Single Parenting, Self-Care, and Staying Cool: Insights from Dr. Gila Reckess

All right, welcome back, No Problem Parents. Hey, single parents, we have a resource for you. You know, we have lots of topics that we cover on No Problem Parenting from two-parent homes to divorced families and single parents. I was so excited to meet my guest today because she pours out into you single mamas. Meet Dr. Gila. Dr. Gila is a psychologist and neuropsychologist, but none of her fancy degrees fully prepared her to handle some of the challenges of single parenting a strong-willed kiddo. So she dove headfirst into parenting research and discovered powerful tools for her own family. And along the way, she discovered a passion for helping other parents too. Now as a Jai certified parent coach, she helps parents develop the confidence and skills to handle hard parenting moments without punishing, yelling, or shutting down. And she helps build strong, healthy relationships with you and your kiddos. As a single mom, she has a special interest in supporting other single parents. So again,

I'm super excited to have you today. Welcome to the show, Dr. Gila. Thank you so much. I'm really, really happy to be here. And you pronounced my name right. It's Gila. I always say rhymes with tequila. People find that helpful.

I love it. I've seen that. I actually saw that on here and I didn't read it. I should have read that. But I love it's on your website. So that people can know people call me JC a lot because there's no K in my name. And that throws people off. But I'm sure. Yeah, I just want to get into all the things you didn't. It's almost like you stumbled upon becoming a parenting coach, even though you have been a psychologist and a neuropsychologist going through your own experience with your kiddos kind of was like, like, tell me how that all came to be and how you decided to really shift from therapist to a parenting coach and mentor for single moms.

You know, I've always had a passion for childhood and child development. And actually, funny story, I said to a professor once that I was thinking of going into developmental psychology. And she said, are you sure that that's what you want to do? Or is it just your biological clock ticking? And I thought, okay, maybe it's just the clock. And I put it aside. And then but it kept, it kept coming up. And then when I became a parent, and I had some struggles, you know, my kid has had some challenges thrown his way by life, as I know a lot of kids have.

And he and I struggled through some of it. And I really, you know, my dad likes to say don't make a PhD out of things, because I kind of research the crap out of everything. But you know, if there's one thing that's worth doing that with it's being a parent. Yeah. So I, you know, I went all in and I, um, I really did a lot of work around it. And I think I really got to know myself and my child better. And that was really the key and really understanding. And I'm not going to say we don't still have struggles, um, but really, uh, getting to know how to be the parent that he needs, right? Not the parent that another child needs or the parent that society says, right? There's so many messages out there about what parents should do or not do. And so I always say we need to stop shooting on ourself. Oh my God. Yes. We should all over the place.

Yes. And we need to stop. And so, you know, to me, my business is called connection-based parenting because I think that connection, I like to say, if your relationship with your kids is a house. Connection is like the raw materials. It's like the bricks and the lumber, but it's not actually the foundation. So that like concrete slab that you're putting the bricks and the lumber on, that foundation is respect. It's mutual respect. And so learning how to see your child as this human who is worthy of listening to and understanding where they're coming from and how to meet their needs and how to parent them the way that they, that they really need, I think is kind of what it's all about. I wholeheartedly agree. And we need to get to know our kids. And, you know, I know parents tell me this all the time. They might have two kids,

three kids, five kids, each one is unique and very different. And so if your first born was fairly quote unquote easy, you know, you were scared out of your mind when you brought them home. Like, what are we going to do with this kid? But you figured it out and they pretty much went with the flow and, you know, you learned them and things went good. And then all of a sudden, number two comes along and they are a whole different personality and maybe challenging and not as go with the flow. It can really kind of rock your world. Yeah. And even if it's your only child or your first child, we come into parenting with these expectations, right? And these visions. I mean, there's so many things that I always said, I'm not going to do that,

or I am going to do that. And I think we can all relate to that, right? We haven't been in the parenting shoes and we haven't met our child yet. And as you said, I help parents build strong relationships with their kids, but also with themselves, because part of being able to meet our kids where they are and give them what they need is to really sort of be grounded in our own past, what we're bringing into it and into our own present, where we are and what's going on with us in these hard moments with our kids. Yeah, absolutely. And that's what No Problem Parenting is all about, becoming the confident leader our kids crave us to be. And really that does start with us being confident in who we are, how we're parenting, how we show up at work, you know,

just kind of all the things, but really looking at that self-care, self-regulation. I love that We talk about that. We're going to get into all the things today, but really starting with you and as the parent. So you talk about parenting a strong-willed child or a strong-willed kiddo, and that can mean different things for different people.

I specialize in attachment, attachment disorders. Strong-willed looks much different to a child who hasn't connected or bonded or attached because of abuse, neglect, medical pain, things in that first three years of life than it does from a child who has had a really good start in life and a good connection with the same parent and, but they still are strong-willed. So how did that look for you guys? And what made you kind of go, I need to change up what I'm doing? Yeah. I hesitate to use the word strong-willed. I hesitate to use any label. I don't, I don't like labeling. It's, it's the best way to communicate that right now. But, you know, I've also heard people use the term spicy or right. There's so many different terms out there. I love that independent like leader because a lot of kiddos that are you're right labeled as strong-willed or whatever that puts such a negative note on it and really there are so many strengths in a child who is that. Yeah and I actually one of the things that I believe is that I think strong-willed kids demand the kind of parenting that every child deserves. Right. So, so a lot of, a lot of parents don't really get until teenagehood that they can't control their kids. And these strong-willed kids make it pretty darn clear pretty early,

right? That, that it's not about controlling our children. It's about connecting and yes, influencing, right? We can certainly have an influence. But really the sooner that we can sort of accept and kind of dig in and root into this respect-based relationship. And when I say respect, I should say, I should clarify, right? I don't actually like the term respectful parenting because it's such a misunderstood and misused word because respect and parenting often means obedience, right? And just compliance. And that's not what I mean. What I mean is seeing the other person as, and their experiences as valid and worthy. And so, yes, as the adult, we know more in some ways. And as the kid, they know more in some ways, they are in tuned to some inner wisdoms that we have lost attachment to many years ago. And, and certainly their own experience, they're attuned to sometimes better than we are. And so connecting with that, I will say I try not to talk in too much detail about my own son just because I want to respect his privacy and his you know his autonomy in this but just more generally the notion that there are kids I think who maybe don't respond as well to the more the firm boundary approach to parenting and the I'm the parent and this is what we're going to do. And other kids who might respond to it on the surface, but then later on, we're seeing some effects from that more authoritarian approach.

Yes. Yeah. I always say you can seem to have a really compliant, go with the flow kind of kid until they hit their teenage years. And then they start to challenge because they, they're bigger and they can. Yeah, they feel like so, you know, I think parenting is so personal and, and private.

And some parents I work with are just happy to share all their experiences. And I often even my testimonials and things that I have on my website, I don't ever put a parent's actual name on there. It's great that they want to share. I don't want them to share because of their child, their child's going to grow someday, we do need to protect their autonomy. So I think that's And it's something that I confess I struggle with in the parent coaching space, right? How do you speak in a way that can engage and advocate and connect with other parents without crossing your child's personal boundaries and boundaries are really important to me.

So, yeah, absolutely. Well, and you and I both come from a therapeutic background and you being licensed me, not so much you doctorate level me, not so much, but I still have the utmost respect for confidentiality and just personal, personal stuff. You do have, as a single parent, you've had an experience that has caused you to go, you know what, I know I can help some other single parents out there and parents who have bigger challenges with their kids, connecting with them or just getting that mutual reciprocal kind of respect.

What are some of the foundational things that you think that any parent needs to keep in mind when it comes to self-care? Yeah. So I have this model that I like to use that actually was inspired by my son. And we use it in our family, and I find it really helpful. And that is the model of a sink. The idea is that we all have this metaphorical sink inside of us. And when the sink is really full, just a few more drops of water are going to make that sink overflow.

And that overflow is the dysregulation. That's your tantrums and your meltdowns and your shutdown. For us parents, it happens also, right? That's snapping at our kids, yelling, making threats, right?

Or giving in. Or giving in. Yes, right. So anything where really you feel like you are no longer fully in control of how you're expressing your feelings, you're no longer in control of your behavior. And when your sink is a lot emptier, you can handle the exact same drops of water and more. Right. So in other words, this helps explain why today your kid might freak out that there's no more blueberries, but yesterday they were totally fine. Right.

They didn't care about blueberries. So their sink might be full for other reasons. There's other things going on here. And so self-care really comes into play here in terms of making sure that your sink, as the parent, that your sink can stay nice and empty, not completely empty, That's just not realistic, right?

But as empty as possible so that the inevitable water that comes in, there's room for it. Because there's one thing that fills a sink super quick, and that is another person's sink overflowing into it, right? So when our kids' sinks overflow, it's super important for us to have space, to have room, to take some of that on to co-regulate with them and to be able to be there in the moment with them without our sinks also overflowing and making a huge mess all over everything.

So the self-care piece is making sure that the drain of the sink is nice and clear and open. So these are activities and things that we do to basically keep our systems nice and healthy. And people, when they think of self-care, they often think of bubble baths and spa days and a night out with friends. And these are all lovely if and when you can make them happen, but it's not the only thing that's self-care, right?

So things that are more sort of systemic self-care, like things that really take care of your system are really foundational things. Like, how are you talking to yourself, right? Are you able to give yourself the space and the permission and the time to feel and process the things that you need to feel and process. And when you're doing that, are you patient and compassionate with yourself? This is something that I think all of us struggle with. And that is always a work in progress, right? Is finding that patience and that compassion for ourselves that we have an easier time doing with other people. So that's just one example. But the idea is really taking care of our sort of system on a whole so that we can be more present and available for our kids. I think it's a super important lesson in self-care that doesn't get talked about enough that there's, like you said, there's all these things that we can do for self-care that we're actually doing, but I think talking, changing our mindset and shifting our mindset,

but also how we talk to ourselves in our head, because a lot of times you're not talking out loud to yourself. It's just the thoughts that are coming in. And so what are maybe some things that you suggest for how to shift that negative self-talk? I know one of the things that years ago that I did is, is, you know, sometimes I'm a Mrs. Overdo it. So sometimes I would get, I would just do too much for too many people because it fed me, right. It fills me up to do things for others, but having a young son at the time, I started to resent all the things and all that I signed up for that people, some things people didn't even ask me to do. And then when I would have a day where I would just feel really tired or just like, I couldn't do it anymore.

I would take a day off, cancel my day, call in sick, do whatever. But then I would beat myself up the next day for having done that. Even though I could tell my body needed it, my mind needed it. And it's not just how we talk to ourselves in our own heads. I want to add that how we talk about ourselves in front of our kids, right? Because our inner voices, we voice those out loud and our kids are listening and this becomes the template for their inner voice, right? Like they hear how we're talking about ourselves and to ourselves. And so it's so important to work on that. And it's a huge topic to be honest, right? And there's so many things we could talk about.

you mentioned before already this shooting all over ourselves, right? So the minute you hear the word should, or, or I would actually add need, right? We so many times think like, I really need to do X, Y, or Z, or I should do another word. That's a pet peeve of mine is just, I just need to, right? It, it, um, it's such a minimizer. It's sort of deflates and sort of detracts from what's happening in the moment. Like, well, I need to do this. It's not a just, this is going to be big. This is going to be hard. This might feel challenging for me. And it's okay for that to be challenging. And it's not, it's not just anything, right? Right. The sort of acknowledge and respect that I think the first step really, honestly, is noticing.

right so before you can even shift anything raising the awareness about how you're talking to yourself so really noticing how am I talking to myself and how would I feel if my best friend talked to me that way or how would I feel if someone spoke to my child that way right and and yes we're not children and I'm not saying we should talk to ourselves exactly how you talk to children, but giving yourself that same compassion and patience that you would hope and expect someone would give your child because you deserve that.

Yes, absolutely. How we talk to ourselves is super important and how we respond to our kids when they're having a tough day or misbehaving or acting out is super important as well. So guys, real quick, head into the show notes, click on 60 ways to respond to your child without losing your cool. I'm going to send you a free PDF with 60 ways that you can respond to your kids when they are defiant, melting down, yelling at you, or crying. And be sure to click the follow button on whatever podcast app you're listening to the show right now, because starting with episode 189, I'm going to be sharing how you use these responses, how you say them, and in what situations they can be beneficial for. All right, let's get back into today's episode. I hear parents say all the time, such a dummy, right? It seems like such an innocuous thing. But this is a label.

It's a negative label. And it's something that we're saying casually in front of our kids. And they're hearing that, right? And there's far worse labels and names that we call ourselves in our heads and in front of our kids. I think one of the big categories also is limiting beliefs.

most of us carry some limiting beliefs about ourselves. So this often sounds like I'm not blank enough, right? I'm not smart enough. I'm not good enough. I'm not pretty enough. I'm not thin enough, right? These sort of perceptions that have been kind of like etched in stone in our mind that this is part of our identity or the opposite. I'm too, right? I'm too sensitive. I'm too fat. I'm too stupid. I'm too reckless, right? Whatever it might be, these narratives about ourselves, which often start during childhood, right? And so they're really deeply ingrained and they're hard to shift, which is why I really think step one is noticing them. And one strategy that I recommend for finding these, when you find yourself feeling anxious or upset or angry,

to ask yourself the question, why? Why am I feeling this way? And keep asking why until you get to the juicy center. And at the juicy center, at the end of that why train is usually a limiting belief or a core fear. And these are things that really sort of drive how we're interacting in the world and how we're interacting with ourselves. Yeah, that makes sense. Give us some examples of what we would say instead. First is to notice, right? To notice these things coming up. And when you notice them, similar to when your child comes to you with an upsetting thought or feeling, right? We're not going to try to fix it. We're not going to try to change it even. We're going to acknowledge it, right? We're going to recognize it. We're going to say, oh, well, hello. Hello,

limiting belief. I see you. Welcome back, right? And honestly, that in and of itself takes practice and it takes some of the power away from it, right? Recognizing it, acknowledging it. Oh, there's that limiting belief again. Yep. I see you. I see you. And then shifting the narrative.

So let's say the narrative is I'm not smart enough, right? I'm not smart enough to help you with this homework. How can we change that to an observation? Okay. How can we take interpretation out of it and make it an observation. So, you know, I don't think I remember how to do long division. Let me see if I can take a look at that, right? So the observation fact is that you don't think you can remember it. The interpretation is that you don't know how to do it because you're not good at math. That's an interpretation. And this is the very same process that I think is helpful in communicating with other people too, right? Everything applies both within ourselves and outside of ourselves. So to try to make observations and to take the interpretation out of it and the judgment, because interpretation usually looks like judgment,

right? It's usually a harsh interpretation. Yeah, absolutely. Let's talk about when you're dealing with a behavior with your kiddo, you've had a long day at work, you come home, you know, you have X amount of time to get food into you and your child or children, and you've got to get back out the door to something else. And one of the kiddos either has a meltdown or some kind of a, you know, pushback on your plan for the day and it boils your blood and you blow.

Like how, what are some ideas for helping us to kind of self-regulate and put things in notice, do the notice, acknowledge and all in that kind of instance when all heck is hitting the fan. Yes. So in the moment or after, so of course, then we get the shame spiral afterwards, right? The guilt hangover. We all have been there. We've all been there. And the first thing I want to say to the point of working on stuff within ourselves, I really want to say that the goal is not perfection here, right? For two reasons. One, it's not realistic, right? It's not realistic because we're human, we're parents, we're parenting in a broken system. We're never going to be perfect. But the other piece is that it's actually not desirable to be perfect as parents because our kids are also going to have challenges. Their sinks are going to overflow too.

And when our sink overflows, it is an opportunity to model what we do to help ourselves and to repair after the overflow, which of course is easier said than done. the key, the really key part is that noticing, the noticing that your sink is overflowing, ideally noticing before it overflows, right? So building the awareness muscles, I like to say, right? So we need to practice building this awareness muscle so that you notice before it gets to that really full sink. Because the truth is, it is much harder for anyone, I don't care who you are. If your sink is all the way full, it is much harder to keep it from overflowing with a few drops of water than it is to keep it from getting to that full point if you notice it when it's halfway or three quarters of the way full. So noticing it. In that moment, if you do notice, if you say, whoa, okay, my sink just overflowed, right? And what I like to do is I put my hand, I'm doing it right now, right? I know, I'm watching you put your hand on your heart.

I put my hand on my chest. It's such a like simple grounding move, right? It brings you back to the present, physically connects you to yourself. And I will say out loud to my child, I am having a hard time.

that is one of my favorite phrases and it's my one of my favorites for the kids also right my child is having a hard time I am having a hard time because that really reminds you and reframes you to what is happening you are not bad you are not a bad parent you are not a horrible person right you are having a hard time your sink is overflowing I'll say that to my son also because we use the sink, right? My sink feels really full right now. I'm going to take a minute and take a few breaths, right? And that is as much for me as it is for him. It's modeling for him. And it's also, all right, Gila, I need some breaths, right? And the simple act of pausing and taking breaths.

There's a lot of different mantras that you can use in that moment also to help yourself. And of course, this is a very personal thing, but you know, one thing that can be really helpful is this is not an emergency, right? This is not an emergency or I am safe, right? To really ground yourself, to remind your brain, right? Your brain in a very real way thinks it is not safe, right?

There's a tiger as far as your brain is concerned. And we know that there isn't. And so reminding ourselves, lassoing that part of our brain and saying, this is not an emergency. I love this so incredibly much. I'm like, did you go through my parenting course? Did I go through your parenting course? Like who came up with, because they align so much. While our experiences have been quite different, the messages that and the things we learned and that we found successful and helpful in our own parenting are aligning like crazy.

You know, I do remember the pause. That's what you see your kids having a behavior. You're having a behavior before you say or do anything. And on your heart, hand on your stomach almost forces you to push yourself back. Right. It grounds you, like you said, instead of leaning forward and pointing that finger or lashing out with your words, it kind of almost helps you just kind of push back.

Notice, take some breaths, take six seconds to shift your amygdala, right? It's six seconds to say, hey, smoke alarm. Thanks for notifying me. I'm worked up and my sink's overflowing, but I got this for you to just calm and then put things into perspective.

And I love, like parents, we get nothing else out of this podcast today. This is not an emergency and I am safe. I absolutely love that, Gila. And, you know, we're talking about this, like, it's so simple.

You just pause and you just, you know, there's that word just, you just pause, you just take a few breaths, but there's no just about it. This is, this is hard stuff. And so if you're struggling with it, you're not alone. You're not alone.

You're not broken. You're not failing. I've been a mama for 18 years. I've been working with kids for 30.

It still happens and we don't need to beat ourselves up for it afterwards. I love this again. I'm just kind of interrupting, but I also love the fact that when you're sink, you know, your sink is getting there and you're picking your kids up from school or, you know, they're, they're on their way home from school. That's one of the first things you can say to your kids is, Hey guys, my sink is almost full. Want to give you a heads up, teach your kids. Your kids will do the same thing. They come home from school. How was your day? Oh, my sink is really full today.

It's a good little heads up to remind. And then what can we do to drain some of that from the sink to keep our, how do you say it? Keep your drain and your pipe open. Right. And you know, one of the things that I like about the sink is that I do think that it can be helpful and important to label our emotions and identify what is really going on. But there are times and in the moment where you might, first of all, not know exactly what the emotion is. Second of all, there's a lot of emotions going on. And again, that sink did not get full by one drop of water.

Right. There's a lot of things that contributed and there's a lot of emotions associated with it. And sometimes right now in that moment, it doesn't necessarily matter. Hey, I'm feeling really angry and anxious and shame. Right. My sink is full.

That's all we need to know right now. My sink is full. And you can take that moment to take a step back and try to understand what filled the sink. Right.

And that's another piece of the compassion, that self-compassion is recognizing all the different things that can fill your sink. I have an acronym that I like. It's the spies and each one stands for something. I won't go into it right now, but I like to say the spies appear in disguise, right?

Just like spies. Because when our kids, for example, are manipulative or disrespectful or defiant, or when we are impatient or we're feeling, oh, I'm so sensitive or I'm insensitive or anything like that. These are disguises. And really what's happening under the surface is all these other factors that have filled your sink that make it so that you are having a hard time. And once we start to understand what fills our sink, we can have a little more compassion. We can say, oh, I did not sleep a lot last night. And my boss yelled at me earlier today. And I really, really can't stand when the kitchen table is covered in paper. It makes sense that my sink is really full. Of course, my sink is really full. All right. Okay. Okay. I get what's going on here.

Right. That's where that self-compassion can come in is with the insight and understanding. I love it. I love it.

Yeah. There's a thing I do that I've done for, oh gosh, I bet the last 12 years or so when my anxiety, you know, the big buzzword right now, anxiety, everybody's got anxiety. Well, we all have it. It's some shape or form at any given time.

But for a period of time, mine was creeping in nonstop. And I read this blog post. I wish I could say who it was from. I don't even remember.

But I learned something really key there that sometimes like how you said, this is not an emergency. I named my anxiety. Her name's Agnes. she sits on my left shoulder, she pops up every now and then, and she is really there to protect me. And so when she shows up, rather than it turning into a full blown panic and letting my negative thoughts like creep in, right? I can say, Hey, Agnes, what is it you're alerting me to?

What is it that I need to be protected from putting your hand on your heart and saying I'm safe. But what is it that you're alerting me to that I need to pay attention to? Right. And then if I don't have time to deal with it, I can say, I don't have time to attend to this right now, but I will get back to you later. Now, some people might think, oh, geez, that's a crazy woman talking to her named anxiety. She, this lady, she named Agnes, right? It is truly legitimately been a game changer for me because I can then later when I have five minutes or whenever it is, I can attend to her.

sometimes Agnes needs a full day and that's okay. I say, Hey, thanks for letting me know. I need to do this self-care today. I'm going to clear my day. I'm going to attend to myself.

And then the next day, I'm not going to feel bad about it. And I think we can do that with our kids too. Like, I love that you're saying we don't need to always have our kids name the emotion. I'm feeling angry and I'm like, have this therapy session with them because in the moment, it's the last thing they want to do oftentimes. Right. And we may not have time for it either.

We can say you're having a big emotion. I see that. And we're going to talk about that or tend to that. Not even talk. Kids don't want to talk about it. Right. Tend to that later.

I love it. And I want to say the naming your anxiety. And so I do that with limiting beliefs also, right? So some people like to name like, oh, hey, LB, right? I see you. Yeah. Befriending it and knowing that it is there. These emotions and these beliefs, these thought patterns, they developed for a reason, just like you said, right? They are there to protect you. At some point, you developed this way to protect yourself, probably when you were younger and weren't able to do it in a way that was healthier or more helpful. Right. Yeah. And I actually do welcome it when it shows I didn't, I didn't welcome her in the past. A lot of times we try to do whatever we can. There's word try, right? We do whatever we can to make a problem go away or a negative belief or a behavior or a feeling or whatever. We want to just push it away, get it away.

And in no problem parenting is step two. It's prepare for the worst. Prepare for the worst means if you know that something like that is going to happen or when it happens, you can, there are things you can do to prepare for it. So when it shows up, whether that's behavior, a negative thought or whatever, you can say, Hey, problem, whatever it is, I kind of thought you'd show up, you know, I got this, no problem. So it's like, thanks for letting me know there's something I need to pay attention to. Yeah. And when I welcome the anxiety, when I welcome the tantrum, when I welcome the meltdown, when I'm whatever it is, it takes the emotion, the personalizing out of it for me and just puts it in more of a matter of fact. Yeah.

Kind of situation so that we can get through it. Yeah. And I'm glad you mentioned tantrum and meltdown. I was just going to say that, right. The same way that we welcome it for ourselves to, and this is hard to do, this is easy, to welcome that emoting from our kids also, right?

They haven't learned how to express these big feelings or how to handle these big feelings, how to handle that overflowing sink. And so recognizing it as this expression of them having a hard time and welcoming their communication of that to you. Now that doesn't mean you have to welcome them punching and hitting you. Right. But recognizing that this is them expressing, right. This is this behavior is communication. Yeah. And I say to parents too, when they are wet noodling on the floor, when they are just melting down and throwing that fit, put my hand on my heart and my hand on my stomach. And to be able to just kind of look at the kiddo tantrum and say, yeah, I see you need, you need to probably throw a fit, get it out of your system. I mean,

that's a natural, normal thing to do. And if they start hitting, kicking, doing all those things, that's an opportunity for me as the parent to be able to say, Hey, thanks for letting me know you need me and being able to pull them in to help them regulate, calm, get their body or exit stage left, get them outside into a different environment, whatever it is. But thanks for letting me know you need me versus stop kicking me. We don't hit. Now, if the kid doesn't want you to think they need you, they'll stop just because they don't want you. Like, I don't need you.

And that'll stop a big fit. Witnessed it bazillions of times with those kiddos that are going to reject any kind of parenting you give them, right? But yeah, it's just really helpful to just notice and observe it and not get like freaked out by it or over upset or sad. You know, sometimes our heartstrings get tugged and we try to go in and fix.

And I would say it's okay to be sad, but it's what you do with that sadness. Right. So I also want to, you were talking about letting yourself have these feelings. I like to say it's like a pool noodle, you know, those like styrofoam noodles.

And if you're sitting on a pool noodle and you're trying to keep it underwater and you're balancing and you're floating, and then something pushes you a little off balance. And what happens to the pool noodle? It comes exploding out of the water. Right. And that's what we tend to do, especially with anger. Right. Anger is something that, you know, one of the favorite restaurants that we go to here, they have a sign above the kitchen that says there's no value in being angry.

and could not disagree more. Yeah, me too. I mean, we as a society, we're so scared of anger. And so we, we try to suppress it. We try to sit on that anger noodle and the anger noodles, they come out eventually and they come exploding out in a much more destructive way than if we were able to really give them the time that they needed. Yeah, absolutely. It's a really good point. When I, I coach parents on that too. When you're really mad and you're frustrated, it's okay to say, I am so upset right now. I am so mad right now. I'm spitting tax and I need to exit stage left. I need to take myself out of here. I need to, you know, whatever it is that I need to do because my sink is overflown flowing and I, and I need a minute to get myself calm, but not that I'm going to just shrug the anger away. And likely I have a good reason for feeling angry.

A boundary was crossed. One of my rules, personal rules was broken or, you know, stepped on and, and, and, or I'm just over full. Yeah, that's right. I mean, anger is such a powerful messenger, right? It's a messenger. Your boundaries have been crossed. You're not okay with something.

And it's, it's really good. We have that messenger. It's like the pain messenger, Right. Like no one likes being in pain, but I'm sure glad that I have pain to tell me to take my finger away from a hot stove because it helps keep me safe.

And it's the same with anger. Anger is telling us something about this is not OK with me. Right. And it's a really important message.

Yeah. And I think with all of the supports kids are getting around bullies and things, there's so many great things that have come from that. However, just talking about this reminds me of like, it's okay to be angry if you're being bullied and to set that boundary and, you know, have your voice in that moment instead of just using your words and being almost too nice. Right.

Cause the bully is not going to hear that logical response from you of you're crossing my boundaries or please don't hurt me or hit, you know? So like they need to hear that really definitive boundary and that line that you are, they're not okay with you crossing. So connectionbasedparenting.com is where people can go to learn more about you.

You really focus on single parents, but you're there for any parent. Yeah, I have a special interest in supporting single parents just because I've been there. But certainly I'm open to supporting partnered parents. Also, I want to say a lot of people who are in parenting roles who aren't parents, I think that that's often an overlooked area where people really could use and deserve support.

So anyone in a parenting role, but I do have personal experience and a special interest in supporting single parents. Awesome. So parents, if you're feeling guilty about snapping at your kids and yelling or threatening those consequences that aren't even realistic, Or you're shutting down and just feeling kind of super overwhelmed by your kids' big feelings, your big feelings, the stresses in life. Or you're just you're finding yourself worried a lot, even just about your parenting and about your kids.

I would say reach out to Dr. Gila. She is there to help and support you. And yes, while we have said a few different times in the episode that it's not easy, it isn't, quote unquote, easy because you're learning a new.

you're learning some new skills and ways to respond and your muscle memory in your brain, it's going to take a little bit of time to practice, right? Till that becomes easier. But also I want to say it's not as hard as you think. Yeah. Yeah. So my two kind of the yin yang message is perfection is not the goal and small changes make a big difference. They really do make a big difference. Absolutely. All right. Well, another way for you to become the confident leader your kids crave you to be, you have a special little freebie for us, for the listeners today. So it's very in line with what we've been talking about. This is, I know parents are short on time. So it's a super quick five minute video telling you the three main mindsets that I personally find helpful, my clients find helpful when you're in those hard parenting moments. And at the end of the video, there's a quick little grounding exercise that I talk you through that you can use right now today.

So check it out. Love it. We have a link in the show notes for that. It's called The Three Powerful Truths to Get You Through Hard Parenting Moments.

I am so excited that we have connected and that we met and happy to have you in my no problem parenting circle, Dr. Gila. Thank you so much for being on the show today. Thank you.

This has been incredible. I really appreciate it. All right, there you have it, parents. Another resource that's accessible to you right from the comfort of your home.

Hey guys, if you're enjoying this podcast, do me a quick favor and leave us a review of the show. And if you're feeling super generous, take a screenshot of this episode and share it on your social media with your friends and family, and be sure to tag and follow us at no problem. Parents doing so helps us help more families.