081 How Expert Advice Gave Me Confidence and Inspired "That's Good Parenting" with Dori Durbin

[00:00:00]Dori Durbin: 
Hey, if you've ever wondered why that's good parenting began. I tried to keep it short and sweet, but here it is!

[00:00:09] Dori Durbin: 
Parents. I think you could agree that when it comes to our kids, there is a breadth and a depth of love that words just cannot describe.  As a matter of fact, we will literally do anything that we can to help our kids become amazing adults that we see inside of them, even as infants. But there's also this commonly shared huge fear in raising these amazing little humans: "Will we mess them up?"

[00:00:36] Dori Durbin: 
Can we truly be the good parents that we imagine ourselves to be? 

Hi there. My name is Dori Durbin. I'm a children's book, author, illustrator book, and parenting abundance coach and the host of the show "That's Good Parenting".  

So why did I even start "That's Good Parenting"? 

Well, for starters, it wasn't because I thought I was a great parent. 

It's because  the more that I parent, the more apparent it becomes that I need to know more. And, you know, it's funny. I never intended on having a parenting podcast. 

Honestly, I wasn't even sure that we would ever be parents. Because my husband and I, we didn't even have kids until we were 30. And when we did, even though we were a tiny bit older. We still felt so uncertain about the parenting moments, right? 

[00:01:27] Dori Durbin:
From the very start we honestly, weren't thinking that we needed any help either. 

We thought "We are older. We are wiser." 
We had all this life experience. It surely equated to parenting experience. Right. So even when our kids were up all night and we were going through teething through tantrums, through toilet training, we tried to find out all this information that we could on our own. Thank goodness for the internet and for nurses, because without them, we would have been lost completely. But still, sometimes it felt like I was so stressed in what I didn't know. And hesitant to ask for help that I started to doubt that I was ever going to become a good parent at all. 

[00:02:12] Dori Durbin: 
So right after we had our first baby, I found out that I had Rheumatoid Arthritis and that was quite disabling to say the very least.  I wanted to crawl around and to do things where it just seems natural for parents to do. Instead, I was limited by energy and by the motion itself, even carrying the kids. I had joint and muscle pains and found it really hard to sleep at night. Despite the fact that we have little ones. And the demands on me, just natural demands of being a parent and being somebody who was in the house, taking care of things. It got to the point where I would actually be emotional from the exhaustion and frustration of just trying to make decisions much less take care of us all during the day. My worst moments were literally when my body hurt, I felt angry. 

[00:03:03] Dori Durbin:
I felt trapped in my body and didn't have any answers. I was emotional because I knew that there had to be a different way. But I was just struggling and struggling, even with asking, asking for help to find it. So I kept trying to do everything on my own. I tried to be ingenious instead. I have memories of using my teeth to undo the clothing snaps and moving from pillow to pillow across the floor so that it didn't hurt my knees. 

[ And I had ice packs when I was nursing . I tried to nap whenever the kids napped, I found new ways to open Play-Doh and put on their little shoes. 

For me, the hardest part wasn't overcoming the physical part. It was the mental frustration and the struggle of trying to be the very best that I could be. Even though I knew it fell much shorter than I wanted. When I was lying in bed at night, I was assessing my decisions to there was like this imaginary parenting skill where I was like, where on this scale am I succeeding? Where had I failed. And how many times was I feeling anxious and tense and unsure. And then it dawned on me, were my kids picking up everything that I was showing them.

Generally at night, I felt completely wiped out mentally, physically, even spiritually.  I just couldn't get myself to go to bed without judgment. 

I thought somehow that I should be naturally equipped to do this, that I should have this parenting knowledge just there, or at least I could find what I needed really quickly. Right. And, you know, I'm really not sure why I thought that because in all honesty, no one is prepared for parenting. You just aren't. 

So whenever there was a brand new situation, I was trying to dig from this belt that I thought I owned. . . that I didn't even have on. 

And whenever I made the same mistakes over again. I just literally beat myself up because I should know better. But if I didn't have anything to help me, why would I know better? 

And the more I tried to do it on my own, the more frustration I had and it just grew and grew and grew. I didn't want to be a mom who's frustrated. I didn't want to be a mom who didn't love the moments of parenting that I had. My kids and my husband deserved so much more. 

And I just kept trying. But to be honest, soon, the stress it was making my RA worse. And so one day after going to bed, completely overwhelmed, mentally tapped, physically exhausted and awake all night. We went to church the next morning. And I remember that I sat there on the pew and tried to hide how much my body hurt my hands, my elbows, my shoulders, my neck. And then something spot in my eye. 

[00:05:48] Dori Durbin:
It said "Welcome to Stephen's Ministry". It was just this little pamphlet. 
It hurt to even go grab the pamphlet. And I just thought, why have I never considered Christian coaching before? Because the thought of somebody walking alongside of me without any bias at all in just listening and giving me support... that sounded amazing. So I grabbed the pamphlet up and called the next day. Well, let me set this straight to the call was hard only because I really didn't want to concede personally and ask for help. My husband was backing me. My family was backing me. I just was stubborn. 

And I was so worried that people would judge me and-- there was still this voice in my head that wanted me to believe that I would never, ever be good enough. 

I also truly didn't believe that. I just knew that I needed to make a change. 
I wanted, I wanted to be a better wife, a better mom, and to show up for myself for once too. 

[00:06:49] Dori Durbin: 
Two days later, I met my Stephen's minister and started truly on a path of finding parenting help. And joy. And you know, what the magic was. It was being open to learning and learning from experienced people who knew more. I wasn't naturally equipped to be a good parent on my own. They could help me. And once my RA had finally gotten under control and I stepped back to really look around me. I realized that I had been simply suffering in silence. I realized that being a perfect parent was not the same as being a good parent. 

[00:07:25]Dori Durbin: 
I also realized that maybe it was support support from parents who had quick resources that actually worked the moment that I needed them. I would feel less stressed and less fearful that I would actually mess my kids up. And this thing, this whole thing did not happen overnight. Let me tell you. But as I reached out to people, my confidence grew and grew. Which is great because the older, my kids got the more complicated their problems got, and it was really necessary to know more. I needed wise and experienced advice.

[00:08:00] Dori Durbin: 
So at first I dug into books, podcasts, YouTube videos, connected with more parents who were like me. And then I tried to get all this information I could on my own still somewhat. By the time COVID hit, my babies were high schoolers. I could feel my parenting changed in a whole new direction. They were older, they needed new information and I needed new information. 

[00:08:25] Dori Durbin: 
So of course, like so many people during COVID I pivoted. I completely left my old job of teaching fitness and personal training. But I knew that I wanted still to connect with families. I needed to connect with them. I wanted to help other parents feel less stressed and more deeply connected with their kids. 

[00:08:44]Dori Durbin: 
So I decided to take my artistic hobbies, my teaching background, my love for art and books and combine them into a new realm. Children's picture books. Then after self publishing, my third children's book, I realized a few more things. I loved writing, creating, illustrating, reading books to families. And that even though the other parents' struggles might be different than mine. They were still equal in weight. 

[00:09:09] Dori Durbin: 
But so many parents still were struggling with communication and emotions with their kids. And for time sake, honestly, cause you don't have all day I'll speed this up into super warp mode. So I organized an online event called the little kids, big feelings, workshop we're professionals, shared tips and tricks to help parents and kids connect and communicate better. And from that event parents had even more questions. 

And from those questions, and from my love of books, I developed the podcast called "The Power of Kids' Books". Where I interviewed family professionals. Those were professionals who also had kids books and they would read a snippet of their book, but also share their expertise for parents. And parents loved it and children's book authors loved it, but I still felt like we were missing a segment of parents. We were missing some of the questions they really needed answers to. So the big question came into my mind was "What could I provide that would give action steps to parents?" 

[00:10:09] Dori Durbin: 
It became clear that I needed to refocus my podcast. That's where the shift between "The Power of Kids' Books" and "That's Good Parenting" happened. Because this podcast "That's Good Parenting" gives you simple steps to reduce parenting stress.

In this podcast, I interview family experts who understand your parenting heart. They work with families just like yours and they want to provide at least three things for you:

First to connect your parenting questions with knowledge. 
Second to provide you with simple steps that you can use right now. 
And third to reduce your parenting stress. 

[00:10:45] Dori Durbin: 
Ultimately, I see that my parenting imperfections and hangups. Where your gains. There is no reason any parent should struggle silently. 

[00:10:56] Dori Durbin:
I encourage you to listen to this podcast. I want to equip you with 20 to 30 years worth of experience and 20 to 30 minutes. This podcast opens the door to free parent knowledge specifically for you. 

[00:11:09] Dori Durbin:
 It is my sincerest. Hope that with the help of "That's Good Parenting", the podcast that you, the busy well-intentioned perfection seeking parent. That you can have less overwhelm and less fear that you're going to mess your kids up. So that you can end your day and find at least one moment where you can say, "Hey, now that was good parenting!" 

[00:11:31] Dori Durbin: Oh, Hey, one more thing.  Have you been wondering if you could contribute to this podcast because you, you have so much expert knowledge that could help parents? If you're interested, I have an application for you! Fill it out and we'll see if you're a perfect fit. 

 And now onto the show.