#11 Transforming Holiday Stress into Positive Family Moments

Establishing boundaries and open communication can significantly enhance a child's sense of security and emotional development. This episode explores the interplay between parenting during the holidays, addressing self-talk, and the importance of negotiation.

• Discussing the balance of parenting during holiday gatherings 
• Reflecting on the impact of disrupted routines on children 
• Practical tips for utilizing timeouts and designated spaces 
• Understanding the need for boundaries in emotional safety 
• Examining the role of self-talk in shaping a child’s mindset 
• Highlighting the importance of asking for what you want in life 
• Considering how parenting lessons translate into broader life skills 

Happy New Year, merry Christmas, ciao.

Eric's Podcast. 

Transcript

Establishing Boundaries and Challenging Self-Talk

Speaker 1 0:02

Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Eric's Podcast . I'm your host , eric . Today is Christmas Eve , so for all you guys out there , merry Christmas and Happy Christmas Eve and Happy New Year . An interesting thing that happened to us we're out of town for the holidays visiting my parents , and it's interesting when you have a situation , when you're around either your friends or extended family , there's always that dynamic of how your kids are going to behave or how are they behaving , and it's easy to at least for me , it's easy to kind of slack off sometimes , especially doing the parenting thing , which happened during Thanksgiving , because I was also trying to work at the same time and then there was a bunch of other stuff going on and when we got back from Thanksgiving , there was all these traits that my son had , just weird things , that is , were just off and um , like you know , being more like rebellious or really challenging you and um , or trying to control the situation and stuff like that . And it occurred to me , and it occurred to me that I hadn't really established a um , like a reinforcement , or I want to say uh , like a discipline . I haven't , I didn't establish that . So for us , what we do is we have a like a timeout time . That's how we've been disciplining , disciplining Josiah , and so , you know , and it's various times , if it's just , if it's just something small , then it's like a two minute go sit in the stroller , cool off . If it's something larger than you know , it could be like four or five minutes , but , um , and that has been worked out really really well actually , and it occurred to me that we hadn't established that during Thanksgiving and so he was just left to be able to do whatever he wanted to do , um , and just kind of go unchecked and we . So this time , what we've done instead is we've been using the car as kind of a take a breath , take a break from the situation If something's not going your way , something like that , and just , you know , going to the car , sitting in it and then same thing that you would do at home , and that actually has been working really really well , and I never thought about it for traveling purposes and everything , but that has been working really , kind of wanting to challenge you , which is fine , nothing wrong with that , but in some cases , for instance , you don't stick your fingers in a plug because you could get electrocuted and a plug , you know , because you could get electrocuted . Things like that are things that we try to . You know , when we say no , do not do that , it needs to be heard and taken into account . And I feel like a lot of times .

Speaker 1 4:04

And then you have , you know , the you don't want to be over over the top about controlling every little thing , but you also don't want to give your kid complete freedom to do whatever , because that's not parenting at all . And I think there was a good book that I read earlier this year . I didn't read it , I listened to it and one of the things about the book is it was really focused on boundaries and communicating those boundaries and how the kid themselves . They actually want boundaries . They want to know what is the not cage . I wouldn't say that . I would say like what is how , what are the walls ? And if you know what the walls are , then you can your anxiety and everything is a lot lower . You actually feel like you can create within . You have a safe space that you can create within and you're not constantly wondering you know where is the boundaries at , because then that creates like a not knowing , like oh , what did I do wrong If there's a space that you can create with your kid . That is like you can do whatever you want , be as creative as you want and just stay within this area , or even , um , just stay within this area , or even like , in an emotional standpoint , too , it's the same thing , because it could be like okay , it's okay to be upset and mad , but we're not going to stay being upset and mad , we're going to let it go .

Speaker 1 5:59

One interesting thing , though , that has started happening after , or has just started to occur , is that he is telling himself I can't do it or I never will be able to do this , or I will never be able to . I'll never see that again in and telling him . He's telling himself this , which is very it's interesting , because it occurred to me that that could be a possible foundation of how you think about yourself in the future . And how , like do we do that subconsciously , without even knowing that we're doing that , you know , and is that holding us back from actually going and trying new things ? And it hit me because it was like okay , what things am I saying to myself that I am just not doing because I am believing that I can't do it , or I'm believing that I won't like it Similar to you know we go to a restaurant and you look at a menu . You know you're trying to evaluate whether you're going to like it or not , but I think the thing that we don't really take into account is have we actually ever tried it before ? Is , have we actually ever tried it before ? And how can we know if we're going to like it or not like it if we've never tried it before ? And how can we make a decision on something if we've never actually tried it , because we might actually like it , it you know , and so that's one of the oh yeah , that's so .

Speaker 1 8:04

That was something that hit me . It was like , okay , wait , am I ? What am I doing ? Am I ? Is there a narrative in my own head that I'm telling myself I'm not , I don't , I won't like that , I can't do that ? Or am I judging myself before even doing it , like using words like I'll never be able to do this or I always do this , and am I judging myself and kind of self-sabotaging myself before without even actually trying to do the thing that I'm trying to do , like if I'm trying to break a habit , and I tell you , tell myself , I'll never be able to break this habit . I'll never be able to stop doing this . Well then , that kind of talk is kind of like you know you're just , why would you ever actually do it , when you know you want to do it , but you're saying that you're not going to do it , like the whole thing , the whole narrative . It should be I can do it , just like the train story , the little train that could and that should be the dialogue , and that is a habit that I want to create , and it is instead of saying I can't do this , I can't do that , maybe turn it around and say I can , but I'll never , as a excuse to not even try , and that's not the way to use those terms . So , anyway , but yeah , so that was something that I realized and it was like it was a little bit of a . So now I mean trying something new . I've been trying it out and you know I've been . Um , there's a group of guys that hang out at the Whole Foods , at the uh , not Whole Foods , but at the not Whole Foods , but at the bar close to us , and I tried out just going up there hanging out , talking , shooting the breeze , whereas a year ago I would have not done that and I would have just been that person silently on their phone trying to find something to watch or look at or something . And yeah , now it's a little bit different . Go ahead and try it .

Speaker 1 10:59

And it works in a business , in business sense also , because you know in negotiation , if you don't ask , you're not going to know if you are able to do that , or you're not able to do that . If you always just assume everything , then you're really holding yourself back from the options that you might have on the table , but you need to ask in order to see what those options are . So example right now is our rent is due . Well , it's due for renewal . We have a renewal proposal from them , proposal from them and every year , usually every year so far I have emailed them back with a counter offer saying you know , I don't want to pay this much . I understand you need an increase . The average market has only increased 3% or whatever . I would be willing to pay this amount and I've gotten a discount every time .

Negotiating Rates and Overcoming Assumptions

Speaker 1 12:09

This time , however , I did the same similar email , but instead I asked to keep our rate the same , and so I'm curious to see what their response is .

Speaker 1 12:23

It's a 50-50 chance They'll say yes or they'll say no , and that's the thing . There's nothing wrong with asking , but you won't know unless you ask . And so you know , the holidays are here , everyone is having a good time , but if you don't ask and kind of always assume , then you know you could have the same kind of blandness that there's always been , but if you throw some new thing in there then you possibly will have a different experience , good or bad , I don't know , but anyway . So yeah , that was just something that I saw in my kid and then it kind of triggered the same thing in me in terms of like , okay , negative validation and whether or not . Am I assuming too much , too much , and should I stop assuming so much and actually try to see if it's a valid response or not , sponsor or not ? So anyway , guys , I hope you guys have a merry , happy holiday season and on this nice Christmas Eve and I will catch you guys in the next episode , woohoo , okay , anyways , happy New Year , merry Christmas , ciao .