[00:00:00.490] - Sharon Epstein
And I found myself yelling a lot and I thought it was a willpower issue and every day I would go, okay, today I'm not going to yell. But then I did.

[00:00:09.730] - Dori Durbin
Welcome to the Power of Kids Books, where we believe that books are a catalyst to inspire and empower change. I'm your host, Dori Durbin. Even though that we fully adore and feel a sense of pride and joy in our kids, we all also cannot deny how sometimes our parenting emotions and triggers create a sense of battle that can leave our nerves and feelings unraveled and overwhelmed. This overwhelm can affect our relationships with our spouses, our kids and our confidence as being a quote, unquote good parent. Fortunately, we can seek out other resources like Today's guest. Today's guest is a parenting coach who has personally felt parenting struggles. But through her experiences as a corporate leadership trainer, counselor and now coach, she has found solutions to get her and her husband on the same parenting page, stop family discord and bring peace and listening back into their house. So welcome to the show. Sharon Epstein. 

[00:01:08.440] - Sharon Epstein
Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here.

[00:01:12.470] - Dori Durbin
They never get to hear our conversations before the podcast and I just have really enjoyed getting to know you and I know they're just going to love the information that you have, especially how you got where you are. Can you share some of that with us?

[00:01:26.490] - Sharon Epstein
Oh, sure. I realized looking back, that one of the places where my journey began was as a child. And I think as parents, our parenting journey begins when we're children. That's when we start learning first about ourselves, about other people and the world. And I grew up in a really loving home, but there was a lot of conflict, a lot of yelling. And as a kid I just remember thinking, I want out of this. I don't want to be with so much yelling and conflict and when I grow up, I want to have a peaceful home. I don't want yelling in my home, I just want everyone to get along and for it to be so much easier. And so I went into the field of corporate leadership training where I helped managers and leaders learn how to manage their employees and a lot about communication. I worked a lot in conflict management. I have a background in counseling. I also volunteered on a suicide hotline. And at a certain point I said, oh, I know so much, let me think about how I could apply this to being a good parent. And I thought I knew quite a lot.

[00:02:28.750] - Sharon Epstein
And then I became a parent. And when my first child, it went really well, she was pretty easy going. I'm like, oh, I've really got this down. And then I had my second child who was really strong willed and I'm like, oh, this is not as easy as it used to be. What's going on here. And I found myself yelling a lot, and I was really beating myself up for that because for all the reasons that I just explained. And I thought it was a willpower issue. And every day I would go, okay, today I'm not going to yell. But then I did, and it got to a point where I finally kind of had that breaking the straw that breaks the camel's back moment. And I had just yelled at my daughter because she didn't clean her room. And I'm like, I just can't do this anymore. Those words come out of your mouth. You're like, oh, my goodness, what are you doing? And at that point, I really had to stop and think about why was I so stressed out? What did I already know about working with people and conflict? Excuse me?

 [00:03:27.650] - Sharon Epstein
And how could I really apply that to the situation? I was not very good at asking for help then, and so I struggled for much longer than I needed to with all of this. I wish I could have had someone to help me. And once I figured all that out, that's when I figured out solutions that really calmed everything down in my house. As you mentioned, my husband and I had not been on the same page about parenting. I tried things, he's like, oh, that works. Okay, I'll try that too. So that got us back on the same page, which was wonderful because I really didn't like the conflict with him either, since I don't like conflict either about anything. So that really brought a lot more harmony into my home. And then other parents started noticing that my kids listened to me. So, for example, at the end of a play date, I would say, It's time to go. And my kids would say, okay. And the other parents would say, oh, my goodness, what kind of magic do you have that they just say, okay, and they're not running around or ignoring you?

 [00:04:19.160] - Sharon Epstein
So I started sharing some of my suggestions with them, and they worked, which was really gratifying. And at that point, I decided that I wanted to become a parent coach. So I really studied a lot of child development. I became a certified life coach, and I started my business, and I've never looked back. It is the most rewarding thing for me to be able to share what I've learned with other parents who are going through similar type of struggles and parents who really love their kids and want the best for them and just want more harmony and peace and ease and love and joy every day in their home. Also, we complain because we're looking for people to validate us, right? We want to know that we're not alone. And so it can be really helpful. It feels, in the moment, really helpful to complain to other people because, one, it gives you an outlet, right? It allows you maybe to be heard a little bit if the other person's a good listener, and the people can say, yeah, me too, and you're like, okay, I'm not alone. I think the only caveat or warning I give to parents is that that allows you, if you don't then do anything that validates, okay, we're all struggling.

 [00:05:21.950] - Sharon Epstein
I don't have to do anything because that's normal. And what may be missed is, okay, we're all struggling, but we don't all have to struggle. We could ask for help. We could find new ways of interacting with our kids that would remove the struggle or lessen it and help us feel better about how we're being as parents. Because I don't think it feels good to stay stuck in that struggle. It did feel good to me. And even if I talk to other people about it, yeah, okay, I'm not alone, but I'm still struggling. So I think it's always good to ask for help. Always talk to other people. Yes. Solidarity. We're not alone. But then don't stay stuck in it. Don't stay stuck in it.

[00:05:59.080] - Dori Durbin
Yeah. And I think that's really an interesting point, too, is if you feel like you're stuck in something that you tend to limit what you think is available to you, or you limit possibilities. You're kind of stuck in that box and can't think outside of it. So when you talk about having a relationship struggles with your husband, I'm thinking, yeah, because you feel like you're trying to get this motion that isn't going anywhere. You're, like, stuck in the mud, and you're just spinning. So it's a really tough spot to be in.

 [00:06:32.030] - Sharon Epstein
Yeah, it is. And you're both trying a different approach, and you're both 100% sure that your approach is right, but neither one is working quite right, in addition to your arguments about what the best way is. Right. So there's usually truth in both. You can take pieces of both and also learn some new ways that may help. And we come at parenting from our own background. Right. You had certain experiences growing up. Your partner had different ones. Maybe growing up. Maybe some of that is what attracted you to each other, like those differences in each other. Right. But then they inform your parenting. And so then, just like any other issue, whether it's religion or money or any other kinds of big issues right. That come up in relationships, parenting can be similar. But again, there's a way to work that out if you want to.

 [00:07:19.040] - Dori Durbin
I love the fact that your background is so diverse in communicating and listening, and I think that that's something that we struggle with as people, much less as parents, too. Do you find that's true with your clients?

 [00:07:32.610] - Sharon Epstein
Yes. It's all about communication and listening. Yes. And empathy. I would say those fundamental pieces. Yes. And why should we be good at that? Did we have good models for that growing up? Yes. If we're really lucky because I always say that parenting is one of the only big jobs that we get where there's no training. Right. Any other job you take in the corporate workplace or wherever right. You get training. We don't get training for this. We're relying on what we know and what our experience is, and we're all in every moment doing the very best that we can. And that's like a really important message I want to get across to your listeners is that anything that we talk about today, I always say it's a blame free, shame free zone. We're all just doing the best that we can with what we know now. And maybe there are some things that we haven't learned yet. Okay, so we could learn those. Like, it's all very possible we can.

 [00:08:23.170] - Dori Durbin
Make these mistakes and we can turn them around, that it's not a life or death situation when you make a mistake. It's actually like a learn from it experience, right?

 [00:08:32.770] - Sharon Epstein
Yes. Sometimes I like to say that parenting can be the ultimate personal growth experience if you want to look at it. That right, because there are all these challenges, interpersonal challenges, and they're like but again, you could say, okay, I'm having trouble with this, so how can I get better at this and make this easier? And the other thing I like to share, too, is that parenting offers almost unlimited second chances. If we mess up, we can apologize to our child, we can repair the misunderstanding or the hurt that we caused, and we can ask for a do over and try again. And kids know when we mess up, right. It's not a secret. But they are so happy when we come to them and apologize and try to make it right because that reinforces for them how much we love them. It's so reassuring to a child to have a parent come and do those things. They're like, oh, this person really cares about me. They want to make it right. So sometimes we don't realize that and that can hold us back from thinking that we have a second chance and that we can repair it but take it.

 [00:09:33.980] - Sharon Epstein
It's golden. It's golden. And not only does it then improve the relationship with your child in that moment, you're also modeling for them how they can do the same when they may make a mistake with you, with friends, with future partners, wherever. It's such a multipurpose learning moment for everybody and it has lasting value.

 [00:09:53.620] - Dori Durbin
Yeah, because you're constantly trying to train them for what happens beyond you and what happens in the next stage or the next group of friends or whatever the next is that you can't really control, but you can help them develop those skills that they can use to handle situations.

 [00:10:10.060] - Sharon Epstein
Absolutely, yes. That's exactly what the repairing is or the listening is or any of the things we're talking about. 100%.

 [00:10:17.910] - Dori Durbin
Hey, experts, do you have fabulous content for parents that helps kids. Well, consider writing a kids book. You know what, we should totally chat. Use the link in the podcast notes and let's talk soon. And now back to the podcast. Now, we also talked about triggers. I want for you to talk a little bit about triggers in parenting and just even what triggers are.

 [00:10:44.910] - Sharon Epstein
Yeah. So again, I want to say before we get into this, that no shame, no blame about this because I used to be triggered. Almost everybody gets triggered, right? So it's just want to normalize that. It's so common. And again, we're all doing the best we can when we get triggered, but essentially it's a reaction in the present because of some unresolved feeling or emotional wound that we had for the past. So we were kind of in a time warp, right, because you're reacting to something in real time, but it's based on something that's not happening in this moment to some degree, right. So it's interesting in that way. And so what happens, typically what it looks like is your child does something. Maybe they say no, maybe they don't do what you ask them to do. Maybe they're having a tantrum, maybe they're fighting with a sibling. Maybe they just want a lot of attention from you and you just don't feel like you can give it. You're just exhausted at that moment. And the three most common reactions that we have are we yell, we freeze, or we want to run away and go to our room and just have a break.

 [00:11:48.210] - Sharon Epstein
So we call that fight flight and freeze. And in those moments, what's happening is we're just disconnecting emotionally from our child to protect ourselves. And it's a split second reaction. So it doesn't feel like there's any pause between what your child says and then your immediate response. But again, there's a really good reason that that's happening.

 [00:12:11.180] - Dori Durbin
Yeah, I really have never thought of it that way. Wow. So give me some more examples of what triggers might look like for people.

 [00:12:20.670] - Sharon Epstein
Yeah, so here are some indications that you might be having a triggered reaction. So excuse me if you ever find yourself excessively angry at your kids. Or maybe on the other hand, you're feeling really sad or hurt or rejected or upset by your child's behavior, even to the point where you might be crying. Or do you ever reflect on a situation afterwards and realize that you kind of overreacted to it, that your response seemed disproportionate to what your child did? Or do you ever feel just like you were completely out of control in that? Or sometimes people say it's kind of like a deja vu feeling. These feelings kind of feel familiar to me, but I don't know where they're from. Or do you ever have the urge to slap your child or spank them, even though you yourself don't believe in that kind of thing, but you just feel this urge like you want to hit them just because everything is built up so much inside you. So those would be some good indications that you are having a triggered moment.

 [00:13:21.230] - Dori Durbin
So they're very powerful, maybe even bodily reactions that you're feeling that you might not be aware of mentally.

[00:13:28.380] - Sharon Epstein
Yeah, and then I would add just the other one too. You just feel like you shut down. Or like I mentioned earlier, you just want to get out of that space and just go to your room and just be by yourself. Like slam the door, just have peace and quiet all by yourself. It's just too much.

 [00:13:45.030] - Dori Durbin
So do triggers ever occur more than one at a time?

 [00:13:49.040] - Sharon Epstein
You could, yes. There's usually a dominant one though. Like, for example, if we think about things based on the past. So there's these common feelings that we have. So if you're ever feeling like kind of your child is the enemy when they get upset almost, that they're opposing you. Well, maybe it's because your parents reacted really harshly to you when you would kind of stand up for yourself. So I'm going to go through a couple. And maybe in answer to your question, you experienced a whole bunch of these things, but it's more likely that there is one or two dominant themes that you experience from your parents simply because that's just how it works. And we don't usually have everything all at once debates in our experience. Or if you feel more helpless or frustrated when your child is upset, maybe because that's because you were kind of neglected or ignored or sent to your room to figure out feelings all by yourself and you didn't know how to do that. Or if you feel particularly caught in a power struggle with your child, well, maybe it's because you were taught as a child that you shouldn't disobey, but you were pretty strong and some part of you got kind of squashed.

 [00:14:57.960] - Sharon Epstein
Or if you're feeling kind of very anxious or insecure when your child is having a meltdown or kids are having such big feelings, maybe it's because when you had big feelings as a child that wasn't okay, they were made fun of or ignored and you were stuck with it. So again, you're kind of blocked there. Or if you feel disrespected, I know that was a big one for me, right? It's because we didn't feel like we got enough respect as a child. Or if you're very self critical, that's another one for me. So, yeah, I guess I had two. It's because maybe growing up we got the message that we weren't good enough or somehow we misinterpreted things and thought we weren't good enough. So again, yes, you can have more than one. Yeah, but probably not all of them at once. Yeah.

 [00:15:43.010] - Dori Durbin
Let's say you have a reaction to something that your kid triggered and you are able to assess that it's something from your past. You still want to enact on it. How do you stop that from happening? Where do you break that habit?

 [00:15:59.970] - Sharon Epstein
Yeah, that's a great question. So there's two main places to break the habit. One is in the moment, and one is in the long term, where you have to do some more introspection, usually with coaching and some support to kind of figure it all out so you can come up with a plan for all the different pieces that are going on for you. But I'll just give kind of a few general comments and then go into a few specifics about each of those, if that's okay.

 [00:16:25.050] - Dori Durbin
Great.

 [00:16:25.900] - Sharon Epstein
Yeah. So again, I would reiterate that it's not a willpower issue. Like I said, for me, every day, I thought that I could stop myself from yelling, and it's never anything to do with willpower, because if it was, willpower you'd be done already? Right. It's because of something that you still need to work through. I wish it were that easy. And then the overarching approach to this is just to accept yourself and accept what's happening, rather than deciding that you're bad or you're a bad parent or you're messing up your kids or just beating yourself up for it, or trying to force yourself to stop. One of the things that I always say to parents is that if you're having the thought, I'm a bad parent, I'm messing up. That's actually the clue that you're a great parent, because a bad parent would never think that. The fact that you're thinking it means you really love your kids. You really want to do your best for them. You want them to be the best. And so you're upset that it's not working out quite as you hope. Right. But the hope piece is important. Again, you're doing the best you can.

[00:17:26.430] - Sharon Epstein
You're a great parent. There are just some things you haven't learned yet, and you can learn them. And our triggered reaction actually can be a resistance to what's happening in the moment. Like I don't like this. I want this to stop. Right. So again, that's another clue that you're getting ready to make some changes. If you really pay attention to that and accept that accept that you don't like it, okay, great. You could work with that. And in general, whenever we're having difficult feelings, accepting them is the way to work through them. Because when you don't accept them, when you try to ignore them or stuff them or force them out, they're still there. And they're going to come up in other ways. Right? It might come up in physical ailments. It might come up and you can't sleep at night. It might come up that you gnash your teeth or your blood pressure goes up. It's going to still be there. So the more that we can accept it and kind of forgive ourselves for it, the easier we make it for ourselves. So that's kind of some kind of underpinnings and big picture pieces in the moment.

 [00:18:29.810] - Sharon Epstein
The first thing that you can do is just pause most situations with your kids, unless like they're running into the street, then that is an exception, right. Do not need to be dealt with right that moment. You can take a pause for a few minutes and just to try to calm yourself down. So if you can remember that, say, okay, I'm going to take a pause. For some people, it helps to breathe. So if you can just take some deep breaths in and out. There's some research by a professor at Harvard. Her name is Jill Bolt Taylor, and what she found is that it takes 90 seconds for the stress of a moment to kind of cycle through your brain with all the neurons firing and the chemicals going around. And if we can wait 90 seconds of breathing, easier said than done, a lot of that stress is going to leave our body. What happens though, and I'm certainly guilty of this, is that we keep thinking about it, right? And so every time we think about it again, how mad we are, how frustrated we are, whatever, then our brains goes through that whole cycle again.

[00:19:33.820] - Sharon Epstein
And so it keeps us in that stressful moment. So sometimes knowing that can help too. I just need to kind of relax for 90 seconds and I'm going to feel better. And then I do also have a guide that I'll link people to at the end that talks about four more concrete steps they can take to find calm in those moments. It's a little bit too much to go in here, but I give a variety of options that people can take because what works best for you beyond the pausing and the breathing and the acceptance really varies by person. And so I like to give people options that work for them. But just to start with pausing and breathing and just realizing that you're okay, you can get through this, it's normal, there's nothing wrong with you. You're just having a reaction. A lot of that kind of thinking and practice can help calm you down in the moment.

 [00:20:23.270] - Dori Durbin
It's so funny we underplay breathing because it seems too simple, right? But 90 seconds worth of breathing is a long time in some ways.

 [00:20:31.360] - Sharon Epstein
Yeah, you could practice and just see what it feels like. Sometimes it helps to do these things ahead of time so that when you get to the moment, it's a little bit more muscle memory, it's a little bit more familiar to you. So anything that's going to help make this an easier go to strategy in the moment, I always think is a great idea. So practice breathing for 90 seconds if you want, see how it goes. But again, even just practicing it periodically will make it more available to you if you want to use that strategy in the moment.

 [00:20:59.280] - Dori Durbin
So how would I know, I needed outside help.

 [00:21:02.740] - Sharon Epstein
Yeah, well, I think, you'll know, by some of the reactions that I mentioned earlier, right. If you really are feeling that your reaction is an overreaction or you felt like hitting your kids even though you don't agree with that, and by the way, everything that I teach has nothing to do with spanking or hitting or any of that kind of stuff. Or if you're just feeling like you want to escape, like, it's just too much to handle. Or if you're in these patterns that keep coming up over and over again, and no matter how hard you try, you can't fix it on your own. Or if you're just kind of feeling like, why can't I get my kid to listen? And why are they not behaving? And why are they having these tantrums? And everything I try, it just doesn't work. Any of those kinds of things would be a clue to get some outside help.

[00:21:50.130] - Dori Durbin
So, what do you think parents should equip their kids with from your perspective as a parenting coach? What is something that you feel that they really need to make sure their kids have an understanding on earlier in life? 

[00:22:01.880] - Sharon Epstein
I think that if you can set a foundation for them where you really listen to them and you use a lot of empathy so that they get the feeling and they also have the experience with you, that you make time for them, that you understand how they feel. Even if you don't agree, that's okay, like, they may be really upset that so and so didn't play with them at recess or whatever, and you don't think it's that big a deal, but to them, it's the world, right? So if they get the feeling and the experience that you take them seriously, that you're listening, that you show that you understand and that you support them, you're giving them this foundation where they can feel good about themselves. Because when children feel accepted by us, then they believe that they're okay. Right? And you might think for yourselves, your listeners might think for yourselves, who in your life gave you that feeling? Like, who did you have that experience with any time in your life? And what was that like? I bet it was a gift. And how can you give that gift to kids so that they grow up again with more confidence?

 [00:23:02.630] - Sharon Epstein
And then if kids grow up experiencing listening and experiencing empathy, then they're going to be able to give that to you. They're going to be able to give that to their siblings. They're going to be able to give that to their friends again, their partners, to everyone who they encounter in their life. And that's going to make them fabulous people.

 [00:23:19.980] - Dori Durbin
As you were speaking, I was thinking of college coaches, how the old school way was to tear them down so you can build them back up, but it's the opposite of that. It's build them up so they can continue to build up and be okay when they're torn down.

 [00:23:36.100] - Sharon Epstein
Yes, and I hope they don't get torn down. But, yeah, the thing is that the listening and empathy gives them the capacity for so much resilience, right. So when they do encounter difficulties, they have you to turn to. They believe in their ability to handle things right, because they have more self confidence. So, yeah, there's so fundamental.

 [00:23:55.840] - Dori Durbin
Well, you have given us some great nuggets and some fantastic advice. Where can people reach out to get a hold of you? The easiest and the simplest?

 [00:24:04.070] - Sharon Epstein
The easiest and simplest way is on my website, sharanepsteincoaching.com. My free guide is there if you'd like to sign up for that. I have a blog. There a newsletter you can sign up for. Again, I also do one on one coaching with individual parents or couples together. There's information there about how to work with me. And that starts, if you're interested in coaching, that starts with a free confidential consultation call where just get to know each other, talk about what you'd like help with, if you're interested. I'll share how I can help. There's no pressure. I only want to work with people who want to work with me. But what people always tell me is that they leave those conversations with a feeling of hope. And that's really kind of what I want to leave people with today, that no matter what you're struggling with parenting, there is always hope. We are all on a parenting journey. We're all doing the best that we can at this moment, and at each moment, we also have the capacity to learn a little bit more and do a little bit better than we did yesterday. So there is always hope.

 [00:25:06.390] - Dori Durbin
That's beautiful and so true. Well, Sharon, thank you so much for your time today. I can't wait for people to reach out to you and to get the help and the encouragement that they need.

[00:25:16.690] - Sharon Epstein
Thank you so much. It was a pleasure to be here. Thank you.