#75 Reem Raouda | Parenting Peacefully: Reducing Shouting & Encouraging Cooperation

AUTOGENERATED TRANSCRIPT

00:00 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
So today we are together with Reem Rauder. First of all, thank you for taking the time to hanging out with us today.

00:07 - Reem Raouda (Guest)
Thank you so much for having me. I'm really honored to be with you both.

00:10 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Thank you. So I reached out to you because you also, like we, are I invested in what is parenting and how can you improve yourself as a parent. What is your story? Why did you end up having this interest?

00:26 - Reem Raouda (Guest)
Well, it started around the time my son was two he's six now and we were struggling with what I thought at the time was his sleep issues and it was, you know, very stressful every night. And and then COVID hit and I had a bit of a breakdown. I was, you know, in debilitating fear and stress and anxiety, like a lot of us, and at the same time I had a tragic moment in my family where I lost a first cousin my age to cancer. And then also we found we had the BRCA gene in my family and I had a 50-50 CHED. So all these three things combined I lost 20 pounds of stress. I had a breakdown, but it was the best thing that ever happened to me because it was my awakening and my transformation and my enlightenment. So that's when it hit me that my son didn't have sleep issues at all.

01:28
He had me issues because I was not showing up the way he needed to be. He was just feeding off of my anxious, stressful, anguished, panicked energy and that's why he wasn't sleeping. And it was. It hit me like a ton of bricks. You know when it, because you know, when you have that breakdown, your ego shatters really and you're vulnerable and you're open and you see things that you, you know, you were unconscious to and I was unconscious to so much. But then it hit me so hard I literally collapsed in my bed. I'll never forget the night and I was like it's me, I'm the problem and I'm yelling at my son to sleep. Of course he's not gonna sleep, you know, and I remember. This is you know, and I remember, this is you know.

02:32
I spoke. I reached out to my husband's doctor because I needed some help, you know, with my anxiety, and he said either you go on anti-anxiety medication or you start meditating. And I was too scared to go to the pharmacy to pick it up because I was afraid of catching COVID. That I'm like. I guess I'll start meditating. Pick it up because I was afraid of catching COVID. That I'm like. I guess I'll start meditating, even though I had dabbled into it before.

02:50
But I started meditating, which led me to Eckhart Tolle, which led me to Dr Shefali, which led me to Gordon Neufeld and Dr Gabor Mate, and then it all seemed so perfectly timed because I was ready for that. Had I read, you know, the power of now earlier, it wouldn't have made any sense to me, right? But then it all made sense so quick and harsh and potently that I saw not only how, after I shifted, how it affected my relationship with my son and me, and how I was healing, and how I was full of these conditioned beliefs, and how I was almost living a lie, that, especially in my parenting, though that I that's why I became, you know, a certified coach to help other parents like me, you know, kind of wake up yeah wake up.

03:49 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
I have. I need to tell an Icatolli story because, as you say, it is very important when in your life you meet the, the message you need. And actually our first podcast guest he said sometimes, when you say some wise words or share you whatever with people, you might be number 17 in a row, but they might need 31 to say it. And ekatollah um I, when I was young, um, I was at a live talk with him and I just found him so annoying back then. But I was also stoned out of my mind while I was there and I was like man, he's just sitting and watching us, looking at us and being like I pulled into now and I was just I wanted to go to a party or something. I'm like you're boring, come on today. If I met his teaching today, I would probably take it in another way.

04:48 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
Yes, absolutely, I really like. I think the power of now a little bit annoying. Still, though, can I say that there's something about the book. That's a little bit annoying, but the one about silence is very interesting and he has done a lot of points are good.

05:07 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
It's just the just the discourse about noise um, in on one of your web pages, you write where people are. I think they're signing up for your newsletter. Uh, maybe it's like yes, I'm ready to not shout at my children, even though I have been down thinking about parenting, living together with a wonderful psychology sometimes psychology no, then sometimes it's uh, I still can lose it so so how are you?

05:51 - Reem Raouda (Guest)
working with that in your life and with your clients yes, well, I am a recovering yeller. That's why I, you know, I'm I'm passionate about it, because I've been able to really really go from a yeller to a non-yeller, with my episodes here and there, because we're all human. But I decided to make my niche, you know, discipline, quote unquote and how to stop yelling, just because you know the marketing is one thing, but then the work I do with parents is another. But we all need to. You know, we all want to make it easier with our children and discipline. I chose discipline because this is where most of the damage is done, with our children. This is where we need the most help, this is where we struggle the most and this is where we project the most. And there's a misalignment and I actually think you know it's not our fault, but we have it almost completely backwards the way we discipline our children should I a quick one, so you don't mean that because I said so is a valid argument absolutely, absolutely not.

07:03 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
Please go ahead. I have a point on that one though. No, I'm just curious Because I think there's a cultural element going on here, where do you live?

07:18 - Reem Raouda (Guest)
I'm from Canada, but I live in New Jersey now. Okay.

07:22 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
And what do you mean when you say discipline? You said, when we discipline our children. What does that mean?

07:30 - Reem Raouda (Guest)
Well, to, I think, most of us, discipline means punishment. To me it means teaching. And that's what it really means is to teach. And yes, kids need discipline. But what it actually means, but we all think, you know that kid needs discipline, that kid needs discipline, he's not disciplined enough. They mean punishment, but that's not what discipline really is. It's to guide, it's to teach. You are a disciple, so that's, you know. That's where we have it. Wrong is that we believe our children need to be punished and to suffer in some way to learn and to do the right thing where that's. That couldn't be further from the truth and that actually stunts their learning. We're putting them in a defensive mode instead of a learning mode and it's putting a strain in the relationship. And the whole reason a child wants to cooperate is because the relationship is on good terms and they feel close and securely attached to us. And we keep ruining that relationship with the traditional discipline techniques, ruining that relationship with the traditional discipline techniques.

08:46 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
That's a big word to take on to try to get people to re-understand the meaning of it.

08:52 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
But I kind of think you know you probably couldn't get very far in our culture with that word. I don't think parents believe that they discipline. Well, you can't translate it to our language. No, it's not translated. I think very, very few parents would even think they do that, that they discipline, that they regulate with punishment. Do you think they think they do that?

09:21 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Go to your room. You're not allowed to play computer. I sometimes can fall down your room. You're not allowed to play computer. I do.

09:26 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
I sometimes can fall down that road, you fall down the stairs of consequences sometimes. Yeah, I've always.

09:33 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Some people would see that as the old way of disciplining.

09:39 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
You make me think here because I think, because so we personally are radical. I came from more radical than you on the beginning of our common journey, but that doesn't mean maybe that doesn't matter. But I can lose my temper and shout if my buttons get pushed too much, but I would never, ever. I've been a mother for 25 years and I'm the oldest sister of a lot of siblings that I took a lot of care of, so I've been mothering my entire life. I would never argue it's a good thing when I shout. I would never have said that ever in my life.

10:23
To, to, to come up with the idea that this structure, when I lose my temper and that happens, I'm never proud of it. I would never defend it. I would just be like you pushed my buttons too much and I gave you the warning. I told you to stop. And now my kids are older so I can tell them if you keep pushing these buttons, at some point I will explode because you're pissing me off and you keep pissing me off, at least leave me alone, you know. Just don't keep poking me here, because, yeah, I'm just human. So I'm just curious when you say, when we discipline our children, I'm like I don't think I do that, but you don't I don't think I ever believed in doing that.

11:06
And you're one in a million.

11:08 - Reem Raouda (Guest)
And here in America, but maybe not where I come from. Yes, yes, I think there is a cultural issue here, because I grew up in Canada. Now I'm in the States and I'm Lebanese, I'm Middle Eastern and punishment is normal and we were raised based on our behavior. It was all about our behavior, good or bad, that defined us. So for sure, here it's different.

11:33 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
And in the States it's still legal to physically punish your children when in Denmark it has been illegal for. Violence is illegal also against children, doesn't matter who you do the violence to. I'm still baffled there's a movement going on, but whatever.

11:57 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
I think I gotta clarify for me and maybe other European listeners, just so that. I think I mean discipline is a big word in France, so it's not like, but here I might be wrong but I would like to continue down the road of discipline no, it's not discipline, as in you also master discipline if you have a, if you are an artist, for example.

12:24 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
That's what you mean about we reworking the word maybe um, yes, it's just.

12:32 - Reem Raouda (Guest)
When it comes to parenting, there's a misunderstanding only because the way most of us here have been parented, where we were all punished, most of us here have been parented where we were all punished. I don't know a parent you're, you're what? Literally one in a million, and your kids are so lucky they have you, Because we are all behavior based, as I said, and timeouts sent to your room taking things away. The consequences is a daily occurrence, you know, maybe 10 times a day for some kids. It's normal here and we believe that that's our power as a parent. That's what we're supposed to do. The stricter, the better. The you know, the worst behavior the child, the more punishment they need.

13:19
And things are just chaotic for so many families because of this, you know thinking, and it's really the opposite that they need. And it's I. You know I say strategies and hacks and techniques, but it's not about that at all, it's just about, you know, it's almost common sense. But you know, even Gabor Mate joked. He said if, if we parents had common sense, we'd all be out of business, because we're not really using common sense, like how it doesn't make sense to try and get cooperation by using threats and anger and and disconnection right it's a really weird way of trying to get someone to do what you want them to, by starting to shout at them yeah, yeah and yeah I remember one thing cecilia said to me early in our marriage and was that would you ever talk to me like that?

14:20 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
and that changed a lot of my behavior towards our children. Yeah, because I, I would never talk to my wife like that, I know and and and that's.

14:32 - Reem Raouda (Guest)
That's, you know, as a lot of us parents, when we become parents, we, we take on a role. We're the parent now we're the one in charge. We're because, just because we gave birth or because we're biologically the parent, this is my right to dictate and be the authoritarian and and my child should cooperate only on that basis. But that's not what children relate to. They don't relate to the role. They relate and they adhere to the relationship, not just because we're the parents, because I said so.

15:15
If you want someone to help you with something, help you move, are you going to, you know, move, be rude or disrespectful? Are you, you know, maybe going to bring them food and be like, thank you so much, you know, and not saying that we have to manipulate our kids to cooperate, but we should always be remembering the rules of engagement and connection and positivity with our children. And you know, I know there's a cultural difference because here and I see it all the time is, there's not a lot of positivity between parents and child I see it in denmark as well yeah, I might be blind yeah, yeah I didn't grow up like that either.

16:09 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
I actually didn't I did I'm trying to remember, but I didn't, it was. I mean it wasn't perfect at all, but it was pretty laid back. I can't remember, so I do know my parents say that there was no point in telling me what to do because I wouldn't do it anyway so that could be part of.

16:36 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Maybe they just had given up from the start.

16:38 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
I know I have Sessions about things, that they would recommend things, that they would talk to me about situations that they would tell you know.

16:51 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Whatever it's not about me, no, but we have also, cecilia, been living in a bubble of homeschoolers and unschoolers for more than plus 12 years. I'm really trying to think, oh, I can show you examples yesterday Because yeah, okay, maybe it's here.

17:09 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
I think the strategizing parent we have that and the role-taking parent, the parent that believes that now I have this role and I'm doing this management of the family and it's my responsibility that they wear clean clothes and they say thank you after dinner and they do their chores and homework and they perform well in life and I have to micromanage all these things to make sure all these standards are met. So the parents life become this manager's life and you don't have a like a real life where you just spontaneously do things. Because it's all of this and I think basically control is is a very easy response to fear. So if you feel you control the situation, then you, you, you don't have to be so afraid. What could happen if you let go? It's kind of scary to have children absolutely I would.

18:07 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
I would like to go back to a phrase you used, which is I I love the way you put it a recovering yeller, which, of course, reference the wording from recovering alcoholic to say to people hey, this is something you really need to work with. So what are your suggestions? If people out there can, listening to this, it's like okay, I know I'm a yeller, or an occasional yeller, yeah, so what should they do?

18:42 - Reem Raouda (Guest)
yeah, well, I think most of us know we're not supposed to yell, or we shouldn't yell, but in the heat of the moment we don't have that. You know, pause, take a breath before you yell, do this. But we don't have that response flexibility. We just we are reactive, highly quickly reactive. So telling someone not to yell isn't going to work. That didn't do it for me, of course. I never felt good yelling either. We never do and we feel guilty.

19:14 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
And you know we're apologizing to our children in the middle of the night when we're when they're sleeping, saying sorry and I say something quick about that sometimes, when I have yelled I start with an apology, apology, and then I blame them that I got it. I have heard myself saying that I'm sorry I yelled, but I did it because you annoyed the hell out of me and it's was like was that actually an apology? Yeah?

19:39 - Reem Raouda (Guest)
And that's one thing we never want to make them responsible for our you know, basically our explosions, because you know sorry, I referenced Gabor Mate a lot, but he says that you know our children will do something that they're, you know, developmentally going to do because they're children. But we hold the ammunition, we hold the explosives. It's up to us if we're going to explode or not. Right, they trigger, you know they light the match and flick it, but it's up to us how we react and that's the power and flick it. But it's up to us how we react and that's the power, that's the place we want to get to of liberation is when we do feel like we have the choice in the moment. So for me that happened by and I know it's not a quick, easy fix that parents want but it was through really looking into my childhood and connecting the dots and making sense of what happened to me, the parenting I received and how it's showing up in my parenting today. You know I had there was some physical abuse in my childhood. There was a lot of yelling, there was a lot of fear. I was very afraid all the time. So where did that fear go? It didn't just disappear. It's inside of me and most of the time when our children trigger us, they ignite something that takes us right back to our childhood, that activates us, that provokes us, and we're not able to have any control or be our adult self. In that situation we actually turn three or four and have the same tantrum. They are in our way. So I had to say, okay, it's because my mom did this or my, not to blame our parents, but if we don't make sense of what happened, we can't, we'll just continue the cycle. So it's not a blame game, but it's a let's. Let's open our eyes and actually see what happened to us and how it affected us. That's taking responsibility, which we all have to do. We can't or unless we just project and project and continue the dysfunction that you know probably you didn't receive, but most of us had, you know carry some trauma. All of us are traumatized to a degree, right, and unless it's processed and looked at, we are so triggerable. We have all these open, gaping wounds inside of us that our children are just ready. Actually, some people say it's their job to push our buttons so that we can learn the parts of us that need to grow and need to heal.

22:22
So for me it was a pure sheer healing process that came only through pain and my breakdown. So I started healing, so I started healing. I started, you know, coaching with coaches and but really deconstructing and becoming the biggest witnesser and observer of myself and my inner landscape and my reactions and my conditioned belief system and and the ego that I built, my defense, my personality, which is really my defense, coping mechanism. You know, I became an uber obedient child at very young age to get that love and attachment, I, I, and that acceptance and that carried you, carry that through life. So my whole life I thought I was a people pleaser, I thought that was my personality, but it wasn't.

23:18 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
I have a quick question, then, because that's something I think about, about being vocal about our life and learnings. I'm still, you know, not going down too much talking about my childhood. I in many ways have a good childhood, but of course there's areas and I'm like, oh man. But then there's talks I haven't had with my parents, and so where are you being public about going through this and your parents, how, how have they taken it? Did you need to? Who do some healing work with them or giving free the?

24:04
what I'm also saying is part of maybe healing or growing as a person is also letting go of the anger towards whatever they did, because they did their best, and maybe their best not wasn't very good, but A how did your parents take it and have you forgiven them?

24:17 - Reem Raouda (Guest)
very good. But how did your parents take it and have you forgiven them A? They're not really aware, they just feel. They just kind of feel a separation has happened, a little bit of you know, because when you do heal and you get your sense of self worth back heal and you get your sense of self-worth back you, that comes with a new set of boundaries. So they definitely felt that shift in me and really they didn't like it. No one likes it when the new you emerges if they like the old you that you know was more docile and compliant.

24:54
So, you know, when I grew up, I grew up and I stepped away from the things that I didn't feel authentic with and that you know were healthy for me mentally. But at the same time, you know, with myself I'm not in blame mode because when you realize that you have an inner child that was suppressed when you were small because you didn't get that full acceptance and from your parents, which is your basic core need, and you build up a persona and ego, you also start seeing it and everybody else around you that's what happens. So you see people like as their inner child and there you see their ego, you see their inner child and you have compassion for them. So I have compassion for my parents because their parents, you know, made them feel a certain way or not feel a certain way, and it's just. And then their parents, and it just, it happens, and it's no one's fault. But. But where the work comes in, and what I think is critical we do is, yes, look at it, you know the, the happy childhood challenge.

26:18
I used to think I had a perfect childhood, you know we all do. We pedestalize our parents and we don't want to think anything negative. We don't want to. You know, we don't see it as abuse. We don't want to love them less. We don't want a reason to believe any of that. We are masters Children are masters of bottling in, bottling in, bottling in. But it's important to unleash it all, to see it for what it is, to make sense of it and then heal from it and then move forward in a way that you are just so self-aware now You're so making sense of it makes you self-aware, that curiosity translates into your self-awareness, so you are less likely to project it onto your child now. So you're breaking the cycle. But the only way to break it is to see it for what it is and to really you know, look at what happened to you and make sense of it yeah but that could basically be many things.

27:33 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
I mean, some people have childhood trauma because of a lot of because of a parental strategy yeah, like you explained, that you have to obey and you'll be punished, and you know all these things but other people have childhood trauma because the horrible things that happen that was out of the control of the parents, or I can't help but think about myself because I'm I'm sure I feel like I presented myself in this podcast as if I had a strawberry field childhood and I definitely.

28:19 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
I did not. I did not at all.

28:21 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
I have a lot of trauma yeah and there was a lot of chaos and and I was hurt badly, but it just wasn't from strategizing parenting, I mean that didn't yeah, yeah and yeah, so, so it could be other things. This is what I'm saying yes and yes, and those other things can also make you shout or make you a bad parent in other ways of course, but I do think, though, the still the number one most important aspect and factor is the parent-child dynamic.

28:54 - Reem Raouda (Guest)
It is the relationship they have with us. That's it. There's nothing trumps that, and that is the foundation of their psyche, their nervous system, their formation, their programming. It is. You know, it's such a huge responsibility when we understand how important it is and how needy our children are emotionally. No one tells us that we're focused on the heated baby wipes and the special things on the strollers, everything to keep them okay physically, but not understanding. The first three years are the most important. Three years are the most important. Are you emotionally available to the cries, to the cues, to the? You know, to the, the neediness that is so strong and we we're not, we're not, we're not told, we're not, you know, taught how this is, this is, this is everything. We are all kind of suffering from a lack of emotional attunement in our childhood. I think that's the number one reason for most of our dysfunction in the world, in life.

30:10 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
And in many ways I start more and more to blame it on the nuclear family and the family structure of very small families where the whole learning from peers, parents, friends, your cousin, the old local community you had, they had been parents before you and they shared. But now we live alone in apartments or houses, two parents who have never tried it before getting a baby and getting shit advice from our generation, that before us that also lived in these small, confined spaces and and what I? One of the goals with the podcast, for example, is I know that I will not go out and change the world and make everybody live in small communities. It is not going in that direction. I even had a job as a marketing director for a place where they make educations for ecovillages called Gaia Education Fantastic project, but it was like, oh, we educate 300 people, people a year. How many people are there in the world? Maybe we should try something else. So part of our goal with the podcast is trying to get some of these parenting advices out there in different formats because it is so needed.

31:38
I I learned most of what I know about parenting. I I learned from my wife and later on in my life, um, I started learning from books, but that and and and and people like gordon newfield and gaba mate, others. But that is much later in my life because I was the parent working and Cecilia was at home. So I was like, ah, she takes care of it. I will listen and sometimes I will argue if I don't think she's right. But if I ever I'm going to write a book, I know what the first page is. It is like listen to your wife, she's most likely right yes, and just about.

32:21 - Reem Raouda (Guest)
You know the nuclear families, it's okay. Um, here, especially the, the separation of parent and child, even if it's one or two parents, has happened so soon and so early, sometimes within weeks of, and it's just, this push to. It's just, we don't, we don't have the tools to even understand how that separation, and you know putting our children with other, you know immature children and that's where they're learning from and that's where they're attaching to, and it's just, it's just messy and it's a recipe for you know a lot of issues and you know, and then the child starts acting out from a lack of attachment and then we punish that need and then we give them a disorder and then we medicate them.

33:35 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
It's might be easier to parent if there wasn't this push from the outside, from the ideas of our culture the idea that we all need a nine-to-five job, the idea that we all need a higher education, the idea of the nuclear family and I'm not so much against the idea of the nuclear family, but I would like that nuclear family to be closer to the extended family than we usually see.

34:07
It's also the idea of you know, sleeping in your own bed, children have their own rooms, the chores, the whole system of cooperating with the institutions, with the schools, and you become this servant, actually as a parent, of the system. You have to get your child ready for school, so there are certain standards they have to meet so that they can participate in the school, and that's your problem, to make sure that they're ready for it at the right time. All these things. It actually makes it really hard to follow your heart, yeah, to just do what feels right, because I think many parents would sort of know. But we are, we're also in this like high speed lane on the highway of our culture, where it's all performance and accomplishment, and performance and accomplishment and possessions.

35:09
So when we get children, they sort of just line up in this whole queue of things we need to do and it's it's all about doing and not so much about being. Yes, I feel like. So you said the first three years, and it's not that I disagree, but my, my youngest child is now 12. And I will say that it's still very important to be emotionally available always, and we can even take out the word emotionally if that sounds too psychologist-y and just say it's very important to be available. So it might look like I'm drinking coffee all day, just knitting, hanging out, but I'm actually doing my job as a mom. I have the time. I see I sit here in this, inside this conversation I'm thinking about.

36:03
I have this cringe feeling in my toes because I know one of my children. We were just out picking strawberries just before and the kids wanted to say something to me and I got distracted because some American friends we have just arrived yesterday and one of them said something to me at the same time and I feel like I'm a host and I want to make sure they're happy and you know. So I skipped listening. I couldn't listen. I was trying, I couldn't listen to my own child because I felt, well, it doesn't matter why I didn't listen. And now I feel like I didn't hear what he said. I just didn't. I can't rewind why I didn't listen and now I feel like I didn't hear what he said. I just didn't. I can't rewind, I didn't pay attention. In the moment, right now, I can't rewind it and it makes me feel horrible.

36:47 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
I'm good at ignoring stuff.

36:48 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
I can't ignore stuff like that.

36:51 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
That's a bad thing to know.

36:54 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
Lots and lots of hours of pure being goes into being a parent.

36:57
Lots and lots of hours of pure being goes into being a parent lots and lots of hours and I could get up in the morning with this to-do list of blog posts I need to write and things I need to do and and I could maybe make little boxes in a notebook. But the reality is that then it becomes the reality of being one of the kids come and sit down and just want to chat and not about anything in particular, but I know that that's the most important moment. I just need to be available for 25 minutes for this morning conversation about nothing or everything, and when you have four children, that's two hours of your morning gone right a lot of coffee yes I would love to, uh, go back to when people are.

37:51 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
if they listen to this episode and it's like, oh, maybe I sometimes, maybe I sometimes am too much in the controlling mode of being parent. I try to dictate what needs to go on, I try to get my kids to behave in a certain way. I might even discipline in some sort of punishment. Can it be go to your room? You're not allowed to do that. Or whatever people choose, where should they start? What, what, what? Um, of course you said it is an internal journey, but I mean, oh, I have so much mess inside of me that where should I start?

38:30 - Reem Raouda (Guest)
well, I think, uh, one good place to start is just a radical awareness of your expectations for your children, because when we look at it from you know a different lens and we're parenting from that place, from our expectations, instead of parenting for their needs, and it's very misaligned. And usually our expectations are nowhere near where they are developmentally and actually make. They're not realistic and the child is acting out from an inability to meet our unrealistic expectations, some shaking up of the parent, but to be like, what are you expecting out of your two-year-old child or your four-year-old child to share, or to not be happy that you have a newborn child that now they have to share your love with? What are we really demanding of these kids that are not even close to being able to regulate their emotions or or manage their emotions or not scream or not yell or not hit or not all these things? We can't even regulate ours, but we expect them to be, you know, whatever, and that's, it's our expectations that are usually in in the way in causing conflict. And then a lot of it, too, is that we parent from our heads instead of our hearts and we are fear-based. We are afraid, we are worried, we are but what she's gonna get behind, or she's never gonna learn, or we're pushing them to be independent when we're actually pushing them away from us Instead of. You know, we're parenting from here and from this anxiety-ridden place and with an agenda of how we want them to turn out, and we're not even able to sit with our children and be present and connect with them and hear them and allow them to hear themselves, because we're talking and micromanaging every second, you know. So it's that's where the meditation is, I feel, you know, so important, or whatever you need to do to become present, because that's, you know, the time zone. Our children live in the present moment and and we're here thinking ahead, ahead, ahead or dwelling in the past, and we're not able to. We have, we don't have the capacity to just be and to stop doing.

41:08
You know, here for me, in the States, I'm I live a very simple life. My son is home, he doesn't go to school. We don't really do anything. We play outside on his home. He doesn't go to school, we don't really do anything. We play outside, we read. I'm not teaching, I'm, you know, and I'm the crazy one, of course, but it's, it's the over scheduling.

41:28
I hear about the kids eating in the car in between ballet and soccer, because they have to shove the food and then they wonder why their kids up and down the walls that night. You know, and it's because we, we don't slow down here at least. It's the opposite. It's go, go, go, do, do, do. Tutors, if you know you have a c, you got to get back on track. You know, instead of playing outside with all the kids after school, your tutors at home get inside. It's just, it's backwards again.

42:00
And because parents and I feel for parents they feel pressured, they feel in competition, you know, and the schools, the institutions, make it worse and they put on this pressure and all these kids have to be ahead of the curve, above, you know, to honors, list all this. And I don't think that parents can release that and detach from that unless they kind of have a breakdown and an awakening and a transformation and become these bold, maverick parents that no longer believe all that crap. You know's like that's. That's not true, that is not success, that is I don't. You know, this is hurting my child. I'm not able to even be present for five minutes. I don't remember the last time I played with I. I can't tell you that.

42:56
Most parents, I see and not because they don't want no one's playing together, even they watch their kid play but you know how much benefit the child would if they just play with them. You know that's connection and that's all they need, that's all they're looking for. They don't care about the grades, they don't care're looking for. They don't care about the grades, they don't care about the toys, they don't care about the trips. Can you sit and be with your child? It's who you are to the child that matters, not what you do for the child, that matters.

43:30
And but most of us are in the matrix and on that train, that fast train to nowhere and dragging them along, and it's really sad, you know. And then the mental health issues and the depression and the anxiety and the feeling of worthlessness, and I mean it's, it's goes on and on. But it's my, my goal and whole purpose is to to wake parents up to this. You know that's not important. It's, you know, your child's worthiness, that how they feel about themselves, how grounded they feel, can they be themselves. You know, dr Gabor Mate says they have two needs. You know Dr Gabor Mate says they have two needs attachment and authenticity, that secure attachment and the ability to feel like they can be themselves and this this rarely a child feels the ability that they can rest in being who they are. We're always trying to mold them, fix them, change them, shift them.

44:46 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
And then they spend the rest of their lives trying to figure out who they are. I have, hopefully, still work to do in my parenting. One of the leftovers sometimes it pops up and I just came to think about it with what you mentioned is the in English I think they call it what would the neighbors say this fear of being judged on how your children act or behave, and it comes up very seldom, but from time to time it's like if I have an argument, maybe with someone, one of them, and it's public. I get so insecure about what people think and stuff. And oh man, that one I still look forward to to to work with, and the fun thing about it is everybody else is also worried. What other people are thinking about them. Most of us around thinking what would the neighbor think about me? And and then when I, if I, ask people about our children, they are like you have wonderful children.

46:01 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
It's like no yeah okay, um, yeah, so they're still even after I think one problem really is do you mind that I take? No, no, no, no please I think one problem really is that these things are invisible we've talked about this many times.

46:21
So when you were working, when we lived a more traditional life and and yes, but was working, we had a house and I was home with the kids then when he came home he could like show off that he'd solved these problems and he came back with this load of money and you know, I've done things, and then, and then he could sit down and and you couldn't see any change in the home. I had maybe cooked five meals and cleaned up after them and I had washed the clothes and put it back and cleaned the house and played with the toys and put it back and went for a walk and came back and dried the shoes and you know, and but all the things that I did, that I just listed all the housewife things. You can't see it when it's done and at the same, in the same way as an unschooling mom, all the things I do, you can't see it. You can't take out the math book and say, oh, we did page 96 today, or I taught them about, I don't know the Russian czars. Now they know all that, because that's just not how it works.

47:30
So all the work that I have put into our family is invisible. All the conversations, all the I've not been perfect at all, by no means or any standards. I haven't not trying to say that but the things you do, when you do these things that are about being in the present moment, being emotionally available, being authentic, that's a word, that's like a mantra word I've said that so many times when we have talked about parenting that I can't strategize because I have to be authentic, I have to be me. If I'm not me, they can't trust me, because who do they trust? And if I don't have their trust, we have no relation, and then I can't.

48:16
I'm not a mother anymore, so I can't I have their trust, we have no relation, and then I can't. I'm not a mother anymore, so I can't. I have to be me, I have to be authentic. All of this is invisible, you can't see it, whereas, had I been more of a tiger mom and I taught them all the math and the history of the world and they spoke five languages and they all excelled at some sport or art or both, won medals that we could hang on the wall and and, and you know, they're adults now, some of them, so they could have like nice jobs with suits and stuff. I could be like look, I did that and that would look very fancy. So the shift that you work for and that I also work for in my line of work, it's hard to take it on as a parent, because you actually do a lot of things in your work or your life job as a parent when you do these things, but the results I can't even it's not the right word it is what is not broken exactly, but you can't see, it's just like the laundry yes, it's just like a laundry

49:26 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
it's a miracle you know none of our children are diagnosed, none of them are stressed out, none of them it's things that are not there.

49:35 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
Yeah.

49:36 - Reem Raouda (Guest)
Yes and yes. You brought two points. I want to just mention the way you see it, I the way I see it. Like your, I don't want to use the word success, but your, your parenting, how it shows up, is in your children's desire to want to belong to you, to want to belong to you. That's how that's, that's everything. If your child wants to belong to you, and how much so? Not how well they do in this and this and the languages, none of that is that attachment, that's everything. Right? You know, some people say do they want to come visit you for Christmas when they're 25? If they really do, that means you know, you did a great job. And then you also said me, you want to be you, you want to be authentically you. But yes, but most of us are not authentic Because we're parenting from a place of fear and from our minds and thinking and our fears and our anxiety, and so we are very inauthentic.

50:43
And so what our children need is the real. You is the healed, you is the unwounded, you is the adult version of you, is you without these layers of oh but this? Oh but this, my neighbor, oh, but the school, and oh, what will they think and oh, but he's behind. That's not you, and most parents are parenting from that place and and and less they. They start like an onion, layering off their inauthentic parts of themselves and get to the core, where they're parenting from instinct and their hearts and no longer here.

51:25
That's, that's the gift. That's what our children need, is the real you, not you to turning someone else, no, just the you that's deep inside of you, that's just covered up in you know so, but that's the hard place to to that. That takes work. That's the inner healing and the child, inner child healing and the really looking and looking within and cleaning up what needs to be cleaned up, so that you so, so that our children can get that, that emotionally mature version of us, because it's it's, it's we don't we, we burden them If we're not, if we're not working at least towards our healing. I mean, I'm not healed, I work on it every day, but we should, all you know, go in that direction for our sake and theirs. They deserve the healed version of us, not the, you know, up and down.

52:34 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
I'm not saying to be these emotionless robots, but you know, I'm not saying to be these emotionless robots, but, you know, can we, can our adult self, you know, be in the room, you know, instead of this, you know, stressed out, frustrated, rushed version of ourselves, or easily frustrated or easily annoyed version of ourselves.

53:02
Yes, I will use this as a bridge because it is around time and the bridge I will make is it is not an easy task to take alone and to start working with all these. Maybe you're lucky you have it in your marriage, someone who can help and support you. Maybe you're lucky you have it in your community of other parents. Someone needs someone to take them and invite them by the hand and guide them, and I know you do some coaching. So here it is park away. How can people, what service do you offer for people and how do they find you if they want to listen more to your views of the world and yeah, so, yes, yes, so I do work one-on-one with parents to help them through this journey of you know, of of being the parent our children really need.

53:56 - Reem Raouda (Guest)
And I know they're all looking for cooperation for their children, to listen to them and do what they say. And we all want the data run smoother, but we just we've been, we've been kind of taken down the wrong path of the way to get there, and when we focus on the relationship, magic happens. It happened to me. I had my child's behavior completely shifted. His anxiety went down, he calmed down because of me. I didn't do anything to him, I just shifted so much that the whole home shifted.

54:37
And it's so, it's in our hands, it's, it's an isn't. It's good news, because we can't, you know, hope or fix our children. No, but if we work here, it's, it's truly transformational. It happened to me and this is what I do for my clients and help them, guide them through it. Yes, I hold your hand through it and get you to you know, to find the way to really showing up the way your children need you to show up, and then the stress goes away, everything kind of melts and that anxiety that they are burdened with also goes away and it shows in their behavior. So, yeah, you can email me at reem at highloveparentingcom. I'm on Instagram highloveparenting and yeah, I would love to you know, help anybody that's on this path.

55:32 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
It was a really good talk. I liked it. Thanks a lot for you giving your time to us today.

55:37 - Reem Raouda (Guest)
Thank you so much. I really appreciate you both. Thank you. Take good care, bye.

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