Parenting Perspective: How to set parenting goals (and avoid common traps)

This is the FIRST episode of the series "Parenting like you should've been parented." I am so excited to sit down and talk with you about the concept that you should be familiar with from Season ONE Episode TWO: Cognitive Triad. Did you know that we can use the same Triangle to explain the CRAZINESS in the parent-child relationship!? Such a simple concept but has so much depth. If you learn to "de-code" your parent-child interactions using this cognitive triad, you will learn the ART of understanding your child (and yourself) and protecting his/her/your worth. Let's get to it! In this episode, I use my real-life #parentingfail to demonstrate how this cognitive triad works in my relationship with my kids. 


#parenting #parentinghack #cognitivetriad #itslikethis #podcast #uejinkim #mentalhelath #relationship #worth #youmatter 

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Transcript

Hey guys, this is Dr. Kim from this, this podcast, and it's so good to just sit here and stare at my screen and record the podcast again. You know, I took a break, and I think it was the best decision ever, but I was itching and scratching just to make another episode. So I wanted to, you know, start this first episode for the new series just to explain why parenting is a topic of interest of mine. So, you know, by training, I am a child psychiatrist, and I see a lot of kids with parents. And something that I noticed, you know, even in my training years is that all the parents have seen goals for their children. But it wasn't happening, no matter how hard they tried. And the more that I entered the chapter of parenthood, I became more empathic because, you know, when, when I didn't have kids, and I hear like, oh, like parents beating their kids or yelling at their kids, you know, all I can do is, you know, stick up my nose and say, Oh, that's why your kid is like this, right? Because I didn't really know. And then when I had my first kid, I was starting to understand this, just pure sleep deprivation just makes you go insane. So I started to become more empathic. And as my first child was kind of growing, and I was pregnant, my second I was, in the last year or so of my training in child psychiatry, I started to realize that kids well being and their growth and their development was so closely tied with how their parents were doing. And I started to coach parents in my office, that kid can do as well as you do. So there is an importance of taking care of yourself. Now, that idea kind of grew and grew as my children started to grow. And I'm learning a lot of insights and wisdom, as I'm making my own mistakes, I just wanted to kind of say that you're in a safe place, as a parent, or maybe a guardian of sorts. And I just want you to know that I'm doing this with you, and making mistakes that you're probably making, you know, I just want this episode to be more encouraging. So what is this series about? So whenever I talk to parents, you know, especially I offer a parent coaching, and I really ask parents, like, what is your goal? You know, what is your goal as a parent, these are some of the answers that I hear most often, I just want my kid to be happy. Or I just don't want anything to hold them back. Or I just want my kids to know that I love them. And I'm with them, no matter what. Now, these are, you know, very common statements that you see everywhere. But I wanted to kind of break it down and see what these statements kind of mean. So I just want my kid to be happy. Probably what they meant was, that I just want my kids to be happy with themselves. And what the parent want for the children is self acceptance and contentment with who they are as individuals. Oftentimes, it hurts us when our kids compare themselves with other people and just get depreciated in value of how they see themselves. And I think what parents actually mean when they say that is because they want their kids to accept themselves and be happy with who they are, and just as who they are. Now, the statement, I just don't want anything to hold them back. I think what the parents actually mean, you know, after discussing with them is, I just don't want them to be held back from achieving what they want to achieve in life. And maybe the ideas behind this is the parents want their children to have resiliency, self esteem, goal planning and goal setting skills, and maybe at the core of it all, knowing what he or she actually wants. And you and I know that a lot of times we pursue things that we don't really want, only to find at the end that it wasn't really what we wanted, right? So even if you had resiliency and goal setting skills, if you really didn't know what you wanted, then is a lot of wasted time. And I think I can say the most parents would want their children to know this. Now this third statement, I just want my kid to know that I love them and support them no matter what. And this usually is most commonly said when there's a disconnect between parent and child and you know is limited by you know how school good, you know those kind of Curt conversations. And I think if I'm reading between the lines, what the parents really want for their children is connection, empathy, and safe, feeling safe and support. And when the child is a little bit younger, this connection and empathy and safety and support is one direction, because child cannot provide these things for the parents. But I think what as we see our children grow and enter into teenage years and maybe young adulthood, a lot of parents yearn for this, hoping to receive it from their children, but it's not coming back. And I think this is what parents are meaning when they say, I just want my kids to know that I love them. So let's talk about you know, okay, Dr. Kim, these are really great goals. Sure, I have them too. And I can really resonate with what you're saying, but what gets in the way. You know, Dr. Ken, what are you observing in your parents of your children patience, and what gets in the way, and I can kind of divide into two categories is unchecked inside internal influences, and unchecked outside influences. Now, unchecked, outside influences is kind of easy to describe, right? For their children, their peers, right what their peers are doing to them, or around them or not doing with them, teachers, you know, staff, daycare staff, strangers on the street, social media, you know, we all know the effects of social media, and trauma, right? These are just kind of examples of external influences that don't get checked or don't get processed. But I want to kind of spend a little bit more time on unchecked internal or inside influences. And this is really in the parent child relationship, like inside the parent child relationship, physical, emotional, mental spiritual exhaustion, or burnout. Now under this category, you know, baggage is fears and desires that parents are not aware of maybe parents bringing their baggage from their previous relationship or previous parent child relationship into this. Another example is personality or value difference. Now, this kind of gets in the way, if the parent and child do not reach a healthy compromise, or healthy understanding and acceptance of each other's values and personalities? Here, a good maybe marker for this is, can we agree to disagree and respect each other? Or can A Child do something that is disagreeable with your values? And how do you handle that, right. And if this doesn't get checked, or this is just kind of flying off the wall, it can really get in the way of parent child relationship. And maybe third example, is focusing on the wrong stuff. Parents come say, they're just angry, they're just throwing things. They just disrespect me grades, you know, they're not doing well, they're failing everything. If we focus on the performance and grades and external stuff, is really gonna get in the way of you building the inside stuff, self resiliency, skills, awareness. So if the parent really focus on what the children can do, and perform and produce, you're gonna miss who the child is, and what they're struggling with, and how they see themselves and how they see you. What is the goal of the content of this series? I talked about, you know, what do parents really want? What gets in the way. And episode by episode, we're going to be peeling back onion layers of parenting process, so that parents can focus on what they should focus on, so that they can protect what they want to protect, so that they can watch what grows from that process. Now, some of the ideas of this is child's sense of worth, parents sense of worth, relationship between a parent and child, both child and parents sense of resiliency, self esteem, self awareness, goal setting and achieving skills, and both parent child living authentic individualistically awesome life. And that is my goal.
I don't know if I can achieve it, but I'm going to try just like my oldest one says we can just try one of the concepts to explain the parent child relationship as it grows and progresses. I like to use the concept of cognitive triad. Now I talked about cognitive triad, and episode two of season one, and it is really foundational mental health concept how thoughts, emotions and behaviors are all linked together. So just a short recap of you know, what cognitive triad is, is a is a model that shows you in a triangular form. So if you close your eyes and imagine a triangle there Three points. And first point is thoughts at the top, emotions on the right side and behavior on the left side. And in between those three points, there's bi directional arrows, because, you know, the Tria can kind of go one way and the other way it and spins and spins and spins. And just to kind of illustrate how cognitive trial works in real life situations, I want to kind of tell you a story. So I have two kids. And there's one particular day was really stressful, kind of tired, it was a struggle bus for sure, nobody slept well. And, and we're just kind of trying to keep it a full float until the bedtime so that we can get another night of rest. And I think my two kids were playing kind of roleplay, the older kid wanted the younger kid to play a specific role or do something, but the younger kid protest, and didn't want to do it. And the older kids started to get really, really, really mad. And he punched him in the eye socket. And it was very sudden, and it was very unexpected, I immediately pushed him away, I got so angry, I was trying to protect the younger one. And I was yelling just in my backyard, and I think I'm pretty sure that my neighbors hurt me. So after this all happened, you know, I was overwhelmed with shame, and worry, and guilt and all that stuff. I said saris profusely to both kids, we put them in the cooldown area, and each of the room, and everything was good. But let's just kind of go back to how this cognitive triad worked in this situation. So cognitive triad starts spinning at a situation now in this particular case, situation was there a role playing and the younger kid didn't want to do what the older kid wanted him to do. So and the older kids mind, he, his thought was at the top, he's not doing what I want him to do. And the emotion led to getting really, really angry, and behavior was punching his sibling, which that behavior creates another situation that triggered both try out and the younger sibling, and also me. So in my particular case, the situation happened that the older kid punched the younger kid. So that's my situation, it triggered a thought he hit his sibling again. And this will never stop. It led to an emotion of anger and fear. And my behavior was push him back and yell super loud. Now, if you kind of pause for a minute, you can kind of see that especially in relationship, one person's cognitive triad cycle, creates and by their behavior creates a situation that ricochets to other people's cognitive triad. And this is such an intimate and immediate happenings that this happens in a millisecond. Now, the situation cooled and everything is good, you know, but I kind of knew that I needed to process okay, fear. And this is a moment that I hope that as a parent that you all, and I will continue to have his moment of authentic honesty with yourself in a very non judgmental, supportive setting. And this is what I mean. So after this whole situation happened, and I got some time to cool down myself, I had to kind of go back to Okay. You, Jane, you had fear and anger, like what was that about? And as I was journaling, and I was reflecting on that, you know, where does this come from, I realized that I had the fear that he will be like me, or that I was putting the pressure on him to be this angry or irritable this event of just seeing my older kid kind of go through this anger, angry stage, I think it triggered kind of self awareness of how I was as a child because as a child, I went back and forth from state of confusion and anxiety, and high irritability and anger, even to the adolescent. And on the flip side, I was worried that maybe I was putting a lot of pressure for him and that maybe that's why he was irritable. And I felt like I was kind of on a tightrope balancing this two fears on either side, there is no win situation. So after process, this kind of content, a trial cycle of fear and anger, and the resulting cognitive trial cycle of shame and lacking confidence. It just really led me to pray like, God, I can't do this. Like I'm not equipped to raise these kids. And I just felt like there was kind of answer to my prayer and I felt like God was kind of saying, You know what, if you're sick Post to mess up. Maybe this is part of the process. I think the process of parenting is just really difficult. And sometimes we're faced with this undeniable truth about ourselves that we're flawed. And we're not competent sometimes. But I share the story to say that I'm empathizing with you. I'm commiserating with you, I'm celebrating with you with each step of parenthood. And I think this is my goal for this series. Trust me, I have plenty more parenting fails to share. But I will also share my insights like this and reflections that I gained from it, I hope that you kind of take that courage to reflect on your parenting fails as well, you and I can be one step wiser, one episode at a time. I just want to encourage you guys that I'm doing this with you, and definitely not have it all together. This series is not about the books to read or parenting techniques or food to feed your kids. There's none of that. But the goal of this series is just to share my love for you guys, so that you can understand yourself and understand your children a little bit better. In the next episode, I'm going to be talking about cognitive triad again, and how as parents we can intervene and each point of the cognitive triad and what helps and what hurts. So I hope you stay tuned and be on the lookout for the next episode. Hey guys, I hope that you enjoyed this episode and leave the review if this episode really encouraged you. If you can think of anyone who could be also encouraged and share this episode with them. I hope that you can do that for me. Have a great day and I'll see you guys later.