On this episode of the Fresh Start Family Show, Wendy walks us through the difference between “wishing” and “hoping” when it comes to looking for change in our parenting walk. Wishing doesn’t lead to action. Hope, however, provides the motivation that change is possible and we are capable of doing things in a new way.
We are not powerless, and there is hope for peace in our homes. When we raise our hand to ask for help and hold a strong vision of what we want for our families, change is no longer a fleeting concept…it’s a reality that is ours for the taking!
It’s time for a New Year Kick-Start!
This completely FREE 5 Day Positive Parenting Mini-Course starts January 30th & includes 5 days of short, but powerful mini-video lessons delivered right to your email inbox! Plus a private group to interact with so you can feel the power of learning alongside other like-minded families from all over the world! Sign Up Today!
Episode Highlights:
- The difference between “Wishing” and “Hoping” in our parenting journey
- The difference between “Should” and “Want to”
- Using visioning/manifesting/prayers of supplication to get clear about what we really want
- Focusing on having hope and envisioning the family of our dreams gives us a goal to work toward vs just wishing things were different
- Going first in our family to learn new tools and make changes gets the ball rolling for our spouse and our kids to get on board
Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
Grab Your FREE Guide to Raising Strong Willed Kids
FSF Show Ep. 90 Having Long Term Influence Through Faith and Harnessing Hope with Carlos Whittaker
Join the Free 5 Day New Year Kick Start Challenge!
Not able to listen or want to read along with us?
Here is the episode transcript!
Hey families, it is time for our free New Year kickstart program where I’ll help you Fresh Start your family in five days with a totally complimentary positive parenting mini course designed to educate, inspire, and empower. So are you ready for a Fresh Start? This completely free five day mini course will give you a solid understanding of the root causes of misbehavior, so you can redirect your kids towards better behavior and do it in a way where you use compassion, dignity, connection, empathy and firm kind limits so you feel proud and confident at the end of the day about the way you parented when you lay your head on your pillow at night.
This is an easy and fun way to come at, hang out, live and learn with me for free. Once you register, I’ll immediately send you a prep kit with everything you need to know and you’ll be all set to receive your daily short and easy to finish. Mini positive parenting video lessons delivered right to your email inbox daily for five days. Now we’ll get started on Monday, January 30th, but go ahead and get yourself registered now. And remember, these lessons are not overwhelming, but instead short, punchy, and powerful, and you don’t even have to attend live at the end of the week. After completing this free kickstart program, you’ll walk away feeling confident, joyful, creative, empowered, and ensure that 2023 is going to be the best year of your life as a parent.
I’m so excited to get to know so many of you as we hang out together through this powerful week of learning. Save your seat and learn more at freshstartfamilyonline.com/freekickstart. Okay, let’s listen to today’s new episode.
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, hello 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 I am so happy that you are here for a new episode. Today we’re talking about how to make your dreams come true when it comes to building the family legacy of your dreams. And specifically we’re gonna talk a little bit about how powerful hope is, versus just wishing things were different in your home or with your kids or with your legacy, whatever it may be.
So at the time of recording right now, it’s actually December. I know this isn’t publishing till, gosh, I think January, but right now it’s the season of Advent, which is a beautiful season for those of you who celebrate Christmas. You know, it’s this beautiful season of anticipation, right as we’re waiting for Christmas to arrive this year. Advent started on November 26th, which was a Sunday, and I think ends maybe on Christmas Eve. It’s kind of a long one this year, but it’s a season where we just spend time kind of in contemplation and acknowledging and being aware of the absence of peace and kind of realizing how dark things can really be.
And of course for, for Christmas, right? It’s like we’re anticipating the birth of Jesus. So it’s like the anticipation of what’s to come, the light, the rescue, the growth, the healing, the joy. And so it’s like, yay, Christmas comes and, it’s this beautiful celebration. But as I was thinking about kind of how this relates to parenting, and so many of you are probably in a season right now where there feels like there’s a lot of darkness. And of course it’s like the middle of winter for many of us. Those of you listening in Australia, I think you guys are upside down. I think it might be your summer right now, but for both of most of us in, you know, all of us in North America, it is, it’s like the height of winter right now, right?
Where the darkness is super duper long, right? It gets dark at like 5:00 PM and the nights are long and there’s coldness and then just all of that. And then you add on that so many of you are in a season where you just maybe have little kids. Maybe you have kids in power surge stages of life, maybe you have toddlers, maybe you’ve brought in another baby or child to your family and you just feel like sibling rivalry or conflict is off the chart. Maybe you’re in a season where you and your husband are really disagreeing on how parenting should look or specifically how discipline should look, but I just know so many of you who find me through, you know, whether it’d be social, you know, so many people always joke that they feel like God is in like ads that sometimes, you know, we here at Fresh Start Family, we put a lot of intention when we write our ads.
We place ads and, we, we pay for ads for our free learning guides, which are basically just, you know, our most popular one, our free Guide to Raising Strong Willed Kids with Integrity so you Don’t Lose Your Mind. It is meant to encourage and inspire and support and help families know that they’re not alone. If they’ve been blessed with this, you know, a or few beautiful, strong-willed child that says no way more than they say yes, right? But we put a lot of intention into writing the copy that goes into those ads to make sure that the families who see them and click on them really know that they’re not alone and that they feel seen and heard and admired and all the things.
But so many of you, when you find me, whether it’s through an ad or whether I was a guest on another podcast episode that you heard, or a friend or family member shared my work with you, or maybe you saw me speak on a stage here locally in Southern California, but you find me when you’re in a season that has a lot of darkness, right? So maybe there’s constant stress or even it feels like chaos or disconnection constantly for you as a parent and in your home as you’re raising your little kids. And I’m here to assure you today that hope is here, relief is coming, and the absence of peace is only temporary. So back to, you know, a few people who have joked with me that they feel like God is in Facebook ads because when they find me, they’re like, oh my gosh, like you’re speaking directly to me.
You know exactly what I’m going through. And a lot of times they’ll say like, I feel like that was no mistake that that got put in front of me. Right? Or you know, even if it’s like organically on social that someone shares something and you see, you know, one of my reels or my stories pop up, you know, when you’re scrolling Instagram one night after a really hard day with your kids, like I’ve just had so many students say to me that they feel like that was a godsend. Like they feel like that was angelic or just a perfect gift for them at that time in their life. Because it represents hope, right? Like so many of you, when you hear my story about where I came from, right? Like the type of home I was raised, raised in, I love my parents so, so much.
My dad turns 81 this year, I can’t wait to go home in about a month and celebrate him. And there’s a lot of things that I grew up in when, when it comes to disconnection and you know, fear being used as a big influencer in our home. An older brother who became very volatile and aggressive as he got older, I believe probably as a result of having external controls, a lot of fear and force tried to use on him. He was an a wild, strong willed kid. And, I. Don’t think anybody knew what to do with him when he was younger. But watching him just grow up to, to freak out when he was a teenager and basically, you know, just, you know, wreak havoc on the family.
And then just like I said, growing up in this home where yelling and then never making amends, like never really talking about disconnection or punishment was definitely a thing. Phrases like, shame on you. What’s wrong with you? What were you thinking? I’m so disappointed in you. I became that teenager that just hid things really well. I got straight A’s. I was a great athlete and on the front end, you know, I looked like I was like an angel kid, especially compared to my brother. But on the back end, I was definitely lying and hiding a lot of things and just not talking to my parents about like real life stuff. And definitely we didn’t have a relationship where I felt like my parents were constantly mentoring me. Yes, they had firm rules and boundaries and they did an amazing job parenting me.
And there just was so much missing, right? That could have been. And so now fast forward, like once I realized that my little girl when she was three years old, And I had a ma major stress in our relationship. I spent many, many, many days just scratching my head thinking like, what the hell is wrong with me? What is wrong with her? She’s so defiant, she’s so disobedient, she never listens. you know, if I say turn right, she turns left. Something’s gotta be wrong with her. Like, who am I? Like I don’t even didn’t even recognize myself anymore. When Stella was three and, I was like yelling, slamming doors, grabbing wrists too tight. And then, you know, you’d see me at the grocery store, And, it was like, how you doing Wendy?
And I’m like, oh, I’m, I’m good. you know, I’m a little tired, but I’m, I’m pretty good, really. I wanted to answer like, I’m freaking miserable. I’m miserable. My child’s in timeout 50 times a fricking day. She’s literally like shaking the baby, pulling the dog’s tail at one point, like Stella even bit Terrin, he was like an 11 month old baby and she like drew blood from his back. And, I have the best story. It’s like the, it’s like a combination of the worst story but also the best story in a nutshell, you guys. I took her to the cop station and basically like threatened that I was gonna take her inside and she was gonna go to jail if she didn’t change her ways. And thank God I learned a new way cuz I cannot not even imagine like still having that fear and force mentality that I had to scare the shit outta my kid in order for her to learn.
But long story short, it was a freaking shit show back then, right? And I was just so stressed out. Like I was just spending my days wanting to be joyful, wanting to be peaceful and content and feel like, you know, I could handle misbehavior with grace or feel like I wasn’t spiking my own cortisol levels 50 times a day and that I was like connected with my kiddo. But the reality was I wasn’t right. I was in a very, very stressed season. And I can laugh about it now, but it really was dark. And I just felt so alone and like no one got me, right? Like all the advice I was getting at that time, I’m gonna say was between like five to seven people when I would express what was going on with Stella was they would like either, you know, like not really understand how bad it was like for me cuz obviously like a lot of times I like glossed over it, right?
Cuz I felt shameful and embarrassed about it. But then oftentimes they would just direct me to like either hitter or spanker or there was like some neighbors who’d gave me some whack ass book recommendations about how you just needed to like buy this air quotes Christian book that would teach you how to use a switch or like this little stick, this little plastic stick thing and you would just hit them every single time they misbehave. And basically that would equate in like being able to break their will. And my neighbor had this like beautiful little like nine year old girl who he had used that strategy on And. it was like after he told me that story after Stella had had a meltdown in the middle of the street when she was like two and a half, three years old.
I never looked at that little girl the same. I just like wanted to hug her every day. I felt like I could just sense her broken Will And. it was freaking heartbreaking. But I had a boss tell me like, just don’t be afraid to hit ’em And. it just was like so confusing at the time because I just, it just felt, I just, everything felt off right? Like I just had just didn’t have any confidence cuz I would get this recommendation. And I was like, what? And then even if you’ve ever heard me teach in my Compassionate Discipline Workshop, you know that I did try spanking still a few times. And, it was, it was awful. It was awful. She’s one of these beautiful strong-willed children that has just such a huge justice button that she would freak out.
She was not taking that like from such a young age, she would not submit, thank God and she would just freak out even harder. And so my nervous system was wrecked, her nervous system was wrecked and just the whole pot was like the yuckiest chunkiest stressful soup you can imagine. So thank God I found this work, right? I walked into a classroom, I started to learn more about positive parenting. I naturally started to change the way I thought, the way I saw my daughter, the way I saw myself. I started to learn how to not beat myself up about my imperfections.
I started to learn how to not blame my daughter for my reactive tendencies. And naturally I changed. She started to change and the rest is history. Our, the light just came back into our family and you know, within a year we were, we just felt like we were thriving as a family unit. It definitely took me a few years to become fluent in the language, so to speak, of positive parenting and being able to like be really consistent with working with Stella Stella, especially Terrin, you know, was a lucky boy. He was raised in positive parenting so he never had that heavy handed like externally controlled methods that were used on him for the most part.
But Stella, you know, we did the full 180 with her So. we switched up our entire parenting strategy when she was three And. we just really started using everything that we teach now. Grace and compassion and seeking to understand and peaceful conflict negotiation and empowerment and firm and kind strategies to influence her to cooperate and listen and compassionate discipline instead of punishment. Just all the things just helped our family blossom And, it helped Stella blossom into the amazing girl that she is now at almost 15 years old and she’s just thriving in life. She is definitely just such a different kid. You can just see how different her heart is and how she operates within her friend group.
How much she, how differently she operates at school and sports and as a musician and all the things. Yeah. So those of you who have watched me, you know, or heard my story, you know that it was dark. Like there was that season where I was just, many days I would get into this habit of just wishing things were different, right? Like all at the same time. Like having a lot of shame because like at the time I had left, I was in the surf industry in the like corporate surf industry for like 15 years. And I had an amazing job that I loved. I did event planning, I worked for the president of a really cool surf brand. And when I left to become a full-time mom, I just felt like, oh my gosh, I’m so lucky here I am.
Like my husband is going out of his way to like, you know, make enough money to make ends meet so I could leave my job and stay home with my baby. So who am I to like complain about the level of stress in our home? Like when my husband comes home at night, I mean oftentimes there was no hiding it. Let’s be real. I mean I was like, I was a mess. And, I was grouchy and blah, blah blah. But also I had this shame about it, right? So it’s not like I totally talked freely about it back then, but there was just such a darkness that I felt like something was off. And, I, And, I just wished it was different, right? So I remember just thinking like things like, I’m just so sick and tired of this, or I’m just, I’m just so exhausted or fed up or worried about Stella or annoyed at how much she doesn’t listen or I’m just so irritated.
And I, wish I had more support. There was like a lot of wishing, right? Like I would think thoughts like my kid is literally crazy and never listens. And remember I had a good friend, I used to call her sassy all the time. Like my daughter is beyond sassy. Like you don’t understand how sassy she is and it’s so freaking annoying or something like that. And my, one of my good friends was like, you know, you need to stop saying that. Like she’s, she hears you when you say that. And if you have friends who like just tell you like straight up and you’re like, okay, I love that, but can you be a little softer with me? But it was a very like, I’m, I’m so happy for her friendship cuz she said some things have been to me over the years that other people would’ve been scared too.
But that really stuck and that was one of them. But I used to think things like she acts like the world revolves around her or she acts like an entitled brat sometimes or you know, I definitely had a long season where I thought something was wrong with her. Like I took her to every doctor imaginable, play therapist, psychology, psychologist. I Googled like is she ADHD? Is she ADD, is she bipolar? Like, you know, I always joke that I also actually did like Google exorcism, like what if she’s possessed? But I just remember just being filled with like wishing, a wishing mentality. Like I just wanted to wish it all away. I just wish it was different. I just wish it was better.
And there’s something that I want to like really stress today about the difference between wishing and hoping because wishing just feels like not very confident, right? Like it sure feels like it’s out of our hands. Like if we just had a genie show up today or tomorrow, we could just wish that things would be better and then maybe we would get our wish granted. But when it comes to hoping like there’s something very, very powerful about hope, because for me, when I think about hoping that things get better, hoping that the environment or the relationship with my child gets better, I just feel like it’s warm, it’s expectant, it’s represents like a longing.
And there’s a lot of intention there, right? Like when you have hope, you are more likely to do things that I believe will get you closer to that vision or that dream or the changing of the landscape so to speak, that you are currently residing in.
All right, listeners, I know this episode is really good, but I am just filled with excitement. And I cannot stop talking about how the registration is open for the free New Year Kickstart program that we are starting on January 30th, where I am going to help you Fresh Start Your Family in five days with a totally complimentary positive parenting mini course designed to educate, inspire, and empower you.
So you guys, you gotta make sure that you head on over to the website, freshstartfamilyonline.com/freekickstart to save your seat to learn more. As soon as you register, I’ll make sure that you get sent to your prep kit immediately. You’ll get invited into the private group that we’re hosting. And I’m just so excited to get to know so many of you as we spend the week together, really through this powerful, you know, time of learning. I’m going to make sure that these lessons are easy to finish. They’re not gonna be overwhelming. They’re gonna teach you really beautiful concepts. More about the psychology behind positive parenting. I wanna make sure that you understand what the root causes of misbehavior are.
We’re gonna talk about discipline, we’re gonna talk about power struggles, we’re gonna talk about communication. How can you get your kids to listen without threatening and nagging and feeling like you have to kind of force or make them comply? I’m just gonna teach you a new way this week. So it is time to get registered. you guys. This is my favorite event of the year because I think that there is just this beautiful new year buzz where so many of us are ready for change. We are ready for a clean slate, we are ready for a fresh start. And so this program that I put together is just really going to bless you this week. And once again, it’s totally complimentary.
You do not need to be live to be able to take part in this challenge. The reason why I call it a challenge is because so many of us will say that we don’t have time for learning. And this is a challenge for you to make time this week to do five short lessons that are usually between 10 and 15 minutes long. And I really believe that no matter how busy you are, if you wanna see positive change in your home with your kids, in your marriage, in your parenting walk, then you can make time for learning. So that’s one of my favorite things when I develop curriculum here at Fresh Start Family to help families is I really wanna make positive parenting education not overwhelming, have learning be able to be done in bite size pieces where you just are learning a little bit day by day, week by week, month by month.
And those small changes really add up you guys. So make sure you have saved your seat that you have registered for this free event. Like I said, I have a prep kit, I have some information that I wanna send you so you can really be prepared when we start on January 30th. So just head on over freshstartfamilyonline.com/freekickstart. I cannot wait to encourage and empower and inspire you through this free new year kickstart program.
So I love the idea of hope versus wishing, And. I am just here to assure you, like I said, that hope is here.
Like I hope I represent hope to you that when you hear my story, that you realize like you’re not alone. Like even if you’re in a super stressed out season where you feel like your child doesn’t listen very well or you are using threats and yelling and punishments to like get them to listen and then you realize like a few days later that they’re still hitting their sister or they’re still giving you attitude or they’re still like lying or cheating or stealing behind your back and you just feel this thick absence of peace right Now, again, this is only temporary, okay? And there are so many things that you can do to bring relief to your daily life.
And that’s what we represent here at Fresh Start Family, right? When I built all of our programs here at Fresh Start Family, and when I really look at the Fresh Start Experience, it represents hope. Like the 800 page Google success document that we have, you guys is filled to the brim. I’m gonna read you guys some in a little bit. But it is filled to the brim with real life stories of parents who when they came in to learning with us, they had hope. They were like, they heard my story, they heard what I teach. They heard the possibility that positive parenting can do for families and children and they had hope and they stopped wishing their worries away and instead turned to hope and realized that they had power and that light was on the way.
So let’s really lean into hoping instead of wishing, okay, let’s also talk about shoulds versus wants. Okay? I think when it comes to learning anything new or like when you’re in a season of darkness and you’re just like, man, And I, wish my days weren’t so stressful. Or man, I wish the three-year-old wasn’t having so many tantrums, or the kids weren’t fighting as often, or my child wasn’t like having so much pushback to get him in the freaking car every morning to go to school, whatever it may be. you know, obviously to get to a better place, like you need to receive support, like you want to receive support, you want to find answers to your questions like, what is happening in my day-to-day life that is causing my children to not want to cooperate with me?
Right? Those are the type of answers that we unlock here at Fresh Start Family for you when you jump into education, when you really start understanding this psychology that is behind our work and is ingrained in every single human being on the planet that either motivates them to listen and have great behavior or not, like it’s just life changing. When you start to have that education and understand all the different things that you can do, all the different tools that you can pack your toolkit with in order to really get different results with your kids tomorrow in order to feel different in the way you communicate and work with your kids so you can go to bed at night feeling confident and proud of how you handled yourself as a parent that day instead of regretful and full of shame, right?
But you all want that. You want to learn, you want to understand your options, you want to be at choice. So you feel like you’re not just like only relying on hand-me-down parenting tactics, which by the way are fear for bribery and rewards. Every single one of us, we just inherit that you guys, when we have kids. Like, you know, so many of us go to breastfeeding support class or not even support breastfeeding, like how-to classes, we go to Lamaze, I don’t even know if it’s called Lamaze anymore, but we go to like birthing classes, right? So we’re like really well educated on how to like get the baby out of us and like put it to our boob so we can nurse, right?
But so many of us, most of us, I’m gonna say, I’m just gonna throw out a stat, I’m gonna guess like 98% of humans do not get any type of education on, okay, once your child is able to speak for themselves, walk by themselves like, and they’re developing their own autonomy and sense of independence, like how do you get a little human being to listen without relying on external controls and overpowering them. because most of our traditional ways or generations of parenting has basically relied on oppression.
Like you have an overpowering stance over your kid and by using fear and force, if you don’t listen, I will hurt you. If you don’t listen, then something bad is gonna happen to you. If you don’t listen, there will be a consequence in punishment. If you do this, then you are bad. And I will make sure that you feel the effects of your behavior. Like all this stuff, right? Like it’s just the way it’s always been done. Or you know, the concept of like, hey, well in order to get another human to cooperate, then you have to like trick ’em or you have to bribe them or reward them, otherwise they won’t do things right? And it’s just not true. It’s just hand me down parenting tactics.
It’s just what has always been done. But really there are so many ways that lie outside of fear, forced fear, forced bribery and rewards that actually work utilizing the power or, or you know, the magic of true power versus overpowering another human to actually influence like other souls to do what you want. And so that, that’s what we teach here at Fresh Start Family, right? But I just know in the depths of my heart that you all want that in your lives. You want better relationships, you want to have strong marriages where you’re not fighting constantly about discipline.
You want to be able to feel like you can access your creative, curious mind when your strong-willed kid says, no, I’m not getting in the car. You want to be able to detach when your kids fight and not be so triggered and feel like you constantly freak out on them when they have arguments, right? Like you want to be able to be responsive even though your child has imperfect moments and rolled their eyes at you, right? Or threw something. And you want to practice forgiveness and grace in your home. Long story short, you want to, I just want you to get away from the, I should, I should know what to do.
I should be better at responding. I should have a marriage where we agree on things and we’re not disagreeing on discipline or how to parent our kids. I should have more confidence when it comes to sticking to firm boundaries. I should be able to get them to listen without threatening. I should be doing more parenting education work. I should be reading more books. I should be doing more programs like the Fresh Start Experience or whatever it may be. You shouldn’t do anything like you are an amazing parent. Trust me, your kids are alive, they have a roof over their head, they are well fed today and they are loved.
You are doing a great job. You shouldn’t do anything. So take the shoulds off the table and just spend some times, some time after this episode really like writing down what you actually want for your family. Which brings me to the idea of visioning, you guys. Visioning is something that really changed my life a few years ago when I learned about the concept and whether you call it manifestation or prayers of supplication because I’m a mama of faith and like really look to my relationship with God and Jesus to like fulfill my wildest dreams, I love to look at it as prayers of supplication, but so many people see it as manifestation, which is fine too.
But this involves really staying focused on what you want. And so much of the time when it comes to raising kids, especially if you’ve got blessed with a strong-willed child, especially if you are in just a tough season of parenting, you will find it very, I think habitual, I’m not gonna say easy, because it’s not easy. It’s tough on your nervous system. It’s horrible to live a life where you focus on the negative. So it’s not that it’s easy, it’s just habitual to focus on what’s going wrong and what you’re worried about, right? So instead we wanna focus on what do I want for my family? What are my hopes and my Dreams and my desires for my children?
What is important for them to learn? In my opinion, what are the important values for our family? And for me, right? This month in the Fresh Start Experience, our focused lesson of the month is all about parenting as a team. And so, you know, really part of the lesson and, and the, the work that we do together is, you know, getting together with our spouses and sitting down and realizing that we have so much in common when it comes to what we want for our children. A lot of times we feel like we’re on such different pages, right? Or we feel like we’re in conflict if we don’t agree on certain things. But really when you sit down and look at it and have the courage to have a conversation or do an activity where you’re, you’re thinking intentionally and purposefully about what, what Dreams and hopes you have for your kids and your family.
We realize that we have so much in common, right? We all want our kids to grow up, to be respectful, kind humans who contribute to the world in meaningful ways. We want our kids to grow up to be happy and healthy. We want our children to be able to take responsibility for their mistakes without feeling bad about themselves. We want our children to be able to make amends after they’ve had tears in relationship. We want them to be able to tell the truth. We want our children to be really strong and well developed in, you know, the avenue of being able to forgive and give grace to others.
Like all of these things are just examples that come off the top of my head. But these are all things that every single human raising another human soul wants. And so really staying focused on the things that we want to create as far as our family legacy goes is so, so important. But hope is powerful. you guys. If you have never heard the episode we did with Carlos Whitaker, it’s back on episode 90 of the Fresh Start Family Show. But it’s entitled, having Long-Term Influence Through Faith and Harnessing Hope And, my goodness, it’s one of our favorite conversations that we’ve ever had. Terry join me for that interview. And Carlos is someone that we both just really, really look up to in life.
You know, he’s just the kind of Christian that we’re like, oh my gosh, he gives me hope, he gives me hope in humanity, he gives me hope in Christianity. And that episode was just absolutely amazing. He likes to call himself a human hope dealer. And it’s just a really refreshing conversation. So I thought I would mention it, but for me, prayers of supplication is what I really love to riff on when I am trying to envision and just fill my heart and my mind with hope and the way I see prayers of supplication. So this, you know, this might be something that works for you if, like I said, you’re a, if you’re a family of faith, if you’re a person of faith and you enjoy conversating with God and praying to God and having like type a type of co-creation in your Dreams and and Creating, the Family Legacy of Your Dreams or career or marriage, whatever it may be, and then others of you may just connect with like the manifestation idea, right?
And like putting all your eggs in the basket of the universe or angels, whatever, whatever floats your boat, right? But for me it really, it just feels right to practice prayers of supplication as a way of envisioning and trusting God that he wants to give me my heart’s desires. So for me, what that looks like is basically just a giant list of thank yous to God that I often will do if I’m taking a hike with the puppies or surfing or body surfing or walking along the beach. Or sometimes I’ll do it in the shower and sometimes I’ll journal it too. But it’s just prayers of expectation of I’m just not wishing things, were better.
I’m expecting God to heal for God, to transform for God, to bless for him, to help alleviate pain, for him to bring relationships closer, whatever it may be. But I’m practicing envisioning the best case scenario and what I want to happen. And then I’m not only asking God to bless me with that, but I am just in a stance of expectation. I believe God is a God of miracles and God is capable of things that we don’t think that we’re ever capable of. But for me it really sits right with my heart to trust that he is capable of blessing me with my wildest heart’s desire.
So yeah, so remember to you guys that our brains are a very powerful thing. I’ve really enjoyed over the last few years learning more and more about our brains and how they work and the amygdala versus that logical kind of rational thinking part of your brain. And understanding neuroplasticity and mirror neurons and all these amazing things that I think help us to understand how powerful our minds are. And, we have to remember that our mi our brain doesn’t control us. We, I believe our spirit like who we are. And for me it’s always like in such a deep connection with God.
That’s what I believe controls my brain. Now of course there’s illness and disease that gets in the way of that, but for the most part we have to remember that we are the ones controlling our minds, right? So often we get into this rhythm of thinking like, ugh, I’m just like, I can’t change the way I think. Or whether we struggle with anxiety or anger or rage or frustration or irritation all the time with our kids or life, we, we get into this stance of thinking that we’re like helpless to our thoughts. But our thoughts often are what contribute to or cause our feelings. A lot of times, remember feelings are neither right nor wrong, but it’s often the thought pattern that we’re having that sets us up to have certain emotions.
And then from there we act on those emotions. We act a lot of times in ways that we later regret as parents, right? So understanding that what we choose to focus on, the thoughts that we choose to either solidify and like pour into and And, I like to say pour fuel on those thoughts, those are the things that often will come true in our lives because our brain doesn’t like to be incorrect you guys. Our brain wants to take the easiest path to living life. And many of us, again, I believe it’s because many of the way many of us were raised in these autocratic homes where there was a lot of shame, there was a lot of fear, there was a lot of, if you messed up, there’s gonna be a big price to pay, right?
But a lot of us are really good at catastrophizing, a lot of us are really good at fueling fear-based thoughts. And so, you know, a lot of times our, our brain like it when it’s in a habitual rhythm of doing something for many, many years, it’s called neural pathway, right? Like it knows how to do that. It knows how to imagine the worst case. And then it’s gonna look for wherever that is actually happening to rest and be like, oh yeah, see I’m not crazy, right? Like, I knew that was gonna happen. I knew that this wouldn’t work. I knew that my kid’s too crazy, I knew she was gonna hit her brother.
All those kind of thoughts. And before long it just turns into kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy. And it’s not just silly like that actually happens to so many people when they don’t understand how powerful their brains and their minds are to really steer their emotions and steer their actions. So when it comes to envisioning what you want, you know, you just wanna be, the first step I think is to become really aware of what are you spending a lot of time with your thoughts, right? And so like when you’re new to this work and you start to bring awareness to it, you’re gonna realize, oh crap, I do worry a ton.
I do jump to conclusions a ton. I do spin out in my mind sometimes about like what would happen or how bad things are, or I, you know, I wish I had more support, or life is so hard or my kids are crazy. Like I ha you know, once you bring awareness to it, a lot of you are gonna realize that you do spend a lot of calories, so to speak, create like thinking calories, cuz your brain, it like thinking burns calories. And like when you’re thinking and focusing on what you don’t want, that ex not only is exhausting, but it also just tells your brain to look out for those things, right? It’s like danger. It’s like your amygdala is always lit, lit up like, oh gosh, I don’t want this to happen, but I have a feeling it’s gonna happen.
And like, you know, that can lead to us being in a victim mindset often. And whenever we’re in a victim mindset of like, woe is me, nothing I do works, I can’t really change anything. If my kid was less crazy or if my toddler was less, you know, l less defiant, then I wouldn’t have to yell. I wouldn’t have to be so stressed out. We can get into a victim mindset and then we really become just kind of this like helpless, disempowered parent. So I want you guys to really just look at like, what am I just so hopeful will happen to me as a parent to my relationship with my kids and to our family?
So I wanna ask you today, what is your heart filled with hope about? And what is the darkness that is permeating your days right now? And you know, as you’re thinking about that, I just want you to remember that, you know, it’s not like you can answer me And I can hear you right now, but you know, as you’re thinking and as you’re bringing awareness to like what does darkness look like in your day-to-day life right now, I want you to remember that there is absolutely no shame here. You are fully seen and understood. And if you think back to the story I told at the beginning of this episode about where I was before I started practicing positive parenting, before I started changing the way I saw my, my child, the way I worked, worked with her, the way I handled challenges, the way I disciplined, I really was like, I just felt so bad that I was having those feelings, that life did feel miserable.
I had so many days where I didn’t like my little girl. I thought she was difficult and defiant and making my life really hard. And if she would just be easier, then my whole life would be easier, right? I had many, many days where I was just like, gosh, she’s just so sassy and like something’s not right here. Either something’s wrong with me or something’s wrong with her And, it just wasn’t true. But I just wanna normalize those thoughts for you. Like whatever darkness feels like for you, whether it’s tantrums like happening all the time, or your child like having issues with hitting or throwing or biting or kicking right now, or you having self-control issues where you’re, you know, yelling or scaring the crap outta your kids or hitting or slapping or spanking or squeezing wrists too tight or pushing kids down on naughty pads or timeouts too aggressively or having arguments with your spouse at night over, you know, what you, how you each differently think that you should be teaching or parenting your kids or you know, maybe it’s just around just feeling like you’re alone and that you don’t have support if you don’t have family nearby and you just feel exhausted with multiple kids and just not a lot of answers on how you can get to them to be easier, so to speak, how you can get them to say no less and yes, more to cooperate, easier to get their shoes on and eat their vegetables at night and go to bed without arguments and bickering and nagging and threatening.
Like so many of you are probably realizing that you’re in such a heavy pattern of threats, right? Like, if you don’t do this and this is gonna happen to you, right? It just, I think once you bring awareness, you realize like how many times a day you’re moving to threatening your children or maybe you’re realizing like, the darkness for me looks like I live in a pretty like elevated state, that it sure seems like I have to intimidate or scare my kids or they’re not going to listen, right? I was just at a coffee shop this last weekend and watching a mama who was just obviously so stressed out, but as she was waiting in line to go to the bathroom with her two little kids who were probably like three and five, she probably threatened them like five times that if they didn’t stop like poking at each other.
And gosh, I don’t even know exactly what this little guy was doing. And I was working on my computer at the time, but I don’t even, I couldn’t even tell like exactly what I was doing. All I know is that she was extremely agitated and irritated and she just kept saying like, if you don’t stop, then this is gonna happen. If you do that one more time and then, you know, then it would move into like, that’s it. Like, I’m done, you’re done, done And, it happened so many times that it was like from an outsider’s perspective, you can so clearly see that it’s, it was the perfect example of what empty threats look like and how exhausting they are for our nervous system, right? Like empty threats that the parent usually doesn’t follow through on. They just live in a state of constantly giving threats in order to try to get their kids to move two inches, right?
Or like stop hitting for a few minutes, but threats don’t work in the long time. That’s why we teach you a different way to influence your kids with respect and compassion and connection and firm kindness. But what does like darkness look like for you right now? And what are you anticipating? Like what type of relief? If you really are like Wendy, I trust you. I trust that what you teach can actually bring incredible amounts of change to families. This is what I hope for, for me as a parent. This is how I wanna spend my days. This is how I want my children to act out in the world.
This is how the relationship I want them to have as siblings. This is how I want co-parenting to look like with my spouse. Like what are your hopes and dreams and what do they look like? So as I said, I know many of you and it’s like are stuck in the darkness. And I know this you guys, because I personally welcome every single person that follows my account on Instagram. And these days, like the follows are coming in pretty fast and they’re pretty abundant every week. But like, I love actually hearing from you, if you follow me on Instagram, you know that I will DM you and ask you like, tell me a little bit more about your family. How many kids do you have? And are any of them strong-willed?
And do you have any power struggles going on right now? And my team will tell you that when you look at the responses you guys give me, it is about 95% of you are really struggling with at least one strong-willed kid right now, or a kiddo in a power surge stage of life. And so much of the verbiage that you guys respond with when we communicate is I’m at my wit’s end. I’m so stressed out, I don’t know what to do to make this, you know, make her listen. She’s very like, often very out of control or he is really struggling. And I don’t know what to do to help him. My husband really thinks that a, b and c And I don’t like this is just so common.
Like, but 95% of you may maybe even higher, probably 98% of you when I ask you, tell me about your kids, tell me about your family and are you struggling right now with power struggles? So many of you are like, yeah, it’s kicking my butt and you know, I’m really struggling and, and challenged many, many days to feel settled in your hearts, in your minds, in your bodies, right? Like struggling to find joy and then struggling to feel that settled, just calm present feeling that we all wanna get to as parents. So the stress load that you’re carrying right now is not healthy. And you need support to get what you’ve always envisioned family life would be like for you.
So first comes the expectation that things will get better, visioning what it will look like, and then taking action to make that your a your reality, right? Because we’re getting away from wishing. Wishing won’t do jack to make life more joyful as a parent. Hoping and expecting that healing and transformation and brighter days are coming is where we wanna, where we wanna be at. So the darkness is just a season. And if you happen to be a Christian like me, you know that we live in the waiting daily, right? Like as I, as I’m filming this, like Christmas is coming And, we have a few weeks of waiting that we kind of enjoy in December.
And you know, if you, if you do advent at all, you really practice like that feeling of waiting in the darkness and just anticipating Christ’s birth and, and then celebrating it. But in life we spend our days anticipating the return of Jesus, right? Like, so if you’re a family of Christian faith, the every day we’re anticipating like the final return of Jesus Christ. And my gosh, it’s gonna be glorious when it comes one day, but until then we wait. So in our day-to-day life, when it comes to darkness in our parenting walk, I just wanna be very clear that we don’t have to wait anymore. Help is here. And it’s called the Fresh Start Experience, which I’m going to tell you about more in a minute.
But first I wanted to share some real life stories, you guys, of parents who were stuck in darkness before they really stepped into learning with Fresh Start Family, and now they’re experiencing the beautiful fruits of their courage and just thriving as a parent. So as I was kind of making my notes for this episode, I just hopped into our Google Doc now, where we, we keep, we’ve tracked our success stories. We’re celebrating five years at Fresh Start Family this this year, five years you guys, it’s a big year for us. We’re doing a complete refresh of the brand, a total rebuild of the website, a total rebuild of our custom learning platform. And it’s, there’s a lot going on behind the scenes, but it’s been five years of having our two main programs, which is called the Foundations Course and the Bonfire membership support group.
And what a joy it’s been, but we’ve only been tracking actual success stories for I think three years now. And our Google document of success stories that come in every single week shared by our precious cherished members is over 800 pages long, you guys. 800 pages. So when I hopped in there this morning, I was like, I’ll just grab a few real quick. And as I was like, command F you know, pulling up some words that might kind of resonate with our conversation today, there’s just so many to to choose from. So I chose, like, I’m gonna read through a few here, but just know that this is just like the tiniest sample to give you an idea of what real life families who were experiencing a season of darkness in their parenting walk where they were stressed and there was disconnection in their home and there was often heavy handed punishments where they would lay their head down on the, their pillow at night and just be filled with either guilt or shame and just wishing that things were better, right?
And then a day came where they were like, I’m not gonna wish anymore. I’m going to put all my eggs in a basket and be filled with hope that this is the answer. And this is going to help our family. This is going to end painful generational cycles of fear and force and disconnection and just not feeling confident as parents. And instead we are going to move towards action to create the family legacy of our dreams. But again, this is just the smallest sample of families that I’m just gonna share. A few.
Hey listeners, timeout. I wanted to tell you just a few more things about the free challenge that’s happening on January 30th to make sure that you feel really inspired to get registered at freshstartfamilyonline.com/freekickstart.
So one of the things that I love when we do these free events, we usually do ’em twice a year and our January kickstart one is usually our biggest one. There’s always this beautiful New Year buzz and it’s a great time to be in community with others who have similar wants and desires and common goals as parents. So one of my favorite things about these free programs when we do them is that we build out and curate a private community for you to get to know other families, for you to process your learning, for you to ask questions. It’s also a private group where I host daily live coaching sessions.
Now you could, you know, families that are in my paid programs, they pay hundreds of dollars to work with me. And this is an opportunity for you to come be and experience what it’s like to be in a private group setting with me where group coaching and questions are happening and going down and learning is being processed and successes are being shared and changes are being made, hearts are being transformed, children are starting to behave better. Like all these beautiful things are happening. And it all is just really, you know, goes down in a community setting. So here at Fresh Start Family, we are big advocates for learning in a community environment. And so doing self-study programs are amazing.
I have done so many self-study programs over the years that have really taught me a lot. And I will tell you that when you get into a group setting and you have access to mentors and coaches to be able to ask questions, questions to get support on, you know, concepts or, or situations that you’re struggling with or that didn’t go that well when you are next to people who are also experiencing the same challenges and you know, maybe they’re asking questions that you also learn from or they’re sharing success stories that give you hope that, you know, if you keep practicing and learning this work, that you can have the same successes in a month or two or three months from now.
So community is just a big deal here at Fresh Start Family and this private group that we’ve curated just for the families who are taking part in the free kickstart program that we’re starting on January 30th, is, is going to be something that you really, really are, are blessed by and that you enjoy. So once again, just make sure you head on over freshstartfamilyonline.com/freekickstart to learn more and to save your seat. And I can’t wait to welcome you into that private group with open arms on January 30th. Actually, I’ll welcome you even before that. We will start welcoming families usually about a week or two before we actually get started. So you’ll get to know, you know, you’ll, you’ll get your, you’ll learn, you’ll get to know your way around inside that private group even before we get started on January 30th.
All right, families, I’m really excited. And I, hope you are too, to take part in the free kickstart program with us.
So this first one was submitted by a mama who has twin girls. They are about, I think they’re eight or nine now. I wanna say eight actually. This mama has been working with us probably for a year and a half now. And, it is just such an inspiration in in our community. But she came into our program with a vision and hope that her kids would learn and be able to solve their conflicts by themselves one day instead of always needing her to like come in and make them be nice or behave.
And she really wanted and had hope that her kids wouldn’t hurt one another when they had disagreements. When she first came into our programs, her girls were really having a lot of aggression and violence towards each, towards each other when they would have disagreements. She would, she was exhausted and also in a very reactive state, feeling confused and unconfident about how to handle it when her kids were aggressive or violent with one another, and she often just felt like she was triggered all day long by their kind of conflicts and chaos in their relationship. So she wrote in and said, so my kids had never seen an ocean before this week.
We’re visiting family in Texas and had to drive a couple hours to the coast on the way they started fighting, and I didn’t yell. I calmly said, this is not who you are. Here hold my hand. Robert, please pull over. Daddy can’t drive safely when you’re yelling or hurting each other. We got off the highway and stopped at a gas station parking lot. I calmly said, we aren’t driving to the beach until we do a redo. What was the problem? Emily had said, mean words to Avery so Avery scratched Emily’s face. I said, what chart did you make at home last week? What can you do when you feel hurt? Avery? I can’t run to my room here.
That’s what she chose to write on her chart last week when we made them as a logical consequence. I said, that’s right. So now we get to learn what is a safe choice when we’re not at home. Emily said, how about I plug my ear so I can’t hear her mean words? Avery said, how about I ask you for help if she’s bugging me? Then I was feeling inspired and said, okay, repeat after me. I am a cycle breaker. I get to stop the hurting. They repeated the mantra, And. we got back onto the highway. We drove to the beach And. we there with my in-laws who weren’t in the same car as us on the way drive, who, sorry, who weren’t in the same car as us on the drive down.
Before dinner, Emily and Avery started fighting over their table setting duties. I calmly separated them and gave them both big hugs. I said, I know you’re hungry and tired, so let’s eat and do an encouragement feast. My in-laws had never seen us do that before. After the girls went to bed that night, they got choked up telling us how inspired they were by our parenting. My husband is on his own journey of healing and therapy. He’s very triggered by the girls fighting and goes into flight or freeze constantly. But after that car ride, he said, wow, I’ve never seen them do a redo before. He’s witnessing the fruit of my labor. He believes in all of this, but hasn’t been able to stick with the compassionate discipline yet.
That’s a big word we use around here at Fresh Start Family. Yet meaning like when things get elevated, he freezes or withdraws flight. He will get there. Though a year ago, I never would’ve believed that my kids would be hurting each other less frequently and tattle tailing. I used to say, if only that was a parenting issue of mine, because I felt overwhelmed that aggression and violence was how Emily and Avery used to respond to any feelings between each other. I used to thank I could never teach in a calm time because there are no calm times. I’m creating the family legacy of my dreams, you guys and memories I’m proud of, thanks to you all.
Ugh, I love that success story because this mama is just so dedicated to the work, to learning and applying and getting supported when she has questions and she’s just full of fierce love for her girls. And then there is this sweet mama, her name’s Susie, and she’s a mama of two who had a vision of her family being able to self-regulate their emotions instead of freaking out or tantruming when things didn’t go go their way or when siblings or really anyone did something unkind or hurtful towards them. She, when she came into the program, really had a vision of a family unit that doesn’t suppress their emotions or act disrespectfully when they had big feelings.
And it’s just an honor to watch her make those dreams come true and to watch her family just growing and thriving every day. So this is the post that she had shared with us. She says, guys, I just had to post on this. Chris is on fire today. He has regulated his emotions like a pro. I’m a stay-at-home mom, so I’m the one who spends all day with my kids, her little girl’s, 12 and her son is four. Today, I had an agreement with them. They had to finish their chores and then we would watch a movie. We each finally finished our chores. And I turned on the tv, but Chris still needed to brush his teeth. He was about to do it.
When dad arrived home and without asking anything, went to the living room and turned off the tv. Chris started crying. I was in the room and all of a sudden I see Chris coming in crying. And I asked him what happened. He kept walking to our walk-in closet and crying and told me, I need a calming break. She says, woo-hoo. He closed the door and was there for about a minute and came out calm and explained to me what his dad had done. So many times, you guys, I have tried to model taking a calming break. So many times I have tried to help him calm down and there are some days that like everyone else, because I know we’re all human parents here, there are those days when I felt like is anything I’m doing even working?
And honestly, many times I lose hope because again, I’m human. But here’s the truth, you guys, they are listening. They are watching us. We’ve got this. All of us are working hard to have the family we envisioned And we will. Let’s keep applying what we learn here. Let’s keep modeling. Let’s keep attending Bonfire on Fridays, sharing our successes on Mondays, and not lose hope when we have bad days. I love that success story because you know, I always tell everyone in my community, there are days you guys that just feel yucky. They feel stressful. They feel like you’ve lost your cool, your kids have lost their cool And. I know, in my own journey with positive parenting, that’s now about 12 years strong, I definitely have those days where I’m like, oh my gosh, is this even working?
Like, are these kids even listening to these 10,000 lessons and times that I’m patient with them and give them grace and compassion and work so hard to model the behavior that I want them to also have? Right? And then you have these days where you’re like, oh my gosh, not only are they listening, but they are digesting every single lesson that we are teaching them. They are digesting it And. it is like seeping into their souls like way more and way differently than any external method that’s based in fear, force intimidation and punishment ever would.
So I, I know over, like I said, over my years practicing this work and helping thousands of students through our programs and through, you know, our free workshops and all the things that, it’s amazing that day when you get to the point where you start to see your kids doing things that you did not make them do. So in this situation, this little boy that no one told him in the moment, like, Hey, don’t talk back to your dad. Don’t be disrespectful. Don’t like throw the remote, don’t freak out, don’t tantrum. Like go to your, go to the closet and take a calming break. No one said that to him. This four-year-old child on his own walk, like as he was expressing emotion and having upset, walked into a space where he could have some room to do his breathing, to talk, talk himself off the ledge, so to speak, to work on self-regulating and feeling his emotions and calming himself down so he didn’t act disrespectfully to his parents.
And then also communicate in a way with his mom that was respectful and kind and allowed her to help him problem solve, right? Like how did he wanna move forward now that he shared with her honestly, what had happened. I’m sure once they went back to the living room and talked to dad, they were just in, in a good place, right? Instead of if he would’ve just freaked out, tantrumed lost his cool, all the things. So I love that story. Okay, the next one is from a mama named Elizabeth, who she’s been with us again for a few years now, but she’s, she’s a mom who envisioned her kids communicating respectfully to each other, standing up for themselves with dignity, taking responsibility for their mistakes without shame, blame or hiding and knowing how to forgive and give grace to others when mistakes are made.
Those are like very important values to this Mama. I know her well and you know, she wants her children and her family to encompass these values. But she wrote in and said, Luke, my five-year-old and Camille are three And. We’re taking a bath last night. And when I was called back as I left to help my daughter who was in the shower next door, Luke told me Camille had called him stupid and said she hated him. These word attacks have been a learning point for us lately. Camille of course, came right back with telling me Luke had said something not nice to her and splashed her with water. We have been working on saying, I feel blank. I want blank. This is again, a peaceful conflict negotiation strategy.
We walked through that and Camille had told Luke she felt mad and she wanted him to not splash water at her. They moved on and were fine the remaining time. At bedtime, I had left the room. They were in the same room to get something, and when I returned, Camille and Luke were sitting closely facing each other on Luke’s bed. Luke said, Camille did a great job and told me how she felt. Camille confirmed she had told Luke. She felt mad because someone called her stupid. I asked who had called her stupid. She had, she said Luke had, and he confirmed with a shocked look and told me, it just slipped out, mom. It was an accident. He said they were hugging because they had fixed it.
It was a great moment. And. I felt like all the times we have talked about how we feel and what we want is working. Yes, And. I would even add to this beautiful success story that this mama is teaching her kids the power of grace and forgiveness, right? To be able to come together and see each other as humans who make mistakes, but have the ability to make amends and create repair in relationships, right? Like it’s just so beautiful. Okay, here’s another one by a sweet mama named Sarah, who when she joined, really envisioned a family where lessons are taught with compassion and empathy and firm kindness.
Instead of humiliation, pain, suffering, and fear, she envisioned days where she spent her time teaching instead of correcting and punishing and also a joyful life as a parent where her kids trusted her instead of fearing her. And she shared this story is about learning to use compassionate discipline instead of punishment and learning to self-regulate instead of react with intimidation, which always results in a spike in my nervous system. She says today, max and Parker got into a fight. I attempted to do a win-win, which have been working pretty well lately. Yay today, however, they both fell flat and they both refused to share how they feel and what they want.
So I paused, attempted a few things like taking the toys away. She says, in hindsight, not necessary or logical since they weren’t fighting over a toy. I realize that now. And then Max yelled at me to get away. I reminded him of that we can’t hurt people in our family. He had threatened to hurt. And I felt they were safe enough to walk away giving, Max what he asked for. I was mad but did self calming and the kids worked it out without me. Yay. Later I told them before we played we were going to do some, some learning So. we went back and wrote out the win-win scenario. I reminded them that we are going to keep doing this moving forward and reminded them that we used to just separate them and send them, send them to their rooms every time.
Then I asked Max how he felt toward me and how he felt towards me when we were out there. He said he was mad because I took his ball. I empathize with him again in parentheses, yay. Last we did I Am statements, which is in the photo that she included in the success story and talked about how this is who we truly are, even when we make a mistake. So it’s a great reminder. The success apart from all of the obvious ones above is that I didn’t punish you guys. I taught, and it’s the second time I’ve done that. She says, it feels kind of weird. I’m gonna be honest.
I didn’t realize how uncomfortable and familiar and honestly satisfying in the moment punishing is for me because I realize it is a habit. It feels permissive sometimes to not do something to put them in their place. In the moment And I have total faith that this way is working way better for us. I’m raising my own awareness and truly trying new things. Ugh, I love that one so much. Gosh, one of my favorite things in the world as an educator and coach inside the Fresh Start experience is to watch parents find the joy in switching out of that punishment lifestyle.
Of really understanding the power of compassionate discipline. How discipline does not have to be this like negative, gnarly creating separation between you and your child, creating resentment, creating pain humiliation. Like it just doesn’t have to be like that. And when I see parents having the courage to try new things, even though it’s uncomfortable, it just lights me up, right? And to hear this mom saying, it’s freaking working so much better for us and this is what I always envision my family would be, is just really, really powerful. The next one is from another, another mama named Sarah. Not the same Sarah, but a different Sarah who wrote in and was just saying how after years of thinking it was her job to point out how bad or wrong her kids were when they messed up.
She really learned how to relax a little and trusts that what she modeled and taught and that relationship was way more effective than what she corrected. So she had really envisioned a life where she could trust her children to listen to her and to their own internal God-given moral system, and also be able to redirect their own misbehaviors, take responsibility for mistakes and do the right thing when no one’s looking. So let me read her success story now. She wrote in and said, I’ve been challenging myself to trust more. For example, trusting that I don’t need to punish or blame in the moment and that it won’t be permissive.
I actually told the kids tonight that in my parenting class I’ve come to realize I blame them sometimes and I’m working now on taking responsibility for my emotions. Another success, I digress. So tonight Max heard Parker say he wanted a red marker. He proceeded to find it, take it and give an ultimatum to Parker to get the marker. Normally I would confront Max because I couldn’t imagine how he’ll learn if I don’t let him know that this isn’t right. But I decided not to tonight -trying new things, Wendy, she says. So I ignored this attempt for attention reaction or I’m not sure exactly what I’m re I’m becoming way more curious about misbehavior these days.
And I told Parker I would look for markers and see if we could find another one. After a minute of doing that, Max came in and gave Parker the markers, both of us. Thanks Max and thanked Max and continued on with our night. I wanna thank Courtney Puma. Courtney’s one of our head coaches here at Fresh S`tart Family. She’s actually also our director of ops, but she says, I wanna thank Courtney for her post about not needing to make our kids feel bad. I think something clicked when I read that because I do feel like I was still thinking Max needed to be confronted or challenged read. No, he’s wrong or bad. But had I done that tonight, I don’t think it would’ve gone so well. So I guess I feel like it’s a few successes in this post doing things that I feel counterintuitive and seeing them work so yay for that.
Beyond joyful this evening. I love that one. you guys, you can see these, these parents that are envisioning something different for their family are not just wishing things were different, but they’re actually stepping into learning, taking action, trying new things and seeing these beautiful results. Okay, you guys, last success story, And. I’m gonna wrap this episode. I know it’s a bit of a long one, is from a sweet mama named Mar who wrote in I, when I look at her and her journey and her this particular success story, it’s really clear that she envisioned a life where she was able to calmly and confidently respond to her kids who often have sibling arguments and disagreements.
And also she really envisioned and hoped for a marriage where her and her husband would be able to hold space for each other, listened to each other no matter what the challenge, and also teach their daughters through compassionate discipline together. So let me read you this beautiful success. She says, Hey guys, I was able to do a repair with my husband. The lesson of the month plus the coaching I received on Friday’s hot seats, plus the q and a session from Monday opened my mind and heart to see something in a new light. This was a month where sh, when she shared the success story, I’m pretty sure our focus of the month was parenting as a team. But she says, I told my husband thank you for all the times you’ve told me how you’re scared positive parenting isn’t working for our kids.
Which by the way is like a common thing, right? A lot of times the spouses aren’t quite as involved, right? With the day-to-day like changing up of the parenting strategies. And so they often will witness things from afar and also hold a lot of fear. And this is like an a pause on reading this sweet mama’s success story, but I just wanted to chime in here. They often will hold a fear of it not working because to the outside world, a lot of times positive parenting is perceived as permissive parenting, right? And that’s scary. So I always coach my students to really have empathy for their spouses who aren’t on board yet, and instead of wishing that they would get on board instead, learn to empathize and really seek to understand why they have hesitations and how we can support them to kind of just stay the course and trust us that we’re we’re guiding the family towards, towards a good place.
So anyways, okay, back to reading her success story. She says, I’ve had a habit over the last year to get defensive whenever he would say that, and now I’m ready to be inspired to teach more often my, I myself have struggled with permissiveness. And when she says to ask she, she was saying this to him, she says, I myself struggle with permissiveness. And when you ask me what the follow through is, instead of me snapping back and blaming you, I want to see an opportunity for me to practice compassionate discipline. So what this mama was basically saying in the success story is that she was able to really humble herself and stop replying so defensively to her husband and instead receive it as a request and an invitation to really like move forward with creative, compassionate discipline instead of like not following through on a teaching, which is something we, we coach And, we support our, our members and our Fresh Start Experience with like deeply.
So she wants, she goes on to say, I want to hold strong boundaries for my girls. I want them to be clear that I’m not okay with aggression. I want to be a firm kind leader. Therefore I don’t want to shy away from teaching win-wins and redos and makeups, et cetera, over and over and over again. My journey since joining the Bonfire in February of 2021, so I gosh, that’s been about a year and a half, right? She says, I’ve been determined to become less reactive and I’ve done that. you guys, I’ve been so focused on growing my self-control and my own self-regulation that I haven’t always moved to the next step of teaching my kids. The beach picture that she included with the success story, she says that one that I shared last week felt like this miracle succession of events, and I was happy to celebrate with y’all.
And now I see that it can become more and more of the norm around here. Our plan is to watch one lesson together each weekend in the evening after the kids are in bed, so that we can teach together in a calm time the following morning. I’ve been permissive and now I’m ready to dig into teaching more often. Like Wendy holding up her 10 years of compassionate discipline folder. I will get there. I will teach again and again because I’m not giving up on this process. I love that success story because I know so many people when they want to step forward and really like prioritize learning and implementing positive parenting in their life, one of their biggest fears or challenges or reasons why a lot of people don’t move forward is because they think they can’t do it alone or their husband doesn’t approve, or he doubts that the work will work, whatever it may be.
But actually what happens that we see with our students over and over and over again, is by them stepping forward first and saying, I trust myself, And I trust that I, me being called into this space right now, whether it’s you listening to this podcast episode or being invited to our free, you know, new year kickstart program that I’m gonna tell you about here in a minute, like whatever it may be, trusting that that’s you are being invited and called into learning for a reason. And if your heart is leaping forward and asking you like, Hey, let’s learn more about this. We can change the dynamics in our home. We can wait, we can change how things feel with our kids.
We can change how challenges, you know, get dealt with with my husband, And, I, whatever it may be. Then, then listen and step forward, right? But what we see over and over again with, with her families is when a spouse steps forward first, even though the other one’s not quite sure about it yet, and they stay consistent and they keep the faith and they stay hopeful, right? Then so many times, six months, a year down the road, the husband comes on board, especially if the mom learns and gets coached on how to approach the husband in a way that is inviting instead of condescending or defensive or demanding. Does that make sense? And that is an exact situation of what’s happened with Mare.
So she went from her husband doubting the work that it really is even working with the girls to then she shared success stories about how he has commented on times when he’s watched her teach and how remarkably it does work, to now being willing to watch a lesson every single, I think she said every single week, right? Every single week, and be able to do it together so that they can actually be fluent in compassionate discipline and to be able to teach as a team. Like how beautiful is that? Right? But this is a mama who was not giving up on her dream and her vision and her hope to have this connected family where everyone had self-control people and kids were able to work out their differences with peace respectfully, and also a marriage where they were on the same page when it came to parenting.
So anyways, you guys, those are just a few success stories that I thought I would just literally pull out of the document. Like it took me five minutes this morning just to grab a few of these and there’s just a million more where those came from, but they’re really inspiring, right? And just, just remember that this can be you too, right? Like I can’t wait for all of you to be on the success story document one day and just remember that right now we’re about to start our New Year Kickstart, Fresh Start Your Family in five days with a live positive parenting mini course to educate, inspire, and empower. That free program is starting on January 30th. It goes for five days through February 3rd. If you haven’t signed up, you guys, you’ve got to get yourself over freshstartfamilyonline.com/freekickstart, save your seat and take part in this totally free learning adventure with me.
You are going to get just five days of encouragement of short positive parenting and family life coaching lessons delivered right to your email inbox every single day. And at the end of the week, you will feel empowered, you will feel full of hope, you will feel confident and clear and have a, a greater understanding of the root causes of your child’s misbehavior and pushback. You will have more creativity and new ideas on how you can communicate with your kids so that they listen and respect you and cooperate because they want to, not because they have to, right? Not because they’re scared of you or scared of a consequence, but because you’re actually trying new ways of communication.
You’re seeing them differently, you’re working with them differently. Like these are all examples of how you will feel when you end this five day kickstart program with us. And again, it is totally free you guys. So after that program takes place, we have big news here on February 1st, which we like to call Fresh Start February. Here at Fresh Start Family, we have our brand spanking new refreshed program. It’s called the Fresh Start Experience. This is what we now are basically calling both our Foundations Course and Bonfire. We’ve combined these programs. So our Foundations Course was really like our pivotal signature program for module online positive parenting class.
And then our Bonfire membership support program was really where families created that consistency, right? Like that was where we had this huge library of almost 70 positive parenting lessons and weekly coaching and this like tight knit, vulnerable, humble, and inspiring community. And now we’ve combined everything into one program. It’s called The Fresh Start Experience, and we are officially opening doors on February 1st, you guys. So it is time for public enrollment. We’ve been working behind the scenes, we’ve been completely redoing the custom learning platform. We’ve been completely doing the website. We’ve been just hard at work. I, I don’t even like to say hard at work because the girls on my team and myself, we have been joyfully working on this project behind the scenes and, it is now time to open doors.
So I want more than anything for you to take the leap and become part of this community and life changing program. Okay? So keep your eyes peeled because the first and most important thing for you to do is just make sure you are in the Kickstart program. Again, we’re starting January 30th, so if you haven’t registered yet, now is the time to save your seat and get in there. We’ll send you a prep kit immediately as soon as you sign up. So you will have everything that you need to know. And again, you don’t have to be there live, you guys, you just have to be able to receive an email every single morning. It’s usually about a 10 to 15 minute lesson. You’ll have like a nice Learning Guide that comes along with it, and there’ll be a free group that you can take part in where I’m going to be doing daily live coaching and q and a with those who are in the private group And.
It’s just gonna be incredible, you guys. I don’t offer a lot of opportunities to learn for free with me. Usually it’s twice a year that I do these big complimentary programs, and this is the time you guys remember, students that are inside my private programs that are inside the private, Fresh Start Experience, they get to work with me weekly, right? Like they get to ask my staff of positive parenting educators and our team questions whenever they want. But normally, you know, that’s not a service that I offer the world. But this is the week where you can come in and learn with me for free. You can ask me questions, you can be on live calls with me. You can walk away with daily live inspiration that will help you just be a little bit more patient when you put the kids to bed.
It’ll help you be a little bit more creative when your kiddo pushes back and refuses to put on his shoes or get in the car. It’ll help you be a little bit more compassionate when your child makes a mistake or spills his milk after you’ve told him 50 times to put the lid on. Hanging out with me will provide massive inspiration to your day and to your life as a parent. So one more time, head on over freshstartfamilyonline.com/freekickstart, and then when doors open on February 1st to the Fresh Start Experience, get your booty in there and join us for that incredible life changing program. All right, you guys. Well, that is what I have for you today. Just as a recap, I wanna just remind you and encourage you to focus on having hope, a hope filled life where you envision the family of your Dreams, stop wishing that things were better, and fill your heart with hope.
Get very clear about what you want in your life. What does your, your family legacy of your dreams look like? I want you to really lean into anticipating that things are going to be so much more smoother and lighter and joy filled in your parenting walk. I want you to anticipate it. I want you to vision it. And if you are in this season of darkness right now where you have a lot of stress in your parenting walk and your kids kind of drive you nuts some days and you feel like you’re at wit’s end, just know that you are not alone. I have been in your shoes. So many of the families that I work with across the world have been in your shoes.
And I promise you that once you boldly step into learning and applying these strategies into your daily life, that you are just going to have the most incredible healing and transformation in your home. And you just gotta make sure that you’re leaning into that hope to that vision, and then boldly and courageously moving into action. All right, you guys, well, I hope today’s episode has blessed you. Thanks as always for listening. And I cannot wait to see you all, all of you at the New Year Kickstart program that starts on January 30th. All right, guys, that’s a wrap. I hope you loved today’s episode as much as I loved recording it for you.
And as you kind of walk away or turn off your device, whatever you were listening on, as you go, check your email or as you head on over and, and make sure you registered for the free challenge that starts on January 30th, the Free Kickstart program. I want you to make sure that you got a confirmation email and that you received your kickstart prep kit from me. If you didn’t, please don’t hesitate to reach out. Sometimes spam folders, capture those things, and we wanna make sure that you get that into your hands so you’re all prepared when the free challenge does start on January 30th. We wanna make sure that we are, welcome you into the private community, all of those good things.
So go head on over, make sure you’re registered, freshstartfamilyonline.com/freekickstart. And then second, just make sure you’re checking your email to make sure you got that, you know, welcome, you’re confirmed your seat is saved. Here is your prep kit email that you will get from me right away when you register for the free kickstart program. All right, families. Well, thanks for listening today. I love every single one of you. I am so inspired by how much you care about your family and about your kids And. I’m just so grateful to each and every one of you who listens to our show and supports our work here at Fresh Start Family.
For links, and more info about everything we talked about in today’s episode, head to freshstartfamilyonline.com/156.
Stella:
For more information, go to freshstartfamilyonline.com. Thanks for listening, families. Have a great day.
