Exploring Confidence; Connection Between Mothers & Daughters with Special Guest Amy Miller

Hey, welcome back No Problem Parents. I'm super excited to announce that our first compilation book has been published. You can head over to Amazon and order your copy of No Problem Parenting, Raising Your Kiddos with More Confidence and Less Fear. The book features 21 authors plus myself who share how we're helping parents and kids become confident and kick fear to the curb.

I designed this book to show parents how it's possible to be the expert of your child while accessing outside support from niched experts who understand the vital role of parents in their child's lives. So this book is going to inspire you parents and provide education and a new perspective that's going to have you feeling confident in areas of parenting where you otherwise felt insecure. So go grab the book. The link is in the show notes.

The printed book is going to be out in just less than a week here. So stay tuned for the details on that in the next episode. or get yourself signed up for our newsletter at noproblemeparents.com.

You're just going to go there, scroll down, put your name and information in there, and we will send you a newsletter. You'll be the first to know all the new things that are happening in No Problem Parenting, which I actually have a couple of other announcements to make today about that. The first thing is events. So we are going to be offering more regular events, most of which will be virtual, so that we can reach all of our No Problem Parents throughout the country and overseas, but also so that it's more convenient for you, the parent.

You don't have to drive to another appointment, figure out daycare for your kids. You'll be able to log in and watch the event right from the comfort of your own home. The second thing that I want to announce is that we are now offering sponsorships of No Problem Parenting. Do you have a product, a service, a resource, a company that is serving parents or that has a mission to help kids and families?

We want to promote you. We want to highlight you. And with every sponsorship, you're also going to be able to offer scholarships for other parents to become No Problem Parents absolutely free. So if you're interested, please reach out, book a call with me.

There's a link in the show notes to do that. And then announcement number three is that book number three is already in the works. And some of you might be thinking, wait, book number three? What happened to book number two?

Well, book number two is my No Problem Parenting book that will be coming out just before Christmas. and then we are already working on our second compilation book volume two of raising your kiddos with more confidence and less fear and that should be coming out in the middle of January. The second book is filling up fast if you are interested you can feel free to reach out to me by clicking the schedule button in the show notes and talk with me about what topic that you feel would benefit kids and families. I know that's so much information and I am talking super fast we need to get into today's episode with my special guest Amy Miller of Amy's Art Palette. She's here to talk to us about cultivating a connection between mother and daughter.

Welcome to the No Problem Parenting Podcast. Turn behavior problems into no problem with Jackie Finneman. Are you ready to become the confident leader your kids crave you to be? Do you want to learn how to make parenting easier and more fulfilling? Whether you are at your wits end or you want to have more fun as a parent, you're definitely in the right place. Now here's your host, Jackie Finneman. As a credentialed art teacher, certified parent coach, artist, camp mom, and natural connector, Amy Miller combines her knowledge about art, relationships, connection, and communication into a unique experience through the Duet Project. Welcome to the show, Amy. Thank you so much, Jackie. I am very grateful to be on your podcast.

So tell us about this. Like, how did you go from teacher to coach? Were you an artist all these years? Well, at first when people would say, oh, you're an artist, I would think of myself more as a facilitator because as a credential teacher and teaching, I love to help others explore their creativity. And I do co-creating with them. So when they're exploring their creativity, I would also be exploring mine. But yes, now I own that I am an artist and there are so many ways to be an artist. I have found that especially, and I have this belief too, that I wasn't an artist because I couldn't draw like realistic drawings. And then I've changed my mindset on that because there's so many ways to be an artist. You can be a sculptor, you can be a jeweler, you can be a ceramicist, you can be a multi-mixed media artist. I mean, the list goes on. So I enjoy doing those kind of tactile experiences in art. I needed to have a structure. So I became certified as a parent coach so that I could teach my stories through the structure of this parent coaching. And then, so I took my parent coaching and I took my facilitating and my credential teaching and my art. And I had this opportunity two years ago to have an argument with my, one of my daughters at the time she was 21. And it was not a full-blown argument, but it was a disagreement. And I walked into the art studio in my house and I thought to myself, oh, well,

we're going to get through this quickly because of the relationship and the connection we have. And at the time I was taking a course to have an online membership and it was focused on one thing first and I pivoted right then and there and I'm like, I'm going to do something for mothers and daughters because I wanted everyone to have this kind of connection that I have with my two daughters, so that when disagreements happen.

They have a skill set to be able to communicate with each other and be heard from both sides. that is so cool sometimes it's just the simplest ideas that make the biggest impact and I definitely love that you have niched while you can help any family with their relationship with their child it doesn't matter if it's male or female or who you are you really do have a niche and and some personal experience and a story behind you know how and why you created these programs that really do help the mother-daughter connection. So I want to, I want to be able to share some of those today with our listeners and you can describe how your work looks. Yes. So absolutely. I, I did a lot of art with my daughters when they were younger. I have paintings that they used to do when they were two years old. I would just put a paintbrush in her hand. Here's some watercolor and just paint. And so I have those up in my house and we would sit and chat. And so I initially launched two years ago, the Mother Daughter Art Project, which is a subscription box.

And I realized that that's not touching enough people. And someone wanted me to send it to London. And I thought, oh, well, that seemed a little too complicated. So I created the Duet project, which is a digital magazine, monthly magazine that has all the content that I've created in these boxes, these monthly boxes, but in a very accessible way. So it takes the, the first one, there's a letter from me about setting an intention for your relationship and your time together. Then there's a link to the podcast for the topic of the conversation starters.

The first one is all about knowing our needs because that's going to be really important to have that first conversation. And then there are the questions that I provide for the younger person, the daughter, to ask the older person, the mother. And what that does is it allows the daughter to become more and more comfortable talking to her mom and asking her questions. And the questions, they start out easy to ask and easy to answer so that walls come down. And while they're asking the questions, and I'm going to give you a few examples in a second, in the duet project, there's an art project that goes along with it, where you buy your own art supplies, some of which you'll have at home already. And there's a link to a video that I've made doing the process so they can visually see it. There's written instructions on how to do the art project.

Teaching kindergarten through fifth grade, I know how to make things really easy and accessible. That even those people who like in the back of their head, like, oh, I'm not an artist. I'm like you you can do what I provide and guide you through so I give the video I have clear instructions and the questions and then in the duet project there's a reflection page for them to write you know what was the most interesting thing you learned or something you want to remember and what I'm really happy about is the about me page has now turned into me talking about someone in my life who has demonstrated that topic. So when it was courage, I talked about my sister. And when it, the topic is being inspired, I talked about my daughter,

Sarah. And living joyfully, I talked about my grandmother. The questions, for example, if the topic was friendship, the first question would be like, tell me about friends that you had when you were younger. And that's like, oh yeah, I had this one and this one and da da da da.

And then you reflect back to your daughter. Well, what about you? Who are your friends right now? And then that's how the conversation starts. And then there's, you know, seven to 10 questions.

And the last question in that series is mom, did you ever have to end a friendship and how did you do it? So then it provides the platform to talk about friendships and transitioning of friendships at a time when it's not emotionally charged. That's brilliant. This is all just absolutely beautiful. So you started a subscription box service so that you would put the kits, you'd have all the supplies in there, everything ready to go, and then you'd ship it out. Problem with that is it becomes really expensive for people to stay on the subscription and to keep it up. So you thought, hey, this isn't of people. So, and plus shipping overseas was more expensive. So now you've created this digital way that you've got the list of things, supplies they're going to need, some of which they're going to have at home already. Others they can go purchase at their local store. There's a link.

I provide a link if they want to see the supplies. And then the whole idea is that they're doing, they're doing a project. They're working on something with their hands as they're also having the conversation, but you give them the questions, you give them the topic, you give them the things to discuss and the ways to connect with each other. So you don't, you know, have to sit around and be like, I don't know what to say. This is awkward or uncomfortable. I support them.

And in the beginning in the duet project, I, I kind of guide the adult in the room to say, you know, if you get a hard question, it's okay to say, I don't know, or let me give that some thought because just the mere fact of mom saying, I don't know, is modeling to your daughter that you don't know everything. We don't know everything. And it's okay to want to give a question, some thought, and to take that pause of like, Hmm, how, how old is my daughter right now? And how do I want to answer this? And what can I share with her and what's appropriate? And depending upon her age, your answer is going to change if she's eight to if she's 16 to if she's 25 to if she's 50. And I love this because it's a conversational kind of thing. It's not a,

it's not where moms are giving advice. So if you have a teenager, that's like fed up with you trying to tell her what to do and how to do it and when to do it and what she shouldn't do and all of that. This isn't about like how to do that. It's just literally about sharing with each other, letting them know kind of where you've been, right. And your experiences in your life, but not necessarily about, well, this is how I did it. So this is how you should do it. Right.

It shows that moms are human and, and there's no yes or no questions. There's no right or wrong answer. It's like, this is my experience. This is what I think. This is what makes me the happiest.

what about you what makes you the happiest what makes me the happiest is I love dancing like no one is watching for your daughter or or the other person it might be something completely different and it's all about learning about what that person likes and dislikes and preferences and ideas and it's okay not to know the answers other questions are going to come up from these questions right and it just opens the door to communication and connection and I absolutely love that I'm all about this so much so that we're actually going to do an event together we're inviting everybody listening today the event is coming up on October 13th so you should have plenty of time to set the time aside get registered for this event we're going to have the link for the event in the show notes mothers and daughters of all ages so if you have if your mom is in her 80s or 90s and you're in your fifties or sixties or seventies, the two of you can do this together. Please join our workshop and we're inviting all mothers and daughters. If you have littles, five years old,

five, five's probably the youngest as far as because of the doodle project that we're going to do for the workshop. But yeah, it's really, we're saying five to 105. So I want to say also that with the workshop and the duet project, you do not have to be in the same location. So if your daughter is away at college in a different state or a different city or just not home with you, or, you know, an adult woman with her senior mom, and they don't live close.

We can hop on just like this workshop, they can both hop on and be on this workshop you don't have to be together. and the duet project you don't have to be together because it's digital you can each in by yourselves or together listen to the podcast which I have is called the mother daughter art project you can listen to the podcast so you know what topic is coming you can share your screen and look at the magazine every month you can look at it together you can order the supplies and each have your supplies at your own home. And then keeping your hands busy really opens our hearts.

That's my, that's one of my things I really truly believe. You know how they say you have the best conversations when you're driving in the car, taking a walk. I feel like we also have the best conversations when we're keeping our hands busy. It opens our hearts. And then we're going to have a tangible piece of art as a reminder of our time together. On the workshop, we are going to, as a collective community, whoever shows up to the workshop, I'll pose questions and they're all going to be about confidence. And they're going to start out easy and become more intimate.

But I create the safe space within the workshop that people will, my hope and desire and aspiration is that people will feel very comfortable sharing their answers and their thoughts with our community on the Zoom call. And I will guide us through an art project with supplies that you have at your house already. It's not difficult. They're not crazy supplies, a pen and paper, some markers. And I'm going to guide you through keeping your hands busy.

and you're going to be doodling while we have this conversation. So mother, daughter are not going to be talking to each other. We are all going to be talking to each other. Awesome.

So for the workshop, if you want to get together with other moms and their daughters, and you want to get it all in the same room, you only need one ticket to get to the workshop, one ticket per screen. So however many people are watching that screen that night is just fine with us. You're going to want to set aside about 75 minutes, about an hour and 15 minutes for us to do this so that you can learn a little bit more about Amy. She can present what we're all doing, and then we're going to just start the example of how to have that conversation while you're doing an art project with your kids. The title of the workshop is Exploring Confidence with Doodle Hearts, a creative invitation for connection between mothers and daughters ages five to 105.

Please feel free to share this with any mothers and daughters that you know. If you are a daughter that does not have a mother like me, my mom's been gone for about 20 years. Invite one of your dearest friends or somebody that you would like a stronger relationship with. Feel free to invite those people as well. Like a sister also. A sister. Yeah. Have your sisters get together. That's a great idea. Before we sign off for today, Amy, how can people reach you even before the workshop?

They're already curious. They're already excited. They want to get in on this duet project. how can they find you so I have a website it's amysartpalette.com amysartpalette with one l and two t's and I'm also on Facebook amysartpalette I'm also on Instagram amysartpalette it's all amysartpalette all around and that's my parent company that's who I am awesome and so we have links in the show notes for that as well and they can make sure to go listen and start following your podcast. I want to mention that I've had my podcast for just over a year, the mother-daughter art project. And when I was launching my very first one, really, I was so new to it and I didn't know what I was doing. I was sitting up at a little cafe and I'm like, I've got to name this.

Well, okay. I could have really gone down the perfection hole of what is the perfect name for this podcast. And instead I went with the mother daughter art project, which was at the time, and it still is the name of my subscription bots and it serves the duet project and everybody else who will be listening to it, no matter who you are. Cause ultimately the duet project is for any pair of people who want to connect on a deeper level, regardless of gender identity, relationship age or location it's for everybody right now I'm just speaking to mothers and daughters I can totally relate to that Amy because when I started my company I called it hello world and that is still the name of my company it is still hello world you can still find it hello world mn.com but we've rebranded to no problem parenting and our website is no problem parents dot com right now so it just your things shift and things change but I will always have at my core will be Hello World because that was the first, the inspiration. And there's a whole another story of an episode 32, if anyone's interested in listening to that story and how that came to be, but much like you, the company shifts and kind of rebrands and evolves and all that. But the mother daughter art project is really at your core. Yeah. So even the Amy's art palette.com, if people forget that they can go to the duet project.com. And it also takes you

to me. I'm so looking forward to October 13th. It'll be 7 p.m. Central Time. Set aside 75 minutes.

Bring your mom, bring your daughter, bring your sisters, bring your girlfriends, and just get together with us for a super fun night. There'll be limited tickets available, so make sure you get registered as soon as possible. To learn all the things, go to our website, amysrpalette.com.

Thank you so much for being with me today, Amy. Thank you so much, Jackie. Thank you for tuning in to the No Problem Parenting Podcast. Join Jackie next time for more tips, tools, and resources that will help you become the confident leader your kids crave you to be.

Who do you know that we could support on their parenting journey? Like this podcast, subscribe, share, or leave a review of the show. Your support of the No Problem Parenting Podcast pays it forward and helps us help more families. Thank you.