119: Aligning Your Parenting With Your Values

Ever have a vague sense that your interactions with your child aren't quite aligned with your values...but aren't quite sure what to do about it?   Have you been to a protest and shouted "Black Lives Matter! Fight the Power!"...and then gone home and forced your child to brush their teeth?   Have you chastised Grandma for 'stealing' kisses from your child because it disrespects their body autonomy...and then pinned them down for a haircut?   You're not alone. We're in this weird place where we know we want to do things differently than the way we were raised. But cultural norms are still telling us: we need to be in charge. (Because if we aren't in charge, who is?)   A conversation with the hosts of Upbringing My guests today, Hannah and Kelty of the Upbringing  (https://www.upbringing.co/)podcast, see this dissonance more clearly than almost anyone I've met. In their podcast they explore how we live one way as people (who believe in freedom! respect! consent! empathy!) and another way as parents (timeouts, shame, control, consequences), and how we're unwittingly undermining the very skills and values we hope to promote.   But blaming and shaming helps nobody (not us...and certainly not our children). By instead approaching the topic with compassion and optimism, we can get out of an us vs. them relationship with our children, and take back our parenting practices from our cultural conditioning, and parent in relationship with our children in a way that's deeply aligned with our values.   Hannah and Kelty describe their Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/up_bringing/).   Finding Your Parenting Mojo is open to new members I know many parents are struggling right now. Even if you feel like you know how you want to parent, the stresses of being around your child so much can really wear on you.   Parents who had been working with me before the start of COVID lockdowns reported fe