Finding Harmony: How Can We Create the Perfect Balance in Parent-Child Relationships?

Have you ever had someone in your life that you really, really loved? You cared about them a lot, but you just could not seem to get along with them? Hi, I'm Dr. Robert Rome. Well, on today's Becoming Wiser broadcast, we're going to be interviewing a good friend of mine, Karen Wagdon, and she's going to be sharing how she has taken this information and developed it into a program called on how to get along with people, especially your children, if you are having a challenging time.

Welcome to becoming wiser with Dr. Robert A. Rohm, author and world renowned public speaker, as he shares stories involving his experiences and lessons learned in a good, spirited, positive and fun way. Here's Dr. Robert A. Rohm. So over 20 years ago, I was doing some training and I had this beautiful lady come to our training who wanted to go through and become a certified human behavior consultant. Her name was Karen Wagden. And Karen, I could see a fire inside of her because she loved children, had some of her own, of course. And I remember talking to her about the fact that of course I have four daughters and they're grown now. But my oldest daughter, Rachel, was just such a challenge. I loved her with all my heart, but I just didn't like her. And Karen was sharing with me how she had a son named Kyle, and it was the same situation. So today we've invited Karen, who took this information. She has developed her own program called Teaching Our Youth. Her motivation and drive is to empower and equip parents, educators, and anyone who loves children to improve their communication, increase productivity, reduce stress, and also reduce conflict as they develop better relationships. Good morning, Karen. We're glad to have you here.

Good morning, Dr. Rome. It is a pleasure and an honor to be with you today.

Thank you. Looking back on the past 20 years that seemed like they've gone by in about the last 20 minutes. It, it. I can just hardly believe that much time has gone by. But from the first time that we met.

I began to get to know you a little bit and about your passion and about your drives and desires for helping people. So tell me a little bit about Karen and a little bit about her journey and where you started on all this endeavor.

Oh, Dr. Rome, it is, it is such a pleasure to be with you and to be able to not only share my story because you are such a huge part of my story. I mean, I had always been a strong willed kid. I mean, ask my mama, right? And then I gave birth to a strong willed child, the one my mama promised me. And As a dominant personality throughout my life, I had, you know, a basic level of success and achievements. You know, I was an honor roll student. I had success in my career. But when I became a mom, my oldest son, Kyle, gave me a run for the money. And I knew from a very young age that I had my hands full as he continued to anything I asked him to do with eye contact. Right. I'm sure you've experienced that with Rachel. And as a young child, I felt as though all I did was direct and correct in spank diapers, and I didn't want to be that mom. And then I attended a business conference where you were speaking. And as I listened to you, I felt as though you had been like sitting outside my house listening to all the antics going on inside my home. And let me tell you, it wasn't pretty. But I kept asking myself, how does he know all this? But what I was experiencing was the predictable patterns in human behavior. And it was like someone took the blinders off and I could clearly see what was going on and what was happening in my family dynamics. So I bought the books on parenting and personalities. But to be honest with you, I was still struggling with the application. And that's when I came back to you. And I invested in the certification program where I was able to not only gain the knowledge, but the support to begin to apply what I was learning for a successful parenting transformation. And I've been sharing this with educators and parents ever since.

That's so cool. You know, thinking back again over the fact that was over 20 years ago, it seems like, because every day in parenting is. I heard Flip Wilson once say, the problem with life is it's just so daily. Well, parenting is just so daily. It doesn't go away. And over the years, learning to work with our children and they are always in a different place. I mean, raising a 4 year old child is different than a 12 year old child or a 16 year old. So it's always in flux, it's always changing. So what happened after the initial training? I mean, you went through, you were applying it, you were learning to move it from your head to your heart. You were learning how to not manipulate, not control, but, but to understand Kyle and your other children. You have some beautiful children and you are learning how to work with them differently. Why don't you tell us what happened maybe with not only Kyle, but some of the other children and how understanding the disc model of human behavior over the years begin to unfold for you?

Yes. Well, you know what I realize Is that each of us, including our kids, are wired from birth with our unique personality traits. And as we have learned, each of the personalities have internal emotional needs. And when these needs are not met Is when we typically experience the disruptive behaviors. We tend to want to address the external behaviors, but if we don't get to the internal root, the root cause of that behavior, it will continue and escalate. And I was feeling a disconnect. I was feeling not only a disconnect with kyle, because he would push my buttons. And I'll be honest, I allowed him to push my buttons. I needed more parenting skills to know how to address and work with his personalities. But when I did, and I became the yelling, impatient, crazy mom, I was shutting down the relationships with my other two kids. Now, as you know, Eric and Anna are more reserved. And so when kyle pushed my buttons and took me to the crazy zone, Eric would, you know, shut down sometimes. I mean, there were times where he would just sit out on the front steps because he didn't even want to be in the house because of the yelling. Anna would be in her room crying, and I wasn't even yelling at her. And I created that. I created that. So I really needed to learn not only about the personalities, but how to adapt. So there's three pillars that I work with when I'm working with families. And the first thing is to become aware of the personalities, your personality and your family dynamics, and then adapt the interactions to meet those internal emotional needs so we can apply the right strategies to, as we said before, reduce the conflict, increase the productivity, and develop better relationships, Whether it's in the classroom or at home. And so as I began to apply different strategies, for instance, giving Kyle choices within my boundaries because, you know, he wanted that choice or control. If he wasn't being challenged, he was going to become the challenge. And so I certainly experienced that pretty quickly. But it was the opportunity to adapt to a point where, when his needs were met, he really felt understood and heard. And if I continue to parent from my dominant style, I'm the mom, I said, so it was going to continue to be in conflict. Let me give you another example, if that's okay. A couple of clients that I work with, and this is where I find the biggest gap Is when you're working with or parenting a child who's your opposite. So I had a very successful mom from a nonprofit in michigan Contact me about struggling with her son, who we found out was a high I child. He was about 10 years old, wild child, always Leaving the house, never following instructions. The attention span of the gnat Would get on his bike, drive around the neighborhood. No one knew where he was or when he was coming home. She had him tested for adhd. It wasn't happening. She put him in therapy. Nothing changed. And so I was kind of a last Resort. And Dr. Rolm, within three weeks of, number one, completing the assessment and the interaction guide and seeing where the gap was, she was c, he was I and how far apart they were and putting together effective strategies within three weeks, she was even impressed of the transformation that was happening because she was beginning to affirm him more, giving him more recognition for even the little things that he did that he was then drawn to her words of recognition and even affirmation and was becoming more compliant and collaborative rather than continue to just do what he wanted, when he wanted. And so the power and the impact of this information on families truly transforms the relationships because we're less offended by the behavior when we understand, you know.

That that is so powerful, Karen. And the truth of the matter is, when you meet someone's needs at their deepest level, they respond to that. I mean, I once heard a psychiatrist say the sentence, he or she who feels understood feels loved, and he or she who feels loved feels understood. So I really think you hit the nail on the head because understanding someone and loving someone go hand in hand. And when you also were very, very accurate, I did not hear you say anything about how you changed Kyle or how you fixed Kyle. You changed or fixed Karen in the way she went about working with Kyle. And that really is. I mean, I've been doing this over 30 years, and it's the hardest pill to swallow because my oldest daughter, Rachel, was just so difficult. But I have three other daughters. Daughters, two, three, and four. I have four daughters. Well, daughters two, three, and four were easy. They were fun. They were great. I mean, getting along with them was just. It was always something happy or funny or silly or engaging. Boy. With Rachel, it was. I tell people, have you ever been grating cheese at night and you missed and you grated all your knuckles off on the cheese grater? You know, that's. That's what it kind of felt like we're trying to do. Everything with Rachel was difficult, and so I. Even this. This is horrible. It's my fault. But you and I are so much alike. I just kept wondering what was wrong with her? What was wrong with her? Why can't. How can I fix her? Why won't she change? Turns out I was the problem now, if you had met me at that moment when I was going through, just like you said, you had to go through a transformation. It is a hard pill to swallow to realize they're the child, I'm the parent, they're the child, I'm the adult. I'm supposed to be raising them, and this thing is not working out. Tell me a little bit about how your eyes opened to. I have to change. Karen, what did you do in order to work with Kyle differently?

Oh, my gosh. So it really was recognizing that God wired him in a certain way. And my goal was to raise him, train him up in the way he should go. And I needed to understand what that truly looked like. And so Kyle was the dominant, cautious personality. And so it had to be his way was the right way, no matter what. And as I was training him. Okay, training him, disciplining him, not punishing him, but disciplining him to be the best he could be according to his design, I needed to offer him choices within my boundaries. And so, for instance, I may say to him, because Kyle did not take direction at all from anyone, including his teachers, and that's a whole other story. But, you know, I would then say to him, because homework was always a challenge. You know, homework was always a battle with Kyle. So when he came home, I'd say, kyle, you know, hey, how was your day? And he'd just say, why are you interrogating me? Because that was his perception. And then I would say, hey, do you want to get your homework done now and then you're free for the. For the. For the day? Or do you want to just have some time on the game system and do it after dinner? You choose. You decide. And of course, he always deferred, but it gave him an opportunity to felt as though he had a choice and he was in control. And so, to be honest with you about my parenting style as a dominant parent, I was real good at telling people what to do. That's what I do. But it wasn't working with him. It wasn't working with him. In fact, it was the exact opposite. He would do the exact opposite. I asked just to test me, to show me that I could not control him. And that's where I would just get explosive, where I would get louder and longer with my lectures. And now you know what? None of that changed anything. It was giving him choices within my boundaries. Look, I like choices. But you know what? I wasn't real good at giving choices. That was an area that I had to adapt and apply the right strategies.

You know, recognizing and learning what you are talking about right now, I think is maybe the biggest challenge any of us have, because parenting and marriage and many other areas of life come with absolutely no instruction. And so we're left to kind of try to figure it out on our own. And of course, we default to the way we were raised ourselves, or what we already know, or as you've said, our own personality style. And we tend to do things the way that feel right to us, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it will feel right to them. Well, so what I want to know now is since you've been doing all that and, and it developed into not only a more successful and more enjoyable experience there in your home with Kyle and the other children, you begin to do this with other families and begin to sort of spread your wings and realize, hey, I'm not the only one in this boat. Tell me a little bit about how your business developed.

Well, you know, as I had mentioned, I've been working with parents and educators, you know, for almost 20 years now. But during the pandemic, you know, you have to trust that there's a blessing in all of this mess. Right? And as I was getting older, you know, I'm in my 60s now, I did not want everything that I had done and created to go away with me. And so I began recording some of my trainings. This was just prior to the pandemic. And so in 2020, I started developing the Parenting Blueprint, which is a comprehensive, self paced parenting course designed to help parents develop that strong foundation and better relationships with their kids. I mean, parenting is a journey. It's challenging and rewarding, and each child is unique and different, but it also requires a different approach. And so the Parenting Blueprint is a course that provides a proven roadmap for parents to navigate through the challenges of parent parenting so that they can raise healthy, happy, confident kids with positive relationships that will last a lifetime. I mean, look, these are the most important relationships in our life, is with our children. And when we feel the disconnect, many parents come to me and they are feeling as though they're failing as parents. They're frustrated, they're yelling, they feel a disconnect with their. With their kids. And so when we are able to give them the tools of understanding and start putting together the strategies to close that gap and develop those positive relationships where kids feel seen, heard, valued, and understood for who they are, they can accomplish anything. But if all we do is try to bend them to be what we think they should be. We will break their spirit, and that's the last thing we want to do. Our kids are gifts, and God wired them for birth for a purpose. And so the whole, I guess, foundation of parenting by design with a parenting blueprint is to help our kids grow to be the best they can be according to their design. And I feel that that's my job as a parent, and I just want to impart that to other parents as well. It doesn't need to be this hard if we have the right tools of understanding.

Well, well said. That's exactly right. Yeah. A friend of mine who is a cardiologist said to me one time, well, open heart surgery is easy if you know how to do it. And I thought, isn't that amazing? Yeah. If you go to college for four years, then medical school for four years, and have a three year internship and work under someone and learn how to do open heart surgery, after a while, it becomes sort of a simple process when you know what you're doing. Well, parenting is a very, very challenging experience. And then, as you have so accurately said, we have children with different personality styles, and so it's a lifelong journey. So your first book was My Three and A Journey in Parenting By Design. And that's where you clearly define and explain the different personalities with the DISC model of human behavior. And kind of created a useful guide for parents and educators and really anyone who works for children. So a parent can identify or a teacher can learn their common traits and, and how to work with them to apply their skills to get some positive results. How's that been working for you? Tell us a little bit about that experience.

It is a great tool. So when I wrote the book, it was a lot of stories that I've told about my kids through the years. And many of these stories were stories that I would tell when I was speaking in training. And of course, you know, my husband Mark was saying, you need to write a book, you need to write a book, you need to write a book. And Dr. Rohm, I know you've got plenty of books, but the biggest challenge for me was I need to sit down and write a book. And it was not something that I look forward to, but I finally got the book done. Actually, I dictated it. But the bottom line was I was able to share experiences that many other parents go through as they're parenting. Different personalities. But what I did in that book is I created it almost as a workbook that parents can take a look at what's going on in their Family dynamics and put together action plans. You know, as a dominant, inspiring personality, I'm all about getting results with people. So I just didn't want to write a book that had a lot of good stories. I want people to learn from my stories so that they can be better parents as well.

Well, Karen, you are a fireball and a delight. You're my cup of tea. Because you and I have similar personalities. You're more of the dominant, inspiring talent. I'm a little more of the inspiring, dominant. So we kind of approach it from a little bit different angle. But the truth of the matter is, I was sharing with someone recently. Those two traits have led me over the. To realize the whole purpose of life is be good to people and get things done. And another way of saying that to be would be good to your children. Work with your family, love them, help them, but work with them in a way that gets things done, that accomplish the goals and dreams and aspirations of yourself and your children. So last thing here as we start to wind this up and. And I'm so excited. In just a minute, I'm. We're going to give people opportunity to learn more about you and how to connect with you. But just tell us, in the last few weeks, months, years, maybe, since the pandemic, has anybody been interested in this? Are you working with any schools, parents, coaching? What do you do every day?

Dr. Rome, I think the pandemic opened a Pandora's box about how difficult relationships can be. When students came home and students were required to learn from home, I think parents realized how difficult working with kids can be, and not only with the personalities, but how they learn in different ways. And so I am. I am so happy to be back in the building now, sharing the parenting workshops with parents. I have a boot camp that I do that not only includes workshops for the parents, but coaching. Because I think the hardest part for me when I listen to workshops and podcasts was, yeah, but how? Right, yeah, that sounds good. And we're really excited about what we've learned. And next thing you know, a couple weeks later, we're right back where we were. So it really is the power of working with a coach that's going to be able to, what I say, move the needle towards transformation. So not only being able to partner with schools and be able to do things for the schools, but also being able to partner with families and work with them on their specific issues, their dynamics with their family, because every family is uniquely different, and it's not right or wrong, as you were saying. You know, there's nothing wrong with my child. And that's what I hear from parents all the time. Once we get through the assessments and they can truly clearly see where their differences are, they say, there's nothing wrong with my child, there's nothing wrong with me, we're just different. That's the first pillar, becoming aware. Then we need to adapt our interactions and apply the right strategies. And once they do, I tell you, I have parents in tears just saying thank you for giving me my kids back. I'm sorry. I mean, it just it, because that's, that's what the goal is, is to just have those relationships that we desire that we find so difficult to achieve. And this is a tool of understanding that can truly transform your relationships with your kids.

Wow. Wow. Yeah. Now don't apologize for being emotional over something that you love with all of your heart, mind, soul, being. It is, it is so real and such a delight. You know, I've said for many, many years, over 30 years ago when I started my company, that I just wanted to learn to get along with my oldest daughter, Rachel. And now that I can hardly believe on her next birthday she'll be 50 years old. I can hardly believe I have a 50 year old child or daughter. And I keep thinking, well, I'm not, am I 50 yet myself. I still feel like I'm about 18. But it's such a different experience when you, as we started this show, you not only love somebody, you learn to like them, you learn to get along with them, you begin to be friends, you begin to have the, the desire of your heart, which was a real relationship. So I just, I, I just know you and I could talk about this all day long and we could keep this going. Tell me, tell us a little bit. I know you work with schools and families and parents. How can someone get in touch with you? What would be the next step? Someone's listening to this right now and they're thinking, I have a Rachel, I have a Kyle. I don't know what to do, but I need to do something. What would you say is their next step?

Well, the first thing is how can we better understand what's going on? So I do have a free PDF, the Parenting Blueprint Toolkit, which would give you just a brief overview of different personality dynamics of your family. And then if you would like to learn more about the Parenting blueprint, then you can book a connect call with me and you can just type into your Browser bar call karen.info It'll open up my calendar. And then you'll be able to, you know, tell me a little bit more about what your challenge is. Let's jump on a call and see if the parenting blueprint is a fit for you.

I'm. I'm concerned your phone may blow up. But the truth of the matter is, I mean, this is how you now make a living, and that's fair. And you do coaching work with parents. I know as we have been talking over the weeks and months and years, how your program has developed and has become bigger and bigger. And I just wish you all the success in the world world, because what you're doing is not smoke, mirrors and glass. It's real. It really. Yesterday. Yesterday I had a coaching call, and the gentleman and I, we were talking about this concept, and if anyone's listening to this and they're in the business world, they've heard a lot about, you need to have a lot of grit. That's a big topic. You need to have a lot of grit. And he said, I talk about grit. And he said, it just seems like he coaches sports. And he said, I tell the players, you need to have grit. He said, it just doesn't seem to resonate. And then we were talking a little bit further because he's now using the disc model of human behavior. And instead of telling his players, get this. Instead of telling the players, you need to have a lot of grit, he now is telling them, you need to raise your D. You need to get over in the D quadrant. You need to get in the D zone. He said, that so resonates because people understand. Oh, I understand what that means. You're not asking me to change. You're not asking me to become something different. You're asking me to adapt for a period of time in a sporting event. I have to get more dominant. I have to get more focused. I have to get more on. On it. I have to. And I have to develop grit. But how do you do that? You do that by understanding there are different aspects to personality, and that's just one part of them. So you have a lot of grit. You have a lot of D in your personality. Ds make incredible leaders because they have this strength about them, this sixth sense of, I need to get some results. And that's just written all over you, and I just love you for it, respect you and count you as one of our great human behavior consultants with personality insights. So I wish you all of the best. I know people are going to be following you. They're going to be listening to you because you have something to say. And I just wish you all the success in the world. And may God bless you and your family and Mark and all that y' all do in the Future.

Thank you, Dr. Rohm. Appreciate you so much.

For more information about this podcast, please visit www.becomingwiserpodcast.com.