Transcript
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Gissele: Hello and welcome to the love and compassion podcast with Gissele.
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Please look out for the information coming out in March. On today’s podcast, we’ll be talking about [00:01:00] punishment free parenting. Our guest today is Rebecca Wolf. She is author of the book, The Gift of a Punishment Free Childhood. She is a parenting mentor, educator, and mother. She supports parents through mentoring and workshops and navigating their parenting journeys.
Using punishment free practices, however, her most important work was raising her own children without punishment. Her extensive personal experiences, contribute to her ability to guide others on their parenting journeys. Rebecca is a certified parenting educator for the redirecting children’s behavior program.
and has conducted extensive research on how punishment impacts children’s behavior. Rebecca has a Ph. D. from the University of Northern Colorado in education and has been a lifelong teacher and learner. Please join me in welcoming Rebecca. Hi, Rebecca. [00:02:00] Hello.
Rebecca: Thank you,
Gissele: Giselle. As I was saying to you before, I love your book.
Absolutely love it. I wish I had found this book earlier in my parenting experience. Because I feel like my husband and I really had to struggle to learn by making lots of mistakes with our kids.
So I wish we had found your book. And so I was strongly encouraging my listeners, especially who are starting out in the parenting journey, or even if they have kids today, because you talk about teens to get it. Can you tell the audience a little bit about how you decided to go punishment free?
Rebecca: Yeah, absolutely. So, as you shared in my biography, I was trained to work for the Redirecting Children’s Behavior Parenting Workshops. And in that work, it, it, There still was punishment included, but it really started to emphasize the idea of redirecting right rather than punishing. Let’s [00:03:00] redirect.
And so I had kind of this solid foundation. And but what I’ll share is that it was really when I started thinking about some of the crises that we’re seeing. In the world now. I live in Colorado. And so the Columbine high school shooting that happened back in 1999 was pretty impactful for me. I spent a lot of time thinking about that, thinking about that family, those parents you know, the parents on both sides, the parents of the shooters, the parents of those who lost their lives that day.
And there are many, many factors that go into a situation like that.
But
Rebecca: it was clear that the reason those two boys walked into that high school was to punish their classmates. And so I’m like, why do we think that that is the solution? And if you think about it, it’s because that’s what most, most children, it’s how they are.
It’s the relationship they have with their [00:04:00] parents. It’s their primary relationship is one of love. When I misbehave, I’m punished. And if we can shift that paradigm where making a mistake or even misbehaving is actually just an opportunity to learn rather than to be punished, could we shift that paradigm around punishment?
We also know that that on a, not a significant scale, but still very important is that our adult relationships are very much informed. By how we relate to our parents. And so we see punishment in in our intimate relationships as well as relationships At work and with friends, so I decided with I had two children already who are about 10 and 12.
I was divorced and remarried and had to two fresh souls. They were brand new and 2 years old. And I said, I’m [00:05:00] going to conduct a social experiment. Can we raise children without punishment?
Gissele: I completely resonated with what you wrote about the fact that, it trickles down.
It starts in the home, right? Like we’re taught to punish, we’re taught to have violence. Like if you spank your children, for example, and then these individuals go out in the world. And like you said, like, if you look at everything, it is about punishment.
You, you do commit a crime, you go to jail. Like all of these things are about punishment and power. And a little bit later, I want to talk about the difference between like, I don’t know, true power and force. But the first thing I did want to say was like. How courageous of you to actually even try to parent your kids without punishment, because I think one of the first thoughts that came into my head was, well, then how did you do discipline, right?
How did you navigate those difficult moments where you sometimes feel like you, you don’t know what to do? can [00:06:00] you share a little bit about that?
Rebecca: Yeah, absolutely. You know, and it’s, it’s interesting.
Another conversation I had not too long ago, the question was, well, if you don’t punish your children, they’ll have no moral compass. Right? And so I think that gets at the meat of this question as well. So, you know, I had that same fear. I will be honest. I’m like, oh my gosh, am I going to just wreck these children?
But I, I had to try. And What I discovered is that once you build that relationship with your child for one, it becomes easier, but you’re right in those early stages, having to be creative and having to pause and think, okay, how am I going to address this behavior? It was a little bit challenging. You know people are when they hear punishment free, they sometimes think, oh my gosh, these children are just going to run wild and, you know, they’ll run the household and, and that is, not true, right?
as a parent, you’re still definitely [00:07:00] parenting. You’re still providing discipline, but it’s really through teaching. Right. And I think it’s why I love the title of your podcast, right? It is through love and compassion, right? It’s being that support structure for them. You know, a child who grows up in a family where they feel supported and loved will thrive.
So much better than someone who is notI can start with an example, you know, let’s say that a child is four years old, right? and you’ve had breakfast and like we’re gonna go to the zoo today and but before we go I’m gonna put these dishes in the dishwasher and if you could put your blocks away and Then we will be ready to go.
So now it’s time to go, and the blocks aren’t put away. The easy answer to that, right? Because punishment is easy, and that’s why we fall back on that so often. The easy thing to do is say, You’re in trouble, I told you to pick [00:08:00] up those blocks. And depending on the situation, We’re not going to go to the zoo today.
Or, when we get home, you’re going to spend an hour in your room. Or, you know, whatever, whatever happens with that particular. Situation instead, right? Instead of reacting my kind of my three stage process, right? Is the first thing you do is just observe, right? and and describe your observation, right?
Because it’s easy for us to. To go right into blame and what’s wrong. So you just state calmly the observation. Hey, you know, we were going to have the house cleaned up. I was going to do dishes and you were going to clean up the blocks before we went. And I can see that the blocks aren’t picked up, right?
It’s just an observation. And so then, of course, the child would probably be a little sheepish or maybe come up with a few excuses. And so at that point, you would say, you know, it’s going to it’s important to do what you say you’re going to do. And for us to work. [00:09:00] You know, to make this happen, let’s take a few minutes and get these blocks cleaned up, right?
So then they feel that support, right? They feel that connection with you. You make sure that they help you, right? I’ll put in one block and you throw two blocks in or whatever and get the blocks cleaned up and go have a great time at the zoo, right? And because you’ve built that relationship, because they’re starting to see the importance of that, they are actually much less likely to not do what you’ve agreed to do in the future.
So your parenting as your child matures and develops actually gets easier because you have that strong relationship.
Gissele: Yeah, and this is so powerful because I think, you know, people think that the, the power over approaches, the spanking, the punishment gives them power. But the truth of the matter is it takes a lot more power, self power to stop regulate ourselves, then be able to support the child.
And I’ve noticed that in [00:10:00] myself, like I grew up in a household where we were hit, and. love my parents very much and they’re wonderful people, but they were also people who were taught that they were taught that hitting was acceptable.
And so I remember one time when. My sister and I were getting hit. I remember noticing in my mom’s face, the anger, the frustration, like it was almost like she was like you said in the book, like venting her own anger at life, at frustration things. And I remember looking at her in the face and I was like.
Wow. I never wanted to do that to my child. And I didn’t really respect my parents growing up. I mean, to be honest, we didn’t have established that relationship. It was that power over relationship. but what I hadn’t noticed is that when I decided not to spank my children.
I didn’t realize that I wasn’t still using power over approaches in a different way. I was using the timeouts. Then definitely the taking away stuff was something that we would do like, Oh, we can’t [00:11:00] do that. Or we would do that. Or we would do the fake taking away. We’d never took away anything, but we always talked about taking away, which was like, Right.
I have a great relationship with my children. Thank goodness. I kind of had to learn by realizing I’m tired of this power struggle, tired of this. It’s so overwhelming. Can I ask, how did you get to the point where you were able to look at your own responses and pause?
Because sometimes I notice that I like my default was to react first and then reflect later. How did you get to the point where you were able to just kind of go, okay, I need to create some space between my reaction and the response.
Rebecca: Yeah, you know, I will tell you that that just takes practice.
Right? So, and I did, like I said, have the benefit of that previous work of redirecting. And, and so one of the examples that I use in the book came from that and I talked with lots of parents [00:12:00] about this, which I think really helped. Right. But if two children are fighting and we know if this could be siblings, it could be cousins, right?
It could be someone has a friend over often, you know, you’re going to have those disagreements and. Children don’t have filters like we do to control their emotions as well. So typically it’s high energy, lots of anger, lots of frustration. And thinking through the idea let’s say you’re in the kitchen and you hear this and, and it just, you’re like, Oh, I hate when my kids fight.
Right. I see it as a. As me not being a good parent. So now all of my self worth stuff comes up, right? Just as an example. And so now my energy is up. And I storm into the room. And I say, why are you fighting? And we don’t fight. Right? And what I’ve done is I’ve added fuel to the fire. I’ve just contributed even more negative energy to that room.
And so recognizing that, right, it really is a very, [00:13:00] very conscious approach to parenting rather than from the hip. And so walking in, you know, before you walk into that room, deep breath, I need to be the calm person here. I need to bring calmness. To this situation, because that’s what I want my Children to learn.
I want them to learn that you can address conflict without having it escalate so much. And it’s going to help me facilitate them, you know, coming back together and figuring out how to solve this issue.
Gissele: And I think you mentioned one really fundamental thing that I think I’ve noticed in myself. Was that the.
The underlying or undercurrent of feelings that we don’t realize are happening, like feelings of self worth or feelings of like adequacy as a parent that we don’t know are kind of running in the background that cause us to react like when I. I’m triggered by something. My first question to myself is, okay, why am I being triggered?
What’s going on for me? But that took a lot of [00:14:00] work for me to get there because before it was just kind of like knee jerk reaction, right? It just triggering or seeing like it’s somebody else’s fault, like blaming our kids for causing that. And I’m lucky to have a partner where we can have discussions.
And so one of our issues was cleaning. I grew up in a household where everything had to be showroom home. And so cleaning was a real source of stress for me. And I was making my kids so miserable over the cleaning. So one of the things I love in your book that you say is like, okay, first of all, you got to let go of the perfectionism.
That’s got to go. That’s going to scale down. And what I came to realize a while back, cause I was making myself miserable too, is that I kind of let it go. I kind of just. Said to them, look, this is about your contribution. This is about you learning to take care of your personal body and your, your house, like your space.
And then these are the expectations in terms of us cohabitating together. And, you know, like, the [00:15:00] expectation is that once a week, we do our chores and. Then I let go of my resistance and if they didn’t do it one week, they didn’t do it one week, if they was two weeks and it was two weeks and if I really wanted it done because somebody was coming over, I would ask them, but if it wasn’t, if they weren’t able to do it because they’re like, I’m so busy or whatever, I would do it myself and switching that approach.
Really helped me and it was so helpful to see in your book, it outlined like in terms of like, oh, yeah, that it’s true that that does work when you let go of the resistance within yourself, but you really have to have kind of that. Insight, right? You do.
Rebecca: It’s really, you know, that emotional maturity, that emotional intelligence, right?
I mean, that’s when, when people are like, Oh, you’re just taking the easy route, not punishing. There’s nothing. This isn’t an easy route, right? This is a, this is a route that does require you to, to be self aware, right? That’s why there’s a whole chapter about [00:16:00] that, right? It requires you to be kind of conscious.
Yes. You know, about what you want. But yeah, you’re exactly right. And, and, you know, chores and contributions to the household. You know, everything in the book I say really is depends on your family and your values, right? And your children, you know, anyone listening who has more than one child knows that it’s almost astonishing how different children can be in the same, in the same household.
And so I would, you know, especially like with their rooms, it’s their room, right? And if I, if I want that room to be clean, like we said, then maybe I should go in and clean it. But if they don’t want it to be clean, you know, then it doesn’t have to be clean to my standard. Now, you have a conversation with them that says, you know, the, here’s just the basics, you know, you can’t.
You know, you can’t leave food in the room because then, you know, we have problems. So, you know, let’s just all make sure we bring dirty dishes down
So if a child doesn’t want their, [00:17:00] you know, and I don’t want to say the child doesn’t want their room to be clean. I think most humans have an instinct to have at least some order and some cleanliness. It’s just that that threshold is different. It’s going to be different based on your child and it’s going to be it’s we see it in our in our partners.
Our partners probably have a different threshold. You know, I’m oftentimes grateful that my partners threshold is lower because then I know that if I don’t get to get to something, it’s not going to bother them so much. But But having those conversations about what does it mean to have organization to be clean and to have their input for a parent to go in and say, you know, I need I need your bedroom cleaned at least once a week.
And to this level, right? I mean, just as I say that I can just feel how overwhelming that could be for a child, right? Whereas if I said, Hey, let’s, you know, let’s talk about what it means to have a clean room. What’s important to you,let’s talk about, you know, how, where your toys [00:18:00] are, you know, and let them say, What’s important to them.
And then that then it’s much easier to get them to collaborate. They have to have a voice in it in the work that happens around the home.
Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that. Two things that really stood out to me as you were talking and, and what I remember from the book is number one, giving. It’s not a permission, but just acknowledging that children need different parenting styles.
Like each child is unique in that we’re not going to try to cut and paste between children because they will need different things and they will come with different challenges. I have a boy and a girl my girl is older, my son is younger. They each come with different challenges and different things that I, that my husband and I are navigating through and I’m lucky enough to have a partner that is able to help me co parent.
And so I think that that is really, really important. And the other thing you said, I think, is. The [00:19:00] child’s right to have voice and participation. And I love that you’re saying that because I think historically, children really aren’t seen as having agency or that should have agency. It’s usually if you go to a doctor, the doctor talks to the parent, not the child usually.
What feedback have you received about the role of voice and participation in children in some of the parents that you have done work with?
Rebecca: Yeah, that’s a great question. I’m going to add one thing when you’re talking about children needing different approaches. Your child’s developmental stage also Changes as they grow up, right?
So you are constantly changing your parenting to meet the point in time where, you know, what your child needs back to the agency. You know, I think what I have found to be the most gratifying about that concept is that. It is typically the solution when a, when a parent is having a problem with the child [00:20:00] and when I say, give them a voice, you know, have a conversation about this and then they do it and they see the results.
That, that’s when it makes the most sense and that’s what I have seen the best. You know, I had not too long ago like a middle school aged person who just would not get out of bed in the morning, right? Just didn’t want to. And so we talked about. You know, giving her more voice, not even around just bedtime and getting up and all that, but around the house, right?
Because I think that it’s, it’s not unusual for us to want to keep our children young, right? It’s, it’s hard to watch them mature and grow. And so I think, especially in that age group from like, 11 to 12. Yeah. 14. There’s a part of you that wants to keep them young, but that is when they are, they are ready.
They’re ready to start having that voice. They’re ready to be making decisions on their own. And the more they can do that while they are [00:21:00] in the comfort of your own home, where you’re providing that safety net, if they make a mistake, the better, right? You want them to be able to go out into the world and make decisions on their own rather than.
Gissele: Then you having to tell them how to do things. So I would say by giving children voice one, it definitely makes for a much more peaceful household. And two, you know, I say this all the time in the book, we’re not raising children. We’re raising adults, right? We want to give them every tool we can Yeah, thank you for that. Just because I, you know, I’m smiling as, as you were talking currently we’re having an issue with one of our Children that they have a hard time getting up early in the morning and they could just, I mean, One of my children could literally sleep all day and that’s kind of a developmental stage as well.
Like, you know, like sleep is important at this time. They’re growing brains, they’re growing. But I find it interesting that you made that connection to agency because he’s the youngest. [00:22:00] I saw the kids the youngest. And I do, I will reflect and say there is an element of me. That wants to mother that wants to kind of baby.
And so my other, my other child has said, you know, you baby him. And so one of the things I had to do is really reflect on because, you know we didn’t want him to miss the bus. So we would wake him up, but it was always a struggle. And then, you know, like. I was talking to my husband and I’m like, should we just let him sleep in and just like miss class and then manage, like, have the consequences of that, those experiences and that’s kind of where we landed, but it’s been really uncomfortable in terms of like, okay, well, this is now what’s going to be.
How did you make the connection between sleeping in, in like having more choice in the household? Like, how did that come together? Because that’s pretty, it’s got
Rebecca: me
Gissele: reflecting on like, yeah,
Rebecca: maybe he needs
Gissele: to step up in power.
Rebecca: Yeah. Well, it’s because usually misbehavior, which in many ways this is right, [00:23:00] is the result of Kind of pushing back, especially, you know, when they’re older, it’s a way of saying, you know, I’m in charge of myself.
And, and I mean, to take this idea to an extreme situation, right is is when we see eating disorders. In young people, and it’s because they oftentimes not always, but oftentimes it is because there’s someone in their life that is controlling absolutely everything. You’ll do this at this time. You’ll do this this way, right?
I know best, you know, you’ll be happier if you do it my way to even put a positive spin on it. Right? I can keep you from making mistakes. You need to listen to me. Right? And so. They find something that they have control over. Right. So, and, and often to, you know, eating, it’s hard to force somebody to eat something, right.
And [00:24:00] it’s hard. And so typically at that age, if there’s misbehavior, that’s part of the problem. They need that, that voice. Right. So, and I do, I think, you know, I think your approach makes sense, you know, let him see why this is important from his own lens, right? And it’s, this is always the the balance with any approach to parenting, right?
Is when do you let them learn from, from these mistakes? And then when do you kind of help them through these mistakes, right? So you certainly, if he’s late to school one day a week. You, that’s probably fine. And the teacher is going to eventually say you’re missing points and you know, however that works.
Now, if it’s a situation where he’s late every single day, where it’s compromising his education, then a parent needs to step in, right? And so it’s finding that balance that works for you and your family and your children in helping them learn. You know, the [00:25:00] example I give in the book, and I think this is hard.
For some parents, but it’s when students, when children are forgetful, right? And so it’s finding that fine line of when do you run back? You know, I think I give the example of like a musical instrument. They have band that day. They let their clarinet at home and kind of my recommendation. And of course it always depends is if you can bring them that recorder.
Or bring it to them, right? But if you can’t, because all of us have very busy lives. I mean, if I have a meeting with my supervisor, I can’t drop everything and bring that recorder. And so, but rather than saying, you know, this will teach you to forget, right? Say, give them tools. So, you forgot your recorder.
I, we can’t help you and get it to you. Can you talk to your teacher, you know, or can you explain to [00:26:00] them, or is there. You know, instruments that can be loaned, help them problem solve on because they feel supported in this. Right. That actually enables them in remembering versus if they just get in trouble, all that does is make them feel angry and it actually inhibits
Gissele: memory.
Yeah. And it can cause some shame and guilt, right? I think, so what we would do historically in the past is like we would bring it to them, but there was a whole lecture that would go with that. Right. And so you’re still punishing, like, you’re still giving them the gear. So like, Oh, I did that because we were put out.
But then I had to reflect on that and say, you know, this is not like, it was about the energy behind it. It was about the intent. Like, is my intent to punish or to like, pass on my frustration to you? Or is my intent to teach you something? Right. And so, and, and that. That has [00:27:00] really gone a long way in terms of impacting my relationship with my kids, whom I love more than anyone, like anything in this world, right?
Of course. And I always wanted to have a good relationship because I didn’t always feel like I had that closeness with my parents that I wanted.
Rebecca: So another, another helpful tool when you’re thinking about how you approach someone who’s a child who’s made a mistake. Forgotten something. If your partner called you, you’re, you’re at home and your partner called and said, Oh, I’m about 10 minutes away. I just realized I left my laptop, laptop on the kitchen sink or kitchen counter.
Right. Would you, would you stop and take that laptop to them? Or would you say, Oh, nope, sorry. You’ve got to learn not to forget things. Right. It’s yeah, I would take it. Yeah. How we. Almost set a higher bar for these young people who are brand new to the planet, still trying to figure everything out. We almost set a [00:28:00] higher bar for them than we do for the adults in our lives.
And so something to keep in mind is, is as much as possible, don’t say something to a child that you would never say to an adult.
Gissele: I love that. And it goes to my next question of like, it was very clear to me in your book that you were talking about the difference between power versus force or coercion and punishment.
It’s usually about coercion or force. Can you talk a little bit about that distinction?
Rebecca: Absolutely. Yeah. You know, I would say that, you know, I think in that conversation, it’s a lot around how easy it is to use that power or to use power for coercion, because it works. Right. And it works everywhere.
Right. It works at a national political scenario and it works in our own homes. Right. And so if I’m bigger, stronger and control the food, [00:29:00] right, I can coerce you into doing almost anything. Right. So do this or I’m going to spank you or I’m going to take something away because these humans are so dependent on us.
They really have no choice but to comply. So it does become very coercive. Right. And, and same would be true if, you know, if, if you know, someone came up to you with, you know, threatening you in a physical way, you would respond and probably do what they wanted. So, you know, it’s really an abuse of power in, in that situation, right.
To use it to control somebody’s behavior,
Gissele: truly empowered people don’t need to disempower others, including children. Exactly. they regulate themselves and are able to do that so that they can then hold space and then help navigate. And I wanna talk a little bit about, since you mentioned compassion because parenting fails can cause a [00:30:00] lot of shame and guilt.
’cause we all like, at least for me, I want to be the best mother that I can be for these kids. I love them so, so much. And I’ve really had to use compassion to reflect on all my parenting mistakes like I’ve made so many in one of the things I did do right, though, is that I did top conversations with my children and say, look, I’m, I’m not always going to get it right.
I’m going to make lots of mistakes and I’m. But I will come and apologize for that. And we can have this conversation and I want you to feel okay and telling me when I’m making a mistake and they do like, trust me, they do. But that was 1 of the things is I didn’t want to seem infallible. As sometimes kids can see.
Can think their parents are, and then they kind of fall off a pedestal, Sowhat is the role of compassion in terms of helping parents become better parents?
Rebecca: You know, it’s interesting that. You know, as, as you get to the end of the book, and, you know, I’ll kind of give, give away the [00:31:00] ending, so to speak, you know, spoiler alert, is that what I realized is the gift of a punishment free childhood is really the gift to the parent, because.
Having to control somebody’s behavior, getting everything the way that you want it having to meet out punishment, all of that is exhausting.
And when
Rebecca: I didn’t have to do that, it was incredible. When I looked back at my experience of, of being a parent, it was Incredibly improved when I stepped away from that and the getting to answer your question, what I really recognized in that is that expression that as without so within.
Right? And so, as you are compassionate to others, you tend to be compassionate to yourself, right? If you’re punishing to others, you tend to be punishing to yourself. [00:32:00] Right. And so I think that that concept of compassion in parenting is to recognize the value of compassion and that the more you engage in, in having compassion in relationships, the more compassionate you are with yourself.
And it just makes for a much better. Life and much better experience, right? When you can be kind to yourself and when you’re kind to others, because it, it, it works the other way, right? If you can’t be kind to others, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll ever be kind to yourself.
Gissele: Yeah, yeah, so true. And the other thing I was thinking as you were talking was you know, we tend to have this parenting pressure, which makes you think of like, you know, when you’re a grandparent, there’s sort of not the same pressure.
You can actually enjoy them more. So the gift of your book is being able to help parents enjoy their parenting journey, which I think is so, so important. This also goes to the concept of [00:33:00] fear and the reason why I think people have struggled to practice, right? Can you talk a little bit about the role of how fear really prevents us from practicing a punishment free parenting style?
Rebecca: Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think that’s the core, right? I think that’s the key question today is you know, fear it’s a powerful force. Let’s start with that. And as a parent, there are so many fears. Right. So, you know, if I, you know, my initial fear, you know, I’m conducting a social experience experiment on my children, am I going to wreck them?
Right. That, that foundational fear and what, what I had to approach, right. Yeah. But, oh my gosh, there’s so many fears that come into play. One is, is you’ve already mentioned too, is the fear of not being needed, right? You want that. It feels wonderful to mother a child.
And so, or to father, right, to any kind of parent, right.
And so the fear of [00:34:00] not being needed is one that can get in the way of this the fear of not being in control. I think that, I mean, that was certainly something that, that I learned in my life, right. When I started out, I, I tell people the story that there was a time in my life with my first child that I thought I could actually control what happened at.
a three year old birthday party. And it was such an eye opening experience to me when it just was a disaster, right? Where everything that could go wrong did go wrong, and you know what? Everybody still had fun, and we still celebrated, and the children didn’t know any different. The children didn’t know that the birthday candles weren’t the right color or whatever the issue was.
And so I think having to control situations is something that many, many people have to address. And certainly I was one of them. So fear of not having control or fear of losing control. There’s just [00:35:00] numerous fears that, that we, that we have to face. When parenting, right? The end, the worst, right? The fear of losing your child, right?
And so even the fear of them getting hurt. And so all of that. And I mean, recognizing that fear doesn’t It doesn’t prevent bad things from happening. All it does is create restriction within us. And so it’s it’s, it’s part of the, of the work, right? It is recognizing when I’m coming from a place of fear, recognizing that that is probably creating that restriction, right?
Or resistance, and then moving beyond it. And there’s not an easy answer there, but it is, it is important to recognize, you know, recognize what fear feels like in your body so that you can start to be more aware. Like, you know, how do I, how does my stomach feel when I’m. [00:36:00] fearful or how is my breath and heart rate when I’m fearful, right?
So that you can begin to say, now, wait a minute, this is coming from a place of fear. And, you know, is it rational? I mean, sometimes it is right. We don’t, there are situations where we have to tell our child, no, you can’t do that because you could die, but, you know, really recognizing where fear is having a too much voice.
Gissele: Yeah, very true. Is this the approach you used when dealing with like maybe judgments from other people’s on your parenting styles when you started your experiment? Because that’s the other fear, the fear of being judged, right? That’s the thing that I, especially in mothers, we seem to be judged in so many different ways.
Oh, that kid should have a sweater or you’re not doing this right. Or I think that that fear of being judged is real, right? Feels real.
Rebecca: Oh, it’s very real. Absolutely. Yeah. And it’s one of the things that I talked to parents about when we’re, that they will hear that, right? They’ll most [00:37:00] likely hear it within their own family.
They’ll hear it from friends, right? That, that this, this will never work. Right. That you’re, that you’re not thinking soundly in, in taking this approach. And, and so all I can really tell parents is you just have to be courageous and you just have to say, this is important to me. And this is, this is what I’m going to do, but you will hear it.
I mean, I still hear it. Right. And I have been on, on other podcasts where people have said, you’re, you know, have stated all those things. Now. You know, I have Children that demonstrate that this really does work. it’s amazing how positive the effect is. On children once they get to be young adults, and, you know, I was one of them.
We were at a family gathering and someone said, well, you know, how did I gave the book to somebody who was about to have a baby? And they’re like, well, [00:38:00] how did that work? And, you know, all of that. And I said, well, let’s ask because one of my daughters was there and what was interesting for them. It’s a little hard to articulate because they don’t know anything different.
Right? They don’t know what it would be like, but. This particular daughter, she said, one of the things that my friends tell me all the time is that I hardly ever get angry. That it takes a lot for me to, to get to that angry point. And she said, and I think that’s, that’s because of this, because one, you know, one of the exercises I do with parents all the time is I have them remember a time that they were punished and what that.
Does is it makes them realize that when, when you punish someone, they’re not learning, right? They are angry. They are defensive. I would imagine some, you know, that’s the typical one. Some of them would actually like, just feel really bad about [00:39:00] themselves. Right.
But
Rebecca: all punishment does is really trigger all those feelings.
And. When they’re not, you know, being punished the whole time that they’re growing up, at least at home, then, you know, they’re that that anger doesn’t doesn’t build up and I will say the teen years were much easier because they weren’t angry.
Gissele: Yeah. Oh, so good. I just want to applaud the courage that it takes to do something different from the norm because there is so much push to do things a specific way.
But thank God hindsight is 20 20 in the sense that we know enough that our parenting practices that we had, like letting your kids cry, thank God we don’t do that anymore. It was awful. I’m so glad that we have the capacity to learn.
I’m curious as to your insights around Santa and lying, because you, you have a little section of lying and each of my kids reacted very [00:40:00] differently. 1 of my kids reacted with absolute betrayal. Like, what else are you lying to me about? And we had to go through like, you know, tooth fairy and so on and so forth.
And there, there was like upset for at least a little bit, like a day or so. And then the other child was sort of like, kind of thought it wasn’t true. And so it’s, it’s so interesting to see And originally when we had children, my husband and I didn’t want to do the santa thing.
We didn’t want to lie. We wanted to be truthful but cave to the pressure of everyone else telling us. Well, our kids are going to believe, are your kids going to tell our kids and then what’s going to happen there and you’re robbing them of the magic of Christmas and so on. So I’m curious as to what your advice on this matter would be.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Gissele: Yeah.
Rebecca: Yeah. So we did, we did do Santa and Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy and all of that. Right. I think that and I would say to that, that it’s, it’s kind of what you stated, it’s [00:41:00] It’s part of our culture, right? It’s a, it’s a cultural norm for children to have that time of believing in, in all of that.
I think from a developmental stage, it’s in some ways appropriate for very young children, right? They live in a world of imagination. Make believe. Of not. Really understanding reality and really not understanding lying. So to your point, I know I do talk about lying quite a fair amount in the book. And it truly fascinates me.
Right. You know, as I had my journey on this planet, one of the things that I’ve really realized about lying,for a long time, I was, it would make me so mad when people would lie to me. And so I’d have to really go. So, and then I got to the point of why does that bother me so much? And then I got to the point where it’s like.
I am going to take responsibility when people lie to me. And why have I created a situation where this person can’t be truthful with [00:42:00] me, right? So almost taking some ownership over lying. And so I probably to talk about it almost too much in the book, but it, it’s a fascinating topic. You know, one piece of it is developmentally, a child doesn’t really understand the concept of lying until they’re about four years old.
So to punish a two year old or three year old for lying, it’s just totally confusing to them because they don’t even understand the concept of it. And then, you know, a lot of the approaches that we take with parenting, we put our children in situations where we probably would lie to if we were in that situation, right?
Very true. Back someone into a corner and tell them they’re a bad person because they did this. And you know, if you don’t admit that you did this and I mean, we’ve just, we’ve cornered them literally. Yeah. And, and. And any human in that situation is likely to lie. And so [00:43:00] it’s, yeah, it
Gissele: goes back to what you say.
If you’re going to get punished for lying, why would you admit to it? Like, unless it, you know, unless your approach is one of fostering truth in that, you know, we’re learning from this as an opportunity. It’s not like, but how we react to lying at times based on our whole punishment approach in our society, no wonder people don’t want to tell the truth.
They don’t want to get punished. Right. And like, that makes a lot of sense. And this goes along the lines of cheating. And I love what you said.
And what you said about it just made so much sense. Can you share with the audience what you said about kids that cheat at games in particular? I thought it was like, wow, it just kind of blew my mind. So yeah,
Rebecca: yeah, well, it’s, you know. Cheating is there. It’s kind of that self preservation, right? They’re, they’re doing it because they you know, I think the example with the game is that they were tired of losing and how [00:44:00] that made them feel.
And so helping them understand that they That, you know, there’s other ways that you wouldn’t want somebody cheating, right? If, if your friend cheated, how would that make you feel? And really just having that conversation around cheating, but we don’t want to say you’re a bad person, right?
We should never say that to our children. You know, it’s, there is, there is inappropriate behavior and we help them recognize. What’s appropriate and what’s inappropriate.
Gissele: Yeah. And to add to that
what really resonated with me in the book, you’re talking about how sometimes really high achieving homes where there’s a level of perfectionism and a level of expectation of high achievement, then the individuals are more likely to cheat because. They want to be seen as winners. They want to be seen as people that are accomplishing.
And I was like, wow, that really resonated with me because it’s not about the cheating itself. It’s about other factors, like very similar to what you were talking about, the [00:45:00] sleeping and the having agency and participation.
Sometimes it’s not what you think, which,really is, completely fascinating to me. some parents like me are going to find this book kind of later in life and they’re still going to be grateful for it. But I was just wondering if you can name one thing that parents can start to do today to begin parenting in a punishment free way.
Rebecca: No, that’s a great question. You know, I think, you know, I ideally it be, it becomes a, we’re gonna have a punishment free household. Right? To, to, to do it halfway can, can kind of be confusing for children, right?
Because then they don’t know. When will I be punished? When will I not be punished? Right? So, I want to, you know, just have that out there as well, but certainly anything we can do towards moving towards punishment free, you know, I, the first thing I would say is before you [00:46:00] do something to your child, stop and ask yourself if you would want someone to do that to you.
Right. You know, I, I was reading a Brene Brown book, and I cannot remember the exact way she said it because it was phenomenal how she said it. But in essence, what she said is, we are the people who know the most about what our children value. Right. And what they love and what’s important to them. And then we need to take that and we use it against them.
Right. I mean, when the way she said it was so impactful because it was like, Oh my gosh, we’re monsters. Right now we’re not, I’m exaggerating, right. But it’s that idea of stop and think before you do something to your child, before you punish them, stop and think is what I want someone to do this to me.
Right. And, and then I would say the second thing is what we talked about early, which would be giving your children voice, you know, [00:47:00] and what I say choice and voice, right, let them make decisions, let them have a voice. And then I also have the third one in that and it doesn’t rhyme, but it’s really.
Give them that opportunity to be an expert or to share, right? Let them, let them almost like be the boss of an area or be the one who has the expertise, right? Like, wow, you know, I never played soccer growing up and you are excellent out there on the soccer field. Tell me about that. And, you know, what tips would you have for me if I decided to, you know, give them an area where they can be the center?
So
Gissele: beautiful. Was that the Atlas of the Heart you were talking about or which book?
Rebecca: Oh, I can’t remember. I’ve read several. I’d have to go look it up.
Gissele: I think the Atlas of the Heart is the big thick one. The red one. Yeah.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Gissele: It has a heart on it.
Rebecca: Yeah. I don’t think it was that one.
Gissele: Oh,
Rebecca: so,
Gissele: so a couple of last [00:48:00] questions before we get finished.
The first one is what is your definition of unconditional love?
Rebecca: Ooh. Wow. I mean, my definition of unconditional love is that you are loved regardless. Right. No matter what you do, no matter what you say, no matter how you look, no matter you, you’re loved and nothing will change that.
Gissele: one of the things that I loved about your book is the fact that you talk about, once we change ourselves and reflect in terms of, our parenting journeys and raise different children’s that are.
Rebecca: Not quick to anger and not quick to punish, that really is the path to changing the world, right? Like, if we could change ourselves and address our difficult feelings and share power with our children and enable them to have voice and participation, I think our world could look so different. My subtitle is a new way to parent for a new world.
Gissele: Absolutely. [00:49:00] So, please tell people where they can work with you, where they can get the book yeah, share with them what what you’re working on.
Rebecca: Yeah. Yeah. So the book’s available on Amazon. I think that’s probably the easiest way to access it. And you can look it up under my, my name, Rebecca Wolf, or the gift of a punishment free childhood.
And then I also have a website, and it’s http://www.rebeccawoulfe.com so R E B E C C A and then Wolf is W O U L F E. So we’d love to hear from folks and just. Especially if you’re a new
Gissele: parent, but even if you’re an older one, like me, go get The Gift of the Punishment Free Childhood.
Great, great book. Thank you so much, Rebecca, for being with us today. We had an amazing conversation and I really do see this as sort of the way of the future. And thank you everyone for joining us for another episode of the love and compassion podcast with Gissele. See you soon.
Bye.
Rebecca: Thanks everyone. Bye.
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