As a Parent, You Are The Toy

In this week’s episode I talk about how creating a safe space for our children is critical for them to be able to decompress and be themselves. Often times, our kids are holding it together and when they get in our orbit, they just need to release and relax. Be aware of your frustrations with their behavior and recognize when they just need to blow off some steam.

For the lesson, I realized that as parents, we are the toy. And, we are the toy because we make our children feel safe because we are familiar and comforting. So, the next time our kids ‘will you play with me’, they are really saying ‘I feel safe with you and right now I need that feeling of safety’. 

Also, what is our relationship to our ‘releases’? I often have an unbalanced relationship with my decompression as I run to food or other outlets to ‘dive in’ and escape the reality of my day. By doing that, am I also not helping create a positive space for my wife and daughter to be able to decompress?

The advice I would give my daughter when she is older is for her to understand the relationship she has with her releases. There is nothing wrong with using exercise, cooking, watching a movie, etc. to unwind after a long day or week, but understanding how you use those things can help inform how you are growing as a person.

For the Sponsor I Wish I Had, it’s all about Elf? That’s right, the Elf skincare Holy Hydration. 

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For the Just the Tip, I talk about why I always buy pesto instead of making it. It all boils down to outsourcing the stuff you don’t want to do.

And, for the Whisper In, @milklesspodcast is where you want to be. Matt and Max are funny, insightful and spot on with parenting real talk. 

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Transcript

Obviously, kids need to feel safe with their parents. And when they do, they often express that far differently than we expect.
Welcome, everyone to another episode of The Story lesson advice, podcast, part of Saturday is Saturday media, podcasts, videos, blogs, and books all in due time. Thanks for listening. We're gonna get right into it talked about in the opening that kids express themselves differently than we might expect when they feel safe around us. And I had a great example of this man, I feel so frustrated about the way that I handled it. When our daughter was younger. A couple of years ago, when we still live back in Texas, my daughter went to daycare. And I would pick her up most days because that was sort of on the way home for me when I was in outside sales and lined up pretty well with with timing. So I'd go in there and pick her up. And she was kind of sometimes in a good mood, but a lot of times just kind of you know, hum, or she says Hum hum. And I picked her up, and we'd get in the car. And by the time we got to the first stoplight, she would just start bawling. And this went on for maybe a month, month and a half not every day, but most days. And she was just bawling. And I couldn't figure out what the deal was nothing appeared to be wrong. And at the end of the conversation, at the end of the night, there was nothing bad that happened at school or anything. But my wife said something very profound to me, as she often does, that. That was her releasing everything that she was holding together at school, she was holding it together all day long. She was away from mom and dad, she was in in school being told what to do having to learn all this new stuff. And she got in the car. And because she felt safe with dad in the car, and mom too, that she would just let it all go, she would just exhale. And that's what it turned into is she just needed that release, she kind of needed to cry. And she got it out of her system. And by the time we got home most days, then it was fine. And we were kind of on our way. But for a few months when that was happening. My reaction to that was to get frustrated. And I was never was mean to her. But oftentimes I was maybe short with her or I wasn't as patient with her because I had just come from a full day of me holding it together. And being in front of customers and selling and doing all the things and being on the phone all day and running late to appointments and all that. So I pick our daughter up and I'm just trying to get home so I can exhale, and then the entire way home, what am I listening to I'm listening to her have a meltdown. But it's not really a meltdown, it's her with her exhale. And that got me thinking about something very interesting, what is or what was and what is now my exhale. And I think that is something that we probably all could ask ourselves is What is it that we do feel our be whatever it is at the end of the day, or whenever, whatever time it is, when we need to release when we need to exhale, I think having inventory of that can inform a lot of where we are in our lives. Oh, this week, the sponsor I wish I had is this little blue jar of amazingness it is called the elf skin, holy hydration. And it is a makeup melting cleaning balm. Now, if you don't know me, or if you do know me, you probably can guess I don't wear a lot of makeup. However, this is a product that I discovered through my wife several months ago, I'd say almost a year ago as a way to wash your face at night. Now guys, I've talked about this before and gals, but guys have a terrible habit of not taking care of themselves as they get older. And I refuse to be nose hair guy here hair guy guy who doesn't take care of himself in that in those kinds of ways. So washing your face at the end of the night and when you wake up in the morning and putting lotion on your face in the morning and at night is a huge thing. And a huge step you can take to extend the longevity of your George Clooney features. So my recommendation as I say George Clooney to date myself. My recommendation has been to wash my face at the end of every night and I use a skin a lotion kills. It's a it's kind of a thicker lotion that goes on at night and it's great and I put some ice cream on by Tala which is also awesome and I use this which is the elf skin I'm cleaning. And what I like about this, the reason that I use it is because you put it on your hands, you rub it, and you put it on your face. And then you can use a washcloth to wipe it off. And the reason that I really liked that, and how my wife kind of stumbled upon this was, normally you put soap on your face, and then you lean over the sink, and you wash your face, you splash water on your face, whatever. When I do that, I look like a truffle pig trying to wash their face and just water splashing everywhere, it's just a huge mess. So this has been like an absolute game changer. For being able to do that it takes a lot of the it lowers the bar of entry to be able to want to do this at the end of the night when you're tired, even if you've had a couple of drinks, or you've just been up had a long day. So I highly recommend that number one that you wash your face at night before you go to bed and you put lotion on and then go to sleep and ice cream. And then I highly recommend when you wake up, you do the exact same thing you wash your face. And you put lotion on with SPF during the daytime. And I would highly recommend you use this elf product to do it because you put it on your face and you do not have to lean over the sink to wash your face and get water everywhere you just use a washcloth, it comes right off. So this is an excellent product that I've been using for about a year elf scan, holy hydration, makeup melting cleansing balm, that is this week's sponsor I wish I had. Okay, so we talked about the story of me picking my daughter up from daycare. And for a good stretch of time, every day, almost every day when I picked her up, she would just cry and cry and cry in the car on the way home. And for a while I would get really frustrated about it. And I would be short with her. And I would be irritable on the car ride home because it was also the end of a long day for me. And I was just trying to get home. And I didn't realize what was happening there. And my wife said something that really stuck with me, which is she was holding it together. Our daughter was holding it together all day long at school, and she finally got in a safe space with dad in the car. And she finally felt safe that she could just let it all go and have a good cry as her way of sort of decompressing and releasing for the day. And that really stuck with me. And several, probably years later, I saw something on Instagram or YouTube or listen to some podcasts, I can't remember the source of it. So I can't take credit for it. But you know, I will why not? I'm lazy, I'll take credit for it. And there was something to the effect of when with your kid, you are the toy. So when they want to play with you, you are the toy. And I kind of drew a link between those two because I think kids especially at night, and they sleep with stuffed animals, and they've got their favorite stuffies and their favorite pajamas and all that all of that kind of goes back to a feeling of safety a feeling of comfort, familiarity, and a kind of a safe space for them to operate them. And just like when I picked my daughter up, and she would have a meltdown because she just needed to decompress for the day. That was her safe space. And over time that evolved into and not now we live in Phoenix instead of Dallas and our daughter just couldn't ask for a better person to be able to handle that transition. She handled it just with such great attitude and awesome about that. But now that she's older, it evolved into when I picked her up is Dad, will you play with me Dad play with me, Dad, let's play together. And I love every minute of it. And it's great. And what that tells me is I'm the toy. And I'm the toy because I again, or mom or grandma provide that sense of safety, that purse sense of familiarity. That sense of I can just kind of relax and decompress and do whatever. And so now, I think as parents, we need to make sure we understand that. When kids want to spend time with us. It's because we're the toy. They they just want to play with us. And this happens all the time where I'll be with my daughter and she'll say Dad, do you want to play Paw Patrol? Sure. And we're 10 seconds into doing that. Dad? Do you want to play Avengers? Sure. We're 10 seconds into that. Dad Do you want to play with the magnet tiles? Sure. And it just keeps going and going and that just reinforces to me that I'm the toy I'm the thing that she wants to play with or mom is the thing or grandma's the thing that she wants to play with this other stuff is just sort of window dressing for that but the whole thing got me to understand that as parents the responsibility we have and the responsibility to recognize that we are the safe space for our children. And the frustration that we may feel when they're being difficult at times or they're being stubborn or they're being flippy floppy on what they want to play or what Never is, were the ones that they want to play with were the toy. So they don't care about any of the other stuff, which
is why sometimes when it's like, Sure, I'll play with you, what do you want to play? Well, it's like, you just, you're playing with me, that's what I want. And so I don't know what to do after that. But I think that's a very important thing for us to realize his parents to be patient with that, and you want to translate in that into adult life for us as grownups. It can manifest or I think is recognizable in two ways. One is, what is our individual safe space? And where do we run individually. And a lot of times for people that can be to whatever their hobby is, maybe it's you know, working out at the end of the day, that's what you want to do is go to the gym and just throw your headphones on and listen to an amazing podcast like this, and get your workout in. Or maybe it's go for a walk, or maybe it's cooked dinner, you like doing that. For other people, maybe it's things that present a little bit more of a challenge. Maybe there's, you know, some addiction there with with substances or, for me, I run to food all the time, because pizza always tells me Yes, or whatever. But that's an unhealthy habit.
So I think it's really interesting to see that. Where do you run to? Where do you go to? And is that a healthy relationship? And in and of itself, nothingis impure, right? But your relationship to it is what makes it not pure. So for me, there's nothing wrong with any of the wonderful food that we have around the house, or that I know how to cook. But what's my relationship to it? And am I using it? Am I abusing it? Am I going to it for the wrong reasons, and often the case, yeah, that's, that has been my struggle for my lifetime. But for other people, it's other things. And then for some, some of us and some people, it's it's a great relationship with whatever it is, and it's a great outlet. And it's a great resource. So understanding what your release is, where you need, where you go, and maybe where you should go, where we should pivot, or where we should adjust to to go for that. And then also is, for those of us with spouses, are we creating a safe space for our spouse to also have a release. So maybe, like I said, is individually, what is that, but what if individually is hey, I want to go into the arms of my, my wife, or my husband, and I want to spend time with them. And I want to download them on the day, that's my way of decompressing or whatever. But if if, in my case, if I'm not open, because I'm frustrated, or I'm irritable, or I'm so focused on my release, or my decompression, and it's self serving, not serving others and not serving everybody in the family, including myself, then I'm not providing an environment to be able to allow other people to do that as well. And just like when I pick my daughter up, when I would get frustrated and irritable and short with her that closed that started to close that window of her feeling safe in this space that she could do that knowing that it was, you know, essentially a judgment free zone. So that is something we need to be aware of is, are we providing that environment for the other person to be able to decompress, kind of release, exhale, do all that sort of stuff. And are we also not just providing the environment providing a healthy environment where we're not just enabling bad behavior, but we're enabling and having the opportunity for the right kind of behavior to grow. For this week's just the tip segment, it's a quick conversation about a particular food item. And this is my story as to why I buy pesto instead of making it. And I think like a year or two ago, there was like a short clip on Instagram or Tiktok or something of some younger woman saying something to the effect of like, oh, I made this pesto. It tastes really good. I don't understand why anybody would buy pesto instead of making it and I think she got smoked online for it and everybody just roasted or whatever. But I understand the sentiment. So when you're talking about food that you like to cook at home, whether it's whatever it is, but you're not talking about things that take time to make tomato sauce, pesto, breads, you know any of those kinds of things. If you like doing it, have at it, go for it, enjoy it, love it, do it all the way. For me, for whatever reason. Pesto is something that drives me nuts to make which is weird because I love making chimichurri which is pretty close as far as the the type of work that you're doing to get the end result. And the reason I don't like making pesto and I used to make it all the time in restaurants when I cooked in restaurants, the reason I don't like it is I think it is a very high upfront cost to buy all of the ingredients. And it's it's a good return. But to me it's just the juice isn't worth the squeeze Bees, when you think about you're making pesto, you have to buy olive oil. So you want to get good extra virgin olive oil, then you want to buy fresh basil. And that is seasonal for a lot of places in the country and hard to find, sometimes in hard to get good quality. And then you need to buy pine nuts, which are not cheap, either. And then Parmesan cheese, which is also not cheap. Now there's variations on pesto, you can do it with arugula, or you can use walnuts instead, or whatever, I understand that. But the all of those things cost more money than say, if you were to make a tomato sauce, which is by a can of you know, canned tomatoes, buy an onion and garlic, and some garlic and you're basically in business. So, I don't like to do that, because you buy a lot of those ingredients. And some of them like pine nuts, or basil, they have to, you're not going to use them for a lot of things or they have to be used very quickly before they go go bad. So that's the number one. Number two, I just don't like the process of making just that thing. I don't know why. And number three is I think now there's a lot of really good pesto's that you can get at a grocery store, I get some at Sprouts or Albertsons or Kroger or whatever. And they're fine. I mean, they're, they get you 75% of the way there, which for me, I don't like it's not worth it to go the extra 25% to buy all this stuff to make the thing to do the whole mess. So my just the tip segment is, if there's a couple of things that you don't like to make, do not feel any guilt whatsoever, or any pressure whatsoever, that you should be making all this stuff from scratch. Because when I first started cooking, and first got into restaurants, I had this kind of inkling to like everything at home, I'm gonna make all fresh salsa, and I'm gonna make fresh pesto, and every single thing I'm doing at home is gonna be from scratch, you get two weeks, and you're like, you know what, I'm just gonna pick up water burger on the way home because I'm tired, and I'm hungry. And that's basically it. So give yourself some grace, give yourself some leeway. But look for those pockets where spend the time on the things that you truly enjoy doing and just outsource the stuff that you don't, because the the value the exchange on the cost and the value is not going to be there for you if you don't enjoy making it. So that is this week's rambling, rambling, just the tip. So we talked about the story of me picking up my daughter and her having a mini meltdown every day in the car on the way home for a while. And that was really her way of, of decompressing and releasing and kind of I was holding it together all day long. I just need to chill out for a little bit. The lesson that I learned from all that is sort of an adjacent lesson of when you are a parent, as a parent, you are the toy with your kids, when your kids want to spend time with you want to play with you, what they really want to do is be with you be in your orbit because you equal a safe space to them. Just like in the story. When my daughter was crying in the car ride, she felt that she was in a safe space where she could let it go. She wasn't gonna get in trouble. She could just cry and just get it out of her system. And as she got older now that sort of evolved into Dad, will you play with me Mom, will you play with me. And that is hey, you're you're the safe space, you're the toy, I want to spend time with you because I feel safe with you in your orbit. I can do whatever I want. It's a judgment free zone. And I can express myself however I want to because again at school, even though I can hold it together better, I still have to hold it together all day long at school, I still have to follow all the rules and do all the things and raise my hand and use my inside voice and all that sort of stuff. And the other lesson that I learned was from that was my relationship with what my release or decompressing is. And I think it's very easy for me to see to look in the mirror that I have an unhealthy relationship with a lot of my decompression outlets, whether that's food, or whether that's working out or listening to podcasts or watching movies or whatever is I think the relationship that I've developed is it was it was kind of a way for me to disappear as a as opposed to a way for me to help me unwind.
So I think I used those different things which are pure and good and normal in and of themselves. But I looked at it as an escape as an a way for me to kind of escape my reality instead of allowing me to sort of come down from the day of my reality. And also with that is am I doing myself? Am I doing my family, a disservice by being so self serving in those moments that I'm not creating a safe space for my family to be able to have their decompression and their release. And notice that I didn't say that my one of my decompressions or releases is my wife or my kids and I recognize that and it is but I don't think I put that's not the first places that I go and that To me tells me that I have an unhealthy relationship with some of these other things, because I'm looking for those outlets, as opposed to putting more kind of stewardship into the marriage and the fatherhood. And using that as a way to kind of come down and, and release from the stresses of my day. Now, the advice that I have, the vise that I would give my daughter kind of goes hand in hand with this is and I made a note of it here is to be aware of how you form and maintain the relationships with people places and things. And going in line and theme with the exhale and coming down and releasing and all of that, the catches that we need to kind of curate those relationships, treat it with the respect and help grow that over time, as opposed to doing what I did, which is using it as an escape, and kind of losing myself in it as opposed to using it to kind of help me get through the next part of the day or whatever. And my unhealthy relationship with food or with other things, has caused a kind of a loop that I talked about before the sort of the self sabotage loop of you just kind of living in this lower level frequency, you just cannot get above and rise above this sort of this area of needed clarity and everything. And it's, it's if you're just kind of if you're putting the wrong value or too much value on those things. It's hard for you to grow as a person and to recognize where you need to grow. So for me, instead of coming down, and using some of those things, as a way to release and decompress from the day, I was just jumping straight into that stuff, any chance that I could, as a way to escape the day. And there's a big distinction there. So that is that is my advice to my daughter, when she's older is be aware of that distinction. We all go through some form of that at some time, but be aware of it, and do whatever we can to offset that and minimize just jumping in and escaping versus using things to help you decompress from the day or the week or whatever.
Alright, so for this week's whisperer, and it has an Instagram account and podcast that I've been following for a few months. And it is called the milk plus podcast. The two guys are max. And Matt. At their tagline is real parenting strategies. Real talk, real funny. And they're two guys. They do a podcast every couple of weeks. It's really funny. And they talk and have very insightful thoughts about raising kids in different age settings, and some of the struggles that we all deal with. And I think they're very thoughtful and recognizing where, where the pitfalls are as parents, where it's easy to get frustrated or it's easy to not do the right thing as a parent or the better thing as a parent. I think they do a great job. Like I said, they're really funny, and they deal with a lot of real situations that we can all relate to. Max and Matt, the melkus podcast, give him a lesson. Give him a follow on Instagram. That is this week's whisperer.
Alright, as we wrap up another week on the story lesson advice podcast Thank you very much for listening and for supporting gonna continue to build out the SID media Saturday is Saturday media. On the YouTube channel and other podcasts. I've got a book review Podcast coming I hate reading. That is very soon I have four books queued up ready to go. It's finding the time to record it. It's pretty hard to do when you have a wife, a child and grandma living in the same house and a full time job. And then I also have a unboxing product review series on YouTube. I've recorded four videos so far just finishing editing them, those we'll be releasing as well. And then we'll be I'll be having a an ongoing cooking series on YouTube as well. We're going to be cooking a bunch of fun stuff and just kind of easy recipes that everybody can get their arms wrapped around not going too crazy. Sheffy just some fun stuff. So stay tuned for all that. To wrap up this episode I talked about the story of my daughter picking her up getting in the car having a meltdown and me kind of being quick to be frustrated with that. We talked about the lessons that I learned from that as far as am I creating a safe space? What's my relationship with the things that I used to release a decompress? And am I creating a safe space for my daughter and my wife to do the same thing as well? And then the advice I would give my daughter is just to be conscious of how you form those relationships with those people. places and things so that as you get older you don't have to untangle a bunch of this stuff because you don't haven't developed a bunch of unhealthy relationships with things that you can use to support you get through the day support your decompression support your mental clarity, but you're not using them like I have, which is to just jump in and escape fully. Instead of deal with with maybe some things that you need to over the course of the day. The sponsor I wish I had this week is elf skin, holy hydration, makeup melting cleansing balm. Like I said, I've been using this for about a year now, my wife turned me on to it. It's great because you put it on your face, and you don't have to lean over the sink like a truffle pig and get water everywhere you just use a wet washcloth and wipe it off. And then throw lotion on your face guys at night and throw lotion on your face in the morning with SPF. It'll extend your handsomeness for a few more years. The just the tip was talking about why I prefer to buy pesto instead of making it if you have something like that, where you have things that you feel like you should make if you like to cook at home, don't feel any pressure or any guilt. Just go ahead and outsource any of the stuff that you don't enjoy cooking by your tomato sauce or by your pesto or by whatever it is and make the stuff that you do enjoy. And the whispering segment was the milk plus podcast Max and Matt had been listening to them for a couple of months and following him on Instagram. They're super fun milk plus podcast, they have a lot of relatable stories. They also do a good job giving some good advice and talking through a lot of things that parents deal with and maybe the way that it was dealt with and maybe a better way to deal with it or other things to consider. So pretty insightful stuff so check them up. So thank you for listening. We'll be back next week with another episode of The Story lesson advice podcast part of si d media. Have a great day