive. They may not always do what we say, yet they absorb how we are.
SPEAKER_01And there's this idea that I come back to and that is perception is projection. I'm not sure if I've talked too much on the podcast about this. Essentially, it is what we notice, what frustrates us, what triggers us, even what we see is beautiful, can often be a reflection of something within ourselves.
SPEAKER_00Not always in the way that you may imagine, yet it's often our unconscious mind flagging that this is something to pay attention to.
SPEAKER_01So when you find yourself getting really irritated that your child won't get off their phone or their device, I would invite you to ask yourself gently, without judgment, instead curiosity, where is this showing up in me? And I want you to see that it might not be the literal map across for you. So it's not exactly the same as like I am doing exactly the same behavior, but how is this a representation of also what I'm doing?
SPEAKER_00When you feel frustrated that they're avoiding something, ask yourself, where am I avoiding something?
SPEAKER_01Or when you are feeling really overwhelmed by their emotional reactions or outbursts, keeping in mind that often kids keep it all together, maybe all day at school, and then they come home and they're in their safe space and they just have the safety to just let it all out. When you're seeing that and you're like, this is a lot, and I don't know how to support them through this.
SPEAKER_00Just take a minute and ask yourself, how do I handle my own emotions here?
SPEAKER_01How is this a reflection of me? How is this me? Where am I feeling dysregulated? And this isn't all about turning it back on yourself in a like super heavy way. It's certainly not about blame. It is about, however, creating an awareness because when you have that awareness, then you create choice for yourself. And something that I've really had to sit with is it's easy to set expectations, often for other people.
SPEAKER_00It's a lot more confronting, though, to actually embody them, like truly embody them.
SPEAKER_01And I want you to know that this isn't about lowering your expectations or your, you know, what you want for your kids. It's not about saying, you know what, kids, because I hold my device in my hand, you just like have it all day long. And I'm never gonna encourage you to get outside and move your bodies. And I'm not gonna create a diverse experience for you in your childhood. Like, who else has seen those um reels that are on Instagram at the moment that it's like doing a throwback to like the 1990s when you had a childhood and they're like, uh, sorry, you don't just knock on each other's door and ask for a play? What do you mean that you have to message through a device? You know, like it's it's very, very deep when you watch those reels in terms of wow, look at the childhood that a lot of us experienced in regards to like forming true connections compared to the experience and reality that a lot of our kids are growing up for. I I want to encourage you to still create moments like that for them and encourage your children to engage them. It's also not about saying, well, I'm not perfect, so it doesn't matter. Like I've got a phone and I'm, you know, I didn't move my body today, so it's fine for you to just lay on the couch and like just do like mindless scrolling on kids' YouTube or whatever it might be. Kids still absolutely need guidance and the wisdom that we offer as parents and boundaries and structure and routine, and that actually really enhances safety for kids. They know what to expect.
SPEAKER_00Yet, what if the focus shifted from how do I get them to do this to instead how do I live this in a way that they can feel?
SPEAKER_01Because when something is embodied, it lands differently for kids. If they see you putting your phone down and being present when they talk instead of trying to multitask and like, yep, mm-hmm, yep, yep. If they see you do that, that speaks louder than telling them to get off their phone. Or if they see you moving your body, getting outside, prioritizing your well-being, it becomes the norm for them. In fact, often they join you in it without even you needing to like push it as an agenda point. So for those people that follow me on social media, I just did eight weeks of really wanting to have intentional movement. And I'm not talking about a one-hour workout at an like a gym outside of my home and like being really rigid with it. I signed up for a program that gave me 25-minute workouts and a schedule to do them five times a week. And I didn't invite my kids to do it. I didn't invite them into this um goal for me, and then it had to be theirs. However, by doing it day after day, often while they were eating breakfast, and I would just like screen share it off my phone onto the TV, they were absorbing it. And guess what happened? They started to join in.
SPEAKER_00They started to go, oh mummy, can I do a workout with you in the morning? It becomes their norm. Kids are always watching us. Scary, I know, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01Particularly when you're like, yes, there's definitely some behaviors here that I uh wouldn't necessarily want my kids to have or to embody. And also it's really empowering to realise that because we can change our behavior whenever we choose. We can literally start today by making a different decision. And I don't mean that you have to wait to like later in the day, I mean literally the next minute.
SPEAKER_00If you if they hear you speak to yourself with kindness, they learn what that sounds like. If they watch you navigate emotions, particularly slightly more rough ones, like anger, frustration, sadness, you don't have to do it perfectly. Just honestly.
SPEAKER_01And they learn that emotions can be expressed safely and that they don't need to suppress or fear them. And I think that this is where we can soften a little. I have sat there and bawled my eyes out with kid with my kids. You know?
SPEAKER_00I have got angry. I've lost my cool. I've snapped at them. It's not my best self.
SPEAKER_01However, I also don't expect my kids to be their best selves all the time. It might sound nice in theory, however, I really truly believe that that's suppression. We deserve to have a full range of emotions. And also it's my responsibility to model for them how they they can experience those emotions. And it's not about modeling perfection, it's about really modeling realness.
SPEAKER_00So let them see you mess up and then repair. So lose your cool.
SPEAKER_01I mean, like, don't go out with an agenda like today, I'm gonna wake up and I'm just gonna lose my shit at absolutely everyone. However, acknowledge that your experience might be that you are not always 100% on your game in regards to your emotional regulation. And what you do after that matters. Your ability to repair that teaches your kids far more than what the snappy comment might have been, or you losing your call. It shows them that if that happens for them, there is a way to come back from it that doesn't jeopardize emotions and um makes you suppress them or invalidates them and can still be really supportive for healthy relationships. You can let your kids see that you are overwhelmed by overwhelmed by something, and you can also show them how you can reset yourself in that. Because by doing that, you give them an opportunity to learn strategies for how it might work for them if they were to feel overwhelmed and what they could do to reset themselves.
SPEAKER_00Let them see you try again. That's the standard, not perfection. Perfection can go sit in the bin.
SPEAKER_01It doesn't allow people to feel more connected to each other, just creates a situation if you're trying to present perfection that makes people feel inadequate and they put you on a pedestal when really you're probably an internal mess. It is about instead about embodying your humanness and always knowing that in any moment you can choose differently for yourself, even if you don't nail it with how you would have wanted to react. Or, you know, I want you to hear that if this is bringing something up for you, that there are absolutely ways that you can check in with yourself to catch those moments without turning it into a like a whole thing.
SPEAKER_00And this first one, it might feel like a bit raw. It might feel a bit vulnerable for you.
SPEAKER_01It might feel a bit unsafe because it requires a level of honesty that you may not have had modeled for you as you're a child, or you may have not practiced a lot, so it feels really unfamiliar.
SPEAKER_00Yet I invite you into asking or noticing when you are asking more of them than you would of yourself. Not from a place of judgment, but just to see it. How can I ask my kids to be honest with me and to not be fearful of me or the consequence if what they tell me I punish them for? Anyone raising teenagers right now? It's a wild phase, guys.
SPEAKER_01It is wild. And I remember something that a really incredible man who has done a lot of work in the youth space, and I really respect his perspective on teenagers, particularly, you know, teenagers that are have experienced a lot in their lives and their behaviors, their emotional responses, their ways to regulate themselves. Yeah, it can um it can present in a way that can be really jarring for people externally that may have not lived through their circumstance. It's very easy to judge the youth of today without walking a single step in their shoes. And he has just been such an incredibly uh inspiring person to watch working with youth in that space. And he told me something many years ago that has stayed with me. And he said, This phase, particularly with teenagers, where they are engaging in risk-taking behaviors or pushing boundaries or wanting to create their own sense of agency, and they might be old enough to not be requiring um, you know, as much guidance. So they think, I mean, I think they need a fair bit of guidance, but they're at a stage where they want to start making their own choices and they want to test and trial things and experiment with things, and it is so easy to fall into a space where you want to control, you want to wrap those boundaries and that structure and that routine and the rules real tight around your kids because you know, you bring wisdom that that they haven't lived yet, that they haven't experienced yet, and you want to keep them safe, and it comes from a really great place, really well-intentioned. However, his words to me, and it was well before I had navigated any teen life yet with my kids, he was saying this phase of either working with youth or in parenting is actually a lot more about connection than it is control. Focusing on deeply connecting with your children is far more important than trying to control them or punish them for the things that they may be engaging in or trying or experimenting. And so that has been coming through loud and clear for me as I navigate parenting a teenager. And also, if we're honest, there were behaviors that I was doing when I was a teenager that were testing boundaries and experimenting and seeing what, you know, I what I wanted to do with my life. And I felt very grown up when I was a teenager. And what would my parents know? And so really realizing am I holding my kids to a standard that one I didn't hold myself to when I was a teenager, and one that I also may not be embodying now? Like, where am I resisting wise advice or strategies that could help me, or decisions that could nurture my pathway to success more than behaviors that I'm currently doing? Where am I resisting that support and guidance in my life instead of embracing it? So maybe I could do some work on that. Whilst also letting my kids know that yes, there might be things that they do that they don't really want to.
SPEAKER_00Tell their mother about or their father about, and also my door will always be open to them for a conversation, for a bed to sleep in, because I can't live their experience of learning for them.
SPEAKER_01However, that connection over control is more important to me in regards to maintaining relationship and safety that they always know they can come to me. And that is a tough pill to swallow when you're in the thick of teen behaviors and potentially risk-taking behaviors and them wanting to just feel all grown up and engage in ways that is all grown up. And it can be hard to watch and to walk alongside. Yet control creates distance because it allows them to think that perhaps I'm not understood here. Perhaps they just don't get it. And so thank you to that incredible man years ago who told me that statement that said, This is the era of connection over control. As your kids learn a sense of agency.
SPEAKER_00Because if you maintain connection, they will always have that. Whereas if you promote control, that's gonna probably lead to them feeling powerless.
SPEAKER_01And that's the last thing that I want for my kids. So that's just a little shout out to anyone who is going through it. And maybe it even feels like you're going through it and you've got a toddler.
SPEAKER_00Maybe it can apply and support you as well. So all of this, I want to encourage you to see it, not judge it, to be curious in it.
SPEAKER_01Secondly, I want to invite you into considering one area to gently align when you notice that, where you're setting a standard for other people than you would yourself. So don't do everything at once. Like don't be holy other now and like feel like you have been, you've got to be Mother Teresa and you've just got to like absolutely nail everything. Maybe something like putting down, putting your phone down more. Or maybe it is that you get outside for 10 minutes and you see, let your kids see that, or you tell them about it. This is what I did for myself today. What did you do for yourself today? I went for a walk along the beach. What is something that you could do for yourself today? One question that I always ask my kids every night.
SPEAKER_00What was one of the greatest things that happened to you today? And what was one of the things that felt challenging for you? Because we can have and both. We don't have to have toxic positivity. We're only allowed to talk about the good things in our house. I want to know it all.
SPEAKER_01However, I don't want to just know the problems because that creates problem-saturated thinking and a lens for which we are always looking at the deficits and what's not working. And I also don't want to create a situation where it doesn't feel safe to talk about things that aren't. So we ask both questions. Was the greatest thing that has happened to you today? And I do joke with my kids because when they go, oh, it was doing this, and I'll be like, was it not waking up to see my beautiful face or coming home to me at the end of the day? You can add lightness to this conversation. And also I want to know if they're going through something. And even if they don't tell me straight away, because they might want to just navigate it and get and find the language to be able to articulate it, I want to create space enough for them to know that I'm curious and I'm here and that I continue to ask. So that when they do have language or they do have a way in which that they can articulate it, then that line, that question to them will come at a moment where they can share. Diet, my exposure, my conditioning is that diet means weight loss. Diet means restriction. So I talk about all foods rather than healthy foods or bad foods. And I was only talking to a client about this recently, where they had, they were expressing that they had quite black and white thinking about that, about healthy or unhealthy food. And I just invited them to what would it feel like if you just reframed it by looking at all food is available to you? Because then you can reduce the level of guilt that you might feel if you eat foods that you have previously classified as unhealthy. It's just food. And also often there's an abundance of this food available to you. So you don't have to have it all at once. When I was working with a previous nutrition and uh well-being coach, she said you can put a half-eaten thing in the fridge and come back to it. No one's gonna steal it. I mean, I do live in a house where teenagers will swoop on in on that delicious little snack that you have left in the fridge for later. So you might come to my house and see that mums only have written on it because I am trying to be mindful to my body and recognize: am I actually hungry? Am I satisfied here? Have I had all I need right now, knowing that I can come back to this rather than I need to keep eating this with this story that somehow it's unavailable to me later on or the next day. So just even if it's a diet slips into my conversation, um, I will correct it in front of the kids. You know, if I'm talking about myself in an unkind way, I'm like, hang on a second, that wasn't kind. I wouldn't say that to my friends. I'm gonna reframe that by saying, This is what I believe about myself.
SPEAKER_00And I'm not instructing them to do anything.
SPEAKER_01I'm just, which is number three, it's a third point, I'm just letting them see the process. If you have this perception that in order to be a perfect parent, that you have to always have it like completed, that you have to always have been like fully evolved and grown through it, and you never let them see the process of navigating it and correcting yourself and altering your path and demonstrating the level of awareness and then interruption, then you're not teaching them any skills in that. And they will face something. It may not be around diet, it may not be about moving their bodies, it may be about something else, it may be about their ability to navigate difficult emotions for them. Don't hide it from them. You're not doing them any service by doing that. It could even, like with the phone stuff, it could even be literally about voicing it and saying, I've actually noticed that I've been on my phone a lot, particularly around you guys, and I really want to change that. That can be powerful because it shows growth for them in action rather than like this desired state of perfection. And if I can't live up to perfection, which I fully hand on heart can't spent many years trying, I just felt like a fraud. If I can't live up to perfection, then I need to create space where I don't expect my kids to. And at the end of this day, this isn't about being that perfect example for your kids. It's about being an honest one.
SPEAKER_00Because my truth is that you don't have to have it all figured out for your kids.
SPEAKER_01They just want to see that their mum or their dad is human and that they're just gonna keep on getting up and going again, even if they didn't nail it the day before or even the hour before. That they can can correct, that can become an autocorrect for them, that they will interrupt behavior that is not serving them, language that is not serving them. So if there's a gap between what you're asking of them and how you're living, that is not something to feel guilty about. It is just information, it is just data. Start seeing it as a welcome invitation to you to come back into alignment, not perfectly, yet intentionally, with yourself and with the kind of life that you're actually encouraging them to live. Let me know what you think of this episode. Chat with you next week. Thanks for spending time with me today on To Our Core. If something landed in your heart or gave you a much needed giggle, consider sharing it with a friend who also may need this as a timely reminder. And go on. You know you want to. Give me a five-star review so that this podcast can land in the ears of many, many more people. Because remember that life is too short to stay on the surface. Keep living, loving, and laughing all the way to your core. Go make life great. And if you want support around this, go to the show notes to find out more. Until next time, I'll meet you back here with more truth, laughter, and a whole lot of heart.