Speaker 1Therapy's biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough. It shows up in the smallest moments. You bite your tongue instead of escalating. You put your phone down instead of firing off that text. You say what you actually mean instead of what would hurt someone else the most. Nobody applauds those moments, but they quietly change your life. That's what growing feels like. And that's exactly what Grow Therapy is here for. Grow is therapy that works, covered by insurance. Sessions average $21 with insurance, and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan. There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments. You just pay per session. Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality, licensed therapists across the U.S., offering both virtual and in-person sessions, nights and weekends. You can search by what matters, like insurance, specialty, identity, or availability. And you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as two days, not the national 48-day average. See if you could pay as little as $0 for therapy in seconds at growtherapy.com slash ACAST. That's growtherapy.com slash ACAST. growtherapy.com slash ACAST. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.
Speaker 2with a voice. So they have a strong sense of who they are, they know who they are and who they are not. They're able to stand up for themselves when and if the time is needed and they do this compassionately and without the need for shouting. They feel able to express their views without worry when necessary. So they don't force their views on others, they're able to just express them clearly. They have clear boundaries of what is and isn't acceptable to them and they are free from fear. So it means that they're willing to try new things and finally they are respectful of others. They accept differences and as a result they're well liked by their peers. Raising a child with a voice is something I personally think we should all strive for as all these character traits are key to living. An adult life confidently and compassionately. Now you know I talk about this analogy that our children are buildings that are under construction. That our children get to choose what type of building they create, whether it's a fat cottage, a warehouse conversion, a big glass house or a sprawling mansion. Our children get to choose because they get to live in the finished building, not us. Our role is simply to provide the scaffolding, to catch any falling masonry or timber. Well a child with a voice is a child who knows exactly what their build is and what it isn't. Now before I get started on my top tips and strategies this week, I want to share with you a special offer I have created for Black Friday. Now I have never done a Black Friday offer before but I wanted to give you an opportunity to get some extra support from me beyond the podcast. So I'm going to share with you a special offer I have created for Black Friday. So I'm going to share with you a special offer I have created a bundle of all my four most popular digital online courses. So these four courses cover the topics of raising a confident child, supporting children when they worry, helping children manage their emotions and how to manage technology. Now these four courses are packed with resources and strategies which I share through video teachings and downloadable and printable resources for you and your children. It's like the podcast, it's like the podcast, it's like the podcast but I teach you strategies and techniques at a deeper level and using video. Now these four courses would normally cost £149 but between Friday the 26th of November until midnight on Monday the 29th of November I'm offering them for just £69. So that's more than 50% off. So if you want to know more about this offer and or make your purchase then head over to www.drmaryhand.com forward slash offer. So back to raising children who have found their voice and are able to respect the choice of others. Now rather than overwhelming you with lots of different aspects of that helping our children find our voice, we've talked about what are the six characteristics of a child who has that voice, that strong sense of self, the fact that they're able to express their views without worry when necessary, that they have these clear boundaries, that they're free from fear so they try new things and that they are respectful of others. For me, if we focus on two key components of voice, these two key components, I think that that they have a domino effect on other things. So we're going to focus on how do we help our children with tips and strategies, have a strong sense of self and being able to be respectful of others. Because I think that if we can focus on those two, what happens is it has a domino effect on the other four qualities of a child who has these strong characteristics of being able to find their voice. And as always, the reason why I'm focusing on those is that my personal view, as you know, is that when we focus on just one or two things consistently, we can bring about the greatest shift and change than when we try and focus on lots of different things. We are inconsistent. It's too much for us to keep going with and we end up giving up. So tip is always focus on one or two. So I'm going to share with you my top five tips and strategies and techniques to help us help our children find their voice. So the first one is about creating opportunities for all of our children to express their opinions. Now, the obvious way to do that is to focus on what's happening in the world at large, but also what is happening in our children's world, whether that's school, preschool, college, after school activities, online world. What are their views on what it means maybe to be a girl, to be a boy, to be a woman, to be a man, to be an athlete, a musician. What we're trying to do is create these opportunities wherever we can find them to ask questions about our children, about their interests and what their views are. So ask interesting questions. If they could travel anywhere in the world, where would they choose to go? Why? If they could govern over their country for a week, what changes would they make and why? If they could be in charge of the family, what changes would they make and why? Give each child in your family an opportunity to express their views and ask lots of questions to clarify your understanding. Work on this assumption. Work on the assumption that you need to understand what your child is saying to you and what their views are so that you're able to paraphrase back to them what you think your understanding is so you can check whether that's correct. These discussions teach your children that their opinions matter and not only do their opinions matter, but the opinions of others too. That you can disagree respectfully, that others can have different views and that that is all right. And that's a really, really important thing. It's about us making sure that we create these opportunities all of the time. And then the second part is that we listen to what our children have to say. And we listen with genuine interest. And this is a really tough one. And I'll be honest, it's one of the ones that I struggle with, not because I'm not interested in my children, but because I'm always distracted with things. So it can be tough when we're all so busy, but it's the most valuable aspect of all the things we can do to help our children. And we need to listen with an assumption that we can learn as much from our children as they can from us. For those of you that may have read The Conscious Parent by Shefali Zabri, it's a phenomenal book that is a reminder to us that our children are our greatest teachers. The frictions that we have, the distractions that we have, the challenges that we have with our children speak volumes about us as individuals. And we should be listening to what our children have to say. Listening to those and acting on it. We need to be mindful that we not only need to we create these opportunities for our children to express their opinions but we need to listen creating an opportunity and then not listening is damaging it doesn't encourage our children to use their voice because actually what happens is they shy away from it what's the point we've created opportunities we then don't listen to our children and so our children then learn and to have this view that actually my opinion doesn't matter it's not valued because we don't listen to it so it's really important that we do that so we need to avoid as well providing opportunities for our children to speak in ways that simply suit us so let me explain so whilst the mealtime option i've talked about before works and it really does because it's a time that we're all sitting down it can also be a very adult centered choice so that we approach creating opportunities and we don't listen to it so it's really important that we do that and creating opportunities where we listen in ways that are easier for us that are very much adult centered so it could be mealtimes it could be around bedtime stories because these are things that we're doing all of the time so we think well these are great opportunities for me to allow my children to express their views and for me to listen because they work for me what i want you to do is to go beyond that and connect and listen to your child at their level get involved in what they are playing with and what they're doing and ask questions whilst meeting them at where they're at at their play at their interests and then actively listen and be present whether their interests are interests that you are also interested in or that you find interesting or not make the effort and stay present as you know i say this with love put your device away switch off the radio and get rid of all other distractions in that moment in those moments at that time be fully present for our children if we want our children to feel that their voice matters then we have to show them that it matters by taking away all other distractions so we are simply focusing in on them so we're meeting them where they're at whether what they're doing whether it's a game a tea party something that we're engaging with that is an online world that they're interested in we need to let them know that they are important and quite often to a child five minutes of fully present time is more valuable than six hours of disengaged constant distraction checking phones stirring pots putting in laundry half listening over our shoulder and not actually listening it really matters to our children and i think if this is something that really resonates with you then it's worth just taking a bit of time out and just thinking to yourself when was the last time i truly gave my child my undivided attention and i'm not saying this because i want to lecture at you or finger point or blame because i genuinely struggle with this you know it's part of our digital on-demand world and i'm not saying this because i'm not particularly for those of us that have shifted the way that they're working so we're not necessarily even going out to an office but we are constantly working at home so those distractions are ever present we're ever working is to our child it really matters and they notice we often will say well they're not they're not really noticing they're not really asking me to play and they're not you know i'm able to do a little bit of this and that whilst i'm also playing with them but children really notice if you asked in fact maybe i'm gonna i'm gonna ask you to have that conversation with your children ask them when was the last time we played and see what they say you know how often do i play with you and really find out what how it feels for your child and what they see from their world and i think you'll be you'll be surprised you know as you all know my children are older and as a result they will call me out on it and they have done very very often and and very vocally they have used their voice to express very clearly that i am often very distracted so let's really show and make an effort to listen and to show genuine interest but to do it where we're meeting our children where they're at the activities that matter to them rather than us trying to orchestrate activities that interest us that we want to do that we try and mold our children to. i know i've labored that quite a bit but i think it's really important
Speaker 1therapy's biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough it shows up in the smallest moments you bite your tongue instead of escalating you put your phone down instead of firing off that text you say what you actually mean instead of what would hurt someone else the most nobody applauds those moments but they quietly change your life that's what growing feels like and that's exactly what grow therapy is here for grow is therapy that works covered by insurance sessions average 21 with insurance and some pay as little as zero dollars depending on their plan there are no subscriptions no long-term commitments you just pay per session grow connects you with thousands of high quality licensed therapists across the u.s offering both virtual and in-person sessions nights and weekends you can search by what matters like insurance specialty identity or availability and you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as two days not the national 48 day average see if you could pay as little as zero dollars for therapy in seconds at grow therapy.com slash a cast that's grow therapy.com slash a cast grow therapy.com slash a cast availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan
Speaker 2the third tip is about being mindful of criticism or belittling of views now i know we don't do this consciously i know that we don't necessarily do this explicitly but it's being aware of maybe some explicit criticism or belittling by siblings who maybe don't see the interests of their other siblings as important maybe they trivialize them in some ways because they differ wildly to their own or maybe we do it implicitly by just not giving some of our children's interests and interests to the children as much airtime because it isn't something that resonates with us or that we necessarily know lots about and again this isn't necessarily that we might poo-poo a child's interests in a really obvious critical way but we might just simply not discuss it with the same level of probing questions or animated interest that we might do with another child and this is very much borne out in the next part which is the fourth my fourth tip is about encouraging our children to be curious and supporting our children in finding their own interests and this is about not being tempted to push our own agenda and our own interests on our children and i see this particularly borne out this is very very relevant to the third point that i made about being mindful of criticism or belittling views is that i often see this being borne out particularly when we look at differences between introverts and extroverts and that's where we might have introverted and extroverted children that differ to ourselves now quite often there's this common misconception about extroverts being sociable and confident and introverts being unsociable and shy and whilst this this sort of distinction might have some credence in elements the difference between introverts and extroverts is not actually around sociability but much more to do with energy levels so let me explain this because this can have a big impact on our ability to share some of our children's interests so extroverts gain their energy they are energized from being around people that's where they get their energy their buzz is by being around people so they are naturally more sociable because they're drawn to where they're going to get their energy when extroverts are on their own their energy is drained they're not charged at all so that's why an extrovert is going to get their energy when an extrovert actively seeks interests that involve people they're sociable by nature an introvert by contrast loses energy by being around people they charge up they energize through solitude now this does not mean that an introvert is somebody who is unsociable that they don't like being around people on the contrary introverts can be just as sociable can be just as life and soul of the party as an extrovert but what happens with an introvert is if they've spent a huge amount of time being sociable that will drain them of their energy and they will need to then recharge by being on their own so the reason why being aware of the introvert and the extrovert aspects of our nature as their parents but also the nature of our children is that our children are naturally if they're an introvert naturally by nature or an extrovert their interests their hobbies are going to be different depending on where they get their energy levels so if we are an extrovert introverted parents, so we are sociable and we like being around people all the time because that's where we get our energy and our buzz, but we have an introverted child, we might naturally try and encourage them to come out to do sociable people things, whereas their interests might naturally be more introverted, so ones that where they're much more looking around sort of areas of things that they might enjoy doing, which are much more around maybe reading or hobbies that don't require lots of people, so it's really important and equally it can be the flip side, you might have an extroverted child, you might be an introverted parent, your extroverted child actively wants to seek situations and scenarios where there are lots of people, whereas you as an introvert may not actively seek that out and it's important to understand that distinction because it has a big part in us meeting our child where they're at if we're introverted and our child is extroverted we need to step into their world we need to step into their interests in order to be able to create opportunities for them to express their opinions and for us to be able to actively listen with genuine interest so it's being able to understand that and obviously whilst i'm explaining it in the extremes the reality is most of us have an element of introversion extroversion within ourselves so we could be an introverted extrovert or we could be an extroverted introvert and all sorts of combinations in between but it's just being aware of where do we sit on that and where do our children sit on that and then when we think about our children that we might resonate with more that we might find easier to have conversations about their interests it's probably because there is more similarity and so that's what we need to be mindful of when we talk about being mindful of criticism or belittling of views is that we might not be able to understand a child's interest in collecting various things if they're not necessarily interests of our own so it's being aware of that who we are as parents where do we sit on the introvert extrovert scale so that we're then able to be more mindful about ah okay well that's interesting that's why i find it difficult or more difficult i have to make more of an effort with this child because actually we're not necessarily in those the similarities aren't there and so i have to do i have to step into their world more than i might do with this child because our interests are much more similar so it's about being really mindful of that it's this idea so just to recap before we go on to number five it's making sure that we create opportunities for all of our children to express their opinions and to make sure that we create opportunities for in ways that aren't always adult centered the obvious ways that work for us as parents are going to be around mealtimes and also around bedtimes because or in the car on the way to school or in the walk those are opportunities which are created as part of the adult world but what we want to make sure that we do as well is create opportunities that are for our children so it's thinking creatively but it's also making sure that when we have these opportunities we're creating opportunities for our children to express their opinions and to make sure that we that we ask interesting questions we throw in you know if you could invent something that would make your life easier what would you invent and why maybe draw it out maybe present it to the family let's be really creative about this because it helps our children become more articulate and able to express their views and their opinions in a way with their friendships and their peers that doesn't that they don't feel that they have to shout in order to make that view heard because we've created opportunities for them to express their views and their opinions in a way that they created a natural curiosity and a natural discussion points at home that we are always curious about things that we're always having opportunities to ask questions it's making sure that we listen to our children with genuine interest that we ask probing questions so so when you say that does that is that what you're saying is that what you mean well if that's what you mean that's really interesting because i wonder what that then means about this what do you think about this so helping our children sort of see that we are always curious about things that we are listening to them with genuine interest because we're paraphrasing back what we think we've heard and then asking more probing questions afterwards we're being mindful of criticism and belittling views that might come out from our children if you've got a child who's maybe super super sporty and then you've got another child who really loves to live in a creative world that they imagine in their mind they might write books they might write stories they might dress up they kind of belittling that you know if you want to necessarily go on a big family walk um that you've got a child who doesn't want to do that or who's creatively imagining all sorts of stories and so there might be some criticism and belittling between siblings around other passions so we don't want to do that we want to help our children understand that we can have different interests and that's okay that it's really important that we give time and energy to listening to those point of views and helping our children be respectful that others will also have those differing opinions but it's also encouraging our children to be curious about other things and supporting our children in finding their own interests now of course as parents we're going to naturally start particularly when our children are very young we don't know what their interests are we're naturally going to expose them to things that interest us and our family as a pick up through these discussions through these kind of expressing of views by listening to our children and observing how they naturally play what are the things that they're naturally drawn to what are the things that they do and then helping them be curious about that and expand those interests so that they can become discover what what matters to them what their viewpoints are and what interests them and the final one that i would say is about making sure that we pursue our own interests regularly and the reason why this is important is twofold the first is that children are much more likely to do what they see than what we say so by pursuing our own interests regularly we are modeling to our children the importance of staying true to ourselves of being passionate about things that matter to us and giving ourselves time to do what we want to do and the other part to this is not only do we model that for our children but by stepping into our own interests regularly we create more space and opportunity for our children to pursue their interests we don't feel that we need to pursue our own interests through our children because we have an outlet we have an opportunity we have space we have time to pursue our own which then helps with this notion that i talk about regularly about our own self-care we fill our cup we make sure that we are able to pursue our own interests and we are able to are fulfilled in ourselves as an individual so that when we're there and present for our children we're able to be fully present for them we're able to help them pursue the interests that matter to them without feeling that we need to sort of pursue our interests through them so my top five tips are creating these opportunities for our children to express their opinions and really trying to focus in on what opportunities can i create that work for my child rather than always what works for us as adults listen to what our children have to say and be really listening by removing distractions creating time and if you can only spare five or ten minutes of unadulterated distraction free present time with your children that is phenomenal and whilst i say only five or ten minutes but it's not only five or ten minutes because to your child it feels like the world so it's creating that opportunity and getting rid of distractions being mindful of criticism and belittling of views that might happen explicitly from siblings or even from ourselves but might be implied in the way that we listen and paraphrase and we give time air time so it's making sure that we do that for all of our children the fourth one is encouraging our children to be curious and supporting them in finding their own interests and accepting that that the distinction between the introverts and the extroverts and what they might naturally be drawn to may well be different to our own and the fifth one is about pursuing our own interests regularly so we make sure that we're fulfilled so we can create that space for our children now my give this week is a big give it's our conversation starters now this is a sheet of over 50 questions which you can use to start conversations with your children so i'm going to give you the sheet of over 50 questions which you can use to start conversations with your children so the idea is that you can then just cut out each question fold them up put them in a jar children and also us as adults randomly pick these questions ask it out loud and then you can have a conversation about that they're all sorts of different ones they are part of our confident kids card decks but those are obviously much much nicer and presented in a very different way but this is the sheet of over 50 questions which you can use to start conversations with your children that really started off these conversation starters that i use to have conversations with children all all of the time and they're a great way of engaging children and the family as a whole so head over to my free resource library drmaryhand.com forward slash library where you'll find the link to download those resource all you need to do is pop in your email address and you can get instant access not only to this week's resource and the conversation starters but all my free resources across all the podcast episodes so as ever if you've enjoyed this episode i would love it if you could follow and most importantly please review this podcast it really only takes a few moments to just write a little bit of commentary to allow others can find us and we can spread the love so until next time don't you wish everything was more rewarding
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