Are You a SuperParent?

0:00 [Music] hello everyone welcome to a new episode of parenting and you with me Dr shali are you a parent who is so super competent that you end up doing everything for everyone are you the parent that everyone calls to rescue them out of difficult situations are you the Eternal savior well if I'm talking to you then this episode is going to ring so true for you I talk about the

0:32 Savior complex in US parents and how we as parents feel so much desire to fix everyone else's lives and what that does to our children and what it does to us so stick around because I'm going to help you deal with your savior complex coming up next a mother who's struggling with her son's ADHD and she wants to know how she can consciously parent through through these

1:03 challenges we're now going to meet Mary Ellen she's a mother that is struggling with her 17-year-old son's ADHD and she is really eager to consciously cope with her challenges hello Mary Ellen thank you for joining us tell us what's going on hi Dr shali thank you for having me I discovered your books maybe four years ago or so and I have read all of them and they are the only parenting book

1:35 that ever spoke to me and I said this Mak sense yet I find it so hard to do with my son who has ADHD I feel like he needs a lot of scaffolding it's a word they use to help them succeed with all the things that need to happen at school and at home and Etc so lots of reminders for example right now I have HED a tutor which I've never done before to just try to motivate him to study for these darn

2:06 SATs so I guess my question is does all of the stuff in the books how do you do that for someone with ADHD because they need some help and some assistance we're at a point I feel like if I were him I would be just like too much on me and nagging and too much control and I feel like at least my end it's sort of wrecking the relationship and you know I want to have a good

2:33 relationship with them yes so I totally understand and I love your curiosity you want to know how can conscious parenting apply to something as challenging as ADHD let me tell you how conscious parenting is about you so no matter what is in front of you you need to learn the skills to elevate your Consciousness so that you stay stay in a regulated equanimous Place conscious parenting has

3:04 nothing to do with the effect that we want to see in the other it's all to do with understanding ourselves so the first place to begin no matter if your kid has diabetes ADHD is second grade or 10th grade the first place is what is going on inside you the mother so when he doesn't listen when he needs scaffolding when he needs buttressing extra help when he's unmotivated your first instinct is he has ADHD but the

3:34 conscious parenting way is to ask a different question how am I feeling right now how am I dealing and coping with what is showing up so tell us what goes on inside you what are your thoughts what are your feelings I feel extreme frustration and also like if I don't control things things will collapse and what will happen in the future okay I'm like the textbook case in your books yeah you're anxious it's normal you're stressed out that's normal

4:07 but you may be putting a lot of that blame and responsibility on that label and that's why labels can be constricting they are relieving on the one hand because we're like phew now I know what's wrong with him and I can fix it so it gives you some relief but on the other hand people tend to blame the label or put all all the money into that pit and point all the fingers in that direction so we have to be careful

4:36 because no matter what is happening on the outside we have a lot of control on the inside so that's what I'm going to help you with today you feel everything is going to fall apart if you don't control things and you're worried about the Future these two things just these two things you said to me immediately raise your emotional temperature from 10 to 1,000 because look at the burden Mary Ellen is putting on herself that's what

5:03 we parents do right when we see something wrong in our children or that we think is wrong we put the burden on us to fix it just that that burden to change somebody else even if the person was the most easygoing normal person right quote unquote your temperature rises because you have put something on you that is unrealistic so the first thing we have to tell ourselves every day whether we have a child with ADH a

5:30 toddler a teenager a normal kid a neurotypical kid or not is I am not in control of this other person so let's try to say that right now I am not in control of my son so what goes through your body when you say that in my heart and soul I believe that but it's hard to Ena okay so this is always the conflict between the soul or the heart the intuition and our cerebral rational Earthly part right your mind is always

6:02 going to override that by saying but he can't even pass his SATs what will he do in the future what kind of job will he get will he work in a department store will he never be successful who will marry him correct that is the mind it's the ego's way of creating calm but it actually creates more stress the soul knows your soul because it's wise knows that we have no control beyond the present moment correct correct so this

6:28 is why you're in conflict and in panic because you don't fully allow yourself to release control now let me ask you some basic questions can he perform his daily activities of living yes okay can he function at the basic levels expected in society yes do you think he could push to shave have a basic 9-to-5 job at least minimum wage yes definitely or look at you you're like of course yeah

6:59 okay do you think he can basically after 21 or 22 function completely independently in terms of just paying the rent taking care of the house living in a room with other roommates I think he could he might earn some hard lessons along the way yes okay very good so basically you're telling me he can survive yes now where is the conflict technically he's okay the conflict is in Mary Ellen's the

7:29 mother's parental expectations your expectations are not matching the basic reality at a basic level your kid is fine correct if I just went by that criteria yes can he function is he well mannered can he get along in society can he hold down a minimum wage job you say yes he can actually get an A++ if those were your expectations correct correct yes now imagine if Society said those were the expectations for a superstar

7:59 wouldn't your child be a superstar yes okay beautiful when you think of your child in that way does it bring calm to you yes okay now all the rest who do you think is putting that extra pressure those extra expectations me and culture it's not just you it's culture too it's not just your fault right but look at what culture has done to the parental mind it has messed us up because culture

8:31 says he should not just get a minimum wage job he should be a superstar he should have three cars he should be set up for super success oh that's a great aspiration but we can't control that you know I have a 21-year-old neurotypical child do you think I can control that in her no I can't do you think that I can tell you how to live your life what your goals for Success should be no we can

8:57 never do that for any human so culture has intoxicated and seduced the parental mind with the delusion of a Godlike superiority that we can control our children you can control your son after the age of 18 no more than you can control me and that is The Humbling reality of human nature so now do you want to accept your limitations as a

9:28 human parent or do you want to act like you have Godlike superiority no I want to accept Okay because what does acceptance bring it brings peace exactly and peace brings connection peace brings Harmony peace now creates empowerment telling your child do this do that do this do that is not empowerment it is actually the opposite of empowerment it is a stripping away of

10:01 empowerment instead creating a plan with your son setting him up for his own goals is the way to go now having said that yes you do need to create boundaries so the boundaries you do get to create are whether you have Wi-Fi after the time of 8:00 at night whether you give him devices those are all in your control whether you give him pocket money whether you allow him to go out at 2:00 at night well even that you really

10:31 don't have much control over because he's almost 18 but you can say if you're living in my house I don't want this but that's it to tell him to live his life with high expectations is out of place for you you can have them but he doesn't have to have them for himself yes I absolutely agree and it's amazing how you think just because they're your child you can somehow mold them yes now having said that

11:00 let's get into your micro situation which is you have a child with ADHD for all parents out there listening children with ADHD brains as I've come to learn have completely different wiring going on inside them their serotonin dopamine levels are different they are often lower than the average typical brain therefore they are more pleasure seeking they are more goal or oriented actually

11:30 than we can imagine what that means is that if the goal is very far away they actually get demotivated if the goal is quick and easy and they can achieve success that will give them the dopamine hit that gets them hooked in and that's why children with ADHD brains are more susceptible to video gaming and to social media because social media and video gaming is adrenaline producing constantly and that's why these children get hooked on to the adrenaline more

12:00 than the other brains because their brain is actually craving that even more so knowing that you as a parent get to make choices that you feel are good for his brain while he lives with you just like a child who has diabetes the parent has a choice of how much sugar they expose the child to while they're living with them so you do have some control the most important control I need you to have is over your own anxiety is over

12:27 your own stress over for your own expectations of yourself as a parent control that so that you can then create connection so that then he can be empowered so that then he can at least leave this house with more self-control and self-worth than the way you are going about it yes now you've hired a tutor you can say my expectation of you living in this house is to have a tutor once a week but what he does with the

12:57 tutor how engaged he is with the tutor is now not in your control so if you want to spend the money on a tutor but he's wasting it you have a choice he also can sabotage the whole thing and choose to not go to college now what can you do now say he did go to college he could sabotage it once he's in college what I'm trying to show parents is that we cannot control anything beyond the

13:21 point we could control them barely till they were Toddlers and unless we're watching our children 24/7 we cannot even presume that they are going to be you know safe they could enter harm the minute he goes to college there could be a harmful incident so releasing control is one of the hardest things for us parents to do especially when we're worried about our children but in fact more when we're worried about our children do we need to release

13:51 that control because that anxiety UPS our control even more so as we wrap up Mary Ellen tell me what are your greatest takeaways from this conversation that I have absolutely no control over who he is and his Essence and I can't just say it I have to really believe it and act it I have to find a way to let that anxiety and control go because it's at least it's Wrecking my

14:22 end of the relationship I feel like a nag and I don't like it beautiful beautiful and you know there's some ways that you can help your nagging you can create an alarm system on his phone and your phone and just let the alarm go off with do your homework time for tutor let the alarm be the nag why should you be the nag right correct and you tell him I am done being your nag because I'm

14:50 actually disabling you I'm actually not teaching you anything and it's destroying our connection you can even open up and cry and say I'm tired of being a I'm so sorry that you have reached your limit with me but it's coming out of my worry and I've decided from today that I need to trust you you are brilliant you are sovereign you are amazing if you love yourself you are going to do what matters for you and at

15:15 the very basic level you as a mother are going to tell yourself he can survive at a very basic level right we always come down to worst case scenario worst case scenario can my kid just survive yes if If I Die Tomorrow can my kids survive yes so once you have that taken care of you've done your job it's not your job to create a superstar it is your job to get your kid to adulthood safe and

15:42 healthy with some degree of self-respect and self-worth and I think you've done that already anything more is a delusion of control superiority and power so work on that I think you have the ingredients in place you just need to give yourself the permission like all of us parents to not play God absolutely yes well thank you so much for joining and for helping all parents who are listening thank you Dr shaali ah this Mother's story really

16:14 touched my heart because I could see that she was so Keen to apply the principles of conscious parenting but her own challenges watching her son suffering in his life right dealing with with his ADHD that was making her so anxious and because she was anxious she entered control and that's what all of us parents do when we're anxious it shows up as nagging overparenting overc contr controlling over micromanaging and

16:46 then our children realize that hey my parent doesn't trust me my parent feels like they need to control Me Maybe I really am stupid maybe I really am dumb maybe there is something wrong with with me and then they begin to embody that and become passive become unmotivated become lackluster and defiant against our nagging then we feel even more disheartened because we're thinking to ourselves hey I'm just loving my child I'm just caring about my child I'm

17:17 worried about my child but we don't realize that that kind of love and care that comes out of a state of panic is actually control and it is disempowering to our children every human being including our children wants the other in their life to see them as powerful to see them as competent to trust them so if every time you meet your girlfriend and all she communicates to you is did

17:47 you bring your purse did you have water today did you take your care of your skin did you do this did you do that you'll feel like what the hell why is she treating me like a child does she not think I'm intelligent well most of us parents treat our children as if they don't have a brain in their mind I do this all the time to my daughter by the way and she hates it she says stop

18:07 treating me like a child and then we expect them to be adults but we are crippling them constantly by our over caring are overparenting so all parents out there if this is your pattern take stock you don't want your children to feel as if you don't honor their intelligence you don't trust that they will do what's right for them while you need to be in charge and I'm not saying don't create boundaries be very careful

18:38 how much you overstep your boundaries and begin to overp parent and over control coming up next an update from a mother who was on a previous episode she was struggling with her 16-year-old son's depression and his restrictive eating disorder joining me now is Jennifer of a mom I spoke to in an earlier episode that was entitled how our anxieties harm our children last time we spoke she was struggling with her 16-year-old son's

19:09 phobia to try new foods hi Jennifer welcome tell us how it's going since then oh it's going so good I'm so happy to be back to tell you how you've helped us you know the two things you said was that food becomes a surrogate parent and that both Matthew and I our body was so wise and that we both controlled food to help with the maternal anxiety that him and I were both facing my childhood and

19:36 his childhood and I really sat with that and the first thing I did was go talk to Matthew and we've had conversations before but I think him hearing that his body was so smart and why maybe he even struggled with food it gave him a new perception of his restrictive eating and it gave him a sense of empowerment thinking oh I I can change this now and

20:07 um he was open to an rtt appointment which is a hypnotherapy appointment which I think was he was able to understand that maybe there's some unconscious unwiring I'm willing to do because this really came from a place of a little Matthew being anxious but big Matthew today doesn't need to be so anxious and I have to tell you we went out vacation and going out to dinner with the child with arfit anybody who has that knows that food eating it's

20:38 something they avoid it's very difficult to go and be around food and want to enjoy going around out to dinner can you give us the acronym for it and what it stands for avoidant restrictive food intake Disorder so Matthew has been suffering from arfit you had food issues he was only eating a few Foods I remember when you came to me okay so go ahead you guys went out for dinner yeah I went out to dinner and you know the

21:02 first night went to a local place and it had his quote safe foods Wich of fries and a dessert that was a cookie like this baked cookie thing and granted it's not the most healthiest thing but his excitement to do it his excitement afterwards of this was so much fun going out to dinner and and talking and understanding there's a connection piece to food that it can feel safe and secure and we ended up going to that restaurant

21:31 three times because he just was so excited about dinner and was looking forward to it and for a child like that who since the age of three has never looked forward to a meal was really exciting for both my husband and I to see so not that we wanted to go to that restaurant three times but to see his joy in that was very much a shift wow so what you did after our podcast episode was that you began to

22:04 reframe the food restrictive quote unquote disorder as actually a communication of an underlying anxiety and actually the way the body was constricted around food was because it was suffering with this anxiety and it wasn't a bad body or it wasn't a bad thing to have this disorder it was a symbol of something going on and once you reframed that as wisdom it became an empowering thing for him and then he began to explore it more isn't that

22:36 funny yeah you know that you think about the word weight I took the weight of the pressure off of him I took the burden of the weight off of me thinking I needed to fix him and I started to release my own internal emotional weight and understanding because I've learned from you and through graduating from your Institute that I have a really resourced inner parent that is wise that is compassionate and I started to tune in

23:06 to my own inner parent to use that as a place to come from versus using food as a surrogate parent and for me that has been my biggest shift and I have to say I weighed myself today because I was curious and I have lost weight since I've seen you and I've seen a number I haven't seen in a year plus us and I know it's because I've started to nurture myself I love that I love that

23:35 and what you're really saying is that your restrictive eating was a reaction an unconscious reaction to controlling something and what that something was really was this unremitting anxiety you know that's what children do they control the food they're pooping they're sleeping whatever they can control yeah and it in itself is not the problem problem the problem is what it is serving and it was serving as a surrogate Soother for this anxiety and

24:06 once you begin to take care of the inner anxiety in a different way then food stops being that surrogate parent and you begin to associate Beauty with food not control with food and that's what the narrative has been changed to in your family yeah but I'm going to challenge you even more is to you know throw away that weighing machine and truly tune into what your body needs and if you're eating in terms of what it

24:37 needs and it feels like and you're allowing yourself to trust what it's saying to you it doesn't matter what that number says so you don't have to throw it away but put it away because I would like you for the next few months at least to challenge and invite yourself to tune in even more you have been so disconnected from your body and now it's time to really reunite and every meal check in all every hour check

25:06 in what are the feelings what are the energies inside my body what is my body trying to tell me what does my body need to eat is it really hungry or is it just tired and as you begin to create this dialogue you will trust yourself and then teach Matthew how to trust himself even more yes you said something about food food becoming Beauty and what I realized I started to do that I didn't realize I was doing is I started to

25:34 create plates of food for myself like a presentation and I was focused on it it's so it was so unconscious but it was like the the art of food the plate became art I focused on colors I found myself taking pictures and sending it to my husband and then I was sending it to my friends and and for and for the last while food has become like an art for me which sounds so odd to say but it is

26:01 because I started to really just think about what feels good right now if I was like my own parent talking to a child you know what feels good right now and so I've always known about intuitive eating I've never been able to tap into it fully and I really feel like I'm starting to feel into what my body and I'm realizing that it's not always breakfast food quote unquote breakfast food that I want at breakfast time right

26:30 realizing I'm eating probably less than I really thought I needed to eat because my mind had a schedule of when to eat yes so it has been um it's been a very creative process which is not like me so that's when I know that wow I'm really tapping into something I just I haven't felt before oh my goodness and so what was food to you before if you had to give three words uh emotional words that

26:58 you used to have around the idea of food what would those three words be before our podcast episode it was a distraction it was a filler and it was a Soother for me it filled up the space of being so uncomfortable wow and what would it be now it feels low it feels light it feels bun M descriptive words that when

27:30 I hear myself saying it I can't believe I'm talking about food because food is sp so hard you have literally recreated a relationship with something you were putting in your body where before you were in this tug of war with food it was this unsettled relationship with something that you were using and it was using you it was this pre Predator kind of attit ude adversarial and now it's like we are one we have a

28:02 relationship you've really released a lot how has Matthew been different in other areas of his life now that he is beginning to change this Dynamic with food he also seems more funed in flow and he is been doing more things with his friends for this last bit of Summer he's been getting out and been active he's very motivated to try out for the golf team just this engagement in life he feels like he's headed in that

28:34 direction and his willingness to start even talking about food food was for him as well a topic that he was done discussing and done getting help for have you ever taken a cooking course or done some cooking together yeah that's that's a big leap he's more ready to even discuss taking a bite of food and and his girlfriend right now is super supportive and she has been researching and she found this concept

29:04 called food mapping and it's another approach and something he hasn't heard about but he's open and he actually tried a bite of sweet potato fries yesterday because fries is a safe food but sweet potato is a very different category and he took three bites which for Matthew is a lot and for people who do work with you know kids with art but you know to get three bites is always the goal but so hard to do last thing I

29:34 leave you with is also release your anxiety around him changing oh that's a hard yes yes that's because part of trusting our children is trusting that they're doing what they need to do right now so you can't say you trust him and then keep checking on him did you eat did you eat did you eat try this try that you can just have fun with it so when I when I said to cook I didn't mean to eat it but can you just

30:00 bake a cake together can you have his girlfriend and you start and he just watch why can't we cook we don't have to eat if you take out the goal of eating and just enjoy the prep and the fun of cooking that's another way to change the relationship but I think you may get stuck now into the let's change uh and and be hyper focused on a new kind of agenda and show up as controlling again you need to release

30:28 this Al together that it's his call it's his Destiny it's his relationship with his body and the more trust you give him the more he will discover that inner trust when he's ready yeah that is hard and when I when I felt you said that it was like I just need to keep focusing on me and trusting my own body exactly exactly well Jennifer thank you for your inspiring update I'm so glad that things have shifted and I'm so grateful you

30:56 came back thank you thank you so much it was so heartwarming to listen to Jennifer's update and nothing pleases me more than when a parent comes and tells me I had an aha moment I made a shift and guess what my child is doing much better I mean that's all what we parents want is our children to feel free but as Jennifer explained very clearly it's all about her she needs to make the shifts she needs to stay focused on herself

31:25 work on her own inner pain and then Shine the Light on others you see the traditional parenting model focuses on the child changing their behavior but the conscious parenting method focuses on the evolution of the parent that's what all my books talk about because I've seen time and time again that when the parent shifts when the parent becomes more mindful more attuned more aware and when the parent heals their own inner anxieties now the L Cape the entire

31:59 terrain of the parent child relationship under goes a drastic metamorphosis if you've enjoyed listening to this episode don't forget to subscribe and tune in again and I can't wait to have you join us on the next episode of parenting and you with me Dr shaali parenting and you with Dr shaali is for educational and informational purposes only it is not intended as a substitute for Professional Medical psychological psychotherapeutic coaching

32:32 health care or other qualified professional advice diagnosis or treatment