124. Two Things To Know About Your Kids That Will Make Parenting Them Easier

Can we agree that we want our kids to be self motivated? That we want them to be excited and go getters for life and to hold themselves accountable to their choices and responsible in the moment? I think we can agree to those things. And today on the podcast, I'm going to teach you the two things that I believe we must know in order to help our kids grow into people like that. There are two things that you really need to know because if it's not obvious to you yet, it will be soon. I mean, I figured it out and my oldest is only 6. I can't make my kids do anything. I can't make them speak kindly, I can't make them clean up, I can't make them cooperate. I can't force them to even fall asleep or eat the food. Like it's so humbling. Motherhood is so humbling when we can kind of just take that step back and realize they really are their own people, they're their own people. And in that, in them becoming their own people, knowing who they are, showing up that way, protecting it, in all of that, there are two things that we can do that will help them be self starters, to be motivated to choose to do what's right even when it's hard and they really don't feel like doing it. There are two things that we have to know in order to guide them down that road. Before I share these two things with you and dive into this full episode that will surely strengthen your relationship with your kids and give you more confidence and parenting and honestly just bring a lot of joy back to your motherhood where the stress of trying to control starts to just fade away from you. I want to say thank you to everyone that has joined the Momset membership this far. It has been a remarkable response from our community to see you guys in there and to know that this is finally the space that we can come together, learn and grow in an ongoing way. I've been coaching mothers for the past six years and over the last three years I've been doing group coaching. And that means twice a year I run a 12 week group coaching through my 12 week course, Mind Body Alignment. And in doing that, it's always so rewarding to like show up, meet you right where you're at, meet you with the negative I am statements. You tell yourself that you're exhausted and you're overwhelmed and you're stressed and you're anxious and you never get enough help and your kids never listen and it always turns out like this. And you nobody gets it like that's where I meet you and I wrap my arms around you and I take you through the work with me. And then by the end of it, I mean, just to see you beam, to see you have an I am statement that truly aligns with who you want to be, who you want to be. And believe it, it's like a light turns on in you. Like I can see a shift in your eyes where you're like, I get it now. I get who I am. I'm responsible for who I am. I'm accountable to the choices and the outcomes and, and I take total ownership of my life and I'm ready to make it what I want. Like I get to see that in you. And after the 12 weeks, it's always ended. I've never had something after that 12 week mark. And I mean, it's taken me a long time to figure out what the heck it could be. And now we figured it out and it is just an exceptional response. It's a phenomenal atmosphere for us and it's just charged with so much energy of these moms that are like, yes, I want this. I agree with these philosophies of, of parenting and motherhood and marriage and life and it's so refreshing. So if you need a community like that, I'm going to invite you to join me over in my brand new app. That's right, we have our own nap now and it's for coaching mothers. We're going to coach you year round now. 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If you join in January, then you're considered a founding member with us and Your membership is $67 a month locked in and after January. So if you sign up in February or a month after that, anytime, it's $97 a month locked in there. So you can choose to do an annual plan and. And keep it locked in there or the monthly subscription cancel whenever you want. Just come get what you need and grow into the version of you that you actually want to be. It's really exciting. So that's linked for you in the notes below. Now, let's talk about the two things that you must know, these two things that you must know to make your parenting exceptionally easier. Exceptionally easier and avoid these. These tension conf. Like conflicting moments with your kids where you feel like you're gonna freaking lose your mind because they're not doing the thing that you ask them to do, which I get. And that's why I follow these two things. If I know these two things about my kids, then I can help them find an internal motivation to make the right choice. If I just continuously know these two things about my kids, then they are more likely to make the right choice, even when it's hard and to see. See their future as the opportunity to create what they actually want for themselves. Are you ready to know what these two things are? I mean, gosh dang it, we're almost six minutes into the show. Of course you're ready to know two things. Number one, you've got to know who your kids want to be. Number two, you must know what they they want. Life isn't all about us, especially as parents. This is our time to be selfless. To be selfless. It's just not about us. When we want to create a drive in somebody and light a fire of motivation in them, it's got to be about them. We've got to know who they want to be. We got to know what they want, not what time we want them to fall asleep, what dinner we want them to eat, what time we want. We want them to be out the door, what shoes and clothes we want them to wear and how we want them to talk to people and the amount of gratitude we want them to have. That's all fine and dandy. To know what you want for them, who you want your kids to be. It's a completely different, I mean, experience in parenting. To know who your kids want to be and to know what they want for themselves and what they want their life to look like, what they want their moments to look like. It makes a huge difference. So let's coach through this. What does it look like to know who your kids want to be and why the heck does it create internal motivation in them? What does it matter? When you are building cooperation with your kids, a grand piece of connection is knowing who they are and who they want to be. Like really seeing them, understanding them. Stop the projections and the selfish mentality of what you want and just get so interested in deep dive into what they, they want. And obviously doing this outside of the moments of conflict and tension, doing it during moments of play. You take your kids on a date and you ask them questions about who they want to be. When I asked my 6 year old who he wants to be and he's been saying this, we've been doing this now for just over two years that I've like really been working on this with him, he loves to reference Spider Man. He says, I want to be Spider Man. I want to be Spider Man. I want to be Spider Man. And you know what I love about that? About him saying that he wants to be Spider Man. Spider man is a superhero. Spider man puts himself last. He puts others before him. Spider man takes excellent care of his health. Spider man is freaking strong. Spider man believes in himself. Spider Man, I mean he's willing to do things that he feels afraid to do. He has tremendous amounts of courage. Spider Man's a team player. He loves to be on a team. Spider man has, I mean, just so much wit about him. He's funny. I don't know if you guys have ever watched the movies. He's funny. So Spider Man's witty. Spider Man's funny. Spider man is also very, very smart. He loves to read books. He loves science. It says it in all the books that we read about Spider Man. He loves science. So whenever my six year old talks about who he wants to be and he says he wants to be Spider man, there's so many good characteristics and traits in there that, that I can help my son develop because it's who he wants to be. So no matter who your kids say that they want to be, maybe it's a superhero or character that they're really, you know, they really admire. Or maybe they, maybe they have, I mean, a, a perspective bigger than that where they just think more about the, the characteristics that they want to have in themselves. You know, I want to be someone that's kind. I want to be strong, I want to be smart, I want to be courageous. Or they say I want to be a scientist, I want to be an entrepreneur, I want to be a farmer, I want to be a Teacher, I want to be a lawyer. It doesn't matter really how your kids answer the question because they're not locking themselves into a life where they're actually going to become that role or profession or they're not limited to these things. It's just a better conversation for them to start thinking about the. The characteristics and the qualities that they want to see in themselves and for you to know that about them. If I know my son wants to be Spider Man, I get to take that piece of information and guide him down the path he wants to be on, not the path I want him to go on, the path he actually wants to be on. And when I communicate with him in that sense of, hey, remember when you said you want to be Spider Man? Yeah, I remember. Okay, well, how do you think Spider man would talk to your brother right now? How do you think Spider man would respond to Aunt May when she asked him to help with the dishes? Like, I can use different visuals for him. Paint these pictures in his head of what does Spider man do? Gosh, I want to be like Spider man so badly. Here's an example of what he would do. Here's a time for me to show up that way. A time for him to be courageous if he's feeling afraid. A time for him to be kind if he's feeling angry. A time for him to be selfless if he's doing something selfish. I get to parent from that perspective. And what it does is it brings out more of the qualities that are there in him that I also want him to have. So when I'm saying this isn't about you, it's true. Who your kids become is not about you. They are their own people. And what they want for themselves can greatly overlap with what we want for them, too. We just need to take their approach to it. You want your kids to be selfless, to be generous, to be an. Of. Of an abundant mentality. You want that for them. Guess what? They want that for themselves, too. It just might look different. They might need different language in order to grasp this concept. So that's the first thing you need to know about your kids is who do they want to be? Do they want to be an athlete if they want to be an athlete? How does an athlete treat their body? How does an athlete treat practice? What does an athlete think about practice when it's time to show up? What does an athlete think about rest and sleep? What does an athlete think about teamwork and helping your teammates out? What does an athlete think about their coach? What does an athlete think about the schedule, any difficulty, the pain point that your kids are coming up with in their life? If you know who they are, you can help them get into that mentality of that they would have as the person they want to be, the athlete. And if they want to be an artist, you can do the same thing. Ask those, ask those prompting questions for them that get them thinking, am I making the right choice right now? What is the right choice for me to make? Kids want to do a good job. They want to make the right choice. They're completely innocent. They're so beautiful just the way they are. And if we can just help nurture that and help shape it patiently with better questions and a better knowing and understanding of them. I mean, the results just blow you away. They really blow you away. And you can do this even with a two year old, knowing who a two year old wants to be. Two year olds, I mean, in the books that you read, the pictures that they see, the influence of their siblings, their, their cousins, whatever, or the, the way they see you. And I mean, gosh, my two year old loves to do everything that I'm doing. So I can ask him, do you want to be a chef? Do you want, do you want to be a cook? When I'm cooking in the kitchen, if he's throwing things on the floor and he's taking the knife and trying to do something dangerous with it, I can say, oh, a chef cuts like this. You're my little chef. And a chef cuts like this. Oh, you want to be strong? Okay, let's be strong. Let's go for our walk, let's ride our bike, let's go jump on the trampoline. That makes us so strong. When you know who they want to be, you can start at any level, any age, especially with the little ones. I mean, with all people in our life, it's really important that we speak life over them. I've done podcast episodes on that, I've done reels on that. I can do more on that. Give me some feedback here. And if you're still trying to figure out how the heck do I speak life over my kids? This is, this is part of that way. Knowing who they want to be and speaking to them as if they are that person. Speak to a king and a king will appear. Speak to. If I speak to my sons like they are that king, they are that person, that person will appear in them. If I speak to them as if they are respectful, they are devoted, they are faithful, they are compassionate, they Are trustworthy. If I speak to them that way, those characteristics will appear in them. That's speaking life over them, Helping them to bring out that goodness. And what's interesting is when you. When you do this, like, yes, you're creating internal motivation that helps them make their own choices, the right choices. It's also helping them to. I mean, they're gonna. They're gonna find a time in their life at a young age and several times over that they kind of lose sight of who they want to be. They kind of lose sight of who they are. And the more often you ask them this question, who do you want to be? Tell me more about who you want to be. What would the person you want to be do? Right now? I just want to get to know you. Tell me all about it. And you take sincere interest in that. When they lose sight of it through the intense emotions of anger, through those just, gosh, the depths of disappointment and the rage that they can feel sometimes with their siblings and with you, when they lose sight of it and they're outside of line with who they want to be, you can speak truth for them. That brings them back that you know who they are, you know the person that they want to be, and they still get to be that person. I tell my kids every day, we all make mistakes. We all make mistakes. I make mistakes, too, and so do they. And we can all come back and still choose to be the person that we want to be Through a mistake, after a mistake, before we make a mistake. It's all a choice. So you can help your kids in an exceptional way, Create more motivation within themselves when you know who they want to be. You can apply it to the chores that you're working to instill in your home and family. You can apply it to the cooperation that you want to see when it's time to get out the door, the sibling relationships that you want them to have. If they know who they want to be as individuals, then they can show up that way in a family dynamic as the individual they want to be. They come to the family, and they provide more strength and value in that space. So what about the second thing? That's. I said you got to know these two things about your kids, and it completely changes your parenting style. Number one, who they want to be, you, parent from that place of helping them become the person they want to be, not the person you want them to be. This isn't about you, it's about them. It just makes your life a lot easier. The second one is, know what they want. This is vision work, okay? You've got to know the picture in their head of what they want. And it's down to the little choices. I'm. I'm not asking you to know what they want life to look like when they're 45. The frick. I don't even. I mean, gosh, what do you know about the way you want your life to look like 45, 55, 65, 75. Why not just think about the way you want bedtime to go, the way you want dinner to go? Like, yes. The bigger picture of things is so valuable and so is the little details. The way I'm showing up in my life right now, the mother I want to be right now. I have a great idea of who I want to be as a mother in law. And gosh dang it, am I freaking grateful that I have all these years to practice acceptance and compassion of other people, especially women that I'm going to be welcoming into my family. And I'm going to be ready to do that down the line right now. I know what I want the day to look like. And that's. That's powerful. So you need to find out from your kids, what do they want the day to look like? There are two things I commonly see happen when I ask people, what do you want? I'll ask mothers in coaching, what do you want? What do you want? What do you want? What do you want? Because how the frick am I supposed to help you get what you want if you don't even know what it is? If you have a difficult time saying what you want, how are you ever going to get it? And worse than that, I think what's absolutely worse than not knowing what you want is missing missing what you want that you already have. You don't even see it. You don't even see that what you have is what you want because you have allowed your mind to stray so far from what you want that it's right under your freaking nose. You don't even see it. And that I find to be much, much worse. And it's something that, I mean, a lot of adults are going through. And we can help our kids set up a life where they're constantly asking themselves, who do I want to be? What do I want? Who do I want to be? What do I want? Who do I want to be? What do I want? It will change their performance, it'll change their motivation, it'll change their vision, it will change their output, it will change their relationships, everything will change because they're going to start building life around what they do want instead of what they don't want. And that's one of the two things that happen when I ask people, women and mothers, what they want. Number one, they don't know. They'll tell me. I don't know. Gosh, Tessa, that's a great question. I. I guess I just don't know what I want. It can stump you, really. And the second thing. The second thing that they do is they'll tell me all the things I don't want. Well, I don't want to yell anymore. I don't want to find myself staying up so late and then, you know, up with the baby all night, and then I'm feeling exhausted, and then the cycle just continues. I don't want to do that. I don't want to skip my workouts. I don't want to fail on this plan. I don't want to yell at my spouse or snap at him and say something hurtful just because of the emotion in that moment. I don't want to do those things. I don't want to work at this job anymore. Lord knows this job is wearing me down. I don't want to be here anymore. What the heck? Those are all things you don't want. Okay, so what the frick do you want? What do you want your motherhood to look like? What do you want your marriage to look like? What is the way that you want to greet your spouse when he walks through the door? What is the way you want to handle those difficult emotions? If you've. If you don't want to snap, yell and. And just mouth off when it comes to the emotion, what do you want to do for your profession? What friendships do you want to have? What would they look like? Again? If you don't know what you want, how on earth are you going to get it? How are you going to even know when you have it? I think that's. Again, that's the much more scary part, is when we don't even know that we have it. We don't even know that we have what we want because we just don't. We haven't spent enough time understanding what it is that we want. And when you know what your kids want, their vision, then you can motivate them with their vision. You don't motivate them with the punishment, the consequences behind it. Sure. Those are things that they're aware of and the positive direction that you can plant in them to make choices because it's the right thing to do. And it does get them more of what they want. You can motivate them that way. Save yourself the stress of falling through in a consequence that you don't even. I mean, it just made your life way more inconvenient. How many times have I told my kids, okay, then you don't get to go to the park today. You don't get to go to your friend's house. And it's like, well, freaking shoot. That was like an hour that he would have been at his friend's house playing, and I would have been reading a book or that's time that they would have been outside getting all this energy out, and. And we would have been out of the house, and I could have been on the picnic blanket or I could have been on the swing. Like, why am I punishing myself here? Have you ever noticed that the consequences you have your kids can lead to, like, a punishment of yourself, too? Yeah, I stopped doing that game. I'm like, oh, no, no. Freaking thank you. I will only give consequences that I'm excited to follow through on. And that's why I love positive consequences. I'm excited to follow through on this. I want you to keep that in your hand. I don't want to keep it in my pocket and have you trying to pull down my pants and stretching out my jeans because you're trying to get what's in my pocket. And now I've created this big fight within us and this argument, this tension because I took something away that I could have just guided you on the right way to keep it in your own hands where I want it to be. I want you to play with your friends. I want you to have a good day. I want to have a good day. I want to go outside. I want to cook together. You know, I want to. I want to do all those things. So I love positive consequences that set that up. And. And knowing what my kids want, if I know what they want, I can create the behavior that it requires to get what they want. I hear you, kiddo. Let's. Okay, here's a great example. Bedtime. Bedtime. How often do you feel like you guys are starting bedtime? And then there's just lack of cooperation with your kids. They're stalling. There's complaining and whining, and it just feels like everyone's dragging their flipping feet just to get to bed or to brush their teeth. You guys are wasting time. Takes 20 minutes just to convince them to use toothpaste on their toothbrush. And now we've like, we're pushing everything back and then you're feeling really stressed, right? And now we're going to bed an hour and a half later than we thought we would or told ourselves we would. Here's the thing, if you know what your kids want, you get to use that as motivation for them to make the right choice. If they know they're going to get what they want as soon as they do the right thing, then they're more likely to do the right thing. Because their eyes on the prize, getting what they want, they've got the vision. So when it comes to bedtime, you ask your kids, hey, I want to try bedtime your way tonight. I want to do it your way tonight. So what do you want bedtime to look like tonight? And maybe they need a little bit more prompting, maybe they have a whole spiel for you of exactly what they want bedtime to look like tonight? Pay attention. Pay attention to their answer. They're giving you the plan. They're giving you the insight to crack the code to their cooperation plan. Isn't that amazing? So, for example, I could ask my 4 year old, hey, bud, I want to do bedtime a little bit different tonight. Will you tell me what you want bedtime to look like? And let's say my six year old's eavesdropping a little bit. He wants it on this conversation. And my four year old says, I want you to read three books. You've been reading one book and I want three books. Oh, okay, I hear you. I hear pause on my story. And I'm telling you right now, listeners, sweet friends of mine, if you tell your kids, I can't read you three books because you aren't doing what I need you to do. We take way too long to get things done. It's not again, this isn't about you. This isn't about you. When your mind wants to start rattling off all the reasons why you can't read those three books. Pause, pause. And remember, this is about him. He's just telling me what he wants. And this is very insightful for me to know. We're not arguing. There's nothing to explain. Just say, oh, all right. You know, that actually sounds really fun, reading three books. Okay. And then I can look at my six year old and say, what about you? What do you want bedtime to be like? What do you want it to look like tonight? I want you to lay in bed with me and snuggle for a few minutes. You've been leaving the Room to go help Jake, which is totally true. You know, if he starts crying and I feel like I haven't been getting more snuggles. And it's totally something my 6 year old would say. I want you to lay in bed with me until I fall asleep. I want you to do that tonight. So my four year old wants me to read three books instead of one and my six year old wants me to lay in bed with him until he falls asleep instead of leaving the room to go help his brother. Now obviously there are some, some points matter of factly in there. I'm gonna go help your brother if he needs it. And we're at a point now though that when I get to the room, I've been able to stay in their room. So I can see this happening. I can see this happening. You see what we've done though, is we've created a shared vision. We're sharing a vision. All these ideas being thrown around. You see a picture in your head of what that would look like, that's a shared vision. Shared vision. And I tell them, because we're having this conversation a couple hours before bedtime, let's say that. And I say, okay, so you want three books and you want me to lay in your bed until it's time to fall asleep. And then my 4 year old's probably going to say, but I want you to lay in my bed until I fall asleep. Got it? So we want to take turns, mom. Laying in your bed until you fall asleep. This is our shared vision, we're crafting it together. And I believe you guys can get what you want. I believe I can give you what you want. I believe I can read the three books for you and I believe I can lay in your bed until you fall asleep. Here's what we need to do. When I say it's time to get in the bath, you gotta get in the bath. If you want your three books and you want me to lay in bed with you until you fall asleep, then we are going to be excited about doing our bedtime routine so that we can get to that point. We can get to the books, we can get to the snuggles. I want that too. Remind your kids I want that too. You know, their vision. You create motivation, you have this conversation with them. Then bath time rolls around. Okay, guys, it's time to get in the bath. Ah, they start complaining out of habit, okay? It's just habit. They start whining, I don't want to get in the bath. Okay? It's Totally up to you. If you'd still like to read the three books tonight and have me snuggle in your bed until you fall asleep, then I need you to get in the bath now so that you have time to do that. If you've changed your mind on what you want, just let me know. Just let me know. Just remind me that you only want one bed, you only want one book tonight, and you want me to leave the room before you're asleep. When you put it into the perspective of, look, you can have what you want because I know what you want. I know you want three books. I know you want these snuggles. And in order for you to get that, here's what you need to do. It also teaches them that fantastic mentality that I've been teaching you. Do the things you need to do before the things you want to do. You want to read three books. You need to get in the bath first. You need to brush your teeth first. You need to clean out these toys first. It's an exceptional way to increase cooperation and collaboration with your family. When you know these two things. Who they want to be and what they want. Know what they want and know who they want to be. I mean, it's just. It's a complete game changer. Complete game changer. So we're going to wrap this up. Friends, I love to stay respectful of your time, and I know 30 minutes is possibly stretching it because there's a lot for you to get done and do. I'm encouraging Neil right now. Plan out the time of the day. You're going to ask your kids these two questions. Number one, who do they want to be? And number two, what do they want? What do they want? And get specific. What do you want? Dinner time to look like as a family? What do you. Anytime. Anything that you're noticing, there's a struggle there, ask them what they want it to look like. What do you want it to look like when we leave the house in the morning to go to school, to daycare or to grandma's house, whatever. Like, what do you want to look like? Well, I don't know. Prompt him a little bit. Prompt him a little bit. Do you want to have a dance party before we walk out the door? No. Okay. Do you want me to have your shoes by the door ready for you? Maybe just. Just ask them prompting questions. You know, we adults need prompting questions. Shouldn't we have, like, a little bit of grace for the kids? Any prompting questions, too? And they need a little bit of help with this too, Absolutely. So ask them what they want. Give them some more examples of when you ask, what do you want dinner time to look like, do you want us to sit at the counter, do you want us to sit at the table? Or do you want us to have a picnic in the living room and just tell them anything's possible. Anything you want is possible. You just need to be able to say what you want. You need to be able to think about what you want. And then you're going to raise children into adults that are focused on what they want and are willing to work hard to get it. They have that internal motivation. They're accountable and responsible. It's fantastic. It's fantastic the way it all lays out. And you as an adult get to learn this now. I learned this as an adult. I think my kids have an upper hand on me honestly, learning it so young. So they're probably going to far pass me in their teens, and I'm okay with that. So this is what you're doing. You're going to ask them these questions, and then you are going to create plans that bring to life what they want. Let the arguments go, Let the tension go. Let them make the decision if they're going to get one book or three books. Let them make the decision if they're going to get snuggles until they fall asleep or a hug and a kiss before bed because things got dragged out. It doesn't matter how the night goes. Exactly. Everything that happens can be an example of consequences and outcomes. When we choose to do this, this is what it looks like. When we spend a lot of time on this, then that takes away from time on this every day. We get 24 hours and we get to decide how we use it. That's a truth. That's a fact. So if you want to spend more time reading, then we need to spend less time in the bath. We need to spend less time playing with the toys that when it's time to clean them up, less time on those things. And kiddo, yeah, we'll reserve more time for the books. So I'm excited to hear from you. Make sure you reach out to me. Let me know how this goes implementing with your kids. I swear by it with my kids and even in my marriage, if I know who my husband wants to be and I know what he wants, it is so much easier to have that shared vision in our marriage, in our parenting, in our communication style and our travel plans, because I know what he wants, and I gotta be good at communicating what I want, too. So I'm just excited that I got to share this with you. It's a great way to start the new year, and I'm looking forward to seeing you inside of the momset community for more coaching like this with me every single week in our group setting. And work with me, my coaches, and through my courses, and of course, connect with extensions, exceptional women that you create lifetime relationships with. There's just nothing quite, quite better, quite like it. And I'm so, so thrilled. So thanks for being here. See you later.