On today’s episode I welcome back Katherine Sellery, a 3x TEDx speaker, who has taught thousands of parents the Conscious Parenting Revolution  to help them raise resilient, considerate, centered and empowered kids who know their inner voice and honor it.

Check out my previous episodes with Katherine:

• How to be a more conscious parent and why it’s important 
• Why it’s okay to raise kids who are self-centered 

For today’s episode, we discuss the following:

• The difference between praise and acknowledgment
• How to create kids who are self-directed
• How to raise kids with a fire to succeed that is self-directed
• Examples of acknowledgement
• Why being mindful as a parent is important for your child’s success

To find out more, visit, www.consciousparentingrevolution.com.

00;00;08;27 – 00;00;32;26

Dr. Mona

Welcome to this week’s episode. I have a returning guest. She has been on my podcast two times already and this is her third time. I am welcoming Katherine Sellery. She is a three time TEDx speaker who has taught thousands of parents the Conscious Parenting Revolution to help them raise resilient, considerate, centered, and empowered kids who know their inner voice and honor it.

 

00;00;32;27 – 00;00;44;02

Dr. Mona

And I am talking to her today about how we can raise a child with a strong work ethic who is still not afraid of failure. Thank you so much for joining me today, Katherine.

 

00;00;44;05 – 00;00;52;23

Katherine Sellery

I am so excited to be here. I mean, this is such a great topic. I know you and I were kind of like playing around with this previously, and I really want to dive in.

 

00;00;52;26 – 00;01;19;03

Dr. Mona

I’m so excited. So you have been on the podcast twice. So for anyone who’s listening to this episode, but not the other episodes we recorded episode 45, which was how to be a more Conscious Parent and Why it’s important, and episode 93, why it’s okay to raise kids who are self-centered. But it was after episode 45 that I stopped the recording and talked to Catherine about this topic, and I said, I need you to come back on this podcast so we can discuss this.

 

00;01;19;03 – 00;01;40;04

Dr. Mona

And I wanted to link to my listeners where this topic comes from. So I have always seen and I personally feel it. I think my husband feels it. A lot of my peers who are succeeding in, you know, a career like medicine, for example, I have a lot of colleagues where we have been raised in that mentality that you’re going to work hard and you’re going to work hard and you’re going to succeed and succeed.

 

00;01;40;06 – 00;01;58;23

Dr. Mona

But also how to balance that with being okay with failure, because it wasn’t until I got to college and I failed, where I actually had to learn to be okay with failure. And up until then, it was you do this, you get good grades, you’re going to get an AA, and if you get a B, if you get a C, that’s not great.

 

00;01;58;23 – 00;02;15;01

Dr. Mona

And how can you put that like lack of a better term, the fire under the under the ass of someone to succeed and work hard but also balance it with, hey, take it easy. Sometimes your work ethic is not the only thing that defines you. And that’s kind of what this conversation is going to be about.

 

00;02;15;03 – 00;02;26;28

Katherine Sellery

Yeah. So excellent. So I mean the first thing that comes to mind is and I think we’ve talked about this before, but if not I think it’s where I want to start. And that’s really the difference between praising and acknowledging your children.

 

00;02;27;03 – 00;02;28;12

Dr. Mona

 

00;02;28;14 – 00;02;57;10

Katherine Sellery

So when we talk about praise we’re really talking about you know approving of my stand. And then I’m going to give you praise when you acknowledge your children, you’re teaching them to evaluate their own efforts. So we can put that kind of like stake in the ground, because I think it’s a cornerstone to the larger conversation. So how do we create children that are self-directed rather than socially prescribed, looking for approval?

 

00;02;57;13 – 00;03;21;08

Katherine Sellery

So one is the healthy form of perfectionism and one is the dysfunctional form of perfectionism. So we’re looking for children who are self-starters, have that little fire under their belly, and are doing it because it’s satisfying to them. They have healthy self-esteem. They’re looking for challenges. They persist. They don’t really get discouraged because they believe in themselves, and they value being skilled.

 

00;03;21;08 – 00;03;27;02

Katherine Sellery

And with that energy from within, they seek mastery. Does that make sense?

 

00;03;27;06 – 00;03;49;14

Dr. Mona

Yeah, absolutely. And I think one of the biggest questions parents have is, are there certain things that I am saying or doing as a parent that makes it not self-directed? So some examples of what you just mentioned, in terms of how we can, you know, talk to our children so that they feel more self-directed and acknowledging what they’re capable of versus external praise that we’re giving to them.

 

00;03;49;16 – 00;04;14;22

Katherine Sellery

Right? So when you look at praise, the praise is all about my judgment of you or your effort. I usually do it in public or I can do it in public, either to amplify what you’ve done so that you feel even bigger and puffed up, and look how great everybody looks at me and thinks I’m doing so well and it completely orients the mind of the child to what do other people think of me?

 

00;04;14;22 – 00;04;35;06

Katherine Sellery

Are they thinking I’m bright or not? Do I feel like I’ve met their approval? And that’s the world of praise. It keeps the mind of the child completely focused on the external world, and trying to be sure that they’re enough for other people to continue to praise them, and then they’ll feel good about themselves. Acknowledgment teaches children to evaluate their own efforts.

 

00;04;35;06 – 00;04;51;25

Katherine Sellery

It gives our opinion, and it’s a personal event. It doesn’t show children up in public or compare them to each other. So you know, these are radically different in most parents, unfortunately, without knowing it, are in the world of praise. Yes. Right.

 

00;04;51;28 – 00;05;12;01

Dr. Mona

Oh, absolutely. And even I have a two year old. So I think about how we kind of look at praise in the toddler years, which is early, but also how people talk about their children as they get older and then how let’s be honest, how grandparents talk about their grandkids or how grandparents talk about their children, meaning, you know, my own parents, how they speak about us.

 

00;05;12;01 – 00;05;32;15

Dr. Mona

I mean, it just feels like a cycle of never ending praise, which, yes, it feels good to feel praise. I mean, I do feel like, you know, oh, I think my parents proud of me, but it’s how that is issue. Like, where is that coming from? Where is that praise and what is the core source of that praise, I think, is important for a parent to remember when they are praising or acknowledging their child.

 

00;05;32;18 – 00;05;58;19

Katherine Sellery

Well, and there’s a big difference. So praise is going to say things like, good job, great work. That’s great. You know, you’re such a good girl. You always listen to me or, you know, you’re so clever or something like, I’m proud of you. Or things like, you make me so happy. All of these are dangerous. Every single one of them is about how other people think about you.

 

00;05;58;21 – 00;06;24;26

Katherine Sellery

And they orient that child to wanting to get more of your praise in order to be in your good graces, where the acknowledgment piece is really just about I appreciate you. Thank you. I’m grateful. I admire your work. Did you know you could do it? It it takes a child away from what other people think, and it helps them to feel like, well, how do I feel about that when I do those?

 

00;06;24;26 – 00;06;32;09

Katherine Sellery

Kind of. Actually, I feel really good about myself. Oh, yeah. It’s back to touching base within and helping a child to learn how to do that.

 

00;06;32;12 – 00;06;58;13

Dr. Mona

Oh yeah. And I feel like it is so important to do. And I do feel that parents forget. Or maybe they just get caught up in what they were raised to do, right? Like we talked about the cycles that it happened to them. So then they feel like they end up doing it without even realize. Do you work with parents on how to break that cycle if they were used to, you know, in that moment, if they’re about to say, you know, something, I feel like some parents feel overwhelmed that, oh, I’m trying to say the right thing all the time.

 

00;06;58;19 – 00;07;14;09

Dr. Mona

You know, and then they feel stressed out. Oh, did I say the right thing or did I not? And that can be stressful for a parent. What would you tell those parents who feel like, yeah, we I say those things. How would you. Yeah. Educate and motivate them to kind of change the ways that they’ve been, discussing with their back, with their children.

 

00;07;14;12 – 00;07;44;25

Katherine Sellery

Well, first of all, everybody’s been raised that way. So there’s no, you know, like shame in it. It’s just a matter of oh, well, you know, can I up my game, can I do the parenting 2.0. So it does take practice and you have to actually break the habit. So I would say that what you’re going to need to do is you’re going to need to become more focused and aware of the way that you speak and become more conscious, like the conscious parenting revolution is all about this, becoming more conscious of the messages that are embedded in the way that you communicate.

 

00;07;44;28 – 00;08;10;16

Dr. Mona

Very important. A lot of the reason I wanted to record this episode was what I mentioned earlier, is that I do feel like especially I’m going to speak about Indian community, like because I’m in it. Sure. I’m Indian American. A lot of us were raised with that work ethic. You’re going to work hard. And a lot of us, not every one of us, tended to go towards careers that were deemed to be socially.

 

00;08;10;18 – 00;08;11;10

Katherine Sellery

Prestigious.

 

00;08;11;11 – 00;08;34;22

Dr. Mona

Exactly. Socially prestigious. So, you know, doctors, lawyers, business people like you tended to gravitate towards those things. Pharmacists. I throw all of this in here, dentists, because socially, this was what was kind of looked at as perceived, just like you said. Yeah. And there’s two things that I saw happen. Some people like myself, I’ll be honest, some people genuinely liked the career and specialty that they chose.

 

00;08;34;22 – 00;08;53;06

Dr. Mona

Like, I love what I do because I get to do this. The parenting. Yeah, like all that stuff, right? I love the parenting. I love the health and wellness. I do. Do I want to work and see 50 patients a day? Probably not. But, this all that’s a different podcast episode. But if it came from what do I want to do?

 

00;08;53;09 – 00;08;59;01

Dr. Mona

I see a lot of other people who ended up going into the careers because, like you said, they thought that this was what.

 

00;08;59;06 – 00;09;00;25

Katherine Sellery

Their somebody else wanted for them.

 

00;09;00;26 – 00;09;13;20

Dr. Mona

This was what they, the society wanted. And then they’re in like a midlife crisis, you know, they’re like lack of a better word. They’re just like, I’m lost. I don’t want to do this with my life. I’m not happy. And that is what I want us to prevent. Yeah, we.

 

00;09;13;20 – 00;09;36;22

Katherine Sellery

Don’t want that too. Yeah, that’s a cycle that we don’t want to repeat. So if you’re looking, you know, to move from the praise world to the acknowledgment world and it all ties back into what you were speaking about, I think really you were talking about self motivation and how kids want to succeed and want to, you know, take the world on because they believe in themselves, not because they’re constantly focused on am I enough for someone else?

 

00;09;36;25 – 00;09;56;25

Katherine Sellery

Will they believe in me? Will they continue to praise me? Or am I going to stop getting praise because I didn’t do what they want? Then where will I be? Because I haven’t developed self esteem. My esteem is resting on other people, right? So that very dangerous place of always looking for the outer. So acknowledging your children is asking them how they feel about what they’ve achieved.

 

00;09;56;27 – 00;10;17;21

Katherine Sellery

So you really have to go back to that center of, you know, hey, are you pleased with that? You know, what do you think about it? Are you happy with that? You’re not even included in this, right? It’s not like I’m. So look at you, you know, it’s I. Have you seen Johnny? You know, it’s not about your your whole plan on making Johnny feel great about Johnny.

 

00;10;17;21 – 00;10;43;28

Katherine Sellery

It’s about you’re helping him or her to be able to reflect and think about. Well, am I pleased with that? Do I like that? How do I feel about this kind of stuff? You know, you can do that by saying, you know, you look really pleased. You seem so proud of yourself. You look delighted. Things like that which help them to, you know, get a sense of what’s going on so you can ask them, how do you feel about what you achieved?

 

00;10;43;28 – 00;11;06;18

Katherine Sellery

You can reflect it back with those nonverbal messages. You can even add your opinion. You know, I agree with you. You know, I think it’s special too. And then you can give some information, but you give it in the form of yourself saying, I in a verb, I admire, I respect, I value, I appreciate, I’m impressed that things like that so that they understand, like you don’t have to be neutral.

 

00;11;06;18 – 00;11;27;09

Katherine Sellery

You can have a value system and your values may be like, wow, you know, I really admire that. You know? And then it’s back to congratulations. And, you know, hey, you did it. You know, high five. Look at that. And then there’s a sense of, you know, celebration with them. But it’s not about the only time we celebrate is when you get eight.

 

00;11;27;11 – 00;11;41;24

Katherine Sellery

You’re moving that ball down the field. Maybe he’s a C student and he was a student. You know. Congratulations. That’s so great. You know, and then you can always express your appreciation. But it’s about focusing on the process. And I think that’s okay.

 

00;11;41;27 – 00;11;56;22

Dr. Mona

Oh yes. The process is so important. And like you said like little baby steps is still process, you know. And like you said, the D to the C. And you know, that is something that sometimes parents get. Well why are they not doing this and why are they not doing that. And I think there’s so many other factors to this.

 

00;11;56;22 – 00;12;28;19

Dr. Mona

I mean, we talk about comparison to other people that plays a part of this. We talk about the people pleasing mentality that gets into this as well, which you alluded to. Also and now a lot of it is undoing a lot of that that has been done to us, like we mentioned. And so I want to talk about, you know, the people pleasing mentality, what you said about parents either bringing that onto their child, what are some ways that, you know, if you were raised in a people pleasing home, which a lot of us were, how can we undo those cycles with our children and be more conscious as a parent in the way

 

00;12;28;19 – 00;12;31;01

Dr. Mona

we talk to our children about, you know, people pleasing?

 

00;12;31;03 – 00;13;01;15

Katherine Sellery

Well, I think that, you know, when we look at people pleasing behavior, it’s rooted in this idea of praise versus acknowledgment. It’s rooted in this idea of trying to get you to, you know, be happy with me. So the key, I believe, really is learning how to translate your language away from praise into acknowledgment with some of the things that we were just talking about a second ago, but also realizing the implications of this for children’s self-esteem and how it ties right back into motivation.

 

00;13;01;18 – 00;13;29;09

Katherine Sellery

So, you know, we were talking earlier about this idea of a mastery versus a performance orientation. In the performance orientation, a child is either afraid to do something, so they avoid it because they don’t think they’ll be able to succeed. And if they don’t succeed, then they don’t want to have to feel like they’ve disappointed you. Yes. So they just avoid it completely, or they approach it and they continue to approach it as long as they think they can outdo others.

 

00;13;29;11 – 00;13;50;06

Katherine Sellery

But the minute they begin to realize that they can’t outdo someone, then they stop doing it. So this is a kind of motivation that you set up. It’s the performance orientation based on what other people think of you, and it turns into the avoidance and approach and it’s based in the fact that both of them have to do with a socially prescribed perfectionist mindset.

 

00;13;50;08 – 00;14;21;13

Katherine Sellery

And it’s very fragile self-esteem. And in both cases, you avoid challenge if you don’t feel like you’re going to get to the prize so you don’t have that persistence, you get discouraged really easily, and it really only works if that external something is going to be there. In order for you to feel like you are going to get the praise and mastery orientation, which is the key here, is that self reference perfectionism, where it’s all about me not even noticing what other people are doing or saying.

 

00;14;21;17 – 00;14;21;25

Dr. Mona

 

00;14;22;00 – 00;14;43;23

Katherine Sellery

But just being so in tune with yourself. So you know, if we go and help parents reignite their language and communication with their children based in this idea of supporting a child to know who they are. And that is then reflecting back to them, then they’ll start to have a healthy self-esteem because they’ll begin to realize like, oh, wow, you know, I did do that.

 

00;14;43;26 – 00;15;06;09

Katherine Sellery

I can do thoughtful things, or I am capable at certain things. And I may not be the best at everything, but I am really good at this one thing, and I’m really proud of myself. And it’s not about our other people. Proud of you too. Like that just doesn’t even pop into the equation any longer. It’s not where the mind of the child is located because they’ve now become, you know, rooted in the self.

 

00;15;06;11 – 00;15;14;05

Katherine Sellery

They need some support getting rooted in the self. And, you know, that’s not about being what I wouldn’t call it spoiled.

 

00;15;14;08 – 00;15;15;00

Dr. Mona

Or.

 

00;15;15;00 – 00;15;37;15

Katherine Sellery

Self-centered, but it’s being rooted in the self. Where else would you root yourself? But a lot of us don’t actually grow up with a strong sense of self because we’re never really reflected back. We’re always being directed. And so parents who do a lot of directing get in the way of the child being able to separate an individual and to have their own mind.

 

00;15;37;17 – 00;16;02;08

Dr. Mona

Going back into school age, as we’ve talked about in our prior episodes, we’ve discussed how downstream I like to go, meaning early in parenting, it’s not just about, you know, when they’re older, but when you talk about school age children, like how you even approach schoolwork. You know, I do believe and I was raised in a household where my parents did not help me at all, or very minimally with my schoolwork, like it was on me to figure it out.

 

00;16;02;08 – 00;16;17;09

Dr. Mona

And if I couldn’t figure it out, I could ask them. But I would ask the teachers. But I had to struggle. And I do appreciate that. You know, I do see a culture now of this helical offering with, yeah, you must do this and you have to do this. Did you figure out your timetables? Did you do this?

 

00;16;17;09 – 00;16;35;28

Dr. Mona

And it’s like to some degree I’m like, is this going to be an issue down the road? I mean, right now these kids are in school age, but I am concerned with our culture of wanting to helicopter schoolwork, you know, our school age kids. And I think it’s that whole culture, like we mentioned, of comparison and people using and all of that that is really rearing its ugly head in sport.

 

00;16;35;28 – 00;16;39;10

Dr. Mona

But do you see the same thing happening in this kind of modern parenting?

 

00;16;39;12 – 00;17;05;06

Katherine Sellery

Oh for sure. And, you know, I mean, I agree with you that so many parents are so concerned about their kids performance. I’m not sure if it’s coming from worry. Yeah. Like they’re worried that if they don’t get involved, they won’t figure it out. Or they’re worried that if they don’t do well in elementary school or, you know, first grade thing, that they’re not going to be successful in life, that they’re worried that other kids in the class are doing better than their kids.

 

00;17;05;06 – 00;17;10;01

Katherine Sellery

I mean, there are all kinds of reasons, and I think all of those are actually part of the puzzle.

 

00;17;10;07 – 00;17;10;17

Dr. Mona

 

00;17;10;20 – 00;17;31;26

Katherine Sellery

So I think each one of those are puzzle pieces and it takes a lot of courage to believe so much in your child that you believe that they’ll find their way and to give them the space to be able to do that. But having said that, I do think we need to also be aware of all the dynamics that are going on that could be getting in the way of that.

 

00;17;31;28 – 00;17;49;27

Katherine Sellery

And again, we’re back to have we contributed accidentally by focusing the mind of the child on what other people are doing so that it could begin to affect a child’s self-esteem, to see someone else outperforming them in class. If they’ve learned that it’s all about outperforming in order to feel good about myself.

 

00;17;50;01 – 00;17;50;09

Dr. Mona

 

00;17;50;13 – 00;18;07;14

Katherine Sellery

Right. So and I think a lot of parents have that outperforming mindset. You got to outperform somebody to feel good about yourself right. They’re coming from that place. So a child who isn’t coming from that place, they believe they need to train them to come from that place.

 

00;18;07;19 – 00;18;08;00

Dr. Mona

 

00;18;08;00 – 00;18;30;23

Katherine Sellery

Because if they don’t come from that place it won’t be good for them. When the truth couldn’t be further from the truth. In reality, however, I understand the concern because we want our children to be successful in life and all the rest of it. But you know, I mean, yeah, developmentally normal. There’s a yes, there’s a big sort of like, you know, area of what is all developmentally normal.

 

00;18;30;23 – 00;18;51;15

Katherine Sellery

And for one kid, they’re early readers. For another one, they’re late readers. All of that is within developmentally normal until it’s not. And, you know, they may be outliers in one direction or the other, but it truly it can be a big, you know, a multi literally a multi gate age gap for kids. Some could be reading it for others could be reading at six.

 

00;18;51;15 – 00;18;54;08

Katherine Sellery

Both are fine. Nothing to worry about.

 

00;18;54;10 – 00;19;16;13

Dr. Mona

Exactly. And I mean I think about child development a lot and I do focus more on that early first five years on my platform. But it’s not because of the kid, it’s because of the mentality the parent needs to have in those first five years that will help them as they even get older. Right? The mentality of what we’re talking about and one thing that just came up, and I think we’ve spoken about this on a prior episode, I can’t remember if it was with you.

 

00;19;16;15 – 00;19;35;01

Dr. Mona

Is this an obsession with extra work for children? Like, oh, like, you know, like, come on, like I’m not. Yes. I’m not against. Come on. If a child actually wants to do. Come on. Like I’m not against it. Come on. For anyone who’s not familiar is an extra curricular program for basically learning math and reading skills for a young child.

 

00;19;35;09 – 00;19;58;26

Dr. Mona

But it becomes a parental. I need my kid to do Kumon. Maybe your kid wants to play soccer. Maybe your kid wants to run and play. Like maybe your kid wants to build Legos. I mean, that is also important for a child, right? Like, I think we create certifications of, well, this is what success is. Success is Kumon because math and reading skills are what gets you successful.

 

00;19;58;26 – 00;20;22;07

Dr. Mona

I mean, I’m going to be honest, I am pretty good at math and reading skills, but what’s better is life skills. The better is cognitive skills. What’s better is learning how to speak to people. What’s better is knowing financial skills and how to be smart with money in the future. And I mean, like we’ve set so much expectation and so much value on things that I also don’t believe should be truly highly valued for our children.

 

00;20;22;08 – 00;20;39;11

Dr. Mona

Is it the educational system? Is it what is it? I don’t know what’s causing parents to feel the need that their kid has to be in Kumon. Someone asked me, when am I going to start my child and come on. And my son’s two. And I look at them and I turn to my husband. I’m like, look, I am not putting him income on unless it’s something that he says to me.

 

00;20;39;11 – 00;20;41;18

Dr. Mona

One day Ryan says to me, hey mom.

 

00;20;41;18 – 00;20;42;17

Katherine Sellery

I really want to do.

 

00;20;42;20 – 00;20;53;26

Dr. Mona

What I would like to do. Come on. And I’m going to ask him, well, why do you want to do? Come on. Well, because I think I really would like that extra like to me, I don’t feel the need at especially at two years old for him to.

 

00;20;53;28 – 00;21;13;02

Katherine Sellery

But I’m glad you’re bringing it out, I do. What’s happens is that, you know, parents do see other parents doing things. Yes. And then they start to panic. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. You know so-and-so’s doing this and they’re going to be so far ahead of our child. And we’ve got to get our kid in this too because you know, otherwise they’re going to fall behind.

 

00;21;13;04 – 00;21;32;09

Katherine Sellery

And it’s that whole like freak out. Yeah, that can happen because your child isn’t doing the thing that everybody else is doing. And I agree with you that, you know, kids who need come on are kids that are behind kids you need. Come on. Either you know what? I’m not sure they need coupon, but something’s going on. Correct?

 

00;21;32;09 – 00;21;51;11

Katherine Sellery

In a child’s life that’s getting in the way of them acquiring the skills as quickly as their peer group. And so it might be cause for Kumon, or it might be cause for another type of intervention. Or it may just be that this is a child who’s going to develop these skills a little bit later, and it’s not, you know, anything to worry about.

 

00;21;51;11 – 00;22;15;12

Katherine Sellery

It could be that they’re signaling something about that child’s learning style. Right. And this is a child who learns differently, and therefore they’re going to need a different type of teaching approach. I mean, all good things to look at. So, you know, I think it’s worthwhile for us to go, okay, well, maybe there’s some good information here. I think the main thing is for most parents, they just get so worried.

 

00;22;15;13 – 00;22;16;07

Dr. Mona

Yes.

 

00;22;16;09 – 00;22;42;09

Katherine Sellery

They just fall into that worry thing. And this is where I like to orient parents back to the here and now. So the worry comes from thinking about the future. Oh my God, oh my God. And that fixation on the future. So the future time orientation is actually one of the things we talk about in my 90 day parenting reset is we really spend a lot of time talking about, you know, here and now is really like the only place for you to be with regard to your child.

 

00;22;42;11 – 00;23;03;10

Katherine Sellery

If you start thinking about, oh, what are they going to become? Or, you know, how are they going to make a living and all this kind of stuff based on what’s going on with your four year old today, you’re way out of line. Yeah. And because you’re thinking about the future so much and a future orientation, that actually is what brings up those feelings of worry.

 

00;23;03;13 – 00;23;25;15

Katherine Sellery

So, you know, it’s because my mind is in the future that I’m so worried. If I were here right now with my child, working with what we’ve got in front of us, chances are you wouldn’t have those kinds of feelings. So it’s the discipline not to allow yourself to go drifting off into what really is make believe land, because nobody really knows what the skills of tomorrow and what’s going to be needed really are.

 

00;23;25;17 – 00;23;32;19

Katherine Sellery

And so just bringing yourself back, taking a deep breath, everybody needs to take a deep breath a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. You know.

 

00;23;32;19 – 00;23;33;18

Dr. Mona

Let’s all do that right now.

 

00;23;33;19 – 00;23;35;01

Katherine Sellery

Everybody. Yeah. Exactly.

 

00;23;35;04 – 00;23;38;17

Dr. Mona

I make that same exact grunting sound when it comes out.

 

00;23;38;19 – 00;23;39;24

Katherine Sellery

It’s true. Yeah. It’s true.

 

00;23;39;25 – 00;23;43;02

Dr. Mona

We do need to let go because so much I agree with you.

 

00;23;43;05 – 00;24;01;22

Katherine Sellery

Yeah. So this is you know the tendency the mind. And if we become aware of the tendency of the mind that it likes to hang out in the future, and therefore it brings with that this crop of fear, anxiety and worry, then maybe we should have the discipline not to let our mind hang out in the future. And we know that we can’t tell our mind.

 

00;24;01;22 – 00;24;12;20

Katherine Sellery

Stop hanging out in the future and get it to stop doing that. All we can do is reconnect to the breath and recognize that that’s what brings us back to the here in the now.

 

00;24;12;22 – 00;24;30;17

Dr. Mona

And reconnecting with the breath. And we’ve talked about this. I mean, it’s also when you’re getting into those anxiety moments or things like reframing, like what I do a lot of and it’s actually really help me is when I’m feeling worried about something during the day and it happens. Anxiety. Remember, we can do a whole other episode about anxiety, but anxiety is our protective mechanism that we’ve created to keep everyone safe.

 

00;24;30;17 – 00;24;46;05

Dr. Mona

But sometimes it gets out of proportion to what’s healthy. But when you are thinking about your child not succeeding or thinking about your child not being as good at math or reading, I want you to write that down and also tell yourself and reframe it and say, what is my kid good at? What is my kid really good at right now?

 

00;24;46;05 – 00;25;05;23

Dr. Mona

Like, and like I said, like when I look at my son like he is not going to be amazing at everything, like he’s really great at certain things. But listen, that’s how we are as adults. I think we expect ourselves even as parents and moms, to be great at everything. I have to be a good cook, and then I have to be good at coming up with activities and this and I’m like, whoa, whoa, whoa.

 

00;25;05;23 – 00;25;25;02

Dr. Mona

You don’t have enough hours in the day. Nor should you have the expectation that you should be great at everything. I am good at being funny with my son. I’m good at doing all the goofy things. I’m not a great cook. I am not good at coming up with innovative play ideas. I keep it very simple, but it’s what brings me joy and it’s also what I want Ryan to learn, right?

 

00;25;25;02 – 00;25;41;17

Dr. Mona

That, hey, you don’t have to be great at everything. Like you can actually just be good at certain things. And you may not like that thing that mommy likes. Like, I really may love you to do something, but that’s because me like, why am I forcing that on you if that’s not something you like in the grand scheme of things?

 

00;25;41;21 – 00;25;57;23

Dr. Mona

Like you said, if your child’s not enjoying something, it’s that balance of, hey, maybe we need to reevaluate here. And what is this end goal here? What am I looking in the future? What do I think that playing soccer or being in the sport, do I think they’re going to be an Olympic athlete? Do I think that they’re going to get a scholarship?

 

00;25;57;23 – 00;26;12;02

Dr. Mona

I mean, what are you expecting for the future? Because you need to come back into the now. And how is your kid feeling in these moments? And like you said, the acknowledgment of them and not what you are trying to put on to them from external praise.

 

00;26;12;05 – 00;26;32;04

Katherine Sellery

Yeah. It’s also true. And I think that, you know, this is where parents and the support we can give to parents is just to trust yourself. Yeah. That enough is not anybody else’s determining of what enough is. And I know that we want our children to explore a lot of different things. And we want them to be in a lot of different things.

 

00;26;32;04 – 00;26;47;24

Katherine Sellery

And in kids. I hear this all the time, you know, parents will try to get their kids enrolled in all sorts of activities and they’ll say, yeah, yeah, sure, mom, I want to do soccer. I want to do this, or I want to do that. And then shortly thereafter, they may say, I don’t want to go now. I’d rather stay home.

 

00;26;47;27 – 00;27;13;15

Katherine Sellery

And parents, of course, are like, oh my God, I just spent $1,500 signing you up for peewee soccer and you’re going to go and you know, this whole thing, and it becomes about forcing them to go do something that they didn’t really want to do. And I find that it’s really helpful on the front end for parents to have conversations with their kids about, you know what, this may not be fun every time.

 

00;27;13;17 – 00;27;33;16

Katherine Sellery

And it might be, you know, kind of good to just get a feel for it. Would you be willing to make that commitment for this six week term? And when it’s not so much fun and it’s hard to go go any way just because we paid for it. And you know, you’re the one who creates value and help your children recognize that they’re the one to create value.

 

00;27;33;18 – 00;27;50;24

Katherine Sellery

So that’s a really important lesson, you know, is that kids begin to go, oh, I create the value. I’m the one who’s going to make this work really well for me or not. And that can just change everything. If they begin to have that mindset of other people, don’t create value. For me, I’m the one who creates the value.

 

00;27;50;27 – 00;28;03;24

Dr. Mona

And it’s so powerful. If every parent could just listen to this and just feel that you know how valuable that last phrase was. I mean, that’s just like the actual perfect final message. Catherine, thank you so much.

 

00;28;03;24 – 00;28;08;10

Katherine Sellery

In sensation grade, I always leave feeling like. But we just got started.

 

00;28;08;11 – 00;28;26;29

Dr. Mona

I know, I know, I love, and this is why I love having you on. Because, of course, I just really, what you say really resonates with me. And it’s always nice speaking to other people in the parenting space who understand that, obviously, who get that desire to want to teach parents that, hey, we need to work on a lot of things.

 

00;28;26;29 – 00;28;43;27

Dr. Mona

It doesn’t mean that it’s going to be easy, but it means that it’s actually going to really help you find peace in your life and also your child. I mean, I think, like you said, we put way too much pressure on ourselves, which trickles down to our children. And I don’t want another generation to keep going through that.

 

00;28;43;27 – 00;28;58;13

Dr. Mona

You know, I there is a way to raise a kid like we talked about in this episode, who has that internal, self-directed desire to succeed. But like you said, it’s coming from them. It’s coming from them saying, I can do this, I want to do this. And that is such a beautiful thing to see a child want to do.

 

00;28;58;18 – 00;29;04;17

Dr. Mona

Do you have another final message for everyone listening today? I know you already had some amazing pearls, but what was your final message?

 

00;29;04;19 – 00;29;28;13

Katherine Sellery

The message I love to just leave with parents is see your children beautiful. So children deserve our compassion the most when they appear to deserve it the least. So whenever you’ve got those meltdowns happening, yeah, if you can step back and see it as a child drowning as opposed to bad behavior, that would just shift your ability to see them with those compassionate, loving eyes.

 

00;29;28;13 – 00;29;47;26

Katherine Sellery

Because that’s the other thing that I really love to help people recognize. Is that how I see you and how I hear you is up to me. Yeah. And so I’m the one who’s bringing the evaluation. I’m the one who’s bringing the judgment toward anything I see or hear. So, you know, Krishnamurti said observation without evaluation is the highest form of human intelligence.

 

00;29;47;28 – 00;30;08;27

Katherine Sellery

So can we become the observers? Stop. The judging of the behaviors is good, bad, right? Wrong. And just be curious about the things that we want to call bad behavior and punish. Instead, shift away from that mindset and look at it. Curiosity. Wow, what’s going on? What’s going on that’s underneath that because everything else is a presenting problem.

 

00;30;08;29 – 00;30;14;18

Katherine Sellery

And we got to shift our focus from the presentation to the underlying unmet need.

 

00;30;14;20 – 00;30;27;10

Dr. Mona

Oh, Katherine thank you so much. Well I already I know I did an introduction but where can everyone find you again. I will be on my show notes but if anyone wants obviously I know you have your course and your program. So tell me more about where people can find you.

 

00;30;27;14 – 00;30;56;08

Katherine Sellery

Yeah. Thank you. So it’s conscious parenting revolution.com is the website. And if you go there I have actually an opt in needs assessment analysis right now which is free. People can just go take it and see if they’re meeting their needs, are not their children are meeting their needs or not. And if we have the paradigm of emotions and actions come from needs being met or unmet, our understanding of whether they are meeting or not meeting their children’s needs is absolutely crucial.

 

00;30;56;11 – 00;31;20;27

Dr. Mona

And again, if you have not already, make sure you listen to episode 45 and episode 93. Katherine is officially the most popular guest on my podcast in that I’ve had her the most often. Yeah, so three episodes. I mean, I as you can tell, I invite people back who I really love. I mean, there’s so many people I would love to invite back, but anytime I have a parenting topic that I’m like, I need to really talk about this with someone else.

 

00;31;20;27 – 00;31;28;01

Dr. Mona

I email her and I’m like, did you talk about this with me? And so I’ll have that happen. Thank you so much for joining us today.

 

00;31;28;03 – 00;31;29;08

Katherine Sellery

And it’s been great.

 

00;31;29;10 – 00;31;45;01

Dr. Mona

Thank you for tuning in for this week’s episode. As always, please leave a review, share this episode with a friend, share it on your social media. Make sure to follow me at PedsDocTalk on Instagram and subscribe to my YouTube channel, PedsDocTalk TV. We’ll talk to you soon.