Listen to the full interview on The Fearless Me Podcast.
In episode two of The Fearless Love Forum, I am speaking with Kristen Schmoke, a mother of four and a certified parent coach, to dive into the parallels between parenting and relationships.
Drawing from her extensive experience as a parent and educator, Kristen focuses on the concept of emotional safety, and shares valuable insights on the congruencies between the principles of parenting and relationships.
Emotional Safety in Parenting and Relationships
Kristen explains that emotional safety is crucial for children to feel secure and open up to their parents. By creating a “safe harbor,” parents can ensure their children feel understood and accepted, allowing for deeper connections and trust. This concept is equally applicable in intimate relationships, where partners need to feel they can share their thoughts and emotions without fear of judgment.
Maintaining Sacredness in Relationships
David and Kristen discuss the importance of maintaining the sacredness in parenting and relationships. In parenting, this involves respecting children’s privacy and avoiding discussing their private matters publicly. Similarly, in intimate relationships, partners should respect each other’s privacy and avoid sharing intimate details without consent, fostering trust and respect.
The Importance of Freedom
Kristen asserts that freedom within relationships is vital. Controlling behavior often leads to rebellion and anxiety in children. Allowing children and partners to make their own decisions and supporting their independence fosters a sense of freedom and self-discovery, creating a healthier dynamic.
Unconditional Love
Unconditional love is a challenging yet essential aspect of both parenting and intimate relationships. Kristen advises parents to love their children as they are, without conditions, to build a strong and secure relationship. This principle also applies to intimate relationships, where partners should accept each other fully, fostering a sense of security and trust.
Overcoming Fear in Relationships
Fear can be a significant barrier in both parenting and intimate relationships, leading to control issues and miscommunication. Kristen shares a personal story about teaching her daughter to ride a bike, emphasizing the importance of managing parental fears and allowing children to experience things independently. In intimate relationships, overcoming fear involves being present and mindful, creating a safe and supportive environment.
Practical Tips for Creating Emotional Safety
For Parents:
1. Listen without Judgment: Create a safe space for children to express their feelings freely.
2. Validate Emotions: Acknowledge and validate children’s emotions to help them feel understood and supported.
3. Respect Privacy: Maintain the sacredness of the parent-child relationship by respecting privacy.
4. Support Independence: Allow children the freedom to make their own decisions and support their independence.
5. Practice Unconditional Love: Show children that your love is not contingent on their achievements or behavior.
For Partners:
1. Communicate Openly: Foster open and honest communication without fear of judgment.
2. Validate Feelings: Acknowledge and validate your partner’s emotions.
3. Respect Boundaries: Maintain the sacredness of the relationship by respecting each other’s privacy and boundaries.
4. Support Individual Growth: Allow your partner the freedom to grow and evolve within the relationship.
5. Show Unconditional Love: Practice unconditional love by accepting your partner for who they are.
The principles of emotional safety discussed in the interview are crucial for building strong, meaningful connections in both parenting and intimate relationships. By fostering a safe environment where individuals feel valued and understood, relationships can thrive and become deeply fulfilling. Applying these principles can lead to lasting and meaningful connections that stand the test of time.
Transcript from Parenting and Relationships: Kristin Schmoke on The Fearless Love Forum
**David:** Well, hello everyone. Welcome back to the Fearless Love Forum. My name is David W. Stock and today I have one of the most interesting guests I think I’ve ever had. And today’s topic is kind of unusual because I don’t think people will give it enough credit or think of it enough.
**David** One of the things that probably affects every intimate relationship is the way that the parenting is done, if there are children involved, and you know, and the other side of it is that we can learn so much, so much. I always say that, like, my kids taught me how to love. So today I’m talking to Kristen Schmoke, and Kristen teaches parents how to have connection, communication, and cooperation with their children. So welcome, Kristen.
**Kristen:** Thank you. I’m glad to be here.
**David:** Yeah, we had such a great talk the other day, or a couple of weeks ago, I guess it was, and I just was shocked by the synchronicities between what I talk about and what you talk about. And I don’t do parenting at all, so I had to have you on here to talk about it though. So I’m so glad you came.
**Kristen:** I’m beyond excited to continue this conversation. I had so much fun last time too. This is great.
**David:** Yeah, so to start out with, you can just kind of introduce yourself and tell people a little bit better than I did about what you actually do.
**Kristen:** Yeah, sure thing. I think it’s always helpful for everybody to know that I’m actually a parent. I’m not just a parent coach out here telling all of the things you should be doing and never had children. I have four kids. My oldest will be 20 next month and my youngest is 11. I’ve been a teacher for in and out of the classroom over 25 years. I have a master’s in education, and I’m a certified parent coach. And I really help parents find that place of calm within themselves, which then reverberates throughout the home, right? So they can create better connections and better relationships. And when we have that, it just changes everything. It changes the energy in the home. It changes our outlook on parenting and it definitely creates stronger relationships with our children that are not forged in anger or resentment or confusion even is kind of a big one that parents often see like, why is my kid doing this? But we’re trying to create a little bit more understanding and space for that understanding.
Safety in Relationships
**David:** Yeah, for sure. So when we talked last time and I was telling you about kind of how the Fearless Love framework sort of works and we’ve had so much like synchronicity with that. So I just want to go over it quickly and then I’ll let you talk about from the parenting angle, how all of those things kind of apply. So the first pillar of a fearless love is that the relationship is safe.
**Kristen:** Absolutely. I think that’s important in a parenting relationship with a child as well. If a child does not feel safe, now oftentimes parents will think, well, my kid’s safe. You’re thinking of physically safe. You know, they’re not hanging 20 feet in the air from a tree. They’re not running and playing in traffic. They’re not playing with guns and knives. What we’re talking about is emotionally safe. So when your child is emotionally and mentally safe, they are going to feel more apt to share. And if we can create that safe space, or I like to call it a safe harbor, we can really experience deeper relationships with our children because they know they can come to you without judgment. They can share freely. And you may or may not have suggestions or ideas on how to make it better. You may just sit with them and just listen. And that’s the component that shows compassion. And that’s really what your children want. They’re not really there for you to fix all their problems. They’re really there for you to create that safe space so they can share. And it lets you in. It lets you into their life and that’s some of the things that they’re experiencing through their own eyes and their life.
**David:** Yeah, yeah, for sure. And also just that, you know, like whatever emotions that you’re feeling now are probably natural and normal.
**Kristen:** Oh, 100%. It’s really nice when you can remind them. Well, most humans experience this. This is part of being human. And they go, oh, huh, imagine that. Because a lot of times, their friends aren’t talking about the way they feel. As adults, we don’t very often communicate that very well because a lot of it’s internal, so they don’t see it. We don’t have a lot of dialogue around it, although I think that’s changing in the recent years, especially since COVID, there’s been a lot more conversation and acceptance about emotions and not having to feel happy all the time. It’s okay to have these other emotions that go with life. And when we know that they’re normal and they’re accepted and somebody else, I can share it with somebody and they can experience that with me. I mean, I’m not saying experience the emotion, but they can sit with me when I’m experiencing that. That is so powerful.
Empathy in Relationships
**David:** Yeah, yeah. It’s just empathy, right?
**Kristen:** It’s empathy, yeah. And it helps us to see. We all we want is to feel seen, right? And if we can’t feel safe to share, how can we feel seen?
**David:** Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. And so the second pillar of fearless love is that the relationship is sacred. So I want to get your opinion on this because I tell people that the intimate relationship has to be priority one, even over the kids. And a lot of people take on this identity that I’m a parent and that my relationship with my kids is the number one thing. And especially in blended families, you’ll find that one of the parents or maybe both of the parents has this thing that they, I’m a mom or I’m a dad and that’s my thing and that’s my identity. And I try to impress upon people that the intimate relationship is gonna be the one that, I mean, the goal at least is to have that, to be the one that goes for the rest of your life. Like your kids are there now, and it’s a super important relationship, don’t get me wrong, and they’re there, and it’s an extremely fulfilling relationship as well, the relationship that you have with your kids. But they’re going to grow into adults one day, and you’re going to have more something that’s closer to a friend relationship than a parent-child relationship at some point. But I just want to know if this piece of the relationship is sacred. If there’s a way that you can impress upon your kids that there is a sacred space for them too, that is just like, it’s just for you.
**Kristen:** Absolutely. So one thing that kind of came to mind when you mentioned sacred relationship is if it’s a sacred relationship, it’s just between the two of you, right? And I feel like, especially with social media, I see this happening a lot, especially with really young children. Perhaps moms will get together, maybe there’s a group of stay-at-home moms and they’ll talk while the children are playing on the playground. Well, what do they talk about? A lot of times they talk about things that are going on in their home, their parenting. And can you believe my kid does this or my kid said this? And then that kind of breaks a little of that sacred relationship. And when we hear or when we say those things, I am going to guarantee nine times out of ten, your child’s going to hear. They know if you’re talking to other parents about them. And especially if you’re talking about them in a negative way, they can hear it.
**Kristen:** My husband always said kids are corn because they’re all ears. So right there, they’re always listening. And as an adult, do you like to hear somebody talking negatively about you? No, that feels terrible. So that’s one thing that comes to mind. But also in today’s age, we have social media, so many parents, you know, videotape and post it on social media for the world to see when their child’s doing something that might be considered dumb or stupid or, or ridiculous or hilarious without their permission. And, and what does that, what does that mean for that child? Then maybe you posted it when they were five, but then all of a sudden they come 15 and their friends go and find it on social media. And then they tease them about it. And how does that look? And how does that feel? And that feels like perhaps maybe a little riff in the relationship and how that might be able to, you can say, well, whatever you say here is safe, but if you’re videotaping it, I can’t promise that’s gonna stay there, right? So that was one thing that immediately came to mind for me, but then you said something else about how the children are basically gonna grow up and move out and you need to still have that strong relationship with your partner. And I would say even go one step further and you need to have that strong relationship for yourself. Parenting can be all consuming, but it doesn’t have to be. I’m gonna say that again. Parenting can be all consuming, but it doesn’t have to be. And that means you get to take time to take a shower. You get time to brush your hair. You get to take time to get dressed. You get to take time to exercise or to meet your needs and it’s perfectly okay. In fact, actually it’s better if you take care of yourself, you have the ability to fill up what I call fill up your own cup and then you can go and give more to your family and your children and you’re gonna be
much more apt to be calm and present and that when you are calm and present, you can be connected. And that doesn’t mean it stops at your children. It can also go to your partner and whatever that looks like for them. If you are taking care of you, you’re showing that you love yourself. And then you’re modeling that for your children. And how powerful is that? Can you imagine, can you imagine if you watched your child grow up and just never do anything for themselves? Like you love your child infinitely. You can’t even put a price tag on it. And then you watch them just literally work themselves into the ground. How would that make you feel as a parent? You’re like, wow, that’s so painful. Why are you doing that to yourself? Don’t you love yourself enough? Take care of you so you can take care of others.
**David:** Yeah, yeah, it’s so true. And kids model so much. There’s two things that kids do a lot of. One is they model the exact behavior of their parents, and the other is they rebel 100% against the behavior of the parents. So sometimes you have two kids that grew up in the same household that one models and the other one rebels. But it’s all around the meaning that they take of what’s happening. So yeah, that’s some really good stuff there. Boy, oh boy, I was just thinking about how natural it seems to be for parents to just like talk to each other about stuff they’re kissed. And also like, it’s like cliche. We talk about how, you know, how we’re gonna embarrass our kids when they’re older and stuff like that. I’m gonna show these pictures to your boyfriend or whatever, you know, and then they…
**Kristen:** Yeah. And you’re breaking that sacred bond. Yeah, 100%. That gave me a lot to think about with my own kids. Holy. I mean, our goal isn’t to embarrass our children, right? I mean, it’s okay if they can take a joke, right? But oftentimes jokes have a little truth behind them. And a little interesting. Sometimes that’s the point of the joke. And, you know, we do things that trigger people. That’s how we behave. We have a tendency to trigger, you know, if we find out that something triggers another person, we’re gonna push that button. It’s just like a video game.
**David:** Yes.
**Kristen:** And we might not even be conscious of it. It might be an instinct.
**David:** I’d go so far to say most people aren’t aware of it and because they can’t even verbalize it and that kind of goes back to creating a safe space and talking about emotions. When we can talk about emotions, we can start to identify them and where they’re showing up in our life. And oh wait, why am I making this joke right now? Right, I was hurt when they did XYZ so I’m getting back at them. Is this the best way for a strong relationship? I’m gonna guess no.
**Kristen:** There’s always a little bit of a payback aspect to it too. I know I even find this with myself sometimes that I’m telling my kids like, you know, when I was a boy, this is how it was and I can’t believe you guys get away with this stuff. I’ve, you know, it’s this and it’s, it’s almost like, it’s almost like, like, uh, I had kind of bad when I was a kid and now I want to make sure that you have a bad kid.
**David:** Exactly.
**Kristen:** And is that really what we want?
**David:** Probably not.
**Kristen:** Probably not. I think in some ways parents kind of feel a little bit of jealousy because you’re like, oh, you got it so good. I had to walk to school uphill both ways in a snowstorm. But also our memory lies to us. Our memory lies to us. We were younger. We were smaller. That snowstorm was not nearly as big and neither was that hill.
Freedom in Relationships
**David:** Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we just make it into like a fish story, right? It was this big. No, it was this big. No, it’s even bigger. So I want to talk about the third pillar of a fearless love now and the third pillar is freedom. The relationship is freedom. It’s kind of almost counterintuitive. A lot of people think of like when they’re gonna get married, especially men. They talk about the ball and chain and and so people don’t really think of a relationship and the intimate relationship as being something that gives you freedom, but really like, Oh gosh, I can tell you from my own experience because I’ve had it both ways. I’ve been in a relationship that made me feel like a prisoner and I’ve been in the relationship that I’m in now. Like I’m so free in this relationship and all I want to do is give her that same freedom. And so I’m just wondering if that’s, if that pillar is, applies to parenting.
**Kristen:** Absolutely. I mean, you have to have freedom, right? Within, I feel like when we’re, when we take home that infant from the hospital, there’s so much hope and possibility there, right? And then as they grow a little bit, we start to like have little bits of fear, like, oh, I don’t want you to have this trait or, oh gosh, you have that trait or, oh, don’t be that. And we start to try to control things. And what happens when people feel like they’re being controlled? They push back, they rebel. You actually create space between the relationship instead of less space, which creates intimacy, right? And so when you have more space in that relationship, there’s a lot of room for misunderstanding, miscommunication, judgment, false stories that we’re telling ourselves that are not true, either about our child or about ourselves. But when we don’t, when we hold tightly to all of these things that we think our child needs to be, whether it’s because society believes that, our parents believe that over their grandchild, that’s always a big influence, or just something that we feel really strongly about. We really kind of clamp down on it. We can be really hard on children. And I think that’s why you’re seeing a lot of young children with a lot of anxiety, because they feel that pressure from their parents to not make a mistake, to not do this, to not be that. And when we can release some of that and let go of it, we give not only our child the freedom to be who they are, we give ourselves the freedom to be the parent that we really want to be. Right? Because when you’re living, and it also gives us the power to be present, because when you’re living in fear and control, you’re living in the future. And it’s based on the past. That’s what you’re basing it on. And you keep overshooting the present because you can’t live in the past and the future and also in the present. You only get to live in one and all you’re doing is is is ping ponging between past and future. But if you can sit and be okay with the things that are going on in your life right now, you can be present. If you can get calm, if you can calm your nervous system, if you can sit without judgment, if you can really talk to your child, if you can set boundaries that feel good to both of you in dialogue and conversation, these are things that are gonna help to keep you present. Social media does not keep you present. Just saying, just throwing that out there. Social media keeps you active. That’s not past or future.
**David:** I wanna throw kind of a real life sort of parenting kind of question at you. I have been learning over the last couple of years that kids, after they’re about, I don’t know what age it is, maybe it’s about 10 or maybe seven, somewhere in that seven to ten age, your ability as a parent to tell them you can’t do that sort of goes away. Like, not that you can’t stop them from doing things, but they just don’t take it in. Like, you can stop them from drinking, you can stop them from smoking, you can stop them from doing drugs. But after about age 10, you have a lot harder time making them believe that it’s actually wrong to do those things. And so, so I find that as, as the kids get older, it’s, I’m learning that it’s better to sort of like, it’s the behavior that you model that they learn from. And, and rather than it’s the old like do as I say, not as I do sort of thing too, right. But is, do you know, like, like, is that something that you talk about? Or is that something that, like, am I on the right track there or am I completely messed up?
**Kristen:** No, no, I think, I think we could probably tweak some of those thoughts. But I would say that first of all, child development is part of my teaching, right? And I would say as young as five, children start to, I mean, there’s children even younger that will start to express their independence, right? Like people could say, oh, Todd, there’s enough by people think that they call them the terrible twos is because children start to express their independence. Our goal as parents is for our children to be fully and totally independent, right? Our goal is for them to move out around the age of college age, right? The ages of 18 and 22. We would like for them to fly and and do their own thing. So with that comes child development, right? So I would say even more so between about the ages of eight and ten children are formulating their own ideas of the world. I mean even younger they’re formulating their ideas of the world and what and their role in that world and what does it look like
when I do this? Does mommy get mad at me? Or does mommy yell at me? Does mommy say mean things to me? Or is mommy loving? Or does mommy not respond? So they’re kind of like testing things out. And I would say, I would go as far as saying you can’t prevent your kids from doing drugs. You can’t prevent your kids from doing drugs. You can’t prevent your kids from having sex. But you can’t have a good relationship with them. And that good relationship with them is going to formulate them and going to allow you to be a sounding board for them for when they have tough situations that they don’t feel comfortable in and they can come to you. The reason why some of those kids at a younger age start drinking and smoking and all the things is because they’re being influenced by their peers because they don’t feel like they have that strong relationship with their parent. They don’t have that sounding board of an adult that they can go and have that conversation with where they can’t feel safe at the scene.
**David:** Yeah, and so what we have these open conversations and I talked to parents about coming to the conversation with I’m noticing that blank blank blank. I’m curious blank blank blank. When you start the conversation with them, you are not starting the conversation defensive. You’re doing this. You’re doing that. I don’t like it. Well, that’s all about you. That’s not a conversation between two people and that’s not getting curious about why your child is making the decisions they’re made. And that goes down to like your kids sneaking video games. That goes down to your kids sneaking candy from, you know, they had a whole Halloween’s coming up. We get that Halloween bucket and all the holiday stuff that’s coming up. They’re sneaking, sneaking extra treats when you told them now, your child going someplace different than where they said they were going. Like all of these things are opportunities for you to get curious. Why are these things happening? What’s going on in your life that this is what’s happening? It could be a number of things. Who knows? I’m not going to pretend to answer the question because everybody has their own individual answer. But when you come to that conversation with non-judgment and just curiosity, you can absolutely come to a solution that works for both.
**David:** So, so I want to tell you if I want, I don’t want to tell you, I want you to tell me your opinion on this. So my my daughter is 17 and from for about the last just over a year because it’s October now. So, she’s in high school, she wakes herself up, I don’t wake her up, I don’t make her lunch, I don’t tell her she’s going to miss the bus, I don’t tell her she has to go to school, but every day she gets up, makes her lunch, gets to the bus on time, not always, but most of the time. And then when she misses the bus, when she doesn’t go to school, she, I don’t tell her like, if she’s not feeling good or whatever, I don’t tell her you must go to school even though you’re not feeling good. Sometimes she just doesn’t go to school. So she has an okay attendance record. She has okay grades. She’s not doing drugs. She’s not pregnant. She’s 17. And she’s learned. And so I don’t get angry with her when things happen like she misses school when she probably should have went to school. But it’s it’s more for me. It’s more about giving her the responsibility than giving her the, you know, the rigidity and the structure of how it has to be like this. And there’s like, there’s kind of a blame component to right. So, like, if she comes to me and she’s like, yeah, my English teacher was really hard. That’s why my grades are not very good in English. I was like, you can’t tell me that. Like, I just don’t accept that. I’m not angry about your grades. I can’t, I’m not going to get angry. But your English grade is your responsibility. So if your teacher is tough, well, that’s tough. That’s how it is. Yeah. Good luck. Hope you learn, you know, learn from that whole, it’s like, wait till you get out of high school, things are going to be tougher. So I’m, I don’t, and she’s doing okay. She’s not, she’s doing better than she was, you know, a couple of years ago. So, so maybe you can just like kind of hit on a couple things there. You probably noticed some things where I’m not quite getting it perfect, but maybe you can tell me if I’m even completely on the wrong track or if I’m…
**Kristen:** How about we just tweak something? I bet we can shift a little bit and I think you’re going to see a very different outcome. One thing to keep in mind, and I always talk to parents like, okay, child development, she’s 17. Yes, I know the government says they are an adult at 18, but it actually, and even more so at 21, right? The brain is not fully developed until between 25 and 28, late 20s. So she still has about another 10 years before her brain is fully developed. So you have the gift of a fully developed brain, you also have the gift of life experiences. She does not at this point. Her behavior in that class and in that grade with that grade is showing you something. Children don’t always communicate with words. They communicate with behavior. And so behavior can be like the tip of the iceberg, right? We’re seeing this, but what’s underneath the water level? All of these other things that are sitting here, right? What I’m hearing her say to you is, I don’t know how to go in and talk to this teacher so I can get a better grade. I don’t know how to advocate for myself. And she, whether she came to you or you came to her, it was about the grade and you were, you kind of gave her a little like, well, suck it up kind of thing. But does that teach her what she could try? Like, and I’m not saying that you have to offer the suggestion, but you can put it back on her and say, well, do you have any ideas on how you could make it different? Because the reality is for all of us, if we continue to do the exact same thing, we’re gonna get the exact same result. But kids don’t always know that. They kind of go, oh, I just have to keep trying harder. But really if you had an open conversation with her I’m noticing that your teacher or your grade isn’t as high as your other classes. I’m curious why is that? She says this teacher is really hard I just don’t get her she doesn’t get me. Okay have you thought of some ideas on how you can make it better? So maybe she doesn’t have any ideas you can offer some, would you like me to have a conversation with her and you can offer? I mean, parenting and teach parents and teachers and students are supposed to be the three stools of or the three legs of a stool, right? You’re supposed to all be in communication. You’re a team. Would you like me to invite her to a conversation with you? Would you like to try and do this first? You know, you can offer like, um, have you tried to go in early and talk to your teacher? Have you tried to go in early and meet with her? Have you asked specific questions about the things you don’t understand? Because really we want to teach our child to advocate for themselves because they’re going to need to do that in life, in their job, in their like a discrepancy at a grocery store because they got overcharged, you know, rather than just be like, oh, it’ll be better next time. Or, oh, it’s just hard. It’s too difficult. We want to be able to give them the power of voice and say like, no, this is, I’m confused on this. Can you help me? How does that feel for you?
**David:** Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think you’ve made some good points there. I probably just, um, maybe I just kind of went a little too far the other way with giving her all of the responsibility because I, I made kind of a, kind of a conscious commitment not, not to, you know, to make it okay for her, whatever her outcomes were, as long as she’s like, doing it herself and then learning as she goes. But then there’s probably like some areas where I could support her a little bit more with some of the things that she’s having difficulty with. Yeah.
**Kristen:** Yeah, just just opening that conversation. For example, my second son right now is going through the college application program, right? Like, so he’s writing the essays, applying to schools. He’s taken AP bio and AP calc. Not to mention, he’s got a learning disability. That’s a lot, plus he’s playing varsity football and like, he’s got a lot on his plate. And I mean, I had a conversation with him the other day, I’m like, how can I help? I see that you are working your tail off and it still seems like the work never ends. What can I do to help? And this morning, he kind of came downstairs with a cough, I’m like, why don’t you just go back to bed. And he’s like, I’m like, you can go in an hour late, hour and a half late, just go rest. And that’s what he did. But you know what? That kind of just was like, I feel seen. I feel seen. That’s creating that safe space for that relationship. He didn’t have to tell me I could see it.
**David:** Yeah. Well, that’s a great segue into the fourth pillar of fearless love, which is unconditional love. This is the piece that gets most people because it’s such an idealistic
Unconditional Love in Relationships
kind of thing and it seems like no matter how perfect you get, you can always get it better. Unconditional love is like so… I don’t think I know of a human being that doesn’t have conditions on their love. But I think it’s an important piece to try and be aware of what they are. A lot of people aren’t even aware that they have those. But you know, like with my kids, I’m like, I actually told one of my kids one time, like I said, I just want you to know that it doesn’t matter what you do. Like, if you go to school today and stab somebody, and you have to go to jail or whatever, I still love you just the same. Like, you don’t have to be an A student. You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to be all of those things because it doesn’t matter what you do. Like, that doesn’t affect the way that I love you. So, I don’t know if you want to, if you want to touch on that one a little bit, do you do you have, like, does that come up with the parents that you work with.
**Kristen:** Yeah, a lot of times, and parents aren’t even aware of it. Right, because it goes back to that fear of oh my kids going to be like, I don’t want to be a juvenile delinquent I don’t want them to be ADHD I don’t want them to be anxious or whatever it is that we put on our kids, I want my kid to listen to me. That’s a really big one. And so, yeah, I’ll have parents come to me and they’re not even aware of this condition they’re kind of putting on it. Like to say, a lot of conversations with teenagers these days would say that their parents value their grades more than they value themselves. Not because that’s true on the parent side, but because that’s what the child’s hearing. That’s the conversation piece that the parents are always having. Have you done your homework? How’d you do on your tests? How did you get blah, blah, blah? Did you meet with your teachers? Have you taken the ACT? You gotta get your grade point up. Because, why? Because parents are fearful their kids won’t get into school. They want them to have more options. What the kids hearing is, I’m only loved when I get an A. I’m only loved when I get a blah, whatever that is. Or maybe it even goes back even farther when they’re younger. My child only feels loved when they behave, when they do the things I tell them. Well, really what that becomes is your love becomes transactional. Your interactions with your child becomes transactional, which means you’re not going into any depth with your child. That’s not a connection of hearts. That’s a connection of heads. Right, so I think there’s different ways you can love others. You can love others with your head, which is all like the list of conditions. If you take the trash out. I love you. If you do the dishes. I love you if your bedroom is clean. I love you if you get good grades. I love you. That’s really not where our love comes from. We love them. No matter what. Okay, so what if we let those things go. There’s somebody.
**Kristen:** There’s somebody who’s listening right now who’s going. Yeah, but I want my kids to know that they can do anything, that they can be anything. But, there’s a but there, right? But, do you really truly believe that, and are your actions and words reflecting that? Or are you trying to control it? Does that mean they can do and be anything within your perception of what they can be and do? or as if they can be anything and do anything within their perception of who they are. So yes, we wanna give our kids the world, but the reality is our kids are their own people. They are, they’re already whole. There’s nothing broken, there’s nothing wrong, there’s nothing to fix, there’s nothing they can be better at, they’re already whole. And if you love them as a whole, if you look at them as a whole today and be like, you’re perfect the way you are, I love you. That’s what love’s supposed to be, right? Love is supposed to be, it’s good. It’s good enough. I know your shortcomings, you’re gonna make mistakes, but I want you to know I’m gonna love you even though you make mistakes. And I know you’re gonna fly because you’re gonna, you’re amazing and you’ve got all these gifts that you’ve been given and talents and I’m gonna love you anyways. And I think that also applies to our partner, right? When we can let go of our partners, irritating or annoying habits. That’s where you bring back the conversation. Hey, I noticed you do this a lot. Tell me about that. Can we work on that? Can we, can we come up with a compromise?
**David:** Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. That brings up so many things. Holy. Yeah, I just, I just, it’s finding for my kids, it’s just finding the balance between letting them know that they have unlimited abilities, but at the same time being like, like whatever, however it works out, or whatever you want in your life, it’s okay. It’s all good. you don’t have to be perfect or you don’t have to be imperfect or a certain way because it’s all you. I tell my 17-year-old this all the time. It’s all you. This is all you. Whatever you do in your high school career, it’s all you. These are your choices to make. And I support whatever you want for your life. If you want to be a doctor, then there’s gonna be a path that you’re gonna have to take and it’s not an easy one. And if you go part way and you decide that this isn’t for me, then I support you in that. And if you wanna be a tattoo artist, there’s a path that you need to take to move in that direction and I support you in that.
**Kristen:** Sometimes children don’t know what that path looks like though. And so having conversation with them and being like, hey, what are some of your goals? I’d love to hear that. And I always tell parents, it’s really great to have conversations with children, especially teenagers when you’re in the car, when you don’t have to have eye-to-eye contact because that feels really vulnerable. I always, I mean, I’m sure there’s like, somebody’s gonna come back at me and say this is really bad habit but I always ask my kids if they want to go for a milkshake because they never say no and so we’ll go get a milkshake and they’ll sit in the front seat and we’ll have a conversation about things. Hey, what are some of your goals in life? What do you want to be when you grow up? Let’s talk about that. Okay, cool. Do you know what you need to do to become that? I mean, because I can say I’m going to be a doctor but the reality is in life you do need to get good grades so you can get into school so that you can go have more years or so. Is that what you really want to do? Okay, cool. Well, then these are the like, do you need help knowing what the steps are? Are you aware of what the commitment is? And I think, yes, you can say you can be anything you want to be. But also you have to back it up with some of the work, right? And sometimes children don’t really understand all that goes into achieving these goals. And it’s good to sit down and have that conversation with them and be like, okay. And then also it gives you a conversation piece. Hey, how are you doing on your goals? Do you need some help from me? Do you like some help from me? Is there anything I can help you with? Or I gave you got it and they can be like, yep, I got it. I’m good. Very cool. Or no, I’m not. I’m actually really struggling in this spot. I got the good grades now, but now I don’t know. I don’t know how to pay for it. Or, who knows what the deal is. But just recognizing that, yeah, it’s all her. But yeah, you’re here cheering her on. I’m not leaving your side. I’m here. And I’m here supporting you. And I’m going to continue that conversation with you. Because I want to continue that connection. Because keep in mind, her brain’s not fully developed.
**David:** Yeah, yeah. Yeah, for sure. And, and so, so I want to piece now and the last piece is fearless love. Yeah, what the whole what the whole thing is named after if it’s gonna be important.
**Kristen:** So for you is fearless love a component of all of these pieces together?
Finding Fearless Love
**David:** It’s it’s partly that but it’s also its own piece in a way the the thing that destroys relationships in my experience is like, there’s so many things, but at the root of what destroys relationships is fear. It’s fear that stops us from communicating. It’s fear that causes us to do all kinds of things. Most of, I mean, if anybody who is going or making the call to the lawyer for the first time, that action is driven by fear. It’s a fear of something. I don’t feel like I can continue on this path with this person. Or I, you know, there’s, so there’s all of that, but I can only imagine in, because I’ve witnessed this firsthand with other parents and with myself at all, as well.
**David** I’m, I, I want to tell you a little story. My oldest daughter, who’s now 21, was learning how to ride a bike and because I’m the dad, I’m the one that gets to teach her how to ride a bike. Awesome. And so we had this driveway that had a nice little slope down towards the sidewalk. And the thing that stops kids from being able to, riding a bike is like the most natural thing. It’s almost cliche how natural it is. We always talk about it’s like learning to ride a bike. It’s like riding a bike. You just remember, you know, you can always remember when you’re, when you’re 60 and you haven’t ridden a bike in 40 years, you can still get on a bike and ride one. Right? But the thing that stops little kids from being able to ride a bike is they’re afraid to go fast enough to have the stability. You have to have the speed to have the stability.
**David** And so my daughter was having a little bit of a struggle with this. And so I said, well, why don’t we just go up to the top of the driveway and I’ll just help you a little ways and then you can just go from there. And I cannot tell you how we got halfway down the driveway and I let her go. And my heart was in my throat. And she went down… I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever experienced that much fear in… I can’t remember. I still remember it to this day. But she went down and she got to where the sidewalk… Like we had one of those little round curbs, you know, and she was supposed to turn and go on the sidewalk and she didn’t cause she was going too fast and she went out onto the road. Well, it was a quiet street. So there’s no, there’s no cars coming or anything, but she just went, ran out onto the road and she peddled down for like half a block. And then she turned around and came back and she was just laughing her, you know, just like it was crazy. And I was like, so how as a parent do you allow your kids to do things and experience things without stopping them?
**Kristen:** Yeah. Well, first thing I would say is you have to get calm inside your body, right? When we have fear, our nervous system gets triggered, right? And so then when we get triggered, we respond probably negatively sometimes, right? I would say most of the time we respond negative. So I would say you have to get calm inside your body. So some people do breathing techniques. Some people do meditation. Some people do like running their hands under cold water. There’s lots of different techniques you could do to find calm in your body, right? That’s the first thing. The second thing I would say is to make sure that just because it feels unsafe to you doesn’t mean it feels unsafe to them. So a nice word to use for your kids is, tell me what your plan is. Because if I usually use the example of your child’s climbing a tree and they’re going up a little bit higher than you would like, you go, hey, tell me what your plan is. The good news that that does two things. One, it makes them think of a plan because they might not have one. So there’s that. And two, then it gives you that verbalization, like, hey, maybe they might say like, well, this is as far as I’m going. And then you’re like, oh, okay, cool. I don’t have to yell at them and say, don’t go anywhere, reach out to me. I can say, hey, tell me what your plan is. I wanna see what’s happening. So when you are operating in fear, I think we kind of already talked about that a little bit, but it creates that space between the relationship, right? Because you’re either operating in the past or the future, either one, and that’s not letting you to be present. What gets you to be present is to get in the moment, to get calm, to make eye contact, do something that can touch the other person. So if you have young children, a massage is nice if they’re open to it. Drawing on each other’s back can be really fun. playing a game, a card game, is really a great way for young children. Get present in this moment. Really sink your toes into the ground and really feel it. Get grounded. Maybe you need to go outside and see a moment of sun. Look around and be grateful for a couple of the things you see around. Oh, there’s a beautiful rose. Oh, the birds are singing. Oh, that sunset is beautiful. something that’s going to get you to become back to this present place so then you can have that fearless love. Because the reality is your child is going to be who they are. It doesn’t matter how much force, how much control you put into it. You might be able to change some of their trajectory, but are they going to resent you for it? And are you going to have a good relationship at the end of it? Probably not. Are they going to feel bad themselves like, oh mom never believed in me to do xyz I really want to. Yeah, you talked to so many adults I’m a doctor but I really wanted to be a pianist and my parents thought that was the dumbest thing ever so I’m a doctor and I hate it. We don’t measure success on parenting by what our children achieve. That is egocentric parenting. That is me saying I’m a good parent look at me world. My kid’s a doctor. That doesn’t make us a good parent. What makes us a good parent is paying attention to your own child, getting in tune with your child, and having conversations with them regularly. I’m noticing this. I’m curious. Hey, I’m curious. I’m curious what happened in school today. They’re going to say nothing. You got to ask specific questions. I’m curious who just sat next to at lunch today. What’d you guys talk about? What’d you eat? Our school has free hot lunch every day for kids. So my kids don’t pack a lunch. So when they serve at lunch today, did you learn anything new in any of your classes? These are conversations that we can have where we can start to create that safe space. Let them know that we’re listening because that’s really what they want. They want us to listen. They don’t want us to judge. They don’t need our comments. They want us to listen. When you get that, you create that safety. You create that sacred space. You create freedom. You create, they feel the unconditional love and that makes way for that fearless love to really take over.
Relationships are Fulfilling
**David:** I’m glad that you said that because I had one kind of final question and it was around, it’s around the fulfillment of being a parent. It’s one of the most fulfilling things that you can ever do. It’s been such an impact in my life, like on me. And so I think the question that I want to ask is what do you say to parents like to give them sort of that that forward look like how do you how do how do you want this to be at the end like like when your kid’s an adult how do you want to feel about about your relationship with them and how it’s how the whole thing has gone?
**Kristen:** Yeah, first and foremost I would say you’re on the same team. Remember whenever you’re doing anything? Is this showing my child that we’re on the same team? Is this showing my child how we work together? Is this showing my child that I can be a reasonable human and compromise? Is this showing my child that that I’m open to the things they want to try and do without judging them? I’m open to listening to them. The goal here, right, the goal is that you want your child to feel loved unconditionally. That’s that’s parents number one goal. So we’re on the same team. Our child wants to feel unconditional love. They want to feel accepted. We are on the same thing team. We are trying to do the same thing. When we focus on these these transactional components of dishes and bedrooms and showers and all of that, we lose that. Now, I don’t want anybody to mishear me in saying, well, so I can’t ask my kid to do the dishes. No, children need boundaries. They need to know clear expectations. But when your expectations change with the wind, they cannot predict it. So when we have conversations with our children about, hey, these are the things that are going on today. These are the kinds of things I could use some help with. would you be willing to help me out with any of them? Children like to be asked. They like to have a little bit of say, a little bit of control. Absolutely. Hey, I got dog walking. I can walk the dog. Sure, I’ll pick the dishes. I’ll pack you from the floors. And you’re like, thank you so much. It goes so much easier that way than if you’re like, you’re doing the dishes. If you, I mean, would you respond well if you had a boss that did that? You’d be like, well, you might do it because you don’t want to get fired, but you’re gonna grumble the whole way doing it. And that’s exactly what they’re doing, right? Our goal is to remember, we’re on the same team. Let’s ask, let’s treat them the way we would like to be treated. We wanna be asked permission. We want people to get curious about us. We want people to show a little empathy. It’s okay if they go, you know what, mom, I’m not feeling good right now, or I have a lot of homework I have to do. Like, you know what, it’s fine. I’ll take care of it. I promise you those dishes are still going to be there tomorrow, because I have not discovered a dish fairy or a laundry fairy yet who just comes and does it in the night. Maybe it doesn’t feel great for you to leave dishes in the sink, but the reality is what’s more important, a healthy relationship with your child or dishes being done. So dishes are coming back tomorrow.
**David:** Yeah, that’s for sure. Wow, this has been such an amazing conversation. And even during your answer to the
last question I was like oh my gosh there’s so many more things that I want to talk about. We’re gonna have to do this again sometime because it just occurred to me, it literally just occurred to me just about four minutes ago that we didn’t even talk about boundaries because he said boundaries and I was like oh my gosh we have to talk about boundaries. We could do a whole thing just on boundaries. And again, because it it translates 100% to your intimate relationship. And so I hope that for for people who are watching, some people are going to be like, why are we watching parenting thing? I thought this was about, you know, intimate relationships. It is it’s about it’s about there’s, there’s so many ways that, this is what I tell people all the time. I learned how to love for my kids and it’s so important. We’ve had such a good talk today and I really would love to talk to you again another time about and, and really, especially about boundaries. We really have to have that conversation for sure.
**Kristen:** Also, that’s so much fun. I’ve been taking notes as we’re writing. I’m like, oh, that was good. Oh, I like that question. That was good. This has been a lot of fun for me too.
**David:** Yeah. So we can find Kristin. I have some links somewhere around this video. One of them might be above you, actually, right now. And I think there’s two down there. but um so there’s the Facebook page and what else do I have? I have an Instagram account and I have a website.
**Kristen:** Okay all right so the Instagram is going to be down there the website is going to be down there and then I think the Facebook is going to be above you.
**David:** Perfect.
**Kristen:** Yeah all right look around the screen.
**David:** Yeah there’s there’s lots of places to click so yeah all right thanks so much, Kristen, and we will, we will get together again. This is great.
**Kristen:** This was fun. Thank you.
You can find this interview on our Youtube channel:
[…] that I learned the most about love and relationships from my children. Recently, I sat down with Kristen Schmoke, a seasoned educator and parent coach. Our talk contained some high quality relationship advice as […]