The Complex Relationship Between Adult Children and Their Parents with Special Guest Madhur-Nain Webster

Digital Audio Health by Cymotrax. Hey there, parents. Before we get into today's episode, I am super excited to share some news with you. I mentioned this in episode 154, which was just last week, that we are going to be offering a monthly rate for you to become a no-problem parent.

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I have to remember that it's a monthly subscription. I just want lifetime access to this, Jackie. Well, guess what? For a limited time, we are going to offer lifetime access and it's going to include a 90 minute strategy session.

So head on over to the show notes, click on the link, choose what works for you, what fits your budget, and just know that no matter what you choose, you're going to get the exact same material that everybody else is getting. I hope this helps you to join our community and get the support, validation, acknowledgement, encouragement that you need to become that confident leader that your kids crave you to be. I truly look forward to meeting each and every one of you and supporting you on your parenting journey. All right, let's get into today's episode. Hey guys, I'm Jackie Finneman. I'm a parenting strategist and coach. And after 30 years and with more than 50,000 hours of experience working with kids and families, I promise you there is a solution for your parenting challenges.

The key to this parenting gig is to guide and lead your kids with less fear and more confidence. You don't have to know everything to be the expert of your child. So let's get to the root of what is going on in your home with you and your kiddos. And then we're going to prepare for the worst and change the conversation.

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Welcome back, No Problem Parents. Today, I have a really special guest on that's going to answer some questions that, questions I've actually been receiving for a little while now about parenting adult children. So meet Mudder Nan Webster. She's a licensed marriage and family therapist who specializes in the integration of Eastern and Western philosophies for mental health.

For over 20 years, she has empowered clients to connect with themselves and others through mindfulness and psychotherapy interventions. She applies her profound understanding of the importance of open communication at her successful private practice in Napa, California. Her first book, The Stressless Brain, makes a scientific argument for the positive influence that meditation has on the psyche. And she's currently working on her second book, which is likely to be produced or published by the time this episode airs.

So stay tuned for that. In addition to releasing over 60 meditation singles, Mudder Nan maintains international outreach by appearing on podcasts and holding meditation workshops. We're going to hear all about this in today's episode, but we're going to focus on the complex relationship between adult children and their parents. I'm excited to have you here.

Welcome to the show, Mudder Nan. Thank you so much. It's wonderful to be here. Okay, so this timing for your team to reach out to me to do this podcast episode is just absolutely perfect because as I mentioned to you before we started recording, I have a number of parents that are reaching out to say, hey, how do I say no to my adult children?

How do I set boundaries with my adult children? And sometimes it's their adult children saying, hey, mom, set some boundaries or hey, mom, stay out of my biz. So that is just a perfect topic. Give us a little background and tell us why you're in this niche of parenting.

So I'm a marriage and family therapist. And so there's that word family. So the interesting thing was during COVID, it had been many years since I'd done work with families with young children. But during COVID, I was getting some calls from parents and adults about their parents about wanting help to reconcile or to work through some painful memories from their childhood with their parent. And I was just like, God, I really love this work. I really love working with adult children and their parents and healing past hurts and how to build a adult relationship with each other. So that's how I really grew into this, this topic and, and did the work. The thing too, is I have children who are now 18 and 20. So they're moving into young adulthood. And so I often tease they're at the age where it's don't go far away, but please don't talk so much.

Like be here, but don't speak so much or like, yeah. So it's at that stage where I am now on my own experience learning how to have a relationship with my children as I allow them to be themselves and for me to get out of the way, but also still be in their lives. And that can be for some people really difficult, especially, you know, if they, if we feel like they're not doing, we should, they should be doing, you know, that word should, or what, you know, what I think is right and all that stuff. So, yeah, absolutely. That's one of the videos in my course I talk about, we need to stop shitting on ourself. It's not affecting anybody, right? We have an 18 year old that is just graduating this year and he's been fairly independent already, sort of half out of the nest,

you know, not around a lot. So it's sort of like we've, we're already experiencing that empty nester stage. And then going through that, like, does he need me more? Does he not need me? Do I need him?

Do I not need him? Like just navigating all of that right now, which is actually really fun, but there are times, in fact, I just asked him yesterday, I said, you know, do you, I feel like I'm not very available to you or very present. We're both kind of doing our own thing. Are you getting enough from me? And he's like, yeah, mom, I'm good. And I'm like, okay, I just wanted to check in. Would you tell me if you needed more or if I was being too much? And he's like, yeah, absolutely. So I know I'm good there, but it doesn't take away the feeling that I have sometimes.

I know. I remember when my older son hit 14 and had that like, you know, puberty hits and started pulling away. I said to my husband, I just feel like I've been dumped because all of a sudden that like neediness of like, I love you, mama. Like I went from mama to mom or dude or bro.

Yeah. And it's just like, ouch. And then there is that piece though, is like letting go because you don't want to trip them up, you know, emotionally and developmentally. And so, yeah, I often tell parents too, that are calling me with their 17 and 18 year old girls, boys, you know, it doesn't matter. And saying they're driving me crazy or we're constantly battling or arguing. And I said, I think the good Lord like did that on purpose so that we'd get so annoyed with them. It'd be a much easier to push them out of the nest. And then it doesn't make it easier. But I mean, you know, it's just almost like you just have to have a little bit of separation and maybe we shouldn't have to need to be mad at each other, you know, to get that,

to have a healthy separation. But I think sometimes that's just kind of naturally what we do. It is totally natural. I remember both of my sons during that senior year of, I used to say to them, like, I know you're differentiating. I know you're finding your own path. You don't, you don't have to kick me on the way out. And so, and so then they're able to take a deep breath.

And, and it is that piece about, it is natural, like, like children, not all, but children have to come, especially, you know, 18, 19, 17, 20, they have to be in the stage of, I know it all because it gives them the self-esteem and the belief that I can leave and launch. If they feel like they can't do it all. They're not going to want to launch. And so there is that piece of like with adult children, when parents are still kind of, you know, mommy or mom knows best or dad knows best with adult children, you know, if those adult children have children of their own, that can cause conflict. It can cause a child, an adult child to pull away, can cause an adult child to not share as much with you. And it is that piece of really having equal back and forth respect for each other. Yeah. When we're in that role as parent of, I've got to tell them what to worry about. I've got to tell them what to be careful of. I got to tell them what to be cautious of or what's going to work or not work with their plan or their idea or whatever. Really that's doing them a disservice because we're, we're like shrinking their confidence and making them feel like they need to be dependent on somebody else in order to have success. Right. That, and the third piece is that we as human beings grow the most through conflicts and making mistakes. And if we take that away from our child or adult or adult child, we're actually hindering them from

having their own like physical, emotional experience of, oh, that didn't work. And, and if we, if we always make the plans that, well, that's not going to work and take it away, then they aren't learning that lesson, which then could be applied to other things. You telling your child, this isn't going to work because of this. And this is not always enough because it's a feeling. It's a feeling of, oh, I shouldn't have done that. Or I, or I should have done that differently. I remember my son was studying, my older son was studying a semester abroad and he made this choice. He's like, I'm going to go to Spain and I'm going to do this. I'm like, God, you know, like we're looking at flights. I was helping him. And he was trying to decide,

I'm going to fly into Madrid and then take a bus and go here. And it's, it's a six hour bus. And I was like, wow. I was like, are you sure you want to go? It's a lot of money. He's like, no, I really want to go. And he had this whole plan. I was like, okay, well, it's your money, your choice. He arrives to the airport at four in the morning, his time in Scotland.

And he calls me and says, my flight has been canceled. And they didn't tell him. And I just basically said to him, well, let me know how I can support you because I don't know the airline. It's not like a U.S. airline.

It's a Scottish airline or a European one. I don't know the airport you're in. I don't know what's going on. And so I basically said, all I can do is listen to you.

And he was so upset and angry and frustrated. and I was just like, look, I'm here to help you. If you get mad at me, I can't, you know, something I can do is like, I'm not mad at you. I'm just mad at the situation.

And, and so I was able to give boundaries of, I will pay for your Uber. Like if you need to get an Uber to the train or an Uber to another airport. And then he figured out the whole thing. And yeah, he had to, I mean, it was like, go, don't go. And he ended up buying another ticket from another airport, another town and hopped on a train. And, and then at the end, like few weeks after that, we were able to have a conversation about what he learned from that. And he had to figure it all out, you know, here, the mom and the other side of the world going like, Oh my God, like what if something happens or he's like stranded, but I was just like, he's going to figure it out. Like, and then he did and he did. Yeah. And so much gained for on, you know, other instances where something happens that's out of the blue, you know, that you couldn't possibly be prepared for. However, he is more prepared because of this, this experience.

Exactly. And when he looks back at this experience now, when we spoke about it, he said, yeah, in hindsight, I shouldn't have done that trip. It was the most expensive trip. And I didn't have that great of a time. And so he learned, but he learned because of the feeling he had to be uncomfortable. He had to lose the money. He had to have to the struggle, but for me to be like, don't do this because this, this, and this we're taking that away from them. Yeah. And, um, oh my gosh. So I, I have a couple of thoughts that you sparked with that. Number one is he had to feel it because if you would have said, no, you can't go, that's ridiculous. You're not doing that.

Yeah. He would have been able to not only be upset about the possibility of what he had in mind that this trip was going to offer him. But also now he's mad at you and you've just put a wedge in your relationship and he can blame you. And then you're going to carry that depending on, you know, how your relationship proceeds as he, you know, ages into this regret of, I wish I would have never done that. He's been mad at me ever since. The other thing I wanted to mention that you, that you sparked in my mind is when kids call us and they are mad and they are ranting and raving and it seems like they're mad at us, that's kind of our own crap. Like maybe they are mad at us, but we need to just ask first. And like, he clearly told you, I'm not mad at you. I'm just frustrated. And sometimes that's all they need is the person to be able to just be frustrated and ticked off with again, happened with my son the other day over some, you know, bad drivers. And you know, like he's, he's talking to me, telling me about this and I'm thinking,

geez, you know, what did I have to do with any of that? You know? And I said to him, this isn't about me, is it? And he said, no, I'm just mad and frustrated at the, how do these people get their driver's license? You know, but he was just really upset. And then he could stop later and come back and go, he's like, mom, I don't know why I went off on you like that. That he's like, I just should have done that. It really wasn't a big deal. So, you know, we all, it's all perspective and sometimes you just need to push the pause button and not take things personally. Yeah. And from like the first piece that you said, when, if a parent says to their child, oh, you shouldn't do this, you're not going to do this.

You're actually taking away their agency to make choices and have their own opinion of what they want. And that is a huge connection and huge development of a human being's identity and self-esteem that part of making choices and things working out and things not working out is about agency and learning from our own experiences and feeling that self-esteem and learning, even if something doesn't work out, learning how to love yourself when things don't work out is the self-esteem piece. But if we say to someone, oh, you shouldn't do that, then we're actually giving them, they're not going to, oh, thanks for looking out for me.

They're thinking, you think I can't do this. Yeah. And that, that, that affects their self-esteem and that affects their agency. Yeah, totally get that.

So how does a parent communicate with their adult children when they won't even reply to you? This is one of the questions that comes up actually quite a bit. Like, like you'd email them and they just don't reply. You text them, you call them, you leave them a message and they just, they may, may eventually reply in three or four or whatever days after you hound them enough, but they're just not like responding to you. So part of it has to do with what is your relationship like? Meaning, do you have things in common? Do you, do you have things that you both enjoy and that you have an adult relationship together? And then you can have that idea of like, Hey, you know, do I email you too much? Do I call you too much? How can I, how can we cultivate this relationship? But a big piece of it is how do you have something in common? I have found that like if a friend, if you have an acquaintance that you, when you see them once in a while and you enjoy them, but you don't really have a lot in common with them, you're less likely to invite them to a dinner party. You're less likely to ask to go like run an errand together. You're less likely to invite them for a girls or guy's weekend because you just don't have a lot, you don't click. Sometimes, sadly, that happens with adult children and parents is that the child or doesn't feel like you click just because you're my parent, you birthed me, doesn't mean that we're close. So I often tell, I tell this to couples,

and I say this to adult children as well, individuals is it's easy to love. It's difficult to, it's easy to love. It's difficult to like. And so if your child, your adult child isn't responding to your emails very much then, or your texts, or they're just not following through, it could be an opportunity to really look at how are we connecting as human beings? How are we connecting? Do we click? Do we have things in common? Am I interested in the things that they do? Do they are, are they interested in the things that I do? And so that that's one thing.

The other piece is, which is tough because your children are grown. And this is for the listeners who have younger children is there is the reason why we show up to every soccer game or every hockey game as much as we can is because when the child sees you in the audience, they feel like you're invested in their life. And, and that builds an, an, an, an invisible connection. And so there is that piece of, if you want them to show up for something that you're doing an adult, they're, you're, they're mirroring, they're mirroring how you were. And so, you know, for the younger, for parents with younger children, that's something you can do now for, if you have adult children, you know, they, they, maybe they don't play soccer anymore or hockey, but then it's figure out like, what are they interested in? And it is like, if the adult, if the parent wants a relationship with the adult child and more of that, that flow of communication, how do you can,

how can you find something to do together? Yeah, I love that. And I also think that there's, it has a lot to do with mutual respect as our kids age. Are we, if we're, if we're still in that parenting role. We haven't even moved to the coach role. You know, we're just still thinking that we have to tell our kids what to do, how to do be it, you know, super involved in their life.

You're probably experiencing less respect, mutual respect from your, from your kiddo, because they're thinking you're always right. You always have to be right. I don't get to have my own opinion and my own view of things or make my own decisions. You think everything I do is wrong.

you're cautioning me all the time, you know, that kind of stuff. You're basically disrespecting them and, and letting them know that you don't have the confidence in them that they're, that they're asking for, they're looking for, right? Yeah. There's that. And then other thing too, that some, some parents do with their adult children, which is a pet peeve for many is they'll call and be like, hi, so tell me everything that's happening. And the adult child feels like they're like on display. They feel like they're responsible to entertain you and suddenly give you the play by play of the last two weeks. Adult children don't like that because it's not a back and forth exchange of information and you're not actually being in a relationship.

You feel like you're on. And that's where I encourage adult parents with adult children is practice sharing your life with them. Like not like, oh, I had a fight with your dad last night. I'm not talking about that.

I'm talking about like, you know what? I had lunch with my, my, my, my friend Susie last week. And, you know, I felt, I felt nervous because I haven't seen her in 30 years. And, you know, we used to do, it's like, share what you're doing.

I'm like, oh my, oh my God. I, you know, I went to the store and the funniest thing happened and it's share who you are so that it can, you can transition into a mutual give and take of an adult mature relationship. Right. And that this kind of leads into my other question. We've answered some of it already about why can relationships be complex with our adult children?

What makes them so complex? Yeah. Well, I think a big piece of it is no matter how close you are, it is important to not share certain things with your adult child. Like I've had clients tell me before, like, oh, my my my mom's telling me or my dad's telling me like you're you know, like I just happened just recently.

your mom and I were having fights and we're, you know, we're not getting along. We needed to separate, which I actually see the couple and they're not going to separate, but the angst that that creates for the adult child, it's like, now you become a caretaker, but it's not like with a friend, with a friend, you can be personally impersonal. You can care, but you're like, that doesn't impact me. But if, if you're sharing like, oh, I had a fight with my, with your mom or your dad, then that is a, it's a, it's a double feeling for the child. Now, if we move this into another category around health, this is an interesting topic. I often have heard that parents will not always share with their adult children when they're having ailments.

So sometimes they won't share. And, and that is, that's that piece of having a conversation. Like, you know, if I'm having a minor thing going on, do you want me to tell you if your adult child then has agency to be like, yeah, I want to know what's going on with you. Because that's, I've had that conversation with my parents years ago. I'm like, you need to tell me because that's, I just want to know, because if it escalates, then I know what the steps are and I care about you.

And I can follow up and be like, how did that test go? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Well, So let's transition a little bit into just that communication piece.

Let's move this into communication and what are some ideas and things that we can do, you know, in order to have a healthier communication with our adult children and also for the children with their parents, right. As, as adult children with their parents. But so like, for instance, what would you do if your adult child says that you did something that you didn't do? Right.

and they're hurting and you're like, I didn't do this. Like, and I'm not supposed to make it better for you. I'm like, how do you navigate something like that? So that actually happened to me. That actually happened to me with, with my older son. He was a junior in high school and out of the blue, he said the story to me, he goes, mom, I remember when I was little, you locked me in the car and left me there. And I was crying and crying. And I'm thinking, there's no way I did that. Like, I was like, I wouldn't do that. Like, that's, that's horrible.

I wouldn't do that. And I said, first I was like, this was, you know, this is like five years ago. I said, well, I don't remember that. And he was like, no, no, you did that. And I'm like, well, I used to put you in the car seat when you were crying and I couldn't get you down for a nap.

And I would be in the car singing to you, driving around down like, no, no, no, no. It was different. You left me. And I took a deep breath and I looked at him and I said, what was that like for you?

Hmm. And part of it is there's a saying that I often say with my clients is it's not what happens to us. It's how we make sense of it. So we don't always remember things exactly how they are.

All of us have that. I mean, I have couples all the time who get in arguments in the session because they're like, no, you did this. No, you do that. And I have like a 70, 30% rule.

when your child comes to you and says, you did this and I was, you know, and then you take a deep breath and you look them straight in the eyes and you ask them, what was that like for you? What did you feel? I'm sorry that you felt like they said, well, I felt scared. I'm sorry. You felt scared. And then it was done. He was over it. He, he felt better and we were done with it.

And the thing is I've worked with adult children and their parents. I remember this one father and and daughter I worked with and I had to ask the daughter to leave the room because he kept justifying and defending. And I looked at him and I was just like, do you want a closer relationship with your daughter? He's like, yes. I go, stop defending yourself. And I said, he's like, well, I feel, I just feel bad because I'm not a bad person. I said, this is what we call toxic shame.

You can be a good person who makes mistakes, which toxic shame is, I believe that I made a mistake. Therefore, I am a bad person. I am a bad parent. And the thing is, is that children are wired to love their parents.

And so part of it is taking a deep breath, leaning in and saying, if it is true, even if it's one of those ones that wasn't, you believe isn't true, it doesn't really matter. You lean in and you say, I'm really sorry that that hurt you. What did that feel like? How did that make you feel? So good. And if you're having a hard time as a parent doing that, it's your responsibility or job to go figure that out for yourself first and not put it back onto your child. I often say to that, say that to parents, like, if you feel you need to be justified, if you feel you need to be right all the time. And that's the piece where it's really saying to yourself, is this relationship important to me? And I am the parent. And with adult children often, I mean, if you're arguing about like how we're living our life, that that's possibly a current issue versus when I was a child, you worked a lot or you were never there.

And they might say, that's not true. I wasn't, it was like, we, we hooked to the word never. And that is, this doesn't matter. It's, it's the child's perspective. So what you do is, is I always tell people, if you feel defensive, the antidote to defensiveness is curiosity.

so when a child makes it like a blanket statement of you always and you never you and your adult child you ask them like what was you know give me an example well you would go on business trips and miss my my soccer games and they may use the word always and you might stop and you look in your mind and there's a work there's a a thought process called the acceptance paradox, which means that if somebody says something to you and if it's true, if you can own it, it diffuses the situation. Absolutely. You just lean right on in. You take a deep breath of healthy self-esteem. You give an internal hug and squeeze to your heart.

And you say, you're right. I did miss a lot of your soccer games due to business trips. but what we tend to do is I didn't always, there's that one time I was there and it's like, well, how many soccer games do they have a year? If you went one time to a seven-year-old, that feels like always. Right. What is more important to you to be right or to be connected?

Yeah. On the flip side of, you know, where you just said that internal hug. Mm-hmm. One of the things I teach parents is when kids are spewing just mean, nasty, awful words to you and, and, you know, hating you in that moment, I say, turn your left shoulder to the side and let those daggers fly on by so that they don't hit your heart.

You don't have to accept those, but it's not lean in and point your finger and start defending and justifying, you know, and trying to make excuses for yourself or whatever. That's just really unnecessary. And again, you're the adults that there's, you're not an equal. Yeah.

Even when you're parenting an adult child, you are still, you're always mom. You're always mom. You're always dad. dad. And it's that piece of, we want to be connected as, as adult, but we're still in that parental role and it is slightly different, but it is, that's where, um, actually recently, I said to my, my older son in his twenties, I said the re cause I asked him about like, Oh, you said that you did this with your friend. What does your friend do? And he's like, why do you always ask about my friends? And I said, well, because they're important to you. And I want to know the people who are in your life, because then I can feel closer to you and be a part of your life. It's not because I'm nosy. I mean, I don't all, and he was like, oh, and all of a sudden that changed it for him. He was able to say like, oh, this friend is this and this, and they're coming to our, you know, and I was like, oh, well, did your friend have this? And then I feel like I'm a part of his life and he feels like I see him and I'm listening to him. Yep. Absolutely. And I love it when, when kids are hanging, when our kids are hanging out with people that were like, oh, great,

that's not going to go well, or, oh, no, not that person, you know, because maybe, you know, that they're taking, make, you know, more risky, younger or older kids, more risky, they're partiers, they're, you know, whatever it is, they are. One of the best things I ever learned many, many years ago was instead of saying to your kid, I don't want you hanging out with that person, to say to them, you know, I sure hope that when you're out with Joe or Sally, whatever, that some of you rubs off on them. Yeah. You know, that my, that mentality of thank goodness, my kid is there to influence or possibly influence this person that I think is heading down, you know, a rough road or that I would otherwise not choose for them to hang out with because there's two sides to it. Right. There is. There is. And, and sometimes, you know, people go through some hardships that they do come out of. Absolutely. Everybody's got a story, right?

Everyone's got a story. There's a reason why that person is, is into, you know, alcohol, drugs, partying, um, bullying, whatever gossip, even gossip. That's a big one. Yeah. Spending money, you know, shopping, doing all that, like social media or whatever. It's, there's a reason everybody is where they are. Um, and the, and we can all come out of that. I love that. Um, and then also the curiosity when we're curious instead of defensive, that's huge. That's big. So you just pretty much without me even saying it, uh, mutter you like, you like literally went through the three steps of no problem parenting. Seek first to understand why is my child behaving the way they are? Why am I responding or reacting the way that I am 90% of the time? It's not the surface behavior. Yeah. We have to get underneath that step to us to prepare for the worst.

We can't always be prepared. Life throws us curve balls. Our kids certainly do, but there are behaviors that happen day in and day out that we can be prepared for so that we respond instead of react. And then step three is to change the conversation. And a lot of that is curiosity. It's exactly what, exactly what I talk about. So this is a great connection that we have with each other. I'm happy to send people your way to send adult children your way when they're struggling with their parents, grandma or grandpa is maybe being too much in their biz.

And, and so they need some, some support or some help. And then also for adult parents who is like, my child's left the nest, they're in college, they still need me all the time, especially financially, but then they don't have the time of day for me. How do I have this relationship? So I think that's cool. Before we wrap up, I do want to get into, you have five, you talk about the five basic needs of children. And so this covers things from parents out there who have littles right now, all the way up to the grandkids. So would you share those with us?

Yes. So these are five basic needs that I've just developed over the 23 years of being a therapist and working with people is it comes down to five basic, basic needs. There's lots of other things, but these are the five basic needs. Every child wants, needs to feel heard, seen, unconditional love, which is really important. The love from a parent to a child should be unconditional. The love between lovers and spouses is conditional. That's appropriate.

and the love from a child to the parent should be conditional. And this is sometimes a hard one, but it really is for developmental growth and lots of things. The third thing is unconditional love. The fourth is children need boundaries.

Children, all ages, because a child will fill the space that you provide. If you have a very tight space, they'll fill that whole space. If you have a really large space, they'll fill that whole space, but they don't always have the developmental capacity to be in that space. And then the fifth one is to be safe, to physically be safe.

Those are the five basic needs that every child needs. And we often don't get them all. And I've asked my kids before, like, you know, these are the five things. Do you feel like you've had them?

And my son, my second son, I asked him and we were driving, which I call side by side communication, which works good with teens is I asked, I said, do you have these? And he said, well, yeah, yeah. You give those to me. And as well, actually, sometimes I feel like you don't listen to me.

And I said, thank you for telling me the next time I do that, please point it out. He was okay. Yeah. Cause we were human too.

And sometimes we don't catch it. And when you talk about unconditional love, so in step three of no problem parenting that change the conversation. Here's, I want to get your take on this. Sure. I believe that our kid, that we are giving our kids too much unconditional praise. And I think people confuse unconditional love and unconditional praise is a difference. So I say we're giving them too much unconditional praise in the way of we're trying to convince them they're good. We're trying to convince them they're okay. Convince them they have friends, convince them they're doing, they're better at something than they feel they are. And I think we really do a disservice to our kids when we're trying to make it better. Well, that's, I mean, there's two things. One is a lot of parents get anxious or depressed when their child is, has some suffering. Part of life is suffering. It's again, what's the context of it. So here's, I'll give an example. I always often share stories. So my younger son, this was during COVID. He was failing his science class and I was on him. I'm like, you got to do your homework. You got to do your, you know, hand it in. You got to know,

mom, you're always bugging me. I'm going to do it. He has like a D minus. And finally I said to him, look, whether you pass the science class or not, I will love you no matter what.

Here's the thing. If you don't pass the science class, you're going to have to go to summer school and you can't do that job and hang out with your girlfriend. And if you pass, you can. And so I'm letting go.

It's on you. And it doesn't, it doesn't affect how I feel about you. Within one week, it was to be minus. I just took out.

It's like, I separated the two. I was like, and it was part of not just saying that to him is also saying it to myself. I can love him regardless if he passes or not. That's, that's not, that should not be connected.

Right. And he's 16 at the time. So I can give him some responsibility. This is really on you.

and and so the other example i give is when my son's when he was used to my older son when he was younger would be rude to me as a teenager be talked back and be snarky and sassy and i said to him once multiple times actually said look i love you no matter what i'm your mom we're going to be working on our relationship probably for the rest of our lives but i'm telling you no one else is going to put up with this. So you can practice with me or you can practice this in your relationships with other people. I love that. Yeah. How'd that one turn out? Good. Cause he, he came to me, um, after his second breakup and said, she said the same thing you said, mom, I think I'm going to talk to somebody. So he got a therapist and it's been working on it. He says, he's amazing. Amazing.

Oh man. There you go. Yeah. The, the letting our, holding our kids beat to the fire. They used to call it right. Like letting them, um, struggle is so hard. And sometimes it's not just that it's emotionally hard for us. It can be inconvenient and it can take a lot of time. So quick story, when our son was 15 and it was like, Hey buddy, yeah, your per, you know, took your permit test.

You got to have all these driving hours in before you get your license. No mom. No. You know, Cause back at, you know, starting at about what 10 or 11 till 14, 15, 16, 25, it's no mom. No, they're always right. And really think about that and let them be right. I hear you saying that as well, but anyway, it was no mom. No, I just have to. And then he went on to tell me his plan of how he's going to get his hours in and how this was all going to work. So that when he turned 16, he'd be able to go test for his license. And guess what? Didn't work because not only was it the amount of hours, it was the amount of time you had to have someone to tie so many months of, behind the wheel. And, and so instead of getting his license in April, he got it in August.

That stunk for me because he had two baseball teams and a hockey team that he was on that summer. Wow. So you were Ubering. Yeah. Who was carting his butt around? Me. And while it was a great inconvenience a year later, I'm like, Oh, I miss that. I miss those car rides. I miss that time.

So anyway, we do have to juggle. It's not always convenient, but let it happen. So true. So true. Just let it happen. So, all right. I also, so here I said, before we wrap up, we're going to talk about these five things. I also want to talk about your meditations and what you, yeah, just tell us a little bit of why you find meditation so helpful, your experience with Sure. So I have a saying that meditation is a washing machine for your brain and chanting a spot remover. So I do different kinds of meditation. I do breath meditation. I do chanting meditation.

and I have found that what it does is that it allows our brain and body to relax, to go into that parasympathetic nervous system response, which is that like I can let go, I can be in the moment, whichever it is versus the sympathetic nervous system, which is the go, go, go, and then stress. And I'm always stressed out. And so meditation is a tool. I often tell people it's not magic. It's not like, if I do this, I'm going to get this. It's the idea of, it allows you to, to turn into the channel that you, or the frequency that you want to operate at in your life.

And so I often suggest people to do it first thing in the morning, because it just kind of sets, sets their, their channel of their like focus for the day. And the other thing too, is, is that when you're struggling, when you're having a crisis with your child or with somebody, yourself or conversation, if you take even just a few minutes of doing meditation while you're feeling uncomfortable, it actually helps you to process the situation. So just a really quick science backing is there's a research study that was done in a country in Scandinavia that showed that when you do chanting, you actually increase the white matter in the upper partial part of the brain, which is the top part of the brain, which is where we do most of our emotional processing of drama, trauma, relationships, and conversations. When we increase the white matter, it actually helps us to process these things better. So it's scientifically proven. It actually does do,

it makes a difference. So if you have a religious based faith that you connect with, you can chant, sing the hymns. If you're not religious, you can, you know, often people will gather or move towards like a Buddhist, you know, or yogic philosophy of words and prayer. You also can do affirmations and you repeat them again and again, because hearing your own voice doesn't, you know, does another piece of your brain actually increases the gray matter, which actually helps to relax the brain, which then helps to relax that stress and anxiety. That's like a little bit of information there, but I love meditation. I have another one that meditate, breathing keeps you alive and meditation keeps you sane. That's good. I love it. And you actually have a meditation download that you're going to provide a discount for my listeners today.

So tell us a little bit about that. Yeah. So I'm going to be giving you guys a download, actually a free download for an album of meditations for the vagus nerve. And this has, I believe, seven tracks on it. This is all breath meditations. And all of these meditations stimulate the vagus nerve and the vagus nerve is in the center of our body, connects to all of our organs and glands, except for our adrenals. And studies have found that when you stimulate the vagus nerve, you actually can lower inflammation in your body and depression. It also is a great way to calm the mind. And so, you know, the codes will, you'll have in the notes and they can just go to my website and add the code and they'll get their free download and make sure you do it on the computer because it's a big file. Okay. Gotcha. Thanks so much for taking the time to be with me on the show today. Thank you so much for having me on the show. And I love what you're doing with the no problem parenting and all these tools for people. People are lucky to be listening to your show. Well, I sure rode that compliment all day long the day that we recorded this podcast. And since then, I have downloaded the meditations for the vagus nerve with that coupon code MN100 that Mother Nan has given us. And so make sure you click on that link in the show notes.

And remember, you can register to become a no problem parent and join our parenting community for just $15 a month. There's that link in the show notes for you. For now, hugs and high fives, parents. You got this.

Thank you.