Reparenting, Inner Child Work and the RISE Challenge
Kid’s Behaviors
When I first started out sharing about kids’ behaviors back in 2019 — I got really specific about the “function.” Helping parents reframe behavior has always been a huge passion of mine from the start.
I would talk about the behavior of hitting or biting — and then break it down in so many ways to try to understand the why.
Maybe its a sensory need? Maybe its lack of communication skills…
When we can figure out what our kids are communicating with their behavior, then we're going to know how to stop it, how to support them, and how to teach them your skills.
I still talk about this DAILY.
I love teaching that to clients. I think this reframe is the most important thing I can teach parents about their kids behavior.
But one thing I'm realizing is I can teach you all of the strategies— every single emotionally healthy parenting strategy in the book, but we can only do so much if we're triggered all the time.
If our lava is all the way to the top, if we are not taking care of ourselves and doing some of our healing work, then it does not matter what any of the strategies I teach you are, it's not going to work.
You cannot become the parent you want to be.
WHAT Lauren?? You're making my lava RISE RIGHT NOW!?!?!
If we're only focusing on fixing/controlling our kids, instead of healing ourselves and doing the work to reparent ourselves, then we are not going to be the emotionally healthy parent we are after.
Reparenting
Did you know? Our childhood is where the subconscious mind is formed.
So it's where we learned how to process emotions.
When we were told to “be tough or don't cry,” we internalized that I need to be tough and not cry in order to be successful in life
When we were told to “go to your room” when any uncomfortable emotions showed up that was telling us, oh, these emotions are wrong, therefore these emotions are bad.
It's also where we learned what relationships looked like,
when the conflict was avoided
when conflict got aggressive,
when there was gaslighting that was happening.
It's also when we learned how to hold or not hold boundaries.
When we were told that if our family needed any help, then we help no matter what because that's what we do for family. And then we saw people get abused by that power over and over again.
When we overshared every single bit of gossip or personal piece of information about our family, thinking that we're helping our family by sharing this with others.
But it was actually because we were not holding boundaries.
So in an ideal world, we would actually have two self-actualized parents who honor their children as individuals.
And that includes honoring their quirks, honoring their differences, and honoring when they make choices that are different what we would want them to make.
The holistic psychologist, Dr. Nicole LePera points out, that the reality is that most parents are not living with conscious awareness.
And so we are born to unconscious parents who were also born to unconscious parents who were born to unconscious parents. (uh oh)
And an unconscious parent is just repeating the same habits and patterns that they've learned, operating from wounded spaces because of their own unprocessed emotions.
And I think we can see most of us if we look down the line.
Maybe our parents did better than their parents just by a little, and their parents by little by little. And we see changes in society and culture as time goes on.
They are all doing the best they can with what they know and with their level of awareness.
Things happened in our childhood that have shaped who we are today. And if we want to heal and stop being triggered and stop living in the cycle, we have to break the habits and the patterns. It’s time to REPARENT.
It ends now my friends. WE GOT THIS.
Okay? So reparenting is the act of giving ourselves what we didn't receive as a child.
So that means honoring ourselves, honoring ourselves for our own quirks and our differences, seeing ourselves, hearing ourselves, and validating ourselves. There's so much we can do to re-parent.
My childhood
My childhood was pretty traditional. I had a mom and dad who loved each other. My mom stayed home, my dad worked.
We vacation. We spent lots of time as a family. But over the years, and especially in the last ten years, a lot of things have come to light. Anxiety, distractions, emotional neglect, betrayal, conflict, enmeshed boundaries, guilt, shame, all of it. As I've been reflecting on my childhood and just different things, it all came to kind of a head that made me realize this.
It showed me so many of the unhealthy patterns and habits that I didn't see before. And then also on top of that, becoming a parent myself, I've started being triggered by random things that my kids do, realizing that that too is showing me something inside of me that needs to heal. So triggers aren't necessarily the problem, but the problem is only related to what we do when we are triggered. So triggers are actually teachers and they help us be aware of what our body's feeling and help us know where our healing needs to happen. So with the combination of me being triggered by different things my kids do and realizing, oh, that's an unhealed wound from my childhood, and then also just seeing some of these unhealthy patterns and not wanting to repeat those same things as I raise my level of awareness, I want to do the healing.
And maybe you're here too. Maybe you're not yet. And that's okay. It's not our parents’ fault or our grandparents. They were doing their very best with what they know and their level of awareness.
And guess what? We're now going to do the best with what we know. As I've been learning and evolving and reframing behavior from the beginning of this parenting experience, my level of awareness has also been shifting. And so it's my responsibility to reparent myself now. And you can rewire your brain and rewrite your story and be the parent that you want to be too.
Take Ownership for Yourself
We can all take ownership of this. It's not too late. And guess what? I'm going to hold your hand and help you. Gentle parenting and emotionally healthy parenting take a conscious, daily effort to rewrite that internal hard drive and show up in the way that we're proud of or make repairs when we don't.
And you don't have to do it alone. I have research, and ten years of practice from preschool teaching, and coaching to reparenting myself, and parenting my children. But when it comes down to it, I'm just going to be right here with you. And I see you because I'm right here with you.
I've been operating in this chronic fight or flight for too long where we're just going through the motions, getting our kids to the activities, enjoying the time we have with the most of the time.
But then we spill a whole bag of chips and we're just like, all of a sudden the whole just, like, rage coming out of us. And that's because there's so much going on inside our bodies and our needs aren't being met. And we have unhealed wounds that are being opened and we just don't have enough practice with those skills because we're just trying to get through our list of to-dos. But we're not going to live like that anymore. And it's not even going to be complicated to get out of this.
It's going to be simple, very simple. But it's time. It's time to slow down. It's time to reflect on the values that we want instead of just letting our family cultures decide for themselves. We get to decide our own family culture.
You're going to notice your strengths.
You're going to reparent yourself.
Instead of RISE being like my other courses and membership with the focus on understanding our kids’ behaviors. It's about reflecting as a parent, reparenting yourself, and reframing the way that we look at behaviors and triggers.
Not just our kids’ behaviors, our behaviors, our spouse's behaviors, our coworker’s behaviors, all of that.
IT'S 21 DAYS OF EMOTIONALLY HEALTHY PARENTING PRACTICES TO HELP YOU RISE TO THE PARENT THAT YOU WISH TO BE.
Week 1: we're going to reflect on the parent that you are now and the parent that you want to be
find your strengths
create your own family culture/values
create family rules
learn about the timing of discipline
coach yourself out of your struggles in parenting
Week 2: we're going to repair old teachings that don't align with your values anymore. And it's really cool because we're going to do reparenting things through a series of different modalities. We're going to do it through me just talking a video and us reflecting on paper. It's going to be a meditation, breathwork, and opening up to our intuition. It's going to be really cool. And for some of you, different than anything you've ever done (which might scare you, but growth happens outside our comfort zone)
meet your inner childhood (meditation)
journal prompts to reflect on your childhood
boundaries are for self-care
get your needs met
black journal your fears/negative thoughts
open up your intuition (breathwork)
Week 3: Reframe your child's behaviors and also your triggers from a supportive lens
look at behavior as communication
break the cycle!
deconstruct your triggers
how to respond instead of reacting to triggers
set boundaries while accepting emotions
what do we do with anger?
emotionally healthy parents aren't perfect
This is a kickstart that we need to repair ourselves while already being knee-deep in the world of parenting ourselves.
Reparenting isn't about parenting your kids.
It's about parenting yourself.
So it's about relearning these beliefs and reframing and understanding what you need.
And when we do that, it will be reciprocated in our parenting!!!
So it all matches up.
It's all amazing!!!
Inner Child Work
So all of us have this inner child inside of us, and it's the person that we are and that we were before anyone told us who we could or couldn't be. It's the person that was fearless, uninhibited, true to herself, brave, and you still have pieces of her or him.
But there's a lot of junk in the way. There's a lot of pressure to not be silly, not be loud, not speak your mind. That version of you is ready to wake up, and that version of you is ready to dance and sing and play and be present. At my Awakened Mother retreat just recently, we did some similar type of work with a focus on AWAKENING. One of the reviews after the retreat was, “I catch myself singing and dancing so much more than I did before.”
She's awakening her inner child! When we awaken this part of us, then we're going to feel a joy that's not very deep anymore. I feel like I share this sometimes, and people think I'm weird.
There's this song called Numb Little Bug, and if you listened to my podcast 2.22 on Reparenting – you also had the opportunity to hear me sing it. (LOL)
Here's how it goes:
Do you ever get a little bit tired of life?
Like you're not really happy, but you don't want to die.
Like your body's in the room, but you're not really there.
Like you have empathy inside, but you don't really care.
Like you're fresh out of love?
But it's been in the air in my past repair?
A little bit tired of trying to care when I don't.
A little bit tired of quick repairs to cope.
This song is kind of where I've been the last couple of years. 😭😭😭
I mean, from brain surgery to my parents’ divorce, to miscarriage, to having a really sick pregnancy, to all of the little micro issues that have happened from monthly instacare visits, hospitalization, bottle-feeding pup – I don't even post the half of it. WE ALL HAVE HARD THINGS.
I am so grateful for my life.
But I made the mistake of thinking I was doing amazing, because I have "handled it" all.
It's one thing after the next, and it's been knocking me down, knock me down, knock me down, knock me down. And then I just feel numb and tired and Ugh.
And I'm operating from this place that's triggered and reactive.
I have recognized this.
That's step one.
Are you here with me? Feeling reactive?
It's time to take back our power.
It's time to rise to be the parent you want to be the parent from an intentional place.
And we're going to do this in the Rise Challenge.
So my Coachee turned friend, Krystal said,
“The biggest thing you taught me was that parenting isn't so much about the kids as it is about me. I went to you thinking my kids were the problem when in reality it was actually me. And I don't mean that in a bad way.
I just didn't know any better. But you've taught me the tools. You've helped me heal for my childhood, and you've given me hope. Since I found you, I've been able to have glimpses of the mom I truly can be.”
That is when I knew that I had to create a course that did this, that helped you see the glimpses of the mom that you truly can be because all of you have that inside of you.
Why Join Rise?
This 21-day challenge will help you connect with your inner child healing that needs to happen to become that patient, regulated parent that you desire.
It will help you to begin to deconstruct and recognize when you're triggered responded in a productive way and understand that underneath behaviors, our feelings, and needs. And that goes for our behaviors, not just our kids.
So when we have an outburst, there's an intense emotion going on underneath us. Or when our friend says that to us, we can understand, oh, they're in a triggered space that they don't actually mean that. (life lessons!)
When we can look at behavior like that, we're going to show up so much differently for all of our relationships.
In each short video, prompt or activity, you'll have a clear takeaway that can apply to daily life. Trust the experience and the research from the evidence-based, parent-tested strategies through simple steps.
Each day we are going to together pave the way to emotionally healthy family culture.
Details:
21 days of teaching – Do the challenge with us June 1-21, or take it at our own pace)
21 emails – Every day of the challenge an email will be sent to you and it will have a link to the daily prompt or video
Join an exclusive Facebook group in the Rise Challenge!
FAQ:
How much time is required each day?
Some are prompts, activities, and videos, there is one mediation and one breathwork. Videos range from 2-15 minutes. I know it can be hard to find 15 minutes as a busy mom, but for 21 days, WE GOT this!!!
What if I can't commit to those dates?
That's 100% ok, this course can be taken in 1 weekend or in 21 years. You can go at your own pace!
Will I only have access for 21 days?
NOPE! This is lifetime access, so once you join the course you can take it as many times as you want!
Can I do this with my partner?
Yes! You can do this solo (and most people will), but if you want to really make dreams come true, get the whole family involved.
We will start altogether. We will do it together. We will cheer each other on. I hope to see you there.
xo