Would you like to make parenting easier? You’re not alone! When I work with my students in my intensive, parenting is one of the greatest sources of challenge and stress. We get basically no education in parenting before we’re sent home with babies of our own. It’s no wonder that many of us are underprepared and totally overwhelmed. Even worse, there’s so much bad advice out there promising to make parenting easier but only making you more overwhelmed. I truly think Dr. Hilary Mandzik of the Raised Resilient podcast is the best voice in the parenting space right now. This episode drops some gems, so take a listen as fast as you can!
Disclaimer: This podcast does not constitute medical advice. You should always speak to your doctor before changing your nutrition or exercise habits.
Continue the Conversation – Rock Your Wellness Podcast Official Facebook Group
Work With Me: Your Daily Journal – Wellness Reborn Intensive
Dr. Hilary: Website & Podcast – 6 Mindset Shifts to Ditch The Overwhelm
3 Ways to Make Parenting Easier– EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Lauren Chante 0:03
I am so excited for this episode today. Because after almost 15 years of working with women in the wellness space, if there’s anything that I know about what stresses us the heck out it is our parenting and our children. And I know, especially with a lot of women that I work on with emotional eating and stress eating and just struggling to just even get a routine or to get behavior change. Parenting is oftentimes a huge responsibility that’s at the root of it.
So today, I have brought on an amazing expert who I’ve been listening to for several months now and just really waiting to feel into the topic that we needed to bring to you because I really feel like I’ve been I listened to tons of parenting podcasts. I’ve been a mom for 11 years now I’ve got three kids like I’m always listening to something parenting, but I really feel like this person who I’m about to introduce is the best voice in the parenting space right now. So I’m really excited to introduce her to you.
Her name is Dr. Hillary. She is a licensed psychologist, a parenting specialists mom of three who’s passionate about helping you parent in a way that feels good for you and your child. She has an online therapy practice where she specializes in perinatal mental health and mental health for parents.
And she also has an online parenting support business, which I’m totally going to hit up soon. Where she offers virtual appearance coaching is working on an online course. She’s the host of the podcast raised resilient with Dr. Hillary which you have to go listen to you have to subscribe to it. It is on my must listen to list every week. So welcome to the show, Hilary.
Hilary Mandzik 2:23
Thank you so much for having me, Lauren. I’m so excited to be here.
Lauren Chante 2:27
Yes, I’m Oh, gosh, I can’t even tell you how happy this is like one of the episodes I was most pumped for recently. And I want you first to share. The reason that your your podcast is named raised resilient, because that really resonated with me like it’s not raised happy. It’s not raised perfectly. Why did you choose that? Share
Hilary Mandzik 2:45
that with our audience? Yeah, that is such a great question. So for me, when I came into parenting, I, I don’t know about all of you listening, but I’m imagining you had sort of a similar idea about parenting, which was that, you know, your kids have to behave a certain way. And there’s a certain right way for kids to be in public and in different settings. And there’s a right way for you to parent, and good kids don’t act up, right.
And so if we’re doing our jobs as parents, then we should have these little good quote unquote kids who just do exactly as we say, and when that doesn’t happen, we start to feel like we’re failing, right? And so there’s this whole idea of raise them, right, well, what does that mean? And so raised resilient is kind of a play on raised right, I don’t actually think we need to be focusing on these behavioral outcomes.
My whole take on behavior is that it’s communication of something else that’s going on, right. And so if we just look at the behavior, we are going to miss out on so many important things happening for our child. There’s a quote by Dr. Ross Greene, who wrote the explosive child that just transformed my parenting journey. And that is that kids do well when they can. Right.
And so if we understand kids that way, and we stopped focusing on behavior, we stopped focusing on raising them, right? My goal as a parent, right, I have three kids of my own. And my goal is to raise them resilient. And what does that mean? To me true resilience is being able to feel all the things that doesn’t mean that we’re happy all the time.
That doesn’t mean that we always feel good. Sometimes we feel like crap. And so we need to know we can get through that. We need to know that. Even the hardest feelings don’t last forever. We need to know that we can handle life’s hard seasons, we can do hard things to quote Glennon Doyle, right. Like, we need to understand that and our kids need to know that like in their bodies.
And so my whole goal for us as parents is to create a safe space for our kids to be exactly who they are. To feel all their feelings and to feel confident that not only are they good Throughout all of those emotional waves and behavioral waves, but also that they can feel these feelings and come out on the other side.
Lauren Chante 5:09
Oh, gosh, that’s so awesome. And that really, when I started listening to your podcast, it resonated with me a lot, because that describes exactly the journey that I’ve gone on as a parent. And I think as you and I have been talking behind the scenes, we’ve found so much alignment between sort of the philosophy that you take with parenting and it with wellness, which for me is is that you before you change the behaviors, you have to shift the mindsets, right, you have to change the way you think before you change the way that you act.
Because if you don’t start with the way you think it’s pretty hard to be successful with the way that you act, first of all, but also, it’s the shifting the way that you think that really changes the experience for you. Whether it’s wellness, or whether it’s parenting, it’s the thing that allows whatever space you’re in to not feel frenetic, and overwhelming and stressful and like you’re miserable, trying to do the thing, whether that thing is parenting or wellness.
And today, you’re going to share with us three pretty big chips that are going to help people feel at peace. So I’m excited to want to introduce those to our to everyone and let us know.
Hilary Mandzik 6:11
Yeah. So the first big shift and this one was a all of these were game changers for me, but I feel like this one was maybe the biggest game changer. And that is that instead of trying to fix our kids feelings, which I think you know, I came into parenting feeling like I was my job, my kids sad, make them happy, my kids mad, figure out how to get that to stop.
Yeah, that comes not from what’s right about parenting. But it comes from how we were raised. And we were raised, you know, get up, brush it off, you’re fine. Don’t cry. You know not, don’t worry about that we were shooed away from our feelings. And I think even as adults, a lot of us still struggle to feel our feelings. As a therapist, I see it all the time.
I know that for myself, I’ve had to really work on leaning into feeling my feelings. I had to figure out what does that mean, right? What does that mean for me to feel my feelings and all of our feelings originate in our bodies. And so for a lot of us, when we were shoot away from our feelings in childhood, we kind of disconnected our head from our bodies. And so it can be really hard and triggering to let a kid feel their feelings. We want to make it stop. It’s uncomfortable. It’s like an alarm that’s just buzzing and we just want it to go away. But the goal in parenting is not to fix those feelings. Instead, I like to use the phrase allow space for these feelings to exist. You know, Janet Lansbury goes a step further. And she says roll out the red carpet for the feelings like not just let them exist, because that’s kind of like a tolerating kind of energy. But she’s like, welcome them in, like, cheer them on. Yay, there’s feelings here. And I think that is, I love that because it the goal isn’t just to like, okay, let’s tolerate the fact that my kid is mad right now.
But to sort of celebrate it, like, it is a wonderful thing that your child feels safe enough to express that feeling to share it with you. And it gives your child a chance to get this super important attachment need met, which is that of getting co regulation, all of us want our kids to just be able to regulate their emotions, right? That’s, I hear this from parents all the time. I just want my kid to be able to regulate their emotions, when is he going to be able to do it on his own? When is she going to be able to handle her feelings without me? Well, in order for our kids to ever get there, we have to do something called co regulation.
And that if I could just sum it up in a simple phrase, is just our calm and safe presence, while our kid is having a feeling right. So your kids mad. You are just they’re taking deep breaths with your child saying I hear you you’re so mad. It’s okay for you to share that. And maybe your child doesn’t like to hear those words. So you can say nothing. You can just breathe. But what you’re not doing is okay, I know. I know. But you know, it’s not that big a deal. Or even we try to validate. I know you’re really mad that we have to leave the playground, but we’ve been here for an hour.
So we’re not doing that we’re not trying to get the feelings to stop. We’re not like, how do I get this kid to calm down? We’re not creating this big calm down ritual. A lot of us kind of get lost in that too. We’re like, Okay, well, if we deep breathe and we do all these things, then the feelings gonna go away. We I really
Lauren Chante 9:21
called out right now on that. Because that was definitely me for like the first six years of my parenting. I was like I had all my children had a belly breathe. And it’s right.
Hilary Mandzik 9:31
Yep, that is and you’re not alone in that. And the other thing I see all the time is I’m going to read all of these books about emotion recognition, and emotional awareness with my child and then my child is just going to magically know how to regulate emotions. Well, that’s great, like emotional vocabulary. Awesome. However, that’s not where the rubber really meets the road when it comes to building emotion regulation.
Where the rubber really meets the road is when we show through our body language in our tone and our regulated nervous system that like, this feeling is okay, this feeling is not going to engulf you, kiddo, like it’s going to pass. And when we freak out in the face of our child’s feelings, which might not look like freaking out, it might look like you’re going, okay? Okay, but like, get over with, alright, you know, like stop feeling this, when we do that we send our kids the message that this feeling is not okay, that this feeling is going to engulf them.
And so that actually just makes it harder as we go forward. So I would say this first shift is just focused, instead of trying to stop the feeling or make the feeling smaller, focus on like actually seeing how much of it needs to come out. A lot of times more feeling is in there than we realize. And so if we can really like, it’s like taking a deep breath and letting it all the way out versus just letting it out, right? Sometimes we realize there’s a lot more air in there than we realized we had. And so same with feelings, can you let your child fully express that feeling. A
nd sometimes we can’t like sometimes you’re headed to school or the grocery store. And you can’t just let the feeling come out for as long as it needs to. But you can still hold space for that feeling. Right? You might be buckling a crying child in the car seat, and you can still calmly co regulate and say, I know, I know, this is so hard, you don’t want me to buckle you, but you’re still calm. And you’re still letting them have their feeling even though you’re moving forward
Lauren Chante 11:26
with your day. So true. And I want to circle this back. Like how it makes mama feel right. And I want to share like what I’ve experienced since trying to implement this more. The first one that comes up for me is I just feel like I it takes less energy for me to do this. It’s like It’s like instead of trying to do the song and dance of helping them to calm down.
It’s like I literally can just stay grounded. And and for me that conserves my energy, I stay more emotionally regulated, and I feel better after the interaction. And for me, that’s so important because I have three children. And all of them were spirited, and they were all definitely spirited as toddlers like they are on the scale, the scale of like stubbornness, all of my children are like extremely high.
And I feel a market difference dealing with my four year old now just letting her have space for her feelings that I did with my oldest when I was always trying to calm him down and make him happy. So this translates it’s not just for our kids, it’s for us and for conserving our energy because so many moms come to me saying I’m exhausted.
And of course, part of that can come from, like nutrition and all the wellness stuff that I do. But there’s also a part of it, where we need to learn to guard our energy. And when you have, especially when you have a larger family, the I feel I don’t know how you feel with your three, how are you I feel like it is constant all day like someone is having emotions all day, the more children you have in a family, like the higher your odds that someone is going to be unhappy. It’s like as your family grows, you really have to guard your energy.
Hilary Mandzik 12:57
You sure do like my 2 oldest just went back to school today. They’re year round. They’ve been off for three weeks. I am getting so much done. And I was like why though, because they do play on their own a lot. Like what is it? And I was like, oh, because I’m not like holding space for a feeling like every five seconds. And it’s funny because literally yesterday I had to remind myself my oldest was having some resistance about going back to school because you know, it’s hard after being home for three weeks to get back in that mode of like, learn and do all this work.
And so he was kind of having some big feelings. Yesterday afternoon, I had to remind myself, I don’t have to do anything. Right. Like, I don’t have to fix this. I don’t have to make him okay with going to school. I just have to hold space. And at one point he was frustrated and use that frustration to kind of it leaked out of him in hits, he was hitting his brother. So I stopped him.
I’m not gonna let you hit your brother. But other than that, it just held space. Like I really get it. Tell me more about it. That’s all I had to do. And when I reminded myself of x, I started to feel stress was like, oh, gosh, here we go. You know, you’re gonna have this meltdown. This is the Sunday scaries I was not excited to get back to that, right. But then I was like, It’s okay. All I have to do is just be here and CO regulate and that you’re so right. Like, it is so much easier.
And I feel so much more confident. I’m not sitting here all the time going, what the heck am I supposed to be doing with this feeling? Right? And This even applies let’s say your child comes home from school and says I’m so stupid. What do we want to say? I want to say you’re not?
Lauren Chante 14:24
Yeah, you’re so tired. You read so well.
Hilary Mandzik 14:29
That’s exactly right. We want to just make it okay, and somehow convinced them that actually they’re smart. When you shift your mindset to just allow the feeling it is so much easier. Oh my gosh, you feel like you’re stupid. That is so hard to and tell me more about why you feel that way right now. And you can use language like right now that helps your child understand that we don’t have to have this fixed black and white mindset about ourselves. But you don’t have to talk your child out of that feeling and what a difference you know
Lauren Chante 15:00
Yeah, it’s such a huge difference. And I’m like, I know there’s people who are listening to this right now being like, wow, I have been really giving my energy away to the situation. And it’s, it’s, I think it’s especially helpful when you feel like you have.
Everybody has one child that maybe they feel like this, the more challenging in terms of like, you start to realize that you’re not going to be able to improve their behavior, you just have to wait for them to grow up. And that I think for some moms can be really demoralizing.
It can almost make you feel like if you don’t have the right tool set like that you’re not looking forward to mommy the next day, and then like not looking forward to waking up and getting out of bed. So I love this and so good. Because we could talk about this forever. Let’s move on to the second one. Yeah,
Lauren Chante 15:54
Hey, Rockstar, hold on the podcast, we’ll be right back. But until then, are you ready to spend 90 days of your life placing an intensive focus on your wellness so that you can show up as your biggest, baddest Rockstar self in real life? Because if so, I want you to schedule a time to talk to me about the wellness reborn 90 day intensive, this is an opportunity for action takers, who are really ready to work with chaos proof, customizable wellness strategies that are going to make it absolutely simple for you to get the physical results that you’re looking for, whether it’s more energy, feeling good in your skin, weight loss, whatever it might be, you have to do this guys, my program is proven with hundreds of women. It’s so incredible and life changing. And one of my favorite things about it is it gives you back your peace, and your presence with your family with your purpose and your passion. So head over to Laurenchante.com/explorewellnessreborn and schedule a time to chat with me, these are really casual, you don’t even have to wear a bra, no pressure, no crazy sales tactics, I just want to talk to you learn about you and let you know how this can help you change your life.
Hilary Mandzik 17:12
So the second big shift, I think a lot of us come into parenthood, I know I did feeling like we have to entertain our kids, that we have to provide them endless activities and toys, and we have to kind of be the cruise director. And when our kid is bored, that falls on us. Well, if that’s you, if you have felt like that, if you still feel like that in parenting, I’m gonna blow your mind a little bit. But that is not your job. And boredom, just like anger or sadness, or joy is a feeling and you don’t have to fix it. So going back to what we just talked about. You just let that feeling be like, Oh, I get it. You’re feeling bored. That’s uncomfortable. I wonder what you’re gonna decide to do next. Right? And that’s it. That’s all you have to do. And when we stop trying to fix boredom, and when we stop constantly supplying, well, you could do this or what about this or you forgot about your dinosaurs in your closet? Why don’t you go get them out? That’s exhausting. So again, coming back to conserving our energy. We need to just allow boredom to exist and nurture independent play. And so I talk a lot. I have a couple podcast episodes about this. But I didn’t understand this with my first child. I spent every day on the floor with him, which was fun. But also I got nothing done. And I was like, Ah, how do I how do people do this? With my second and third babies, I had found Janet Lansbury. She’s really big on independent play. And so she influenced me a lot in that arena. And so from the get go, I’m talking literally from the time they were newborns, they were on a blanket on the floor in a safe space. And I would step away and give them the space to just look around. I mean, for a newborn. They don’t even need toys. I mean, we did get toys as they grew. But I mean, everything is brand new, the ceiling fan is amazing to a newborn. And so just like letting them even the light, right? Newborns can’t see all that well. So even the light and the way it changes and you know, the sunlight coming through the window like that is mind blowing for a newborn. So when my babies were fed and rested and changed and kind of in that content happy place, which, you know, I know for some babies that happens more than others. But even if it’s five minutes here, five minutes there, I would put my babies down and I would step away and like throw in a little laundry and then come back. And so we nurtured independent play from the get go. And my daughter just played for an hour and a half this morning in what I call or gentleman’s very termed it the yes space, which is really just like a baby gated room where everything in that room is safe. There’s no choking hazards. There’s no anything that I would worry about. And of course, I can see her from the other room, and I can hear her but Yeah, she’ll go in there and just play she played for an hour and a half. She’s 20 months old. So this is just life changing. For me, like, this is how I get anything done with a toddler. And my older children play independently all the time when they’re home, too. And so if you’re listening, and you’re like, okay, but I don’t have a baby, like, is it too late? No, it’s not too late, you can absolutely start encouraging independent play. And the first and easiest way to do that is just by allowing your child would be bored. When they come to you, and they’re like, I don’t know what to do, you could just say, I get that I hate that feeling. It’s so uncomfortable. You’re going to come up with something cool to do, I just know it. And that’s it. You just hold space, you don’t have to fix it. And the more you do that, the more your child is going to start to figure out different ways to play because boredom is the gateway to creativity. And this summer, I challenged myself, I was like, Okay, I’m going to practice what I preach here. Because my kids did come to me and say, I’m bored. I said, Okay, I get that that’s really uncomfortable. And I tolerated my own discomfort, because I wanted to fix it, even now, I still want to fix it. And then a few minutes later, like magic, my eldest was like, oh, you know what, I could do this by mom. And I was like, wow, I think I was so impressed by that, that I made a real for Instagram, I was like, Okay, this stuff really, really works. You know, it’s like, you know that it works, but to see it, in an eight year old, you know, I was just like, wow, this is so cool. So if we start letting boredom just be and stop trying to constantly find the next activity for our kids to do, we can get so much more done for ourselves, we can go throw in laundry, or take a bath or read a book on the couch. And it’s totally okay. If your child comes to you and says, I want to play with you. And you say, I get that. I’m reading a book right now you can come read next to me, or you can go play in the playroom by yourself totally up to you. But you don’t have to stop reading your book, just because your kid wants to play with you. That is so
Lauren Chante 21:45
so good. And I was to say like, I did not do that with my oldest. And it’s kind of funny because they as they get older, you start to see, he’s wonderful. I’m like, so calm. But he would come to me, wanting me to fix his boredom. And this is kind of like funny, and this is why I’m sharing it. And all of his solutions were expensive. There were all these it was like, Can we get a masters and go to the arcade? Can we go to the movies? And so it’s really funny, I kind of got to the point where I was like, oh, not only is it really important to encourage independent play for your peace of mind, but also for your wall?
Hilary Mandzik 22:20
Yes. So absolutely. Right. Because otherwise they’re like, can we go to Target and get a new toy today? You just yesterday there’s it becomes endless,
Lauren Chante 22:28
guys. And it does. It feeds into like consumerism and just all these, there’s, like so many social candidates we could go on. It’s really amazing how like that I’m going off on a tangent, because I think it’s super cool. But like how like the fabric of our society really starts with how we parent doesn’t it? Like even even things, even things like feeling comfortable sitting with somebody else’s emotions, like a lot of people grow up and never learn that and so they really struggle in their marriage, because you’re living for you know, 20 3040 5060 years with another human being who has a lot of emotions, and you never gain the skills to deal with the emotions, right? It’s like, oh, my gosh,
Hilary Mandzik 23:05
I cannot tell you how much parenting has made my marriage better. Not it’s been a bigger change than being a therapist. For all these years, it’s been the biggest change of any of it because you have to really put it into action. If they’re really actively hold space for these feelings. You can’t just like sort of halfway do it. And so it’s forced me to co regulate with my partner too. And like, the growth in our marriage has just been tremendous as we’ve both tried to do this for our kids, too.
Lauren Chante 23:35
So amazing. I love that. I’m okay, tell us about thing number three.
Hilary Mandzik 23:40
Okay, thing number three is probably my favorite thing. Because I think so many of us grow up feeling like, we have to be perfect. So many of us are perfectionist or recovering perfectionist as adult women, especially I think. And so in parenting, it can feel like you really have to show up perfectly to get it right. And that if you yell or you mess up or you don’t co regulate with the feeling, but you try to fix it because you forgot or you slipped into old habits.
You can start to feel like okay, well, why am I even trying? Because this is I clearly can’t do this. So, here’s what I need you to hear. You do not have to be perfect. In fact, there’s literally no such thing as perfect parenting. It doesn’t exist. I don’t care how many podcasts you listen to, like, please do come listen to my podcast. I would love to have you listened, but you won’t be perfect after listening like you won’t. Full stop. There’s no book you can read. There’s no amount of if I just do this, I’ll be perfect.
And I think as a first time mom, I literally believe that I was like, Okay, let me just go back to all my books on attachment. Let me go listen to this podcast or that podcast. Let me really just focus on it and then I’ll just never mess up and like, I’m sorry, but that’s not reality. So instead of trying to get it right all the time, embrace that imperfection. And because here’s why. First of all, it’s better for your kid. Truly, it’s even if you could be perfect. That’s not what your child needs. For so many reasons. Donald Winnicott was a British psychoanalyst who coined the term the good enough mother. And so he found by observing mother and infant dyad, that in the beginning, moms were like trying to meet that baby’s needs perfectly. So the baby would never cry, the baby would never be hungry. But a that’s impossible and be over time. Even if you try to do it perfectly in the beginning, like, eventually, you’re going to need to use the bathroom or you’re going to have to take a phone call.
And your baby’s going to be uncomfortable for a minute. And what he found was that the attachment relationship was actually stronger, because these moms couldn’t perfectly meet their baby’s needs, that the process of rupture, which is when you don’t meet that need perfectly and repair, which is when you reconnect and say, Oh, I’m so sorry that you were crying while I was on the phone. I’m here. Now, that process is what actually strengthened the relationship. And if you think about your relationship with your partner, if you have one, you know, you can really think about if you have a fight, but you repair that fight, well, you can sort of feel into what I’m talking about here, like you emerge stronger in that dyad, than before you had that Fallout, right? Because you work through it, you spent the time and energy to repair and reconnect. And so it is better for our kids. For that reason, it actually leads to a secure attachment if you repair well.
And I have a whole podcast episode on repair. So if that’s something that you’re wondering, like, how do I do that? Even if you yell even if you completely lose it, there’s nothing you can’t repair with your child. But it’s also good for your child because it models self compassion, and that it’s okay to make mistakes. So one of my favorite things about parenting in this way that truly feels good for me and for my kids, is that not only did they get to show up, warts and all the soda why? Like, I think for a lot of us, we grew up thinking our parents were these perfect people.
And then at some point in adulthood, we realized, Oh, they’re not perfect. Maybe we realized that in therapy, or as we parented our own kids, but for me, I really don’t think my kids are ever going to have that moment of like me falling from grace, because I talk about and model all the time. I’m like, Yep, I didn’t handle that the right way. Yep, I did not handle my bad feelings the right way, when I spoke harshly to you, and I’m really sorry, I’m going to work on that. So my kids would not tell you that I’m perfect. In fact, my kids would tell you, nobody’s perfect. And we live that we don’t just say it right.
And so I think that is so important, that is such a gift to give your child like we’re not going to raise a generation of perfectionist, it’s because we are showing up authentically. And that is just gold. So embrace that imperfection. Don’t just tolerate it, but actually embrace it and invite it and make these learning and growth opportunities, you know, these mess ups.
Lauren Chante 27:57
It’s so true. And it matches what we were talking about. At the beginning when we were talking about allowing space for feelings. Like when you talk about what this does for Mom, this is another part of guarding your energy and it’s not just like, some like strategy that you can put in place.
It’s like the actual truth. Embracing imperfection is the truth and if you’re like going through parenting, trying to do everything perfectly you’re living in a in a dream world like that is not reality and so it can feel I just really invite people to like step into the fact that like this is real and and to really embrace that holy because I think that helps let go of so much anxiety and so much stress and I know for me like truly embracing imperfection has been a game changer and like you said I think my oldest yeah my oldest now from modeling repair for him.
He is like the fastest human being to apologize like on the planet and it is the most beautiful thing like he will he’ll catch himself. He’ll he’ll do something that’s a little sassy. This is a preteen or like little defiant. And I literally stop and be like, you know, I’m I’m I’m sorry, I really didn’t like the way that I was acting just there. And if he’s 11, and I’m like, Oh my God, you literally have more emotional regulation than most adults that I’ve met. So it’s like a gift for him. But really, it’s the gift that gives back to you. Right? So this Yeah, being back twice. It’s giving back when you get to let go of imperfection. And then when you get to see the fruits of that in your children.
Hilary Mandzik 29:26
Oh my gosh, 100% My oldest is the same way. He’s eight years old. And that kid has more emotional awareness. I know that I did at that age and then a lot of adults truly and I think that’s an important point about the apologies because a lot of parents still feel like you have to force your child to go say sorry, the truth is, you can do that.
But remorse is a feeling and we all have to sort of switch out of fight or flight before we feel ready to really say I’m sorry, not okay. I’m sorry. But but like the real I’m sorry. So if we force our kids to go say, sorry, we’re doing nothing except just making them say the words. B
ut when we model genuine repair, and then allow space for our kids to also do that and engage in it themselves. What happens is just amazing. Because my eight year old would do the same thing, he will come to me and he’ll say, Mommy, I’m really sorry. I’m just just hangry I shouldn’t have spoken to you that way. Y
ou know, like, he gets angry Latin, you tells me that all the time. If it comes, oh, sorry. Or I’m just really stressed about school tomorrow, I am sorry that I hit you or whatever, right? And the fact that he does that organically with no prompting, is just so beautiful to witness. And just when I think about what we’re doing for the next generation of people in marriages, and relationships, like wow, what a game changer, right?
Lauren Chante 30:45
It’s so huge. It’s so huge. And I want to bring it back to like another one, this topic. And I know you and I are actually going to do an episode on your show about this, I think about how a lot of moms struggle with exercise and working out.
And a huge part of that is because so much time is given away to managing emotions, instead of allowing space for them to, you know, playing actively with children or entertaining them, instead of allowing independent play and not embracing imperfection, because they think a lot of times, you know, if your kids are cranky, when you’re working out or they’re bored, or they’re not happy, there’s like some mom guilt that comes in.
And so a lot of women just don’t do it, especially when working out at home is your only option, as it often is when you have very small children. So like all of this serves you in every space, it serves you in the space of your mental health and your peace and protecting your energy. It serves you in the wellness space, it serves you in your marriage space.
It’s like so amazing. And I hope that like everybody’s minds are blown right now. And they’re running to your podcast. And they’re just like feeling so much lighter. And I wanted also for you to share, since you’ve become a mom, like, what has your experience been with how wellness and caring for yourself has changed? Because like you said to me earlier, you worked with children before you became a mom. So like this is Ben, you have a really interesting perspective on this, I think.
Hilary Mandzik 32:06
Yeah, so I worked almost primarily with children in the therapy space for over a decade before I became a mom myself. And so some of that was like pre becoming a psychologist, I work in residential treatment centers and therapeutic preschools. And then he also focused on kids in my doctoral studies.
And so now it’s funny because I pretty much only see adults, but I do parenting work. And what I have found is that, well, first of all, I don’t think I had nearly enough empathy for parents, like I think I thought that I did, but it’s one of those things, I feel like you can’t fully know, until you know how it feels and how you can have the best of intentions and it is so parts of parenting are so triggering. And we have to really be grounded in these perspective changes to be able to parent in a way that feels good.
And I don’t think I fully understood that that just can’t, right. And I also, you know, I, I was very, I was able to do all the things I wanted to do in terms of wellness. And so when I became a mom, I had to sort of reconfigure and figure out okay, this is important to me, I want to be moving every day, I want to be eating well.
So how do I do that while having a child and a big piece of that was figuring out how to let him entertain himself so that I could cook a healthy meal or let him be part of the cooking process if you wanted to. But that was important to me, or I have my kids right in the stroller and I so I walk an hour a day, that’s just something that I do for my own self care. It’s less exercise than it is like mental well being. And it’s both. But that’s important to me.
And so I fit that in whether or not my child wants to be in the stroller I hold space if they don’t. But that’s important to me. And so you know, and that’s something that as my kids get older, like they’ll either scooter or walk with me or my partner will hang out with them while I go. He works from home. So that does make it easier. But I’ve had to figure out how to do those things.
And it’s really been amazing to see how when you embrace these mindset shifts, you really can show up in a way that honors you. And that honors your child. You know, and that’s yes, honestly, in the work that I do as a perinatal mental health therapist, that is such a big piece of it is teaching people because I see a lot of people in that sort of sacred transition to motherhood to parenthood, that is such a hard transition. And so much of what I do is to help them hold on to that sense of themselves through that transition. And to fit in these things that really help keep our mental health
Lauren Chante 34:42
at its best. Yeah, that’s so true. And what came up for me there is like, first of all, I want to start by saying that you you deserve to take care of yourself. You deserve to work out to be well no matter what like you. You don’t have to do anything to earn that. But I know oftentimes moms are motive made it like they’re more likely to do something if they know it’s benefit to the benefit to their children, right.
So, from that side of things, like when you’re protecting your wellness space, you’re showing your children and how to be considerate of the needs of others, and how to pay attention to the needs of others, and how to just be really sensitive to caring for the people around them. And like when you are bringing these tools that you’re talking about with allowing space for feelings and embracing imperfection, like it just, it just really works.
It just really works, guys. And that’s, I think so. So many of the times that I’ve read parenting books, or listen to podcasts, like, something is missing in the information where it just doesn’t seamlessly integrate, right? It’s not, it’s not this whole thing that you can implement at once that all works together. And with what you’re talking about with these three mindset shifts, like I’ve experienced this in my own life, it all works together, and she has this huge, like, this huge up leveling of everything. So, um, so
Hilary Mandzik 36:00
absolutely, absolutely. I think you know, y’all, I have started two businesses, without any child care. Now, my mom lives close. So she watches my daughter while I actually see my therapy clients, but I don’t have childcare as I’m building, you know, different parts of my business. And I don’t have childcare, well, I work out. And yes, my partner works from home. So that helps, but he’s working. So I’ve had to figure out how to make this work. And it is because of these mindset shifts, and this sense of like, I deserve to care for myself. And I can do that, while caring for my kids. I’m not like taking something away from them. By caring for myself, I am actually showing up more fully as a full and nurtured human being when I do that. And that is nothing but amazing for my kids. And so embracing these things has allowed me to live the life that I want to live and not just identify as, okay, I’m a mom and this season and nothing else.
Lauren Chante 36:56
Yeah, I love that. I know, I tell everyone about your podcast, where else can they find you? Is there anything that you want to give to them? Tell everybody where they can find you? Yes, so
Hilary Mandzik 37:06
I have a free gift. If you love these mindset shifts, I have a free gift that is six mindset shifts to ditch the overwhelm and parent in a way that feels good. So it is more of the same more of what we’re talking about here. And you can get that at raised resilient.com forward slash mindset. And then also, if you feel like if you go and listen to my podcast, or if you’re listening to this, and you’re like, gosh, I could just really use more help. I would love to just sit down and talk with you one on one about what’s happening with my kids and how to actually troubleshoot a specific situation. I also offer virtual one on one parent coaching. So you can go to raise resilient.com forward slash coaching and you can actually book your whole session online. And I would love to meet you. So if that’s something that feels supportive, that’s also an option.
Lauren Chante 37:50
Awesome. Thank you so much, Hillary, this conversation has been amazing.
Hilary Mandzik 37:56
Thank you for having me. I have loved talking with you.
Lauren Chante 38:03
Have you joined the Rockstar wellness podcast official Facebook group? If not, what are you waiting for? It is the best place to continue conversation about these episodes and get to know your fellow listeners.
Hilary Mandzik 38:15
If you’d like to do that
the link is in the show notes for this episode. Can’t wait to see you there.