Feb. 9, 2022

The Power of the Written Word for Your Kids!

The Power of the Written Word for Your Kids!

When you write something down it changes.  It is no longer an ambiguous cloud, but a concrete idea with sides, corners and it is real.  Using this simple method of having your child write things out can slow down time, zoom in on an issue or explore an area begging to be investigated.  

In this episode, I will tell you exactly how to get this simple and profoundly effective tool going in your home.

About the Host: 

Nellie Harden is a wife of 20+ years, mom to 4 teen/tween daughters, dreamer, adventurer, servant, multipreneur, forever student, and a devoted teacher, but her ride-or-die passion is her work as a Family Life Coach & Mentor.  

Coming from a career background in marine mammal sciences, behavioral work, and a host of big life experiences, both great and not some not so great, she decided that designing a life of purpose and freedom was how she and her husband, along with their 4 daughters, wanted to live.  

 

Her work and passions exist in the realms of family and parent mentorship because she believes that a family filled with creativity, fun, laughter, challenge, adventure, problem-solving, hugs, good food, and learning can not only change a person’s life but is the best chance at positively changing the world. 

 

She helps families build Self-Led Discipline™ & Leadership Into their homes, set their children up for a wildly successful life on their terms, and elevates the family experience with big joy, palpable peace, and everyday growth!

 

With a lifelong passion and curiosity in thought, choice, behavior, and growth she has found incredible joy in helping families shift perspective, find answers, and a path forward.

 

(Nellie has been coaching families for over 10 years and has degrees in Biology, Animal Behavior, and Psychology. )  

 

LINKS:

6570 Family Challenge- https://www.nellieharden.com/challenge

 

Website- https://www.nellieharden.com


Online Community- https://www.facebook.com/groups/the6570project


Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/nellieharden/    

 

Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/nellie.harden/


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Transcript
Nellie Harden:

Hello and welcome to the 6570 family project

Nellie Harden:

podcast. If you are a parent of a tween teen or somewhere on the

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way, this is exactly the place for you. This is the playground

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for parents who want to raise their kids with intention,

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strength and joy. Come and hear all the discussions, get all the

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tactics and have lots of laughs along the way. We will dive into

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the real challenges and raising kids today how to show up as

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parents and teach your kids how to show up as members of the

Nellie Harden:

family and individuals of the world. My name is Nellie Hardin,

Nellie Harden:

big city girl turn small town sipping iced tea on the front

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porch mama who loves igniting transformation in the hearts and

Nellie Harden:

minds of families by helping them build self love, discipline

Nellie Harden:

and leadership that elevates the family experience and sets the

Nellie Harden:

kids up with a rock solid foundation, they can launch

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their life on all before they ever leave home. This is the

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6570 family project. Let's go Hello, everyone. Welcome back to

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another episode of the 6570 family project podcast. We in

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this podcast are taking the 6570 days that are the high impact

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high influence timezone of this parenthood childhood dynamic,

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and really building them into the confident and the respectful

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and the wise leaders that they can be. So they can go off and

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have a joy filled life of impact. That's what we're doing

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here in this podcast. And today, I wanted to talk to you a little

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bit about the power of the written word. And you're like,

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Okay, I've heard that before, you know, maybe some of the old

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English poets and authors and things like that. But I'm not

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talking about that I'm talking about actually your kiddo or

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yourself, but definitely your kiddo taking the power of the

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written word. When you can take something as ambiguous as

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shapeless as a thought. And actually put it on paper, it

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makes it more concrete, it makes it real, right? There's

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edges, there's corners, there is an idea it is out there in the

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world, right, you can take an eraser to it, but it was there

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and you're always going to see it. So putting something on

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paper with your own hand not typing, putting something on

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paper is so powerful, okay. And I want to walk you through some

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examples that I have here, because we use this in my own

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home and in my practice, very, very often, right. And it also

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helps you zoom in on something. So writing a letter, you could

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call it a letter, you could call it a paragraph, you could call

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it page, sometimes these things need like or go write me 29

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pages of why this happened, right? No, I'm just kidding. But

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sometimes they're longer. Sometimes they're shorter, just

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depends on what is going on. But it can help you zoom in on a

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decision or zoom in on a specific area of time and open

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that up. And I've I've told you guys time and time again, I love

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to make references. I'm such a visual person. And I remember

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anyone else ever listen or watch CSI back in the day, I just

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watched the original one, I didn't watch all the spin offs.

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But back in CSI, I just remember that there was so many of these

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scenes where it would like zoom in, and then you would dive into

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the body and you would see all of these this stuff happening.

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And you're like, oh, okay, that's what happened, right? And

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it's kind of the same. That's kind of how I view this. You're

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like, You're so weird, Nellie, I am that's fine. But anyway, it

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helps you to zoom in on something and see what happened

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and why it happened. So every single action there is it's a

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behavior, right? And that behavior is decided on. And of

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course that's outside of those, you know, nervous system

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reflexes, we got the knee going and all those things, but pretty

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much 99% of behaviors are decided on right. And before

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that decision happens. There was a feeling and before that

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feeling, there was a thought. And there's actually three

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thought filters that that something goes through that a

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thought goes through before it becomes an action, right. And

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these are really worth exploring further. And I talk all about

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this in the mindset cycle. And I will have another podcast about

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that in the future. But it's something I definitely teach on

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because when you can understand Wait a second, I'm actually this

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is passing through three different filters and what are

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my filters by the way, and That's something worth exploring

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too. But today I want to talk to you about just taking a minute

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to explore an action and this behavior chain or this thought

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chain happening. So here's an example. Say, so there's some

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parents whose child seems to be a sympathetic, right? Totally

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non empathetic. It seems like they have this animosity toward

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the world. And maybe they turned off their emotion switch, and

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you're like, what is happening? Right, and the parents are at

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wit's end. I don't know if you've ever experienced this. I

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know, I definitely have. And I talked with many parents that

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have as well, it doesn't happen all the time. But it happens

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often enough that the parents are saying, What is going on

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with my kid, right? So let's walk through this situation. So

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one day, there's this little boy and his little sister wanted to

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get by him, he accidentally trips her she falls, and she

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gets mildly hurt, like, you know, booboo on the knee and

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mildly hurt nothing, you know, Doctor worthy or anything. So

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the best solution, of course, would be to kneel down and

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apologize and see if his sister was okay. I'm so sorry. You

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know, I you just think about what you would do if you were in

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an airport or in a restaurant or whatever, and you accidentally

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bumped into somebody? Would you just walk away? No, you would?

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Oh, my goodness, I am so sorry. Are you okay? And help them up?

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Help them clean up anything that happened, right? That's the best

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solution. That's what we want to get to. But is that what he did?

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No, he rolls his eyes and walks away. And the parents are like,

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jaws to the floor, what the what, right? They're fed up. And

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they're thinking this, you know, he must when the emotional

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switch was yanked on this one. And they just take some deep

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breaths, right? They probably always didn't do this. But after

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we work together, we take some deep breaths. And we tell him

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calmly, right? We don't want to act out of our own crazy

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feelings, either, right? That's not going to help the situation.

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So we tell them that he needs to please go upstairs. And I want

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you to actually write a paragraph or two about what

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happened. I want you to tell me how you felt. I want to tell me

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about your reaction, and about how your reaction could be

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better in the future. Now, they're not going to just be

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like, Oh, okay, mom, okay, dad, they're gonna be like, What? Are

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you serious, right, you're gonna get you're gonna get the tude,

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and that's fine. And you're gonna be like, Yes, this is what

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you need to do, please go upstairs. And that is your that

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is your assignment right now. And please don't come out of

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your room until this is done. Take some time if you need some

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time, but that is what needs to happen. And he can't come out

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until it's written. And if it takes a while, that's okay. He

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needs to calm down, because he's probably going to be perturbed

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that you're telling him to do this. And that is okay. But what

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writing does is it slows down that behavior and makes makes

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him think about it right? makes him think about that thought

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change thought chain because his hand cannot go as fast as his

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brain, our physical body cannot go as fast as thought, right?

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There's some Marvel superhero that can move at the at the

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speed of thought I forget who that is. I don't know. But

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anyway, um, and so he needs to actually slow down zoom in on

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this. You know, it was probably a maybe 10 second exchange. So

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take out all the stuff in the day that happened before and all

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the stuff that's happened after let's erase that, let's zoom in

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on this 10 seconds. Let's actually think about this

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decision process that happened right then. Okay. And it's more

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real. Like I was saying earlier, there's more truth. And there's

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more of the I am identity statements in there. When he's

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writing this out, he doesn't want to just write, I'm a bad

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brother. So that's why it happened. Right? That is very,

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very rare. And if that is the case, we have some other things

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we need to dive into. But it is very rare that someone is going

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to say, I'm a bad brother. That's why I did it. And that's

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that right? No one really wants to see that. So this is what's

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going to happen. And he turns in the paper and you're reading it

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and you're seeing that he accidentally tripped her. It

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wasn't on purpose. He accidentally tripped her. He was

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embarrassed and knew everyone would blame him for everything

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again. Okay. So notice that language in there, everyone,

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everything again, right? And those are those always nevers

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and my husband and I did a marriage. It wasn't it was like

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this marriage workshop at our old church back in Indiana years

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and years and years ago. And that was one of the first things

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that we talked about. There was probably I don't know nine 10

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couples in there, and one of the first things we talked about on

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week one was when you are having a discussion, you can never use

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always and never. And every is obviously in that grouping as

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well, you can't use those because they're simply not true.

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Everyone doesn't blame him for everything all the time, right?

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And so, but that's how he's feeling. So that is His truth

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right then. And so we need to dissect that a little bit, but

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let's keep going. So he accidentally tripped her. He

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says, I was embarrassed. And I knew everyone would blame me for

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everything. Again, he felt resentful, he's not going to use

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that word. But you can, you know, extrapolate it from the

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the pages that he's writing or the words that he's writing. He

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felt resentful toward that, because he knows his sister's

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overly dramatic. And he feels like his parents only only only

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ever talked to him about his behavior. And they never talked

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to her about hers. Okay, so pause for a second right there,

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I just want you to know that your kids are always going to

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think that they're always going to think that they are the

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victim of everything, and every other sibling never gets talked

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to. Right? That is that is a very normal feeling. And it's

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something that is going to have to be squashed over and over and

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over again. Because they're only seeing life from their

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perspective. So of course, they only see or they see you talking

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to them more often. Because they're not the other person,

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right? They aren't the sibling. And so really getting this into

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them of No, we talked to everybody, everyone's on their

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own path I need to help you be you, I need to help her be her

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all of these things. And so you weren't in the room when I'm

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talking with her all the time and all of these things. So I

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just want to put a pause. If you're hearing that, which you

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probably are, you're not the only one it is very normal. And

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it's something that will have to be repeatedly squashed over and

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over again. So he questions let's move on. He questions.

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URMS Are you question why they always talk to him and does and

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decided that I'm sorry? He questioned why? In his mind, why

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do they always talk to me remember those those filters? So

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he had a thought? He's like they're in? I'm getting talked

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to again, right? The observation, and then he's like,

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Why do they always talk to me and he decides he was just a bad

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kid. So why even try. And so the result was he walked away. This

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is where the take them on a walk, sit down and talk with

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them. Go do a puzzle and talk about this go color and talk

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about this. A lot of times if you pair a physical activity

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with a discussion, it goes so much better, right? Because

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everything isn't focused on eye contact, eye contact, eye

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contact, right? uncomfortable, whatever. But if you're

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coloring, if you're walking, if you're puzzling, if you are like

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building some little do Hickey, whatever that is, you can pair

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some sort of physical with a good talk. But what you want to

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do now is be vulnerable. You as the parent, be vulnerable. Let

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him know, you know what, I totally get being embarrassed

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this one time, this really embarrassing thing happened to

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me. Oh my goodness, my kids, they A while ago, they asked me

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they were we were on one of our umpteen million hours of a road

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trip. And they were like, Ma, tell me all your embarrassing

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stories. And I was like, Oh, this will be fun. So you know,

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we go along, and I'm telling them different things. They're

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like, what all this stuff and it just really brings you down to

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their level. But one of their favorites is when I was in

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kindergarten, and I really had to go to the bathroom. And the

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evil lunch ladies that were there circa early early 80s You

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know, and they would not let me go. They thought I was lying.

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And I was like, I really need to go there. Like no, you may not

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go you need to do this and then go out for recess. And so

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anyway, I went out for recess, there was one of those dome

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shaped jungle gyms. And I was wearing a skirt of course and

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climbing a jungle gym. Lots of things to dissect here. But

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anyway, I climb to the top. And sure enough, peed all the way

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down from the top of that dome on to a person that was below

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me. And yeah, so now my embarrassing story is out in the

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entire world to hear. But that is fine. I was in kindergarten,

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but my kids always bring that up because they were like, Oh, I'm

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so embarrassed. But you know what, it wasn't as bad as mom

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when she peed on that kid.

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I mean, there's that right? So be vulnerable with an

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embarrassing story of your own and help him understand that he

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only sees the talks that he gets that happened to him, and you're

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working to help him on his journey and helping his sister

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to work on hers. And there is a very different correction for

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every person, right? I can't talk to you the same way I talk

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to you to the same way I talk to you, you guys are different

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people, different things happen. And a good way, especially if

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you have little kids. Older kids can kind of grasp that everyone

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needs a bit of difference, right? But younger kids, I often

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say Okay, so what if I take you to an ice cream store tomorrow,

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and we walk up and your little sister says, I want? I don't

Nellie Harden:

know, let's say cookies and cream. And you didn't want

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cookies and cream. You want it some other time. But to be fair,

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and that everyone gets the same exact thing. Everyone in the

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family is getting cookies and cream. Right? And then they're

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like, but I didn't want that. I know because that wasn't right

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for you. That was right for her. But it wasn't right for you.

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It's just such a great, simple, simple analogy to help them

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understand that different people different things, right. Okay,

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so we're working on this, we're helping him understand that

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you're helping him with his journey, you're helping her with

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her journey. And there's an age gap there, right. Which also

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means that there's a wisdom gap there. And we're putting some of

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that onus that ownership and leadership on him to like, we

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need to teach her how to react when she accidentally tripped

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somebody in the future. We don't want her just walking away,

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right? And what you do, because she looks up to you, because you

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are her big brother, then we need to be able to teach her Can

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you help me do that? Right? So you're bringing him at, you're

Nellie Harden:

being vulnerable? You're you're saying I understand you, and you

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are not the worst, you know, kid, brother, son in the world,

Nellie Harden:

right? And you're bringing him into the fold to help you.

Nellie Harden:

Parent, right? So we're, we're growing this team mentality. And

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you can also agree, I do agree your sister can be overly

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dramatic sometimes. And that is something we're working on with

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her again, like, can you help me do that? Right? Because if we

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can help her, then you can be helped to right? Explain that

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being there to help one another, especially a family member is

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the right choice, because we're a team. And we and a team needs

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everyone to stay strong and lift one another up a family is a

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team. You guys, I've used this writing time, time and time and

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time again for different situations. And even when kids

Nellie Harden:

are just trying to figure something out, right? Give them

Nellie Harden:

a big question. And it makes them think about it, zoom in and

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think about that one thing papers do not just have to be

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about overall themes of The Grapes of Wrath, right? I don't

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know. That's the first thing that pops popped into my head. I

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remember writing about that when I was in high school. But they

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can be used for the purpose of growing emotional intelligence

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as well. Right? I asked one of my kids the other day, what are

Nellie Harden:

your just can you just write make some curious? And I think

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it would really help me understand some things. Can you

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tell me what your moral filters are? That your thoughts go

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through before they come become an action. And she wrote me a

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paper on it. And it gave me so much clarity, and it probably

Nellie Harden:

did for her too. And then we can have a discussion about that.

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Funny. Funny enough, though, I told my husband that I asked her

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that question. He's like, I don't even know if I would be

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able to answer that. And I was like, Well, maybe you should

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write a paper on it. And he's like, I think I have to go build

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the he's building a kitchen island for us right now. So he's

Nellie Harden:

thinking about it while he's standing. I'm sure of it. But I

Nellie Harden:

keep these letters for posterity. And also as a good

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reminder, if repeated things happen again, right? So in our

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instance, that we walked through if if something else happened,

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where it seemed like he was shutting off some of his

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emotion, we can bring this back out and say, Do you remember

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when we talked about this? Can you remind me some of the things

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that we talked about after that happened? And you can build on

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it instead of starting from scratch all over again. So try

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it and see what you guys learn. It is a great process, because

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there is so much power in that written word. Okay, guys, this

Nellie Harden:

is Nelly your partner and parenting Talk soon. And happy

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building you guys.

Nellie Harden:

Thank you so much for listening today and I hope you were able

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to take something from our discussion that you can use to

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build the foundation of self love leadership in your own

Nellie Harden:

family. If you are a parent with children 17 or younger, and

Nellie Harden:

especially those around nine and up, I would love to extend an

Nellie Harden:

invitation to you to the best club in town. The family

Nellie Harden:

architects Club is a private club club where intentional

Nellie Harden:

parents go that want to love support, connect or reconnect,

Nellie Harden:

and really truly help guide their kids and teach them how to

Nellie Harden:

self lead in discipline and leadership. This is an online

Nellie Harden:

community and the you are welcome to it. Parenting is a

Nellie Harden:

project and you are the architect of this one. You plan

Nellie Harden:

you design and oversee the construction of the beginning of

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