Parenting Peacefully When Triggered

This is our monthly special episode where I co-host the show with another colleague. For now, I have a Mystery Seat for each month and I invite passionate coaches or parent educators to host the show with me. Here is the December’s MSE, How To Set Limits without Harshness, Shame and Fear

For the monthly special episodes the show has a different format.

We have 3 segments

Examples from Our Homes

What’s Up with You? Answering listener parenting questions

Favorite Finds

—————-

For the January edition of the podcast, I have a returning guest Laura Froyen. She has two daughters: a 2,5 year old one and a 5 year old one.

In the first segment, I tell a story about a delayed Christmas gift I had ordered for my daughter. How she reacted triggered past hurts in me and I was stuck. It is hard to parent peacefully and respond respectfully when our wounds get triggered. Parenting is an emotional job. This experience has not only enabled me to face my own unresolved issues but also it served as a catalyst for me to open up and share a painful story from my past. We often feel like as parents we need to hide our stories, our past. When we share parts of us with our children we invite them into our lives and it gives them a different perspective. After I shared my story, my daughter was touched and the connection between us just got deeper.

Have you ever shared parts of you with your child? How did it go? How did you child respond? What did you feel?

Laura shares a story related to their recent trip to Disney.

Key takeaways from her story are:

let’s allow children to go through their own experiences
connect to your child’s inner experience and do not invalidate their fears
appreciate who your child is and don’t try to change her

This is Laura’s second time on the podcast and here is her debut episode.

5 Strategies to Avoid Power Struggles with Children

In our second segment, we answered the following listener question. Note, the name and some parts of the question are omitted.

I have a 3-year-old daughter and a 2 months old son and we’re having a somewhat hard time adjusting to the new family situation. I always considered my daughter and mine relationship to be a close and attuned one. I’m working part time (30%) and spend a lot of time with my daughter and now both of my kids. Since she was born I’ve been trying to learn about the peaceful parenting, read many many books and had a feeling that I’m doing quite ok 🙂

However, since my son was born the relationship with my daughter changed and I lost a bit of that special connection. My son is quite a demanding baby, needs a lot of holding/carrying in the carrier and doesn’t sleep more than 1.5h in a row at night and almost doesn’t nap during the day (thus I’m quite sleep deprived and start the day tired). When my 3-year-old is defiant (which is on some days all the time) I’m reacting very fast in an unfriendly, harsh way (not necessarily yelling, but guilting, shaming, blaming – just like I was raised and how I never wanted to become). In those ‘stress’ situations I sound exactly like my mother! This never happened to me until the birth of my son and having this new side of me coming out is quite a scary experience. I feel so guilty after and try to repair it at bed time, saying that I’m sorry and I’ll get better at staying calm etc. but the next day we have similar situations repeating. I’m also so ashamed of this that I haven’t talked about this to anyone else.

At the end of the day I feel like a terrible mum and it’s devastating to think that I’m ‘damaging’ my daughter the way I was ‘damaged’.

At the same time, I feel guilty if my son has to cry and wait shortly while I’m busy with his big sister or for not having enough attention for him as I had for my daughter when she was a baby. He is sort of coming along and with us all the time, but not getting much exclusive attention and connection. So, at the moment it feels like I’m failing both of my children.

Would some meditation help? Where do I start?

Do you want us to answer your parenting questions on one of our upcoming episodes?

Send your questions today.

[email protected]

To leave a voicemail question, which love and we play it on air, call the number 732-763-2576 or simply go to the contact page and record your question using the Speak Pipe feature.

About My Co-host

Dr. Laura Froyen has PhD in Human Development and Family Studies with a specialization in Couple and Family Therapy. She is a peaceful parenting and respectful relationship coach and a self-compassion advocate. Laura helps parents get clear on their goals and values so they can begin prioritizing the things and people that truly matter and begin living in alignment with their deeper purpose. She helps them gain a deeper understanding of relational dynamics that they can use to achieve greater harmony and flow within their family. She teaches them to explore their deepest hopes and dreams for their children with honesty, curiosity, and vulnerability so they can intuitively know how to parent in the way that is right for them with complete confidence. Laura empowers them to let go of expectations and perfectionism, stop being weighed down by comparison, and find freedom and joy so they can show up in their lives and their relationships with open-hearted authenticity and balance.