“Don’t sweat the small stuff. Just keep calm and carry on… Time passes and before you know it, you are going to miss your two and three-year-old so much.” -Lisa Turnbull
“My biggest piece of advice to give somebody who wants kids is that they’re never going to love anything more than that baby. However, they will also never second guess themselves more in every moment— From the time that that child is born to probably their dying day.” -Jamie Martin
“If [kids] feel seen and heard, there is no longer the need to act it out. They can talk it out.” -Samantha Moe
They say that parenting is hard, but this week, we are here to tell you that it’s even harder than you think!
Parenting is the toughest commitment we can ever make. Kids are crazy. They act in the weirdest ways possible which results in an utter shitshow in our parenting journey. And it’s not even about how they throw tantrums and throw fits— It’s about how they drive us absolutely nuts with their constant demands for attention and how they can be total jerkfaces when you least expect it!
And while it sounds super fun at first, parenting can become downright exhausting if you let it. Your kids will test your patience and drive you up the wall more times than you can count—and that’s okay! It’s part of the process. And sometimes, they’ll just do something so weird that they make you want to scream into a pillow (or maybe just sit in silence for an hour). But don’t worry: Your kids will grow out of their weird phase before long!
Being a parent is an amazing and rewarding experience. Each day brings new surprises and opportunities to learn, laugh, and love. And even though they may get on your nerves, your kids are actually amazing, and they’re worth every minute you spend with them.
We all want to provide the best environment we can for our children and make sure they grow up to be great people. In this episode, we are going to break down some of the most common parenting dilemmas and help you get through them with a little bit of wisdom and a lot of laughter.
Listen in as our Gonzo Parents, Jamie Martin and Lisa Turnbull share their crazy hilarious parenting stories and hacks to make parenting ( a bit ) easier. They also share the hardest and most rewarding parts of parenting and their advice for those planning to become parents in the future.
Our expert guest, Samantha Moe of Samantha Moe and Associates relates her experience as a parent-coach and lessons learned as a parent herself. She also brings in evidence-based research about mirror neurons, how these affect the development of a child, and how parents can use this knowledge to model desirable behavior to their children. She also shares how to minimize or even eliminate the instances of children throwing uncontrolled fits, how parents can be balanced in imposing their expectations, and why parents should take the time to deal with their own issues.
Parents may feel helpless, but gonzo parenting is all about the trial-by-fire learning experience of how to become the parents we wish had. And when we’ve come out on the other side of this roller-coaster ride, maybe we can look back with a little perspective. But until then, let’s hear from our guests…
Episode Highlights:
With Our Gonzo Parents
- 01:55 Meet Lisa and Jamie
- 06:38 Gender Differences and Parenting
- 00:26 Pandemic Parenting
- 14:02 A Bathroom Incident!
- 21:20 How to Explain the Shitshow to Non-Parents
- 28:26 Early or Later? Which is Better
- 36:36 The Biggest Parenting Lies Ever Told
- 42:10: The “Do I Have to Repeat Myself?” Scenario
With Our Expert Guest
- 52:59 The Realities of Parent-Coaching
- 01:04:15 The Science of Relating to Children
- 01:19:17 How to Meet Your Children Where They’re At
- 01:14:04 Handling Intense Kids
- 01:24:51 Teaching Your Kids How to Take Responsibility
- 01:31:23 Slow Down
Resources:
[bctt tweet=”Parenting for sure is the craziest commitment we will ever get ourselves into— but also the most rewarding of all. Tune in as @JayRooke, Gonzo Parents Jamie Martin and Lisa Turnbull, and our expert guest @mad2glad share their insane stories of their kids acting out in the weirdest ways and their advice on how to become better parents. Click https://gonzoparenting.com/ for resources and shownotes. #JayRooke #Podcast #GonzoParenting #ModernParenting #Parentpreneurs #pandemicparents #parentcoaching #parentingmyths #parentchildbond #betterparents #specialneedschildren #responsiblekids #happychildren ” username=””]
Meet Our Guest:
Samantha Moe is the Founder of Samantha Moe and Associates. She is a Certified Parent Coach and speaker. Samantha has coached parents on how to help their children connect and cooperate since 2004. She holds a Master’s Degree in Communication Disorders from the University of Minnesota and possesses a background in interdisciplinary training in sensory integration, play therapy, and emotional integration. She tailors each presentation to the specifics of each audience, selecting different real-life stories, exercises, and techniques depending on the needs and desired outcomes of the group.
Inspirational Quotes:
12:16 “Kids are developing language skills that no other generation has. They can have entire conversations with just their eyes and they can understand everything.” -Lisa Turnbull
21:40 “Until you actually are going through it, you really don’t know what kind of parent you are.” -Lisa Turnbull
23:25 “This super menial, not time-consuming task for this single person— it’s an all-day event for a parent.” -Lisa Turnbull
31:16 “My biggest piece of advice to give somebody who wants kids is that they’re never going to love anything more than that baby. However, they will also never second guess themselves more in every moment— From the time that that child is born to probably your dying day.” -Jamie Martin
32:20 “Once you’re a parent, the things you want and the values you have completely change for better or worse.” -Lisa Turnbull
32:52 “It’s not an incremental change from what life used to be. It’s a whole new everything because it’s not going to carry over or you’re going to find a lot of turbulence.” -Jay Rooke
35:46 “I’m finding a blast of revisiting my own childhood through my kids’ eyes… No one has ever idolized you more in the world than this little person. This is a powerful experience!” -Jay Rooke
37:13 “The biggest lie is [parenting] looks easy on the outside. But until you’re in the thick of it, you really can never understand.” -Jamie Martin
37:32 “It’s almost impossible to have kids and not find yourself in total overwhelm.” -Jay Rooke
38:30 “My motto is that if it’s not working, I need to step away and come back when it will work or when I figured out a better way to make it work.” -Jamie Martin
38:43 “Don’t sweat the small stuff. Just keep calm and carry on… Time passes and before you know it, you are going to miss your two and three-year-old, so much.” -Lisa Turnbull
46:51 “You do something one way with one child, that’s not going to work for the next one. You have to approach it totally differently.” -Lisa Turnbull
55:16 “We’re often told that children act out in front of parents because they feel safe with them. That can be a myth. From a behavioral perspective, children can act out in front of parents because parents might be lacking the tools that can actually guide their child to feel grounded, and being more in control of their feelings.” -Samantha Moe
01:05:50 “If you escalate, they’re going to meet you there and it’s going to keep getting worse unless you as the parent know what to do to take some of the fire away because your kids not going to leave the show.” -Samantha Moe
01:07:05 “If you keep that high standard and you are not flexible, you find out really quickly that they might meet your academic or your behavioral requirements for them, but it is definitely a cost of the relationship.” -Samantha Moe
01:08:21 “Fear-based parenting is not honoring the relationship. That fear is going to move you even further away from your goal of having a well-connected, grounded, in emotional control child who demonstrates empathy.” -Samantha Moe
01:18:48 “If [kids] feel seen and heard, there is no longer the need to act it out. They can talk it out.” -Samantha Moe
01:22:34 “The overwhelming majority of us are healing ourselves at the same time as we’re raising our children. If we’re truly paying attention to what’s going on, that’s where all the gold is.” -Jay Rooke
01:30:15 “When you slow down to the child’s level, the chaos starts calming down as well.” -Samantha Moe
01:31:49 “Slow down. What feels impossible to say no to, start saying no to some of that… What can you say ‘no’ to in your work life so you can say ‘yes’ to your family life?” -Samantha Moe