Overcoming Conflict using the Savage Theory of Resolution® with Karleen Savage

Welcome to the No Problem Parenting Podcast, your go-to resource for navigating the ups and downs of parenthood with confidence. I'm your host, Jackie Finneman, a parenting advocate with over 30 years of experience counseling kids and coaching parents. Become a part of our No Problem Parenting community as each week we explore practical strategies, share heartfelt stories, and empower you to become the confident leader your kids crave you to be.

Let's turn any parenting challenge or problem into a no problem together. Remember to subscribe and leave a review and learn more about our membership community and resources at no problem. Parents.com.

All right. Welcome back. No problem. Parents to the no problem parenting podcast, where we choose to deal with and overcome the challenges in our home.

And today I have a guest that's going to help us with all things, conflict resolution and we're going to talk about the price of confidence. Welcome, Carlene Savage. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.

I am excited to have you. You are a sought-after speaker. You're a trainer, a hostage negotiator, a conflict resolution expert with a passion of creating peaceful, harmonious environments, especially with our kids. You've created the Savage Theory of Resolution, and you emphasize the importance of communication and collaboration in order to achieve success.

So I am really excited to help parents today learn about your take on conflict resolution, what this all means, to talk about the savage theory of resolution, but also the price of confidence. Because as you know, here at No Problem Parenting, we are all about helping parents become the confident leader I say our kids crave us to be because we create confident kids. It's true. It's true. Yeah. And I was saying there's a price to confidence. I have seven now grown children that left our home incredibly confident. And as I look back, there was a price. There's a price to confidence. And it doesn't just stop or start in certain areas. It goes on.

Even with my children being older and out of the house, there's still a price to the confidence today. Watching what they're doing in their lives because they're doing it with confidence and watching the kickback some people give them or the doubt or the offense some people have. I mean, it's just it shows up in so many ways. And one of the ones that are just mainstream is this whole talk that we talk about, about empowering each other.

No, I get behind certain people or certain or women in general. That that's a big talking point. I get behind women. We should be supportive of women.

Man, my girls have been chewed up and spit out because they're confident and they don't have a problem with it. and when other women have come up against them, not in a negative way, but I mean, just as an example, my one daughter, some women at her workplace said, wow, you are so stylish. You dress like better than anybody else. It's just amazing.

And she goes, yeah, I know. And they went, what? And she didn't hesitate. And she goes, yeah, I know.

I love my clothes. I love the way I dress. I love. And they're going, so their response to that was, you should be more humble.

She said, what? And they go, you should say, thank you. That's the polite thing to do. And she goes, I should be thanking you for me having style and looking good. That's a problem. Right. And the fact that she could say that confidence, the fact that she could articulate it back to them, made them even more mad. And so it became kind of a division. Are we willing to pay that price as parents to teach and instill that? And as confident people, are we willing to do that?

So it starts young, it goes to their adults. I would love you to give me an example of a parent give us an example of, of something a parent would say she should, she should have been thankful. Oh, thank you. Why? And then like lower her shoulders and be like, Oh, well I just, I got it at the discount store or I've had this for years or, you know, some of those things that we said. Yeah.

Dismissing. Um, I can tell you as a parent, um, I had, uh, I have a son incredibly fast. let's just say he's 34 today he can run 22 miles an hour as a 34 year old which a lot of 34 year olds can't do that so as a kid he was running he was a fast runner we didn't know that I mean he was in elementary school he's in sixth grade you know so we went to these tri-city tournament or races and we would go and he would win everything he was in you know the little short dashes the half mile, the mile, the relays, everything, he would win. And so it was just like, DJ, DJ, DJ.

So the next year that we went, a mom came up to us. Well, okay, two things happened. As my son's running, another parent is running next to him on the field saying, slow down. You have to slow down.

you can't run that fast okay that was one and I and I heard about it later but another one a parent came up to me and said um can you can you do us a favor can you tell your son not to run so fast so other kids have a chance to win and I looked at her and I said okay wait so are you asking me to ask my son to be less than his best so your son doesn't have to perform at his best so and I said no no I'm not going to do that that is what a parent might have to do now you can do it in a more delicate way you can do it with it but I was so stunned and you have to realize this was many years ago, you know, decades ago when parenting was different then. And I did not have an ally system. So it was just me against everything because most parents were willing to just fit into the flow and into the wave of commonality. And I was looking at my kids as better than that, better than anything. And not because I think that they should be elevated to,

But because my job as a parent was to enhance and position their best to be whatever they chose it to be. And if I positioned them as a good parent, I needed to position them to be their best, whatever that was, wherever that was going to take them. I didn't know that later on that they would become whatever they became. Um, but that's why I'm out here talking about it now, because I lived the experience.

I know the challenges, not just one time, two times, three times, seven times. I've had teenagers living in my house where they wanted to turn their life around and parents gave me permission to do that. All right. So awesome.

But hold that thought. I want to share something really quick with you listeners today. We're going to take a quick break so that I can talk to you about all things. Tonys. You know, we're all on the lookout for ways to keep our kids engaged without relying too much on screens, right? So from toddlers to tweens, that's where Tonys steps in. So picture this, a little box that's not just a speaker. It's a whole new way for your kids to jump into the world of stories and imagination. That's the Tony box in a nutshell. So what makes it so special?

Well, for starters, it's super easy for kiddos to use. They can control the volume, skip ahead, and explore different stories all on their own. Yep, that means independence for them and a little break for us. And here's the kicker.

Tony's takes the worry out of content. With age-appropriate filtering, you can trust that your little ones are listening to stuff that's just right for them. So no more surprises. And I think what I love most about Tony's is how it brings the magic of storytelling to life, even for the littlest of listeners.

So if you're looking to add a dash of creativity and a sprinkle of fun to your kids' playtime, check out Tony's. head over to tonystonies.com and see what the buzz is all about. And now all my kids are adults and I've seen how they've been able to take that and move it in their life.

It's a powerful thing. So thank you for asking. Yeah, it absolutely is. And I think there's a difference in how in supporting your kids to be their best and in teaching them how to have the confidence in themselves and believe in themselves.

There's a difference between that and a parent vicariously living through their child. Pushing their child. That's what our parents did. That's what our parents did.

Or my parents did. It was like, yes, no, I want you to do this. You can do this. Or I don't want you to do this.

And I think that that for me was a big learning curve, Jackie, is I remember my mom and she told me before she passed, she goes, I was jealous of you your whole life. and I thought, wouldn't that have been nice to know at some point? You know, I know what you handed me as baggage, but I remember feeling that resistance from her as people would come and try and get me to be able to do things and flourish and, you know, succeed in other areas. And she would just flat out say, no, that, that is what you're talking about living through them vicariously or not. She didn't want me to extend, not that my mom was a good woman. She had some incredible talents, but part of being confident is being very aware of what you have to work with in your own mind and being able to process through that so that you don't pass that onto your kids.

And that was something that I talk about in my book is that you got to wrap your head around being really self-aware in order to get that confidence. Yeah, that's a nice segue into the book. You have learned over the years with your seven children, with your prior work experience, your hostage negotiations, communication and collaboration, you've really learned that the conflicts we experience, and you say in business even, are usually a reflection of the conflicts that are happening at home.

Absolutely. You decided to write this book, The Confident Teen Blueprint. So tell us about what is the confident teen blueprint and why do parents, why would parents benefit from, from really reading and or listening? You'll get into that to the book. You know, we talk a lot about having social proof, prove it to me, does it work?

And that's how I got into the book because my oldest is in their, my, I have two in their 40s and my youngest are in their late 20s. I am social proof. And I didn't just do it once, as I said, or three times. I did it seven. And I didn't just do it with my own. I did it with, we've had probably a dozen other people living with us at some point.

I did it with them. There is no one that has left our home with a lack of confidence. and they've all been grateful. And so the book came about because as I was a young mom in my 20s and my early 30s is that parents would come to me and go, how come your kids do their jobs?

How come you can say clean off the table and they do it? How come your kids don't say mean things to you? How come they actually say they love you? How come they hug you in front of people?

How come they kiss you goodbye? How come they, and it wasn't because I sat there and said, do this. It's because I created this flow and this system that I worked in. And so here I am all these years later, and people are still asking me, how do you do that?

How are your kids? They've met our older kids and they've said, wow, your kids advocate for you, support you. They speak well of you. What is up?

And they do it willingly. It's not that, you know, I actually there was one adult, a couple of adults that actually pulled my daughter aside as a teenager and said, we know you're not perfect. We know your mom's not perfect. So tell us what really annoys you about her.

And they just stood up confidently and said, no, my mom is great. And and then they went on. So what I did with the book is I said, what did I do? What were those steps?

And I had very deliberate steps when I was a young mom, when I was deciding that I wanted to have kids. I went through very thoughtful decisions. One of them was, what is my philosophy on parenting? What is my overarching philosophy?

And that governed. And I'm not talking about, I'm talking about 50,000 foot view. You know, what do I want them to leave with? They're going to leave.

when they're older. And if I do my job well, what do I want them to know? I want them to know that they are absolutely loved. I want them to know they can do anything that they choose, period. And that there is no barrier to anything that they want. Okay, so I went through that.

So that was one of the pieces. There's three pieces that we do in the book that people can go through. So that was one of them. it's so good and I love that you're thinking forward I often will get clients calling me with a four or five year old that's um struggling in daycare or kindergarten and you know at risk of getting kicked out because of their their behaviors and of course parents that come to me often have kiddos with rough starts in life um but often they're predicting the child's future yeah do we know that do we don't know that and so I like how you say you know take a look at your parenting philosophy? What is your philosophy about parenting and what is your hope? And so, and then let's work back from that instead of, oh, my kid's already struggling in school.

And now we're going to feed the problem, that problem. And we're going to focus all our attention on that problem. But that's not the problem. Right. Exactly. The problem started years ago. And even if they're five, it started years ago. And, and yeah, that's the thing. And, And do we have the confidence as parents to go, okay, maybe it's me.

Oh, shoot. And, and build your support system that goes, yeah, maybe it's us. You know, what, what's our, what's our stick in the game. So I have, I'm living, we have a grandson, a three-year-old grandson living with us.

So here we are. I've done this cycle seven times with other people that's lived with us. And now I've got my grandson that's living with us. He's three years old.

I've had him since he was two. And when he came, he was pretty unruly because a lot of young parents think, oh, you just let them be, just let them go, just let them, you know, it is who they are. And I'm thinking, if they were running in the street, like, would you, would you do, it's just who they are. Hey, no, we wouldn't.

And so you shouldn't, you know, as my view, you shouldn't be doing that when they're two. If they can ask you for a cookie, they can learn the other barriers or boundaries or they can learn what's, you know, hazardous, not in the depth that we know, but they can learn it. And so it's really interesting because the mom, you know, my grandson's mom came over like after about two weeks and she was blown away that all of a sudden he was listening.

And it's and so now I have the brother who's a year, 14 months, and he came over the other day and he throws these fits. now how many parents can relate to these fits that they're throwing at one and you know one in a few months so i looked at him and i just looked at him and i i acted shocked and i went and instantly it stopped instantly and i don't think parents realize the power influence that they have right um around something like that but that's the confidence are we willing to go, Hey, I respect my 14 month old. I value and respect that baby much more than I've been taught by society to respect them. How do I respect him? I believe that he can understand.

I believe that if I tell him, I love him and I snuggle him and I squeeze and I kiss his neck, I believe he's going to get a feeling and an understanding from that. I also believe if I look at him and I go, Oh, he will get a feeling from that too. And so I think that we misstep on some of that stuff. So who would have known we were going to go here with this episode today.

And I am going to have you back on the show. We need to do a series. I love that because what you did, even with the, you know, that kind of Columbo or that startled kind of when he's throwing his little rager as an infant. And then you say, shh, you just set that boundary, which boundary setting is so important because it's safety.

The message the child gets is safety. And I am your parent and I am safe enough and strong enough to handle anything you throw my way. Yeah. And do we realize that and that, that power?

so talking about safety i love that you said that there is a confidence that comes for children and feeling safe yes and understanding so the three-year-old that i have is he's got his boundaries so when we're in flow when he's having his regular day that boy is busy all day long doing all kinds of activities in the house, going all different places. He is safe. He knows his limits. He knows where he can go, where, what, like you don't go in the garage. You're not allowed to go in the garage because there's things out there you can't be part of. Getting permission. Those are all things that build that confidence in that two-year-old or three-year-old. And suddenly when he goes out, he can play with absolute joy, full-hearted, throwing himself into the curiosity because he's done it the right way.

And that builds confidence naturally. You know, instead of this thing where we go, okay, we're just gonna go through this life and try and figure out what they're teaching us. You participate, participate, collaborate, and it will go through their whole life. Yeah, absolutely.

And you have three areas or three steps that help parents to grow confident kids or confident adults, really. Do you wanna share just a snippet of the other steps? Absolutely. So the first one is the philosophy, your overarching philosophy, 50,000 foot view. The next one is your mantras. And I think we've muddied affirmations. I think affirmations. Okay, so I'm just going to go bold here, Jackie, because I feel like we're in a good place.

I think affirmations are fluff pieces it's things we've been taught to tell ourselves over the last say decade we've been taught to tell ourselves whether we believe it or not put it on your mirror and you'll start to believe it do it you know but what if I don't mantras are the things that support the overarching philosophy so for example my philosophy is my overarching philosophy because my kids will know they are loved.

If they leave this house, they will know they are loved. So my mantra is when I'm in a conflict, and these are the toughest parts to do it. And I can give you examples from a three-year-old to a one-year-old to a 20 to a 40. But my mantra is if we're in a conflict and you can use this anytime, but our toughest times are when we're in conflict.

so it would be something like um you know um i i think that there's something you need to talk to me about i i'm my understanding is it's probably something that you're struggling with i want you to know that i love you and at the end of this no matter what no matter what you tell me no matter what we discuss no matter where this conversation goes i am going to love you and and then how i build on that, that's the third piece is implementation. So you would say that, go into your tough conversation, and then implementation is, this is the way I see your gifts. Implementation is how we are going to show that. So after that conversation, it's going to be something like, you know, well, your gifts are, so I have a son, and that boy has the capability of being really dishonest. Okay. And we, as parents will look at that as like, Oh boy. And I remember, um, and he's incredibly good looking. I mean, off the charts. Um, and so what happened is, you know, parents,

parents, as he was a teenager would look at him and go, wow, he's so good looking. You should be asking girls out. So when he got girl crazy, he could be dishonest. Right. So he would go meet up with girls and it would be like, oh my gosh, never date that boy. He's terrible. And it's like, okay, hold up. Let's just take a look at this for a minute. So implementation, you were wrong. We've got to talk about this. You shouldn't have encouraged that, that behavior. You know, this girl, the parents aren't supportive of you seeing her. I love you. Implementation is after it's all sudden done. You know, that skill you have, that can be really useful in your life. It's a gift.

So the fact that you're able to detect and size up a situation to be able to calculate and get through it and get what you want. Do you know how powerful you can do in the world using that skill? Let me explain it to you. This is how it looks in the real world. Imagine yourself as an attorney and you have got a client and they've got to be defended and protected, you will be able to size up the other side.

You'll be able to understand where they're coming from. You will be able to calculate how they're going to use your client against himself. And then you'll be able to coach against it, defend against it. That is power.

That is the implementation plan. So your overarching philosophies, they know they will be loved. Your mantras are, I love you. You're capable. Don't let this get in your way. Nobody stands in the way of your capabilities.

Understand that when it was friends, your friends. OK, so this may go against popular demand, but your friends are not going to be here in five years. Do not give your friends your loyalty. Give yourself your loyalty. Give your goals, your dreams, your visions, your loyalty.

That's where it belongs. That's my mantra. Implementation is after we have to go through that hard talk or not. pardon me, that implementation looks like, oh my gosh, I love you. You're amazing. After, after the reprimand, after the, the tough conversation, I do it today with grown kids, grown. I have this one mom that's come to me and she's like, I need, I need you. I need you to show me this way, show me how to do it. So I work with her and I got on her case because of the way she was handling something and I said, do you love your child? And she said, yes, I love my, then why would you put yourself before his need? It doesn't make sense to me in that given situation.

Not that it can't happen, but in that given situation, but after we went through it all, she goes, oh my gosh, I didn't even see it. Oh my gosh. And then I, I said, you're such a good mom. The fact that you're standing in it, the fact that you go with this good for you. And I gave her a hug. So overarching philosophy, mantras is what you say in your everyday conversation and how you lead into conflict. And then your implementation plan is how you're going to show it afterwards, how you're going to show it in everyday life. Oh my gosh, you just said so much there. So parents, you can go get the Confident Teen Blueprint. She maps this all out really nicely for you. And if you go to carlingsavage.com forward slash wait list, you'll get the free digital download of the whole book. So you don't even have to go buy it. Well, if you're somebody like me, I'm going to have to buy it anyway, because I like to have that paper copy. I'm so sick of looking at screens. It's all laid out there, just really easy for parents to learn and get some examples on how to use this three-step process to helping us raise confident teens.

The other thing that you offer is a 15-minute teen discovery session. So walk us through what that entails and how it can benefit teenagers and their families? Well, you can do a consult with me at any time. It's on my website. And that's just a discovery session. The discovery session I'm talking about is for parents. And it's in the book. And it's something that I use that I learned.

So working in the courtroom, in mediation, and resolving those working in on the crisis lines, and resolving those. I just, and then working in, um, being certified in hostage. And I want to be clear. I haven't worked a hostage. I certify every two years. And so I just, I go with the FBI and SWAT teams and everything. And I go and I certified and not everybody who's certified actually sees anything anyway, but what it did is it taught me this, the skill of the 15 minute.

And I talk about it in my TED Talk as well. And that is, if you go in without an agenda and you just simply ask questions, and I'll just quickly role play something with you right here, Jackie, if you're okay with it. So Jackie, what brings you to this podcast? I want to help parents become the confident leaders I say their kids crave them to be.

And how did that happen? How did you come to want that more than anything else? I'd been learning about so many wonderful resources that are available to people all over the world that parents have access to right from the comfort of their home. So I wanted to be able to shine light on those resources and share them with parents.

And have you found them? Have you found these resources? Yes. Yeah. And do you have a lot of them?

Yes, over 300. Really? Okay. And are they, have you tested those?

yeah many of them of course I bet all the resources myself yeah a lot of the products and services I've tried or books I've read anything that we're promoting sure okay so that's just a nutshell now you take that and what you do is you don't have any grunts and groans you don't issue an opinion through your facial expressions you don't start swapping stories so I didn't swap stories with you and say, oh, I have some really cool resources too. You don't start swapping stories. If you want to really discover something pretty profound with anyone, your children, and you can do this with a three-year-old, you just start asking questions. You don't have anything of your own stuff inserted while you're asking those questions. And then you just build on those questions. So as you and I were talking, I started asking you, do you have resources? Have You use those resources.

And so that all I did was start doing that. And I would continue to do that for 15 minutes. You are going to discover more about yourself than you have probably ever discovered. And you are going to discover things about the other person that even if you've known them for a long time, that you're going to learn about them.

And why? It's because you took the agendas out of it. all you did was stood there held space to hear from them and when I say 15 minutes I mean 15 minutes because after five minutes you'll run out of questions you won't have anything to ask that's going to force you to dig or dig deeper you really want to work through building a confident teenager you've got to get to know them in a deeper way that means you got to get out of your own way and the way you get out of your own way is step into something for 15 minutes with them hold the space for them and learn about them and just ask about those things that happen when you do you are going to discover so many different kinds of things about them but you can't you have to promise yourself that you're not going to issue opinions on it you're not going to story swap you're not going to give them counsel you're not going to show facial expressions of disapproval you're not going to go gesture you know flip your hand over something that they say, you're not going to turn your back on them. You're going to hold the time and the space for 15 minutes. And when you do, I've had, I've done this with so many people and they've come back and said, I've been married for 25 years. I never knew this stuff about my husband.

They've said things about their parents. I learned so much about my dad and I thought I knew a ton. um you find out from parents oh my gosh my child is struggling with this and they were never going to bring that out but because i held a conversation for 15 minutes eventually we did that and and it can be on some of the toughest conversations and you will see such a such a vision for the people that you love when you do that one of the things that teenagers have a problem with is they doubt you. They doubt you're going to stay in it. They doubt that you can handle their truth. They doubt that, you know, you can, that you'll hold space for them and you won't get distracted. Even if you ask them the question, how many of us will pick up the phone while the teen is talking because the phone buzzed? Those are all things that they're going to doubt. I wouldn't unload my heart if I knew you were going to pull, you know, pick up your phone. I wouldn't unload my heart if you were going to glance over at the TV, or if you were going to say, Hey, hold on, I got to go get the, you know, I got to go get something for dinner. I wouldn't be unloading. And so part of that 15 minutes is even if that 15 minutes means I'm going to sit here and hold space while I,

you know, I ask you the question. So for example, Jackie, if you're resistant, like, cause, cause like when I was, when I was freestyling with you just a minute ago, you weren't resistant. You just didn't know. Right. She just didn't know. So what is she getting at? Yeah, exactly. And so I held and you said, well, wait, wait, wait, do you want to know this? And I was like, well, just, yeah. You know, just tell me. Um, and I held the space so that you could go wherever your mind needed to take you in order to wrap your head around what I was doing. Teenagers are going to do that too. We as adults are doing that because we don't know teenagers are instinctively, putting up barriers. That's what they're doing because they're going through so much internally and they just assume we don't get it. And so they're struggling, you know, open up the freedom for them to spend with you. So yeah, you can do a lot of things. I do give a couple of examples of things you can ask as the lead in, but then you let your conversation take its natural course.

Well, this is so important too, because I think, yeah, we have some kids who won't tell us because they're worried they're going to get in trouble. They're worried they're going to get lectured. They're worried it's going to prevent them from, you know, they're going to get grounded or something. But the other thing that parents don't realize happens more often than not is that the, your teen is actually protecting you. Yes. And that is not good. We want to, the more confident you are as a parent, the more relaxed and assured and trusting your teen is going to be of you, knowing that no matter what happens, if you got in trouble for drinking at a party, crashed the car, you know, um, it cheated on a test, stole something from a store, whatever it is,

knowing that when your parents said, no matter how bad it is, no matter what it is, I love you first and will get through it. They need to be able to believe that. Yeah. And I'm just going to piggyback on what you said to be believable, to understand you'll hold the space is that in the book, I talk about start easy.

Start in a place. Don't go for the jugular of emotions. Start in a place that they're at. Maybe they're reading a book.

Maybe they're a gamer. And all you do is go, what game are you playing? You know, who'd you play with today? And it's that simple.

or, and then you can free freestyle off of that. You know, is there a certain kind of thing that you like, which game is your favorite? Do you, and some parents might be saying, I already know, well, but do you, but do you know which, which gun do you like the best in that game or, you know, which outfit or which, you know, what skills do they have to have? Or, you know, does your, does your computer program glitch? And, you know, you start asking these questions, they'll open up because you're starting in this in an easier in an easier spot so i like to say asking yeah and i like to say asking those things in a very matter-of-fact way like you said not emotional not showing a bunch of you know facial expressions or you're inserting your opinion or your advice unwanted advice at that moment well carlene this has been fun you are just a wealth of experience information knowledge conflict resolution if you're battling with with your kids or in any of your relationships for that matter, reach out, check out carleensavage.com,

as well as you can follow Carleen on LinkedIn, Instagram, or Facebook. All of the links are in the show notes. Thank you so much for coming on the show today. Thank you, Jackie. You're amazing though. I mean, just looking at the work you're doing. Wow. I applaud you. My heart is there for you. Congratulations and keep going. Hey, thanks for tuning in today, parents. Remember, we can turn any problem into a no problem. We can create connection and relationships. So come on board, join our parenting community. Go to noproblemparents.com to get started today.