Sheryl Gould: 0:00

Welcome, Hu ter. I am so happy that you are joining us today. Tell us a little bit about your story and how you started down this path?

Hunter Clarke - Fields: 1:14

Well, the sort of short answer is that I had like a really difficult kid. No, it's like, incredibly sensitive and challenging. And I was like, why is it so hard? You know, I think just I think is a question we all ask. But the longer story is started when I was little, and I had those big ups and ups and downs. And I was a highly sensitive kid. And I would get into these pits of despair. And you know, just was like this highly sensitive person, I started studying about mindfulness as a teenager just wanting some relief. And finally, as I practiced 10 years later, I finally sat down to do it. And lo and behold, that's actually a lot more effective than reading about it. And then I had some big transformations. For me, I stopped falling into these pits that I would fall into every couple of weeks. And, and it was hugely transformative. And so then when I was gonna go have my children I had, like, you know, I was like, meditating, well, I had this big pregnant belly, and I'm like, Oh, yeah, like, this is gonna be awesome. I'm so calm. And, you know, with a newborn, your practice falls by the wayside a bit, but but really, like, my temper came out, and my temper was my biggest teacher. And it really, I really realized, like, I had to kind of double down on my mindfulness practice to really dive in more deeply and bring it more fully integrated into my life. And I also needed to kind of understand, you know, I started to see that, like, I was playing out a generational pattern. You know, my, my big feelings were, you know, when my daughter had a big tantrum, like, it felt completely unacceptable to me, you know, completely. And I just, like, had this feeling This is unacceptable, like, ah, and it was really visceral. And I, and I could really see that, like, oh, when I was a kid, this is what I, you know, these, I was taught that my big feelings were unacceptable by my dad's rage and, and difficulty. And so that was really kind of ingrained in my bones. And now, I'm perpetuating the same problem. I'm scaring my child by yelling, because I have that same feeling. And so I could really see that this was like a pattern that needed to be healed and changed. And so I started to say, okay, instead of like lying here, crying on the floor, feeling pathetic and helpless, and like, I'm a terrible mother, I've got to do something like I've got to make some changes. And so I started to really dive more deeply into mindful mindfulness practice, learned about how it helps the brain and all those things, and also at the same time, started to learn skillful communication because, you know, one without the other is not enough, right? Like you, it's great to, like, be able to remain calm, and that's essential and vital, and, and really, really important. But then if you say something that's like, kind of unskillful that your parents might have said to you, like, it kind of sets off that time bomb of your, you know, at least my case is highly sensitive child again. And you know, I can't access that skillful communication unless I can calm myself down and access my whole brain, which the mindfulness really does on the other side. So that's really what started the journey of, of wanting to learning and training and cetera.

Sheryl Gould: 4:57

Yeah, You were living what you are now teaching what you have personally lived out in your own life and the transformation that's happened in your life and parenting, and I really loved your book. I can say this with all honesty, it's one of the best parenting books I've read. And it reminded me a little bit of Dan Siegel's book(and I know, I saw that you had interviewed him) Inside Out Parenting, but what I love about your book is you really drilled it down. It is so understandable the concepts doable. If it really resonated, and I highly recommend you moms, we're going to share that the end, get her book, because it is all about you talk about healing, and not passing down those generational patterns that we grew up with. And how do we break that because we can say, like you said, "This is what you need to do" and teach all those communication skills, which we need. But if we're not parenting from the inside out, and starting with ourselves, it's really difficult to do that.

Hunter Clarke - Fields: 6:07

Yes.

Sheryl Gould: 6:07

It's like slapping a bandaid on a gushing wound. And yeah, you broke your book into two parts. So I want you to talk about that. You've touched on it a little bit. You broke it into the inner work and the outer work. Mm hmm. which I love. And you start with telling us about the inner work, which so many parenting books don't talk about. And how it's the foundation. Can you talk about the inner work? Where do we start?

Hunter Clarke - Fields: 6:35

Oh, that's a it's so important. I mean, yeah, cuz I remember thinking like, but how, how do you do these things? How do you just respond this way? Like, I would love to just respond this way. But I can't because I've got all these intense things going on for me, you know, and, and parenting, this brings up so much, right, it's like, physically challenging, psychologically challenging, like, you're not getting enough sleep, you know, and the thing is, like, you know, your back and that parent, child relationship, and thing, your thing of things are brought up that have maybe little to do with your, your child actually, in that moment, and have a lot more to do with your own past and the baggage you're carrying. You know, we talked about being triggered. And there's, you know, when you know what it's like, or you're pushing my buttons, right, like, well, where did these buttons come from? Like, why are these your buttons? So we want to kind of unpack that and say, like, Hey, have the awareness start to have more awareness of ourselves and lower our reactivity? Right. So this is the the inner work is like there's two people in a relationship. And the one thing we can know for sure, sure, sure, sure, in parenting is that it's, there's so much about modeling, right? Like, our kids, if we're yelling at our kids, our kids are gonna yell back at us. And so we have to look at like, Well, why are Why are we having a tantrum? When our child has a tantrum, right? Like, why am I saying to my child, you know, "you behave so that I can feel better", "you do what I want you to do so that I can I can feel better", " I can't control my own feelings. your behavior is what controls my feelings." I like so why are we saying that to our children, like there's a lot of work to look at our own reactivity. Like if we can start to step back and lower that reactivity. Like that's so much of the problem is that we're just kind of on this sort of like autopilot, we're just reacting, reacting, reacting. And so that's where that mindfulness work comes from. self compassion is a big part of that inner work, because you're gonna fail, you're gonna mess up. You're not gonna just say, I'm gonna decide to respond to us, I messages with my child and like, do it perfectly all the time. No, that's not gonna happen. Like, we're gonna mess up and we're gonna fail. So how do we treat ourselves, when we mess up? matters a whole lot. It turns out, if you're mean and harsh, and judge yourself really harshly when you fail, you're actually going to feel really debilitated and unable to take steps outside your comfort zone that are required to grow and learn. But if when you take steps outside of your comfort zone and you fail, you respond with a softer landing, you know, you give yourself a softer landing, you tell yourself Yeah, it's hard. It sucks. You know, a lot of people feel this way. A lot of people are suffering in this way. Then you say, Okay, well, it's not about me, there's, you know, this is hard and you can then take those steps to do something different go outside your comfort zone. And so that piece is so so important. And then how to take care of our difficult feelings, right? Like we're telling our kids like, you know, we we don't want them to explode and be angry. be super sad and have all these things like we're giving them inadvertently, a lot of times the same messages that were given to us, which is just don't have those feelings. Which is crazy.

Sheryl Gould: 10:10

Yeah.

Hunter Clarke - Fields: 10:11

You know, so we have to model how to take care of those feelings. And there's a middle path for that right between blocking them out and then just drowning them. So if these are just essential life skills in a lot of ways,

Sheryl Gould: 10:25

So many of us grew up with, I think the majority of"stuff it." Stuff down those feelings. And then of course, we don't learn how to manage our anger. If, if that was not okay, in our family, or if anger was scary. And now, "just stuff it, stuff it don't have those feelings." But I love how you talk about like noticing those triggers. Can you give an example of what was you made that connection with your father and how that was playing out? But what was one of those messages for you? One of those triggers to give an example.

Hunter Clarke - Fields: 11:02

Oh, um, you know, I can, I've discovered many triggers.

Sheryl Gould: 11:07

I'm still learning.

Hunter Clarke - Fields: 11:09

I found one just a few months ago. Um, but yeah, this one of them was like the the, you know, don't be Don't be upset, don't be Don't yell and things like that. One of them for me was not being it's a big one big common one is not being listened to as like the youngest child in the family. You know, so it's like, if you're not listening raise, like what, rah, you know,

Sheryl Gould: 11:36

You have a teenager now? A tween and a teen, right?

Hunter Clarke - Fields: 11:39

Yes. Yeah, I do have a right there. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's interesting. I've been thinking about them. My oldest daughter's 13. Now, and she's wonderful to be around at this point. She was so hard. She was what was the catalyst for, like, all this work. And I really feel grateful, because I really do believe that teens are not rebelling against parents. I mean, they do separate, yes, but the rebellion against destructive parenting techniques that just push kids away that just, you know, lead to so much resentment over time, that we lose our influence. You know, I think that's what happens with adolescence. And right now, like, it's good for me and my teen, I feel very grateful.

Sheryl Gould: 12:27

Yeah, before, I think that connects with that control, like, we want to control it, but we really, and then we feel powerless. And then we're reacting out of that, that powerless feeling. And that doesn't go so well. Versus listening, you talk a lot about using conflict for connection, and how to how to listen and how powerful that is. Talk about how we can actually use which is so counterintuitive use conflict for connection with our kids.

Hunter Clarke - Fields: 13:01

Sure, I mean, any unresolved conflicts, they can really breathe, they can get really dicey, right? Like because kids tend to we don't talk about our conflicts. Kids tend to like, blame themselves for these things. Like if we're not kind of processing these things, kids tend to blame themselves for what's happening and or they can, it can breed resentment for their parent. And so, a lot of us especially I think, sometimes people who are drawn drawn to mindfulness or we some people are, you know, we we want to avoid conflict, we want peace, we want ease in our lives, and we want to have loving relationships with our kids. But conflict is a natural human part of life, that if we can accept that, it makes it like we have less resistance and difficulty around conflict in general, but conflict with our kids like we really what I've really learned is that you know, we have needs and our kids have needs, right? All conflict is usually is that I've have this need and you have this need at this point. And these needs are kind of overlapping with each other and causing a problem right? So what can we figure out like, what are you needing? What am I needing? And can we be honest with our kids and say, Hey, when you talk to me in that way like say your kids giving you kind of mean nasty teen attitude that really hurts my feelings. I feel sad when you talk to me that way. And we can be honest about how those how opened ourselves up to those sort of vulnerabilities in some ways. Then our we can get past the serve role right of like, mother or child or father and child and into like, I'm a human being you're a human being like this is when that when you do that, this is what's going on for me and this is how it affects my life. Then our kids can, you know see us and in and have that empathy for us and vice versa. If when we can start to sometimes with our teens, like, we have an agenda, right? Like, you're coming to this thing no matter what. And because family is important, you have to be there, blah, blah, blah. And we don't listen to hear the other side. We don't sit, we don't try to understand. And yeah, sometimes my teen says to me, "can you can you listen?" And I say, "Oh, that's like Ding, ding, ding, ding. Okay, let me stop, let me listen." And then when we can, you know, show our kids that we really hear them and really, truly try to hear them, be open minded. hear what they're saying, then they give us more respect and more, more empathy and care in general, if we give it to them.

Sheryl Gould: 15:53

It's crazy how it works like that, you know, It really does work when we can learn how to do that. I have found and and I want to give everybody hope that's listening. I want to quote you. "Anger. And I could have written this, it was when I read this "Anger would well up. Like I hadn't thought since I was a child. Before I did the excavation work to understand what was triggering me, I blamed my daughter, what's wrong with her? Why won't she listen to me? It was clearly all her problem. If I could fix her behavior, that everything would be better, right?" And I was like, Oh my gosh, yes. I mean, how many of us can feel that way? And you talk about, name it to tame it. And so explain that. Maybe some of our listeners have heard that. But explain what that means.

Hunter Clarke - Fields: 16:48

Yeah, Dan Siegel talks about this. And it really is part of the brain like so there's upper parts of our brain, the the prefrontal cortex, or the higher later evolved parts of our brain, right, that are unique to human beings. We have the verbal ability in there and things like that. And when parents asked me a lot, like, Okay, so how can I slow down my yelling? How can I stop yelling? And part of it is this name it to tame it? strategy, because what happens is we're like, I'm going to be the mindful parent, I'm mindful, I'm calm, calm, calm, I'm calling but but we're really not. We're like, kind of fake calm. And we're, we're just like, gritting our teeth and try it. And then it gets to the point where we're just like, explode, right. And that's not such a great strategy, because we're trying to kind of suppress what's happening, we're not really acknowledging what's really happening for us. And so name it to tame it asks you just simply to like name, what's going on earlier in that timeline. So you're starting, you know, I'm starting to get frustrated, I'm starting to feel really irritated, because of XYZ. And then when we do that, we are verbally we're integrating the verbal parts of our brain, we're integrating upper brain and lower brain left brain and right brain. And we're so which is lowering our own stress response, providing us some relief, but it's also like, telling our kids what's going on for them for you know, for us, and they, so they can say, oh, whatever is happening, moms starting to feel irritated. It can, it can help them to regulate their own behaviors and things too, you know, along that line. And it's also what it's also doing is modeling, good emotional regulation for your kids. So if you can say out loud, "oh, I'm starting to feel irritated," you're not like a bad parent, because you feel irritated, you're human. And if you can say that out loud, you're showing your kids like, what it is like to take care of feelings. And if you're starting to like, ah, feeling really irritated right now I'm feeling really frustrated. And that can be a sign of like, oh, let me do something about this. Let me take some steps to help to reduce my stress response and to check myself check my mood, do some deep slow breaths, which are cliche because they work to you know, shift our body out of this stress response into the rest, relax response. You know, it's a sign for you to take care of yourself and to turn things around in that way.

Sheryl Gould: 19:24

I love that because it's, I think we're prone to say "You." You know, you stopped doing it, that you stopped doing that blaming, or pointing the finger versus saying, I'm feeling like I found that was a really good way to start practicing this, like I'm noticing. I'm starting to feel upset, frustrated, it's a way in but it's not blaming your child. And like you said, it's helping them to become more self aware. And that is where the feelings really do create that connection that you're talking about in the midst of conflict. Because then you can seek to understand. And I love, I love how you share that in the book. It's just makes so much sense.

Hunter Clarke - Fields: 20:09

And the piece I wanted to just kind of go back because I don't think I said that fully when you asked about conflict bringing us together? And is that that piece about like us apologizing to our kids, us saying like, Hey, I'm sorry, I wish I could rewind and say that another way and I wasn't very skillful there. You know, we don't need to be hard on ourselves, but it wasn't very skillful there. And this is what I would have liked to say. And you know, I really love you, honey, and all of those things. That's like that rupture and repair that researchers talk about. And that really does, like, bring us together where kids see Oh, our my parent really does care about me. We're modeling how to how to repair a relationship. And it really gives our kids more respect for us rather than less to to make an a good, sincere apology.

Sheryl Gould: 20:59

Yeah, I love that. Yeah. And then they'll come back and they do it because you've taught them how to model it.

Unknown: 21:04

Mm hmm. Exactly.

Sheryl Gould: 21:06

I love how you talk about yelling purposely, or skillfully. We don't have to do away with yelling all together. But we can do it skillfully. Tell tell our listeners about that.

Hunter Clarke - Fields: 21:20

Sure. Yeah. I mean, yeah, it might be great to like, never yell again. But it's kind of crazy. Like, that's, that's just not human nature. Most people yell once in a while, and especially if you had a loud household. But anyway, yeah, we can we can yell more skillfully, we can work to yell a lot less. And, you know, I talk about like a yell less formula and raising good humans and how to do that. But uh, I think a great step in that is yelling more skillfully. So when I just I discovered a my, the last trigger I discovered was like, a few months ago. And my 10 year old daughter like was didn't want to go to bed had been movie night. We're all had a nice time. And then she started like, laughing at me. And I was like, "roooooar" Oh the laughing and, and I, I was responding really unskillfully. And then I just said, "I'm really angry right now. I need to go take a break." And that's always yelling skillfully is if you can yell, I'm really angry. If you can yell, I need to go take a break. That's fine. Like, yeah, you might, you know, you might be trigger a little of that fear response in your kid from raising your voice. But hey, it's better than blaming language, etc. Like, if you can, you know, then you can come back and do that repair after But yeah, I could really feel that heat up my anger. And I'm really angry. It's a great skillful way to yell.

Sheryl Gould: 22:59

And how what was the outcome? How did that go?

Hunter Clarke - Fields: 23:02

Oh, my goodness, I might. I had gotten so hot from that. I did walk up and down the street for about 20 minutes. And I think by that time, she had gone to sleep. And then the next morning, I said,"Wow, you know, I was reall angry last night wasn't I?" an they're like, "Yeah, you we e really angry." And I said"I think that I felt", you know and then we talked abou the situation a little bit ore. And, and I did apologiz for yelling, and it worked

Sheryl Gould: 23:31

And what it and and including her and what happened with you so she can understand how she impacts you.

Hunter Clarke - Fields: 23:38

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

Sheryl Gould: 23:42

It's like good feedback, too. Mm hmm. Yeah. When we can tell them how we feel.

Hunter Clarke - Fields: 23:47

Yeah.

Sheryl Gould: 23:48

Well, let's, I we could go on and on. And I was saying that I wanted to keep this, you know, to 30 minutes, and I'm looking at our time. But you also talk about the outer work. And we've touched on this a little bit, but those communication skills, can you? Is there anything that you feel like you would like to add that we didn't, we didn't cover?

Hunter Clarke - Fields: 24:10

Yeah, I think one of the biggest, most important communication skills is not speaking but listening. And, and we talked a little bit about listening, but when we can really pause and really listen and really try to understand. And part of that goes back to that the mindfulness pieces of practicing to be non judgmental, to notice those thoughts are arising to keep our attention here on what your child is saying what your child is not saying staying in that place of curiosity rather than kind of an autopilot or a labeling place. Then we can start to see our children with fresh eyes. And so I think listening and also like reflecting back is an incredibly powerful skill. And then we talk about our speaking. Speaking from our own experience, we use"I" messages. "I'm feeling this," um, I want to offer a little tip in that. If you're ever saying "I feel like you are", that's like a cue message disguised as an "I" Message "I feel like you are being selfish," right? Like, that's a big one. "I feel like you're being selfish." That's, that's not so skillful. You know, what, what are you really feeling in and part of that takes a moment of pause and a moment of what is really going on for me, you know, if, if there's anger, what's below the anger? You know, if I'm angry at you, I might actually be really sad and hurt underneath that anger.

Sheryl Gould: 25:45

So I guess I'm kind of pointing back to the inner work, but it really is sort of interconnected, I suppose. And can you think when you were so triggered by your daughter that when she started laughing, and you are angry, what was underneath that?

Hunter Clarke - Fields: 26:01

Yeah, that was a tough one. You know, I'm a little I'm still a little perplexed at why the laughing I mean, maybe it felt like mocking and, um, you know, childhood, childhood, stuff like that, that, that it really was kind of a, it was kind of a thing for me. I'm not sure I did the like, deep like, well, what how well, did I feel for that one, y'all have to check back in with you Cheryl.

Sheryl Gould: 26:29

Because I relate to that. And I think I do feel like I'm being bullied. And, and I feel hurt. And then I feel I think like anger, then I'm hurt. But I'm scared because as a kid getting bullied, I really didn't know how to defend myself. Like, I didn't have those skills to be able to stand up. But then it became confusing, because this was my kids. Right. And so I've noticed when they've done that, you know, when they've kind of laughed, feeling I'm relating to your story and being angry, but ultimately hurt. And I think I can track it back to how that foul even though they're not blowing me they're kind of playfully making fun in those things back up, and, and how to handle that. So well, this has been so helpful. And there's so much more that you so you got to get Hunter's book, and we won't include that in the notes. And that people are going to get with the replay. And then I put it on our page. So I'll include that. But tell moms where they can find you. And then if you're on here, feel free to ask questions, and I had some moms submit ahead of time. So just know that you can do that. By where can they find you hunter

Hunter Clarke - Fields: 27:50

they can find me You can find me at mindful mama mentor calm and the book is called raising good humans have my copy here raising good humans and and that's that's at mindful Mama mentor.com along with the mindful mama podcast. Wonderful,

Sheryl Gould: 28:07

I have to tell you a little secret, it won't be secret anymore. I loved your cover. And so I'm writing a book. And when I had my cover design, Deuce was one of the ones that I showed her that I liked, Oh, good. car, I really like it. So, um, anybody have any questions that are on here that you want to put in the chat? Or I look if there's any in the q&a? Um, and in the meantime, think about if you have questions, and I'm going to ask you, the moms submitted some Okay, so Mindy asked a question. I'm interested in finding ways I can help my 11 year old daughter and only child overcome some anxiety that she feels when she's in certain situations. presenting in front of class doing the new classroom, Google meets in front of camera asking questions, likes to get to parties early, she's a wonderful girl has a select group of good friends, strong work ethic, funny, loving, but this is one area that I feel I need to help her work through. I don't want her fear, to involve herself in things to keep her to paralyze her and keep her from trying new things and passions. How I help her.

Hunter Clarke - Fields: 29:24

Well, sounds like you really care about your daughter, which is beautiful. Sounds like she's a really smart, incredible kid that you have a lot of love for. And, you know, I guess I would question you know, and so one of the questions we ask in mindful parenting is in in raising good humans is whose problem is it? You know, so, your daughter's anxiety about presenting in front of class? Is that your problem or is that your daughter's problem? And I think this falls pretty firmly into the category of this is her problem. And so we have Limited, we can't solve her problem for her, we can't fix her problem for her. And sometimes that's freeing. And sometimes that's frustrating, because this is a, you know, this is a place where we you can foresee that she may have suffering and she may have some limits in life or, or these different negative outcomes of this anxiety. But at the same time, you have very limited control over so what can we do when someone else has a problem? We can help them we become a helper. So there's not what I think what the tone I'm hearing in that question is really encouraging of your daughter. And I think that's really a wonderful way to go is to encourage your daughter, but what I would be on the lookout for is like, when does she want to talk? And when she talks rather than offering her advice, you know, without her asking it, or without telling her what to do, or trying to solve her problem for her. Instead, just see if you can be a sounding board a listener, you know, so she, if she tells you Yeah, you know, I feel really anxious on these zoom calls. You may respond, instead of with telling her how to not be anxious on the zoom calls, you know, oh, yeah, I hear you, honey, that it can be nerve racking to have other people hear you speak. And so that's like a an answer that just reflects back and opens the door for her to talk a little bit more. And so I guess I would just encourage you to be a sounding board, be a listener, and then encourage your daughter as best you can. But let it be her problem. Don't Don't jump in and take over.

Sheryl Gould: 31:39

What I hear you saying to Hunter, and that is so much a parent to his managing our own anxiety. When our kids get anxious, we can tend to get anxious, and then that's when we want to jump into that fix set. Mm hmm. And then, again, it's that it's so counterintuitive that by listing, it's going to help lessen her daughter's anxiety because she's a sounding board. So

Hunter Clarke - Fields: 32:01

yeah, and I guess like one thing you could do is, if you have anxiety, do some things to practice managing your anxiety. Tell your daughter what you're doing. I'm practicing this deep, slow breathing, this four part yogic breath, or whatever your tool is, because I've noticed some feeling nervous in some situations. Do you want to know more about it, you know, and let her let her in. But you can model it you can model how to take care of anxiety.

Sheryl Gould: 32:30

Yeah, so modeling it versus telling. Mm hmm, exactly. This is what I'm trying because I'm anxious to. Yes. Thank you, that's very wise words. How do you handle your kid when they are badgering you? Gosh, tweens and teens are especially good at this. And if you answer incorrectly, which I imagined that saying no, then the badgering starts up and ramps up. What do you do with that? Hmm, okay, so

Hunter Clarke - Fields: 33:01

if my daughter is badgering me, which happens me because some jeans? You know, I, what I'm going to hell I'm going to answer is I'm going to tell her how her behavior is affecting me and how it makes me feel so Hey, babe, when you asked me that question, when you talk about this again, and again, I feel really frustrated. And I can't think and I'm trying to focus on other things, you know, so I'm going to give her this message. I might have to give her this message. A couple times. I might have to say, Hey, babe, I need a break. Maybe. Can we find a time to talk about this? I can tell this is really important to you. I really get it this you really want to talk about this. This is important to you. But I need a break. Maybe we can talk about it. You know, tomorrow at breakfast.

Sheryl Gould: 33:50

Love it. So you're validating Mm hmm. Same time saying I know this is important to you. Mm hmm. That's so good.

Hunter Clarke - Fields: 33:58

So then she'll feel heard. Exactly. So yeah. So you know, if someone's badgering you, sometimes we think oh, like, I don't, I don't even want to, like respond to this as they keep saying it again and again and again. But we can say, I hear you like this is super important to you. This is so important to you. You want to talk about you know, but right now this is this. When you say it so many times it makes it so I can't even listen, and I feel super annoyed and frustrated. Yeah. So you there's no little to argue with at that point,

Sheryl Gould: 34:30

because you're talking about how you're feeling. Mm hmm. That's awesome. One more question. What if you think it's really important for your child to understand why you made a specific decision and they walk away and won't listen to you? That's a big one.

Hunter Clarke - Fields: 34:49

Well, it's a little hard to answer without the details, I think but um, you know, a child walking away and and not listening. You know, they're They're saying I'm frustrated, I don't want to hear you, I'm so angry and, and resentful. It may feel like, um, that sounds a little like the behavior of like, You're not listening to me, so I'm not gonna listen to you kind of behavior, right? Um, so I guess when we make a big decision, it sounds like it might be a decision that's like kind of against what our child may have wanted or wished for. Again, it might be a good idea to say, you know, I get it, you wanted this, and you wanted this, because of this. And this is was really important to you. And you know what I had to make this decision. And, you know, if our kid child walks away and doesn't listen to us, I think that part of the like, this is something you can't control, you know, you it's part of you letting that go. They're, they're allowed to have feelings, maybe walking away. And not listening was a really skillful choice versus like exploding in your face. You know, like, I think sometimes we read a lot into our kids words, we say that they're manipulating us, or they're being disrespectful. And if we can start to step back and say, and, and give them a little bit more of the credit of the doubt, and not read too much into what's being said, or what's being not said, that goes back to bring that attitude of curiosity. Like, I wonder what's going on with my child, rather than this is, you know, just deciding that that can help in moments like that, and then say, you know, hey, I noticed you walked away earlier, I noticed you were pretty upset, open the door for conversation, go back to that heal and repair this the relationship afterwards.

Sheryl Gould: 36:48

Wow, I love that. That's great. And even. And even when you were talking about maybe that's actually a good thing, or not. So because or maybe control not exploding. So thinking, being curious about it and seeing it a little bit differently. I love that. Well, thank you, everybody that joined us, and you have to check out Hunter, listen to our podcast. It's wonderful. She actually you even do meditations. Are you still doing that on

Hunter Clarke - Fields: 37:20

your podcast, not as much. But during when the covid 19 outbreak, the pandemic started, I people really needed some anxiety reduction. So I did the daily dose, which is a five minute meditation and little suggestion for mindful living and mindful parenting for like, 24 days or something like

Sheryl Gould: 37:40

that. Yeah. So they can access that because I was actually listening to them and breathing along with you. And they're very doable, and not not too long. So yeah. So thank you for that. So mindful mama podcast, her book, raising good humans mindful guide to breaking the cycle of reactive parenting and raising kind, confident kids and tell them your website one more time.

Hunter Clarke - Fields: 38:06

mindful Mama mentor.com.

Sheryl Gould: 38:09

Okay, wonderful. Thank you, Hunter so much for being here. So much, Cheryl. Great to connect with you. Yeah. I hope to connect with you soon.

Hunter Clarke - Fields: 38:17

Yes, yes. Thank you.