5 Parenting Principles You Need to Not Screw Up Your Kid Transcripts

Please note: Transcripts for the No Guilt Mom Podcast were created using AI. As a result, there may be some minor errors.

JoAnn Crohn: Welcome to the No Guilt Mom podcast. I am your host, JoAnn Crohn joined here by the lovely Brie Tucker.

Brie Tucker: Hello. Hello, everybody. How are you? Yeah,

JoAnn Crohn: I’m trying to make sure. Yeah. I could be singing, I could be, anyways, I’ll spare y’all, I’ll spare y’all the opera. We have such a great guest today, Dr. Aliza Pressman. I was super excited for this interview. She has so much great stuff for you in order to make parenting simple. So you’re not going to get a bunch of like random strategies that you’re going to have a hard time memorizing in this episode. She breaks it down for us, Brie.

Brie Tucker: Yeah. We, we focus in and we, we zero in on her five principles. And honestly, it was so refreshing because it starts with the easiest thing that you have 100 percent control over to ending on the aspect of what do we do when we need to fix things? Because we all have to fix things and have, what do I do when it goes wrong? I love the fact that we were able to wrap it up that way.

JoAnn Crohn: Really enjoyed this conversation with Dr. Aliza Pressman. She is a developmental psychologist with nearly two decades of experience working with families and the health care providers who care for them. She’s the host of the award winning podcast, Raising Good Humans. And now she adds author to her list of accomplishments with her new book available today. It’s release day. It’s pub day, The Five Principles of Parenting: Your Essential Guide to Raising Good Humans. And let’s get on with the show.

JoAnn Crohn: Welcome to the podcast, Aliza. I’m so excited to have you here and so excited to talk about parenting and child behavior. And one of the big things I’m just going to like, start off with it from your book that really connected with me is that all feelings are tolerated, but all behavior is not, can you go a little bit into that?

Aliza Pressman: Yes. Sure. All feelings are welcome. All behaviors are not. Actually. I posted that on Instagram, like, I don’t, I want to say like 10 years ago. And then, and I was just like, I don’t know. I was just one of those moments where I was like, why, why, how do we boil this down? It was because when I was at Mount Sinai, a lot of times the physicians need very quick things that they can say to families to boil down what needs to happen.

And for discipline. That’s it. I mean, yes, please buy my book, but also if you don’t have time to read this section on discipline, you could just tell yourself that, which is all feelings are welcome. All behaviors are not. And if you ask yourself, like, did I honor this child’s feeling? You know, was I like, I see how you’re feeling.

I accept it. I’m not saying you can’t have those feelings. And then did I Express what behaviors I expect and what are not acceptable you’ve done. That’s the, that’s, you know, there’s some other details you could get into, but that’s kind of it.

JoAnn Crohn: Well, I loved how succinct it was because usually like a lot of the pushback we get. Yeah. Well, well, like here at no guilt mom, we talk a lot about honoring kids feelings and the pushback that comes is like, well, what if your kids are like throwing things at everybody? And it’s like, well, there’s a

Aliza Pressman: not a feeling.

JoAnn Crohn: It’s not the same thing. It’s a behavior. I love it. I love it. I love it.

Aliza Pressman: we get confused.

JoAnn Crohn: Yeah, I, I took that actually and used it exactly the same day I read it because one of my kids was saying some pretty, uh, rough things to me. She’s 15. And when I went back at her, she’s like, mom, I thought you said we could have all of our feelings and it just popped out of my mouth.

Like. Your feelings are welcome, but this behavior is not. So it’s so handy to say, so handy, so I thank you for that. In your book, you have these five simple parenting principles that you say can actually move the needle on child development. Can you explain those for us?

Aliza Pressman: Sure. So I really wanted to, I just, I mean, the podcast is no guilt mom, but I really feel like the. The guilt, the noise, the pressure is so intense. And I wanted to just be honest with everybody. Like, there’s a lot of stuff that we spend a lot of time doing that is not moving any needles and doesn’t really matter and isn’t even rooted in science.

Or there’s stuff that is rooted in science, but doesn’t apply to you or is like way too minutiae. And it’s interesting. Like when I studied developmental science, when I was in graduate school, like each of us had to pick some Like tiny little thing to really dive deep into and get passionate about in the work.

And it’s important in academia to make, you know, to understand the big picture. And sometimes it’s important for a specific population of people or kids or families, but it’s usually not. Every single bit of the science is relevant for every single person, and we have to follow all of it. So I wanted to ask, like, what actually moves the needle for resilience, and what really, really matters, and importantly, is in our full control?

Because I don’t I think it’s very fun to find out things that you can’t do anything about. And so I chose these five core principles. They are not mine. I made them ours because it is easy to remember. Relationship, reflection, regulation, rules, and repair. And this is the science of child development.

It’s not like the Dr. Aliza method. I’m just delivering it. So it’s, I don’t think of it as revolutionary. I think of this field as quite methodical and thoughtful and, you know, slow growing so that we learn from decades of research. And I know that’s not sexy, but,

JoAnn Crohn: It is, it is kind of in a way because you like me, you love a good acronym and you put these into like really great little packages that are very easy to remember. Like anyone can be like, Oh yeah, okay, let’s take this really big, like amount of psychological research and how do I condense it down? And what you’ve done in your book is you condense it down in

Aliza Pressman: I really did.

JoAnn Crohn: And so let’s like briefly for people go over those five R’s and kind of like check them off in our parenting. So what’s the first R? Yeah,

Aliza Pressman: you could. There are many other words that I could have chosen, but they did not start with R, so just to give people a sense, you might hear attachment, you might hear, but attachment is really just attachment relationship, secure attachment, having an attachment. It’s all relationship.

You might hear connection, that’s about relationship. You might hear attunement, that’s about relationship. So there are lots of, you might hear sensitive caregiving. That’s about relationship. So it’s all how you connect with and are in relation with your child. And that we know from the science can be, it’s so powerful.

In fact, relationship with your child is the most powerful influence, environmental influence I should specify, on your child’s resilience. That’s it. Full stop. So we know that that. If, if there’s, I think that’s scary for the first minute you hear it. Cause it’s like, wait, the most powerful environmental influence on my child’s development is my relationship with them.

Like what, but actually I think that’s so great and heartening and relieving because we have, we have control over ourselves like, Oh, well I can show up more often than not, not all the time, but I can do more often than not. I can get a C game on.

JoAnn Crohn: be the world’s most okay mom and you’re good.

Aliza Pressman: And you actually are doing a service to your kids because perfect is the enemy of perfect in this case, like a perfect parent would have many flaws to model flaws and that you can come back from them. So I think relationship is one of those things where if we understood truly the science and I, I did the first half of the book is like really deeply understanding the science, not so far that you need the minutia, but enough to.

To have buy in and stories and understanding, but then the second half is all the practical application in real settings. But the truth is, once you get the gist, it’s just what, it’s not that,

JoAnn Crohn: It’s not rocket science. You’re telling us. It’s not a hard thing for people to like

Aliza Pressman: Yeah. You could, we can do, we can all do this.

Brie Tucker: And like you said, and I think the important part is what you had mentioned is that it’s within our control. There’s so many things we

Aliza Pressman: Nothing else is. Yeah,

Brie Tucker: we cannot control what our kids do, how, yeah, but we can control how we show up and what we choose to do. So I love that.

JoAnn Crohn: Yeah. And with the relationship thing about like being like the world’s, as I said, the world’s most okayest mom is like, I was reading the book burnout by Emily and Amelia Nagoski, and they were talking about the relationship you have with your partner. And it was like a very bare minimum kind of thing.

And I would think that this also applies. To kids where it’s like, do you have positive feelings to your partner? Do you feel like you and your partner do like stuff together from time to time? And that was like it, that was all that was needed. And so you’re saying that basically the parent child relationship is the same.

Aliza Pressman: Yep. That’s exactly right. And it’s like one of those things where, yes, you could purchase 700 courses and like do all sorts of things, but we all know how to be in relationship. It just takes attending and attuning, and you can be in relationship with anybody and share joy. Like the stuff that we’re doing anyway.

But sometimes we get so bogged down in the day to day and the scheduling. And, you know, it’s like you, you’re doing all of that in the service of the relationship and like the growing of the human. But actually, if you just got rid of all of that and had the relationship. It would be more effective than any class you could ever take.

JoAnn Crohn: Yeah. You don’t have to do all the things. Well, I love, I love the first hour relationship and we are going to get into the next four R’s right after this break. 

JoAnn Crohn: So we were talking about the first R relationships. What’s the next R that parents need to be aware of?

Aliza Pressman: The next R is reflection. And I think reflection is one of those things that really does like relationships. Pretty darn obvious. I hope at this point, but reflection is less. So super important. One of the things that is one of the biggest predictors of, uh, securely attached relationship is reflecting on the experience you had being parented and what your hopes and dreams are in parenting, what you would Take from it, what your triggers are, what you’re, you know, hoping to replicate.

And so it’s a really intentional way of coming into the relationship and the parenting. And. Reflection is also it to me and I’m very much a mindfulness person, but like in the science y way because I thought, you know, it, it’s, it’s hard to pitch mindfulness when you’re exhausted and you’re, you have no time. And it’s like, I’ll save that for when the kids go to college.

Brie Tucker: Yeah.

Aliza Pressman: But what I would say is that reflection gives you a little bit of room to pay attention to what’s going on for you and what’s going on for your child so that you have the freedom to make the sig the, the next step, the decision, and that which really goes into regulation because if you don’t take a pause and reflection is just that pause, you can’t regulate.

And you can’t make an intentional choice about your parenting or how you’re responding or how you’re moving through the world. And when we make an intentional choice, that to me is like, Oh my God. Even if you’re going to yell, at least you did it because you wanted to yell and not because you were like, I lost control. reflection and regulation are kind of, they go hand in hand because you need reflection in order to regulate and you need to, you need to be able to have that understanding of yourself so that you can make the decisions. Like if you’re, if you were always yelled at as a child, when you were. You know, messy, then you might like really get set off when your child is messy.

And it’s not even like, it doesn’t even go with what makes sense to you. It’s like, why am I so, who cares? Like, why am I freaking out? Oh, wait a second. Or if you’re not on time or something, and I’m not saying that then you should be like, well, I’m not going to, you know, I don’t care about any of that now, but at least you just pay attention.

And you’re like, oh, I get really angry at the thought of being late. It like brings back lots of worries. And so what I’m going to do is set my day up in a way that makes it so I don’t, I don’t have a risk of my child making me late because we just put fewer things in the day so we can get them done. It’s just like you pay attention and you have more capacity.

JoAnn Crohn: yeah. It is so funny when you say the being late thing because I just realized something that happened in my childhood, which is why like the being late is such a pet peeve to me. And Brie can attest to this as well, that it’s a pet, that it’s a pet peeve to me. So like my, whenever we were trying to leave the house, my mom would get very, very agitated. Not at me, at my dad because she likes to be on time. And my dad is like. When you, when it’s time to go, that’s the time you go and you use the bathroom and you

Brie Tucker: Your dad and I would get

JoAnn Crohn: shut down everything and everything. And so much so that when we went to go meet people as a family, we were saying, Oh yeah, we’ll be late the Madden hour. Cause that was our last name. Like who is a Madden hour. And this is something that I saw every, all the time growing up. And so like now in my own life, I’m like, what time is it? Okay, it’s this time and I’ve learned to let go because of reflection and because of all of that But what you said is so so true your past really doesn’t have it has an effect on you.

Brie Tucker: Yeah.

Aliza Pressman: It has an effect on you, but it’s less powerful if you notice, you know, a lot of this is like,

Brie Tucker: to, right?

Aliza Pressman: yes, exactly.

JoAnn Crohn: what you’re giving that so reflection Regulation relationship. What is the next R?

Aliza Pressman: So the next one and, and. I’m just trying to think with regulation, I want to say it’s not just our regulation. It is our kids regulation, but in the sense that we co regulate with them, their borrower nervous system. And that is something that as a practice becomes their own self regulation when they get older.

And that’s why I put so many self regulation exercises in the book, because I feel like it’s, that’s, that one does require some like. Steps. It just does. It’s just like you need a little bit of guidance there. But then you know that it’s like so deeply predictive of resilience and capacity and, you know, relationships and school and all sorts of things.

So it’s, it’s like a lot of bang for your buck. And then rules. So I included rules because especially today, there’s like a real fear that relationships are undermined by rules. So we like are super attuned and sensitive to our kids, but then we’re like, how can I be super attuned and sensitive to my child if I’m not, if I’m like giving them rules that they don’t want to hear and they’re upset about them.

And so one of the things that I felt like was important was to name that. Rules are safety that having boundaries. So the rules of your interpersonal life and and you’re sorry. My dog just was making noise. So I will do that again. 

JoAnn Crohn: dogs. Yeah.

Aliza Pressman: so boundaries are are. Our relational rules, kind of like what, what is between us and others and we’re in charge of them. And then there are the limits that we set for the behavioral expectations that we have. And kids want that and they need that. And it’s really. critical that they understand that we can handle their pushback from the rules because we’re not afraid of their feelings because we love them.

And we know the feelings are part of the deal. And so rules are really important. And I think a lot of people are like, well, I can’t that my child won’t let me do that because they get too upset or whatever. And that’s when we have to ask ourself. And then you go back to reflection. Why is it so hard for me to look at that child of mine and not feel like they’re going to be okay Just because they’re having an uncomfortable feeling

Brie Tucker: And life is full of that. Life is full of uncomfortable feelings. If we keep

Aliza Pressman: right. It’s full of it.

Brie Tucker: it, then we never learn how to deal with it and, oh, I don’t know, we have anxiety.

Aliza Pressman: And then like, I don’t, you know, it’s, it’s sort of like, I think in this, the, the era that we’re in, we’re really, and I, I use this metaphor because I just think it makes so much sense. But we are really, we’re trying to cover the whole sky and manage the weather and control it instead of just giving our kids the raincoat.

The hat, the umbrellas, like, here’s what you can wear when it rains. Here are the tools. And instead we’re like, Oh my God, I have to cover the sky. Well, of course you’re not going to be able to do that. And it, it doesn’t. If you think of it that way, then you realize like these rules are helping you navigate the world so that you don’t need to have somebody around managing the weather for you.

Like you’re going to know that it’s survivable,

JoAnn Crohn: Yeah. And I, I love that analogy about covering the whole sky because also like with rules a lot of us growing up, I know that this is really common when I talk to our balance members about it, is that they weren’t allowed to say no. Growing up, they weren’t allowed to really express their difficult feelings.

And so now when they’re doing this practice and when they’re trying to set boundaries and when they’re trying to set rules, they find it very difficult because it was never modeled for them how to do it. and I find that that. is something that I see a lot too in my own parenting. Like I, it was never modeled for me to be like, Hey, I don’t want to do this right now.

And I’m not gonna, not gonna do it. Like really what I saw was like, Oh, okay. You want to go to the park? Okay. Let’s go to the park. And that’s kind of like this idea of what it takes to be a good mom. You want to like be engaged with your kids. You want to like do the things that interest. Them. You want to like, you know, you want them to be engaged with you, but what we don’t talk about enough, I think, and what you say in rules is that you also need to set your own personal boundaries so that you’re showing up in a way where you could be regulating your own behavior. You won’t be a grumpy, resentful mess, which is what I tend to be when I don’t regulate and when I don’t set

Brie Tucker: All of us tend to be.

JoAnn Crohn: all of us, and you’re also showing them that they’re allowed to set their own rules, which I think is really powerful.

Aliza Pressman: Absolutely. Like that is how many of us learned boundaries later in life?

JoAnn Crohn: me, like in, in my first dose of therapy, that’s when I learned boundaries. And I think it’s such a gift to give to kids, us using boundaries as parents and them being able to see it. And we’re going to get into your fifth R right after this. 

So we have talked about the four R’s of your five, about relationships, about regulation, about rules, and I knew I was going to forget one. What’s the one I’m forgetting, Aliza? Repair! Repair.

Aliza Pressman: that makes it all better.

JoAnn Crohn: Yes.

Aliza Pressman: So yeah, I mean, repair, the science of repair is pretty critical to developmental research. It’s been around for decades, but it’s. The most relieving because what we’ve learned about repair is that not only is it possible and important to repair when there are ruptures and discord when there’s discord, but actually it strengthens relationships.

And we’re not talking about discord. That’s like abusive. We’re talking about the normal wear and tear and the more the normal disconnects. And when we learn over and over in our wiring that Discord is natural that just, you know, having disconnects and having mistakes and missteps are natural and that we can come back from them and grow and the relationship is still intact.

It strengthens us so much and it strengthens our relationships. And so just like when you work out and you, you know. You want to have tiny little ruptures in your muscle in order for your muscle to repair and get stronger. This is what our relationships need, which is very convenient because as parents, we screw up all the time.

And

JoAnn Crohn: All the time. Me too. Yeah. All the time.

Aliza Pressman: We can look at it as like, Oh, good. I, I, I checked the box on building that muscle.

Brie Tucker: Yeah.

JoAnn Crohn: Yeah. And it’s so, it’s so interesting because I was thinking about repair as well. And there are things like that our kids do, especially as they’re growing up, where I feel as a parent, It’s useful for me to tell them exactly what makes me upset if the behavior keeps repeating. and it’s such a very uncomfortable thing for me to do.

Uh, so for instance, like, I mean, my daughter’s 15. Growing up, she’s able to have these conversations with me. We had a situation with a dinner with friends. And I get very nervous in social situations. I want to make everyone happy. And so she was there to my side. We were talking with friends across the table and I was trying to involve her in the conversation.

Like I would hear things in the conversation from my friend. And then I’d be like, yeah, like you did that too. And like. Well, after the dinner she told me, you know, how she was uncomfortable in it and she’s like, mom, you’re talking like you’re making a presentation on me. And I’m like, okay, check.

And I like let like myself absorb it. But I was also really hurt by it, like really hurt because it was. I know teenagers have this really self centered view of the world, and it’s totally normal and in their development, but it’s also like trying to build that relationship with her to let her know that, Hey, like, this is how I felt in it.

So the next day I went to her and I’m like, I was really hurt when you said that, because, you know, I was feeling anxious in the situation and I was really trying my best. And she’s like, she thinks about it and we’ve had tons of these conversations and she’s like, I’m sorry. And I’m like, we’re all good.

I just needed to let you know that so that we can grow. And so like my point of that is that repairs, like when I have those little moments of discord with her it’s so uncomfortable to talk about in the moment, but then our relationship in the future is so much stronger. Cause I don’t feel like I’m like going to step on her toes or anything like that, or she’s not going to step on mine.

Aliza Pressman: It’s a beautiful example. It’s a beautiful example and it gives you confidence in the relationship.

JoAnn Crohn: Yes, because they accept it.

Brie Tucker: and it teaches, and it’s, and it’s teaching them, modeling for them how they can go into relationships in the future and expect that they’re not going to be perfect. The pre, the people that they’re with are not going to be perfect. And that, Oh, how do I say this? Like putting up that, that, that facade that somebody has got it down and that they’re always cool and that they never make a mistake is not. Normal. That’s just, it’s, red flag, red flag, here, tiny bit, but I mean, again, it just, it lets you know, like, mistakes are normal, people will come up to you, they will say things, you will have a conversation, you’ll be able to build on it, and that is what a caring, supportive person is like. If they don’t see that, it’s, it’s really hard.

Aliza Pressman: It’s really hard.

JoAnn Crohn: And it all comes down really to your five Rs and people can read more about it in your book. So tell us about your book.

Aliza Pressman: The five principles of parenting out today. Is I wanted a one stop shopping for any age at any time, whether it was birth or adolescence, where we could keep leaning into the science and get really good at responding. To the typical challenges that arise in the The things like everything from sleeping to when you have to explain tragedies to your kids to discipline to peers, to, you know, bullying.

Like I kind of just was like, what are the things that I get inundated with at all times and what kinds of questions come up? And I just was like, let me make sure they’re all in there. And that I address them across the ages so that you just have this one sort of reference book and you don’t need to read it all at once.

It’s just kind of like a go to when you need it. And over time, my hope is that it just becomes so fluent that people don’t need it anymore. And it’s just like, Oh, this is actually, you know, I get it. It’s in my, it’s in my system

Brie Tucker: I’ve done that before. I’ve read about that. I know what to do in this situation.

Aliza Pressman: because you really can translate these things from early infancy all the way through our whole lives. I mean, you don’t need some, you know, it feels like we need specialized science for each interaction or specialized. Classes for each interaction that we’re going to have or each challenge. But if you really boil it down to what’s, what’s being said, and I’ve learned this over the years when I work with parents and I, I used to be self conscious about it because I’m like, I know, you know, the answer to this, but I’m going to be here and we’re going to walk through it, but we’ve done this 75 other times with other scenarios that have felt challenging.

And it’s not ever going to be a different answer. It’s just getting. It’s always the same. It’s just, when can you, how do you get fluent? How do you sort of embody and become fluent in that response so that you don’t feel like you need an expert to say anything or so that you don’t feel like you don’t trust yourself?

Because I do think it’s completely asinine that we tell parents, particularly mothers, that they should go with their gut, that you’re, you know, like you’re, you’re, you’re going to know what to do. And I also think it’s asinine to be like, you need an expert to tell you the minutiae script of every single interaction you’re going to

JoAnn Crohn: Oh, yeah. No,

Aliza Pressman: think it’s sort of a space between of like, of course, it’s not all natural. Come on, that’s ridiculous. It’s so hard. You’re learning. As you go, we become parents the day our kids are born. So we deserve support, but also that support can be much more translatable so that you’re not dependent on that support.

It’s just there as like a little. supportive voice. And so it’s not chaos of nothing, but it’s not the rigidity of like, this is the script. This is the thing. This is the, what you have to do. And I sort of am like that boring middle middle space.

JoAnn Crohn: No, you’re a framework. You give a framework that makes it simple and easy to digest. It’s like the, the basis of all things that people are able to do. Like they need a framework that they could refer to for each situation because the human brain is, it’s impossible to memorize all the little scripts and things. So Aliza, where can people find you?

Aliza Pressman: People can find me. I mean, I would love for people to buy the book, anywhere. I love a local bookshop. Actually, I just learned this. You can go to bookshop. com and choose a local bookshop, but get it online, which I think is

JoAnn Crohn: Oh, cool.

Aliza Pressman: real win win, you know, it’s like you just can feel like a little better about it, but you can also go to Amazon

JoAnn Crohn: Yeah, get the

Brie Tucker: You’re like, whatever

Aliza Pressman: and just make your life

Brie Tucker: but

Aliza Pressman: Yeah. and I’m on Instagram on at raising good humans podcast, and I am on whatever podcast platforms. 

JoAnn Crohn: and always in like the top five parenting podcasts. May I add, like Aliza, you’re a big deal in the podcast world.

Aliza Pressman: Yes, I have lots of, I do have a lot of episodes, so I try to cover a lot of things, but yeah, I think that’s best. I’m also there’s, I’m on the Mount Sinai Parenting Center website. We have a lot of free resources there. what else? I don’t know. I think that’s

JoAnn Crohn: You’re everywhere. So when we want it, most importantly, go buy

Aliza Pressman: Oh, yes. Buy this book, guys.

JoAnn Crohn: Go buy it. The five principles of parenting, your essential guide to raising good humans. We will have a link for you in the show notes and Aliza, thank you so much for joining us today. It’s been a pleasure.

Aliza Pressman: Thank you for having me. That was lovely.

JoAnn Crohn: Oh my gosh, I was mentioning during that interview with Dr. Aliza how it went by so fast. Like, I was looking down at the clock and I thought it was like, Oh, we’ve, we’re like two minutes into our conversation. And it was 10 minutes into our conversation. She was so interesting. And she went into all these parenting tips based on psychology that were so, so helpful.

Brie Tucker: right. Like I, again, I mentioned it in the intro. Like, I really love how she just wraps it all and you talk about it in the interview too. Like how she wraps it on to nice little package of just five little things to remember. It’s very, very user friendly. We’ll say that.

JoAnn Crohn: Yeah, well, it’s the five R’s and I wanted, let’s go over these five R’s really quickly. So like relationships, first of all, and it’s just the quality of the relationship that you have with your kids and it doesn’t even have to be something amazing.

Brie Tucker: And you know what I love about that being like a co parent, like kids in, uh, you know, two different households. I love that I can control that. Cause there’s a lot of crap I cannot control, but that I can at least be in charge of how my relationship is with my kids.

JoAnn Crohn: No, you’re, you’re totally right from that respect. Cause I know that a lot of people in co parenting households, like in our balanced community, for instance, they have worries about their kids going over to the co parents house because there is no control over it. And just knowing that in your, your kids development, like the relationship that you have with them one on one, regardless of the relationship that they have with people is more important.

Brie Tucker: And I mean, there’s just, yeah, there’s so much in life that we can’t control, but we can 100 percent control our relationships. So that is huge. And that is immensely helpful. I also liked how she, she talked about reflection. That

JoAnn Crohn: Reflection was the second

Brie Tucker: that was fantastic.

JoAnn Crohn: was your like things with reflection? What did you get

Brie Tucker: Well, what I loved about it, because I feel like if you don’t look back on how you were raised, how your life has affected and shaped you, how your experiences have shaped you, then You’re, you have no hope of growing and being able to be like, Oh, so that’s why I’m that way. I could do X,

JoAnn Crohn: Yeah.

Brie Tucker: Z, or perhaps since I felt X, Y, Z, when this happened with me as a kid, I could maybe attempt to put, set up a different environment for my kids.

So they don’t feel that negative X, Y, Z I felt, you know, I mean, it’s just reflection is such a huge part and. If you don’t take the time to do that reflection, like, I just, I, I don’t want to say you’re doomed, but you’re doomed! No.

JoAnn Crohn: Well, it is kind of you’re doomed because like the first time I was introduced to reflection in like my personal life was when I was in therapy and I was taught the concept of circle thinking where you know how you’re going along and you’re all happy and then all of a sudden your mood drops and you’re completely like.

The world is awful. Everybody hates me. Like maybe that’s just me, but, uh, there was something in there that my therapist told me, she’s like, something triggered you and whatever happened, triggered a thought, which then triggered your emotion, which then triggered your reaction to it. And for you to really gain control of that, you need to reflect on that situation, go back and figure out how were you triggered and what were you.

Thinking when that thing happened and I remember using it with my kids and when I was so happy and then I went like down in the dumps and it was, it was come back to one thing that my child said to me and I can’t remember it right now, but it was something that like, it was like, Oh, you didn’t play with me this morning.

And that you didn’t play with me this morning. That trigger triggered in me the emotion that I’m a horrible mom. I’m a horrible mom. And then when I thought I’m a horrible mom, it was like, Oh, like I went down in the dump. So reflection is so great. And reflection then led into my, the third R regulation.

Brie Tucker: And regulation, huge as well. Like, if you can’t, you’ve got to be able to bring yourself in, calm down. Nobody wants to be in that unregulated state, so let’s just, like, say that for starters. Like, none of us want to feel out of control, upset. It’s not fun. You talked about it, um, yesterday in a, uh, Joe with Joe that we do in our balance community about how, like, feeling your blood pressure going up and your head feeling like it’s on fire and throbbing. Like it. Yeah. Yeah. Like with me,

JoAnn Crohn: You feel like you’re on fire.

Brie Tucker: feel it for sure.

JoAnn Crohn: And, like, as Aliza said, that is a step by step process that you really have to go through because regulation is a tricky one. It is so, so tricky to get a hold of. And the fourth R in there was

Brie Tucker: And.

JoAnn Crohn: rules.

Brie Tucker: So what was up with that?

JoAnn Crohn: I forgot it!

Brie Tucker: I thought maybe,

JoAnn Crohn: Laughing!

Brie Tucker: okay, that’s good. That’s good. All right. Yes. Yes. It’s rules because, and I love how she said rules because when she said rules, all of them I’m hearing, and I’m hearing like boundaries, but boundaries starts with a B, not with the R. So, you know, you had to go with the right stuff, but rules are still like, and I, and I think that’s a tricky one too, for a lot of parents is that. A lot of times it’s seen as if you’re not hard, and fast, and so stern, and so, you know, authoritarian, that like, you just, you’re not doing rules right, and it’s, that’s not the case, like. That’s just not how that works.

JoAnn Crohn: It’s not, yeah. And like, it’s not rules like don’t come in the shoes with, let me say that again, it’s not rules. Like don’t come in the house with your shoes off on kind of rules. It’s the personal boundaries and stuff that you set for yourself that really make you a happy and adjusted individual. And we go in a lot in the conversation with Aliza about these rules and boundaries. I think they’re like such a changing point, such a changing point. And it goes into the fifth part repair, which. Is the most important of all.

Brie Tucker: repair because we’ll screw up times. And when I say that we have to fix it, I don’t mean be a fixer. Please mom, hear me on that. All the moms out there, because like we hear that and we think it’s our job to fix everything. Like, Oh, there is a mishap between my husband and my kids or between my, my, Son and his best friend. I have to fix it.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. For me, the easiest fixes is a common one in our house, which is where Bree gets dysregulated, she gets worked up, and then I yell or I get real snippy and half of the time it’s not even related to my kids. It’s something totally else. I just, but I need to repair. I have time to repair, go back.

JoAnn Crohn: repair. And it’s also I think the strongest relationships come when you have a conflict or disagreement and then you’re able to repair because it allows you to have more confidence in the relationship. Like you and I have had some disagreements but like because of those disagreements and because of our repair I feel confident in our relationship and I don’t feel like I’m like stepping around on eggshells or anything which is like, like necessary to have like strong connections with people.

Brie Tucker: Yep. You’ve got to be able to navigate it because nothing’s perfect. So, yeah.

JoAnn Crohn: So messing up’s a good thing. Just use the like she had such great tips in this episode. We hope you enjoyed, and please go leave us a review on Apple podcasts. We love hearing from you and, uh, remember the best mom’s a happy mom. Take care of you. We’ll talk to you later.

Brie Tucker: Thanks for stopping by.