Episode 579: Parenting with Less Conflict and More Connection

The Whinypaluza Podcast

In Episode 579 of The Whinypaluza Podcast, host Rebecca Green welcomes Sari Beth Goodman, M.A., Certified Parent Educator, and founder of Th

Key takeaways

• Repeating yourself often stems from a lack of confidence rather than poor communication; trusting that your child heard you can reduce unnecessary repetition.
• Children tune out when they perceive repeated explanations as criticism, filling their emotional 'jar' with stress—leading to disengagement.

Main topics

• Reducing parental conflict through emotional awareness
• The impact of repetition and stress on child listening

Notable quotes

"You get upset. Get upset. You're human."

"Don't feel so guilty about losing it once in a while, because if we never lose it, what are we teaching our children that they can never lose it?"

Conclusion

Parenting doesn't require perfection—just presence, self-awareness, and connection. By

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) No need to whine, it's why we go blue, so... Have some wine and join us on the Whiny Palooza Podcast with Rebecca Green. Welcome to the Whiny Palooza Podcast. I'm your host, Rebecca Green. I'm a wife, mother of three, and licensed clinical social worker. I also have three fur babies at home, too. My passion has always been to help children and their families. I always dreamed of being a wife and a mother. Parents are always learning through their struggles, failures, and successes and joys. I am no stranger to this wild ride of parenting, and I know behind every great parent lies a team of supportive friends and family. I want to be part of your support system. I want you to know that you are not alone. We are in this parenting world together. Join me every week. Speaker 1 (0:53) for insightful discussions with experts on parenting and marriage, as well as other parents who have found the secret to successes in parenthood. You'll learn tips and tricks to make life with your family better than ever. I hope you will follow along with me while we dive into what it takes to achieve a happy family. Hello, everyone. This is Rebecca Green for the Whiny Palooza podcast. And I am very excited today because I get to talk to the absolutely wonderful Sari Goodman. Sari, thank you so much for being here with me today. I'm excited too. Thanks so much. This is going to be such a fun episode. I have way too many questions. I'm sure we won't get to all of them. But let me tell you why this wonderful lady is so fabulous. Sari Goodman. Speaker 1 (1:44) She has her MA, is a certified parent, educator, and coach, and the founder of the Parental Edge. She helps parents strengthen communication, reduce conflict, and build healthier relationships with their children through practical tools, emotional awareness, and supportive guidance. Her work focuses on helping families feel more connected. confident, and equipped for the everyday challenges of parenting. And we all know there are everyday challenges of parenting. Every day. Every day. It's a new day with new challenges every day. But I want to start with what led you to become a parent educator and coach. Speaker 1 (2:31) So it started as when I was as a principal, as I was an elementary school administrator for many years. And I saw a trend where more and more parents were coming to talk to me about how come they listen to you and they don't listen to me? How can I get them to do their homework? How can I get them to go to bed, wake up, read, all those. I saw more and more parents coming to me and I'm thinking, wow, I've got a lot of training and experience in students and curriculum and teachers, but parents. So I went back to school with the expressed goal of helping the parents in my school. And I got certified as a parent educator and coach. And that's how it started many years. That's an amazing story. I didn't know that story. So you really have an amazing background. Speaker 1 (3:26) You mentioned homework. You mentioned listening. I mean, what do you think parents are struggling with most right now that you're seeing? I think parents are struggling with confidence. That, that you need confidence to, to, I like to help parents identify the values that they have in their family. When you have values and you stick with them, it brings confidence. And so I think that when we're seeing all on the social media and we're getting mixed messages and there's, we're being bombarded. It's really hard to stick to your values. And that takes a lot of confidence. And I think parents are shaky on that. That's interesting. I mean, I'm just thinking of your background. Education is an example of values. Some of us, a lot of us value that our kids are getting a good education, right? Right. Speaker 1 (4:29) Right. But, you know, but when a child says, you know, I will not read and I will not do my homework, it goes against our values. We have conflict. Yes. So let's go there. I feel like. I feel like we can sound like a broken record. We repeat ourselves a lot. I mean, what do you think is happening underneath that when we're constantly repeating ourselves? We're constantly repeating ourselves. That part of that is the confidence of, am I getting through? So maybe I'm not getting through, so I have to keep repeating myself. Or am I making my case? Speaker 1 (5:09) Maybe I have to make my case in a different way so they keep trying. Or maybe my child doesn't remember the last 10 times I said the exact same thing, so I better repeat it for the 11th time. And that's a confidence issue. And when I say to parents, do you have confidence in your child that your child can understand what you're saying? And if the answer is yes, I said, okay, well, then they understand what you're saying. You can have confidence. They heard you. And you can stop repeating yourself. Just say what you need. Say what has to happen. I mean, I think the problem that they would tell us is that their kid hears them and doesn't necessarily listen. So the question is, then what? Well, I'm going to show you something. And for listeners, I'm holding up a jar of water, half full with red water. And then I'm filling up another jar. Speaker 1 (6:07) That's full of red water. And this is stress. Okay, so the halfway jar is the stress we walk around with on a daily basis. We're always under some kind of stress. And so what happens when they don't brush their teeth and you try to tell them, you're going to get cavities and we're going to have to go to the dentist and it's not going to be fun. And you've said it five times, but the fact is, is they don't want to. brush their teeth and you keep giving the same explanation, they don't hear that. They hear you're wrong. You're wrong. You're wrong. You're wrong. You're wrong. Every. And so they start to tune you out. That's the not listening. And the wrong, you're wrong. You're wrong. You're wrong. It starts to fill up the jar. And that's when you go. Speaker 1 (6:58) Yes, yes, that is accurate. So help us stay calm. As we grow increasingly stressed, how do we help parents stay calm in the conflict? Well, I want to say the opposite for, to start with the opposite, which is, I think this idea that parents have to stay calm in conflict isn't fair to parents because we're human. Yeah. And I think that that standard of we must stay calm in conflict sets us up for feeling shameful as parents. And I say, you know what? You get upset. Get upset. You're human. I say take this as an opportunity to show your child how to get upset respectfully. We don't call names. We don't shame. Right. We don't we don't make someone we don't threaten. We just get upset. And because our kids are going to get upset and they start maybe they start calling names or swearing. It's no, no. You saw how I got upset. It's OK to get upset. This is how. Speaker 1 (8:19) And so that's one opportunity. And that, you know what, don't feel so guilty about losing it once in a while, because if we never lose it, what are we teaching our children that they can never lose it? That's also setting them up for an unattainable goal. But there are ways to stay calm. One of the ways is know your buttons. What are your buttons? Yes, yes. You know, One of mine was, I hate you, mom. That was a button that put me through the roof. Or you're the worst dad ever. Or, you know, my friend's parents are nice and you're not. Yes, yes, yes. What are your buttons? And then I would say write down your buttons and then. Speaker 1 (9:10) Say them in the mirror over and over and over again, desensitize yourself to the buttons. And then when your child starts saying these things in your mind, you're going up, there's a button up, there's a button. And it keeps you in your frontal cortex. It keeps you intellectual, keeps your ability to think so that you don't go into your emotions and lose it. Right. So it's a, it's a practice of desensitizing yourself to the buttons. You know, and they know because kids know you so well. Oh, my goodness. Do they know how to push our button? Yes. They are professionals. Oh, my goodness. I am deep in teenage attitudes. Yes. Yes. Deep in it. And I know that my buttons are being pushed. And I will tell everybody some days I handle it really well. And some days I don't. Speaker 1 (10:10) Well, and that shows because that's kids too. Isn't that being human? Right? We don't want us to set ourselves up for this impossible goal. I agree. I like that. I never thought about it that way. I thought I had to be a beacon of peace. And how is that realistic? Right. And then if you say I need to be a beacon of peace and then you're not, then you feel, oh, I failed. No, you didn't fail. You were just human. Thank you for telling all of us that. We all need to hear that. I also think that there are parenting habits that are common that are leading to more conflict. Is there anything that we're doing that you can think of? There's a couple of things. One is. Speaker 1 (11:00) logical explanations. Yeah. Kids want what they want when they want it, or they don't want what they don't want. And you think, Oh, if I just explain, then they'll see. And I haven't yet seen a child who says, Oh mom, you're so right. Thank you for that logical explanation. I haven't met one. And so what happens is because our logical explanation isn't landing the way we hoped it would, we start getting frustrated. So now we're double frustrated. We're frustrated our child's not listening. And we're frustrated that our beautiful, logical, perfectly logical explanation isn't landing. And now we have double stress. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, we are doing that. Yeah. I am guilty. Guilty as hard. Speaker 1 (11:59) An explanation of why she needs to wear her bike helmet. Way too logical. Right. Because, you know, it creates helmet hair. Don't you know, mom? I care about my brain. That's right. Oh, good Lord. So we know that they act out and we know that there's behaviors. What can you tell us is underneath these behaviors that we're seeing? Well, it's communication. They're communicating. So it's really hard because we have these children who we love more than anything in the world. We would do anything for them. And they're screaming at us and they're telling us no. And they're slamming doors and they're saying, I'm never talking to you ever again and all these things. And it hurts. Speaker 1 (12:59) It really hurts. And if we can switch up our inner talk, that it's really not us. It's really not about us. You think it's about you. When they say, Mom, you don't get it. Or, Mom, you're ruining my life. Or, Dad, this is whatever it is they say. It's really not about you. It's about them trying to figure out the world. And the world isn't working as they expect because they're children. They haven't had a whole lot of experience. So if something worked one time, they expect it's going to work another. But that's not how life works, right? One day you can, yes, sure, sure, you can do that. No problem. But the next day you can't do that because, well, maybe you say, sure, you know, you can watch. Speaker 1 (13:51) You know, you can be on your phone extra time. You did your homework. Everything is fine. You can go right ahead. But the next day, oh, no, we have to go. We're taking everybody out to dinner and we have a schedule. And no, you can't. But from a child's point of view, wait a minute. Yesterday you said yes. And today you said no. I don't care that you have a schedule. What does that have to do with me? So they're just trying to figure out how that whole world thing works and they get disappointed. So a lot of this emotion and pushback and reaction is about them seeing that, wait a minute, the world isn't working as I expected it. I have to figure this out. But before I can figure it out, I have to let go of all my emotions. So it's really not about you. So if you can enter talk going, this really