Our Moods Can Hurt Our Kids

0:00 [Music] hey everyone welcome to a new episode of parenting and you with me Dr shaali I always tell parents that their energy their emotional state their moods even are infectious and contagious you know many times I would be walking around in my house thinking hey I'm in a normal mood but my daughter would turn around and go mom why are you so angry and I wouldn't be aware that my my jaws were

0:30 clenched that I was looking irritable that I had a frown on my face because I was disconnected to my emotional state but my daughter she would pick up on it and reflect it back so this is what conscious parenting teaches us to be so attuned to how we express our emotions especially around our children because what we feel will come through so the more aware we are the more attuned we can be and we can har

1:00 that emotional energy accordingly that's what this episode is about how do you handle your own emotional baggage how do you harness it and most of all how do you transform it coming up next a mom who says that she and her husband have completely different parenting Styles and it is causing a conflict joining me now is sonel sonel says that she and her husband are living on two different Islands when it comes

1:31 to their parenting Styles hi sonal welcome tell me what's going on hello Dr chali essentially we have like different ideologies on parenting and because of that there's um we run into a lot of conflict outside of parenting I would say my husband and I are great friends we can really see eye to eye on most things in life except for this I think so if I had to summarize in quick words I would say his way of parenting is more

1:59 traditional perhaps and mine is probably more on the put un po gentle side I've been reading books I've read your books and you know identify with the the conscious parenting side so um I know that you've also said you cannot change the other side of the parenting Paradigm so I would like to identify what my own triggers are so I can uh show up in a better way and not be constantly butting heads with my husband on this and I feel

2:28 like I'm always the protector of my kids and I jump in and like intervene and their interactions between my husband and my children where I probably shouldn't always and I realized that later on but I just can't seem to stop myself at in the moment so yeah that's kind of where I'm coming from okay so on a scale of 1 to 10 if your husband was super traditional which means you know shaming punishing yelling screaming to

2:57 one which could be you where would would he be I would probably say about six he's not bad it's not like he's hitting or spanking or any of that but even him raising what his volume and he is a he's a big guy intimidating I think to I have a four and a half year old and a one and a half year old to kids that young so him even raising his voice I just feel need to make comments and it angers him

3:22 that it annoys me and then it just goes downhill is he aware that he may be a bit too threatening and intimidating even though he doesn't mean to be for a little kid yeah to give him credit where credit is due I think he is trying he wants to do better but I think when we're in the situation I think it's easy to for all of us to revert back to what's comfortable to us and that's what

3:46 he's doing as well so let me ask you when you were growing up did you grow up with a traditional parent I did and do you remember how you felt when your parents yelled or screamed I remember very little about feelings from my childhood I always say that I had a good childhood but when it comes to remembering things I don't remember my feelings at all you do you remember being happy I didn't feel traumatized at

4:15 the moment or anything but I don't remember being happy or sad for that matter well that is information that's data and I think when we don't remember our childhoods that is actually quite indicative of not being in touch with what we were going through and that happens to a lot a lot of children who are blank about the most important part of their life really and not remembering the felt sense of euphoria Joy playfulness giddiness gigglin play is is

4:49 indicative that you were kind of in coping mode or in performing mode and you weren't really in your body that's possible my parents had very high performance in standards I think there was this sense of you're worthy if you're doing well and I also had a sibling who was uh had some potentially some issues with uh with school stuff and all that maybe perhaps undiagnosed learning disability so so uh my parents had a lot of attention on that and was

5:20 con constantly like comparing between me and her why can you be more like your sister which was me but uh but I felt maybe I that put even more pressure on me to keep performing well it just put my head down and just keep doing what needs to be done yes and and that's what I meant is that you were just cut off from your existence from your being from your heart and you were just a doer doer

5:44 doer and so much so your entire childhood has passed and you don't even know how you felt we're talking early 9 10 years of not knowing how you felt so that's very important information for you however I think what's getting triggered when your husband yells is some of that Panic that you don't even know where it's coming from but let's go to your partner for right now was your partner raised by traditional parents yeah and was he also made to perform and

6:11 do and Achieve yeah for sure I mean he did but I probably more get got into the revolting side of me and my teenage years but he learned to stand up for himself and push back early on so there was a lot of conflict between him and his parents correct so regardless both of you have some issues around around being children or having children and allowing the being state to be natural you see he was already in a defensive

6:38 mode with his parents early on you were compliant then you became defensive later both of you were not your authentic self so now when that happens and we have children together we are going to clash and that's just completely normal you're trying to go one way he's the other way but regardless for anyone to be triggered by a 4 and a half yearold means that they have unresolved issues because four and a half year olds are just four and a

7:06 half year olds they're not trying to particularly purposely Trigger or harm or be bad they're just struggling so what we need to understand for the dynamic between the two of you is how can you successfully create a boundary between your partner and your child versus constantly nagging him right nagging is never going to work so we have to take some bigger action to protect your child or we say it's not

7:38 bad it's okay and I'm going to back off you're not doing either you're not really taking proactive action to heal this dynamic or you're not taking completely a laid-back approach so you're in between and you're actually going to cause more stress and more strive so when you get triggered you are having some fears so what is your around your partner you know raising his voice against your son I think ultimately I feel like the yelling and

8:08 screaming just escalates into perhaps like physical harm cuz the kids will stop listening after a while so I I'm just trying to go down that slippery slope of things escalating and then it becoming like a physical thing my big goal is that my kids should not be distan from us and like lie to us or have to feel like they can't talk to us about things and have a good relationship with them in their 20s and

8:35 you know like many years from now so so I feel like my husband's big concern is he doesn't want kids to become uh perh perhaps entitled and there's a word in Hindi called bames you may be familiar with that or not but that's what his big started in every seminar I've gone to one of the first three questions is Dr shali I follow conscious parenting but what do I do about my partner so this is going to become a relationship problem

9:02 has it already become a marital problem a little bit I think I think we we definitely struggle on seeing eye to eye on this and since this is such a big part of our lives right now we definitely you know get into a lot of arguments and such and and not able to find a way forward correct and this is only one child who's four and a half you're they're not even teenagers and you're already seeing that this is a

9:25 problem so this is very soon going to move from a parent problem to a marital problem which will then become a life problem so I truly suggest that both of you come to therapy to counseling to coaching to me to somebody else but you have to shift the dynamic either he decides to just let you have the commander-in-chief role and backs off and just is a support or if he's going to be a co-parent with you you both have

9:55 to have somewhat of a unified approach you cannot think alike you cannot be alike it doesn't mean you never have to ever argue in front of your children that's unsustainable to imagine that you're going to be perfect but you both have to come on the same page at least when they're young in terms of your approach so see his approach is that the children are bad your approach is that they're good this is the fundamental difference if he thinks of them as bad

10:23 and that they need to be corrected then he's right if you think of them as good therefore they need to be forgiven and understood then you're right so which approach are we going to take of course I agree with your approach and he's actually completely wrong and he is going to cause damage and it is going to cause a fight you see he never had a good relationship with his parents he was fighting from a young age so

10:45 fighting arguing chaos is his playground you see he's not even looking at this as a problem because he grew up fighting but this is going to be very unhealthy for your children so he can hear this when the podcast comes out and you can go CCC she agrees with me and you need to take him for counseling with you because it's soon going to become a couple's issue we we have talked about it but it's just one of those things

11:10 where to your point about commanderin-chief he does talk about okay well we'll do it that way your way but the other thing is I think the other thing I struggle with is the uneven division of parenting responsibilities where mother mother's the one who is uh doing the heavy lifting and somehow I did not did not see that realize that until I had children myself to your point about Middle Ground even in this I'm have a hard time going either

11:36 extreme where you know I do do most of my kids um you know chores and what responsibility as a as a parent but but I also feel very resentful with the father my husband and having responsibilities as much as I do do you also work outside the home yeah I do have a full-time job yep so both of you have full-time jobs and you have the full-time parenting correct well this this is the problem in modern parenting right I mean somebody

12:06 has to not work and somebody has to stay at home with the kids what to do children require care so it's not up to me to decide who does that in your house but yes sounds like you're doing double duty and that's very hard for you and so I strongly suggest where possible take some stuff off your plates where possible maybe you work from home one or two days a week maybe if you can afford to work less otherwise by the time they

12:32 are 10 years old you are going to be a burnt out resentful angry wife and what would be the point of that what point would that be it's already heading that way I can tell you are putting too much on your plate and good for you you're an ambitious Modern Woman but the modern woman has a lot on her plate that she will pay the price for because she's trying to do it all so figure out a way

12:58 to at least at least reduce the stress in the house and figure out a way to get him to at least partner with you on some things and I really recommend an external coach maybe even a man that he will listen to just not to be sexist but maybe that'll help him feel less blamed or cornered by women and uh and get him to see that you're struggling and you need to be able to say you're struggling

13:25 instead of fighting create a change instead of talking about it actually create a plan we both recognize it that we're not you know this is this is going to cause problems in the future but we're just in a place where you're not able to break past it so your point about external coaching is something we definitely have talked about but haven't take taken any action on right so sometimes when we watch ourselves complain and complain and complain and

13:51 talk and talk and talk we get stuck in that cycle instead of going you know what we need help and we can't do this on our own and I think you're so aware you're such a smart wise woman I think you're going to be able to turn this around thank you for sharing yep absolutely thank you for your time really appreciate it it's not easy to parent period And it certainly isn't easy to parent with someone else

14:18 especially when your style and their style clashes I mean this just happens so much and I always tell parents when they and their partner have conflictual parenting stule s that they need to seek outside help because this is more than just an argument in the present moment or a fight tomorrow it's really going to erode their partnership and their marriage if they don't take this seriously so it's not easy it's not that the two parents are being bad because

14:49 they have different viewpoints after all you parent the same way that you were conditioned until you try a new way so for any of you listen ing who is experiencing some struggles with your co-parent know that you're not alone and you can reach out for help coming up next a mother who is very overwhelmed super stressed because she feels that her two teenage sons are disconnecting from her joining me now is Jaa she is

15:21 struggling with her two sons disconnecting from her and she's afraid of what the future holds for them as adults hello Jaa welcome tell me what your concerns are okay first of all thank you so much I love you so much and um you're my fairy Godmother right now my concerns are everybody in the family has some sort of learning disability and so we are completely different elements I'm an air sign my husband is a earth and water and fire and not only that my

15:54 children are on the Spectrum but they're still very different and they don't look like any they don't look obviously disabled or anything like that and they both are very insecure about who they are when it comes to connecting with people now my youngest understand which is most concerning to me is because he was a very happy vivacious child very outgoing and had friends and everything and I used to say okay thank God

16:24 somebody in this family is is normal okay I have ADHD that that had like Aspergers and whatever so I was like thank God somebody is normal and happy and is not like yelling at each other or anything but just like recently like I mean he's just turned 16 and just like recently like about 14 or something it's like a switch happened and I'm I didn't know what it is that happened I I'm shocking

16:55 it up to like puberty or something but even his friends at that age didn't even act like that I mean I have to remind him to works one day a week and I have to remind him to smile at work he grunts answers he's very dark he looks like he doesn't want anybody to talk to him and it's just like day and night I got help for him I got him a psychologist and he

17:25 just refused to go so he's not getting in the car like it will get to the point where I'm trying to drag this kid in the car and I'm like what am I doing what am I doing I surrender to God okay so that's what I am doing I'm surrendering to God okay hold on hold on hold on I don't mean to laugh at you you're just so so animated and you're like I Surrender I Surrender okay it's not okay

17:54 so your oldest son is how old okay so my oldest son is 20 but he he he hangs his friends are 17 18 just about to leave for college which is very detrimental for him too because he looks normal but something is going on with with him I'm not sure what kind of autism he has but he's got it and what whatever it is it's like he's afraid he's afraid to be going up he's afraid to be an adult because it

18:25 means he feels like he's he's not efficient I think being in special education all their lives both of them kind of spooled them up because it means like he's been put in classes where people put actual Down syndrome and then he's kept asking himself like wait is this what people think about me I guess I am and I mean I asked him to tell me one good thing about himself and he couldn't he couldn't tell me every day

18:54 he's a loser every day he's saying what then I said that too he smok Po and the drinks and and and just hang up loser activity loser activity I said this is loser activity of course you're not going to get anywhere with this you know and I'm very vocal about it but if I say every day now I'm like now I'm affirming that you're a loser but that's what he's doing and and I so I Surrender so I gave

19:21 up Roman because I didn't know what else to do with him he already was in the hospital five different kinds the mental hospital five different times and I mean technically he's an adult but he's a child you're very overwhelmed sweetie exactly and you feel like you're a failure absolutely I mean I'm not a normal mother I'm a meth I can't invite people over to my house I can't even figure out how to like answer an email I'm always late everywhere I go

19:52 thank God I finally got like some adol first so I don't get fired from every serber job I have CU I'm now the bread winner apparently it's very frustrating it's like who am I to tell people how to live and need these people and I don't know how to figure out my own damn life so I feel like a failure because I kind of feel how they feel because I grew up in the Caribbean where they did not

20:21 acknowledge disabilities you're just laugh in the class and you're an idiot you just can't read and everything like that so I really understand the struggle of being different and not only that my husband's white and they're the only mix kid in the in the school and my um my youngest told me for the first time that he always felt different and I never had that conversation about black and white because I don't think about my skin I

20:51 I'm not like the Americans like I'm I'm sorry I don't have a black problem right so I don't I don't think about that I don't have that Consciousness and it never really dawned on me to like have like a race conversation which is probably a really Dum thing to do but like things like that you know and um I Surrender I don't know what to do I go to church and I pray okay okay okay okay so you are at

21:17 your Wit's End okay I mean I'm listening to you and I feel only compassion I see your heart I see your pain I wish I could come and hug you but I can't I'm sorry but here's the thing you are only highlighting all the crap in your life this is bad and then this is bad and then this is bad and then this is bad and then this is I mean anyone listening to you will want to go and have like 10

21:43 glasses of wine and drown themselves in sorrow right so yeah but but here's what it is it's your way of looking at the world that's true you're not an optimist you're a pessimist you're not looking at anything half full you're looking at everything broken and empty and damaged and destroyed you have a very pessimistic Outlook to life did you know that about you no actually I thought I did I thought I was very optimistic I thought I was but when it comes to my

22:13 children I guess I am very pessimistic I'm always telling them stop saying that about stop calling yourself a loser stop doing this but telling them they have a loser mentality and not really understanding them is not going to help now anything I say you're going to take it as further self-blame you see because you're in this spiral of you see I knew she was going to tell me it was my fault you see I'm not cut out for this crap

22:37 you see I'm scared to tell you anything because you're going to be like see I knew I was the worst mother on the Block yes you you are hard on yourself and your children and life what am I supposed to do really what am I supposed to do with these kids you're not hearing me my love you're not hearing me what have I said so far tell me the the main point I've made right now your main

22:59 point is that I am looking at the life glass half empty rather than full right and I'm supposed to be missed positivity in I like I preach I'm I guess I'm not practicing what I preach you know when it comes to my my own children you know and my own family it's it's I like I I attach I'm like I got to do this now because I only have this one shot you're coming from this high intensity from this place of

23:29 attacking you better be okay now I mean you're suffocating them and you're suffocating yourself I feel claustrophobic just listening to your problems I go where do I run where do I run everywhere there's a problem now I know that you want to be positive I know in your higher self you're positive but somehow in your home you're operating just out of fear and when we operate in our home out of fear our children begin to shut down so how do I do this first

24:01 it's not a how do I do it's a how do I be which means you have to change your mindset your mindset is hyper aroused hyper Vigilant hyper negative okay you got to have a mind set rehaul right now I am going to gift you one of my courses for free you're going to take it and you're going to begin to work on your mindset because your mindset is looking at this whole thing like it's the end of the world doomsday

24:30 catastrophe if I was to listen to you you have possibly been the worst parent you have the worst family the worst children now can that possibly be true no because you're a beautiful person but you're looking and describing yourself and them like this no wonder they've shut down no wonder your older child doesn't want to go out of the house because you've kind of communicated to him that he's got a loser attitude therefore he's not good enough so what

24:56 does it look like when you have when it they like smoking weed all day like how how would you approach that because obviously me talking and like blah blah blah okay for me is either you this or I am like I Surrender I'm done I I I cannot I'll just give it to God or something so what would it look like when Jazz says F you or something like one of my sons say F you to his father

25:27 or something like that how do you approach an obvious problem in how they are reacting that's not normal and be nice and postive about okay see you're very smart yeah you you chose two very difficult situations and you're like okay go ahead Dr shavali how would you like it if they came and spat on you see you brought up to very horrible situations oh when they're saying F you and when they're smoking all day are there no other moments in

25:56 between where they are kind of relaxed and you can connect Yes actually yes just recently our lights got cut off we had nothing to do because it was like Co over here in my house it was like for some reason nobody paid the electricity bill one it's $10,000 we had no wifi or anything like that all we had to do is just like look at each other okay in that period of time it was kind of like

26:26 a quarantine kind of moment well did you connect yes we did okay now here's the thing you yourself are extremely unfocused yes you you know this right you're all over the place you yourself may have some add qualities in your brain which is not a bad thing you just need to know how to work with it and two you're overwhelmed and you're overstressed when I look at you I see a lovely woman but I don't feel like

26:53 you're in your body you are in high stress High panic mode you are in Flight of fight no wonder your kids are smoking pot because you're high strong okay you're high maintenance too I just want you to know right so you're beautiful but look at you you're like you're vibrating at a a very high frequency right you're gorgeous but you're like I'm exhausted already right so listen to me my love listen listen I'm going to give you my course you're going to take

27:19 the course and you're going to begin a New Journey on you you're going to work on you because your mindset of scarcity and lack is so grooved in your brain I cannot even get you out of it the moment I will fix one issue with your kid you're going to find 10 more because your brain is now wired for negativity I just want you to know that and your children can see that yes you need to rewire the whole brain no

27:44 you are not miss positive you're you're sweetheart to me and to people outside the house but to your own children your Miss negativity wow that's like calling Jesus the devil or something I'm not I just want you to wake up because you're being so harsh on yourself and your children my love you're not saying things like you know sometimes they're like this or they're struggling oh I'm feeling so bad about them you're like they are this and they

28:10 are that and they are struggling and they are you know you're just going through a laundry list of negativity when you see other people through the negative lens you are going to get depressed aren't you feeling exhausted anxious and depressed all the time it's because of your mindset wow I thought it was so positive my love you smiling but all you say is negative things but you're smiling oh my God we're going to change this okay we're going to work on

28:36 this okay but isn't that what therapy is though that's why I'm kind of conflicted because therapy is just about brain to the therapist all on the bad stuff which is like it really is it's really like this is my problem and this is my problem and this is my problem and this is my problem that is with therapy and so it's like and you are hard to come by okay you are diamond in the Rock so I

29:04 I'm coming at you and I'm giving you the worst of it right now okay but I am aware I am aware that um where you focus goes attention grows and all of that stuff okay you are beautiful and you're hilarious and you're honest and you're true and you're real you're just stuck in in this pessimistic negative groove of my my goodness my children oh my goodness my children and they pick up on it you have to change your mindset

29:33 toward your children you're going to take a course and we're going to work on it okay so you're going to write to my office after this and we're going to start you on a new mindset transformation first you have to take the course it's 15 hours and then we will talk but first you have to start your change you're impatient you are impulsive and you're not focused so we're going to calm you down mommy has to First calm down o your Mas on yes and

29:58 begin to truly Focus because your children are picking up on this hyper energy you have to really tone it down and enter your adult self right see now how you are this is it this is how it looks there you go now you're in your body you're centered you're focused you're calm the other energy is too much for your children this energy is listening it's reflective it's a witness it's receiving the other one is

30:30 hyperreactive that's for one this is a big change you're feeling it in your body I'm feeling it in my body youve suddenly calm down well this is where we start this is how it looks it looks like this it's not about what they do I don't care if they say F you 15 times it's Mommy has to be in this energy of compassion understanding patience calm focused warmth now your kids will pick up a different energy the other one is

31:00 is a reactor this one is a reflector understanding their pain this is the mother I want your children to have right here I'm look I'm looking at her if my family saw this and if they see this they're gonna stand up and applaud and give you s of standing a because they were me this like what you talk about I him okay I to hard and well respect this person

31:31 that I absolutely love and like I'm gonna talk to somebody like oh yeah and oh my God they are going to crack up when you hear what they have to say I don't even know don't show it to them I recommend they should never see this because they will gang they will gang up I will I'll make sure okay they are definitely going to gang up we can't have that happening but you are adorable I want you to write to my office I'm

31:54 going to be sending you some stuff okay right God I love you so much you're are a prayer answered okay A Prayer answered cuz I don't know what I where to turn or anything to do and this is amazing you are going to work on you you're amazing thank you J boy that was a lot of energy that Jaa had but I really loved her infectious Vitality her honesty her courage and her ability to take my

32:25 feedback listen it's never easy when parents come to me and I have to tell them hey this is you your energy is creating this turmoil as well I'm not saying that you're the only one but it's only when we parents own our co-creation in the dynamic and are willing to see how we are playing into what's happening with our children only then will our connection with them truly transform so Jaa is now on a mission I'm going to

32:54 send her my courses I'm going to make her read my books and at least she's willing to change her mindset because every connection we have in our lives begins with the connection we have within ourselves the more Jaa connects to herself calms down and self-regulates she will begin to parent with greater Attunement and wholeness I really hope you've enjoyed today's episode you've learned something if you have don't forget to subscribe and remember you can be a guest on my podcast go to my

33:25 website Dr sha.com find the podcast button and fill up the guest form I can't wait for you to join me 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 healthare or other qualified professional advice diagnosis or

33:56 treatment