#84: Stop Trying So Hard | A Simpler Way to Connect With Your Adult Child

What if helping your young adult move forward didn’t require more rules, more demands or difficult conversations? What if it was actually simpler than that? 

In this episode, I’m joined by Geoff Owen, founder of Biologically Aligned Parenting and author of The Parenting Assumption. Geoff challenges one of the biggest assumptions we make as parents: that it’s our job to manage and control our children’s behaviour.

His perspective is both refreshing and surprisingly simple. He believes that when we stop trying to control our young adults, we create the conditions for connection to emerge naturally.

If parenting has become exhausting in your home, this conversation may completely change the way you think about helping your young adult move forward.

Maybe  the answer isn’t doing more, but doing less. Geoff’s message is simple: parenting doesn’t have to feel like a constant struggle.

Listen in and decide for yourself.

Contact Geoff Owen: https://geoffreyowen.com/

Thank you for listening! 

💻 Have you enrolled in Shari's Parenting course yet?  "The Journey to Independence: A Step-by-Step Roadmap to Guiding and Launching Your Adult Child.” 

For more information and where to sign up, visit: https://parentingfx.com/parentingcourse

Do you want to know if your adult child is struggling with Failure to Launch? Grab the FREE Failure to Launch Checklist here:  

🗣️One-on-One Consultations are available. Click here!

Email me if you have any questions at: Shari@ParentingFX.com

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Shari can be found on Instagram & TikTok Search @sharijonaslifefx

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Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

I'm Sherry Jonas, and this is Launch, the podcast for parents with older kids in their 20s and 30s who are struggling to launch into adulthood. Each week, we offer personal insights, expert advice, and professional guidance from therapists, authors, and industry leaders in the parenting world to give you the knowledge, inspiration, and actionable steps to help your young adult become confident, capable, and independent. If this is your first time here, you are joined by thousands of parents from North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia. You might feel alone, but my friend, you are not. There are mothers and fathers with struggling young adults who are listening in from over 120 different countries. You are part of a worldwide community of parents who want to learn how to help their adult child move forward and thrive. All I ask is that you don't lose hope. You have to believe that things will improve. This is by far the hardest stage of parenting. So keep listening, learning, practicing, and most importantly, believing that growth and change are possible. Today, my wonderful guest is Jeff Owen. He's the founder of Biologically Aligned Parenting and the author of the Parenting Assumption. Jeff challenges one of the biggest assumptions that many of us have about parenting, that our job is to manage, correct, and control our children's behavior. Instead, Jeff believes that behavior isn't the problem at all. It's a response to what's happening in the young adult environment. Jeff's work encourages parents to understand what's really driving their behavior and to create the conditions where connection can develop. Today, we're going to explore some of Jeff's ideas, what inspired his approach, and what you can learn from it, especially when you're struggling with conflict, resistance, or disconnection from your adult. And you know what I think you'll appreciate most about Jeff's work? It's his belief that when you stop focusing on controlling their behavior and start understanding what's beneath it, you can create the conditions for a calmer home and build a stronger, healthier relationship with your adult child. And that's how things are going to change. Jeff, thank you so much for joining me on launch today. It's great to see you and great to be here. I'm really excited to share your work with our listener because of how refreshing your approach is. Well, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

I hope they find it as refreshing. I really do. I hope they get what I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_04 3:14

Me too. But I think they will. Um, because first of all, I think it's so important for uh parents to hear and learn about different perspectives on parenting, because it's really not a one-size-fits-all ideology. You really do have to know your child. You've got to work with what you have. Sure.

unknown 3:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 3:34

Before we explore your ideas, I love to begin with your personal story. I want you to take us back to the time when you first became a father. Tell us what was your inspiration for, I feel like I'm leading the witness. Tell us what your tell us what your inspiration was for raising your daughters the way you did. And then we're going to get into how you put that experience into your practice today.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

Okay, great. So um it all started when I was in my early 20s, when I was training to be an actor. Uh and actually more so when I was actually on stage in a play, and I kind of was in in front of the audience, and um I lost myself. And I was thinking to myself, during the show, I was thinking, what am I doing here? What are they all doing there? You know, I was very confused by it all. And it was a very serious play, and then there was this very, very, very um, how can I say, uh, sort of palpable silence, and I realized it was my cue. And in my kind of nervousness and reaction, I was about to go into my line when someone in the audience um sneezed. And it was a kind of reflex action. I just leant forward and said, bless you, like this, very, very softly, like that. But the whole audience just roared with laughter, and of course, I mean, it was just totally inappropriate, and the actors all thought I was very unprofessional. Anyway, I got into trouble and all that, but it was a real kind of um moment in my life where I thought, actually, I don't know who I am or what I'm doing, you know. And so I went into therapy a little bit, and eventually I got this book. Someone gave me this book, and it was called Um The Continuum Concept by Gene Diedloff, and it's in search of happiness lost. And I read that book, and uh it just uh sort of moved me in my body, it really just arrested my attention. I can't tell you. And I'll tell you about the book in a moment, but then I was so uh inspired and wanted to know more that I found out where the author, Jean, lived, and she happened to live in North London, in Primrose Hill. I contacted her and she did what she called therapeutic sessions. So I went along with her, and we well, she became my mentor, really. We we had you know several, many sessions talking about my own childhood. And then I discovered really the relationship that I thought I had with my parents, with my parents wasn't so at all. And the things I learnt through our discussions, through what she had in a book, which was all about her journey living with a Stone Age tribe in the middle of the Amazon, believe it or not. She went there as a photographer, as a uh a medic. She didn't go looking for anything, but she noticed a few things. One thing she noticed with the babies didn't seem to cry. And she thought, that's really odd. Uh, there were no terrible twos, teenagers didn't fight, and she just she was just sort of blown away by it. And um over the next three years, I think she went there for about uh collectively about two and a half years. When she returned, she put all her thinking and discoveries into this book. And it's all about how really, in comparison, we rare raise, or she would say, rear our children in the Western world compared with what was going on in the Amazon, with this, as she called it, Stone Age tribe. And um she was saying, really, we're the same species, really, and why the difference? What's going on? And that's where it all began. And and from those meetings, I I uh vowed to myself that I would, if ever I became a father, bear in mind this was six years before I became a father, I would try and implement these insights as best I could. And that's what we did, and that's how it all began.

SPEAKER_04 7:34

Tell us tell us about your daughters. What did you do? Because this is so fascinating to me.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

Okay, okay. Well, we had two two daughters. Um, our first was born in 1993, and 1995 was the second daughter, and um what Jean concluded from her experience is that children come in into the world with expectations, in that they are they're in the body, they're like a blueprint, which is a continuum of all of our uh history from when we were around and and to where we are now, going back thousands of years. And because those conditions when they're supplied work and provide the continuance of our species, then she's saying then they need to be continued, and she feels that the Western world has stopped uh uh honoring and acknowledging um these expectations. And the expectations are they're not conscious, they're not thought, it's through the body, it's through all their senses. And um when a child misses those expectations, then they respond. They respond in a very instinctive way. And the expectation is is akin to a child has lungs in the expectation of breathing air when they're born. It's the same thing, they have expectations of the environment. And so what I help parents do is become really environment makers. And I always say parents are environment makers. And if you can make the environment that aligns with the child's biology, then there is no reason for them to respond in the way they do, which is how we describe defiance, opposition, um, on conversely, uh withdrawal, uh, can't get through to them, they seem a bit vacant, they're not they're disinterested, disrespectful, in their iPads. You know, these are all responses that once you understand how to decode that, which is what I learned over the 30 odd years as being a dad and all the stuff I did before I became a parent, it's actually really quite quite straightforward, actually. So much easier. We never punished our children. We never sent them to the room, never did naughty step, never did threats. Genuinely we didn't, because there was no need, not because we were some, you know, amazing parent. It wasn't about that, it's just because we we just applied the biology in a very kind of at first rocky way, because we were finding our way, because we were also um sort of um biased also in some ways towards how we were raised and how things were happening around us. And there was a real conflict sometimes of trying to hold on to our faith, you know, and just stick with it, do you know what I mean? Of course. Yeah, really tough. Uh of course, and in our families we had um a bit of resistance in that they they thought we were a bit odd, you know. Why?

SPEAKER_04 10:36

Why would they why would they have thought that way? What were you doing differently with your with your daughters?

SPEAKER_00 10:41

Okay, well, we didn't um have them in a separate room. They slept with us in our bed. For how long? Uh around five to six years. Okay. But it wasn't an ordinary bed. So most beds were raised off the ground, aren't they?

SPEAKER_01 10:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

So they're quite quite dangerous, really, if it's a crowded bed. So we just took away that and we put the mattress on the floor. We had a wide mattress, and by and large, and if you ask Helen, she fed and slept through the night, dozed on, dozed off, fed. Um we had good sleep. We never made our children go to bed. They literally, and this is God's truth, they would say, Oh daddy, I'm tired now, I'm gonna go to bed. They would just go to bed. You know, come on, bed time now, come on. Right. Do you know what I mean? Right. And there are counter arguments to that in terms of one's life's structure, you know, we've got work, we've got school, all of that stuff. That comes into it as well. I I get that. But by and large, it wasn't difficult. The the energy drain that Helen would have experienced, and she did, I know she did, she was very tired, was because of our we didn't have a community around us. Our parents were in one city, her parents were in mine, were in another. We both moved to London um before we met each other, and um build building a a a kind of uh community around you was what we were trying to do. And because it wasn't um just there on the plate, it took a lot of effort and work and traveling and meeting and joining um groups. We we belonged to something called the Otherwise Club. Have you heard of that?

SPEAKER_03 12:22

No.

SPEAKER_00 12:22

I think it's I don't think it's interesting. The Otherwise Club um was a meeting place once a week, and there were about 60 families who weren't sending their children to school. Oh, so your children never went to school? No, they didn't go to school at all, no. Well, at all. They did when they were 15 and 16, because they were curious.

SPEAKER_04 12:42

They were curious.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

Yeah, they were, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:45

Okay, so you homeschooled them?

SPEAKER_00 12:47

No, we didn't even do anything.

SPEAKER_04 12:49

You didn't even homeschool them.

SPEAKER_00 12:50

No, we didn't.

SPEAKER_04 12:51

So how did they how did everyone's wondering, I know right now.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

I know, I know, I know, I know. How did they learn to read and write? I know, but we all assume that we all assume that they got to be taught. And what shall I tell you what I've really learned about children? Yeah. Children don't learn from being taught. They don't. How did they learn? Actually, learn through being taught. They learn through witnessing and observing modeling. Um they would say, Daddy. Oh sorry, sorry, go ahead. Well, so then in terms of like reading and writing, they figured it out for themselves.

SPEAKER_04 13:24

They figured it out by for themselves?

SPEAKER_00 13:26

They did. So we so Helen would give them spelling tests. So she'd write some words on the fridge. And you know, they might come to me and say, Daddy, what's that what's that word? I say, well, that's apple. You know, we eat apples, that's apple. That's the word I'd say. And she and you'd have to put up with them, Daddy, what does that say? Daddy, what does that say? Daddy, what does that say? Yeah, let me just tell them, tell them, tell them. And gradually they absorbed it, you know, slowly. How about math? Same with reading. Well, math was just normal, like going to the shops. They would figure out what stuff costs. I mean, what math do you need to know? Really?

SPEAKER_04 14:02

Actually, I I I still question that. Why did I have to learn uh algebra and calculus? I will never ever understand. Calculus.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

What's calculus?

SPEAKER_04 14:11

Uh you know, when I once asked like a teacher, why do I have to learn this? They said to help your brain think. You will never need this, you know, X and Y and Z stuff, but it helps your brain to think. And I'm like, all right. Well, it's still all right.

SPEAKER_00 14:26

Well, there's an assumption there that we need we need something external to make us think. It's neat it's almost like giving us help to think. Okay. Doesn't make sense. Children are so resourceful, so helpful. My kids were were laying fires when they were two and three. They had scissors, they have knives, no pretend knives, no pretend toys like that. They would just use them. Okay. You know, if you're chopping vegetables, they'd come over when they were toddlers, little toddlers, and they'd just pick up a knife and do a bit of chopping and then get disinterested and move off. But gradually they would just gradually come in in their own time, in their own curiosity, and you know, get into it, you know? And you didn't just like manners, hmm?

SPEAKER_04 15:07

Yes. Well, manners is.

SPEAKER_00 15:09

Well we never taught manners. We never ever taught them manners, ever. We never made them say please and thank you, ever. And my children are the most well-mannered people you will ever meet. Please and thank you. In fact, I'll tell you a story. When when we went to visit my mother, who was about three hours away, and the family were gathering, she was cooking in the kitchen. Um she uh she she said to my eldest, um, who name my eldest, uh she said, There you are. She gave her something, like a taste of what we're having to eat. And before she went out to collect it in her hand, and my mother withdrew her hand, said, What's the magic word?

SPEAKER_03 15:51

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 15:53

And my daughter looked at her completely. Um, she said, Abracadabra. And that's that's so true. Because she didn't have any concept of she, you know, please and thank you. Never happened.

SPEAKER_04 16:07

I, you know, I could actually talk to you for an hour just about how you raised your children. But um, but we're gonna get we have to get into how the next step. Because I I think it's fantastic. I'm sure you got a lot of pushback. I I you know, I I'll ask you one more question. Socialization. You said you had a bit of an issue with the socialization concept because you were sort of alone. So, what did you do? I mean, they had each other, yes, but how did they learn environmentally through the to socialize?

SPEAKER_00 16:37

Well, there's an assumption there that a child needs to learn to socialize. Okay. I'm not saying you're having the assumption, but the the idea, the proposition is children need to learn to socialize. I mean, because we're worried that they're not going to socialize. So we how do they socialize? Yeah, children are social, they're born exquisitely social. And um, what gets in the way is when their biology is not being satisfied or met, and their behavior becomes anti-social as we would deem it. And and it's not antisocial, it's just trying to get the atmosphere, the the environment into a social state, so they can be social, because that's what they're lined up to do. Okay, yeah. So what Jean would have said, and we talked about it, she she would say really, Western parenting is adversarial. It's like a war, it's like us and them. We've got to make them do this, we've got to make them do that. If they don't do this, then you know, we've got to make sure, you know, if if if they're displaying all this this behavior that's um rude, oppositional, or whatever, we feel we have to sort it out. Of course we do, because parents love their kids, they care, they want them to go into the world accomplished in in uh communication and etc. So, of course, they try to manage the behavior. That's where the exhaustion comes. Because the more you try to manage your kids' behavior, the more tiring it is, and that's your biology speaking. Because when when the body gets tired, it's because your biology is saying something's not right. It's like when you walk up a hill or a mountainside and you keep walking and walking and walking, there comes a point where you've got to stop. Because your body says it needs to rest. But in parenting, it's a very different matter because there is you can't just pack your kids off, you can't just sit down by the roadside and let it all go on. In terms of the modern perspective around parenting, you can't really do that.

SPEAKER_04 18:41

Okay, so talk to us about your approach. You call it biologically aligned parenting.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:48

What does that mean?

SPEAKER_00 18:49

Well, a child's biology is set for it to expect certain things. So it will expect roughly four things. One, there's a there's their caregiver is uh uh very competent and um confident that they know exactly what they're doing. Uh they expect to be on the periphery of life. We can come back to these if you want. I'll just list them, shall I? Please do. Yeah, on the periphery of life so that they're watching the adult's life, that they can witness what goes on around here, so they know what they're living into. They expect to be carried and in close contact. As soon as they're born, they expect to be near. It's the only way they know that they're safe and they're going to survive instinctively by movement and and and smell and the heartbeat and all of that. Well what we do is we put them away, don't we, often, you know? The uh other thing is that they they they have an active life to to witness. That's really important.

SPEAKER_04 19:50

So now the same sorry, that's not the same as the second one, the periphery?

SPEAKER_00 19:55

Well no, because the periphery is where they're seeing the active life.

SPEAKER_04 19:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 19:59

And they have to have an active life to witness, yeah. To witness the the the parents. They they so they're included. So in other words, they they are not pacified with toys, with blocks, with Lego, with you know, the the latest game or an iPad. I mean, I didn't realize I don't know if we mentioned this last time, but you can get an iPad clip for your pushchair. I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_03 20:24

There's everything.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

We just stick an iPad on, you know, and then suddenly your kids are dealt with. And my view around iPads is that a child who is deprived, and Gene would lose use the word, it's deprivation. We deprive our children of their the of their biological expectations, and we do it unwittingly. It's not because we don't care or love our kids, we're just following what I would call informed conditioning. You need to explain that. Well, informed condition. I know these words, and when we spoke earlier before, it was really good because you helped me think about how to keep it simple, you know. But it's hard, you know. But it is simple. So informed, so we're being informed about things all the time around us through movies, through books, through conversations, through what we see, and um we're also conditioned because when we grow up, we're when we watch a movie, when we um see the television, when we read books and papers, there's stories about family. And they're usually the archetypal, happy families, chill children getting ready for school, rushing out the door, parents admonishing their children, you mustn't do that. You know, what do you do to that? You know, condition, it's all conditioning thinking. Well, that's how we that's how you do parenting around here. And there's that phrase, isn't there, that kind of funny phrase where they say, Well, children weren't born with a manual. I would disagree because I would say children are born with a manual, it's just not written in words, it's their biology, and when we follow that. Things become easier. In fact, there's a there's a guy, Dr. Gordon Newfeld. I mean, I've read loads of stuff around this, but and he said that it's not the love the parent has for the child that makes them easy to parent. It's the love the child has for the parent. And that's what I'm talking about. So if if the if the child can't gravitate and wanting to be around the parent, wanting to feel to feel safe enough to share their secrets, wanting their company, just enjoying being around them, you know, they're gonna be difficult to parent. And they're not when it's like when they can't do that, is because the environment isn't settled enough for them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:43

Yeah, I just um this is speaking to me so much, but I and I want you to keep talking. But I just did something about uh this phrase called, and it is exactly what you're saying, I believe, connection before correction.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

Yes.

unknown 22:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:59

So for parents listening and they're having trouble, you know, with their adult child at home, I I keep going back to this repair the relationship, reconnect, work on the relationship, and your your adult child will just in intuitively, instinctively, they will want to be in alignment with you. They will want to, you know, have that relationship and they will understand you. They'll be open to receive that. What we're all trying to do as parents is we love our children, we do, and we just want to help them. And so right now, a lot of these situations, a lot of this is behavioral, where parents are experiencing these behaviors and they're struggling with them. And so I want to, I want to kind of like bring this all back to how can parents of today who are watching their adult children, I'm I'm gonna use the words that are like it's sort of like triggering to you, possibly, but like they're not behaving in a way that's that's good for their own um self. For their own good. For their own good.

SPEAKER_00 24:00

And so now isn't there? There's a book called For Your Own Good by Alice Miller. Do you know that book? No. She's a German um um therapist. Um I've read two or three of her books. Uh Drama of the Gifted Child, that's another book. Very interesting. Um, but for your own good. Yeah, we we want to be able to help our children for their own good.

SPEAKER_04 24:22

Yes, yes, that's everybody has that interest. Yes, of course. Right.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

It comes from love and care. I know.

SPEAKER_04 24:27

It does, except that we have to be careful about our own expectations.

SPEAKER_02 24:31

So each other, sorry.

SPEAKER_04 24:38

It's okay. That's why we edit.

SPEAKER_00 24:41

Okay, okay, okay. Well, have that cut then. Okay. So you said what what can parent I think you were sketting around and say, Well, what can parents do? Is that right?

SPEAKER_04 24:47

Were you saying Okay, well, I'll get I'm gonna get there in a second. I want to kind of go more into your work. So one of your one of your core beliefs is that behavior isn't the problem. No, it's a response. It is. Okay. So parent so go ahead. That's it. That's your parents.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

Parents the the the problem with the problem with the problem of problem behavior is that if that's a social thing, is parents are seeing the behavior as a problem quite understandably. I get that. When in fact it's a signal. So if you are managing the behavior, it's like you're dealing with the smoke and not the fire. Yeah, and that's it. And the smoke may go a bit thin and go down, and then it'll come back up again. Because it does, because you're dealing with the symptom and not the cause. Got it. And that's it. So what I try to help parents do is reframe how they see the behavior, and instead of seeing it as something that's unwanted, that's annoying, or it it's exhausting, they're trying to wind me around my little finger, oh, they're manipulating me, they're doing this on purpose, can't you see? I'm you know, all that stuff that goes on. Right. Just shift the lens and say, okay, well, what's that behavior trying to tell me? What's missing for that child in the environment of this household?

SPEAKER_04 26:08

I love that. But how so you're saying to look beneath the behavior? Yeah. Look at where look what's causing. Like why are they acting out if if we will use the term acting out? Acting out.

SPEAKER_00 26:20

Well, it is acting out because they become someone else. They start adapting. Right. So there's four things you can look for and we'll tell you we'll tell you things. Is that what you'd like me to do? Please do that.

SPEAKER_04 26:30

Give it keep giving us instructions, directions, suggestions.

SPEAKER_00 26:33

So basically, the biology is very instinctive, it's non-thinking, I've said that. So when when we are in in the midst of uncertainty, whether it's an envelope coming through the door, demanding you to go to court or whatever, and you you think you know, you start to react and panic, it's the same stuff. So these four instinctive responses: one is fight, flight, fear, and dawn. So a child, if their biology isn't being met, their whole body will try to get it met. And the only way it it it can do that is through its body. Now the child isn't aware of this. That's why some of the behavior is inexplicable. You can you just you don't understand why they're being so like they're being. So what they will do, they will fight you. And that's for them to try they're trying to correct it. They're trying to correct their and the environment. They're trying to push you to give them what they require. Now, if that doesn't happen, they will then um they will then adapt their behavior through running away, both physically and metaphorically. They will go to their room, they will lie. No, it wasn't me, I wasn't there. I didn't do that. They will do all of that. That's another way of of them coping with what's missing. So they do it as uh a device to relief the discomfort of the lack of the biology. So they're doing it as a relief mechanism, yeah? So they will lie, and you no one wants their kids to lie, but kids will. They will because it's it's that they're not wanting to, but it's it gives them a coping mechanism at the miss what's missing. If they don't lie, or they may do a combination of these things, but if they don't lie, they will then play dead. Like animals do to survive. A child will go mute, they'll become non-verbal, they'll remove themselves, they'll become vagant. I mean, my mother used to say to me, Jeffrey, I'm talking to you. Where have you gone? I used to drift off.

SPEAKER_01 28:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:38

I used to drift off. And um uh that's another way of them coping, or they may absorb themselves in iPad, they may um they may just not want to be, they may not be interested in anything you do. You just can't you can't get hold of them, you know.

SPEAKER_04 28:54

Yes, and this is what's happening. I'm sorry to interrupt you, but this is exactly what's happening. They are isolating themselves. Yeah, they are and and parents look at this sort of isolation as first of all unhealthy, but also it's a form of rejection. Yeah, parents want to like have their children, uh adult children. We keep saying children, but for all the listeners, we know it doesn't this regardless of age. Um, they want to connect with them, but they've already lost them. They're already isolating and disconnected in their rooms. So the question is is that if if that's the behavior, which parents can tell you right now, all the things that they don't like that their adult children are doing and that worry them, what can they do to bring them back?

SPEAKER_00 29:37

Okay. So they have to shift the environment, which has nothing to do with their children.

unknown 29:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 29:43

And that's the beauty of it, because we are powerless over people, places, and things, actually. We can't control another human being. We cannot. Uh we can with a gun to the head, of course we can. But we can't control another person, but we can control ourselves, and that's the gift of it. So we basically look at the environment, you ask yourself questions like Um, when I come home from work, if you're a father, I work with a lot of fathers, uh, am I pissed off? You know? When I walk through that door, do I slam my keys on the table and let everybody know how pissed off I am? My question to you would be do you need to telegraph, to broadcast how you're feeling?

SPEAKER_03 30:30

Absolutely not.

SPEAKER_00 30:32

Exactly. And broadcast is a really important word, which I got after our little conversation we had. So I was thinking, how can I explain this? Because it's all about um our um our state that we're in. So parents really need to look at their state that they're existing in most of the time. And if that state isn't generating peace and stability and calm, their kids are going to be responding. So the example I give is when, or I've come up with, is uh thanks to you actually, is when when you go into a room and two people have had an argument, you know it instantly. You know there's bad vibes between these two people. And if it's a small room, you'll probably want to get the hell out of there. And the phrase goes, doesn't it? You it the atmosphere was so thick you could cut it with a knife. That's what I'm talking about. You you know words are spoken, and let's face it, parents use a lot of words with kids, and that that's going on what I would say the wrong track. It's not words, it's not what you say, it's what you convey. That's the most important thing to focus on. It really is. Love it, yeah. And if you can if you can just start um to take agency and responsibility uh over how you show up. And I don't mean pushing down your feelings, I don't mean uh pretending to be somebody else. I'm just I'm just talking about making a call on yourself, saying, actually, this isn't appropriate right now, I can deal with that later. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:05

Um this this brings me joy.

SPEAKER_00 32:08

Oh, does it?

SPEAKER_04 32:09

It does, it really does. It brings me joy because I feel parents can this is so helpful because they all they have to do is work on themselves.

SPEAKER_00 32:18

Yes, totally.

SPEAKER_04 32:20

It makes it so much easier. You mean to say if I work on myself, if I get in touch with how I'm feeling and the and the mood I'm setting, and you know, then then you mean to say that it's almost a ripple effect?

SPEAKER_00 32:33

Yeah, then my I say domino like domino, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:36

It's a knock-on effect. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:38

So if you want, if you really want to change in the vote of commerce, you know, air quotes and all that, your children's behavior, yeah, you gotta begin with yourself. Because they are only responding to the environment around them. Because they're not, that's all they're programmed for.

SPEAKER_04 32:52

I want to I want to share a story and I might edit it out. So here I go. Uh when my mother was, when I was younger, my mother was one of those people that had absolutely zero self-control, zero self-awareness. She was always in, well, if to in all fairness, a lot of times she was in pain. I I didn't know that as a child. She would always say, something's hurting me. She did have a condition. But so I I understood that she was in pain, but it put her in a bad mood, right? If you're in chronic pain, you're you're in a bad mood. And so, but then that became something else. Then she went through a terrible divorce and she was always stressed about money. She could not contain herself. And I would come home like a happy child and open the busting through that door and to uh to see a mother that was angry and so preoccupied with herself. And I'll never forget this one time. She lost a court case. So I come home and I'm so excited to see my mom, and she's in this horrible mood because of this court case. She's just rolling around. I'll never forget this. I mean, honestly, I can't remember what I ate yesterday for lunch, but this memory stays with me. I go upstairs to jump, running upstairs to see her. She's lying in her bed, she's crying because she lost this case, and I'm like, okay, mommy, I understand that you're upset by it, but it's not the end of the world, right? And she was like, but you don't understand, Cherry, but you don't understand. I go, but here's the thing, mommy. I kept saying, Mommy, can you just think about all the wonderful things in your life? You have three children, we're going to be married one day, we're going to give you grandchildren. Think about all the wonderful things that are going to happen in your life. And she couldn't do it. And I remember feeling so disappointed with the fact that my mother could not step away from her current state of affairs, her current emotional state, and just enjoy the possibility of her future being happy. And I swore that day, Jeff, that I would never bring my emotional garbage into my children's lives on a day-to-day basis. So so clearly, I remember having a bad day at work or bad moment at work. It doesn't matter because I never let moments become day, a day. I go, that was shitty. Move on. And I always pick my children up. And I would see this little face in the back of my car. And I would think, how could anybody be in a bad mood right now? The whole day was gone in a like a flash because I had this baby, this beautiful little happy child in the back of my car who I hadn't seen all day. And I knew that that child all they wanted from me and all they needed from me was to have a happy mommy. Because I remember not. I think my children remember me being a very happy parent because I made the effort. And even when I, as they got older and I was in a bad mood, I always explained to them what upset me, but I always made sure it had nothing to do with them.

SPEAKER_02 35:51

Do with them.

SPEAKER_04 35:51

You know? Okay. And it came to me quite naturally. It wasn't it was I didn't put it on either. I was quite literally very happy to see my kids at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_00 36:00

Yeah, yeah. So beautiful.

SPEAKER_04 36:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 36:04

Well, thank you for that. That's a great story. I love that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 36:06

Okay. So I'm, I think this is your your message is coming across really clear. Okay. Um, but I want to talk about so there is a there is another approach. So this whole idea of of of self-monitoring or having a self-awareness, a sense of self, checking in with yourself before you walk through that door. And and not even if you're even if you're in a good mood, let's say you're in a bad mood, right? To watch yourself. But if you're in a good mood and then you walk in and you see that your adult child hasn't left their room all day, that could put parents in a bad mood, right? They're like, oh, here we go again. You never did, you didn't do anything. And so parents are dealing with like the switching over of like, I'm now affected by by what you didn't do today.

SPEAKER_00 36:47

Yeah. So you you have to go back in time. Parents, so basically, a child's behavior isn't about the now, it's about the before. And it could be a day, it could be two days, could be three weeks, could be months, could be years. So you have to bring yourself into that place of an investigator, if you like. So when you come home and you're happy and you realize your child's still in the room, and you are you are in this new new state where you're looking at the child's behavior as a signal, you're not gonna go and knock on their door or want to, and start trying to um you know get them out of their mood or uh uh investigate or inquire or um uh cross-examine or judge even, or whatever it is. They'll know you're home. So you've got to be you and enjoy yourself and enjoy your coming home. Because I'll tell you what, that will be like a magnet to them. Because we all wanna be around lovely people, don't we?

SPEAKER_01 37:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 37:58

Yeah, we all wanna be that. Now it takes time, it doesn't happen overnight. But it it's it's it's sort of arresting the pattern. And it takes a bit of courage and and a lot of faith in parents. I I I really appreciate that because it's such a such a cut away from what we normally do, and it's it's hard. And you won't be able to do it all straight away, and you'll revert back and you'll lose your temper, and then you but you can keep correcting yourself and getting yourself back on course, you know. And um it reminds me of a uh a client, I may have mentioned it to you, yeah, the this mother who was a um single parent. Oh, good story in the city. Remember that? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I could talk about that. Is that good to talk about or not? It's a good story. I like that one. So she she came to me and um we met for coffee, we chatted, and as I say with all my parents, I say, What is it you want to what do you want? And she said, What I'd really like from my son, who was antisocial, he was aggressive, oppositional, grumpy, wouldn't help with the errands, locked himself in his room.

SPEAKER_04 39:01

Okay, you just you just listed every you just listed every issue that every parent is dealing with.

SPEAKER_00 39:06

Well it is, but it's anyway, she got to the stage where she was bringing food and leaving it outside his room. Can you imagine? So she said, What I really want is for um, we'll call him Josh, to be interested in me. You know, and that's a big thing for a lot of parents, because they give and give and give in this atmosphere of trying to manage their behavior. Because managing behavior is really exhausting. It really is exhausting for for that you know the reasons we said before. I'd just like them to be interested. Anyway, we worked around her looking at the environment, which is involves is she late? Does she rush for the door? Does she grab the keys? Does she curse because she's stayed too long or she was distracted by her son? Uh what's her conversation like? Is it attacking? Is she um critical? Is she um does she have a smile? Um does she move gracefully around the house? Is she enjoying the house as it's laid out? Does she enjoy her bedroom? What does she like the clothes she's wearing? You know, to get the mother to just start to um immerse herself in her life. Yeah. She started doing this and we had phone calls in between, and um she fanged me one day and said, You never guess what? I said, What? She says, I was in the kitchen making supper and he appeared at my door and said, Mum, hi, how was your day? And she was just you know blown away. And she created that atmosphere. Because in every child, every child is biologically programmed to be close, to be near, to be connected. That's their default. You don't have to work at it, they want it. I don't care what how aggressive, how rude, how horrible a child is to their parents, they wanna they want to be connected. And if you don't get that going as as the child's growing up and they don't get it, they don't get those needs met, they'll be look they'll be searching for it through their life. They will. And sometimes they go to very, very um unpleasant places to get that, that sense of power. Because when we're recognized, when we're known, we feel good, we feel powerful. We don't need it from anywhere else. We get it from within because the environment we're in is is very um celebratory of us and accepting of us. Do you know what I mean?

unknown 41:37

I know.

SPEAKER_00 41:39

Jean said the atmosphere of the village with the with the Aquana was the tribe, the Aquana was and she put it into words, she gave, it was where everyone was worthy and welcome. Beautiful, and that's what moved me in the book. And if parents can just look at the environment they're creating, is is your child, will your child feel worthy and welcome in this environment with my behaviour, how I'm talking to them, how I'm moving, how I deal with my challenges and stress in my life, financial relationships. Do you know what I mean? Ideal. It sounds a lot to consider, but it's not really when you start to think about it, because it all gets down to your response to your own situations and making it making a really firm commitment through the love you have for your child to just say, you know, actually, I can park that. I don't need to, I don't need to spew that here. I don't need to pollute the atmosphere with those feelings and that state.

SPEAKER_04 42:46

Okay, I love this. I I do want to challenge, not challenge you, but I want I'm trying to like I'm trying to think about what my listener is thinking about. But also it's it's a it's a fair question. Sure. Social media. So you have this, you let's say parents are like committed to changing the environment in the home through their own behavior, through their own body and you know, language and verbal, nonverbal. They're gonna, they're signing up for this. But the their the children, adult children, are so connected to the outside world that is negative and judgmental and makes them feel unworthy. How does a parent keep their world like a bubble? And I it's funny because I always like to think of it as like what happens in the home is a bubble. And if the home is a is a place of love and security and safety, then you are in fact preparing your adult child or your child for the world. Right? They the confidence starts inside the home, right? Yeah, I agree. But the world will challenge this, the world will poke holes at their in their self esteem, and and be if the child doesn't have a strong resilience or self worth, they will go after it. Into the world and they will be impacted by it. How do you respond to the fact that, like, even if the my home is a safe place, the world, they they are so connected to their social media. Sure. What do they do?

SPEAKER_00 44:13

So the outside world is the outside world and unpleasant things happen and children will be impacted by it. As we all are, we're all impacted by all kinds of things. But if a child hasn't got somewhere to go with that, and that's the important bit, you can't protect them from that, really. You can't stop any of that happening. They're going to get it. But if a child has somewhere to come where they can talk to you about it, where they can share, share their shame. You know, share their embarrassment, share their feelings small. Whatever the the reaction they have within their community around them and the world around, if they've got nowhere to come to share it, that's that's what I'm talking about. You know, it's about doing your utmost to provide a place for them to come when things go off the rails, when they can't cope. A lot of children haven't got anywhere to go. I never had anywhere to go with my parents ever. I I went through a period of abuse as a child outside my family. My parents are dead and gone now. God bless them actually, because they would they love me in the way they they they could love me. Um but they never knew about it. And that was part of my my um work with Jean, is I I wanted to know why couldn't I tell my parents my deepest pain and my deepest shame? Why? Because you know, when you're being abused, uh the the the the um the the the victim often feels the guilt. Tremendous guilt and shame.

SPEAKER_04 45:44

Were you trying to protect your parents?

SPEAKER_00 45:47

Um was I protect yeah, I probably was. I didn't want to let them down. Probably. Um I don't know if I was protecting them consciously. Maybe I was, I don't know. I just I just knew I couldn't go there. I couldn't go there. It's quite something, isn't it, to share your personal stories. It is. You know?

SPEAKER_04 46:11

Okay, so I understand what you're saying is we can protect our children from the world, but as long as they have like they have a place to come home to, in in not even in the physical sense, but a place to return to where they are loved and not judged and accepted and feel safe, that we can help them process, we can help them through this, we can lessen the pain and help them to manage themselves in the out there in the world again.

SPEAKER_00 46:40

It boils down to authenticity, doesn't it? Really? Who wants a child, who want what parent wants their child to be inauthentic with them? We really want to know, don't we? We really, really do really want to know. We don't want our children to be um pretending to be someone they're not.

SPEAKER_04 46:58

If you if a child can come to their parent and say, I am not what you think I am, or I am different from what you think I am, and they are received with love and open arms, that person will go back out into the world feeling good about themselves because they were received positively by the people that matter most to them. So that the same notion comes when if you know, if you're feeling like you failed something in the world and or you got fired or something. You you have to be able to say to your parents, this is what happened to me. I'm feeling really bad about it. And the parents are not supposed to go, what are you gonna do? Well, what happened? What did you do wrong? You know, are you gonna be able to find another job? No, just sit with them, sit with them because they're already in so much pain for having lost that job that you don't have to make it worse. You just have to love on them.

SPEAKER_00 47:51

Well, the question is, is why are they trying to help? Why are they reacting like that? What's going on for them? Are they more concerned about themselves or their child, you know? Sure. Are they trying to solve or soothe themselves at the shock of the news? You know what I mean? It's a very it's a very interesting something.

unknown 48:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:08

We've all got our history with our own parents. That's another, another level, you know.

SPEAKER_04 48:12

Another level. Keep that out of your rearing, please. I want to touch on your book before we wrap it up, the parenting assumption. So, was all this that you did, your learning and your experience and biologically aligned parenting, is that all what led you to writing the parenting assumption? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:31

I'm just trying to spew it all out. And, you know, if you talk about a Stone Age tribe in the jungle, the way they raise their kids, doesn't compute, you know, into our Western world. First reaction is, well, we don't we're not a Stone Age tribe. You know, we're living in the modern world. And it's not about that. It's not about that.

SPEAKER_04 48:48

So tell us about the parenting assumption. What's the assumption that parents are making?

SPEAKER_00 48:54

The assumption is that their behavior needs managing. Children need managing. Children need teaching. They really don't. They really don't. They will ask if they need to know something. They'll ask on a on a needs-to-know basis. It's such a perspective shift in parenting. Yeah. But I tell you what, it's so freeing. I promise you it's freeing. Once you go there and you start to play with it and you notice yourself, uh, one thing I ask parents to do is just to stop talking.

SPEAKER_04 49:27

Well, that would be impossible for me.

SPEAKER_00 49:31

I'll tell you what, it's that scares me. It's hard for me. It's hard for me. It's hard for me. It's scary. But if you stop talking, I mean, uh, I ask parents sometimes, don't talk to your kids all day. Try it, just try it. Can't do it. They can't do it. And what what I'm saying is don't ignore your children and don't do it with them, an attitude. You know, Jeff says, I haven't got to talk to them all day, I won't talk to them then. You know, no, not like that. Just create the space for them to initiate the conversation first.

SPEAKER_03 50:00

Oh, I love that.

SPEAKER_00 50:01

And then speak to them.

SPEAKER_03 50:02

I love that.

SPEAKER_00 50:03

Yeah. Even that shift will start to orientate your view, and you'll start, oh, okay, that's interesting. They're suddenly talking about that. I didn't know they were going to talk about that. You know, because we usually ask them closed questions. Would you do you have a good day?

SPEAKER_02 50:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:19

Yes or no? You know, you're going to get no conversation about that. That's right.

SPEAKER_03 50:23

Yeah?

SPEAKER_00 50:24

You know, how are you feeling about your day? It's a very different question. Do you have a good day? Yeah, with the expectations you've got to have a good day, because if you haven't got a good day, I can't be a good parent. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 50:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:34

It's that sort of stuff going on. So watch, watch. You see, when when a child's born, and those early formative years up to about six or seven, all parents do is talk to communicate. They really do. Right out the bat. You know, they do the koochie kooju koo and all that stuff, which is lovely, that's fine. But then they they try to get them to spell banana. This is a banana, and they go, okay, and then suddenly their voice goes up two octaves. Yeah, and do you know what that is? That's your biology telling you your children can't understand you. And it's your biology getting you to modify your language because your biology knows they can't understand, and they can't. All they go by is your state.

SPEAKER_04 51:23

Right. For anybody who understands this reference, I was thinking about this funny reference back in the day, the $64,000 question. Oh, yeah, I remember. What does a healthy parent adult-child relationship look like?

SPEAKER_00 51:38

Gosh, that's a really interesting question.

SPEAKER_04 51:42

Um let's bring it to the home. And we're not saying ever that they should be kicking their adult child out. I mean, you could, there's so much positivity about living with your adult child, the whole multi-generational. It's beautiful if your adult child is like an adult, if they're participating and contributing and they're they're coming home with stories of their day and and they're out of their room and they're engaged with you. That's a really lovely experience. I'm I don't live with my children, but I could, I could live with my children because I love hanging out with them so much and I respect we respect each other. But right now there's not that going on in the home. So I want to give parents this uh impression of what the goal is to have in the home. Okay, I could connection.

SPEAKER_00 52:28

Well, I live with an adult child. I do. And my daughter's 30 30 years of age. And um she's gone into a second round of education, training, she's doing stuff with horses and kids. And um she lives on the top floor, which is a little apartment. And so we have to manage manage the day, manage how we live together, you know. And um sometimes we won't speak for two or three days. It'll be just passing because I can sense she just wants her independence, she just wants to be on her own. She'd love to be living on her own right now, actually. Not nothing to do with me, she's like it. But financially and her structure of her life doesn't afford that at the moment. And so um I know when she's up for talking and when she's not. And so that's a real kind of um osmosis thing, you know, where I can just tell. I can I just know the vibe. Because I'm tuned in to the vibration, not not to the conversation, just to her vibration. And um yeah, just by the way she speaks, the number of words she uses, the way she moves, I can just tell. And I just lean out and bring me a whole two or three days, some supper together, they I said, Yeah, yeah, let's have some supper. Oh yeah, it's really nice to reconnect with you, you know, because we I've been in my own little world the last two or three days. I said, Yeah, I know. I noticed you did, yeah. How are you doing? And then we start talking. So, really, it looks like having your um radar on and really sensing where your kids are at, and and that you don't have to do any hard work with that because your body wants to do it anyway. It's just tuning into it and and create the space, plenty of space to breathe and move between each other, physically, emotionally, you know. Try not to lean in your kids to feed you. Do you know what I mean by that? To feed your to occupy your life, to give your life meaning. Yeah, do you know what I mean by that? I see we do. Yeah, where you're putting the burden on them to supply you with something, you've gotta be this, you've gotta be that. Just lean out of that. And there's a lot of modern parenting that does that, you know, parents who are stuck with their kids all day. Their kids, and that's tough, it's so tough. Yet the parents will lean into the kid to to provide content for their life, and it's just backwards. It's looking down the wrong end of the telescope, you know? You've just got to lean out. It's not as difficult as it sounds. Once you dip your toe in and you get a sense of it, you can't go back. You just can't. You just can't. Once you dip your toe in and you're trying to control the behavior, you you you can't you all your all your energy to control the behavior, all your actions become null and void because you're now looking at it as a signal. So you don't think of trying to control the behavior. You're more curious about, well, they're being really aggressive to me, so they're trying to correct something. What might what can I do to make this a really nice place to be?

unknown 55:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 55:33

I'm so quiet because I just keep thinking about how uh when a parent comes home, if they just focus on making that home a really loving, uh like a very calm environment, but you've got to make dinner, not even necessarily for them, but you have to put some like you're you want to eat something, put the music on.

SPEAKER_03 55:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 55:53

Just do your thing. Do your thing, lift your energy up, and that door will open. It will. It will like when your daughter was ready after a couple of days, and they will join you in your energy.

SPEAKER_00 56:04

They they are compelled to by their biology. They are naturally exquisitely social. With people, talking, having enjoyment. That's what we all want. Money can't buy that. It's so incredibly simple, actually, but it's a complicated journey because our intellect, you know, gets takes over. Like I say, there's like three eyes. There's the intellect, the instinct and intuition. And what parents vie between is the instinct, it is um the instinct and their intellect. So they get an instinctive reaction to their kids. Oh god, they're not they're not out of the room, what am I gonna do? I've gotta get get him off his backside, he's gotta go out there and look for a job, sort of thing. That's the instinctive reaction because they're in fear. And the going out to get a job will be served by the intellect, thinking, I I'm gonna I'm gonna get in to put an advert, or I'm gonna get in to write three CVs this week, or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 57:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:04

So they're it they're in constant. Whereas instead of they need to lean into their intuitive side and to take a beat and just look at it from a different perspective and think, actually, what's really going on with him? What's what's not not happening here for him? What can I do? What can I shift? You know, is it me? Is it my energy? Is it my do I talk too much? Do I do I create a kind of unsettled atmosphere when I move around the house? Do I slam things down? Do I slam doors? You know, do I huff? Oh god, you know, do I roll my eyes? It's all these things, you know, which radiate. Not a nice person to be around. A question parents could ask themselves, would I want, would I want to just hang out with me right now?

SPEAKER_03 57:59

Oh, that's a good question.

SPEAKER_00 58:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 58:01

I think we're gonna I think we're gonna end on that.

SPEAKER_04 58:04

Yeah. Would I want to hang out with me right now? Yeah. That's beautiful. Jeff, I started this conversation off by saying how refreshing your approach is, and you did not let me down.

SPEAKER_00 58:14

Oh, I'm so glad. I'm so glad. Thank you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 58:18

I really hope the parents walk away with uh deeper understanding of what's going on with themselves and how that's impacting their adult children.

SPEAKER_00 58:27

And then you can't be too hard on themselves either, you know.

SPEAKER_04 58:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:30

Because we we've all had our journeys.

SPEAKER_01 58:32

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 58:33

And I just want to say something. It's not it's not the fault of the parent. This isn't about blaming parents. It's not. It's not. It's just looking at it just on a slightly through a different lens. I just wanted to say that.

SPEAKER_04 58:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:47

But if they do that, that's uh the secret sauce is it is a it is a secret sauce. It really is. It's yeah, unbelievably powerful. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 58:58

You are so welcome back here anytime. It I'd love to such a beautiful, beautiful conversation. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 59:05

My pleasure. Thank you so much as well. And um maybe sometime soon. So I hope so.

SPEAKER_04 59:12

Just a quick reminder that if you enjoy listening to launch, hit the follow button so you never miss an episode. And if you know another parent who would benefit from it, please share this with them. You know, I very rarely ask, but apparently, leaving a rating and review is one of the best ways for launch to reach more families who are looking for answers. As always, thank you for listening.