Tip of The Week

Being a parent comes with an incredible amount of labor. Even the more ‘basic’ tasks required to keep our kids alive ( cooking, laundry, cleaning, brushing teeth, etc. ) are enough to make us overwhelmed and exhausted. Add the stressors that the modern-day parent has to embrace—from isolation in parenting to balancing the careers of both parents to breaking generational patterns—and it’s no wonder why parents are exhausted and overwhelmed. Here’s the kicker: When we are exhausted and overwhelmed, it can be tempting to grab parenting tools of power and control. You know, the ones where you get to say, “I am the boss” and “because I said so, or else.” We become that scary authority figure that our kids feel afraid of, and that leaves many of us feeling guilty. We grab these tools of power because when we’re overwhelmed, it’s easier to yell and demand, make a threat, or offer a bribe to get your kids to comply. I totally get it. But these tools don’t help our kids learn how to be responsible and autonomous decision-makers. Instead, our kids learn how to obey to avoid punishment or to receive a reward. They learn to fear authority and obey out of protection for their emotional (and sometimes physical) safety. Their behavior isn’t ‘real’ emerging from free will and choice; it’s ‘performed’ to get or avoid what they don’t want. Ultimately, when we use these tools, we are modeling to our kids how to force someone to do what we want them to do through the use of coercion and power. Phew. That’s a big concept to drop into an email newsletter. If you’re feeling any guilt or shame right now, give yourself a big hug and take a deep breath. And remember: we parents are doing the best we can with what we have at each moment.

One of the most challenging and most important things we can offer our kids is empathy when they are struggling to cooperate. When our kids are struggling and cannot cooperate with us, it can be so tempting to bring out the iron first. We may be tempted to threaten, demand, or use other techniques of power to remind them who is boss. The problem is that these techniques ignore the fact that our kids are struggling and need our help. They also don’t encourage us to take responsibility for the part of this dynamic that we are playing. They keep us stuck in patterns of power struggle and disconnection. As hard as it may feel in these challenging moments, it is our job as parents to pause and attune to our kids. There is a fear in the parenting world that if you are attuned to your child in a moment of struggle, you will ‘reinforce’ their poor behavior. I want to offer you a different perspective supported by attachment science: When we meet our kids in their struggle with compassion and empathy, we offer them a connected way to move forward toward collaboration. Why? Because when we offer compassion, our kids’ brains calm down because we are no longer a threat. They gain more access to their prefrontal cortex, where rationality and cooperation skills live. AND they begin to internalize a model of empathy to use for themselves and others in moments of struggle.

Being a modern-day parent is stressful and can feel overwhelming as we try to navigate how to best integrate attachment research into our parenting. Today I want to offer you a quick reminder and tip: The most important thing we can do for our kids is show up and meet each moment with openness, curiosity, and connection. It sounds simple…and it is…and it also isn’t. Your ability to show up is dependent on how YOU are feeling and what your capacity is at the moment. If you are under-resourced, tired, and overwhelmed, you will have a harder time showing up for your kids than when you just got a promotion at work and are excited because it’s Friday and you have fun weekend plans. Read this next statement slowly… It's important. Your ability to show up for your kids is directly tied to how well taken care of you are and how many of your needs are met. Is that relieving or stressful to hear? It’s normal for us parents to believe the story that we “don’t have any time” for self-care. Self-care can feel like an extra job or task to worry about. It can become another “checkmark” on the to-do list of our lives. My dear fellow parents, I know it’s hard. And it’s time for a revamp on how we think about self-care. Taking care of ourselves is a daily commitment, and for many of us, it can feel foreign. Maybe we have never been given the privilege or opportunity to think about caring for ourselves. Consider this your permission to consider and explore opportunities to get more of what you need.

Place your hand on your heart and slow down for a moment. How are you doing today? Have you checked in with yourself today? How are you feeling? I want you to pause your reading for just 30 seconds and check in with yourself. Maybe even give yourself a hug and a deep breath. Modern-day parents are confronted with a constant buzz of ideas for how we can get this parenting thing “right.” The experience of parenting is stressful enough, and now we have added layers of stress as we try to break generational cycles. For many of us, looking at all these ideas can trigger feelings of failure and not being “good enough.” What if I told you that half of the work of breaking cycles in parenting is clearing the clutter from our mindsets and perspectives? The anxiety we feel as we pressure ourselves to get it right… The thoughts of comparison as we scroll through Instagram believing that other parents have it easier than we do based on curated posts… The constant state of learning that can create an illusion that we are not enough… Research shows that the most important thing we can do as parents is actually quite simple: show up with presence and connection. The truth is we can’t show up in this way if we are in a constant state of anxiety and fear and feeling like we aren’t good enough. Let’s sink into this reality together for a moment: We don’t have to say the right things or do the right things all the time. We just have to show up. We can relax into the power of our presence and our natural connection with our children. We can learn to let go of the racing thoughts and stories of the mind and relax into our bodies, hearts, and presence. Through this process, we can welcome more security, connection, and playfulness into our relationships with our kids. You are enough. You have what you need to be exactly what your child needs. Not convinced? Let’s answer a few questions together: When your kids are sad, do you open your heart & arms most of the time? When the kids are in joy, do you let their light shine most of the time? Do you work to take accountability when you aren’t doing your best most of the time? Do you do everything in your power to show up for them when you can? If these are yes, they are getting what they need from you. You are showing up. If there are any no’s or “I am not sure,” that is okay, too. Are you being hard on yourself? What would allow you to access more of these? You got this.

Ever wonder how we can truly empower our children to become capable, confident individuals ready to take on life's challenges? Parenting isn't just about solving problems or controlling behavior. It's about nurturing skills and fostering growth. What if we focused more on teaching our children to navigate life's challenges themselves? Here's a thought: Next time your child faces a difficulty, resist the urge to jump in and fix it. Instead, ask them, "What do you think you could do about this?" It's amazing how capable they can be when given the chance! Remember, every "mistake" is a learning opportunity. When we celebrate their efforts and resilience, we're teaching them invaluable life skills. And hey, don't forget to cut yourself some slack, too. We're all learning and growing alongside our kids. It's okay not to have all the answers - showing our children how to learn and adapt is a gift in itself.

I find it fascinating how our kids communicate with us. It's not always with words, is it? For little ones, it might be a tantrum in the grocery store or a sudden burst of giggles. With teenagers, it could be a slammed door, a rolled eye, or that infamous one-word answer: "Fine." It's like they're all speaking languages of their own, and our job is to become fluent in each one. Whether you're dealing with toddler tantrums or teen angst, cracking the code of our kids' inner worlds is a game-changer. It's easy to get caught up in the day-to-day hustle — making sure homework is done, dinner is on the table, and everyone gets to bed at a somewhat reasonable hour (though with teens, that last one can be quite the challenge!). But in between all that, our kids are constantly sending us messages about how they're feeling and what they need. Have you ever had one of those lightbulb moments where you suddenly understood why your child or teen was acting a certain way? Maybe you realized your 7-year-old's crankiness wasn't about the sandwich you made but about feeling nervous about a presentation at school. Or perhaps you noticed that your usually chatty teen gets eerily quiet when they're overwhelmed with college applications. These moments of connection are golden. Because then we can support what is actually going on... They're our chance to peek into our kids' hearts and minds—to understand the world from their perspective. So this week, I challenge you (and myself!) to put on our detective hats. Let's try to see beyond the behaviors and listen to what our kids are really saying. It might be frustrating at times, but I promise it's worth it. Who knows? We might just discover something new and wonderful about these humans we're raising, big and small.

“Even mommies make mistakes.” When my kids were little, one of our favorite books to read together was “My Mama Says There Aren't Any Zombies, Ghosts, Vampires, Creatures, Demons, Monsters, Fiends, Goblins, or Things.” That line was the refrain, and in full disclosure… I STILL say it to them when I forget to send in the health form or call the insurance company. As we practice welcoming more unconditional love and acceptance into our family’s culture, we can notice how we offer ourselves that same love and acceptance. When we “mess up” in our parenting, we can notice how we respond to ourselves. Where are we using the same shame, punishment, fear, and control on ourselves that we are trying to avoid with our kids? When you make a mistake, do you shame yourself with words like: “I know better. Why can’t I get this right”? Do you punish yourself with words like: “I am unfit to be a parent. Everyone else does this better than me”? As we strengthen our muscles for Empowered Parenting, we experience a parallel of learning to love ourselves and our children at the same time. We practice Empowered Parenting inside of ourselves with our own inner children, the young and tender parts of ourselves who are seeking love. The more we strengthen our inner parent (like the way we talk to ourselves when we “mess up”), the more we strengthen our parenting to our own kids. We can only offer what we have received ourselves.

There are four stages of parenting your child as they mature: Caretaking Educating Coaching Mentoring As our children develop, it’s important that, as a parent, you recognize when it is time to shift roles. When children are infants and toddlers, they depend on us for everything. You clothe, clean, and feed them, and provide them with s timulation, learning, and love. But if you stay in this phase for too long, your child will resist you. I remember my daughter’s tantrums about brushing her own hair at 3. This was that. Then, we need to shift to teaching our children the difference between right and wrong and safe and unsafe. They require boundaries and will have oh-so-many questions about WHY!! They need logic and rationale to learn how the world works. But if you stay here too long, they will think you don’t trust them. I remember my son getting so angry for telling him how much food to give the dogs when he was around 7. “MOM! I already know that!!!) So, we shift into the role of coach (and coaches operate from the sidelines). From there, you can give instructions, helpful tips, and loving encouragement. They need to be able to make decisions on their own. But if you stay here as your child enters their late-teen years, they will reject you. So, it’s time to step into mentorship. Good mentorship means we are available when we are needed. We give advice when we are asked for it. We allow them autonomy over their lives and sort through the implications of their choices and decisions. This shows them we trust them. I write this as I tend to my own complicated feelings about my youngest child heading to college, an airplane ride away in just a few days, in the hope that it serves you to realize that parenting well is a journey of transitions and change. Because the more we can be at peace with the changing needs of our growing children, the more we can support them to find their wings and fly.

I think we all have glimmers of insight into the aspects of our personality or communication style that contribute to the challenges we experience in our relationships. There’s this moment, in the heat of conflict, where a window opens and we can see the role we are playing that is less-than-useful. This spark of self-awareness does something though… It triggers shame. And shame… that’s the feeling that most of us will avoid even more than jumping out of a perfectly good airplane. Shame elicits defensiveness. This is our ego’s way of protecting our most tender places. The window closes. And we keep doing things the way we’ve always done them. Part of our work as coaches is to make it safe for shame to show itself. We cannot change what we won’t acknowledge. We do this knowing that freedom lies on the other side of feeling, naming, and integrating our deepest fears about ourselves. We’ve all got stuff! It’s the brave among us who will do the work to become the better version of ourselves… Who will be a better parent to our children because of our courage.

Empowered Parenting includes rules, limits, and boundaries. It honors family values and priorities. Empowered parents get to say no . Boiling the shift down to its simplest terms, with Empowered Parenting, we are replacing yelling, punishments, threats, and consequences with communication. Communication doesn’t hurt kids. Authentic feelings expressed healthily do not hurt kids. We aren’t abdicating responsibility as a parent by embracing this new paradigm.  Quite the opposite. We claim full responsibility for our actions, words, and deeds. We grow ourselves up so that we can grow our kids up. We immerse ourselves in their world, their needs, and their evolution. We become their partner in growth and maturing. The ironic truth is that the very parenting practices that well-meaning strangers tell us we need to use to get our kids under control often cause the misbehavior, rebellion, lack of respect, and entitlement that kids are accused of every day. (And really, has there been a generation of kids that haven’t been labeled this way by the generation that preceded them?) The truth? They don't love us less when we scold, criticize, punish, or demean our kids. They love themselves less. And grown-ups who don’t love themselves are doing an awful lot of harm to our world. There’s enough false empowerment going around to drown us all. True empowerment lives on regardless of external circumstances.

When I was a little girl, I got the memo loud and clear: “You’ll be loved when you are happy and cheerful.” Most of us were conditioned, in a myriad of ways, to project a mask to the world in order to be loved and accepted. We learned that authenticity was dangerous. So much of the work we do with parents focuses on rewiring our nervous system with an orientation toward safety when we are congruent. Meaning… that we can effectively communicate our authentic truth (while embodying non-violence) to others, knowing that we will still be loved and accepted. This radical act demonstrates to our children that they can share all of themselves with us and that our love and support are unconditional. We can’t give our children what we don’t have ourselves. This is the power of your personal growth as a parent. How you move through the world informs how they will learn to move through the world. It’s the most beautiful opportunity we have.

Initiative. Independence. Responsibility. Fulfillment. While each of us comes to parenting with our own set of values and beliefs, there are some fundamental truisms that apply to the responsibility we have to raise children who are capable of dealing with the reality of life… Which is that sometimes it is hard. Sometimes, things don’t go our way. Sometimes, we fail and have to find the courage to begin again. It’s hard to watch our children flounder or to sit in the discomfort of the consequences of their actions, but it is vitally important to their maturation. Sometimes (and this is oh-so-hard when you are a loving parent who feels your child’s pain), the best thing we can do for our children is to… let them fail and figure it out. On their own. Ouch. If you’re like me and want to raise children who are strong and resilient, then you get to give your children opportunities to gain strength and resilience. These moments shape our children’s future ability to navigate challenges and setbacks. Because the truth is, we can’t protect them from broken arms or broken hearts forever. We can only trust that they will grow back stronger from the experience.

“Marshmallow.” My kids hate, hate (did I mention HATE) it when they are trying to talk to me, and I look at my phone. Years ago, they came up with a way to pull me back from my addiction to distraction. They’d say, “Mom…. marshmallow.” We had an agreement that it was an invitation to either check back in or communicate my need to check out (because, as a self-employed, single mama… sometimes the phone-ing was necessary). We live in an incredibly distracting world. From the pings and the dings to the weight of so many competing priorities, it’s no wonder our collective nervous system is on high alert. Life can be pretty uncomfortable, and so we reach for our phone to numb the noise… leading to more distraction. Working with our kids to create solutions and agreements about how to work together to meet everyone’s needs through communication is the crux of our work here at Jai. And the kids? They are pretty brilliant at coming up with creative and innovative solutions!

It can be easy to think of our role as parents as either/or. Either we are being kind, or we are being tough. Either we are being gentle, or we are being rough. The magic of the Jai Methodology is that we can be both kind and direct. We can uphold boundaries… “Using our words.” (Ok, I THINK THIS IS FUNNY… hope you see it this way too!) Rather than telling children what they are doing wrong, our work as Empowered Parents is to teach them what is right. But effective teaching can’t happen when we’re losing our minds. We get to find tools to stay calm. As parent coaches, our work is to give parents the tools to lead their children from a grounded, mature, and thoughtful place. To respond instead of react. It’s where the magic of parenting happens. So this week, we’ve got one of our favorite grown-up calm-down tools.

Over the last several years, we’ve celebrated the growing number of fathers who are becoming parenting coaches. We do a little happy dance on our team Slack because… Fatherhood matters. I write this with the awareness that you may be like me... And that this fundamental truth hits a painful place within your experience. I’ve spent most of my life having dad-envy of the friends I’ve loved who have loving and present fathers. My heart is broken in a thousand places because I wasn’t able to give this thing I wanted so very much to my own children… It just didn’t play out the way I thought it would. And. Fatherhood matters. So today, if you are in partnership with a present and loving father, give them a HUGE hug! And if YOU are that present and loving dad reading this… Thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for showing up. The role you play in your children's lives will change their lives forever. In celebration of Father’s Day, we’re going to amplify some Jai Dads! Check out their awesomeness below.

Do you ever get caught up in all the tough stuff with your kids and forget to celebrate the good moments? You're not alone. We often dwell on fatigue, challenges, and negative interactions, overlooking the times when things are actually going well. When everything is smooth sailing, it seems like we just find more things to worry about! Our kids crave our love—not just the inherent love we have as parents, but the actions that show we truly appreciate, celebrate, respect, encourage, trust, and admire them as unique individuals. But here's the kicker: to fully love and appreciate our kids, we also need to love and appreciate ourselves. Embracing our own humanity helps us embrace theirs. The more we celebrate our strengths and forgive our own mistakes, the better we can do the same for them. Remember, our ability to love starts within us and radiates out to our kids, families, and everyone else around us. Let's take a moment to celebrate the good and spread the love! 🧡

When we're caught in the middle of a conflict with our kids, it often feels like a storm is brewing, and things can quickly spiral out of control. Our emotions are running high, and it's just not the right moment to make decisions or say important things. As parents, we might feel the urge to "teach a lesson" or stand our ground so our kids really get our point. We might even be tempted to shut down the conflict with a stern "because I said so, end of story." We all want to be heard, and our kids are no different. But yelling louder won't help us understand each other better. Digging in and asserting our power won’t help build a stronger relationship with our kids or foster trust and intimacy. It will only lead to more disconnection, guilt, and disappointment. So, what can we do instead? We can try to connect. Connection will guide us back to love and trust. Deep down, beneath all the conflict, we all have a longing to be heard, seen, and loved. As the adults in the relationship, we have the opportunity to lead the way towards everyone being heard and seen in their pain and finding a path forward together, rooted in love. Remember, by prioritizing connection, we can navigate conflicts with compassion and create a loving, trusting environment where everyone feels valued and heard.

My daughter (a senior in high school) has been going through it. She’s mostly escaped the friend-drama that is so pervasive. But in the homestretch of high school, she’s feeling ostracized and alone. “All of these year-end activities… Prom… Celebration Graduation… Senior Sunrise… who am I going to go with? Do I just stay home?!?” I feel her pain. Deeply. But I’ve learned to trust it. To believe strongly in her ability to navigate through and learn what must be learned. In other words… to listen more and talk less. It can be hard for us parents to see our children feeling strong emotions. We see them crying, and we want them to feel better. We see them angry, and we want them to feel relief. We want our kids to be happy and to experience joy any moment that they can. And yet, feeling emotions is part of our human nature. Feelings are uncomfortable AND helpful. Each feeling comes with a message for us - something for us to have a conversation about, to hold a new boundary for, to feel grief and release from, and to learn more about ourselves and our needs. Feelings help us to change and grow. When we understand the importance of feelings, we can welcome them with our kids. We don’t have to feel unsafe when our kids are experiencing sadness, fear, or anger. We can better hold our kids in their process of learning and growing. Our ability to hold them in their feelings is dependent on how safe we feel internally when feelings arise. We can cultivate this sense of safety through practice and intentionality.

Parenting is a huge responsibility (stating the obvious here). AND… The more we become aware of our generational patterns and try to shift how we parent our kids, the heavier the responsibility can feel. It is a lot to carry, especially amidst the normal stressors of balancing work, parenthood, and life in general. As you pave the way towards a new vision for your parenting, it’s normal to notice the gap between your vision and the reality of where you are right now. While it’s important to face the real responsibility we carry in raising the next generation, we have to be mindful about not drowning in perfectionism and shame when we don’t get it “right.” We humans tend to focus more on the negative than the positive - of ourselves, our partners, our kids, and where we fail or get things “wrong.” This keeps us stuck in our patterns. The way out of this is to practice presence and cultivate internal safety so we can lead with intentionality and move toward our vision. We move one step at a time. We get to be the leaders of our families, paving the way towards unconditional love. We are enough just as we are. We get to hold this anchor of enoughness - for ourselves, for our children, for our family, and perhaps even beyond… into the way we carry ourselves in the world.

Mother’s Day can be complex. It can be full of flowers and appreciation. It can also carry with it the heartache of those who are no longer with us or the resentment of feeling unappreciated, isolated, or misunderstood. So here is my wish for you this Mother’s Day… May you know the innocence of your heart and trust its capacity to hold the full range of the experience of motherhood. May you give yourself the gifts you truly need, acknowledging your courage, strength, and commitment to those you love the most. May you surrender your ideas of what you thought would be and find the gifts in what is. May you know your children deeply and accept their not-so-bright-and-shiny parts because you accept your own not-so-bright-and-shiny parts. May you feel yourself surrounded by your fellow peace-makers and change-creators, and know that you are not alone in your determination to parent well.

Imagine you have had a really hard day at work. You come home, and your partner criticizes you for something you did. Do you feel motivated to do it differently next time? How about a boss who presents you with feedback in a way that makes you feel terrible about yourself - is that motivating for you to hear? Even as adults, we desire calm and positive feedback. Feedback delivered in the right way can bring us humility while empowering and inspiring us to do better next time. When someone delivers us feedback in the form of criticism or negativity, we are likely to become defensive. Negative feedback activates defensiveness because it doesn’t consider our good intentions or the pains and longings beneath our behaviors and choices. This is even truer for our kids, whose brains develop long until the age of 25 years old. When we give our kids feedback with negativity and harshness, they feel instantly disconnected from us. With that disconnection comes a lack of motivation. You may see a shift in your child’s behavior after you deliver harsh feedback. Still, it might be because they are scared or avoiding that reaction from you again, not because they now have internal motivation to do better.

It can be so tempting to give our kids all the “answers,” especially when we see them struggling. Of course, as parents, we want to guide our kids, and sometimes, the fastest, easiest, and least energetic way to do that is to give them explicit directions. It makes sense why this is a tool we often reach for. But it’s generally not in the highest service to their growth and development. The trouble with guiding our kids with directions all the time is that it takes away opportunities for them to practice critical thinking, test their own limitations, and experiment with their own decision-making. It can also unintentionally signal to our kids that we don’t trust them or that they shouldn’t trust themselves. They may get used to relying on receiving directions as they grow. As adults, they may struggle to make their own decisions because they didn’t get the chances to practice with our support as kids. So this week, play with the idea of being your children’s MIRROR! Check it out below.

When children are in the middle of experiencing a big feeling, they are not able to access their prefrontal cortex and higher executive functioning. This means that moments of big feelings are NOT the moments to solve any problems or teach any lessons. In these moments, our children are asking us to show up with our full presence and unconditional love and support. When our children are met with our calm understanding, empathy, and acceptance, then they can fully melt into their feelings. Letting our children fully feel their feelings without judgment, fixing, or punishment is a gift to their nervous systems and to their development. As Dr. Daniel Siegel says, “Feel it to heal it.” We can teach the lessons later. We can talk about the behaviors later. This moment is the moment to lean in, love them at their “worst,” show them it’s okay to make mistakes and offer our deepest level of security and presence. By cultivating safety, trust, and support in our relationships with them, we unlock our children’s highest potential to learn and grow in the many moments to come.

I learned to stop yelling pretty early on in my parenting journey. I could see how it impacted my kids. But that doesn’t mean I stopped expressing anger in ways that weren’t exactly healthy. I stuffed it in and down. I trained myself to speak quietly. Years later, my kids told me my eye would do this twitchy thing… and that it was “terrifying”(shared in a way that was more about playfully poking fun at me than anything else.) We get to get angry as parents. Of course, we are going to get angry as parents! AND… What I eventually learned was that in order to be congruent (meaning my insides matched my outsides), I had to let my anger out in a healthy way versus holding it in…. We can’t hide our inner truths from our kids. They are highly attuned to our vocal tone, facial expressions, and body language. When we are saying or acting in ways that aren’t a match with what our children pick up on, we chip away at trust and safety. We call this CONGRUENCE. Check out this week’s Parenting Tip to learn one of our favorite tools. Your kids are so very capable of understanding. And while they can’t read our minds… they can absolutely read our bodies.