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Speaker 2Hello and welcome to the How Networked. Not to Screw Up Your Kids podcast. So pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy seat, and enjoy the conversation. This is episode four, and today we are talking about the two most common ways we screw up our kids. And these are prioritizing their needs at the exclusion of everything else and living our lives vicariously through theirs. What I'm about to say is said with love. I know we pour our hearts and souls into our children because we love and adore them. We don't want to see them unhappy, in pain, rejected, or not fulfilling their potential. However, we should not be prioritizing their needs at the exclusion of our own, and we most certainly should not be living our lives vicariously through theirs. So let's look at these two in turn. Let's look at the first one. So prioritizing their needs at the exclusion of everything else. Now, before we take a look at this in more detail, I want to be really clear about what I actually mean by this. We don't screw up our kids because we prioritize our children's actual needs. But what we do screw them up with is by prioritizing what we perceive are their needs. So, for example, feeling we need to play with our children all the time. Otherwise, we'll stunt their development in some way, and we don't want them to think that we're not emotionally available for them. Or keeping our children constantly entertained because we don't ever want them to be bored. We're worried that they might not like us. Or we worry that their development will be stunted in some way. Or maybe not taking a promotion because the extra hours that we're likely to need to put in, we feel are likely to damage and scar them because we think we're probably going to get home later. Or we're not going to be able to pick them up from school. So they're going to feel different from other children. Or maybe it's that we don't go away with our partner, our friends, work, or whoever, because our children get upset when we're away. And we don't want them to think we don't care about them, or that we don't love them, or that by going away in some way, we're being selfish. You get the picture. Right? All these examples come from the same premise that our role, the moment we become parents, is somehow to get an A star, star, star. And we get this A star, star, star by self-sacrifice. The more we lose of who we were before we had children, the better. And yet, being a parent is just one of many roles we have. We might be mum, dad, aunt, uncle, employer, employee, brother, sister, daughter, son, father. friend, colleague, runner, football player, dog walker, dog owner, you name it. And yet, when we become parents, it's as though we kind of make a deliberate decision to get our rubbers out and erase all the time and effort which we used to put into all the other roles that we have. As if being a parent has now become the single most important, crucial job in the world, as if our life depended on it. Whilst I do agree parenting is important, we must look at it in perspective of all the other roles that we have. Parenting is one amongst maybe 10, 15, 20 others. If that's the case, though, then by continuing to pour everything into this one role, we will very quickly lose sight of who we are as an individual. The person who loves to write, draw, meet up with friends, laugh, climb mountains, take an exercise class, whatever it is for you. And the real danger here is that one day your children will be the ones who are going to grow up and leave home and you'll be left looking in the mirror and wondering who you are. By failing to nurture yourself, your interests, your passions, all within the realms of being a parent, the more your children see self-care and self-development being prioritised by you, the more likely they will be to engage in these activities themselves and therefore the more likely they are going to fill their own full potential. You see, children are much more likely to do what they see fit. So a daily practice of self-care is essential in balancing our priorities. You see, if we prioritise our needs above everything else, so it's shifting our way of thinking monumentally, but if we prioritise our needs above everything else, we continue to nurture the person behind the parent role, then we can take care of others more effectively. And I'll cover a little bit more of that on the end. So that's the first way that we screw up our kids. The second way that we screw up our kids, and this is the one which could be the most damaging. At its basic level, it is reliving your own childhood through your child, but correcting what you believe to be the things which got in the way of your future success as an adult, what you'd wished you'd had the opportunities to do, to be and to have. Now, it's perfectly acceptable, for example, to take on a part-time job so you can afford for your lessons, swimming lessons, go to scouts and so on, because you remember as a child your parents not being able to afford it. So this feeling is a normal and natural desire to be in a position to provide more for your children than your parents were able to do for you. However, where it gets seriously dangerous is when we actively seek to influence our children's interests, activities and future life options, ignoring their wishes because we feel we know better. For example, this might be a parent who aggressively shouts out coaching instructions to their child from the sidelines of a football, netball, hockey pitch, or a parent who becomes obsessively involved in their children's activities, their friendships, their GCSE options, their A-level options, their university options, or forcing your child to continue with an activity they are clearly not enjoying. You see, all of these come from a place of wanting more for your child. Wanting more at the expense of your child's actual character and their own desires. And you'll remember from the trailer episode, and if you haven't listened to the trailer episode, please go back because there's a really priceless golden nugget of an analogy that I make about, even if I say so myself, about our role as parents. But in that episode, I talked about our role as parents being to scaffold our children's building as it rises. We don't get to our children construct because it isn't ours to live in. It's theirs. We never get to live in the building that they create. They do. We respond to the build's shape and form, but that's decided by our children. We provide the solid foundations from which the building rises, and we help make sure that the building meets safety regulations, but no more than that.
Speaker 1The biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough. That's what growing feels like, and that's exactly what Grow Therapy is here for. And you can book a therapy session in minutes, and begin in as little as two days, not the national 48-day average.
Speaker 2So it's about making sure that we do not live our lives vicariously through our So how do we avoid these pitfalls? often we find ourselves stumbling in these pitfalls. I don't believe that as parents we sort of wake up or we make these conscious decisions to do that, these things. They just happen. And quite often as we parent, we're in autopilot. We just get up, repeat, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat. We do the same thing over and over again because we never really take the time to press pause. So for me, the best ways we can avoid these pitfalls is about creating time in our days, in each and every day, to reconnect with ourselves and taking an opportunity to see what's showing up. What have I noticed about the way that I'm parenting? What have I noticed about the way that I'm feeling? Am I feeling resentful? Am I getting frustrated? Am I making more of a drama about little Sophie who wants to give up this activity? Why does that happen? Why is that jar with me? Why is that triggering me? Why is that making me feel this particular way? And for me, it's all about creating a daily routine. And I talk about this idea of a daily morning routine, which I'd like a few minutes of my give for this particular podcast episode is to share with you my morning shine practice. So shine is a daily practice of five activities, all designed and created as a opportunity for us as parents to prioritize our needs and to prioritize those needs at the beginning of the day. First thing in the morning, because I know what happens is we are, we'll always find an excuse not to prioritize ourselves, not to give ourselves time. So shine is all about waking up 30 minutes earlier. The five practices take 30 minutes to complete. And by waking up earlier, you guarantee yourself the time. The 30 minutes to work through it. So let me talk you through these. So shine each letter stands for a different practice. So S is for silence. This is a period of time of just being still and silent. And I can already hear some of you saying, oh, meditation, can't do that. And I understand there is, we're busy people. We've got to do lists. We've got all sorts of things that are going on, but actually just being able to sit and not do, but to simply, to be. So start with just one minute, whether that's sitting with a cuppa or a glass of water, staring out of a window, but just pressing pause. And if you do have a very busy brain that starts wandering off with all of your to-dos, let it do it. Just sit, notice, and be. So S is for silence. H is for hydration. We do not drink enough water and water and hydration is responsible for keeping us alert, energized, and generally avoiding us going in and out of cupboards constantly. We should be drinking between one and a half and two liters a day. So hydration is all about making sure that we regularly ensure that we drink enough water. Now, for some of you, you may be tea and coffee drinkers. So one way that you can create a bit of a habit is to make sure that you drink a glass of water before you make your next cup of tea. Or alternatively, you might break down your two liters. Into four 500 milliliter sections and then put that in a bottle and then say that you need to drink that the first lot between seven and 12, for example, the next lot between 12 and three. It's that sort of thing. It's trying to create a habit to make sure that you drink the water. So S is for silence. H is for hydration. I is for intention and intention and N, note-taking, sit hand in hand. So note-taking, is all about having some form of reflective practice, being able to sit and just reflect on the previous day. So if today's Monday, you're reflecting on Sunday. You don't have to necessarily write a longhand diary if you don't want to. You can write bullet points. I personally prefer notebooks, but you can write bullet points on your phone on the notes section. But it's simply reflecting on the previous day and noticing what showed up for you. And it may be that you noticed that you were really tired. It may be that you noticed that you're a little bit short with a particular child. It may be that you actually noticed you really connected with one of your children over a particular board game or when you were out for a walk. It's simply an opportunity to just notice the things that are coming up. And that's so key to avoiding the autopilot and then the traps that we fall into of these habits that typically then ultimately screw up our kids. And the reason why the note-taking and the intention sit together is that after you've completed your note-taking, from the back of that, an intention will naturally fall out. When you've reflected on the previous day, you'll realize that there is an intention. It's like a chapter heading. It's an overarching theme for the day. So you may have noticed that you've been particularly tired. And so your intention may well be for that day that it's going to be about self-care. You're going to take care of yourself. And if your intention is self-care and taking care of yourself and being restful, then you're certainly not going to decide that you're suddenly going to declutter the kitchen. So intention and note-taking sit together. But you must remember that intention is your overarching theme for the day. It is not your to-do list. Your to-do list comes out of it ultimately, because if your intention is to take care of yourself, then you're not going to have some physically exerting to-dos on your to-do list. So S is for silence. H is for hydration. I is for intention. N is for note-taking. And E is for exercise. So some form of exercise, because we know that exercise gives us clarity in our head. It clears us of all of that brain fog. It energizes us and it makes us feel incredible and alive. And it often makes us sort of more alert, more creative. So listen to your body. Exercise for you might be a run. It might be a long cycle. It might be a long walk. Or it might be some gentle stretches or yoga or a high intensity workout. Just listen to what your body needs and be adaptable. It changes each day and every day. I hope that you're not feeling too battered and bruised after this episode. I hope you can come away and reflect, maybe even journal about what has shown up for you whilst you have listened to this episode. Are you angry and incredulous that I've even dared to suggest your decision to do this? I hope so. And I hope that you're not feeling too battered and bruised after your child has been driven by anything other than their absolute best interests. Has the episode triggered something in you which feels uncomfortable? Or are you simply nodding and acknowledging this is something you have known you needed to address for a while now, and this episode has been the nudge you've needed? Whatever you have got out of this episode, I just hope you have learned a little more about yourself and you feel you can take away one thing you might consider doing differently. It's about what you need to do. And I hope that you've learned a little more about yourself and what's your best next step. If you'd like to try out my Morning Shine practice, then hop over to drmaryhand.com forward slash library and download your free copy to try, as well as gaining access to all the other previous free resources from all the other previous podcast episodes. And finally, if you've enjoyed this episode, I'd love it if you could subscribe and review this podcast so that others can find us. And we can spread the love. So until next time.
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