Finding the importance of community with Wendy Snyder
Do you ever feel like you are on an island and trying your best, but doing this parenting thing all alone?!
Or perhaps you’re one of the many many parents out there who has a spouse, in-laws or friends who are totally unsupportive of your efforts to learn & implement positive parenting strategies?
It can be hard to carve a new path, especially when everyone around you has a different viewpoint. That’s why it’s essential to find a community to step into … one that will support you through the good and the bad.
Today we are not only talking about the power in having a community, but how you can begin to start looking for a community (if you’re lacking one right now).
Toward the end of the episode, you’ll hear success stories from parents within our very own Fresh Start Family Bonfire community to give you encouragement that there are people out there with the same struggle and goals as you …
… and that these parents are getting MASSIVE results learning & implementing positive parenting into the daily fabric of their lives!
We’d love to have you join us here at Fresh start Family, but even if you decide it’s not for you, we still want you to know that having a community can be a game changer in life, and we hope that you find that missing piece in your own parenting journey!
Click HERE to learn more about the Bonfire Membership Community, open for public enrollment through Friday Feb 4th at 11:59pm pst.
Raising A Strong Willed, Intense or Sensitive Child? If yes, I have a FREE gift for you!
This free bundle comes with an extensive learning guide & FREE workshop with me, where I’ll teach you ways to build connection & methods to work WITH your strong willed kids instead of trying to MAKE THEM change.
Inside this FREE learning bundle I’ll teach you:
*Firm & kind strategies to navigate challenging behavior with firm kindness & connection (vs. fear, force, yelling, threats & bribery)
*Ways to build connection instead of pushing your child away w/ heavy handed “hand me down parenting tactics”
*How to work WITH your kids instead of forcing them to comply or trying to MAKE them change
Click here to grab your free bundle now & start learning today!
Episode Highlights:
- The power of doing life & parenting with like-minded people
- What transcendental meditation is
- The Maharishi Effect – research backed results of a group intention & practice
- What to do when you outgrow your circle
- How prioritizing community actually helps you go further, faster!
- Success stories from our very own bonfire member community!
Resources Mentioned:
- Join our Bonfire Member Community!
- Learn about The Foundations Course
- Get the Foundations Course for Free when you join the Bonfire with an annual membership.
- Gina DeVee’s Book – The Audacity to Be a Queen
What if you could be an effective, firm & kind parent WITHOUT relying on fear, force, bribery & rewards?
Imagine learning a new way of firm (AND kind) parenting so you can end painful generational parenting cycles and create family legacies & memories YOU are proud of?
All while getting your kids to cooperate with your rules and boundaries with ease.
IMAGINE …
Parenting your kids with calm & confidence each day in a way that causes them to do what’s asked of them because they WANT to (not because they HAVE to) … because you’re helping to build essential life skills that have them behaving well & being respectful when you’re NOT looking!
The Firm & Kind Parenting Blueprint is your step by step plan & video training to help you build the family of your dreams. Click HERE to learn more now!
Not able to listen or want to read along with us?
Here is the episode transcript!
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. Welcome to a new episode of the Fresh Start Family Show. I am Wendy Snyder, your host, certified positive parenting educator and family life coach. And I am so happy that you are here with me today. We are going to talk about the power of community or lack thereof that some of you may be saying when it comes to positive parenting.
So what I’m gonna talk to you today is I think going to encourage you to make sure you’re very intentional in this new year to find a community to create friends or to find other parents, like-minded parents who you can become friends with who are actually trying to apply the same type of parenting strategies in their home as you. And we all know this can be easier said than done because I know I get questions all the time from families who are new to positive parenting and are just finding my work and they ask me questions about what if my spouse isn’t on board? That one’s probably the number one question as well as what if I don’t have supportive parents or in-laws or what if I’m doing this alone?
And I always let them know that it’s so important and vital that they find the courage and the bravery to step into learning first because that is the only way that their loved ones or their friends or extended family will follow suit, right? Nothing will ever change if nothing changes. So somebody has to be the one to say, Hey, the buck stops here. I am going to learn a different way. There are painful generational cycles perhaps that I would like to end. And in order to do that I have to get some support and I have to be surrounded with other like-minded people who are on the same path as me.
So I’m just gonna give you a few examples today of why there’s such power in community and how we can help you find that community here at Fresh Start Family. And then also I’m gonna give you some examples of some of the success stories that have just come in over the years from our Bonfire membership community. That literally blows my mind. We gather every single Monday to share success stories. And many times when I read the success stories, it brings me to tears because it is so moving and I, I just feel so humbled and honored that families who come into the Bonfire membership community trust me and, you know, just come, come before me to, to listen and to be, and to be coached and guided by the, the encouragement and the curriculum we build here at Fresh Start Family.
And I know I speak for the coaches that I have as part of my staff at Fresh Start Family also, that it really is just a hum. We just feel humble, humbled, and it is such an honor to be able to support those families. So I’m gonna read you some of those success stories today, and they are powerful. We now have our Google Doc of success stories is now, I think 328 pages long. You guys, 328 pages of success stories in our Google Doc. We’ve been compiling that now for the last three years. So it just gives you an idea of what happens when you surround yourself with like-minded individuals.
So let’s start off with, with talking about that. What is the power and, and is it proven to have power? And the answer is yes. So when it comes to being together with other like-minded individuals, there is power in that. And I like to reference anytime I can get a, get my hands on research or a study that actually shows where it has been proven that something works, I like to share it with you guys. So that’s why I love the work of Brene Brown. Of course, she is a researcher that has proven, you know, everything that she teaches about in her books and her Ted Talks, and she even has a Netflix show now, but she just has such incredible wisdom on the detrimental effects of shame and also the beauty and the power of vulnerability to, to truly change lives and to strengthen us as human beings.
But another organization that I love that has done so much, so much research over the years is the transcendental meditation folks. So a few years ago when Stella was younger, so my daughter’s 13 now when she’s young, she was probably eight. We were still struggling with, you know, some, some misbehaviors and some challenges that she had. She is our strong-willed girl. She’s the reason why I’m an educator. She’s an angel to our family. She’s an angel to the world and she’s just taught us so much. But we were still trying to support her. So we had her in what’s called brain highways, it was a cool like exercise group, so to speak.
It was almost like a form of therapy where they used movement to try to train the brain to kind of reconnect some pathways that she might have been missing when it came to making decisions or having transitions be easier. It was really, when I look back, it almost seemed like a, a kind of, well, I won’t say that it was, it was incredible. And so we did that for a little bit and I still had my eyes open to what else might support her because the positive parenting had changed our lives. It had radically shifted everything and we were doing really well, but there was still some, some struggle she was having. And that’s when I found transcendental meditation. And so if you, if you’re wondering what that is and if it sounds freaky to you at all, don’t worry.
It’s not, it’s not anything to be scared of. I think a lot of families of Christian faith, just like I was in the beginning, I was like, oh my gosh, what is this? This is weird. I don’t wanna do, you know, I was just made, I wanted to make sure I was doing something that was completely in line with my faith. And so the, you know, transcendental meditation to explain it really easily is you say one word over and over again and you have this word it’s called a mantra, which doesn’t have any meaning. It has zero meaning, it’s only a sound. And the purpose of saying the one word over and over again is just to calm your brain, simplify, you know, just, just to, I I’m in simple terms to chill the heck out.
And so there’s other forms of meditation, of course you can do guided meditations and, and they’re, they’re all wonderful, I believe in addition to prayer. But the transcendental meditation really got my attention because they have done so much research to prove the science of the effectiveness of this type of meditation. So literally they’ve, they’ve spent decades and decades and decades of putting people into MRI machines where they study the brain, they show the before, and they show the after of what happens to people that struggle with anxiety or just general stress or, I mean, their work has changed the lives of so many people who struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder.
They work a lot with warriors who come home from, you know, military that come home from wars and have really gnarly PTs. D they work with inner city schools to bring so much peace to schools that have very high expulsion rates and they bring in their meditation programs and it just, they have proven that it absolutely helps and brings down the rate of these children getting in trouble, getting suspended, getting ex ex expelled, all these type of things. So, but the science behind it and the research, they really have invested in the research. And so one of the things that they did a few years back was, it was actually in DC that they did this because I forget the exact year, but it was back in the nineties.
So I grew up in, in Maryland, Terry and I both did on the east coast of the United States, very close to Washington DC and it was back in the early nineties, 92 maybe. So they came in and they t they had, you know, heard that the DC crime rate was insane. And I remember this time it was, it was just gnarly. It was like all the, the news talked about was how gnarly the crime rate was in DC. And so they decided to invest a ton of money to bring in people to actually meditate within the city and in hopes to bring the crime level down. So they got massive amounts of people to actually come in, fly into the city as a group and all at one time, over the matter of, I believe it was maybe days or weeks, I forget.
And if you wanna to learn more about this, the book that I’m currently reading that I absolutely love, it’s called The Audacity to Audacity to Be a Queen by Gina Davi. She talks about the mariachi effect in her book. Her book is all about kind of manifesting your best life and aligning it with God’s vision for what you are meant to have in your life as far as abundance. I just can’t get enough of this book, you guys, I am eating it up. But when I saw this part in there, I was like, oh my gosh, I remember this, I remember this being on the news. I was just about to graduate from high school back then. So anyways, this group came in and they decided to meditate over the matter of weeks or months, whatever it was in unison.
And they were going to do a study to see if it actually helped or not. And I know that they brought in members of the community and, and also had like very unbiased people analyzing the results. So it, and, and that’s what’s cool about their research is they’ve really done the, the work to make sure everything is very unbiased. So that group involved, you know, included soc sociologists, politicians, police officers, again, it was a very unbiased committee to gather and vet the data. So anyways, what they found was crazy.
So it ended up reducing the crime rate at the, the like the peak state where they had the most amount of people in the city meditating using tm, which is basically, you use 20 minutes, it’s a practice where you do 20 minutes. That’s it. You’re supposed to do it twice a day. I most days hopefully I like most days, honestly, once a day is like a success for me, but I am always trying to do the twice a day. But at the height when they had the most people doing it twice a day, the crime rate went all the way down to 23%. So before it was at 77% with murder drug dealing, like it was nuts in DC back when I was a kid.
And then when they brought in these meditators, it went down to 23% and it was astonishing. And so relatively inexpensive when you look at it because it, it costs them, they an, they analyzed everything. It cost them about 8 million to bring this group together to have like one vision, one goal to unite in kind of, you know, spreading more peace, bringing more peace, bringing more calm to the city. And that was compared to 166 million spent on the police budget for the same, it was two months, that’s what it was. It was two months that they did this researcher, this, this exercise. So just, just to, and just to summarize, it was two months they brought in a massive amount of people to do, to be a group with one common goal, to meditate consistently for two months and to have this unified vision in our nation’s capital.
And they were successful. They decreased crime rate from 77% to to 23%. Pretty amazing, right? So yeah, just remember you guys, when you are surrounded by others who share your same beliefs and hold the same vision of what’s possible, you access abilities you didn’t even know you had in you. And I think that’s what happened in our nation’s capital at that time when they, when they showed this, so they kind of called this experiment, they called this research the mariachi effect. And that’s what I definitely see happening within our Bonfire membership community too, which I’ll tell you a little bit more about at the end of this.
But that’s what happens when you find people to gather who have the same goals as you, who have the same dreams, who are aligned, right? I think we spend a lot of time trying to like defend ourselves against people who don’t necessarily get what we’re doing in the realm of positive parenting or many part of life. And we try to make other people understand and we spend less time finding people who we know are already like, yeah, I get you and I want more of what you’re learning. Let’s come together and support one another and really create some momentum together. Don’t you agree? If we took all the energy that we spend trying to defend ourselves or make other people get on the same page as us and turn that into, hey, let’s find more people who are like us, who have the same desires, I think it would be incredibly surprising what the results will would be.
And that’s actually what again, what we see inside of our bond fair communities because it’s the, the success rates go massively up. You know, it’s like it’s, it can, it can be one thing to do a course doing a course if you’ve never done a formal positive parenting education course, and by formal I mean like actually going through a full, whether it’s an in-person class where you sit down with a teacher and you do eight weeks or you do an online class, like we have here the foundation’s course, that’s what I call formal. Now, by no means are we formal here at Fresh Start family, we laugh, we joke, we cry, everything is casual. We have so much fun when we learn together.
So, but formal means like you’re investing, you’re paying money, you’re showing up, you’re actually finishing a course that is incredible. And then when you actually get into a supportive community as you’re doing that to then implement the step-by-step, you know, actual strategies, it’s just so powerful when you’re doing it beside others. So there really is you guys a literal uplift when you are in a room, so to speak with other people. And the easiest way, you know, to think of this that Gina talks about in the book that I was like, oh my gosh, that’s the best example is when you know, if you’ve ever been to a spin class or let’s just say a fitness class, I know right now at the time of this, of course we’re still in Covid and my neighbor has like outdoor fitness classes right now and they’re so funny.
She has like old school eighties and nineties mu music and she blares it and it’s hilarious. Sometimes we’ll wake up on Saturday morning like 7:00 AM we’re like, oh my gosh. But sometimes we look out and she has one person and sometimes she has like six in the front lawn and you know that that energy is more like bump in and people are more motivated to do their squats and you know, pushups and all that thing, all that stuff. When you see other people doing it beside you, right? When you’re the only one with the instructor, it’s easy to lose steam. So that’s what Gina talks about in the book too, when it comes to going to a spin class, if you’ve ever been to a spin class, like Soul Cycle is the one that I’ve, I’ve been to a few times and it was amazing, but it’s similar to what she talks about where the first class I went to was completely full and the energy was amazing.
Like there was no empty bikes next to me and you could just feel like you were motivated to do the work, you were motivated to like keep going, to have the courage to like turn up the resistance to like sweat a little bit harder because if you sat down then you just were like, oh my gosh, nobody else is sitting down, but I’m the only one sitting down. So anyways, I just thought that was a good example when you think of fitness classes is when you are with a group in a fitness class and it is like a packed house, you feel that energy and you’re more likely to be able to kind of like move forwards. The collective energy, so to speak, literally helps you move forward.
And so when you think about finding a community that supports you wherever you are in your parenting journey, then it doesn’t have to be a physical community. So I think in a perfect world, we think to ourselves, oh gosh, I wish it was my mom and my sister and my husband and my best friend. Like that’s who I want my community to be. Like, why can’t they just support me? Like I told ’em, I don’t want to freaking spank anymore. Like I don’t wanna do it. And why can’t they just be supportive? Again, you can like fight that energy and wish you had that physical community right there next to you, or you can embrace that there are online communities everywhere that those people exist and they, you know, some of us didn’t get blessed with like, you know, moms and dads so to speak that are like someone were really close to as we get older, but maybe we got in-laws that we are, right?
So just make sure you’re, you’re being intentional to to, to seek the light and find the light instead of think it has to be presented in one certain way. So it doesn’t have to be a physical community and it doesn’t have to be like right there bef like your closest friends and family. It can be online and whether you decide that the Bonfire community is something that you wanna become part of or you just literally go online and try to find another positive parenting community, I’m telling you there are many, many, many positive parenting programs out there that have supportive communities also. So yes, I am always going to encourage you to invest in fresh air family programs.
I would love to support and encourage you, and I know with our success rate, we can do that in a crazy effective way. And I will tell you that if you, if you just wanna research what’s out there, there are Facebook groups all over the world that live online that can provide, you know, some level of support for you just to, just to make sure you, you understand that you’re not alone. Okay? So community goals, when we talk about community goals, it’s, it’s so important to stay focused, right? Like I think with life being so busy modern day life, there’s a million things that are pulling us into a million different directions.
And when you have a common goal with a group, it’s, it’s definitely community is where the quantum leaps are. So prioritizing community actually helps you go further faster and friendship and connection contribute growth and fulfillment to your life. And this is not to mention, of course the endless amount of resources and opportunities that come when you are together with other people. And so I’m just, as I, you know, as I talk about that, I’m just thinking about the Bonfire membership program and how many resources that we have. So we have so many resources. We have this big library, we have the coaches inside of there to answer questions.
We have the weekly coaching, but then what I see is so cool is that when parents ask questions or they pop in with a vulnerable post or they share a success story, but like just looking at the, when people come in with questions, it’s not just us, it’s not just me as the leader of that organization or, or my, my staff of coaches that comes in to support those families. It’s actually the community that also chimes in to support them. So our, you know, a availability of resources becomes even bigger because other community members, parents from all over the world, I think we have almost 10 countries now represented in the Bonfire membership program, but they have different ideas they bring, you know, they’ll say, have you, have you thought about this?
Or, you know, this is something we tried in our home and it worked so well and it’s completely in line with what we learned in this Bonfire or the foundation’s course or whatever it is. But it’s so cool to see the kind of the community aspect as far as how much farther it gets us in our growth. Okay? As far as kind of outgrowing your circle, I want you guys to remember that it is not a bad thing if you realize, hey, I’ve been part of a, you know, a playgroup or I’ve been going to a group at my church with other moms and I feel like I’ve kind of outgrown it. I’ve started to go down a different path where I want to do things differently with my kids and this playgroup or, or this weekly, you know, meetup or even, you know, some of my friends are really not supportive and not able to hold the same vision as me.
You guys remember, it is okay to take a break. You don’t have to say to your friends or your mom groups, you know, like, Hey, I’m never gonna come back. I’m leaving you, I’m done with you. You guys are lame. You have, you have no idea, you don’t care about this, I care about this. You don’t have to be like that. You can just simply say, Hey, I’m gonna take a break for a little bit. Or you can just, you know, stall or slow down on making friends with some of, or making plans with some of your friends so you can invest time and energy into creating some new friendships. I have really seen this happen over the years for me especially it’s been in the business community as I’ve created and grown fresh start family, it’s taken a lot of time, a lot of investment and the more I showed up and was intentional about creating friends in the business, entrepreneurship community, and also finding mentors.
When I built space and created space for that, instead of hanging on to like old friendships that weren’t necessarily supporting me in that realm, I was able to find new friends and mentors that blessed my life so tremendously. And it’s no doubt that God put those people in my life when I created the space for them. So the same thing will happen to you. It’s okay to outgrow your circles, you guys, you’re not ditching them forever just because you don’t show up at, you know, every happy hour that you know, you’re, you’re old set of girlfriends who just kind of come together and complain about their kids or talk about how, you know, spanking’s the only way, and if you don’t spank then you’re not really Christian.
Like it’s okay to take a break. All right, so there is definitely a community of incredible parents that support you and are on the same page, who are expanding their heart, learning new tools, strengthening their family. There’s definitely that community here at Fresh Start Family and that is our Bonfire membership program. That community is, is again just blowing my mind at what’s happening within there. So I thought I’d take a second, more than a second. I thought I’d take some time as we finish up this episode about the power of community to share some of the success stories with you. Again, these are just a few. When I brought up our Google doc, I, I did a command F and I searched for the word community cuz I just wanted to see, okay, what have parents said over the years about the power of this community.
And so I’m just gonna read you some and I hope this fills your heart with hope and reminds you that this is an investment in your family legacy. When if you decide, which I hope you will, to join us within the Bonfire community, it’s open right now for public enrollment, then you will be investing in your family legacy. You will be investing in your mental health, you will be investing in what you deserve, which is happiness, joy, peace as a parent. All right, so here’s, here’s the first success story I’ll read you. My oldest daughter snuck into the upstairs linen closet and took the nail polish and some makeup and used it and hid it in her room.
Oh my goodness. This particular mom has teen girls and let me also share that every single success story I read today, I will not be using names of course, but I know every single one of these parents, well, I can probably almost tell you, 80% by heart what the names of their kids are. This is the depth of what we do in the Bonfire membership community to get to know these families. It becomes something that’s more than just providing support and coaching. We really do get to know these beautiful families. So she’s got two beautiful teenage daughters and she says, I asked this morning during our family meeting if she had makeup on and she replied, no. Then the girls and I were doing our October religious activities and noticed, I noticed her shiny sales nails.
So I asked her again this time after taking a bit, after taking a bit to respond, she took responsibility for what she did do instead of freaking out. I thanked her for being honest and asked her if she wanted to do these things, what could she do next time? Her answer was to ask, I did not yell and act like a volcano and she took responsibility. It felt awesome. Thank you. Fresh Start Family and the Bonfire community for all the support, guidance, ideas, and encouragement. I love that one. All right, the next one reads, I finished the foundations course. In the beginning of this journey, I truly felt defeated as a mom and personally just in disgusted with myself knowing how inconsistent and horrible I was being to my daughter and sad to say my husband too.
I truly want to thank you Fresh Start Family, Wendy Snyder, Sarah Quail, Laura Shilliam, and Christie Dennison. Those are our coaches within the Bonfire membership program for giving me the tools and resources to feel empowered. It has given me love and light as a mommy to know that each day is a new day and to practice patience and give myself grace. Thank you for your time and being an amazing community. Alright, here’s another one. Hi everyone. I have been meaning to write earlier and share my gratitude and the blessings that brought Fresh Start family into my life. When Covid took over the over the world, I lost my job. I thought this would be a great time to reconnect with my family, especially my two daughters, until I realized that we had a lot of issues we needed to work on.
When I first stumbled upon one of your Facebook posts, I was skeptic and thought that I could do this on my own. Things got worse during isolation. I have shared that my second daughter was going through intense tantrums, which I thought were related to confinement as she is an extremely social person. We also came to the sad realization that my oldest daughter was feeling depressed and she is only 11. Then I saw your Facebook post with a five day challenge course, which was an eye-opener. I decided to join the community. Following those five days, I started going through some of the lessons that I thought would help me in my struggle since Covid Grounded kids at home. They were using their tech devices all the time.
Even my two-year-old would watch TV while I helped the girls with their studies. In this lesson, you spoke about the reset Your child’s brain book. My intuition told me to get it and I finished it in only two days. The more I read it, the more I understood how tech was heavily affecting my kids. So I went into a a tech fast and thank God I did. Tantrums are gone. Kids listen more. They’re happier since we spend more quality time together. They fell in love with reading again and started learning basketball with their dad, which really connected them. Our family still has lots of growing to do, but to hear the words thank you without my kids expecting anything in return is truly a heartwarming and brought me to tears with a power girl in the house.
I have put in practice the lessons about avoiding and dissolving power struggles along with empathizing before this month started and I couldn’t believe how it was so much easier to connect with her. Thank you, Wendy, family and team so much for bringing all these lessons and tools to help families like mine. I wish you all lots of blessings and the drive to keep on sharing these learnings with the community. Thank you for stepping into my family’s life. Oh my gosh, so beautiful. All right, here’s another one. Huge, huge, huge success today. This will be long, but there were, there were so many successes today. I just can’t leave any out. I think I took this down just a little bit, but the day actually could have been pretty rough with my three-year-old, which, you know, I have had many problems within the past.
I was challenged multiple times today with misbehaviors. I would have previously freaked out and punished him for, but today I was able to stay calm, empathetic, firm and kind as a mom. The two, three and four hour tantrums with constant physical revenge behaviors are now a thing in the past. We are still dealing with their revenge behaviors, but not nearly on the same scale. Thank you so much, Wendy. Coaches and this community for your support. It is truly making a world of difference for us and countless other families. We are still growing, but we’re learning and I’m so hopeful about the future. I I, it’s so cool to read all these, cuz again, I know exactly the families. I can picture the faces of their children.
I know how hard these families have worked and it’s just so awesome to revisit some of these success stories. All right, here’s another one. I first listened to the foundation’s course last year, back in November. Around that time I made a commitment to change our family dynamics, which involved leaning into fresh start family. Our power family is slowly but surely becoming more connected and peaceful. We have a lot to learn and are inspired by this, by support and resources in this community. Thank you. Okay, here’s another one. I’ve been a part of this community for a few months now. Our four, let’s see, our four year old would lie when he would engage in revenge misbehaviors like hitting. We are finally getting him to be open with us because we have been on the path of empathy and showing him it’s going to talk.
It’s going to talk with us through the emotions. We are here to help him behave better, not be shameful of past actions. Heck yes. Okay, here’s another one. Looking back to the beginning of the year when I would get dreaded phone calls or have extended care, talk to me about their problems with my son in elementary school, I would totally go into a panic. I would freak out and stress and jump to worst case scenarios. With the coaching and support I have received from this community, the assurance that I was not alone, my kid isn’t unique because he struggles with some things. I was able to handle a situation at school today when I went into volunteer in a way that truly worked well and felt good.
I feel so much more equipped to handle these situations with integrity. Ugh, I love it. Okay, here’s another one. We are working with our seven year old son who is navigating second grade specifically in feeling comfortable with new classmates. He didn’t want to wear his hearing aid to school because he was embarrassed. Here’s the tools we pulled out of our Bonfire positive parenting toolkit to mentor our little guy through and be successful listening by using open-ended questions, patience in time to uncover what was really going on over multiple short conversations and letting him come to us when he wanted to talk about it. Empathizing role plays for him to find his own way of working through it, follow up, asking him how it made him feel when his plan worked.
Thank you to all of you having our Foundations Courses and resources, coaches and community sure help in knowing our tools, putting them them into action and building confidence in our parenting journey along the way. Oh my gosh, it’s so good. Oh, last thing she said is it takes a village to raise a mother. Heck, yes it does, mama. Okay, here’s another one. This last week I have been feeling a complete transformation as a parent and instead of getting triggered when my daughter has her outburst of anger and emotions, I have been able to hold a safe space for her and guide her. Thank God for the work I have been doing, and thank God for this Bonfire community.
Here’s another one. So incredibly thankful for this community. Thank you for your encouraging words and suggestions. We are home now. This mama had a little boy who had to have multiple surgeries. I think it was on his adenoids, and my son is resting. He did great. He was awake and crying for us when they let us come back. Once we were there, he was able, we were able to talk to him and he calmed down last time. Prior to this work, we had used all kinds of bribes to get him to cooperate and calm down. This time using a lot of empathy, understanding, and realizing my anxiety was only adding to this, it went much more smoothly. Okay, here’s another one. This morning we worked through an intense misbehavior with my daughter.
I am grateful that I have the awareness through this Bonfire community and my own personal growth to be able to observe the situation and reflect with a somewhat neutral lens. I am also grateful for the kind mama strangers in this group. One mama offered to help and gave me a virtual hug, and another offered compassionate virtual smiles and words. Two big successes. Here’s another one I’m beginning to realize when an incredible resource this Bonfire community and coaching is. Wow, that was it for that one. Okay, just a few more. Here’s, here’s one I needed to share again, how thankful I am for this community and this beautiful, wonderful reframing of parenting.
I am solo parenting this month. This mama is a military mama and boy. Mama is tired. I had a rough day with my highly emotional four-year-old daughter, and I am so thankful that there are a lot of misbehave that through a lot of misbehavior and tough moments, I was able to stay calm, to stay in integrity, and to give her logical consequences to actually teach her how to act differently the next time and all without compromising our relationship by acting out of frustration, revenge, and anger. Heck yes. I love that one. All right, last one. I think this is the last one. Yeah. We have all been growing and learning so much, and I’ve been seeing some big changes in my oldest son in parentheses, my Power kid.
His first reaction when he gets upset is still to freak out, but he is regaining composure better and quicker, and he has began apologizing on his own. He’s also starting to be more, more respectful of the boundaries we set. Instead of pushing back every single time, we’ve been very intentional about stating our expectations and making agreements with all of our, our kids. This mama has four kids, while also giving choices and finding ways to empower each of them appropriately. The paradigm shift that Wendy talks about is definitely happening in our home. It’s still hard at times and feels unnatural, but it’s becoming more fluent as we continue to practice this work. So grateful for this community and the things we are learning.
Thank you all for being so open and encouraging. So guys, I hope that gives you an idea of what can happen when families come together and truly feel supported and, and just have the resources that they need to apply what they learn and just to, just to know that they’re not alone. So you can learn more about the Bonfire by heading over to the website. We’ll make sure we put all of the links in the show notes pages, but if you head over to the Fresh Start Family website and click the community tab, you can read all about the Bonfire, you can read about how much it is per month, and there’s an annual plan that when you join the annual plan, you get the foundations course for free.
You guys, the foundations course is a $397 course on its own that you can get for free when you come on and say, this is right. I wanna invest in my family. I wanna spend the next year with you, Wendy, and your team, and it would just be such an honor to be able to encourage and support you and just wrap our loving arms around you, because I know you’re tired. I know you’re exhausted. I know there are days when you go to bed at night and you’re thinking there’s gotta be a better way. There’s got to be something that will help us get along better, fight less, help my kids listen and cooperate more without me having to rely on fear and force and yelling and intimidation and punishments.
And there is, you’re right. So listen to your gut, okay? Listen to your gut. Go learn more about the Bonfire. Doors are only open for a very limited time. They will close to the public on Monday, February 1st, okay? So I want you to get in there. I want you to learn more. I want you to become part of our community. We would just be absolutely honored to have you. I also wanna point out that there is never an obligation to stay on. So if you decide to join as a monthly member, it’s totally okay. If you get in there and you’re like, yeah, it’s not totally for me, go ahead and cancel. You won’t be charged again.
So I think for such a low monthly fee to have access to what you have access to in the Bonfire membership program really will change your life. And I don’t say that lightly, but again, there really is no obligation, okay? And if you join on the annual plan and you don’t like it, you have 30 days to request a refund. So we are, are so confident in our programs here, you guys, that we really do offer a 30 day money, money back guarantee for the annual plan and for the monthly membership. Again, if you cancel, you will not be charged again. Okay? So I am available to answer all of your questions.
You can reach out to me and my staff via email. Again, we’ll put all the information in the show notes page. But if you head over to the Bonfire information page, we give you so many details about everything that’s included, including some wonderful bonuses that we’ve, we’ve designed for you, because even with all the community offers, I recently thought there’s a few more things that I would like to gift you with when you kind of take that leap and become a member, because I know it can be scary, right? Memberships can seem so like, oh my gosh, I’m joining this club and I’m gonna like be pressured to stay. Trust me, you won’t. But I know it takes courage. I know it takes bravery, and I want to support you as you make that leap.
So please don’t re hesitate to reach out with any questions. You can find me over at Wendy freshstartfamilyonline.com. And last thing I’ll say you guys is even if you, you know, decide not to join the Bonfire Community, the purpose of this podcast episode is really just to remind you that you can find a supportive community. You know, there are free groups out there that will support you and, and remind you that you’re not alone in your, your journey to become fluent in positive parenting curriculum and to really be a family that leans into connection and gentleness and firm kindness. Now, I’ve never found a group that is going to give you the results like we do, but there’s tons of free groups out there that if you’re like, this is just not in my budget, I can’t do it, then just at least go find yourself a, a free group on Facebook that at least you can, you know, get to know or, or just visually see that there are other people that you are not alone.
That’s what’s really important. My intention here at Fresh Start Family is always just to serve you, right? Like when you, if you decide to invest in our programs, gosh, it’d be like I always say an honor to help you change your life and, and create a family legacy that you’re proud of. And, and here at Fresh Start Family, what makes us different, different is we really do get massive results. But even if you never, ever decide to purchase anything from us, I want you to feel supported, and my goal is to serve you. So definitely find yourself a community and make sure that you’re supported no matter what. It’s been so fun hanging out with you guys. Let me know if you have any questions about the Bonfire. I can’t wait to see you inside of that powerful, life changing community.
For links and more information about everything we talked about in today’s show, head to freshstartfamilyonline.com/ 67.
Stella:
For more information, go to freshstartfamilyonline.com. Thanks for listening, families, have a great day.
