Raise your hand if you can remember being a kid and having a grown up demand you apologize after you made a mistake.
Ughhh, it was the worst, right?
So fake. So forced. So awkward. Enter a memory rush of feelings such as guilt, shame, defensiveness & often resentment toward your parent (and often the other kid that totally had a part in the drama – but YOU got blamed!). Maybe you hated that as a kid, but you find yourself doing this with your own kiddos because it’s all you know.
… but you’d love to learn an alternative way to teach children to take responsibility for their mistakes?
Well you are in luck!
In this episode of the Fresh Start Family Show, Wendy is teaching us a new way to embrace compassionate discipline (vs. punishment) by taking a break from saying “I’m Sorry” & instead practicing gratitude & the act of making amends .
She dives into why forced apologies aren’t doing anything for the person who was hurt or wronged – and what to do instead (whether it’s yourself apologizing … or a situation where you need to help your child make amends).
Mama, are you sick and tired of relying on hand-me-down parenting tactics like spanking, threatening, intimidating, and using harsh punishments that create a total relationship strain (and aren’t effective at all!!)
Click HERE to save your seat!
Special thanks to Parent Playbook for their support of the Fresh Start Family Show! To learn more about this incredible parent empowerment platform, click here!
Episode Highlights:
- Mistakes are opportunities to learn
- Why & how using shame and punishment gets in the way of us changing
- Make-ups work because they actually do something to repair a relationship
- Traditional methods of the forced apology at best let us off the hook, but do nothing for the other person
- Thanking someone for their grace/patience/compassion opens up connection and does more to repair the mistake than a “sorry”
- Teach and model make-ups to our kids, but don’t force them. We’re shooting for intrinsic and genuine encounters
Resources Mentioned:
Fresh Start Family Show Episode 32 The Difference Between Punishment & Discipline
Fresh Start Family Show Episode 10 Using Make-ups & Re-dos to Discipline with Kind Firmness
Compassionate Discipline Workshop
Bare Marriage Podcast Episode with Wendy 144
Bare Marriage Podcast Episode with Wendy 145
Not able to listen or want to read along with us?
Here is the episode transcript!
This episode of the Fresh Start Family Show is brought to you by our free Compassionate Discipline Learning Guide: How to Create Logical Consequences That Work with Kids of all Ages. You can grab your copy at freshstartfamilyonline.com/disciplineguide.
Stella:
Well, hey there, I’m Stella. Welcome to my mom and dad’s podcast, The Fresh Start Family Show. We’re so happy you’re here. We’re inspired by the ocean, Jesus, and rock and roll and believe deeply in the true power of love and kindness. Together we hope to inspire you to expand your heart, learn new tools, and strengthen your family. Enjoy the show.
Wendy:
Well, hey there families and welcome to a new episode of the Fresh Start Family Show. I’m your host, Wendy Snyder, positive parenting educator and family life coach, and we are going to be chatting today about how I, over the last year have ended a habit of saying ‘I’m sorry’ and why and how this has to do with also using makeups in our life, especially when we are raising kids with compassionate discipline.
So you’re gonna hear me talk about two things today. This episode is titled Stop Saying You’re Sorry because again, I think this is such a habitual practice that we do and it’s off also one that most parents force their children to do. Most parents, if their kid makes a mistake, they force their kid to say sorry, like they’re taught at a young age, that is what you do to make amends. That’s what you do to repair a relationship. And in reality it does a big fat nothing to actually repair relationships. It’s just a cultural norm. And here at Fresh Start Family, we are really passionate about not just succumbing or you know, going along with the flow of cultural norms just because that’s what’s always been done.
Instead, we wanna really have impactful teaching, mentorship, discipline with our kids that actually teaches them important life lessons and helps them have different behavior tomorrow. Okay, so let’s get this conversation kicked off. All right, so this month all over on Fresh Start Fam, at Fresh Start Family Land, whether it’s on Instagram or via some of the free work, the free workshop that I’m teaching on discipline this month. But we are talking all about discipline. In my Bonfire private support community, we’re actually studying revenge as a community. Revenge misbehavior. Revenge is one of the four categories of misbehavior that I teach inside our Foundations Course inside of our Bonfire support program. And revenge is a really, really triggering one for a lot of parents because it, you know, it just makes fire come outta your head.
We always say that you’ll know if your kid is doing revenge misbehavior because you’re gonna feel hurt like, like someone just shot you in the heart with a dagger. Maybe they say I hate you, or they throw a toy at your face or whatever and you’re also gonna feel super angry. Like I said, fire is coming outta your head. So parents will feel hurt and angry and a lot of times revenge will lead parents to punish because the thing about revenge misbehavior is a child who’s doing revenge mis behavior has a mistaken belief that when I feel hurt I must hurt back often because that’s what’s been modeled to me. And traditional or cultural norm or standard punishment in most homes, it just mimics that same cycle of revenge.
So child does something that is really disrespectful to, you know, misbehaves make some mistake, or whatever. Parent gets really triggered often feels really hurt by the misbehavior, especially if it’s revenge misbehavior, like I said, I hate you, which is so hard and hurtful to hear as a parent or they hit kick, bite, push, slap. Especially if you have a strong-willed toddler, you probably have had some situations where they get a little outta control when you’re trying to teach or help them control themselves, whatever it may be. But then the parent ends up feeling hurt and doesn’t know what to do with that emotion so they end up hurting back and hurting back often comes out in the form of punishment.
So you know, a punishment will get like laid down a smackdown like a smackdown will happen basically where a parent thinks, Oh no, you will, I will not let you get away with that. So I’m gonna take away your most favorite technology piece on the planet because I know it’ll sting. I know it’ll hurt you so bad and maybe if I hurt you really bad, you will not repeat this behavior. Right? Or they doll out a spanking or they send their kids straight to bed because they know their child will be really hurt by that. And it’s not a logical, it’s not like a rational thinking like, oh my, I know my child’s gonna get hurt by this. And so that’s what I’m doing to take care of myself in this moment. This is all just ingrained in us, you guys.
Cultural norms teach us that when you feel hurt you better lay that smack down back or else you are permissive, you are weak, you’re gonna get walked all over. But here at Fresh Start Family, we teach families, we teach kids, we teach parents how do you actually feel hurt without hurting back? And so revenge was, behavior is amazing. Again, there’s all these different ways that you can respond to it with integrity where your, your child actually stops having revenge misbehavior tomorrow. So we’re studying that at the Bonfire this month and it just goes hand in hand with discipline. So that’s why I decided, you know what I’m gonna spend a lot of time on on Instagram and also here at the podcast and then also spend a lot of time teaching that free workshop about compassionate discipline cuz the two really do go hand in hand.
So here today I wanna talk about forced apologies and apologies in general and give you an alternative to when you feel like amends need to be made in a relationship. So in today’s episode you’re gonna hear two things. One about how makeups, I want you to really learn how to use makeups and start using them instead of forcing your kids to have apologies and why makeups make such great logical consequences. So I’ll teach you about makeups and then we’ll talk about why they are fantastic at actually teaching kids life skills and helping them learn from their mistakes. And then second, you’re gonna hear me talk about why I advocate for all of us to stop saying I’m sorry in our own lives.
And what I’m talking about is like on a consistent basis, like that’s just knee jerk reaction. What we do if we’ve made a mistake or we’ve hurt somebody or we said something that we later regret to our spouse or our kids, like just the standard, I’m sorry in my opinion, doesn’t do much and it really kind of lets the person off the hook without them having to do anything to actually make amends. Okay? So instead we’re gonna talk about how I’m an advocate of taking the classic I’m sorrys and turning them into just thanking people for their grace, their understanding, their patience, their forgiveness, or whatever it may be. Okay? So let’s just start out by doing a quick review of what compassionate discipline is versus punishment.
So we have a really good podcast article all about the difference between punishment and discipline. It’s episode 32. So if you are really wanting to learn more about this, you can head to freshstartfamilyonline.com/32 where I talk about that. Episode 10 is a really good one to where I do discuss makeups and redos to replace traditional punishment. So that would be a really good complimentary episode to listen to if you really dig this conversation that we’re gonna have today. But when we think about punishment versus discipline, we wanna remember that discipline is rooted in teaching and it’s rooted in the future.
Punishment is rooted in retribution making someone pay for their mistakes. It’s rooted in the past. And so when we implement compassionate discipline into our lives and into our parenting lives with our kids, we want to teach them life skills. It’s not about making a child feel bad for what they’ve done. There’s that classic saying like, where did we get the notion that in order to make our children behave better, we must first make them feel worse? It’s such an odd cultural norm, but it really is the way most punishment, or a lot of people use the word discipline, when really what they mean is punishment. I see this happen a lot in mainstream Christian culture.
They will say that their, their parenting is gentle and kind and that they’re disciplining, but really what they’re doing when they spank and hit a child is they are punishing a child with really, you know, the goal again is if we can just make this child feel really bad about what they’ve done, then they won’t make the mistake again tomorrow, which is actually just completely not the case. It doesn’t work that way. Again, we’re really about evidence based parenting here. And so we want you to learn how to have discipline instead of punishment in your parenting life. Okay, so discipline is about teaching humans to take responsibility for their mistakes without shame. Okay? Cuz that’s the thing, Punishment, when you bring in pain, suffering, humiliation, intimidation, any type of aggression or overpowering or over controlling another human being, trust me, there’s gonna be shame, okay?
Because just remember you guys, all human beings, every single child on the planet, every single human on the planet is going to make mistakes. Mistakes are simply opportunities to learn. And children are eager learners, you guys, they really are. They want to learn, they love to learn, but the shame and the punishment gets in the way of them actually changing. And shame also, by the way, gets in our way as adults of actually changing. I support so many parents in my Bonfire Support program who desperately want to respond versus react with their children are desperately want to be able to feel confident, really implementing compassionate discipline in their home.
But they wake up and you know, by noon they’re, they’re yelling, they’re slapping their kids on their, you know, hands or, or resorting to spankings or- and they’re in our group they’re really honest and vulnerable about when that happens. But it happens all the time, right? Like it takes parents quite some time on occasion often to actually create that positive change that they want. Because often what I see is they’re so stuck in shame, they’re so stuck in why is this so hard for me? What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I just take a deep breath instead of yelling, threatening like, why is this so hard for me? I should know this by now.
They go to bed at night telling them things like I’m actually a horrible mother, like maybe I’ve scarred my children. And so we spend a lot of time helping them redo those thought patterns and and create new neural pathways in their minds and in their brains. And it’s just beautiful to see what happens – their behavior, their ability to become more responsive and neutral and calm and confident as they implement firm and kind connected positive parenting strategies into their life – it all gets easier and easier once the shame melts away. But it’s very clear to me how with a society that is so rooted in traditional punishment that comes along with shame, why it’s so hard for so many of us to shake shame when we become adults.
Okay? So it’s just factual information. Brené Brown’s work and research has proven that shame is detrimental in our lives. It’s detrimental in our children’s lives and it does nothing to make our behavior better tomorrow. It does nothing to help us become kinder, more helpful, wiser human beings tomorrow. It just has detrimental effects in our lives. So if you’ve never read any of Brené Brown’s books, I know we have a few of them highlighted on our Fresh Start Family Shop page. If you go to the website, freshstartfamilyonline.com and just click the shop page at the top and you’ll see that we have a lot of her resources highlighted there because again, research evident based stuff, we love all that here at Fresh Start Family and we just love Brené Brown.
So here we are, you guys as a nation and really a world who mostly rely on forced external controls like threats and harsh punishments to train the next generation of human souls. And it really is heartbreaking and, and I’m a big word of the fan and not, but, and thank God it’s changing, thank God it’s changing the work we do here at Fresh Start Family and inside our Bonfire support community and through our Foundation’s Course and all of our programs, we are just one tiny little speck of sand in the sea of amazing educators and mentors and psychologists and psychiatrists and just people who are dedicated to helping families learn a new way.
And it’s just such an honor to be part of it. So through evidence based information, it’s making its way into the hearts and minds of parents across the world and parents are vowing to stop using punishment to try and make their children behave better. They’re just learning and understanding that the long term effects are detrimental. I was on a podcast episode with my friends Sheila Wray Gregoire and Rebecca Lindenbach. They have a podcast that’s amazing and they’re just very, very special people. Their blog and their podcast is called Bare Marriage, so B A R E M A R R I A G E. But they are really great at presenting the research.
I was actually on two episodes, but we talked about how research has proven that harsh punishments like spanking are either neutral or detrimental and negative on the health on human beings and the its ability to actually change behavior. So again, in this episode it’s episode 145 Connection, Not Punishment: A Better Way to Parent featuring Wendy Snyder. And again, it’s the Bare Marriage podcast if you wanna check it out. And then also episode 144. So 144 and 145. If you’re interested in hearing more about the research behind what’s been proven, that punishment, especially spanking does like -like the statistics and the research show that it does, it does not have positive benefits for human beings.
It’s again, it’s either neutral or negative and they, these ladies do a really great job of explaining those studies and we talk about it in those two episodes. So if you wanna learn more, you can go listen to them. I love that, the work that those girls are doing in the world.
Well hey there families! I am pausing this episode to invite you to a free one hour workshop that I am hosting this month all about disciplining with compassion, connection and firm kindness. If you want to save your seat you can head to the website freshstartfamilyonline.com/discipline. You can save your seat there, but in this free one hour workshop I will teach you three steps to building a strong, compassionate, firm and kind tool kit that works with kids of all ages. You guys this is one of my favorite subjects to teach on besides power struggles – I love that one too – but oh my goodness you guys empowering you to embrace a compassionate discipline mindset and to let go of a punishment-based mindset is my jam and I cannot wait to support yourself head on over freshstartfamilyonline.com/discipline to check out the dates and the times that I’m offering this completely free one hour workshop and I cannot wait to see you at class.
So all month long we’re talking about discipline and again, I’m teaching a free workshop this month, by the way, you guys, if you wanna learn more about this and you really wanna expand your, your toolkit in this area, come join me for that. If you’ve never joined me for that free workshop, it’s just one hour, it’s completely free. It’s called How to Build a Firm and Kind Compassionate Discipline Toolkit That Works with Kids of all Ages. So if you never joined me head to freshstartfamilyonline.com/disciplineclass and you can learn more and save your seat and all that good stuff.
But you can, you’ll walk away from that one hour free workshop really understanding everything when it comes to natural consequences, logical consequences and self calming in a significant manner. So you feel like you are well on your way to having a compassionate discipline toolkit instead of a punishment toolkit. Okay? So, but one of my favorite things that I teach in that workshop and that I teach in the Foundations Course too and at the Bonfire is all about makeups. So let’s talk about makeups. What are makeups? And I’m gonna give you an example of some of what they look like. So makeups is essentially what we use to replace the forced apology and it’s just an act that repairs or makes amends in a relationship.
So I always, I think it’s in, yeah, it’s in the Foundations Course that I do a role play with Terry where we’re fighting over a dollar bill. I used to have the dollar bill like in my desk right here from when I would video all the time. But anyways, we show this example of how you know, when you’re in relationship with others, whether you have siblings or whether you’re, you are in a relationship with your child and over time these little tears happen in your relationship. And so we use this dollar bill to kind of show what it looks like that if you keep pulling on those tears, right, if you keep having power struggles, if you keep using disconnecting overpowering punishment strategies to try to teach your kids important life lessons, those tears become bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.
And eventually what happens is the dollar bill rips in half. Now of course this represents the relationship we have with our children and this is why you see so many children, by the time they become teenagers, they are freaking done with their parents. They go so far south from what their parents hoped and dreamed from them so that by the time they hit high school and college, they’re like lying to their parents behind their back. They’re hiding things. Their parents are not the first people that they call when they have a problem or when they want to admit that they made a mistake, right? Like the relationship gets massively torn for so many families. But on a day to day basis, when you’re in relationship with anybody, you’re gonna have moments where the relationship gets torn, right?
And so with little kids or with kids of all ages, actually, you know, mistakes often create small terrorism relationships. And what makeups do is it just, it just takes it an extra mile or an extra little bit to show that person like, Hey, I care about you, I care about our relationship so I’m actually gonna do an act of service to show you that you know, I have regret about what I did or I wish I would’ve done it differently. Or I wanna do something that’s gonna fill up your bucket so you can see that I care about you and that I realize I made a mistake and that I’m willing to do something different to make tomorrow be different.
Okay? So I give a literally a million different examples inside of a lesson. We have in our Bonfire private support community, we have about over 60 video lessons now that parents can just push on, demand play on at any time. That community only opens up twice a year to the public. But you can head on over and join the wait list at any time, freshstartfamilyonline.com/bonfire-waitlist that’ll send you to a wait list cuz our full support program usually opens in January and June. But it’s kind of like a Netflix for positive parenting where parents can just go get on demand lessons at any time. And we have quite a few lessons about discipline and they’re very extensive but one of them is called A Gazillion Discipline Ideas.
And inside of there I show – so right now I’m recording this podcast episode where I’m also live on Instagram, so if you’re on Instagram or if you’re watching the replay, you can see some of these pictures. This was or makeup that my son did for me when he was probably four years old. I don’t know, I don’t remember what he did but all I know is that he drew a big monster truck for me with an airplane and he was like coming out of the airplane. So cute. I love this artwork. And it says, I love you mama. And there’s like a picture of me I’m, I guess on the side watching, here’s a note that my daughter wrote to me at one point that was just absolutely beautiful just taking responsibility and actually just saying, you know how every day she’s like as a little girl even realizing that she was in spiritual welfare or spiritual warfare and just how some days the enemy just gets to her and she succumbs and that she’s really like just wants to change and like it was just a beautiful, beautiful letter that my daughter wrote just about realizing that she’s practicing her ability to listen to God on a consistent basis.
That was a really beautiful letter. This one is another one that Stella wrote. You can see it stained with coffee. I am really sorry how I hit your, it doesn’t even say oh how I hit you. So this must have been a day when Stella actually like lost her temper and hit me. I know that that was wrong. Love Stella. Just a beautiful love note. These are all examples of love notes exact, you know, obviously this one was a picture I love you, it looked like me and her. This one’s actually one that she did for Gigi. So my mother-in-law has been taking my kids for once a week for like the last 10 years. She’s the most amazing grandma ever. But she must have done something that was disrespectful to grandma or made a mistake when she was with grandma and she wrote, Dear Gigi, I love you, I love you, I love you.
She wrote it it about 10 times. And then PS, did I mention that I love you. Here’s another little tiny love note from Terrin that again was a picture and then another note from Stella. Good, good morning mama. I’m so terribly sorry about last night. I know that I wasn’t being my true self and that felt awful. I know that I can learn from my past and that I can move forward with joy, love, Stella. So those are just some examples of some notes or some pictures which are a great way for for kids to make do makeups for each other. Back when my kids were little, we used to do a lot of makeups where Stella and I were actively learning to have more self control at the same time.
That’s what I always tell parents is like if you have a, a little kiddo that is like really lacking in self control or has a crazy strong will and is just giving you a ton of misbehavior, a lot of times you are often in the exact same learning phase as that child. So if your child has a hard time keeping their hands to themselves, there’s a good chance that you probably have a good hard time keeping your hands to yourself. And together you are learning self-control, you are learning self-regulation, you are learning to process your emotions in a healthy way, all these things. But back then, when I first found this work about 11 years ago now still and I were knee deep in mistakes with each other so I would lose my temper. She would lose her temper like all the time.
And so one of the things we love to do for each other is we would give each other foot rubs with lavender lotion. Now to this day, Stella and I still love foot rubs with lavender lotion and or just not even with lotion. We just love foot rubs in general. My daughter loves back scratchies. I used if I like lost my temper and yelled at her, I would at nighttime give her like five extra minutes of back scratchies or something. My kids would often pick flowers for each other and make little vases. Or kids can let their sister or their brother go first in the ice cream line after the beach if they had done something unkind at the beach or made a mistake. There’s just so many different examples of what makeups look like and let me give you an example of what it looks like actually like out in the, in the world.
So it just actually happened to me last week. So we were on a flight coming home from Maryland. We went to visit my folks, Terry and I both grew up in Maryland just outta Washington DC We went to see Rage Against the Machine and Washington DC with our kids and it was absolutely phenomenal and we love to expose our kids to really good art and music, especially when the messaging is so important. And the band Rage Against the Machine has really important messaging in our opinion. But we were visiting back home and our flight got cancel or no it, our flight got delayed when we were returning from Baltimore to San Diego and when I called we were gonna miss our connecting flight in Phoenix. So the woman was saying, I’m so sorry, like there’s, you know, there’s not much we can do.
And so we ended up having to stay one more night and catch a morning flight at like 6:00 AM We ended up leaving my parents house at 4:00 AM but she said to me at the end, she said, I go, Oh can you get us on that 6:00 AM flight? And she’s like, Well actually no, that would, that would cost you like more points cuz we had booked on points with Southwest. And I was like, well, I’m like, gosh, isn’t there anything you guys can do since this was like a staffing issue I think is why the, the flight got delayed. Is there anything you can do since it’s not weather they’re related? And she, and she said to me, you know what, yes absolutely as she didn’t use the word makeup but she said because this like it’s, it’s our error, it was our mistake or it’s our something, you know what I mean? She said, I’m gonna go ahead and wave the extra points that would cost to to change this for you.
And basically she said to me as a makeup, I’m gonna get you on this flight, I’m gonna get you checked in and I’m gonna give you priority so you don’t have to pay anything extra to take this really nice nonstop flight in the morning. Which was really in, it was a nicer flight than what we had originally booked to go home. So in general that was an example of a makeup out in the world. Now she would’ve just said to me, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry this happened to you. Like I hope you have a place to stay tonight and I’m sorry your family has to wake up at 4:00 AM to get yourself to the airport tomorrow and that you have to pay an extra a hundred thousand points like to get yourself on this flight home. Like I’m so sorry, Sorry, I would’ve been like, dude, not cool.
Like I’m not flying on Southwest again. You know, like my spicy little self would’ve come out. So that’s an example of what a makeup looks like in the real world. But again you guys, it why do they work? It’s because they actually show a person cares. They actually do something to repair a relationship because think about it, when someone says I’m sorry to you, it doesn’t do anything for you, it’s all about them. It’s like it’s our way as humans to think that we’re doing something kind when really we’re not doing anything to relieve the stress or help that other person feel better or heal from whatever happened to them in that moment, right?
So I’m sorrys are literally just for that person to make like in theory or cultural norm to try to make yourself feel better and to make you think that you’ve done something when really you’ve done nothing. So makeups are just way more sound and that’s why I love them. So let me give you an example of what this traditionally looks like and how it can be changed. So I’m gonna give you an example of something I saw in Target about it was a year ago. I live right next to Target in Encinitas, California and it’s the best thing ever and it’s the worst thing ever cuz you know you can’t walk into Target without spending like $200. It’s the worst. My kids know when they go in there with me, they’re like, Mom focus, we are going to get batteries or whatever they want and and I’ll like weave off to the bikinis or like the Magnolia section and they’re like, Mother come back to me.
Oh my goodness, Target, I love Target, I want Target to sponsor our show Anyways, okay so there was a mom with her, two little kids in Target and they were both in the shopping cart and neither of them had shoes on and I just had so much compassion for this mom cuz you know, you’re just doing your best and you just gotta return something and you just gotta get those kids in the car. I’m sure it was around nap time, but the little one for sure did not have shoes on. I don’t know why. I’m sure he refused to put ’em on for some reason. And the the bigger one, so they were probably like three and one and a half or something like that and the bigger one accidentally stepped on the little one’s toes and the little one was like agh, started screaming and instantly the mom again she was just doing her best, right?
She probably isn’t in my classes, she’s not in my support program, but instantly she was just like, that’s not nice. You stepped on his toes. Like you say you’re sorry now and this is too like a little one and a half year old boy, right? Like he’s like the, and so I mean really like what is, I’m sorry gonna do for this little boy. Of course he is being trained to think that that is what he, he needs to feel better, right? Like this little boy probably will grow up to be an adult who will demand, and I’m sorry from people which really honestly will do nothing for him to feel better. So anyways, this little boy starts like rolling his eyes and he’s like, Ugh. She goes, Say it now, say it now. And he was like, I’m sorrrry!
and he started doing this like super annoying tone and, and then he started mocking her. He was like, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry that your feet were in my way or something like that. And it was just so clear to me. I’m like, oh my gosh, I just wanted to hug her right? And just be like, Hey, try this. Like try teaching him instead to give him a hug and say, Hey buddy, I didn’t mean to hurt you, right? Like let me give you a hug as a makeup because that, I’m sorry, was just a trained forced, externally controlled correction method to try to get him to be more considerate of his little brother’s chubby little cute feet with no shoes on, when really it did nothing to help that little boy be more considerate of his his brother’s body parts tomorrow.
Does that make sense? So that was just a really good example. Okay, so I’m gonna give you a few more examples now and I thought I would just pull a few of our Bonfire support communities success stories because my gosh, I love man, I love our bonfire support community so much. We now have a Google doc you guys of success stories that is almost 800 pages long and it is filled with stories like this. So I’m gonna read you four or five so you can get an idea of what it looks like to really implement makeups into your firm and kind compassionate discipline toolkit in your home.
These are also parents who started modeling makeup. So we’re gonna talk about that in a minute. How you actually teach your kid to do a makeup is not by forcing them to do a makeup, not by teaching them to do a makeup by actually showing them which you know, 99% of if you want your kid to learn something you’re gonna need to show ’em. So okay, the first success story came in from a mama named Melissa. When I command F this in the document there was like 27 examples that just had the word makeup in it. So these are just five of them. But she says, my kids did this sweetest makeup last night. They’re my oldest Tavin is nine and my middle is Bodhi who’s five and while they play together often, hey also fight argue the most often.
The cute baby brother Elias is three. He usually gets a pass because he’s the baby. Last night at bedtime and argument over, I can’t even remember what led to Tavin and Bohi to a standoff and Bohi crying in his room for maybe five minutes. The win is he cried and I sat with him and held space instead of him acting out and physically attacking his brother or myself, which has been something that we’ve been working on. Amazing. Tavin is very sensitive and came in crying because he felt so bad he had made Bohi cry. Usually Bohi gets mad instead of sad. So this was somewhat unusual for Tavin to see.
He wanted to make it up to Bohi by giving him something in a heart shape. He ended up showing Bohi a stuffed animal bum with its leg sticking up as the top of the heart, which got them laughing. Then Tavan asked Boddy if he could find something special for him in his room. He looked in Bodhi’s closet and found the three canvas prints of Boddy’s newborn pictures that used to hang on a wall in his nursery. Tavin set up the new newborn photos and had Bohi sit down. Then did a tada! excited presentation. Bodhi loved it and said those are so cute and they both willingly hugged. Bodhi wouldn’t let go of the hug, told Tavin he was stuck, hugging him.
In a different mood, Bodhi would have said the pictures were stupid, Tavin was stupid and kicked him. It was awesome to see Bodhi felt his sadness and accept the love and makeup from Tavin. Afterwards, Tavin told me, Mommy, this is the first time in Bodhi’s life, or at least at that age, at this age that when I tried to hug him, he didn’t push me away. That all went perfectly. It was amazing. So again, you guys, that’s Tavin who is nine years old who just said that. So she, she ends up by saying my heart is still melting at their ness, sweetness. And I hope especially for my little spitfire Bodhi and for their future relationship that we start to see these moments more often. Beautiful story, right?
Like this is a mom Melissa who is teaching her children the power of makeups. If you have an argument, if you say something you regret, instead of just saying I’m sorry or whatever, you actually do something kind that’s gonna make the other person feel like their bucket is being filled up. It’s powerful, right? Okay, let’s move on to the second success story is by by a mama named Elizabeth. Elizabeth is actually one of my incredible women in my Become a Parenting Coach certification program. I have seven women that are in that intensive mentor mentorship program with me and they’ll be graduating actually later this month with their certification in the fresher family approach.
So look out world, we’re gonna have seven new amazing parenting coaches coming out in the world. I know Elizabeth has a huge heart, a desire to teach more in the Christian Church. So I’m just so excited to see what she does with her certification. But she wrote, and by the way, if you’re interested in that program, you can join the wait list for 2023 at freshstartfamilyonline.com/becomeaparentingcoach. Okay, so Elizabeth’s success story is she says, we just got back this week from spending three weeks in Michigan with family and I know this first week back would be a transition back into routine. I have been feeling like nothing I say is being heard. I’ve used threats more than I would like and I have had plenty of overwhelming moments.
Today, my two oldest (five and seven) were at each other, which is not always the case. They get along well really well a lot of the time. I had, I had asked questions about how to repair or if they had expressed to the other how they felt and what they wanted. No one seemed receptive. Once my seven year old was alone in her room, I went in to ask if there was something I could help her work through with her brother if we could figure something out for today to help them. She didn’t seem receptive so I left it alone and went out of the room. Not long after that she came out with a note for her brother. We have talked about makeups and they have done them in the past but not much recently.
The, the fact that she remembered to do it and repair the relationship was awesome. And my three year old has been having these screaming outbursts often and it is due to wanting someone’s attention or someone taking something of hers when it, when it’s to get attention. She accompanies it with scratching and pinching until I acknowledge her or give her what she’s asking for today. She started yelling at me and it was amidst other kids asking and needing things which we’ve been working on, having her take deep breaths and asking a calm tone. I asked her to take a break. I think this one is actually more about calming breaks. I’ll go ahead and read it and you guys, why not you get to hear this second part of her success story about calming breaks too.
We’ve been working on having her take deep breaths and asking a calm tone. I asked her to try taking a a break and come back when she could ask differently. She came back shortly from her room with a totally different attitude. I asked her what she did in there and she said she sat and took deep breaths, which she then demonstrated to me and then she asked calmly, These were great reminders to me that this is working and the kids are learning alongside of me. Okay, So that second little one was like a bonus success. I didn’t realize I had copy and pasted that in, but that’s just one like example. Elizabeth shares successes all the time. She’s the most, most amazing mama. Okay, here’s another one from a mama named Karin about makeups.
Okay, so she says, so I suppose I can mention a few successes here that tie into one another. My girls, Carly six and Aria four asked to have a sleep overnight a night where they get to sleep in the same room with one another. We made an agreement that this was okay as long as there was no hurting going on, whether physical or with words. If there was at that point we agreed we would go into our own bedrooms for the night. I love it. My parents and my programs know how to make agreements. They used them on a consistent basis. It’s amazing. So she goes on to say that night came and was going well at first, but then some hurting did occur. So they both went to their rooms without a fight.
Amazing. The power of an agreement. Yes. Okay, so the next day and honestly a lot later they had a little bit of animosity towards one another. A lot of, she says actually a lot of animosity towards one another. A lot of I hate yous, I wish I didn’t have a sister, she’s the dumbest, etcetera. So we opted to do a makeup to one another. Again, this mama purposely chose right now you guys to do compassionate discipline instead of punishment. She could have easily punished these girls, but no, she said we opted to do a makeup to one another. I had them come up with ideas for what they could do for one another. Carly shot down a lot of the ideas saying how dumb they were and that she should, she would throw them in the trash.
She often does stuff like this or has even told me how stupid my parenting classes are. In the end, they each decided to make a picture for one another. They actually took this very seriously and they both created something that would make the other person happy and not just do something that they would like but not the other person. So, and then she went to include a picture. So she says attached to the pictures of what they came up with, Carly made a picture of stickers for Aria. Making a picture of stickers was one of Aria’s ideas that Carly didn’t like for herself but did it for her sister and wrote that she was sorry and I love you. She then made a pink frame Aria’s favorite color and a pink heart in the middle.
Aria drew a picture for Carly with a crystal of a crystal cave and imaginary game Carly plays and drew Carly in her favorite color, teal, and wearing a dress. She loves dresses. Aria also wanted to write, I love you and I’m sorry which I helped her do afterwards they both felt a lot better and were getting along so much better. They asked for another sleep overnight that night and we agreed to the same guidelines as before. That night went much smoother and they both had a good time hanging out with another and got along great. Boom! Like do you see how it worked you guys?
Like this Mama allowed her children to be messy. She allowed them to be imperfect and then she actually taught them how to repair a relationship on their own with their intrinsic motivation muscles, right? Like this is absolutely beautiful. Again, the traditional way that most parents handle sibling rivalry or conflict like this is there is punishment. They’re like, No way, you guys are never having a sleepover again, right? Like this is what you get when you don’t listen. Right? Like it’s just amazing to see like the direct results of using compassionate discipline, having her girls do a makeup and the direct next night they had significantly different behavior and the life skill that their mother wanted them to have, which was the ability to get along and have a great relationship as siblings.
So good. Okay, two more and then we’re gonna wrap with how you actually teach your kids how to do makeups. Okay? The fourth is from a mama named Erica who’s actually also a become a parenting coach mama who will graduate soon and an amazing mother of four. She might be amaz she five or four, I think she’s an amazing mama of four, which Erica had written in with actually a question about something happened in her Sunday school where her little boy made a mistake and he like had, he had misbehaved in Sunday school class and then the teacher who her she knows well cause she grew up in this church, had really kind of talked to her and said, Hey, we need to like figure out how to have his behavior change in the future.
And so we had the honor of helping Erica through like all the emotions that come along with having your kid misbehave in Sunday school, right? But she did a great job of responding with dignity and integrity and firm kindness to her little boys’ behavior. And she later wrote in with a success story. She says, Y’all, we had lunch and I laid Felicity her little baby girl down for a nap and then had a chat with Silas. We talked about makeups and I suggested we make Mrs. Diane a card. He went to play with Ian and Olivia. I figured we’d do it later. He came out and got scrap paper and I thought they were all just coloring. Ian came out and asked to use the stapler. I’m pretty sure Ian is like three or four you guys, three or four years old.
It’s, this is amazing. So Silas brings me this, he decided to make her an I am sorry book all on his own. So it was actually, it’s Silas. So Silas is the one that’s like three or four years old and she included a picture. Maybe I’ll try to put these in the show notes if I can get my act together cuz there’s a lot of pictures that often accompany success stories that our bonfire support families share. But she said he decided to make her I am and I am sorry book all on his own. He asked Ian to staple it for him and asked me to write her name on it. Now he keeps asking if we can take it to her. Can you imagine I, I know like how amazing this went because I know Erica well.
But can you imagine a Sunday school teacher who has a little boy who made a mistake and was misbehaving whether he wasn’t listening or he didn’t clean up or whatever. And he came back later that afternoon with maybe a bouquet of flowers picked from his front yard with a little book that he hand wrote that said, I’m sorry, will you please forgive me? Like I’m sorry for my actions. I take responsibility, I’m gonna make different choices next week. Like basically, essentially that’s all the things that this little boy is saying as he made this I am sorry book for his teacher, right? Like he might not have written all those things, but that what, that is what this little boy is learning. That’s what his mama is teaching him and he is taking that, he’s taking responsibility without shame and telling his teacher like, hey, this is a makeup, something to fill up your heart and to let you know I have plans to change.
Like it’s just beautiful. Right? Okay, you guys, last success story and then I’m gonna, we’re gonna talk about modeling as we wrap this episode.
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This one came in from Courtney who’s actually my director of operations, but she, my goodness, I wouldn’t be surprised if Courtney probably has, I don’t know, 30, 30 success stories in this big long Google Doc success story document that we have because she’s been a bonfire member before she worked for me for like, gosh, I wanna say two or three years and now she’s like an integral part of our team here at Fresh Start Family. She’s my director of ops and she’s also a certified parenting educator or certified parenting coach in the Fresh Start family approach.
And she’s also a coach in our bonfire community. So she does a lot here at Fresh Start family, but she has two little boys and she wrote in and said, As we end our month focusing on responsive parenting, I wanted to share this little success from this morning. I have been on a journey to detach from attitudes and tones and I can confidently say that I’ve been pretty on point for this with this for a solid year. Of course there are times when I do react and more so than not I detach. So this morning Jordan eight had a loud, rude response to something I said, I don’t even remember what it was because it was just a low-key conversation we were having. But I was taken aback by his sudden reaction and I didn’t say anything, just continued washing dishes.
He went to the playroom and about three minutes later he came over to me at the sink and said, Mommy, I’m sorry for the way I got loud and rude with you. I turned off the sink, give him a huge hug and responded with, Thank you. That means a lot to me. I love how you were able to take the time to realize that that wasn’t the way you wanted to speak to me. And you have such a huge, kind, thoughtful heart. I know and I can feel how much you love me. This is just one success story of many similar to this where given the time and space, my boys have come to me to offer a genuine apology. This is different than a forced apology, right? If I were to react and jump all over my boys about their tone or rude words, they would not be given the ability to develop their own moral compass and self-awareness.
I also believe that another main factor that plays into their ability to do this is my own modeling. Anytime I do react or say or do something that doesn’t sit right with me, I go to them. I humble myself and I tell them that I don’t like the way I chose to handle myself and that what I really wanted to say is X, you know, is blah, blah, blah. And often I will do a makeup on this journey. I’ve discovered that by boys don’t need me to make them feel bad. Tell them that it’s not okay to talk to people like that or force an apology or force a makeup on them. They just need me to allow them the space to discover and develop the skill on their own.
Their words, tones and gestures are not about me. And I have stopped taking offense. Our relationship is stronger than ever and I just light up when I envision how they will continue to grow through their tween and teen years. Forever grateful for the work we are doing. So I love it. I know Courtney is someone who has used and modeled makeups in her home a gazillion times and now she is reaping the benefits and her boys are really just mimicking that same behavior, right? They’re using makeups and really authentic, genuine apologies to actually make amends. So pretty beautiful. Okay, you guys, well I wanna wrap with, with this two more things.
I’m gonna talk about how you teach makeups and then I also wanna just end with the practice that I’ve started to do, which is stopping the cultural standard. I’m sorry. And instead what I’ve replaced it with. So how do you teach a child to do makeups? Now hopefully you got the gist as I was reading through some of these success stories. But you don’t teach by necessarily making or forcing a child to do a makeup for his sister or do a makeup for you. Now you absolutely teach a child how to do a makeup by of course education, right? So within our Bonfire support community inside of our video lesson library, and actually we have some bonus lessons that are in our Foundations Course, but my daughter, when she was about eight or nine years old, did a kids lesson that taught kids how to do makeups.
So kids learn incredibly well when other kids teach them. And so I know those lessons that Stella did are like fan favorites for the kids to learn. But then the biggest way that I can teach that I can tell you guys if you want to implement this as a a logical consequence or compassionate discipline strategy in your home is for you to freaking model it. So I talked about it earlier, but you know, anytime you make a mistake with your kids, just humble your heart and do something kind for them. Like it can be anything. You can let them stay up 10 minutes late, right? You can take an evening walk with them because they feel special when they get to have special time with mama after the baby goes to bed.
You can take them out to a frozen yogurt date, just you and them. You can just draw them a picture or you can just offer a genuine apology, right? Like, but in a second here, I’m gonna, I’m gonna tell you what I would vote for in place of that. But you can, you know, pick a little bouquet of flowers. Like every time I go to Trader Joe’s, I’m always like thinking to myself, Okay, well a, should I buy some flowers to take care of myself? Cuz they always have like a $3 bouquet of sunflowers or a $1.99 bouquet of daffodils. But you could pick some flowers for your daughter. Maybe you had an argument with your teenage daughter and you said something that you regret.
Instead of just saying, I’m sorry, remember we’re not saying that I’m sorry is a bad thing you guys, it’s not like we’re villainizing, I’m sorry. We’re saying, instead of just doing that, then pick a bouquet of flowers and bring it to your daughter and leave it in her room with a, with a note that is about, you know, how you made a mistake and how what you really think of her speak truth over her else. She’s kind, loving, respectful, caring, has a huge heart. Like do foot rubs give extra back scratchies. Like, there’s just so many things you can do when it comes to makeups, but you modeling it is then how you’re gonna get your kids to then mimic the behavior.
Like so many times, I know it’s really hard for parents to hear, but a lot of the misbehaviors we see with children is usually taught to them by their parents. Not always you guys, but I’m gonna say just as like a rule of thumb, it’s at least 90% of the behavior that I spend day in and day out helping parents redirect. It often, you know, can be a reflection of what has been modeled to them in the home. So it goes the same with the positive stuff. Like if you want your children to learn a life lesson of being able to do makeup for people to repair relationships and make amends, just model it. Teach them by showing them. Okay? All right, So last thing I’m gonna talk about is just how I have really enjoyed catching myself when I’m tempted to say I’m sorry and instead just thanking someone for their grace and understanding or forgiveness.
Okay? So an example I can give you is if I’m late to a hair appointment example for an example or an eyelash appointment or something, how many times have you run in to the person and said, Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry I’m late. Like here’s all the reasons why I’m late. Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Right? And usually it brings a tone of like hecticness into let’s say like your, your hairdresser or your lash person’s office or whatever, and it does nothing for that person. Instead, what I’ve decided to do, and I’ve been doing this for like the last year or two since I’ve kind of realized that this was not adding any value to my life or the life of others, is I will just head in and the first thing I’ll say is, my gosh, thank you for your grace with me today.
I’ve, you know, had a wild day, but just thank you for understanding. And then afterwards I give a little bit extra of a tip and I make sure if I’m paying via Venmo, I put it in the notes or I just say to them like, Thank you again for your grace and understanding. Like I included an extra tip as a makeup, something like that, right? But I I, I catch myself all the time instead of just doing the standardized like, Oh, I’m sorry about that, sorry about that. I’ll say to them instead, Thank you for understanding, thank you for forgiving me. And it’s almost like it’s my version of like inner relationship expecting forgiveness and grace because the people I hang out with in life, I choose my friends and my family.
I see the good in them always. I expect them to be full of grace and forgiveness and compassion. And so when you expect that from somebody and you expect that in a relationship, it’s so much easier for that person to give it because they’re just like, Oh, that’s, that’s what I’m gonna do here. Right? Does that make sense? So, I don’t know, I’ve been experimenting with it and it’s not that I never say, sorry you guys, and again, I’m not trying to make, I’m sorry, be this bad word or whatever, but I, I think that you’ll find that if you start experimenting with it, you will see that it just feels a lot better to say thank you for your grace. Thank you for understanding here. You know, it’s been a crazy day and I’m, I’m doing my best and I promise this won’t happen again.
Or I want you to know that I’m making, like I’m working on my habits so I’m not always late to my hair appointment or whatever it may be. Or if it’s a friend and you’re always the one that’s late to a coffee or with your kids, right? If you’re like always yelling and then saying I’m sorry. Instead be like, Hey guys, I just wanna thank you so much for your patience with me as I change this habit because I want you to know that like you’re supported me as I break this painful generational cycle is so meaningful and important. And you have to understand that my mom screamed at me, her mom probably screamed at her and her mom screamed at her, right?
Like this, this habit of yelling and intimidation has probably been passed down generation upon generation in our family. And thank God Mama’s heart and I feel, you know, called by God or whatever your story may be on why you chose to choose to show up and listen to this podcast or do personal development or take the Foundations Course or be involved in the Bonfire support community, whatever it may be. But I have felt called to, to be like the one that stops the painful generational cycle. I want it to stop here and I want you all to learn a different way. So thank you. Thank you so much for your patience with me. I am human. I am flawed, and I’m probably gonna continue to mess up.
It might take me years to master this skill, but I am dedicated and you guys deserve to not be screamed at and intimidated and threatened, and I am learning a different way. Miss Wendy is helping me learn a different way. My coursework that I’m doing with Fresh Start Family is helping me learn a different way. The personal development programs that I’m doing all the things right, Like, but I’m learning and I promise you that there will be a day when I don’t scream anymore. So I just wanna thank you for your grace and for forgiving me for being, you know, an imperfect human mama. And I guarantee you, your kids are gonna run to you and hug you and tell you that they love you, right? Because if you look at like the classic, I’m sorrys, what did most people say?
When you say, I’m sorry, you’ll say, I’m so sorry. And what did they say? They say, Oh, it’s okay. Like it, it’s like almost like a forced them like having to say that to you. Like say that to you when really this, when you do this instead, it actually authentically creates a response from other people where they’re like, Hey, look, I get it. You’re human. Don’t worry about it. I, of course I’m gonna give you grace. Of course I’m gonna, They might say to you, and it’s really important to me that you’re on time, right? Or, Thanks mom. It really like scares me when you yell at me. Or really, you know, like they might hold you accountable, but it’s still, it’s just, I guarantee you that their response is gonna come from a different place when you are authentic and vulnerable and real with them.
All right, you guys, well, that’s a wrap. I hope you enjoyed this episode on Makeups and Compassionate Discipline and building out, you know, a firm and kind discipline toolkit. Remember, I’m teaching that free workshop all month about how to build a firm and kind, compassionate discipline toolkit. You can save your seat and learn more at freshstartfamilyonline.com/disciplineclass. But big hugs, you guys, thanks so much for caring so much about your families, about your kids, about showing up to expand your heart, learn new tools, strengthen your family. I love each and every one of you. Thanks so much for listening. Please share if you love this episode right now, if you wanna screenshot this and share, you know, maybe to your stories or text a few friends and say, Gosh, this episode with the Fresh Start Family Show was really good.
Just, I want you to, I wanna thank you in advance for doing that cuz it really helps us to get our messages of education and light and inspiration and motivation out in the world. So thank you for sharing. Thank you for listening, and I’ll see you next time for another episode soon.
For links and more info about everything we talked about in today’s episode, head to freshstartfamilyonline.com/141.
Stella:
For more information, go to freshstartfamilyonline.com. Thanks for listening, families! Have a great day.
