Shift to Parent on Purpose with Teresa Williams
Today we have a special guest, joining us Teresa Williams and she's joining us from the hot heat of Texas which is super fun, oh man sometimes he can just get you, but Teresa, tell us a little bit about you and what you do?
Teresa: Okay, well I am a parent empowerment consultant and what that means is I work with parents basically to educate, to equip and empower them through clarity within themselves. So, I go through a process of self-reflection self-discovery and just other areas of personal development and then that sets them up to be the best version of themselves, which is the best gift to give your children, so that you can purposefully parent and parent on purpose. So, I kind of transitioned to that. Previously, I worked with parents and went from the perspective of working with the child you know the behaviors and let's get to that but what I found through processing and questioning, it always went back to something that the parent was an influence of some sort in in their lives, that they had not addressed, so that understanding of themselves wasn't there so it was challenging to understand your children and so I kind of started being my practice of and I call it personal development for parents because I was a teacher for 17 years and that's how I got into it my parent conferences turned into literal parent conferences, it was no longer about the children it was, hey can I have tips for home and because I believe in structure for children. So, my classroom was very structured but also, I believe in emotional development and expressing emotions and so that's how it started but because I always ended up with, hey well let's talk about you. So, now I moved into more of a personal development because when I left education, I then became a professional a leadership professional development consultant and what I found is that what I’m doing with parents parallel in the workplace. So, when I talk about emotional intelligence for individuals in the workplace that's what I was doing with parents dealing with emotional intelligence, you talk about one-on-one and communicating team members and leaders that's what I was doing with parents. Teaching them how to have those conversations with your children and that your children are not the same if you have more than one, they're not the same you will have to talk with them differently understand their emotions differently. And so, I moved more into a personal development of self-reflection within parents, then we move into the parenting piece so.
I was on a call just the other day with a parent and she was just talking about how she has a hard time with her daughter and every single time her daughter does this, she gets triggered and she gets triggered and she gets triggered and what I’m realizing with a lot of parents that I coach is it's not necessarily the child's behavior that we need to change, it's how we react to different triggers, right? So, we talk about emotional development and that's what I mean I focus on social and emotional development with children, but if our own parents don't have their own emotional development, then it's hard to teach that to our kids. So, it is this process of re-parenting ourselves and also if we expect our kids to communicate their needs then we need to communicate our needs and you know it just it's a domino effect, so I love what you do and I think it's very important.
Okay, so tell us why self-reflection is critical, just to discover who we are and who we want to be?
Teresa: Okay, and in your example is a prime example. When you don't understand who you are, so even as a parent when you don't understand like those triggers and that question is why? Why are you triggered? Most times it is connected to a prior experience in your you were influenced personally society I keep pointing back there meaning prior, there's no one back there but I’m pointing back. So, it is so important with the self-discovery is so that you know when you're triggered more than likely it's not about the current situation now I like to bring into when I’m speaking with parents and their reflection the emotional brain because many times we think about the brain as one brain, but we have three and one of them is the emotional brain and what lives there, are feelings from every experience. So, and I’d love to use this example, like if you were bitten by a dog let's say when you're five or six and now you're a full grown adult you're walking through your neighbourhood and you see a dog in the window barking, you feel something, you across the street, that dog can't get to you, but you feel that experience that emotion from the experience. Now, if you don't learn to self-reflect and adjust and realize that's not my current reality if you don't learn that when you're triggered you react from the emotion that you're feeling, but it's really not associated with the current reality but you feel it and if you're not in tune with your emotions your understanding of you those triggers are there and so when your child may trigger you, it may not even be about that. You know sometimes, we're triggered from things that kids just do they're kids so our trigger could be from something else. So, it's that lack of understanding of us, so we can't understand them and that's why I go through a self-reflective process.
The Process
Teresa: So, when I work with parents, I call it draw because I look at it as you know I was a teacher, so I need an acronym that's how we learn. So, you're going to draw out of you what's there that you've kind of suppressed and also put it on paper. So, for anyone who's just beginning with self-reflection I recommend a hundred percent a journal and paper like write it down not do it in your head, but as you evolve in the process and lots of practice you'll be able to do it like that like, I self-reflect all day long now because I’ve been doing this for years but the D is for a detailed situation, so whatever is happening in that moment like your parent for example in that moment use that you're not going to do it in the moment but you're going to use that moment and that's another awareness that you realize I have to set time to self-reflect, that's a part of self-care. So, you think of that situation and when you go through this a detailed situation I like to suggest the five W's, so ‘who what where when why’ because if this isn't your normal practice it's going to be challenging for you to put out you know to record your details and so you have your detailed situation, then that R is for you have to be honest with yourself did I respond or did I react? And the response is truly a thoughtful, hmm I thought about it you thought about consequences am I, how is this going to impact my child or you reacted and that's an emotional just an emotional response, I responded from how I felt and that's that honesty can that in itself will trigger you and then the A is for analysed.
Now, this is the part where you get to the nitty-gritty. You have to ask these questions and I will tell you and I always start with telling a parent, this is hard, it's challenging, emotions will come up. A range of emotions and you're not used to it so you may want to cry fight holler scream and it's okay because many times we have not been given the permission to express our emotions, it's okay. So, you ask yourself hmm what were my feelings and name them to write them down, that's going to be challenging if you haven't taken the time to really identify your feelings and then you ask yourself not only what were they but have I felt them before.
Now, this is when self-reflection kicks in and it's not before right now you have to really be honest with yourself, when did I feel like this before? And it's going to come from some personal influence from childhood Illinois or adult year something you've gone through and that's when it'll start coming up with those unaddressed situations, maybe it's something last week but something else will come up because you felt that when you responded that emotion was already there.
Now, you're going to attach it to what the root of that emotion is, why did you experience that? And then you're going to ask yourself hmm, who was there those are the five w's again because sometimes we're triggered by just the people, that happens you have a company. So, it's okay you need to be aware of that, so because then you'll learn to create a boundary because you understand you and it's not good or bad I try to wipe that out get that out of your mind, it's not a bucket of good or bad it is period. It is so now I learn how I am going to operate within it it's not good or bad it just is, and so then once you've determined like the location, who was there? Because if you're triggered by places what whatever that is because that could be an attached to something earlier you have to learn to make decisions about that and so you have your who your what your where your when and then the big question is why, so why did I feel like that? And now it's not about why you felt like that in the moment it's why back then what was that why, and that's how you start to understand you and realize okay and then that last part the W is, now that I have all of this, what did I learn about me myself? And when we're learning things about ourselves, we can't beat ourselves up its learning that's all it is. It's a learning process and in that situation not current but the situation that that emotion took you to what would you change. So, you think about it now or would I and so that whole process is you reflecting back then then that last piece is and this is what will get people, now you got to forgive and most times, a lot of times the forgiveness is not in others, but many times it is but what we don't do too especially as parents, we don't forgive our self and then from all of that, you now understand you tell yourself okay that emotion, now you move back to the current situation that emotion really I felt it but it was about this and there's something about this situation that triggered me and you remember now okay, so when that happens I feel it you acknowledge I did feel this it's okay you're not ignoring it you're not gonna suppress it you understand it. And so, once that you continue to go through this process over and over and over you understand you, so now you respond to situations, you don't react because you have an understanding of the other person, maybe they are reacting out of not understanding their emotions and when it's our children, we then get it and we don't take it personally, because as parents when you don't self-reflect and understand yourself, you will take everything your child says personally.
Teresa: You are becoming the best version of you through self-reflection, when you become your best version, not perfect because you we're not perfect. It's our best version we're kind of like iPhone so you know phone technology every six months they upgrade. The more you reflect you upgrade and your understanding increases. So, therefore now you can understand your child what they experience and then you learn to take them through this reflective process in their day-to-day little in you know their little situations. You don't say, hey we're going to self-reflect today you know, but you have those times when you set up throughout the day and you talk to your kids like well how do you feel or how is that you can start crafting that in a reflection process how did you feel, when you were like if they're watching tv or even playing a game how did you feel when that character did that? Oh, do you think that character should have done something else? You're taking them through a process of thinking critically about feelings which is emotional because everything we do is emotional, so. I’m sorry if I went too far okay, I’ll tell you I get it.
How can we realize if we're parenting from a place of intention and purpose or if we're being influenced and parenting from a place of habit?
Teresa: Okay, one way is just to ask yourself a question, have I ever considered my parenting? Like, did I truly think about my core values, the core values that I want to give my children have I truly thought about and like remember when I said there's a parallel between like in corporate and parenting, how I thought about my family mission statement most times you know we want to have a baby we want to have a family we just have one and we go. So ask yourself have I really gone through the thought process because yes we want the best for our children but have we thought about what's my mission statement for my family, what's my purpose statement? And when you just think about it like well, I really haven't dug deep to ask questions about this journey of parenting where I want to go its habit, it's just oh I’m going to be a parent let's do this.
Lauren: Yeah, so I did a podcast recently about defining your own family culture and if you don't define it if you don't figure out your values and where you want to go, what you want your kids to be like who you want your kids to be when they leave the house and kind of reflect on that and then set up things along the way to kind of get to that goal. Anyways, if you don't do it people think like oh it you know I don't need a family culture but it's whether you plan it or don't plan it a family culture is happening and so if you're intentional about it then yeah you can shift to that parenting on purpose and I mean everything that you do everything you create. So, do you help people like create mission statements or like reflect on their core values?
Teresa: I do. So, in the past I did a lot of one-on-one coaching. Prior to our current pandemic, so I used to do monthly workshops in groups and so from there sometimes I’d work one-on-one but I like to teach parents how to do it and that's just the educator in me. So, I would teach you how to create that mission statement, because the concept the purpose statement for your family is the same but it's different for everyone, because you have to think about what are your core values and the age of your children because it looks different and your core values, not necessarily your values but your statement, your mission statement, your purpose statement, whatever you choose to call it it's a living document it's going to change as your children grow up because you'll use different language it'll look different.
I’m saying it may be something as simple as we will be kind to others, depending on the age but you can't stop there. Now, what does kindness look like because that's what children need as adults you know when we say kind we know what that means but they need to see it and so I go through a process of acting it out depending on the age of your children, kind is not kicking your sibling, but then you teach communication. So, if a part of your core values is to share your needs or let mommy or daddy know what you need you have to tell them show them what that looks like, so yeah I go through a process of that. What I’m doing now with COVID is I’m creating I’m bringing all of my stuff online, which is a great thing because now I get to hit more people you know. So, I had not done that before. So, I’m going through that bringing all of my classes and sessions into personal development classes that I’ll offer. My first one I think is going to kick off it should be by September and so my parenting community that we did locally will now become you know online and it's only good things can happen because it's just going to get a wide range, more global impact so.
Teresa: Well, just overall I do like to just leave the message that just a message for parents that the best version of you is the best gift that you can give your children and in any situation when you are engaged with a community like with your community with your parents to go with an open mind to learn, learning is not just taking the information but then implementing it. So, I just like to leave with that.
Find Teresa
instagram.com/theparentonpurposecoach