Each week I release a free video message with tips on creating and maintaining healthy parent/child relationships. I call my weekly video - "You Are Destined For Greatness" because I have full faith that you my friend, were born to be extraordinary!
So sign up, kick back, and get ready to wrangle some wisdom!
Sign up for
You Are Destined For Greatness here
Inspiration for parents. Enter your info below to get a free printable, frameable copy of The Country Code for Stable Parenting.
Print it. Frame it. Live It. Love It.
Live by the Country Code.
It’s time to Thrive!
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this episode of the Stable Parenting Podcast. My name is Shane Jacob, your host, and I thank you for taking your time to be here with me today, coming to you from Stable Living Coaching headquarters here in Las Vegas.
You know, I hear a lot of self-criticism from parents and in the world, and I used to hear a lot of it from me, and I still hear a little bit, but I'm making it less.
But mostly what I hear is mostly moms, but dads too. I think dads are probably are as critical about themselves as moms, but moms a lot of times are might generally in my experience are a little bit more vocal about what's going on. The dads just like internalize it and hold it in and kind of stuff it a lot of the time.
The comments that I'm talking about, they range from everything from "I suck as a parent," you know, to just things that, like, "I can't believe that I did that." Which sounds pretty harmless, really, you know?
But parents are constantly berating or belittling themselves. I mean, for every minute little thing that they do, you know, they care so much. I mean, we care so much about our kids that every little thing that we do that we recognize is the mistake, or it's not quite right, or it's not good enough, or we could have been done better, we're just, a lot of times coming back in ways that seem harmless.
Okay. As a matter of fact, it can seem like a good idea. The parents that I talk to, they don't want to make mistakes. They're really trying to do a good job in parenting. That's why they're participating in things like coaching and these podcasts and all kinds of, you know, best parenting practices because they want their kids to turn out. They care so much, you know.
But sometimes I just want to take people and say, “Hey! Give yourself some credit for all the things that you are doing.” You know, parents, we don't want anything to go wrong. You know, we care so much about every single aspect.
And so when we do make a mistake as parents, we're just, we feel this disappointment in ourselves. And it can feel right. Like I saying, it can seem like a good idea and it can feel right to do that. And here's why—because a lot of times as parents, when we recognize that we've done something wrong, we say, “If I kind of beat myself up a little bit, it kind of feels like a good idea because, you know, well, I did something wrong and I don't want to do it better than if I kind of hammer on myself a little bit. If I kind of tell myself what a poor job I did that I'll remember and I won't doit next time.”
Just seems like a good idea. I'm taking ownership. I'm taking responsibility for the problem. Seems right. And it can seem like, you know, well, I did do something wrong and I should suffer for it for a while. That seems right. That's justice. I did something wrong.
It was a mistake. I need to have some justice in my life. I'm going to beat myself up a little bit and then I'll kind of feel better about it.
You know, a lot of this isn't totally conscious thought, but it's stuff that's playing in the background, the stuff that—these are old tapes that a lot of us, we either haven't thought of, they're unintentional thoughts or that's like pre-programmed from our past or whatever—that the language that we're using about our to ourselves, the thoughts and the words that we're using, well, a lot of times they seem like they could be a good idea or they could seem like they're just harmless, like whatever.
They make a difference, okay? They make a difference and that's what I wanna talk about today.
So I wanna take a closer look at, you know, this idea and what it means and what the result is, like what's the outcome if we do nothing or if we continue to do what we're doing, if you can relate to what I'm talking about here.
So let's, okay, so first let's take a look at this seemingly harmless comment, okay, that I hear quite a lot and that is, “I can't believe I did that,” okay?
So, well, what's behind that? Because when I ask parents, “Why can't you believe that you did that?” what they always come back with 100% of the time is basically their version of, “I can't believe I did that because a good parent wouldn't do that.”
Okay, so whatever their version is, they can't believe they did it because they're just so disappointed. But the bottom line is, is because a good parent wouldn't have done that, but they did it, so they're having this dissonance, conflict inside their head that says, “I'm trying to be a good parent, but I did that, and so now I'm not a good parent,” basically, is what it comes down to.
Another mother, a different mother of an infant. So I don't know, a few months old we'll say, less than one. Laid her infant on the bed, turned around to get something from the dresser behind, you know, alongside the bed, turned away from the bed to get some clothes out of the dresser and the little infant rolled off of the bed and hit the floor and it's not carpet. It's a hard floor.
Okay, so okay, hold on just so you know both of the kids totally fine—not even, no noticeable or any long-term, just hardly minor. They cried, okay, and maybe the Tylenol thing—you didn't feel good for a couple hours—but took them to the hospital. Everybody was fine, no injuries. So I'm just saying that just so you know, both of the babies ended up to be fine.
But both mothers made these experiences mean to them that they were inadequate mothers, okay? Not really intentionally. But mother one with the kid that with the Tylenol kept ruminating or kept saying, you know, what she had done and just kept repeating, “I can't believe I did that, I can't believe I did that, he could have died, what could have happened, I can't…” You know, just constantly, and I mean it, not just for a minute or two, went on, you know, this—she just kept repeating these thoughts and words that would come out of her mouth.
And mother two, with the infant child, the kid that rolled off—the little baby that rolled off the bed and hit the floor—thought, you know, just flat out said that a good mom wouldn't let that happen. Okay. Asif it was as simple as, you know, being quote unquote, a, if there is even such a thing as, you know, a good mom and what they do and don't do. But she had her mind made up that that's the way it was.
And I might even mention just the fact that this infant had not even rolled over by themselves up until this point. Side, you know, side note here. So totally unintentional, both of them. Neglectful? Make your own judgment on that. They certainly did.
So you might be thinking, well, what are you, what are you, what are they supposed to say? Obviously, the kids got hurt. They could have been hurt bad. What is—how are they supposed to react? It sounds right tome. You know, maybe you're thinking that, I don't know. Shouldn't they take responsibility and accept the blame and just criticize themselves a little bit so they remember, so they do things better next time?
See, but here's the thing—that's what I thought too. Let me just tell you something about my own experience. And that is, is when I believed, okay, that I didn't deserve to have a decent life for what I had done, okay—whatever that was, for whatever span of time that was—a long time is how long it was that I believed that about me. It didn't work well. As a matter of fact, it was a worse disaster than what I had done. Okay?
I created, because of that thought, a terrible—manifested a bunch of bad, terrible, destructive outcomes. But that's another story. I'll come back to that.
Basically, berating ourselves as parents for the mistakes that we make—for the things that we're negligent about, or things that we just flat do wrong—it has negative consequences. Okay? For ourselves as parents, and for our kids that we're trying to protect and trying to have everything go perfect. And we end up making it worse and here's why.
Here's the research, and my experience in coaching and my life experience backs up this research. Not that it needs to, but I'm telling you, coming from me and coming from the research, it's the same thing. And what it says is:
When we criticize ourselves, it undermines our own confidence as parents. So when parents chastise themselves, they diminish their sense of self-worth and confidence. And our kids are looking to us as parents, as the role models.
And if the parents are consistently hard on themselves or berating themselves, the kids internalize this as how they're supposed to handle mistakes for themselves. Right? So they develop self-critical tendencies, and they struggle with their self-esteem and their emotional regulation, resilience.
Okay, and this is a study on self-compassion that Kristin Neff did that says, “Being kind to oneself in moments of failure creates emotional resilience and positive relationships, both of which are crucial for effective parenting.” Okay.
The way our example as parents—okay, modeling behavior—so when we berate ourselves, we teach our kids that shame and self-criticism are appropriate responses when we make a mistake, when we fail at things.
And what this leads to is our kids end up with a perfectionism mindset, or they're just afraid. They're afraid to make mistakes and so then they don't want to get out there and try. So they're just, you know, they don't try. And they—of course they also end up having difficulty developing self-compassion.
So for example, a kid who hears their parent might say something like, “Oh, I'm such a terrible dad. You know, I forgot your lunch. ”You know? And so what the kid might hear—okay, the dad just says, “I'm a terrible dad. I forgot your lunch today.” That's what he says.
But you know what the kid a lot of time hears—most of the time—is that what they make that mean is that mistakes define our worthiness. You hear me? The kid makes it mean that mistakes equal our value or lack of value.
Number three is emotional disconnection. So basically what I mean by this is kind of isolation. Parents get consumed or wrapped up in the things that they've done wrong and they feel bad about themselves.
And when they feel bad about themselves, what they do is they emotionally—we, in all of our relationships, okay—we emotionally withdraw. Okay, because we're just like overly focused on what we did wrong and all of our shortcomings. And so we withdraw inside of ourselves emotionally, and sometimes physically we isolate a little bit.
And this creates disconnection—the opposite of what we're trying to have in our relationships. And it also leaves the kids feeling like they're unseen, unsupported, stuff like that. Okay. And so this is based on, again, based on research—that parent-child attachment—it just shows that emotional availability is crucial for healthy child development. And people, parents who are self-critical struggle to remain emotionally present, and this impacts our kids' sense of security.
Number four is our example again. What I'm going to say is number four in the research is modeling self-compassion.
Okay, so children benefit from us seeing ourselves as parents treat ourselves with kindness and understanding. When we do things—they're watching—they see. We make mistakes all day long. What do we do with it? How do we handle that?
And these mistakes, they can see that they're part of learning. Compassionate self-talk—it leads to better outcomes than self-criticism. And then it helps our kids learn that they can strive to change their behavior and improve and grow, you know, without fear of getting beat up with harsh judgment, right?
And so basically, the bottom line is that children of parents with high self-compassion—and they actually, you can score self-compassion as Kristin Neff has a self-compassion score—but in there search, the parents, well, children of parents that have the higher self-compassion scores exhibit lower levels of anxiety and greater emotional resilience.
Okay. What I'm saying here—it's not what I'm saying, I'm relaying the information from the research that says parents who are less critical about themselves—what those kids see and hear about the mistakes and the things that they do wrong, that they want to wish they would have done different, all the things that we didn't do that we wish we would have—the way that we handle that.
If the higher that we give ourselves, the more that we give ourselves self-compassion, the less anxiety and the less emotional—the more greater emotional resilience—that our kids have.
So here's a question I have, okay? Here's my question for you. Well, two things—I’m going to come back to what I said before. A lot of times we think these little thoughts and these little words—they don't mean anything and it's a good idea and we need to beat ourselves up a little bit. We need to give ourselves a little, you know, discipline and kind of make ourselves feel bad so we don't do it next time. And I'm here to tell you, I thought that too, for a long time, and it's not a good idea.
In my experience, I, because of the way that I thought about me, people suffered big time for a lot of years. I mean, tragically, destructively to relationships and people, and it's not a pretty picture. And so you say, “Well, all I said is I can’t believe I did that.” Well, think to yourself—what's at the core of it? Because, like I said, what I find is at the core of it: I can't believe I did that because good parents don't do that. Okay. Ask yourself, do you really want to be thinking that?
Ask your reasons—if you're going to say something about yourself, like your reasons why you're saying it. I’m here to tell you that those things matter. Words matter. Our thoughts and words about ourselves matter—all of them. And it's not just that they matter to ourselves. That's the thing—they matter so much to our entire sphere of influence. And when we're talking about our kids—because a lot of times our spouse and our first family, that our kids are the ones we spend the most time with—they're right there. We care so much about them.
It’s not just about you. Hey parents, it’s not just about you. It's these little things that you think are harmless, that don’t matter, and that you need to beat yourself up about. It's having a negative impact on your kids. That's my message, okay?
So here's my question—how do you want your kids to act when they make mistakes? When they do something that they—let's say on purpose—they did something wrong and now they're regretting it? Or they just made a simple mistake because they're human beings. How do you want them to feel? What do you want their self-talk to be? What do you want to hear them say when they make a mistake?
And you know what most parents say—what you might be saying if you're hearing me right now? “Well, I want them to forgive themselves and I want them to love themselves and I want them to let them know that's okay and it's normal and natural and that's the way it's gonna be and it's not a problem and it doesn't diminish their value. And I want them to know that what they have done is separate than who they are as a valuable human being—that's what I want them to know.”
I mean, we know what we say—but a lot of times we’re not internalizing it for ourselves. Okay? We don't want our kids to think that they're deficient, not even for a minute in any way.
So here's the deal—think the way that you want your kids to think about themselves. Please. Okay? I mean, you'd think it’s so simple, but we just don't do it—it’s almost like the default, for whatever reason. Okay?
And here's—here's part two. Okay? It's not enough just to stop—that’s part one. It's very important to stop the self-criticism. Okay. I recommend that we take a proactive approach—all of us as human beings, particularly parents—to give, to instill positive thoughts into our language, into our thoughts, okay? Into the thoughts equals the phrases and sentences in our minds, okay? Into our words—those thoughts that are in our minds that come out as words.
So here's an exercise that I use, and I've used it for awhile—and it is helpful. It is very helpful, and I recommend this also in my coaching. It's just a really simple exercise, and it doesn't take a lot of your day—and it's doable. Okay? I take the Notes app on my phone—that’s the way I do it. Or if you're old enough to know what a three‑by‑five card is, okay—it’s apiece of cardstock. People used to write recipes on them. Anyway, do it on whatever tool you’d like to use for this exercise. I like the Notes app on my phone. And so here's what I do.
I take—I highlight the words “I believe”—okay—and I highlight that in green. And then under it I have a bullet list. And then on the other half of the sheet, I have a second list—and I highlight those words in red, and the red says “Not me.” So I highlight the words in green—I highlight the words “I believe”—and in red I highlight the words “Not me.” Those are two separate lists: green and red. You with me? Okay.
So this is an awareness exercise, and this is what I use it for. So if I go throughout the day—if I hear myself thinking, if I hear myself thinking—yes, I said that—or if I hear the words come out of my mouth, I listen for my language. And so when I hear positive thoughts and words about me, I put them under the green list. “I believe these are things that I believe about me”—positive things that I'm saying about me.
And on the—and if I say anything and I'm not really sure what it means, like “I can't believe I did that.” Or “What was I thinking?” Or “I'm an idiot.” Or “I'm such a klutz.” Or “I always do this.” Or “I'm this way,” or “I'm that way”—and it's things that I don't want to be but I'm saying them—I put them under the red Not me. Okay? Because I might be thinking it's me right now, but I don't want it to be me—I'm just recognizing that this exercise is to become aware. Okay?
So as you listen, you just take them—you just type the min your phone, like, “I can't believe I did that.” Okay. Then at the end of the day, right before I go to bed, I just look at my list. And so here's what I do with my list. Here's the deal—in the beginning, it was a lot of red and no green, okay? But I've got to now where I have to really—I'm not saying anything in the red that I'm recognizing. Or if I do, it's very small.
But here's the deal. When you look at your list at the end of the day, you're going to look at it and you're going to make sure that you have more in the green before you go to bed. So if you have two or three—let's say you have three, four things in the red—they say Not me, these are negative things that you caught, that you realize you said or thought during the day about yourself. You have four—and you have nothing in the green—you’re going to put five in the green before you go to sleep. Okay? You're to have more in the green before you end it—things that you want to believe about yourself.
So really this whole thing takes not even a couple of minutes each day. At the end of the day, if you're adding one or two things to your list, or even four or five things, it shouldn’t take very long. It should only take, like, a couple of minutes—five minutes max for the whole exercise every day. And I've got it now to where it's like maybe two minutes a day. So it's not a big time suck. You know everybody’s always getting all these, you know, things that we should do and are good ideas—and they take up so damn much time. We can't get it done.
What I'm saying is this one doesn't take a lot of time, and it's worthwhile to do because this is the core foundation of what you believe about you. Okay? And it starts with the thoughts and the words that you're saying about yourself. Because here's the deal—belittling yourself, okay, for being an imperfect human being, it's not only unhelpful, but it's counterproductive, okay, to raising well-adjusted kids, to having your kids turn out the way you want them to be. Okay.
And here's the deal—you’re doing better than you think. You know, you care so much. You're doing a good job. It's just time—that's what I'm saying—to maybe give yourself some credit, more credit, for what you are doing that's good. And let the little things go. Don't hammer on them. Holding on to them is not good for you or anybody else. Just think about all the things that you're doing well. There's a bunch of stuff that you're doing that's right and doing good.
Model for your kids how you want them to treat themselves. You can find out more about our coaching program at Stable Living Coaching. And always remember—you cannot fail as long as You Don’t Ever Stop Chasin’ It.
