Hello beautiful soul. I'm Sarah Michaels and welcome to the Elated You podcast, where we dive deep into the world of self discovery, growth and healing to find out who you truly are.
On today's episode, I really want to speak into parenting, something that I have been struggling with for a very long time and I know that I'm not alone. So many of us parents you know, struggle with trying to parent especially if you're trying to parent consciously. And you know, you don't want to yell, you don't want to smack your children and you want the best for your children. But sometimes they really, really push the buttons. You know, there's so many, so many topics that I could talk into right now. For example, screen addictions, it's a massive one, lying, there are just so many things that parents struggle with when it comes to their children. But one standout one for me is lying. And I'm not sure about you, but the way I look at lying is there's something not right with my child. You know, that's the first thing that comes to mind because as a society we're told that you know, lying is so bad. And you know, you don't want to go out with a liar. You don't want to be a liar. But the truth is, is that we all lie, right? We all lie to some degree, and we hear about small lies, white lies, What a load of crap really, it really is a load of BS because there is no such thing as a lie is a lie. Whether it's a small lie or a white lie. It's still a lie, right? So we can justify our lies. But yet if our children lie, it's like they've betrayed us. It's like the end of the world. I mean, I know that's how I feel because I feel like oh my goodness, I can't trust my child and it's gone and, and then the question is, What have I done wrong? And here's the thing. It's really quite simple, and it's something that I've learned after studying with Dr. Shefali, who is a conscious parent, and a conscious parent coach. She's absolutely incredible and we all perceive our children differently. Okay, and half the problem will be solved if we actually could learn to have a an open perception because that's all it has to do with instead of actually, you know, thinking, Oh, my goodness, you know, what, what's wrong with my child? Or why don't we actually ask and check in what is it that my child needs? Because when you look at the foundation of anything, everything is cause and effect, right? And not to complicate anything but if you look at a tree and the roots of the tree, and then you look at your child as the tree and the roots, we are the roots. So anything and any behavior of our that comes from our children is literally a reflection on us. Okay? It's a reflection on us. So I want us to think, what is it? Why would our child lie to us? And there are actually a number of reasons like who would have thought right? So please stay tuned, because this is so exciting. Now, what are the roots of lying? So there's root one, which is if you're a perfectionist parent, right? A parent that can't handle your child making mistakes or failures, then your child's gonna lie to you because they don't want to upset you. They don't want to let you down. They don't want to disappoint you. And this is the reason why children learn and have a think about a time when you've lied and why you did it. Right. There's a reason like, you didn't want to upset the other person. You know, you didn't want to offend them or disappoint them or have them look at you, you know, perceive you in a different way. And so you like so have it ask yourself like, Am I that way, like everything about when your child is live? You the perfectionist parent, you know, like when they tell you that they've made a mistake, do you crack it? Root number two, that the parent is always right. So why would the parent tell you they think that you're always going to be right anyway. So if you point out that you know better all the time, then they're not going to confide in you because they're going to think that you're just not going to agree with them regardless. So if you always tell the child how they should live and what they should do, then they're going to lie about what they're doing because they just feel like they can't win. Anyway. Rule number three is the over reactive parent I reckon this is a massive one. If you're that parent that over reacts when the child tells you something, and you know, like that overdramatic like oh my god, what? Why didn't you tell me? This is never going to tell you again. See what was up in their mind right now. Their dialogue is like, oh, we should ever told her I should have just lied. And so that's about do the next time don't just lie because they don't want to. They don't want to handle they can't handle your overreaction. And that's what they're afraid of kids are afraid of our reactions. Rule number four, fragile Parent to Parent that just falls apart. Maybe you're that parent that just you know my breakdown and start crying. Not be able to handle it. A thing you know if your child is in the slightest amount of pain, like not necessarily physical pain, but like you know upset and you can't handle that and the child can see that you can't handle that. They will lie they will lie. about it. You know because they want to protect you. And I've got a prime example of that quickly is my my son.
Also the client at the time and my son had smashed his head when he was going for a run on the beat bar wasn't a hurdle. I remember what it was called. And it flung back in his face and it smashed his head and he went to emergency like he's got a scar on his eyebrow. And I'd seen it and I couldn't handle it. I can't handle seeing blood from my own trauma. And I just was like, oh my god, I fell and I couldn't help it. And straight away my son was like, Oh, it doesn't hurt them. It's fine. It's just a scratch. It's nothing and his blood was discussing and in his head. And he was just trying to play it down. Not that he lied, but I'm just trying to give you an example of the fact that he didn't feel like I could handle it. So he didn't want to tell me the truth of how we actually felt whereas he told his dad how much pain he was in. But yet he was able to hide, you know, hide his feelings from me. And so I've learned not to overreact as a parent. Okay. And that comes also from my parents overreacting to. Now rule number five is the anxious perfectionist kid. So if your kid is like wanting to be right all the time and wanting everything to be perfect, he's not going to want to stuff up. So he's going to lie because he doesn't want to fail himself or she doesn't want to fail herself. To know I'm saying he kind of thinking about my son, because the line has come up recently and I had to get on this straightaway because I did not handle it. Well. For me lying is something that was just always a big thing. If I was dating a guy and he lied, I'm literally leaving because I just can't handle it. So what do we learn from all of this is creating a safe and secure space for our children. You know, that's that's really what it comes down to. Because if your children if your children are going to lie, that's an you make it like it's the biggest deal that's teaching them that they're not gonna make mistakes. They can't show who they are that they they feel over controlled, you know, that they I don't know. I just feel like it's not a safe a safe space for them and hence they lie. So what can we do as parents, we can create safety, a lot of safety, safety, in terms of if they could come and tell us their truth. Instead of lying more you know, time and time again and we create that safe space without overreacting. And without all of those, you know, we think a solution based but they're not. They're just reactions. If we can create a safe space and not react, then our children will open up to us a lot more and not feel like they need to lie. And the other thing is building trust. You know, we've got to build trust with our children and you know, everything that comes up is trying to be their friend. We're not here to be their best friend. We're not here to be friends. We're here to be friendly. That's what we need to do is be friendly with our children show compassion to our children. Love on our children connect with our children, but not his whole like, Oh, we're mates you know, that you tell them all your secrets and you tell them all your problems. Children don't need to know any of that. They just don't you know, have a think about when you were young. Do you think you want to be friends with your parents, but if you're going to start telling you all their problems, it's going to be really hard to see them as a parent figure, because now they're on your level. And that's not what we want. We want our parents to be friendly with us. We want our parents to connect with us but at the same time, it's got to be boundaries, right?
So if we can create that connection, Safe Space trust, you're laughing Alright, this was helpful because it was really helpful for me and it's honestly been a game changer in the short time you know that we've been using this method thanks for listening. If you found value in this content, please subscribe to my podcast and head over to Instagram at elated_you to see what I'm getting up to. Bye