Do you Parent Through Fear?

In this podcast episode, we tackle the thing many of us do, but aren’t even aware of. Allowing our fear and anxiety to take the wheel when we’re parenting. It would be easy to call this helicopter parenting, but it is so much more. This “parenting through fear” is driven by our anxiety and fear that something bad will happen if we leave our kids to their own devices or if they make a wrong choice.

But there are things we can do to nip this parenting bad habit in the bud. We share 3 easy ways to stop parenting through fear and start positive parenting with confidence!

Resources We Shared In This Episode:

Happy Mom Summit A FREE online virtual event that brings you expert-led sessions, and a thriving community of like-minded moms ready to kick the guilt while raising respectful and responsible kids. The summit will be held live from February 27th-March 6th, 2023.

Calm & Happy Parenting Time to get your kids to listen and help out more without the fighting!  This is your complete solution to shift the responsibility of "doing everything for everyone" to your family and to give you the kind of relationship you want with your kids and the entire family!

Are You an Anxious Parent? from Healthline

No Guilt Mom YouTube Channel Watch this podcast episode on our YouTube Channel! While there, check out everything we have and subscribe to be notified every time we have new videos added for parents and kids!

Visit No Guilt Mom

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Download the episode transcripts HERE!

MOMignited Summit- This is a free online event to help you find what fires you up, eliminate what drains you, and finally stop feeling like you're just getting by, so you can show up as the mom you want to be.  Happening LIVE Oct. 9th-Oct.13th! Get your free ticket now at www.momignited.com

Transcript

Transcripts for No Guilt Mom Episode 170

Please note: Transcripts are created using AI. There may be some errors.

[00:00:00] JoAnn Crohn: Welcome to The No Guilt Mom podcast. I am your host, JoAnn Crohn, joined by my co-host Brie Tucker. 

[00:00:09] Brie Tucker: Why hello hello, every buddy. How are you? I, I just hit the mic too when I did that

[00:00:13] JoAnn Crohn: and this is definitely gonna be one that you need to watch on YouTube because Brie Brie has the pen. She's a pen mustache. It's like mustachio . Yeah, 

we just have 

[00:00:24] Brie Tucker: Yes I'm evil! 

[00:00:25] JoAnn Crohn: To do something else, to not to do something else, to not focus on our fear. Because we're talking today about parenting through fear.

[00:00:34] Brie Tucker: Yes. And actually, , we were talking recently, so we of course always record these a little bit in advance. There was an article going around recently about a Tesla that crashed over a cliff in California. 

[00:00:49] JoAnn Crohn: Yes, and my, my dad sent me this article this morning because I 

[00:00:53] Brie Tucker: Doesn't he know better? 

[00:00:54] JoAnn Crohn: Just . I just got a Tesla. Three mo like three or four months ago, and I'm sure he was like, look at this, this could happen. . 

[00:01:01] Brie Tucker: Well, okay, so like that was my point, so this article noted that the Tesla went over the cliff like Devil's slide in California and that all the people survived. Thank God. But I was saying to you that I thought it was really weird that they kept focusing on it being a Tesla, like 

[00:01:17] JoAnn Crohn: mm-hmm.

[00:01:18] Brie Tucker: If it was a Hyundai, you wouldn't hear like a Hyundai goes over a cliff in California. You'd be like, Hey, car went over a cliff with car. Kept focusing on the fact it was a Tesla. 

[00:01:25] JoAnn Crohn: Well, here's the thing about Teslas and my family's very anxiety prone, so of course as soon as I got a Tesla, my sister's like, JoAnn, those cars kill people.

They take control and they go, I'm like, no, they don't. They don't do that. He's like, anytime Elon Musk can download some software in there and have your car run off the road. I'm like, no, no. 

[00:01:44] Brie Tucker: Okay. That's going back to the whole like iRobot movie theme and that robots will take over, but no.

Okay, so that is interesting though, because I was telling you off, the mic that I thought. . It was weird they were saying Tesla because I felt like they were doing one of two things. They, being the media, they were either trying to freak people out, like you just said that Teslas are gonna kill you in self-driving mode, or, 

[00:02:06] JoAnn Crohn: which I totally believe was the angle, knowing media.

[00:02:10] Brie Tucker: Yeah, because all the people survived. They were like, look how safe a Tesla is. They careen 250 feet. Down into the rocks and everybody still survived. 

[00:02:21] JoAnn Crohn: Yeah. 

[00:02:21] Brie Tucker: Injured but survived. 

[00:02:22] JoAnn Crohn: Yeah. 

[00:02:23] Brie Tucker: So yeah, I thought that was, and then now here we are two days later and a recent article came out that it had nothing to do with the fact that it was a Tesla or self-driving mode, that it was the driver, but 

[00:02:34] JoAnn Crohn: Yeah. Which is sad. 

[00:02:36] Brie Tucker: It's interesting. It's all about that fear. 

[00:02:38] JoAnn Crohn: It is, it is all about the fear. Fear in the media, of course sells. I mean, I was a broadcast journalism major and all of my professors warned us about this maxim they say in newsrooms where if it bleeds it leads, which means If it's bloody, then it's the first story because that's what attracts everybody to your newscast.

And of course like my professors were that's horrible. I can't believe they do that. But it was something to be prepared for when you go out into the working world to know this happens. So the fear is a huge part. I think fear is just a huge part of all of our lives. It's one of the reasons, like I don't watch any news anymore because they're playing on everybody's fears.

Ratings cuz that's how they get paid. That's how the money comes in. 

[00:03:23] Brie Tucker: News can just, in general, be very overwhelming. Like it just, especially as a parent, because you think back, and they talk about this too, about how it, it feels like everybody is getting kidnapped and hurt these days and like none of that crap happened when we were kids.

But apparently it did. We just didn't know about it cuz we weren't connected all the time like we are now. 

[00:03:48] JoAnn Crohn: Yeah. 

[00:03:48] Brie Tucker: So it's just, it's scary as a parent because anywhere you turn in the news, you're going to find an article about something of your worst fear that could happen to your own kids. 

[00:03:58] JoAnn Crohn: Yeah. 

[00:03:59] Brie Tucker: And it makes it so hard not to, not to have those thoughts racing through your head when you are coming up with rules and or choosing how to discipline your child.

[00:04:11] JoAnn Crohn: Totally. 

[00:04:12] Brie Tucker: As far as I'm concerned, my kids are constantly gonna be kidnapped and taken into sex trafficking or run over on the road, like whatever. It's gonna happen. It's gonna happen because it's in the media and I, hear it all the time. . 

[00:04:24] JoAnn Crohn: It's usually a lot less prevalent though than the media makes it seem like they take like one situation out of a million and when you see that one situation, you're like, oh my gosh, this is happening everywhere.

When you know it is one situation and it is good to be aware of those things and just be aware of surroundings. Of course, if you're out with kids, but. To know that it's very, very rare that these things happen and to also know if your parenting's affected by it. And that's what we are going to talk about today.

Hope you enjoy this episode of the No Guilt Mom Podcast 

[00:05:02] Brie Tucker: okay. So let's just be honest. Honestly, everybody out there in podcast land, I want you to nod your head, raise your hands, who has ever had a rule, or had a reaction to something your kids did that was fully run by, oh my God, X, Y, Z is gonna happen to my kids.

And it, and it was like a really bad X, Y, Z. Like, my kid's gonna get run over, my kid's gonna get kidnapped, my kid's gonna swallow a magnet and it's gonna tie up their intestines and they're gonna die, like whatever it is, right? 

[00:05:34] JoAnn Crohn: All those things go through my head all the time. All the time. Even my son is nine now and he really likes to bike around the neighborhood, but it really took me a long time to let him do that because I was like, oh my gosh, what if he gets hit by a car in the neighborhood?

What if somebody kidnaps him in the neighborhood? Everything goes through my head and then the only thing that makes me let him do it is I think back and I'm like, okay, I wanted to do these things at his age and then I have to repeat to myself. It is very improbable that things, things will happen. And I just let him know to be aware and he knows to be aware.

And then I give him time limits. I'm like, not time limits, but I just ask him. I'm like, okay, like how, how long are you gonna be? What time should I look at the clock? And that's when I'll start worrying. And he is like, , 30 minutes. I'm like, cool. And he's been back before those 30 minutes, so I haven't had to worry at all.

[00:06:29] Brie Tucker: you've been able to keep that one in check. 

[00:06:31] JoAnn Crohn: But I've been able to keep it in check, but it's really, it's difficult. There's so many fears as a parent. 

[00:06:36] Brie Tucker: Right. And I think that if we really take a little step back here, these fears. It's, it's a fear about what, like you just said, what could happen versus what's going to mm-hmm.

what is likely to actually happen, and it causes us to be that helicopter parent, which I find hilarious because I've talked to my parents about that before. They're like, helicopter parenting was not a thing. Never heard that term before until, you know, Your oldest sister started to have kids that it kind of became a big thing and now you say helicopter parenting and everybody knows what you're talking about.

[00:07:07] JoAnn Crohn: Mm-hmm. 

[00:07:08] Brie Tucker: and we all know that you don't wanna be a helicopter parent because 

[00:07:12] JoAnn Crohn: Yeah. 

[00:07:12] Brie Tucker: The helicopter parent, the one that is like always like hovering over, over everything, trying to constantly keep an eye and to control all situations, and not in a bad way. They're trying to control situations cuz they love their, their kids and they don't want them to get hurt.

But when you're doing that, it causes so much stress because then everything is on your shoulders. 

[00:07:32] JoAnn Crohn: It does. 

[00:07:33] Brie Tucker: You are literally taking everything on. 

[00:07:35] JoAnn Crohn: And I think there was a shift actually where everything seems to be the mom's fault. Um, like if a kid is bad, they always go to the mom. They don't go to the dad, they go to the mom.

[00:07:47] Brie Tucker: Well, cause dad just has to show up. And he's a good dad. 

[00:07:49] JoAnn Crohn: Exactly. 

[00:07:50] Brie Tucker: They love dads. But let's just be honest. , that kind of is how the rule goes. 

[00:07:55] JoAnn Crohn: There is a very double standard, moms compare themselves to having a completely organized house with well-behaved kids. That's the ideal that you see on TV shows or on movies.

And then dads they're like, well, I'm not a deadbeat dad. I'm doing pretty good. So, right. It's a lower standard. It's funny cuz I am, I'm reading this one book, it's by Stacey Willingham. It's called All the Dangerous Things. I read thrillers. But , you're gonna laugh that I'm actually reading this thriller.

I don't know why I do this to myself. This one is about a woman whose toddler son was kidnapped in the middle of the night, and it comes into the story a year later where there's still no information, no clues about him. And it's a totally cold case. But what's interesting is she's going around and she's going to these true crime conferences to keep the cold case alive.

So she's telling her story and the way she's getting paid is they're giving her the list of all the attendees because she's trying to hunt down who might have taken him. Because for some reason, people who commit the crime are more likely to come to these things and relive it. 

[00:09:00] Brie Tucker: Wow. 

[00:09:01] JoAnn Crohn: Yeah, it's intense. So far. The only reason I'm still reading is because there's something else going on here, like, you know, there's something else going on. 

[00:09:08] Brie Tucker: Yeah, 

[00:09:09] JoAnn Crohn: because. They went back to her example of, as a kid, she's a sleepwalker. . And so I'm like, they wouldn't mention she's a sleepwalker if it didn't have something to do with the story.

I'm onto you thrillers. I know what's going on .

[00:09:23] Brie Tucker: I know your recipe . 

[00:09:25] JoAnn Crohn: But the point is, she makes it very, very clear in the story that everyone always looks to her and is uncomfortable around her and blames the mom when they look and they're like, oh, it's. that my son just disappeared. It's like, what did you do wrong that made your son disappear?

Right? Why didn't you have this like baby monitor in his room? Why didn't you check that window before he went to sleep and not asking the same things of dads? So I think moms have an additional pressure, and that's why parenting through fear and knowing that you're doing it is so important. 

[00:09:57] Brie Tucker: Right?

Right. It is. Because honestly, when it comes to the whole parenting through fear there's two things of it. First of all, you have to be able to recognize that that's what you're doing. That you're, that you are, parenting and away through fear and anxiety. And then once you can recognize it, then you can start working on it.

Like your example you had with your son with the bike riding. Like you realize that that fear is, or that those fears, that those things are definitely gonna happen to him are. A little bit bigger in your head than probably in real life statistics, right? There's a song. Have you ever heard the song by, uh, um, uh, bear Naked Ladies?

Uh oh, poop . Oh, it's a song about like the, the probability of like dying. And they have like, the whole song is 

[00:10:44] JoAnn Crohn: about these. Oh yeah. Really? I know what you're talking about. 

[00:10:46] Brie Tucker: Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Yeah. There's all these weird ways you could die, but more than likely, like, you're gonna have a good day or something like that.

Like these things won't actually happen to you. Um, Yeah. I don't know where i's going with that, but Yeah, . Yeah, but I 

[00:10:59] JoAnn Crohn: mean, it's like, it's looking at the probability of things happening or like, you went back to the, the establishing of rules, because we were recently at a gathering and a close friend was oh my gosh, like I don't let my son say hi to anyone.

And we're all like, what? This is so weird. We just didn't know what to say. We were just here and come find. Months later that this close friend has this overwhelming anxiety that her son is going to get kidnapped and taken away from her. And so if she can prevent him from engaging with people, because she's always been told , oh, you know, it's always the women get mugged who say hi to like these strange men on their routes.

I know they're. All these things. There's all these things and stuff that are like drilled into, especially women from a young age, that aren't true, are meant to kind of, are meant to keep us safe, but end up us little Red Riding Hood, red 

[00:11:52] Brie Tucker: Little Red Riding Hood. Like that whole fable was created to say like, if, if, if a, if a little girl doesn't listen and she veers off the path.

She's not only gonna hurt herself, she's gonna hurt her. Grammy . Can you 

[00:12:06] JoAnn Crohn: believe that? Like what stories about boys were like that? I can't even think of one. I can think of boys lying like the Jack and Jill boy who cried 

[00:12:16] Brie Tucker: wolf, I don't know. But you're right.

 I dunno. Why is she's true? Him? You know what? People need to comment. So comment on this episode. If you could tell us a nursery rhyme or an old story where like boy gets in as much trouble as Little Red Riding Hood, because I wanna hear that.

[00:12:32] JoAnn Crohn: That is, there's a lot of stories like that to keep you small and keep you safe. I bet you could look at a lot of things. I mean rumble like Rumpelstiltskin? She made a negotiation to give away her firstborn child. How dare she?

[00:12:50] Brie Tucker: Never negoti. Negotiate with Heidi. Embarrassed. 

[00:12:52] JoAnn Crohn: No. Here you go. No. Look at rumpelstiltskin. Um, she needed to earn, like she, she needed to earn money and so she said she could spin straw into gold because she needed to earn a living, but the only way she could earn a living was if she gave up her child.

Like what deep seated like norms are put into us ? 

[00:13:14] Brie Tucker: And we choose to tell these to our children as bedtime stories. It is very odd. It is very odd. 

[00:13:19] JoAnn Crohn: Well, when you see it, you're like, that's messed up. That's messed up. Yeah. 

[00:13:25] Brie Tucker: But, okay. I 

[00:13:25] JoAnn Crohn: No wonder we have all these issues, , 

[00:13:28] Brie Tucker: but I digress.

All right, so really quick, we're gonna run over a couple of signs. So in case you're listening this episode, and you're not quite sure if you fall into this category of parenting through fear, parenting through anxiety, or. You think you are, but you like to hear that confirmation.

Just to know for sure. I'm one of those people, I pretty much know things, but I'm like, I still wanna see if I can check off all these things .Just to know. 

[00:13:51] JoAnn Crohn: Well, it's also a form of connection. If you know that this is a pretty normal thing and it happens to so many people and you are not odd, that is even more reason to like go in the direction to try to change it because you're like, oh, there's a fix for this.

I can, is can go talk about it. 

[00:14:09] Brie Tucker: There is a fix. 

So, so let's start with our signs. Like what is the first, the first sign that you might be parenting through fear. 

[00:14:18] JoAnn Crohn: If you're trying to shield your child from things to avoid negative situations, like you're trying to keep them away from parties, or something where you feel something bad will happen.

Or you don't want them to go to a certain activity because you've know, you've heard that that activity can cause injuries like trampoline parks, for example, or like. Or bike rides. Or bike rides or like climbing up on something and you're like, no, get down, get down, get down. Like, yeah, those kind of behaviors too.

Although some of those things are , I mean, that happened. Accidents happen. I remember, I, I think of that thing about, get down from it. Eric was climbing up on the front of our house and he was just walking around. He fell into the bushes with sticks, and he avoided his eye. By like, by this like smidge, like a hair.

 It could have been really, really bad. But that was a rare incident. And you know what? He's much more balanced. 

[00:15:18] Brie Tucker: Be careful now. 

[00:15:19] JoAnn Crohn: Be careful now. Yeah, 

[00:15:20] Brie Tucker: yeah, yeah. I was gonna say, when you were talking about the whole bike riding thing, I thought for sure you were gonna say you were concerned about him getting hurt because that boy has broken more bones than, uh, Camdyn has.

[00:15:30] JoAnn Crohn: He has, he has. Uh, but another thing that's interesting is I don't know if I've told you this, but so I'm pretty klutzy, I run into walls, I injure myself in really bizarre, strange ways, like not normal ways people injur themselves. JoAnne, how did that happen? Kind of injure yourself?

My parents patted all the furniture when I was younger. I see pictures of padding on every single piece of furniture in their house, every sharp corner, every hard edge of a couch. Everything was patted. And my sister, they didn't pat it. And she actually, uh, she's not as klutzy as I am. She doesn't hurt herself in weird ways.

She hurts herself in ways that like, you're like, yeah, I can understand how that happened, kinda thing. 

You're 

[00:16:17] Brie Tucker: like that couch came outta nowhere. It just jumped right in my path! 

[00:16:21] JoAnn Crohn: Yeah. I was walking through the living room one time when I was a kid, and I stepped on something. I wasn't looking where I was going, and I looked down and it was my mom's hummingbird ornament that had fallen off of the entertainment center, and the hummingbird pierced pierced my toe.

It was going in one side and going out the other. Ooh, because I, I don't have, like, I didn't have very good body awareness. But that's one of the things when your parent threw, when you're, when you're fearful of something, you don't let your kids develop those mechanisms to give them protection. Yeah, when they get older 

[00:16:55] Brie Tucker: because they have to have some experiences.

 To learn how things will actually happen. Because if, yeah, again, like you just said, like if we're always avoiding it and shielding them, then they're gonna think that there's nothing bad that can happen. So, 

[00:17:09] JoAnn Crohn: yeah. Yeah. And then stuff happens that you're like, what was that? 

[00:17:14] Brie Tucker: I know, right. Okay. So the second sign is that you quickly move from unlikely situations that are a possibility. To a probability. 

And we were talking about that earlier, that's where it's like, okay, so it's possible that my kid could go to the park while I'm like, I am. I, I know one thing I used to do. Oh my goodness. Okay. So I used to go to the dog park, back when I lived in my old neighborhood. And adjacent to the dog park was a kid's park.

So I remember my kids had to beg me and it took me months to be okay with them not having to stand around at the dog park and like watch all the dogs cuz I wouldn't let them pet other people's dogs cuz I was also afraid they could bit. and it probably is a 

[00:17:57] JoAnn Crohn: decent, 

which is a safe thing to do. 

[00:17:59] Brie Tucker: Yeah.

[00:17:59] JoAnn Crohn: Dogs are very untrustworthy. 

[00:18:01] Brie Tucker: Probably a decent, you're 

[00:18:01] JoAnn Crohn: having one myself, . 

[00:18:03] Brie Tucker: Yeah. But it took me months to let them go play at the playground where I could visibly see them because I thought it was a probability, not a possibility, but a probability that someone would kidnap them and take them away at the park, even though they were , no more than a hundred feet away from me.

I could see them the whole time. Yeah, like you just, you go from that situation where you start thinking that what you see in the news is definitely. A more than 50% chance it's going to happen to your kids. 

[00:18:33] JoAnn Crohn: Mm-hmm. . 

[00:18:34] Brie Tucker: Yeah. That is where you're kind of in a, in a not so great place there. 

[00:18:38] JoAnn Crohn: No, and it gets really scary and I, I mean, I have those feelings all the time that I constantly have to work through.

[00:18:45] Brie Tucker: Like I'm, You have to tell yourself this isn't logical. This isn't it logical. 

[00:18:48] JoAnn Crohn: I'm convinced everyone will get into a car accident. When I'm like, oh, my husband's not texting me. Oh, have to check Google Maps. Look at the traffic. It's what I do. 

[00:18:57] Brie Tucker: Ugh. Yeah. And then it's exhausting, 

[00:18:59] JoAnn Crohn: like how we. Yeah. And we have trackers on our phone, like I'm tracked by my family.

And you're tracked by your family . 

[00:19:06] Brie Tucker: Oh, yeah, yeah. That, that was the funniest thing I remember. And you know why I'm tracked by my family? If you remember me telling you why it all got started when I was, uh, newly divorced and I started dating, my mom was convinced somebody it was gonna kidnap me and I was gonna end up like dead in a field somewhere.

So she was like, please just put this tracker on your, please join our Life 360 circle so we know where you are. Fine. 

[00:19:30] JoAnn Crohn: fine. Yeah. It just makes my parents feel better, my mom and dad, which makes 'em feel better that they know where I am. So I'm like, okay, I'll do it. Right. It 

[00:19:38] Brie Tucker: could, it there, there are varying degrees, but, but again, like the, the point of this is that if it's affecting how you parent, that's where that line is being crossed.

Yes. So, so what is the third sign? And we see this one a lot. 

[00:19:51] JoAnn Crohn: You don't have your own life outside of your kids' problems. 

[00:19:54] Brie Tucker: Yeah. 

[00:19:56] JoAnn Crohn: Yeah. It's really hard if you feel like your kid's drama is your drama, if they're like, fight with their B, f, F becomes all encompassing and affects your life as well.

It could be a sign that you know, you're parenting through fear. 

[00:20:12] Brie Tucker: Yeah. Yeah. And I think a lot of us struggle with that. We kind of get wrapped up into what happens with our kids. Mm-hmm. so much so that, like, you, it, it just, it like you've said, like their problems become our problems. 

[00:20:26] JoAnn Crohn: Yeah. Which is a hard place to be cuz we have enough problems.

We don't need more problems on our plate. . Yeah, 

[00:20:31] Brie Tucker: yeah. No, no, no we do not. So, alright, so we've established now like some of those, so some of those things are things that you'll likely see or be able to check off as, yeah, I do that. And if you are doing that, you are more than likely parenting from a place of fear and anxiety.

[00:20:48] JoAnn Crohn: Mm-hmm. , 

[00:20:49] Brie Tucker: which isn't healthy. It's not healthy for you. Because it drives you bonkers. 

[00:20:53] JoAnn Crohn: It cause a lot of stress. 

[00:20:54] Brie Tucker: Yeah. It's emotionally exhausting. 

[00:20:57] JoAnn Crohn: Mm-hmm. 

[00:20:57] Brie Tucker: But for our kids too, doesn't it make them have more anxiety? Cuz then all of a sudden they're like, oh. Well, all these bad things are gonna happen to me if I go out and I say hi to strangers, so I can't, I I shouldn't be doing that.

[00:21:09] JoAnn Crohn: Exactly. And it's just anxiety talking. And it's so important that we're having this discussion about anxiety because I feel like people think it's real. Like what you think in your head, you make seem real when it's not, when it's something that we have control of, even though it may not seem we have control of it's.

A process that we can work through where we would have better control of our thoughts, which then lead to our feelings, which then lead to our actions. So what's the first thing to do if you know that you're parenting through fear Brie? 

[00:21:42] Brie Tucker: The first thing you can do is just like we said earlier, acknowledge it and accept that you are fearful.

Because once you acknowledge, that you're dealing with fear and that you've got some anxiety and that it's affecting how you do things with your kids, then. Then you can actually start working on it. 

[00:22:00] JoAnn Crohn: Mm-hmm. 

[00:22:00] Brie Tucker: and coming up with a more positive thought process and being more aware of like, oh.

Perhaps that rule that they're never allowed to be more than 10 feet away from me. Maybe that's a little bit overbearing. Maybe they, you know, they are, they are 15 and 16. Perhaps they can do more on their own. . Yeah. Or even like, hopefully, I gotta laugh outta some people. , hopefully 

[00:22:20] JoAnn Crohn: 15 

[00:22:21] Brie Tucker: or 60. Yes. I know they're 15.

They can walk more than 10 feet away from me. We'll see. We'll see. 

[00:22:26] JoAnn Crohn: I can totally do this. Yeah. Yeah. Or like if it's even making like your stress level rise too. Yeah. If you like, like me, I knew I was fearful. I knew I had all this anxiety. I was, um, managing it pretty well with like, not the rules, but it was causing me a lot of extreme pain.

So if it's causing you extreme pain, there is help for it, there is help I go to therapy. I have a great, nurse practitioner psychiatrist now have some great anxiety meds that are working wonders and controlling my bodily reactions to thoughts and events, which just make life a little bit easier.

[00:23:03] Brie Tucker: Yep. So, and be before you take, yeah, before you take any path on like what to do, you have to acknowledge it first. 

[00:23:09] JoAnn Crohn: Mm-hmm. , you have to acknowledge it, 

[00:23:11] Brie Tucker: but, well, like you said, there are so many tools out there that can help you deal with it, but that first step is acknowledging that it's, So what's definitely, what's the second step, JoAnn?

What's the second thing they can. 

[00:23:21] JoAnn Crohn: So this is about, you know, taking a little small steps and exposing yourself to your fears so you can conquer them. This is actually like, there's some psychology basis in this in call exposure therapy, where you just keep introducing yourself to the situation. If your child wants to ride their bike around the block, let them ride their bike around the block and maybe the first time you could see them and maybe the second time.

It's supposed to be five minutes and maybe the next time it's 10 minutes and just gradually increase it until you're at the point where're like, okay, nothing. How bad happened. I'm okay with this. 

[00:23:57] Brie Tucker: Yeah. Like we're not saying that anybody has to let their kids do something that makes them so stressed out and so scared and so you're full or to do anything reckless by any means, but mm-hmm.

when you realize that you have an, an overwhelming fear. That is causing you to possibly, again, parent from place of fear, not parent, from a place of, uh, realistic concern. Is that a good way to put it? Maybe? 

[00:24:25] JoAnn Crohn: Yeah, I would say that's a good way to put it. 

[00:24:27] Brie Tucker: Yeah. So like, if you're not parenting from place of realistic concern and you know that you're overdoing it, you are over the edge, you have jumped the shark, you are just past it.

Take those little steps. If you're afraid of the trampoline. Take 'em and let 'em like go on the kiddie one and see, and if they don't break any arms or legs, then great. Maybe we can do the next one. . 

[00:24:47] JoAnn Crohn: Something else that really helps is to pay attention to what you're saying to yourself and your self-talk.

Oh yeah. And this comes from, Brene Brown actually. That a lot of times our fear, we think our fear means that something bad is gonna happen, but what our fear actually means is that at that moment we're feeling vulnerable. We love our kids so, so much that we are feeling vulnerable to losing them and focusing on that love for your kids and that feeling of vulnerability and identifying what that is makes you more able to take that step of exposing yourself to your fears..

[00:25:26] Brie Tucker: It does. And actually that is fantastic cuz that leads us right into, that solidifies our third thing that you can do, which is to talk yourself through situations instead of assuming that you know what's gonna happen or assuming that you know exactly what your kids are thinking. Yes. Because part of this parenting through fear too, is being afraid that your kids are like doing crazy stuff in their head.

That they're thinking of stupid, crazy things. Yes. Um, right. 

[00:25:52] JoAnn Crohn: It is, And know, like you're not alone in this either. We talk to so many women who join us in Balance, who come in to Balance having a lot of fears about their kids and a lot of fears that their kids won't end up okay or won't end up responsible.

And through like working with us and working with the group, they're able to master a simple method of communication that we teach in calm and happy parenting. And they're also able. Figure out that where these fears are coming from, what self-talk they're telling themselves, and just having this more even calm state because they're looking at the thoughts in their heads and thinking through them.

[00:26:36] Brie Tucker: Right, because I think something that you said, a lot of us, we don't process what our own concerns. Right. Like we are just we assume a lot of times, as assuming happens, so often in parenting, we assume that we know what everybody else is thinking. Not out of a bad way, just out of experience. We're like, listen, I've been on this earth six times as long as you have, I don't know, whatever.

Um, so I have way more experience than you do. I know what's gonna happen next, and sometimes we're right, but sometimes we're wrong. Sometimes we assume we know what our kids are thinking because, you know, we know our kids. Mm-hmm. We don't always know our kids. 

[00:27:14] JoAnn Crohn: We don't. And sometimes they're thinking through situations much better than we give them credit for.

Yeah. Like one of the things we teach first in Calm & Happy parenting is about drilling down and finding out your kid's point of view. And sometimes I get really scared about a situation, for instance, since my son when he started walking home from the bus and I'm like, okay, well tell me what you would do if somebody approached you and we talked through it and 

[00:27:39] Brie Tucker: you're problem solving.

[00:27:41] JoAnn Crohn: He had some, some ideas there and some other things were like, okay, well here's what you should actually do and here's that. But just talking through it and seeing the reasoning process and giving them those skills for problem solving makes me so much more confident as a parent, uh, like giving up that responsibility to him than it would if I, I'd just been like, Nope, I'm there.

And it also frees up a lot of my time too, cuz I don't have to go and pick him up from school. He rides the bus home. 

[00:28:07] Brie Tucker: I know, right? Yeah. And I mean, so the problem solving is fantastic on two levels. You can do it at, at where you also have the conversation in a safe place at home, you're roleplay in it, but also letting them have the opportunity to problem solve themselves.

[00:28:20] JoAnn Crohn: Mm-hmm. . 

[00:28:20] Brie Tucker: Because if our kids are constantly knowing or waiting for us, just swoop in and fix the situation or just swoop in and fix what all's going on. They're never really going to learn how to problem solve and mm-hmm. isn't our main goal, all of us is for our kids to be happy and healthy and 

[00:28:39] JoAnn Crohn: for sure, 

[00:28:39] Brie Tucker: and to be able to do things that they wanna be able to do, to have that freedom, to have that, that, that self-confidence to do things on their own, which they'll never get if we're always there and no fixing it and meddling.

[00:28:53] JoAnn Crohn: So take away point for this episode. Notice if you're fearful, and then take these steps to try to at least manage the fear and give more responsibility to your kids. 

[00:29:08] Brie Tucker: Yes, for sure. 

[00:29:10] JoAnn Crohn: So remember, the best Mom is a happy mom. Take care of you and we'll talk to you later. 

[00:29:17] Brie Tucker: Thanks for stopping by.