Click below to listen to this episode on:
0:02
Hi, you are listening to Call to Home School episode #287 why focusing on relations first matter?
Hey friends, welcome back.
It's me, your host Meg, what a week it has been at my house.
0:19
If you listen to the episode last week, I talked about how my son was leaving that day and man, that was a very emotional day.
That was intense.
After we dropped him off.
I may have and by may have I did.
I totally got into his bed and just cried.
0:36
Man, that was rough having an empty room.
This is our first time having an empty room in over 20 something years.
So super duper big changes for our family.
Each day we are all doing better and better and I haven't cried since Thursday.
So it's it's going well.
0:53
We're adapting and we're adjusting.
It was so interesting how hard the idea of him going was.
And leading up to him leaving, I would just randomly cry about him going.
And now that he's gone, I've actually been feeling OK.
1:09
And so I have found that so fascinating that my mind was making it such a big deal and so emotional that it felt so much harder.
And now that he's gone, I've been doing better and better each day.
Obviously, I miss him like crazy, but it hasn't quite shut me down.
1:26
If I've talked about an episode, like feel like I'm having a midlife crisis or midlife transition and I was really struggling and now I'm feeling like myself again.
I don't feel the heaviness as much anymore.
And it has been quite a journey.
So it'll be interesting to see with the holidays coming up, when the motions may come again.
1:44
But good laws.
I am so grateful for all the tools that I have that helped me to ride the wave of big emotions and not get pummeled or drowned by those big waves of emotion.
So I have to share with you the little message my son wrote me the first night he was gone.
2:02
And it says Mom, I love you so much.
I just had a devotional that blew my mind and I felt like I never showed you and dad enough appreciation.
You guys are the reason I am the person I am today, specifically the good parts of me.
You are amazing and I am so proud of the fact that I can call you my mom.
2:20
He sent his dad a super sweet message like that too.
This is my cute son that I had on in the podcast in May where he talked about his homeschool experiences and our relationship and a lot of her ups and downs and a lot of the at times how challenging he was for me as I was figuring out parenting and how to parent a kid that push buttons and push back.
2:43
And so in the episode, I talked about how I would get after him before he's the kid that when I let him quit pianos because I snapped and was like, Oh my goodness, I know, I know, I, I don't remember what I said, but I can't, I remember it wasn't very kind about like, can you just think and practice the piano?
2:59
Why are you so difficult or something like that?
And I can't remember what it was, but I remember that was the day like I thought, I can't live like this.
I can't parent like this.
I've I've been progressing so much, but that that experience really helped me to work with him and work build a relationship with him and to stop trying to use force and coercion and threats and lectures all the things right or or just not even dealing with it right.
3:25
And so I've just been spending years on working on those relationships with my son and good laws.
It has paid off.
Parenting is a long term game and you don't get any special prizes or accolades for just trying your best or doing things.
3:42
If actually the opposite.
Right now the world is telling you parenting is oh geez, what do they say about women who stay at home?
That you are trapped, that you're giving up your life, all of these things because you don't get instant gratification with it.
It is a long term game, but when you focus on those relationships, you get so much more than some prize, some accolades, some little certificate that says good job, right?
4:07
You're getting a relationship for life that is happy, that has joy and love and a friendship with your kids, no matter their age, no matter if they're living in a roof or wherever they live, right.
So it's just so important to be really focusing on those relationships.
4:26
Now.
We are currently in the middle of no, no Yale November, which is just really, really honing in those relationship skills.
And I don't want to just encourage people like don't yell and then not give any parenting help, but not any parenting tips.
And so as the people who've been doing the no yell challenge, they're getting emails every day and, and different parenting tips and what to do instead of yelling and how to really build, building those relationships.
4:53
And I can share experiences for my family, right?
But I think it's so powerful when you hear it from other clients that how they're also doing it for their family.
And I've been getting such amazing emails and messages of all these amazing clients of what transformations they're already seeing in their home by focusing on relations.
5:13
It's interesting when you focus on that relationship instead of like, I, I just need this result for my kid.
I just need my kid to listen.
And when you focus on that relationship, you actually have the very positive side effect and positive consequence of your kid listening, of your kid helping, of your kid doing the things you actually want him to do.
5:32
And so it's funny because we think we just need to force them to work hard and we need to force them to do this.
But when we work with them and we build that relationship, we get much better results and everybody wins.
So I want to share this one e-mail from this client that I just love.
And she had three wins and so I'm going to read this e-mail from her and said I had some good wins today.
5:54
First one of my daughter's broke our high tech fancy laminator.
I saw it and said oh Dang that's a bummer.
Truly just with a feeling of being bummed and hoping I could fix it.
But it triggered her because she was feeling really bad about it so she stormed off and slammed the door.
6:12
I went into a room to talk to her and she started crying.
But I told her I would much rather lose a laminator and have her keep creating and using her gifts to show kindness and love.
She was in the middle of making a present for her sister and have fun then have a laminator.
And I totally meant it.
I was able to feel understanding towards her and tell her that I knew it was an accident and that we figured it out.
6:33
She seemed to relax and feel a lot better after that.
I reminded myself that if we have to buy a new laminator, it's still better than crushing her desire to create.
And later we talked about how to use it correctly.
If I hadn't been in a good place mentally right now, I'm sure that situation could have been a lot different with me visibly being annoyed and upset and asking unhelpful critiquing questions.
6:53
Isn't so interesting that like where you maybe you're listening to this and thinking like, well, she broke something a little stink me.
We should make her pay for it, right?
Like we, we've got to have justice all these things, but how many times have you broke something?
I know the the joke about women hitting curbs, but I totally hit curbs and I've totally hit stuff on the car.
7:11
I've hit the stinking pole coming out of a parking garage.
And I'm not trying to be reckless and I'm not even on my phone.
I just have terrible depth perception.
I cannot see it.
And I cannot even fathom if my husband came to me and yelled at me and got mad at me and told me and I was an idiot and you're not allowed to use the car right?
7:28
Or even saying, well, you're going to have to figure out how to pay for this or, or whatever.
But just like, oh, Meg, bless your heart, woman, right?
And we figured out, and so just allowing kids space to make mistakes, just like we want to be forgiven when we make a mistake, when we break something, when we something doesn't go the way we had planned it.
7:47
So I love that first swim.
Then she says, and I love this because when you have multiple kids, right, it's going to be exciting all day long.
So she says then not even 30 minutes later my other daughter was playing with our nice nativity set and she said yes we already got him out ha ha.
And she dropped Mary on the tile and broke a part of her.
8:06
I heard the crash and knew what had happened.
I was able to breathe and just say uh oh, let's pick up the pieces.
It's OK, how about we play with these on the carpet instead?
I felt a bit sad about it getting broke but I could understand how she didn't mean to and I want her to have memories playing with the nativities.
8:22
I know maybe that sounds so simple and so like, OK, no big deal, she ignored it.
But I see so many people just snap and freak out and then like, you can't ever touch her stuff and get really mad and get really angry.
And then a kid feels very nervous.
But to me, there's so much more depths to this because now next time her daughter breaks something, both of these examples, it was two different kids, but next time they break something, they know mom is safe that I just broke something and and maybe it's not breaking something, but maybe I messed up.
8:52
Maybe I'm in trouble.
And guess who they feel safe to go to now they feel safe to go to their mom because with the little things like a laminator, maybe a laminator was expensive, right?
And maybe this nativity set isn't even made anymore, but it like nobody died and nobody was hurt, right?
9:08
And so these kids are learning that mom is safe and I can go to her, whether it's little things breaking something around the house or it's a big thing and she's the one I'm going to when I don't know what else to do.
And then I love this third one.
I love all three of these, she said.
And because I think a lot of people can relate to this one, I had asked another daughter to help me scrub one dish earlier that day.
9:30
I love that.
Just one dish.
So the daughter, she started complaining and asking why did she have to do it?
And I think you can all probably relate to that.
Like why do I have to do it?
And maybe even I do everything around here.
Nobody even helps.
I do everything right.
So I can just even imagine.
So the mom goes on saying I was busy listening to one of your videos.
9:48
So I told her, never mind because I didn't I I had that emphasis.
So I don't know if she said it's sarcastic, never mind because I didn't have to convince her while I was busy.
So Fast forward to the evening.
So that happened earlier in the day and now Fast forward to the evening.
Mom was like whatever she the mom was doing all the dishes and this daughter walked past me to get something in the kitchen.
10:08
I immediately felt like saying So what was the deal with not even being able to do 1 dish for me?
But I bit my tongue as she was standing there for a minute.
I tried to figure out what I should say, if I should say anything.
I finally decided decided I should look for something positive to tell her.
10:25
But before I could say anything something I noticed that she had walked over to the dishwasher and started unloading the clean dishes for me.
Then while visiting with me, she reloaded it with all the dishes I was rinsing and I was rinsing and sorry and sticking to the side, all without me asking her.
10:45
I ended up giving her a hug and just thanking her for being thoughtful and doing something I hadn't even asked and telling her that she was amazing.
When you focus on relationships you end up getting so much more.
11:01
That's cute Mama.
All she wanted her kid was to wash one dish right?
And she could have yelled at her, she could have threatened her, taken things away, gotten after her, and really got her to get that one dish watch washed right like one plate.
But instead focusing on relationship.
11:19
By doing that focus, her daughter not only unloaded all the cling dishes, she then loaded all The Dirty dishes into the dishwasher.
Her mom got so much more by focusing.
When you start to become an emotionally mature adult who is in charge of your own emotions, you start building relationships instead of destroying them.
11:45
I am so proud of everyone here that listens to this podcast because you are a legion of parents who are out there doing and trying to just be good and you are healing yourself, creating an amazing intentional family.
12:01
And you are out there changing not only your own family and maybe people behind around you, but for generations to come.
So proud of you.
Keep on going my friends.
I know some moments are rough, but if you can remember relationships first, everything else can be figured out.
Comments