How to connect with your child?

[Intro] Hi, and welcome to my podcast. I'm your host, Corinne Powell. I'm an intuitive guide and the owner of Change Radically.

My intention, both here and in private sessions, is to come alongside you in a way that feels safe and empowering. 

So many of us are experiencing similar things and feeling common emotions, but we won't know that unless we talk about it. You aren't supposed to have to go it alone.

I specialize in helping people pleasers change patterns and create a life they feel good about. Life should not be consumed by doing things you feel obligated to do. 

Do you want to feel a lot less frustrated? Then stop living in a way that benefits everyone else at your expense. 

Empowered to Thrive is a place of safety. Conversations focus on topics that impact our mental, emotional, and spiritual health. Parenting comes up too. Because I'm a mom to four kids, and it's natural for me to talk about the impact that has on life.

Bottom line, you're always welcome here, no matter what type of day you're having. Your friends and their friends are welcome too. Please share the podcast. Let's create a place of community and connection that is saturated by authenticity and transparency. I'll start. Now, on to today's episode.

We're back, and today we're going to be talking once again about parenting, but this time it's going to be how you can connect emotionally with your kids.

Are you stumped on how to get your kids to talk or how to create a relationship with them that feels fun and feels safe and close?

I am going to give you specific tools, going to talk about specific ways you can make a deeper connection with your kids.

If this is something that you're longing for, that you're just even slightly interested in, then please join the conversation and share it with a friend.

Hi, friends. Happy Wednesday. Coming to you from my living room again with my little girl, Brielle.

So if you hear her in the background, she's just enjoying talking away. And I guess it's appropriate I'm referencing her at the moment because today's episode is going to be on ways we can interact and support our kids, show up for our kids in a way that's going to be what they need. 

And this episode is inspired by one of the listeners who was asking some questions and

wanted to hear about ways to parent our kids. And of course, you're asking me, so I'm just going to give you my perspective, my opinion on this.

There's obviously lots of great ideas on how to parent kids. And I'm just telling you from my perspective.

So, you know, even when I think about my two-month-old daughter, she just turned two months this week. And she has lots to say.

And I don't just hear them as coos and baby oohs and ahs.

I hear what she's saying as actually her voice, her expressing herself, her talking, simply without the words that I can understand. And when I'm listening to her, when I'm giving her my attention, I'm seeing her as a person. An individual, somebody who actually is communicating with me.

I don't wait for her cries to know what she's needing. I'm observing her, recognizing different signals and signs and recognizing and learning the ways that she communicates. I'm learning what she needs, what her personality is, and how I can support her and help her.

So I'm saying that because it starts early. When we see our kids as people, people that need to be heard, that need to be understood, that need to be recognized and given a place. They are just as valuable as us big grown-ups.

And who's kidding who? We've grown up some. But that's all. Like, we're all little kids on some level.

And so I think a lot of it comes to the way we see our children. How do you see your kids? Do you think of them as intelligent and wise, having something to offer you? Not in the sense that you need to expect from them, but looking at them as a valuable, important person.

They're not going to become that at some point. They already are that. They always have been that. So then showing up for our kids and being a safe place for them will come when, we learn to listen and when we stop always having something to say. 

When we stop getting on their case and needing to correct them all the time. And I get it. I've got four kids. I know that there's a lot that could be corrected. And I have to also be aware because especially some days, if I haven't gotten enough sleep, I'm a little more irritable, a little bit cranky. It's easier for me to get on my kid's case. 

To get, to be nitpicky, to let everything bother me. When some things just aren't a big deal. We can make anything to be a big deal. But is it necessary? Do we need to?

Just gauge it. I'm not saying that we should never address things, that kids should never be corrected. No, I think all of us as people benefit from that. Like we benefit from, letting other people speak into our experience, speak into our lives, opening ourselves up to other people's opinions at times, giving them space to give us feedback at times. But there's always a balance to that.

So just be aware, be aware, hear yourself, witness yourself. Listen, think about it. Like put yourself in your kid's shoes. Would you buddy? Would you want someone on your back like that?

So yes, expect things of them, but don't expect too much. And even in that, hear me, like I'm not saying we should always let our kids do a half ass job.

But there are times when something is a bigger deal to us. It's more important to us. And there's a reason it's about us. There's a reason that it feels so important. It feels like such a big deal to us. Look into that within yourself. 

Let's be aware that there's going to be times we're projecting things onto our children. That is nothing to do with them. It's all about us. And it's something that we need to look at within ourselves. 

Also think about your kids and consider which one of them is the most challenging for you. Which one of them annoys you the most, irritates you? To be plain, like, which one do you dislike? And maybe you're like, “Oh, I don't dislike my kid”s. Okay, fine.

To some of us, we might see other people and think, I don't know if you really like your child. But if you feel like, no, I do. Which one is the harder one for you to interact with?

And then consider why might that be? In my own experience with my kids, the one that's harder for me to interact with in certain areas, okay? Not across the board. Is one that's very much like me. 

And I recognize that there's areas within me that I am responding to her the way that I was responded to as a child.

So what I started to learn and what I started to practice, I'm expecting her to. But it doesn't mean she should. She actually should get to experience something different.

She should be able to practice something different. But I am projecting onto her based off of what was expected of me.

So let me just give you a quick example. Sometimes she'll have an opinion. Like she might not like something. Or she might not like the way someone's interacting with her. An adult, say. Or a kid. And she's expressing that to me. And she wants to express that to the other person. And I am like, “oh, like maybe we can just like let it slide”. Let it just, just.

You know, kind of like let it gloss over. Don't make a big deal out of it. But why am I saying that to her? I really think it is important how she feels and that she should get to express herself. But when I was a kid, I was not encouraged to do that.

I was encouraged to, I guess you could say appease the people around me or to just like example, you know, the grownup that wants a hug because they want the hug and the kid doesn't feel comfortable giving the hug. But then somebody's like, give them the hug. You always, you know, like hug grandma, hug auntie.

If a child doesn't want to give that person a hug, I feel like on the one hand, it's super important to respect that and to say, you don't have to hug that person.

Plus the adult wants the hug for like, for their own satisfaction, maybe for their own comfort. Or, you know, that, that we shouldn't be putting that on the child. The child should not be responsible to satisfy the comfort needs of this adult. The adult can get a hug from one of their friends or their partner or someone else right?

So, but because I might be thinking about how that adult would feel, the rejection that might feel, just the confusion or the irritation or the misunderstanding of like, “Why am I not getting a hug from this little kid who's family or who's a good friend?” 

Because I'm thinking about how that adult might feel, then I'm pressuring my child to just give the hug. “It just be quick. Just, just give him a hug. Be polite, be nice”. 

But I need to work through that within myself. I need to figure out how to be okay within myself when my kid says, but I don't want to do that. I don't want to give that person a hug because it's, it's no longer about my kid. It's about me and my discomfort in my child expressing how they really feel. And then the discomfort I feel because again, I'm thinking about the other adult and how they're feeling.

So trying to give you an example. So you get a good picture, a good idea of what I'm saying, and then take that and apply that to the specific situations in your life with your children.

Now, this is just a very, very, very quick touch on the subject. We're, we all know we could sit down. It would actually be cool if we all sat down and talked about it because so much more would come out of a real live conversation about parenting our kids. But that's not what we're doing today. I'm just here throwing out some of my thoughts to you that you grab a hold of the ones that feel like they're helpful and run with them.

Like start to implement them, do something with what you're hearing. And next step, send me more thoughts, more questions, your feedback because we can have more conversation about this, but I need to know what you're thinking, what you're wondering about in order to really direct that conversation in a way that's going to be super helpful to you.

And my little girl is needing me and I've touched the surface of this. So I'm going to let you go. And I hope it's been helpful.

I hope that you're, you're looking at yourself and saying, what can I actually do about me that will in turn help my kids? We're all in this together.

Parent, we are all in this together. You are not alone. I know the struggle. I know it's hard to be a parent. I also know the joy of it, the satisfaction. There's nothing like it, but I'm here.

I'm here rooting for you and I'm in your corner and reach out if I can be more of a support. 

[Ending] We've come to the end. What did you think about what you heard?

I hope that there's something you pulled from today's episode and I hope that you've learned something from this episode and start implementing it into your life. 

Create the change that you want to see, the change that you hear about, you have the opportunity to transform your life and I'm ready to link arms with you and to help and guide you to the life that you want to live.

If you resonated with what you heard today and it touched you, would you share it with your friends? Would you also go ahead and rate my podcast and write a written review?

It would mean so much to me. I hope that we'll connect, whether it's for a session or just to connect because I enjoy meeting new people.

You can find me on Instagram, @corinne_changeradically or on Facebook Change Radically. You can also always email me corinne@changeradically.com.

If you have thoughts, questions, or anything that you just want to talk about, send me an email. I hope that you have a wonderful day.

I hope that you have a wonderful week, but no matter what your week is like in the moments that are quiet, maybe it's when you pillow your head at night or when you're driving in the car or taking a walk, or maybe it's going to be in the midst of the chaos with your children or, or the craziness of work.

I hope that you'll remember how significant you are, that there is meaning and value to your life. And that I, for one, am so grateful. And I'm so glad that you're alive.

Catch you again next week.