One Line To Help You Parent With Confidence - with Cindy Shuster, Parent Coach

00:00:00 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
I knew it was Tuesday when you walked in. It's Tuesday.

00:00:09 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Welcome, everyone.

00:00:11 - Caitlin Kindred
We're so glad you're here. Oh, man. Today we have a special guest. We have Cindy Schuster, who's a certified parenting coach here to help us out with our kids because really, who doesn't need help with and it's going to be a great show. Stick around for our interview with her.

00:00:30 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
All right. Yeah. So first I have to introduce my co host, Caitlin, but you can just call her an artist because she's really good at drawing me.

00:00:43 - Caitlin Kindred
Sweetest. Okay. Well, Cindy, I don't know how many of our episodes you've listened to, but I have to do weird Leslie Knope compliments. So I'm introducing Jenny. She is my wild and crazy flower. Know. I don't know. And Cindy, I'm so glad you're here. You are our transcendent little seahorse and we're just happy.

00:01:09 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
There's a first for everything. And I can honestly say that's first for me. I've never been a seahorse, right.

00:01:18 - Caitlin Kindred
Transcendent one at that. Right?

00:01:20 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
If I'm going to be a seahorse, I would like to be a transcendent.

00:01:25 - Caitlin Kindred
Right. I don't I don't know. They just get weirder and weirder. It is fun to see what kind of random words you can throw together and turn them into a compliment.

00:01:36 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
You guys live the Austin motto, keeping it weird. Right?

00:01:40 - Caitlin Kindred
That's the that's how that's how we entertained middle schoolers in subjects like history and science for as many years as we did.

00:01:49 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Right.

00:01:50 - Caitlin Kindred
All right, let's do circle time.

00:01:52 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Yes. Sit crisscross on the rug. We're going to tell some stories and we'll start with our current obsessions, which mine is the Manning cast audition video. If you have not watched this yet, you can pause this episode and go, Google this video.

00:02:11 - Caitlin Kindred
It's so good.

00:02:13 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Everybody knows that I have a giant crush on Peyton Manning. So when I watch it, I am a little bit more enthusiastic than the typical watcher, but it is hilarious. It's Peyton and Eli doing auditions for a third host for their broadcast on Monday Night Football. And they have a whole host of celebrities try out. The celebrities are saying the funniest things. One of my favorites is Peyton and Eli are sitting there in their little dress shirts and their quarter zip pullover sweaters and one guy just looks at me and says, you guys dress like this in real life. Behind the two brothers is a board with string Allah, some kind of murder investigation show or something like that. And there's what they are promoting as possible candidates on this board. One of them is Prince Harry.

00:03:12 - Caitlin Kindred
He does have a podcast. Maybe he's maybe he would be a great addition. Who knows? He likes sports. He's athletic. Although the idea that Prince Harry would spend time doing that is beyond. Exactly.

00:03:28 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
The audition opens with Peyton saying, how do you feel about auditioning to be on the most popular show in television?

00:03:35 - Caitlin Kindred
The guy looks and goes, isn't this.

00:03:37 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
For the Manning cast?

00:03:41 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
It's great.

00:03:42 - Caitlin Kindred
It's really great.

00:03:43 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
And I don't want to give away too many spoilers, but I will tell you that the first time I watched it, I was alone and still cackling out loud.

00:03:51 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
I kind of want to watch it, right?

00:03:53 - Caitlin Kindred
Yeah.

00:03:54 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
The whole ADHD thing, I'm like, oh, I got to stay. I got to take my seat. I'm definitely clicking on that. Once we get off, for sure, we'll.

00:04:04 - Caitlin Kindred
Make sure you have the link right away because I watched it yesterday after Jenny sent it to me, and it's really worth your time, I promise.

00:04:11 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Yeah, well, I'm a huge Peyton Eli.

00:04:14 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Combo fan, and it's just so wholesome and funny.

00:04:19 - Caitlin Kindred
Mine is so weird, but my cousin is getting married in a few weeks and this is a black tie wedding. I have never done a black tie event in my life, and I'm nearly 40, so I don't know what I'm doing at all.

00:04:39 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
You were in a sorority in college.

00:04:42 - Caitlin Kindred
It wasn't black tie. We didn't do black tie. We had formals, but formals were like it wasn't black tie. Okay. At least the boys were never black tie. The girls, of course, went all out, but the boys were like, I'll wear it like my button down and khakis in college, right? Or maybe a sport coat. But it was never okay. So I've never done anything that's like a strict dress code. This is black tie. You can wear this length dress or this length dress or whatever. So I found a dress. I've purchased all of the under things that will make sure that everything fits the way it's supposed to.

00:05:21 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
So comfy.

00:05:23 - Caitlin Kindred
It's going to be great. I'm going to be snatched in. I'll look like a Barbie doll. I can't wait. But the part that I'm having a hard time with is my hair. So all I have been doing lately in any free moment I have is going on to, of all places, Facebook reels and watching girls do their hair in cute updos that don't look have been because the dress has a high neckline. It needs to have a hair up sort of situation. But I don't know. My hair is like this curly mop of crazy, and I just have to figure out how. I'm kind of like I'm going to use my wax stick. I'm going to slick it down somehow, but I got to figure out what actually is going to happen in the back so I can't stop watching these videos. If anyone has good easy wedding hair, please send them to me in our DMs. I would really appreciate it.

00:06:22 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
I love this influencer. It's just classically Cassidy on Instagram. Her hair is longer than yours, but it's still thick and full, and she does easy hair every day.

00:06:39 - Caitlin Kindred
Okay.

00:06:40 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
It's always a different style, and it's always stuff that she can just do herself with, like pigtails or whatever.

00:06:46 - Caitlin Kindred
Okay.

00:06:48 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
I have nothing to offer. My hair is like yours times but on steroids because it's also got frizz and it's coarse. So this is why I'm as slick to my head as I could be today. And it's in this it's cute bun.

00:07:03 - Caitlin Kindred
I love that.

00:07:04 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
That's all you have to do.

00:07:07 - Caitlin Kindred
I could do that. I just need to find a way to like it can't just be like a messy the only buns I know how to do are like ballerina buns that fall out right? Like the twisty kind and then like a big messy one. Those are it. So I got to figure out a way to marry the two into something that looks formal. So that's what I've been obsessively watching on Facebook reels. The only things I get now are like, nail videos and the occasional bad driver video and now hair. Yeah, it's got me figured.

00:07:39 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
The struggle's real.

00:07:40 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Just go watch Peyton a couple more times and you'll get some more football videos.

00:07:43 - Caitlin Kindred
There we go. Perfect. I do have golf videos showing up on my Instagram reels because Bryce sends them to me and it's all golf fails and they're hilarious. And I don't know why I'm into it, but I really am. But right now that's not the obsession. The obsession is hair. Cindy, do you have any obsessions right now?

00:08:02 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
So when you sent me this, I was sort of free thinking, like as we all talked about our mutual going to, because I'm reading this book monogamy. So I wanted to make it clear that I wasn't obsessing about the subject monogamy, but it's because I've been married a long time, but I'm perfectly fine with the monogamy thing. But I've gotten away from reading that short attention span thing, the dopamine hit that Netflix gives me and it becomes hard and harder to pick up. That was sort of my goal this summer was to force myself to read. So this is a book that I don't have to force myself. She is just sort of capturing marriage and how hard it can be and the ups, the downs. I can't stop reading it. It's like kind of moody and so that's one thing. And then I said the other thing and this is my guilty sort of pleasure, which is reality TV. I'm obsessed with like you are reality, Caitlin's.

00:09:00 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Language.

00:09:01 - Caitlin Kindred
You are speaking my language, right.

00:09:05 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Is who I am. I can't get away from it.

00:09:08 - Caitlin Kindred
I'm obsessed.

00:09:09 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
But I had never really gotten into the Below. So then there was this scandal on the Australia one which kept coming up on my feed, just like, well, I have to watch that. Now I'm obsessed with below deck Australia. Have you guys watched it?

00:09:26 - Caitlin Kindred
So I haven't seen below deck Australia, but I have seen the original below deck. And I watched the below deck sailing yacht for one season. But I know the girl that you're talking about because she was on Aisha. She was on the original below deck, and then they moved her to the Australia one. And I know the scandal you're talking.

00:09:47 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Well, she's like the chief stew, but she's not involved in the scandal. But she is fantastic. I cannot get enough where she's like, everything's amazing.

00:10:00 - Caitlin Kindred
It's amazing.

00:10:01 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Yeah. So I'm obsessed with her and the way she talks. I cannot get enough. So this is my new obsession. It's crazy. Like, these people that are richer than rich get on this boat who can afford this, they're, like, hand them a stack of money. At the end, they get these tips of, like, $25,000 just at the end of whatever gazillion dollars they just pay for this cruise, and they're having to put out these amazing meals. I was like, I cannot believe I've been missing this in my life. So that's definitely an obsession now. Cannot wait till Sunday, I think sunday night.

00:10:36 - Caitlin Kindred
If you haven't seen the original below deck with Captain Lee, I would highly recommend there's a below deck Mediterranean, but I don't like the captain as much. She annoys. Yeah, she's just there's something about her that rubs me the wrong way. I think it's the way she speaks to her crew. There's something about it that just feels icky. But Captain lee is my favorite. He's amazing. And the really old episodes of this show, there's some crazy there's one girl who starts a fire by frying oreos. It's so wild what these people are dealing with on this boat, but it's really entertaining. I'm a bravo nut. And right now you're giving me very Jenna Lyons vibes from okay, well, I'm.

00:11:30 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Feeling you're comparing me to Jenna Lyons. Like life made no, those are the vibes I'm getting.

00:11:38 - Caitlin Kindred
Those are the vibes. Jenny, this is the one who is the former J. Crew head of no, those are the vibes. The glasses, the hair, it's all was like the first thing I thought when I saw you was like, oh, my God. Ten alliance vibes for.

00:11:58 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
I. Well, thank you. I had tried to watch the below deck earlier because of my obsession with Brian, of course, and I was like, it was okay. The captain on this one plays like the straight man. He's kind of hot. He's actually really hot. But then he'll do silly things, but always sort of in a straight way, and I just love him. And then he will just fire people. He's like, well, I'm sorry, we're going to have to let you go. The whole thing is just perfect. Everything about it is perfect. I'm like, why didn't I think to be a Stew when I was coming out of college?

00:12:33 - Caitlin Kindred
Because it looks really hard. I didn't think to do it.

00:12:39 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
It does. But they get, like, at the end of, like, three days, they get a $1,500 tip plus whatever, and they do that, like, sometimes over a summer. It's a lot of money. So then you could just go play for a while. So I highly recommend I'm trying to.

00:12:56 - Caitlin Kindred
Jenny GK on the Bravo train. I think I'll get her there at some point.

00:13:00 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
It will happen at some point. It might actually happen sooner than you think, Caitlin, because ESPN is in a fight with our cable provider.

00:13:09 - Caitlin Kindred
Yeah, they are.

00:13:12 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Our sports watching is not as much as it used to be.

00:13:18 - Caitlin Kindred
Limited.

00:13:20 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
That would be a crisis in my house.

00:13:21 - Caitlin Kindred
Yeah, it would be.

00:13:24 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Last night, john's like, I just want to watch Sports Center. I just want highlights. I don't know why these billionaires can't get along. And I guess I'm an airhead. And I said, well, can't we just watch baseball tonight? And he said, Jen, that's also on ESPN.

00:13:40 - Caitlin Kindred
Oh, dear.

00:13:42 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
We cut the cable cord. We have YouTube TV for that reason.

00:13:46 - Caitlin Kindred
We have YouTube TV. Yeah.

00:13:48 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
I love it.

00:13:49 - Caitlin Kindred
Me too.

00:13:50 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
That makes sense. All right, so now it's one of my favorite segments, the gem of the week. And this is the opportunity for you to use me as downward social comparison. At least you're not me. A few weeks ago, I talked about the shedding problem in our tank. We have a very large saltwater tank that is a new project in our house. And within just a few weeks of having the tank, john, my husband, found a dead shrimp at the bottom of the tank. And he was so sad. Somebody ate our shrimp. All that's left is a little body. And when I got home from work, he pulled it out of the trash and said, look, this is the little body. We have a murderer in our midst. So in the intervening time between when this happened and when the fish store opened, we learned that this type of shrimp skunk shrimp sheds, that was not its body, that was its exoskeleton. And we found the shrimp later, and he's fine. So a couple days ago this week, john sends me a picture of Baby Jessica, our Rockflower anemy with shrimp antenna coming out of its mouth.

00:15:15 - Caitlin Kindred
Oh, no.

00:15:16 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
And he says, I think baby Jessica ate Leon.

00:15:20 - Caitlin Kindred
These names are so ridiculous.

00:15:25 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
And I said, that does look pretty ominous. Like, that's definitely shrimp antenna coming out of its mouth. And I'm not about to stick my fingers inside an anunna me to see what it ate.

00:15:35 - Caitlin Kindred
No.

00:15:35 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
And then guess what happens. Leon comes out leon comes out of the rock. What is baby Jessica eating? The shed again? This man needs to learn that shrimp shed.

00:15:49 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
This is why I don't have an aquarium.

00:15:52 - Caitlin Kindred
That and it's, like, hard.

00:15:55 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
It's like Yellowstone or South Fork or Melrose Place.

00:16:00 - Caitlin Kindred
It's great.

00:16:00 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
It's just drama, drama, drama.

00:16:04 - Caitlin Kindred
One of the things my son has been doing and bless when kids get older and become a little bit more self sufficient. Right. There's something to be said for that easy phase when they're babies, when you can just put them in a place and then you walk away and they're fine. That's a great phase, right?

00:16:19 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
We call that baby containers.

00:16:22 - Caitlin Kindred
Oh, yeah.

00:16:23 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Just put the baby in a container, whether it be the car seat or the swing or the Playbed, but just.

00:16:28 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Put the baby in a container, right?

00:16:31 - Caitlin Kindred
That part is a great it's a great phase. And then there's the part that's like six years right in the middle of this where you are just on call all the time, right? Like, it's hard, right? There's so much about it that's like, there is no break. And then now we've hit seven. And I realize this is not every seven year old, but for us. I can sleep until like seven. And then he will get up and he will go turn on the television and wait for us quietly while he watches TV. And we pull ourselves together in the morning. Now that we're in that phase. Sometimes when things go wrong, technologically, we have an issue. But it used to be that he would be like, dad, Netflix isn't working. Whatever. Yes, but that has sort of wound down. And about a week ago, we come out of the bedroom and we're know groggy and a mess, and there's pieces of granola bar wrappers everywhere, all over the table and the couch. Oh, no. And we're like, what happened here? And he goes, I'm stress eating granola bars. And I was like, what? And he goes, I'm stress eating granola bars. Netflix isn't working. We were like, oh, okay. And it's like, of course, like the chewy dips that are like the chocolate dip. And we're just like, oh my God, it's 07:00 and you've had this much chocolate and sugar. You didn't take your medication last night, and this is going to be a real great Saturday morning. So it was just so funny for him to say, what seven year old says I'm stress eating granola bars?

00:18:42 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Oh, my gosh. But what I love about that is that he really took care of his needs. Yes, he did.

00:18:51 - Caitlin Kindred
He didn't bother us for breakfast.

00:18:54 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
It was a pretty adaptive strategy. Not maladapt. I mean, he didn't bother you. He didn't punch the wall, right? I love that.

00:19:06 - Caitlin Kindred
Yeah, I had to go get more because he ate enough that I didn't have enough for the week, so I had to go get more. But we weren't even mad. We were just like, this is amazing. Well done, kiddo. Let's fix it. And then you're going to have some fruit because you need to have something.

00:19:25 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Else to balance it out.

00:19:26 - Caitlin Kindred
To balance it out. Yeah.

00:19:27 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Maybe cheese stick something. Carrot stick something.

00:19:31 - Caitlin Kindred
Yeah, some protein, an egg, something. Here's a bowl.

00:19:35 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Bring that blood sugar batch down, right?

00:19:37 - Caitlin Kindred
Yes, exactly. Kale, whatever else.

00:19:41 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Fabulous.

00:19:43 - Caitlin Kindred
Yes. Well, do you have a gem? Do you have anything ridiculous or fun or anything that happened this week or recently?

00:19:50 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Yeah, so I don't know if it's sort of in the same vein as yours with, like, a little punchline at the end because mine's just a bad all around story for myself. So I'm at the beach. So I am here, and I'm working. I'm doing a little bit of both, and I was like, Gosh, it's blazing hot here. But I was like, down at the beach, it's a little bit cooler. And I worked. I'm like I planned this whole day around this. Maybe one or 2 hours, I'd be able to get away to the beach with my book monogamy. So I pack up my bag, and I like to put my sunscreen on before I go because it's just better than the beach because then it gets all sandy, right? So I'm covered in sunscreen. I walk down to the beach about, like a ten or 15 minutes walk. I'm like, hot now. Like, that uncomfortable. Kind of cannot wait to get down to the beach. So where we are, you have to cross over, like, dunes, right? So I have my bag. My chair kind of laden down, and I'm walking over the dunes, and I'm like, I can kind of see the beach looks really quiet. And it's the week after Labor Day, so it is quieter here. But I was like, Gosh, it's weird. Nobody's on the beach. Like, very few people, like, four. It didn't connect for me that something could be wrong. I come over on the hump of the dune. I see that, and I'm about to get onto the beach. I look down at my leg, and it's like, black, covered in flies.

00:21:12 - Caitlin Kindred
EW.

00:21:13 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Horse flies. It was like, out of the exorcist I am like to do. So I kind of keep walking. Then I'm like, oh, my God. They're all over me. They're on my head now. They're going into my bag, into my beach bag, right?

00:21:26 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Terrifying.

00:21:27 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
It was horrible.

00:21:28 - Caitlin Kindred
This is like a plague from Exodus.

00:21:31 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Or something right now. Like, my chest is sweating. Oh, my gosh. I drop everything. There wasn't no one on the beach. There were a handful of people to witness this. Okay? I drop everything on the dunes in a panic, and I run for the ocean. And I don't really like getting in the ocean, to be honest. I'm like I dip my toes and then my ankles. I plowed into the ocean, and I'm like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. And there's this one soul older guy there. He's like, oh, it's really bad today. And he shows me his can of, like, deep woods off. He's like, I'm covered in this, and it's protecting me. He's like, you could pass them. It was horrible. So I come out. I'm like, okay. I didn't know what to do. So I was like, the minute I got out of the water, they were back on me again. So I ran back in the water. I'm like, scrubbing my body. I'm scrubbing, scrubbing, scrubbing. And I get to the just I got to make a run for it. So he's like, sprays me all over. And I ran across the beach, and I don't look like Pamela Anderson on Baywatch. Okay. It's not a good look. And literally, like, the minute I crossed back onto the street, gone. And I'm like, god, why didn't I just turn around? But I didn't know, you know what? I'd be able to walk through them. It was, like, the worst. I'm still like I'm not quite over it, you guys.

00:22:53 - Caitlin Kindred
No.

00:22:55 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
When I talk about it, you get that feeling in your throat when you feel, like, anxious. I have that right now.

00:23:00 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Oh, my God.

00:23:01 - Caitlin Kindred
No, not today.

00:23:03 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
I'm done. We're done.

00:23:04 - Caitlin Kindred
But also, that story feels like the birds yes. In a very intense nightmare.

00:23:12 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Yeah. It's very Hitchcocky.

00:23:14 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
You guys are not going to believe me. I am not lying. So this then yesterday, I was like, let me go for a long walk. Not on the beach, BTW, like, I walked on the sidewalk, so I'm like, I'm going to go for a nice long walk. And that bird thing actually happened to me. Not that they were coming down on me, but I'm walking, and all of a sudden there's this massive, like, okay.

00:23:34 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
This beach town is haunted. Get out of there. There's a million beaches on the east coast.

00:23:40 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Pick a different one. I love my beach. I was like, what is going on?

00:23:45 - Caitlin Kindred
For real.

00:23:46 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Just a little add on a Gem 2.0.

00:23:48 - Caitlin Kindred
Yeah. Nightmare fuel. Nightmare. Fuel? Anyone?

00:23:54 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
All right. Sorry, you guys.

00:23:55 - Caitlin Kindred
No, it's fine.

00:23:56 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Maybe we'll take a break now so people can process this trauma.

00:24:00 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Yeah.

00:24:02 - Caitlin Kindred
Be right back.

00:24:05 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Let's bring it back.

00:24:06 - Caitlin Kindred
Let's do it. Cindy, thank you for humoring us on our ridiculous start to our show. Cindy's a PCI certified parent coach, and she's a nurtured, heart, approach certified trainer. She's a mom for over 26 years, so that's well done. Thank you. She was an elementary classroom teacher for ten years, and she has three sons. And all of this comes from experience and training, and you just believe in paying it forward so that other parents don't go through the same struggles that you've experienced. And we appreciate you being here. We cannot wait to hear about some of these tips that you have for us.

00:24:51 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Yay. Welcome. Oh, my gosh. Well, that was lovely. Thank you. Thank you guys for having me. I really appreciate being a guest on your show, so that's fun and yeah, that's kind of my background, my story. It was like you guys were teachers too, and I don't know if you went through this, but I could manage a classroom like the back of my hand. Before I had kids, I had these beyond rose colored glasses of what parenthood was going to be for me. Right. Because I was going to have it all going on because I was a really good classroom teacher, and my husband and I are good people, and we're going to love these kids and provide them a great life, and so it's going to be smooth sailing, right? And so, no, that did not happen. Not so much was not smooth sailing, and particularly with one that sort of described the way that you described the sort of similar things that you have with your son, where just everything that I tried and everything that seemed to work on my other, my oldest son, just only made everything far worse. So I feel like since he was about two and developed that personality, I've been on this journey of becoming a parent coach because I have become a student of like, how the heck can this be so hard? There has to be a better way. Just being frustrated and feeling ashamed and feeling dark and hopeless sometimes, honestly. And we went through it. I mean, we really didn't get it together until this particular kid was really almost a teenager and started to really understand that you could drop him off at all the therapists and psychiatrists and dump all the medication into him that you wanted to. It never really moved the needle at home. And that's because we were still the parents that we were, not that we were bad. It's not a judgment on us. But when you're not being helped with how to communicate with your child in a different way and to react to things differently, then nothing's going to change because they're still coming into that same sort of environment. So that was as I was going through my parent coaching program, he was going through his worst trauma. And so we had this sort of parallel process of me shifting, my husband shifting, and then we were able to really develop a great relationship. And the end of the story is beautiful because all three of them, I mean, he in particular is like, killing it in life, and our relationship is great. That's awesome.

00:27:13 - Caitlin Kindred
So far, I'm just blown away by the fact that there's a lot of self reflection in what you just said. When you're a teacher in particular, you do have this very idealistic view of how you're going to raise your kid, right? I've noticed a lot of teachers who really do go through it with their kids, and I don't know if that's because that's who I was around a lot of the time when I was working. And I would just hear their stories, but I'd be like, why is it always teachers kids? Why is it always teachers kids? Right? There's something about that. But also, maybe it is because you're coming at it from a perspective of, I can handle kids, right? Like, I got this. I know what it is. But it's so different when you're seeing them for 45 minutes to 90 minutes at a time, and then they move on to the next person. And I've always said, like, oh, when he's twelve. I got this. Right. I can handle a twelve year old, but I'm sure he is going to give me a run for my money. I have no doubt in my mind. So I just appreciate that you were just saying it's not because of what we weren't bad at this, but it did require us to really stop and look at what we were doing and change the environment that he was in in order to be what he needed for the behavior to change.

00:28:24 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Exactly. I think there's a lot of things that go on in the classroom and honestly, I've coached guidance counselors of elementary schools and middle schools. First of all, how much classroom management did you get in college? Like to learn how to manage? Very little. Right. You got like zero or one class maybe. What is it all based on? Oh, consequences and rewards. Right. Reward them for the good behavior, punish them for the bad behavior and voila. You'll have a perfect classroom. Right. It's very much geared towards controlling a behavior to getting kids to do what you want them to do. Right. We would have those traffic lights, right. So green, yellow, red, so oh, it's lovely. All the kids are going to start on green in the beginning of the day. It's perfect, it's positive. All you have to do is just follow the rules and you get to be on green all day. And if you stay in green long enough, you're going to get to pick out of my prize box or we'll have a pizza part, whatever it is. Right. Inevitably every kid who stayed on green that first day pretty much stayed on green the whole year. Because guess what? They had the skill set to do what they needed to do and the kids who were on yellow and red would get in trouble every day. Right. Instead of changing the approach, which should be more of a mindset of, okay, maybe there's a skill missing, maybe this kid actually cannot do this thing. So how about instead of punishing them for acting crazy when we come in for recess, how about we sit down with that child and huh, it seems like you're having a lot of difficulty when we come in for recess, tell me what's going on, know, why is this hard for you? And then really? So you know, I'm a big fan of Ross Green. I don't know if you guys have heard of him, but I use him a lot in my coaching and with teachers because he know we should be adopting the mindset of kids do well if they can not kids do well if they want to. So in the classroom, we are all approaching it as they would do well if they wanted to. So I'm going to make it so unpleasant when they're bad and so great when they're good that they'll want to. And then when we get no. Different results. We're not changing it. Right. Because the kids who are bad are just and that was the same thing with my son. I'd be like, let me dangle rewards, let me do sticker charts. I did all the classroom stuff at home. I'm great at that. He's going to get it. He could not have cared less about that. And also he couldn't do it. He was impulsive. He didn't have the skill set to not overreact. He had very maladaptive strategies to handling his emotions.

00:30:46 - Caitlin Kindred
Yes.

00:30:47 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
And so I could punish him until the cows came home. Right.

00:30:50 - Caitlin Kindred
It'd be like if you had a.

00:30:51 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Sticker chart for me for yeah, I can't do it. It doesn't matter what kind of rewards you give me. Someone needs to teach me how.

00:31:01 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Well, Jenny, I'm going to punish you if you don't sing well tomorrow.

00:31:03 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Right. And I'm already punishing you by singing.

00:31:09 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Right. And these kids are already getting punished enough because they're injured all the time. And the only time they hear their.

00:31:16 - Caitlin Kindred
Name is when is a negative behind it. Yeah.

00:31:20 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
And then guess what they do start acting like jerks because their shame armor is so thick. Right. My son wasn't going to crumble up and cry when you yelled at him. He was going to give you the proverbial or sometimes actual middle finger.

00:31:34 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Right?

00:31:34 - Caitlin Kindred
Yeah.

00:31:35 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
You're shaming him. And he has now had such a lifetime of taking the shame that he has developed this huge armor and he is going to not let you penetrate it.

00:31:47 - Caitlin Kindred
And I'm just thinking about my son has big feelings like that and some maladaptive strategies for dealing with those things. And some of them are learned behaviors, I would say, but others of them I've never seen from myself, from my husband. They're just how he manifests his feelings. And so we have work to do. That means that I have work to do, right. Like, on myself and how I you're right. The shame armor comes up. But also there is a lot of internalizing of that feeling that we also have to work through at the same time. I know that right now you feel like you can't. I understand that completely, and I just want to help you figure out a way that you can. And I'm seeing that the quote that's here on our notes is when your kid says you're stupid agree with them, I will say I'm not going to argue with you right now. I hear what you're saying. Those are my responses when we start to move towards that, because otherwise it does turn into this big dumpster fire of an event at our house. So I'm very open to hearing how we avoid those power struggles and all of that.

00:33:02 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Yeah. Obviously that's like a little bit of a teaser, right? So your kids told you you're stupid agree with them. Parents are like, what? So disrespectful. Why would I?

00:33:12 - Caitlin Kindred
Right?

00:33:12 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
But it's kind of the mindset of, right? First of all, when a child is angry, and then you try to logic them out of that by giving them all the reasons why they shouldn't be feeling the way that they're feeling. Then, first of all, their low brain, the amygdala that fight or flight is just on fire, so nothing is getting through, right? So you could give them all the reasons why you're not stupid or start to tell them rationally why that's not okay to talk to me like that or whatever it is, and you're going to just get an escalation. You give a fire oxygen, it's going to just keep burning. So how do you stop that? Fire from burning is just to withdraw the oxygen, right?

00:33:52 - Caitlin Kindred
Right.

00:33:52 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
And it's the same thing with your child. The other side of it's sort of craziness. Like, why do we do that? So you tell your child they want to have a donut before dinner. Just something stupid. Like you're like, well, we're not going to have a donut. It's almost dinner. And then they start to freak out and you're like, well, you're the only mom who won't let me do this, and who cares, and I'm going to still make dinner, whatever, right? And you're like, you start to say, well, I know I'm not the only mom because I know, like, Jenny wouldn't give her right? You start to give kid and then you're in it. He says something, you say something. He says something, you say something. And at what point in all those reasons that you are giving your child of why your argument is so logical and why it makes so much sense, does your kid go, oh, my God.

00:34:38 - Caitlin Kindred
Mom, you're so right.

00:34:41 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
You make so much sense. I don't even want that donut.

00:34:45 - Caitlin Kindred
That never happens.

00:34:47 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
I don't know what I was thinking. Never going to say that, right? The fastest path. I love this guy. Dr. Brad Reedy, who I sort of discovered as my son was going through his trauma story for another day, but he is phenomenal, and he says, let your kids be right. And it's this whole idea of, you know what, they might be right. You might be the most strict parent on the planet. Allow them that. You know what? You might be right. Not in our sarcastic way. Not in yeah, okay, yeah, you're right. No, you know what, you're probably right. It's possible that I am the most strict parent. Unfortunately, this is just what I'm comfortable with. And then you don't have to say another word, right? There's nothing more to say. So when I first started doing this, by the time I kind of got this information, which was like a big jaw dropping AHA, like, oh my God, wow, could I have used this ten years ago, I would have had way many less gray hairs and wrinkles. I said, when I'm doing it with my son and he would want to go, like the things that we were arguing about. And he would be like, you're the only parent who would whatever. And I said, you know what? You're probably right. Unfortunately, this is just my decision and where I feel comfortable right now, he's like, I am right?

00:36:08 - Caitlin Kindred
Okay, all right, cool.

00:36:11 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
It was know where before I would say, well, no, that's not true because I know that Connor's mom doesn't want him to do that either because we talked yesterday. And no, it's not a good idea. And no, you won't wake up because remember last week you didn't wake up when you wanted to go do this thing. And no, it's not a good idea to eat a taco in a bag before your swim race because remember last time you threw up when you got out? Like all the things you know what? Maybe you're right. Maybe it is a stricter, stupid decision. It really could be. But this is just what I'm comfortable with.

00:36:43 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
This is what we're doing anyway.

00:36:45 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
It's a boundary. It's just a boundary. And they can have whatever reaction they want to have. They don't have to like it. They don't have to agree with you. But we're always working so hard to get our kids to kind of see why what we're doing is sensical and good and it's just not going to work. They're not buying into you, and you're giving all kinds of energy to this fight that it's just a futile effort. You don't need to do it, so save your energy. That's what I tell parents all the time. I'm like, just save your energy at all costs.

00:37:22 - Caitlin Kindred
How many times have I said to a colleague, you can't reason with crazy when there's a kid who's just completely gone off the rails and they're in their lizard brain, right? You cannot reason with crazy. We've seen that in political discussions with adults. Right. You just can't have a conversation with someone who is so dysregulated. Right? Dysregulated, yes. I like that word better than my lunacy. Right. But it just is exhausting for you when you put effort into it. So you might as well just go, yes. Right.

00:37:55 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
What I'm saying is this is my decision, and it's just what I'm comfortable with. I understand how you feel. I'm sure you're disappointed. I know you wish I was making a different decision. It's okay for them not to exactly comfortable or happy with your decision. And the piece that I really encourage parents to do all the time is just give your kid the name for that emotion and an acceptance of that emotion. You're okay with them feeling the way that they're feeling. They're angry. I know you're really frustrated, and I know you wish you could play Xbox for another hour even though, you know, even though you know during the week our role is one.

00:38:28 - Caitlin Kindred
Right?

00:38:29 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Right. And when the kid can't get off in an hour and they're completely dysregulated, even with that boundary, and they won't get off in a kooky town in your house every time you get off Xbox, then can you put the genie back in the bottle? Yes, you can. I'm not comfortable having it in the house anymore. It's just not working for us. We can revisit it next year. Your kid will be just fine. You can put the genie back in the bottle, and you should. Honestly, I tell parents this all the time. They're like, well, I don't want my kid to be the only one. It's causing chaos and mayhem in your house. It's just not good for your child. It is our job. If your kid said, I just want to have donuts for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, that's all I'm eating from now on. There's not a parent out there that I think would have any problem at all saying, yeah, that's just not happening because you're so certain about it. Right? There's no gray for, you know, you're not looking left and right. Well, jeez, is Jimmy's mom letting him have donuts? It's just like, no. Like, we're definitely not doing that, but we start to do that with smartphones, social media, use screen time, whatever it is, these things, for whatever reason, parents have started to believe they're gray. They're not gray. They're black and white. It is not good for your child right to have unfettered access to technology. Or you try it, and wherever they are developmentally, they're not quite ready for it. That's okay. Then you put the genie back in a bottle. We're just not comfortable with it anymore. We've done some research or just based on we've tried these different solutions. They're not really working. It's causing too much chaos. It's just not good for us.

00:40:00 - Caitlin Kindred
I love that line. I'm not comfortable with this. It's just not good for us.

00:40:05 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
I love that less is more is a big part of what I coach. Less is more. You don't need to be doing everything for your kid. You do need to be setting boundaries. And one of the strategies that I pretty much teach everybody that I work with is this stop. It's so simple and seems so stupid, but it's really important that anytime you're going to go into an interaction with your kids, that you take a moment because you want to be mindful and you want to make sure that does it need to be said? Is this a place where I really need to set a boundary? Where is this coming from in me? Like you said, is this a me problem? Is this triggering something for me? So the S is like, okay, so you get some kind of stimulus coming from your child, and you want to say something or react to it. I just say, just stop. That's the S just don't yet. And then the T is take a breath, take a minute. The O is the observation piece, and that's where you're going to observe the child, what could be going on for them that could be making them act a certain way, but also observing yourself. When parents have little kids, I'm like, you have a two year old on the ground in Target screaming, right? And observing yourself can be very eye opening because you're like, oh, I am freaking out inside that this kid is doing this. But what is actually going on? It's a two year old on the floor having a tantrum. There's nothing really bad happening here, right? I am safe, my health is good. We're going to get out of this. So the observation allows you to re regulate yourself. I think it changes the game. And then the P is then you can proceed because you've given yourself just a little hiccup, right. And it interrupts that normal stimulus response. Stimulus response. So you're not just knee jerk reacting to things. Of course, you have to remember to do the stop, and that takes practice, but it's very helpful, and I use it all the time now, even, like, when adults bother me, and that helps a lot. But the boundary setting is important. It's their health, safety and well being is what you're responsible for. Right. Sprinkle in, I think your own family values, what is important to you as a family, what you're comfortable with. There's that word again. Right? So wherever you have that in your parenting, when those types of issues that fall under those categories come up, move forward with total confidence in your boundary. Don't second guess yourself. Don't be like, well, what time? Because parents will want me to tell them that. They'll want me to say, well, how much time should my kid be playing Xbox? I'll say, oh, my gosh, that's totally up to you. Yeah, it's totally up to you. What do you think you're comfortable with? I don't know. All right, well, how could you get more comfortable? What do you need to do to get comfortable? So we can learn, right? We can read research, we can talk to our doctors, we can get on the World Health Organization, we can get on the American Pediatric Association. There's so much out there to learn. What is the research saying? Then you can do your anecdotal research. How's it going in your house and how does it feel? Right. A lot of times I think parents have shut down that and I was guilty of this all over the place. But just like, I'm not really listening to my intuition. I would feel like when my kids started to want to have some of that stuff and of course it was like my generation was building the plane as we were flying it, because it was all kind of unrolling as my kids were growing up. But I had a sense it wasn't good. There was a lot of it I really didn't feel comfortable with, and I really wish I had had the confidence back then to just listen to myself, but I didn't have the words to say to my kids. It would have ended up in some kind of volatile thing. And I had this little egoic worry that my kid wouldn't have what everyone else is having. Right. My kid wouldn't be able to talk about these games or whatever. Guess what? If you're parenting from a place of confidence and you have a loving family and that's what you got going on and you lean into your family values, your kid's going to be just fine. You're not being a dictator. You're literally doing your job. You're making decisions that you truly believe are in the best interest of this child and their well being.

00:44:22 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Well, and I want to kind of hone in on that piece when you said in the best interest of this child. Because I have two children who are vastly different and have different needs from me as a parent.

00:44:35 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Right. My kids were all different too. I call them my bookends. The first and the last were kind of non confrontational by nature, not really a boundary pusher by nature. Another thing you can kind of filter things through is fostering in all their interaction, in all the interactions that you have with them as much as you can, like fostering their autonomy, fostering their sense of competency, and fostering relatedness, like how connected they feel to you. And so even in those conversations with your daughter, who is very receptive to conversation, just being mindful of allowing her to have autonomy in that conversation just because she's even keeled and not blowing up the conversation, there's still things about the way that you're communicating with her that will be beneficial to her. Like saying as opposed to you sitting down and saying here's what you need to do, which I'm not saying you're doing. But parents can really take advantage of a child who is calm when you sit down to talk and just say, this happened. That was really tough. What do you think was going on there for you and what do you think you could do differently, right? Which sounds like maybe that is the kind of parent that you are. Not that I took advantage, but I very much leaned into the fact that my other two were easy going. And it's not that I felt like I just didn't have a whole lot of conflict with them. I would say my very average parenting worked just fine for them, but it doesn't mean that I couldn't have upped my game, you know what I mean? Because you talked a little bit about nurtured heart, which comes up a lot more often than not when I'm I would say a lot of the people that I'm coaching tend to have one of my kids like a type of kid that my kid was. And they'll have other kids in the household, but they're coming to me mainly for this one where people are kind of walking like eggshells around this kid. That's the one. And I'll say to them, we're going to work on this for sure about this specific things with this child. But what I would like to encourage you to do and invite you to do is just apply it to all your children because it's just really good relational foundational ways of interacting with a child. Really just I've had moms who come because I'll coach couples a lot, but sometimes it's like the mom coming to me, it's everything that's wrong with the dad, but the dad doesn't want to get on the phone. Right. And what's interesting in that is that usually that woman grows an awareness of her ability to set boundaries in her own actual adult relationship. So it sometimes ends up sort of awakening her to setting boundaries with a husband of saying, here's what I'm comfortable with, and here's what I'm no longer comfortable with. So there's a lot of great I love this journey with children. I mean, it's so messy and crazy and kooky, and there's no one right path. I mean, I'm certainly not here saying, here's the way you need to parent. I am saying, please listen to your gut and please work on relationship. I think those two things together can just move mountains. But I just think my kids taught me everything I know about myself. Wow. I love who I am for having parented, particularly, I mean, all of them. But my middle son taught me my best lessons for sure about myself. And then it made me look in a mirror that I didn't really it's like when you first wake up in the morning.

00:48:04 - Caitlin Kindred
Yes.

00:48:04 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Or at least me at 54 without the makeup and the hair slicked back. It's not pretty. It's like that look like, oh my gosh, oh my God, what a hypocrite I am. I had to kind of come to terms with some of that stuff. Like I'm asking this child to do things that I cannot do as an adult. Just a lot of stuff like that. So a lot of it we take so seriously. I'm like, just bring a little ease, a little calm into the journey, reminding yourself, you've got this. So what? It didn't go well. We can redo. We can try again tomorrow. Tomorrow? Yes. Tomorrow is always there, hopefully.

00:48:46 - Caitlin Kindred
Yeah.

00:48:46 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Not Conway knock.

00:48:53 - Caitlin Kindred
This talk of boundaries is becoming very popular right now, where everyone is talking about boundaries. But I love that some of what you've done is associate the boundary setting with self care and making sure that you are doing things that you are comfortable with. And I'm just wondering, can you speak a little bit more about that self care piece and how this all relates to your parenting journey?

00:49:21 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Yeah, for sure. And self care is another word that gets bandied about. And I think there's a lot of misconceptions about. I guess it's whatever you want it to be for yourself. But I feel like I always have that question when I do an intake, it's on my intake form. Like, what are you doing for self care? Most of the time, we are, as a society, running at a low, not quite a boil, but most of us are just under, right? Right. And I use this all the time, but if you have a pot on the stove and you had just kept it on a temperature where it would have like, those little bubbles on the bottom but nothing else, like, the top was pretty calm. I think most of us are, if we're being honest, walking around like that, right? And so how much energy or input would it take to turn that pot into boil? Like, just the tiniest smidge and it's like right? And I think that that piece of it is where that self care comes in. Because if you're always like that, we're always here, then we're here, then anything coming in is not going to take much to get us here.

00:50:31 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Right?

00:50:31 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
And when you are dysregulated yourself, nothing good is happening with you and your child. Like, you're not going to get a child to come down that way. You're also teaching them. And this is something that sort of connects with the nurtured heart. That the best way to get my attention, my relationship, my energy, is to misbehave because that's when I'm going to go big. When you're being good and you're quiet, I'm unplugged, I'm over here getting stuff done. And so for kids who have parents who are all working and everyone's busy and they're at school all day or they're at daycare all day, and then they only have this moment of time with their parents, a short amount, and they want you, they want that connection, they want that relationship. And from a very young age, they've learned like, oh, when I cause mayhem, everyone's in game on. My parents come in every time. And so that can get you in a lot of trouble because you could just be on a path and if you don't interrupt that, whatever that neural pathway is, oh, when I misbehave, everyone's in gets so rutted. You have to learn how to turn that around. So the only way you can really start with that is to turn down the energy all the way around. Negative behavior. So turn that pot down, put some ice cubes in it. How do you do that? Self care, right? You have to take care of yourself, so you have to find ways to and the stop strategy is just a piece of that. It's just being mindful. It's like whatever you can do on a daily basis that really calms your system, that you train your brain to kind of operate to take yourself off that low boil that you can walk through life more calm internally. Because then when the stuff comes out, you're going to have a fighting chance of not freaking out and not making that energy go hog wild. When your kids misbehaving. And then, of course, then those other pieces is what I teach parents through the coaching, is like, how can you then create that same energetic feeling? Because they still want the connection when good things are happening. So you have to sort of retrain your brain. But the self care piece has to come first. That's like the foundation of the house. You have to have it. It's the big rock. It needs to be part of every day. So for some of my clients, I had one mom who I mean, this was one of the moms who came by herself, but she was like, oh, God, I haven't even thought about my self care. She ran her own business out of her house. Her husband was not really involved as much as she needed him to be, I guess I should say. She's like, I'm going to take a bath. I haven't taken a bath in forever. And baz, really? I love them. They calm me down. So she created this ritual. She went to her family like, this is what I'm doing every day. I don't know if she's still doing it, but for that time period, she took a 20 minutes break, she took a hot bath, and she's like, it has been changed my life, or you do yoga or you meditate or you write in your journal or you go for a nature walk. But I mean, I think it's just anything that reregulates you and it's a practice and you're doing it every single day and you're committed to it in the same way you wouldn't skip brushing your teeth. Well, most of us, no judgment. I know sometimes things get busy.

00:53:37 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Caitlin has the best phrase about brushing your teeth. At night, we brush our teeth for ourselves.

00:53:43 - Caitlin Kindred
In the morning, we brush them for.

00:53:44 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Our that I love that. That's awesome.

00:53:49 - Caitlin Kindred
I'm going to use that. Please do.

00:53:52 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
But what I'm saying is, it's that much of a routine, right? It's just part of what you do. This is just what I do every day. And it doesn't have to be really long, and maybe it means you get up 15 minutes earlier, but I think it's super important because we have to learn how to calm down.

00:54:11 - Caitlin Kindred
This is really important. I think we've talked about self care on an episode. It was episode seven, so, like, many moons ago at this point. But we did talk about it as the spa day thing. That's a treat for yourself. That's not self care.

00:54:28 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
I'm all about a spa day 100%.

00:54:31 - Caitlin Kindred
But that's not self care the way that it needs to be thought of. But I love the idea of self care is a form of reregulation. That is a way that I think it will resonate with me in something that's truly a way for me to get it done every single day. Because we did talk about how it needs to be routine. It needs to be something that becomes a habit because otherwise it won't be self care. It'll just be a treat for yourself. But putting it in this mindset of like, this is not just something that I do because I like having my nails done every week. This is something that I do because this is how my brain returns to that pot being not boiling at all. Right. This is how I completely take the pot off the burner. That's a really good way to look at it.

00:55:24 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Right, well, and I think I put in the thing, it's like the cliched oxygen mask principle. If you're not okay, you're no good to anybody else. Like I said, I think there's a lot of shoulds. It should be this, it should be that. And that can be off putting. We're already stressed. Like, I don't need another should in my life, but whatever works for you and you can try different things. It's not one size fits all. And just to add one more little clip to that self care is also just how you are treating yourself. The judgment, oh, God, I'm like the worst mom, or, God, I can't believe I blew up again, or why can't I get my what together? My house is a wreck. Like I'm the worst. That is another piece of self care is up. There I go again. No, I'm not talking to myself. That doesn't serve me to I'm going to reframe. You know, if Jenny's talking to Jenny, she's going to talk to Jenny the way, well, I don't know how you guys talk to each other, but I'm assuming if Jenny called you and said, I can't believe I just love my kid, you're not going to be like, god, you're the worst. I'm sure you're like, oh, my God, it's so hard, isn't it?

00:56:39 - Caitlin Kindred
Right?

00:56:40 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Yeah, right. You're going to give her some. So it's like being a friend to you in the same way you would be to somebody else is the other piece. Because there's no I just remember myself because it got bad and I'm like yelling at this kid and saying things to him that I'm like, why would I say that to him? He's a child. But in the moment, I'm so angry and I just want this thing to stop. And the things I would say to myself and the way that I felt about myself, it got heavy and dark. It was on my back. Right, right. How am I good to anybody like that?

00:57:15 - Caitlin Kindred
And how can you parent from a place of confidence when you talk to yourself like that? Because you're destroying your self confidence. I mean, think about all the things that you've internalized, about the way you look or whatever. You've destroyed your confidence that way. But if you. Constantly beat yourself up as a parent. That's why those people come to you and say, I don't know, because they truly don't have any self confidence as a parent, because they beat themselves up about the way that they're parenting because of the way that their kid is acting out, right?

00:57:47 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
And there's so many messages out there. You should be gentle parenting. You should be this parent or that parent. And I'm like, how about we just wipe all that off and just go, here what feels good to me, what's my instinct telling me. You've got so much wisdom in there if you let it be. And, like, your self care could just be getting up in the mirror in the morning and be like, you like, you're crushing it know? I think Mel Robbins is the one who does that. High five in the you if that's all you can do because anything else feels right, just start plant the seed of when I'm going to reset myself, and I'm going to just try and be really mindful of that negativity that I'm pointing back at myself because I am a great mom. I am trying, and I care about my kids and I'm human, and of course I'm not going to be perfect. I'm going to make mistakes and I'm going to behave in ways that I wish I hadn't. And that's okay. That's part of everything.

00:58:45 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
I read Self Compassion by Dr. Neff ten years ago, and I just the other day said, I think I need to pick that book back up and spend some time in it because I started to hear some negative self talk and said, okay, it's time for me to revisit that. Are you treating yourself like your best friend?

00:59:06 - Caitlin Kindred
I truly just had an epiphany of how can I possibly parent from a place of confidence if I speak to myself as a parent the way that I do? And the other day when my child had a full scale meltdown like we're talking the kind of meltdown where, you know, the episode of The Office where it's a Christmas party and Angela completely loses her mind because Kelly kisses Dwight and she goes into the parking lot in a snowstorm and she starts throwing ornaments and screaming in the parking lot. That is what my child looked like. And I just was like, I somehow by grace of the Great Spaghetti Monster or whoever it is that watches out for people, I stayed calm and I was just like, you're right. You're so right. And after that was over and he went to sleep, finally, I was just like, I deserve the biggest pat on the back for that. And for whatever reason, just that has carried me through this solo parenting that I've been doing for the past 36 hours. Just me looking at that and being like, I handled that full scale meltdown in a way that I have never handled any other meltdown in my life, and I deserve a cookie.

01:00:22 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Not a real cookie.

01:00:24 - Caitlin Kindred
Not a real one right now because I've already brushed my teeth. I don't need to have another cookie, but I just deserve whatever parenting pat on the back there is, and it has truly given me the strength that I've needed to get through the past 36 hours doing this by myself while my husband's away.

01:00:41 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
So powerful. There's a great example of that. You're right. It's so funny because I will ask about that. I'm like, well, where are your family strengths? And what about your kid and what's working? And sometimes they really struggle just to pull that out because it's so bad or they feel like it's so bad. But that initial call is where that seed is planted. So just for this week, how about just try to focus on finding any, even if it's tiny? Like, you asked your kid to pass you the ketchup, and they didn't tell you to go blank and they didn't throw it or tell you to get it yourself. They handed you the ketchup. That's a win. Look for those little moments. Just those little moments. And then if something negative happens, I want you to do your best to just like we talked about the energy. So it's so interesting. Just that tiny little seed. By the next week, more often than not, they're like, we had a really good week. I don't know what happened. And it is just that mind shift. What you focus on grows.

01:01:41 - Caitlin Kindred
I love it.

01:01:42 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
I like that.

01:01:42 - Caitlin Kindred
Yeah, it's a great way. I have so appreciated this. I do feel like I've had, again, at least one epiphany, if not a couple in all of this. What you focus on grows is just such a that's a great line. And I feel like that could sum up a lot of what we've talked about today for agree.

01:02:02 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
I agree.

01:02:03 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
So thanks for joining us.

01:02:05 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Well, thank you for having me. It was fun. You guys are a hoot.

01:02:11 - Caitlin Kindred
We know.

01:02:11 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
But thank you. If I come to Austin, can I look you up? Yes, of course you can.

01:02:19 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Yes, absolutely.

01:02:20 - Caitlin Kindred
Please do come back and join us anytime. We would love to have you.

01:02:24 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Oh, my gosh. I would love it. Thank you for having me again. And, of course, hope you never have, like, a fly situation. Yeah.

01:02:31 - Caitlin Kindred
My gosh, I hope I never have a fly situation.

01:02:34 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
Nightmares. Nightmares. That's so funny.

01:02:38 - Caitlin Kindred
Oh, my goodness.

01:02:39 - Jenny GK, Cindy Schuster
All right, stop and make good choices.

01:02:44 - Caitlin Kindred
Give yourself some grace. Talk to yourself in a positive way. You can put the genie back in the bottle. You got this. Okay, bye.