Real Talk for Real Teachers #12 - Parenting with Conscious Discipline

0:00 [Music] welcome to real talk for real teachers I'm dr. Becky Bailey the creator of conscious discipline an expert in child development and education and a lifelong teacher and learner for those listening who are not aware of conscious discipline it is a comprehensive self-regulation program that integrates social-emotional learning culture and

0:31 discipline in general it provides adults and children with the skills to be disciplined enough to set and achieve goals conscious enough to know we're off track and connected enough to others so we are willing to persevere so what are real teachers many of the real teachers that have joined this podcast are also real parents many real teachers work all day with children and go home to spend the rest of their time with their own family and

0:59 own children real teachers who use conscious discipline know two important things one it is easier to practice conscious discipline on other people's children than your own and two the skills they're learning at school are just as important at home and with all your relationships real talk for real teachers is a growing community of loving professionals who seek to love themselves as much as they love others today we're talking about parenting

1:29 often conscious discipline is known for teachers something for teachers but it's also a parenting program for parents and one of the people who have made that a reality from the beginning is the person I've invited today who is Ginny Luther now Ginny started with me 20 years ago that's when conscious discipline started she was the first master instructor so it was Ginny and myself talking to anyone who would basically listen and many who didn't even want to listen we

2:01 started back in the day where the arms were folded and people are like huh what if this what if that and we we were able to set and achieve our goals and persevered Ginny has been a teacher of pre-kindergarten children with exceptional needs for eight years a speech pathologist for 10 years she's the owner of peaceful parenting since 1994 that is her parenting business and she's been doing conscious discipline with that business for a very long time and

2:30 she's going to share that with us she was a single parent of two children during her young years and a parent of four children in a blended family later in life welcome Jenny to real talk for real teachers oh I'm so glad to be here Becky I feel honored yeah me too it's been fun 20 years I'll tell you that yes it says yes it has a fun and a hard one so here we go so Jenny tell us how because you're the

2:59 first one to really get into conscious discipline for parents why did you lean towards parents and what's that passion there and how did that all come about well it came about years before actually I met you which was with my youngest son I was a single parent and divorcing at the time and he was five months and I had a two and a half year old my two and a half year old Nick and then there was Bart and when

3:27 Bart turned 18 months old I was actually terrified of him I was working as a professional on an interdisciplinary team with the 12 worst emotionally challenged children in the county of Chemung in New York and I would go home to a child that was behaving worse than any of them so I was scared to death of him because there were temper tantrums that were 45 minutes long I was a stressed parent I felt like all I was

3:57 doing was fighting with him and I was actually scared and one day he just pushed my button and I came home I was tired of working with pre-k kids all day and I watched myself act stupid I went into the I went into my kitchen and did exactly what my parents did pulled out a wooden spoon put it in front of his face I got the spoon put it in his face I can't even remember what he did but I

4:26 remember my actions and I put it in front of his face and said if you do that again I'm gonna thank you and he turns with this grin on his face he turns around pulls his pants down and he goes come on spank me mommy and at that moment all the blood rushed from my face down to my feet somewhere but I had a vision of him turning into a serial killer by the time he was 16 and I was scared to death it

4:56 was an epiphany for me and I realized after pondering for a few seconds that I must have been a frightening scene to him and I scared him to death and I realized it really was never about him it was about me so then was began my journey and that that was in probably 1988 so I started seeking a lot of different approaches cuz the traditional approach of the rewards the punishments I tried everything I tried time out I tried

5:25 restraining him I tried rewards I tried punishment none of it worked so that I had to find another way and I came upon your book there's got to be a better way after beginning my business of peaceful parenting I discovered that it was really about me it wasn't about him so I really worked hard on myself to give a different response to him because I knew my response had a huge impact in how he responded well that took some

5:55 reflection and that took a lot of courage I think parents listening have come to that point where it's like oh no this is this is really getting out of hand and and I don't have a clue of what to do especially with these very very difficult temperament children that just challenge you to death so when did it all kind of come together for you you said okay I'm gonna start these classes and I'm gonna do this did you start

6:22 right away or did you study for yourself what happened oh I really studied for myself I started doing a lot of introspective kind of self growth courses and I started with a positive parenting course that I took that I decided then it made sense to me because I started some of the positive connected relationship based parenting with him and it was making a difference and I did that for a few years until I met you and especially in a brain workshop it

6:53 was your first you were doing a tour I think you were taking a sabbatical from UCF I remember that yeah you had stacks of transparencies and did your first six-day brain smart start workshop or day training and that was the piece for me that really really put it all together for me and said okay that was when my brain connected with my heart and I said this is the way to do this because this is the way parents are

7:23 going to understand I had a lot of other programs parents say well where's the proof where's the research what's what this is just theory you brought the science to it that really solidified it for me and that's when I was at that workshop you actually said to me you know I'm quitting UCF I'm gonna do an institute next year I'm gonna do a conscious discipline she said I'm right in the book which it wasn't totally written yet but we're having an

7:51 institute do you want to come so I immediately went home and I registered for the Institute that wasn't even really established yet yeah I know I think we had it in an old comedy club and we sat in cigarette smoke and right right yeah it was a fun time so now you start peaceful parenting and and you're integrating conscious discipline into what you're teaching so and how is it going with Bart can you tell a difference now once you got into

8:22 conscious discipline can you tell a difference with Bart well I think Bart was my biggest success story I remember I had that vision of him being a serial killer truly I was scared for his future and I was scared for my future with him so I knew I had to do something different and so when I started this suddenly here was this child that felt empowered and took his own personal power back as I took my own personal

8:52 power back and he he had an agenda for his life he was going to do it his way he wanted to be a service to the country and he ended up graduating with a 4.0 average will all with scholarships at U of F and was cadet in ROTC so he graduated as an officer and he served in Iraq as a tank commander very near but then he came back home and the irony of it is he was tragically murdered by not

9:25 one of his soldiers when he returned five months after he returned when he's actually going to try help the soldier who was struggling with his discharge and it was such a tragedy but it without conscious discipline I never would have managed that tragedy that most parents would say I could never imagine this I could never handle this and it was conscious discipline that helped me to say I can do that and Jenny I know this

9:56 because I was there with you throughout some things but I also know that the young man who murdered your son was also very challenging as a child it was he was like a young Bart himself that didn't get what Bart got correct and it was just to tell a little story about it I remember about four months after after he died I was sitting with my husband after he had recovered from knee surgery

10:26 and he was finally cognizant again not without pain and he was watching me sit at the couch and he said you know I we haven't had a time to talk a lot about this you know who are you angry about who are you angry with with this whole thing because it with the circumstances lent itself to lots of questions around how he was murdered but the bottom line was I was angry with the police I was

10:52 angry with the army that had not you know thought twice about sending him over to the soldiers house I was angry with the dispatcher that didn't get Bart off the balcony when he was shot and I was angry with everybody I was angry with myself I was even angry at Bart I thought oh stupid why did he do that why didn't he pay attention and I stopped and my husband looked said to me Jack said to me well it's very

11:19 interesting that you've named just about everybody but Jody the person who killed them I just pondered for a moment I was sort of surprised I was in awe of my own response and I pondered it for a couple of days and then I realized that I could not be mad at Jodi he came from an environment that was homeless as a child fatherless a depressed mother he struggled all his life in high school

11:49 but made it through and then 9/11 came in who chose to go into service to deal with his anger and so he was always quoted as by his captain as not being really the right kind of person in in service but I remember thinking that this little Jodi as a child had every potential to be the BART the shift you know and he never had the skills and how could I be mad at him because he was

12:21 exactly the person I feared Bart would become and so with all this I mean I know all along you're doing parenting but it seems that your passion to help other parents has certainly deepened and helped many so with all this going on how did you you continue doing your peaceful parenting now how do you set that up how do you run those classes do you have them once a week twice a week I

12:52 mean what do you do this I used to have classes on a weekly basis but that's just not feasible for parents anymore so I do once a month hour and a half empowering parent groups much of the time and they're usually requested by early childhood centers or schools so the vet they hold the venue for having these monthly meetings and they're actually run by parents and I find that

13:22 to be the most powerful because those parents are sharing their inspiration about learning about conscious discipline with other parents and so it's kind of informal sometimes it's formal sometimes I do workshops for parents and they come and it'll be a two-hour and in a school where the PTA is involved or something like that you know they have some sort of funding source or they charge the parents to come but essences they come and they

13:53 they like it best when they get little bits of information they can't handle a lot because they're coming at the end of the day they can handle little skills at a time not big skills at a time and little bits about themselves and their self growth because that's the most important part is the self growth so now when you first started I mean you kind of discovered the empowered parenting right when I first started back in the

14:20 day you had who had the classes so let's do from the beginning so when you first had your classes how did that go and they will move up and talk more about these empowered parenting groups that are so powerful yeah so I would start with classes with schools with the support of a school and I started with easy to love difficult to discipline because that's the parenting book that speaks so loudly to parents because there are so

14:46 many stories in that book that parents can relate to and so I started with that format doing formal workshops interaction interactive activities for two hours a night for six to seven weeks and back in the day to you know 15 years ago people had the time to do that but they don't have the time to do that so that that's how I started and then from there sometimes parents would want me to come in their homes or they would want

15:18 me to observe their child at school and then I could support the teachers at school who weren't doing conscious discipline but I would sort of manage to give them some conscious discipline skills or techniques or you know some ideas that they didn't know or conscious discipline but very helpful yes so you had these classes at first and they spread I mean you were you're quite the Guru I mean I I watched these parents I've seen you in interacting and how

15:48 much they appreciate and admire what you've done for them so you did these groups and things kind of spread all over and then you had kind of a following so to speak would you agree to that right and I still I remember one parent I had he followed me for eight years he came to every single class I did and I used to give certificates and at one point I said you got enough certificates to wallpaper your back and

16:17 you know I would say and used to think as I would come to you as well Becky you know why you keep coming back you you know you've heard this once but it is such a transformational process that you only hear what you're ready to hear in a moment right so the depth of this never ends it's it's a it's a journey not a destination so you're always learning at a deeper level and as I'm teaching I

16:42 learn it's a deeper level and every time they come they get something new so I could have told them after seven years Jimmy would come to me and go you know said that before and I said I know I've always said that you just never heard it I know that's what people said to me you know they'll say to me wow I just I heard you last year I don't know why you didn't tell us this all heard you five

17:05 years ago why didn't you tell me then I'm like I'm staying the same thing oh you can't be so it's definitely one of those things that you know as the student is ready the teacher appears kind of thing so now you've got all these parents that are at different levels in different places in their journey and so now tell us about these empowered parent groups because now you're you're sharing power and people are really chewing on this and sharing

17:32 information and teaching one another with your guidances that's what's happening yes that's very much what's happening so this is your pay it forward concept that that transforms in early childhood centers and families so I discovered that you know some people would come to the classes and then they'd say but we want more and so I started the empowered parent groups to go deeper with parents that had already taken the classes and invariably new

18:03 people would show up because the parent tells a friend who tells a friend and then the friends come and they all come together and so that's how they they empower each other and so I decided that the first time I ran the group second time the school sort of monitored it but then none none of that was working so what I did was I employed some parents I didn't employ them I just asked them would they take the real passionate ones

18:30 that were really working it and following everything I was doing say would you be willing to run this group and I'll just show up you run the group you decide the topics you decide it all ends up being conscious discipline anyway they can pick any topic they want and I guide them with the topics and so that evolved into you know some of the centers that I've been doing this in for a while wanting it every year and

19:00 they'll do it for anywhere from seven months to ten months depending on you know the availability of the venue so and what the parent really wants to do but the parent is the one that does all the talking all the advertising the emailing they're the ones that talk the talk they talk it and talk it up so it works much better that way well that is so exciting so now do you remember any specific parent or a specific story

19:31 about in this meeting you know an aha or a struggle you see the parents having can you kind of pop off the top of your head some of the top three struggles or give something specific here well typically parents I get several questions that are pretty common one is have I ruined my child it you know is it fixable and once they understand about the brain and they once they understand all of that the plasticity and all of

20:02 that they understand that they can change it anytime they want to and they that you can't ruin a child so that's one thing but another is the power struggles I think that's that's probably the number one question I get is how can I get my child to eat there go to sleep get up in the morning get dressed get out the door those very typical things that surround transitions and routines and just a simple story which is so

20:32 common is to start with the visual routines with them I can't tell you how many people come to me and they're like I cannot believe how my morning routine is changed they it's it's just phenomenal they're so excited and I think I think the thing that really is the biggest success that I see with parents is when they start making a connection with themselves and start treating themselves with the skills and they start using the powers on their own

21:05 cells they can then really transfer that connection to children in a really meaningful way instead of okay so try to just do the skill is to really work on themselves so let's let's just go back for the listeners here might not understand all that so you mentioned one important concept visual routines so for the for the parents listening let me see if I can just state this out so you take pictures of the procedure of say getting dressed or

21:35 going to bed or whatever the routine is eating breakfast he correct and then you just put them into a little book someplace they can see him and let the children like it'd be like our to-do list or a checklist exactly so it's a visual checklist for them so they can go for a to a reference and say okay here's what I'm doing now here's what I'm doing next have I got it it's exactly right sometimes it can be a book or it can

22:01 just be as simple as on a file folder where they have simple pictures which you can get so easily now on the internet it's just so simple to get those and download them and whatever the routine is and having them take ownership by having choice with it and what they're gonna do within the boundaries they feel so empowered and it helps to organize them and build their predictability so it's the predictability that most children don't

22:32 have that most parents don't realize so right yeah and so once once they start those and they start getting opportunities to give choices rather than to get into power struggles and understand that they can't make a child do anything that they have opportunity to provide choice within the boundaries they start to get it they start to get it and it's just the little successes it doesn't take much even with the connection when they start the rituals

23:02 they start an i-love-you ritual which is a very very intimate or intimacy ritual of love with children that's short and simple and sweet can make a huge difference coming home from work and doing a ritual before you get started into that routine at night is so valuable to a child and they notice a huge difference in their willingness and their cooperation for the evening routine yeah and so with

23:35 those rituals you know we're turning we're talking about turning face to face you know and it could be as simple as let's just make a fun little handshake or it could be you know I'm gonna kiss your your nose I'm on catching kiss that knows I mean so there there's simple little moments that you connect with them and but also you talked about the powers of conscious discipline you know and those are sometimes overlooked so for those who are listening we have

24:03 seven powers and we have seven skills in conscious discipline and the powers are for the adults for an example one of them would be no one can make you angry without your permission in other words they trigger our anger but they're not making us anger they stepped in a landmine we've been carrying around for a long time or we were just hungry and tired that day just like the children and they did something we didn't like so once we

24:29 learn to take back our power like you said then we can give it to children so how do you go about sharing these powers or to the parents do you talk about them what's your process there I say what the power is first that's the most important piece to me because again it starts with us and in that moment I had that wooden spoon in front of Bart's face I can imagine the impact that my response was

24:55 having on him so I completely lost it and I know that if I changed that response which is my response it's me it's not him that that can have a huge positive impact on him so that starts with that first one which is your composure and so I talk about a story I'll tell a story about that you know about how I was either out of control or a story of someone who was out of control and just using that skill of

25:24 calming down and being able to see it a little differently because it's the power of perception is to see this kind of as a call for help instead of this child's driving me crazy it's my upset state and then I have them reflect a little on what are your stories what story taught you to be feel triggered so if a child trigger is whining for instance which is my trigger the child whines that would be my trigger I recognize that I'm

25:55 feeling upset about that because when I was a child and I whined I was abandoned I was told to go outside if I was gonna act like that and so when my child whined I said I'm not gonna listen to you I am NOT gonna listen to you not until you change what you do and that same response was coming up so isn't it interesting how we do it in different ways you know how when you wind your

26:24 parents sent you you sent you away and and when your child then whined you didn't sit him away but I'm not going to talk to you I mean another form of I'm not listening I don't see I don't hear you the form changed but the abandonment was still present exactly exactly so in that that reminds me of that funny story you want me to tell ok yeah I want you to tell you yeah be nice to hear a funny

26:49 story after we had that reflection moment yeah so a perfect example of this was when I was a single parent and I did single parent regardless of my ex being involved he would there was no support there financially or in any other way so I was going to 12 preschoolers who are emotionally severely emotionally challenged all day long in a psychiatric center and then coming home to two preschoolers and so you know you have those days where you just you don't have

27:18 it you know my conscious discipline or whatever just goes out the window the window it's it's tabled for tonight and I'm giving myself full permission to do that so I wasn't at the time very conscious really truthfully but I remember coming home and I went to the store to get milk and of course I forgot to get the milk I got everything else so there's a sign of stress right there so I was very frustrated walking through

27:43 the door and here's Bart who was the most precocious child very gifted he had the language of a four year old when he was just 2 so you know we get home and he starts mommy mommy mommy mommy and Nicky's mommy mommy I mean I like these mommy I want that you know and I just kind of snapped and I I just decided this was an abandoned moment I couldn't take one more moment I was too stressed I was not calm and I

28:12 just said that's it I'm done being your mom I am NOT your mom anymore from now on I'm George and I put my stuff down and I said George is going upstairs to my bedroom and I marched upstairs to my bedroom close the door and here's these two-year holding four year old downstairs and my older one who's precious and flexible comes running up the stairs pitter-patter mommy mommy you can't you can't you're my mommy you can't not be my mommy you

28:42 can't not be my mommy and then the other pitter-patter comes running up the stairs saying nothing with a little binky in his mouth he starts pounding on my door Bart starts pounding on my door he goes George get out here right now out of the mouths of babes I mean isn't it great it was perfect and of course I couldn't stop laughing it just took me right out of my stress State and I came out and it was it was such an eye-opener

29:13 for me but but truly I just didn't have the skills I did the best that I could and I think that's one thing I want parents to know is that you're never going to do this perfectly if you're going to get continue to get triggered they're gonna trigger you more than they trigger anybody else because you're the parent they come to you to get soothed and you're the one no matter what they do that you're gonna love

29:37 unconditionally they're you're gonna love them so they come to you and it's it's you're just never going to do it perfect so there's it's a constant constant oopsey experience yes it is and and that brings up something so you know have you seen in your experience with your own children and all the parents that you've helped that even little changes make a big difference I mean it's like you know you look at conscious discipline and it's kind of a

30:05 big elephant and you know there's seven skills and seven powers and there's all these rituals and about can Dean and all this but it doesn't take that whole book to to make a huge difference does it it really doesn't and I say and when I first started the first thing I did was I said okay I've got to keep it simple which means it's got to be something that I think I can do and I've got to be

30:31 persistent about it so keep it simple and keep practice practice practice practice till I got it so the thing that felt simple to me because I was in power struggles all the time Bart and I were just in this huge power struggle all the time because we're a lot alike and so I knew I had to work on choices so the first thing I did was work on choices for myself so a lot of my inner speech

30:57 was I should I should I have to I've got to this has to get done I should which all all that message behind that was that I'm not in control of myself I don't have the power the rest of the world controls me and I'm not enough in this moment so I changed that to I could I could be doing this but I'm choosing not to I could be doing that but I'm choosing not to I could

31:23 choose to do that but I'm not and that was very very helpful because should was my mother's middle name yeah I mean that it that is something powerful for all of us if we change our shoulds to our kids we give ourself choice and if we give ourself choice there's a good chance we're truly gonna give our children choices it just makes it makes it so much easier to actually implement it with children once you do it with

31:51 yourself that's what I found the most powerful with conscious discipline is working on myself and I still have moments some skills are easier than other skills I say go with one that feels easy with you and practice it so you can experience the success and which will inspire you to keep wanting more because little successes are huge I mean you give a choice of the red cup or the blue cup or maybe juice or milk at

32:16 dinner time and your child chooses juice well think of the comparison when you got the power struggle the night before where the juice went all over the floor and they threw the across the room and for 20 minutes you're screaming and shouting and that's it no dinner and now if you're not gonna eat your dinner you're gonna have it for breakfast and the whole thing that goes on that's avoided by just giving a simple choice that they were able to me

32:40 and you know as you move into this a deeper level of a conscious discipline I think you've alluded to this over and over again whatever that behavior the child that you have the hardest time with is is a gift for you to understand your own wounds it's a place where your parents didn't know what to do with you at that point and their parents didn't know what to do with them so this is a generational thing that we passed down

33:06 until we realize that their quote obnoxious behavior is really a way for us to heal ourselves have you come across that at all Oh millions of times I mean I've always said that my son Bart was my biggest teacher I mean we just went through this journey together and it seemed like it was a contract every time you know I had issues with assertiveness he would bring up boundary issues with me so there's so many times

33:37 that when he gets into his behavior it's a reflection exactly what's going on for me so I can heal the wound of my I've got a story around this one which is kind of funny too so I'd love to hear it we all want well so when Bart was 16 and I was that was when it really actually started so when he was 16 that was when you and I were sort of first starting was the first

33:59 couple of years and so I was practicing on teenagers which was a little bit different but I realized that Bart was one of these he pushed my buttons with boundaries all the time and I remember he had come home from being in Portugal for a year and he had a job but he didn't have his license yet and so I was going to go to work out at a class in the morning and he and the night before

34:24 he said mom can you take me to work and I said I'm happy to take you to work if you're ready by 9:30 I know you don't have to be there till 10:00 but if you're ready by 9:30 because my class starts at 10:00 and he said okay so the next morning I got up in my she was assertiveness for sure and so I get up and I'm ready to go and it's 25 after 9 and he comes strolling out in

34:49 his whitey tighties into the kitchen opening and yawning his mouth looking for something to eat and I said Bart you remember I said I'm not gonna give you a ride unless you're ready by 9:30 he says I know I know I didn't handle well of course he wasn't going to get it handled so immediately I go into my anxious angry state I start pacing and cleaning and get going get going get going get going and so he's

35:15 not going so he's he goes slowly and it's now like 20 of and he's got his uniform on but he doesn't have his shoes on and I said that's it that's it I'm going I'm going you're gonna have to find your own ride to work you're just gonna have to find your own ride to work so I go out the door and I get in the car and I'm just sitting there seething and I slam on the horn nothing happens

35:39 and then I go back inside open the door and there he is tying his shoes very slowly on the chair by the door and I said I told you I was leaving I mean at this time I'm really gonna leave so I went back in my car backed up went around the circle drove for about 800 feet pulled in somebody's driveway backed out went back home and there he

36:09 was in the driveway with his arms crossed and he got into the car and I immediately realized at that point that he was teaching me how to set boundaries and that my teacher I was teaching him how not to set boundaries so I you know here I've been teaching around the contrary and teaching this stuff and I just couldn't really get it with him I whatever my fears were it was around him missing work or whatever so I he got in

36:41 the car and I proceeded to go one side down the other screaming at the top of my lung at him screaming I am so mad at myself I am mad at myself because I have not set boundaries for you that are clear I am teaching you not how to respect boundaries and not to set them for yourself and I've been doing this too long and I just want you to know I am so angry at myself I am NOT

37:04 gonna do this again do you understand I'm screaming at him the whole way to Red Lobster and he's looking at me with these wide eyes and he I stop at the Red Lobster and he gets out he goes ok ok ok mom ok ok see you later he leaves and for the next three hours I just worked out at them at the gym just trying to you know schlaf off the other thing people offered ritalin yeah yeah I mean

37:31 it was like it was at that moment I made a decision I'm never gonna do that again and when I got back in the car later on I said Bart I'm sorry that I yelled I was yelling at myself and I also want you to know you can count on me to follow through next time absolutely a hundred percent and I did after that but it took years years for me to do that but what a great lesson you know and for

37:57 those assertive is just saying what you mean and meaning what you say and and and once you can do that then others can trust and once they can trust that what you say they also can trust this these three magic words which I'd like to say to you right now Ginny I love you so you can trust those words and so we're gonna wind this up so if you've got three steps for tomorrow three things for parents what would be your

38:26 number one thing you'd say to all parents listening I would say number one that connection is the key is to be present with your children when they're in your presence it doesn't have to be all the time but when they're sharing their life in an emotional state of happiness or upset that you are present with them because in that presence you're connected that's all they want is to be seen they want you to share their life with them at an emotional level and

38:57 it is also the key to willingness you will not get any willingness without connection so that's with regard to power struggles is really really important it's real relationship you have secondly is to quit taking it personally so much of what they do and why they do what they do and how they do what they do has to do with development it has nothing to do with you it has to do with their perception of the world their perception

39:22 of their experience in that moment so quit taking it personally it's an opportunity for growth and then I would say also you are not the happy police is not your job to happy up your children this their it's their job to get through their life they have their agenda for what their journey is here and you happying them up prevents them from building any kind of resiliency or sense of self-regulation to be able to manage

39:53 their life and allow you to believe in them more than they believe in themselves beautiful and one more would be Gro okay I'm ready for it be the calm in their storm the hardest thing to do is to calm yourself before you speak just take some deep breaths and calm yourself so you can be present with them because the words will come it's not your job to fix it it's your job to be present with them and connect

40:22 with them in your calm state so that's what I would say beautiful beautiful and I would say that your journey with Bart is certainly eternal and has brought a lot of parents to an understanding including you and also it brought the bigger grander world to something greater than we can all imagine which is called forgiveness and your ability to understand Jody who killed your son

40:52 mm-hmm and wish for him that he would have had the skills he needed to do life differently teaches us all that love is forgiveness and there's nothing greater than that and for that there's a piece of art that's in my soul and in everybody's soul and we appreciate you so much sharing him with us oh thank you thank you and for those listening until

41:24 next time I wish you well for more episodes of real talk with real teachers by dr. Becky Bailey visit consciousdiscipline.com forward slash podcasts you can also subscribe to this podcast on itunes stitcher or your favorite podcast app in this episode you heard Ginny mention her son Bart who was murdered after coming back from Afghanistan she has a Bart blue star dot-org

41:57 foundation and she uses the money donated to Bart's Blue Star to help people get scholarships to come to conscious discipline I encourage you to go to Bart's Blue Star dot org and contribute if your heart is called to do so