#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. 

Chapters

• 0:35 Establishing Boundaries and Challenging Self-Talk
• 12:42 Negotiating Rates and Overcoming Assumptions

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:35

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: 4:37

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: 6:32

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: 8:37

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: 11:32

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.

Speaker 1: 12:42

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: 12:56

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.