Why Your Child Isn't Misbehaving — They're Communicating | Wendy Snyder
(YouTube Transcript)
Aneta (00:00): Wendy, thank you so much for joining me today.
Wendy (00:03): Thanks for having me, Aneta. I am thrilled and honored to be on your show with you.
Aneta (00:07): So excited to talk about the topic that we're going to talk about today, because so many of my listeners and I am a mom and raising children. And one of the things that I always think about is I wish I knew when I was raising my children what I know today, because I would have done things a little differently. And so you have just created a business, a mission, a book that really focuses on helping families create more peace, more connection. So walk us through maybe a little bit of your background and your history of what caused you to say, I think I could be doing things a little bit differently. And then how did you decide that that's something that you wanted to share with others?
Wendy (00:49): Yeah. I'd love to share a little bit of my story. I would have never imagined that I was going to become a powerful parenting educator and family life coach. I graduated with a marketing degree. I was in corporate America for a long time, and I just didn't think I'd be here. But when I went and had kids, and I left my corporate career, thinking that I was going to jump into stay-at-home mom life, thinking like, God, I should feel so blessed to be here. We were able to work it out so I could be a stay-at-home mom when my kids were really little. And I really thought this is gonna be amazing.
And it turned out it was really hard. I joke about that season of life when I almost lost my mind. But I was blessed with a beautiful, strong-willed little girl. In the first few years, we could feel her strong will from birth, even from her literal birth. Thank God we're both here. But emergency C-section, we joke that Stella didn't want to come out.
I was born absent birth. You don't meet a lot of people who were born absent birth. It means you weren't conscious when they were born. It was just really rocky from the beginning. You could feel that Stella just had this muscular strength about her personality, even as a baby. And the first few years were doable. I was working full-time in corporate. had a beautiful nanny that was like the world's best nanny, but then...
It did really fall apart once I was home full-time with the I just had my second child, and I just became so stressed out, and all day long it felt like I was telling this little girl to do something and she would do the opposite. If I said, " Don't pull the dog's tail, she would pull it harder. If I said, Go left, she would go right. If I said, Don't touch the baby, she would shake him. And I just found myself in this pit of constant punishment cycles, trying to put her in a time-out.
I was reading all these books and asking everyone and their uncle, what do I do to little girl under control? And it was so sad and heartbreaking what literally every single person told me. Basically, in a nutshell, it didn't matter if it was my boss, my neighbor, my parents, or someone from church. Just don't be afraid to show her who's boss. A lot of people recommended I hit her.
My neighbor was like, " Just go on Amazon and buy this air quotes Christian book that'll teach you how to use a switch from the backyard to just smack her every time she misbehaves, and that'll break her will. And really, the entire time, I could feel this cognitive dissonance in me. But I tried some of those things for like a solid six months. And God, it got so bad to the point where
Terry, my husband, would go to work every day, and I'd literally look at him and be like, "Do you have to leave?” Because I would look at my three-year-old and be like, I don't know how I am going to survive the day with her, because it felt that yucky. Like you'd see me at the grocery store and I'd put on a good face, but behind closed doors, I had become a yeller.
I had become a not-so-gentle parent. I'd put her on the naughty spot really hard or grab her wrist too tightly. I started becoming the shameful, irritated, frustrated mom. And at some point, I realized something's got to give here. This is not what I signed up for. This does not feel good, and it's not working. And that's when we got invited to a free positive parenting class at her preschool, and the rest is history. We walked in those doors, and we started to learn those concepts. This was 15 years ago now, that sweet, same little girl who has, thank God, because of this, we've been able to build up her strong will instead of breaking it.
And she's going to use that perfect God-given will to secure a Division I beach volleyball position at a top 10 school in the nation, which was something she really fought for as an undersized defender in the sport, but that strong will saw her through that. And now she's thriving. She heads off to college next year. And that is a feat that only less than 1 % of high school athletes attain. So it's kind of wild to sit on the mountain top now, so to speak, and see the fruition of all of these concepts and these strategies and these tactics that we teach our community in our book, in our podcast, families and homes all across the world, but to see it like be this full circle moment where the little girl who really became my angel, the reason I evolved into who I am today. She is the reason why I dove deep into parenting education.
She's the reason why I dove deep into life coaching and therapy and healed and released so many limiting beliefs that if it wasn't for Stella, I would have never realized that I was living with and operating as a human. It's really fun. She graduates from high school. The book comes out on May 26th, Fresh Start Your Family, Powerful Parenting to Restore Peace in Your Home. And we have a thriving community, parents all over the world who are in our membership, and a podcast that I love producing called the Fresh Start Family Show. So that's a little bit about my story and how I got here.
Aneta (05:42): I want to talk about the book and the podcast, but I also want to go back to your story because I also had a C-section with my oldest and my youngest, but she was also a very strong-willed child. And I remember hearing the same things you heard, which break the spirit. You need to show them who's boss, really get them to, and I remember feeling this can't be right. Why don't I have better resources? And it was scary also to feel like I don't know what I'm doing. I was a young mom in my 20s. And so it is like I am not sure, I don't know what I'm doing. So what were some of the things that you learned? You said it was a conference or like a seminar? A class? ⁓ okay.
Wendy Snyder (06:08)
Her preschool for 30 years has been teaching this free positive parenting class and it is the same body of work. It's all Dreyer's based psychology. A program that started out as redirecting children's behavior that I've now gone on to really build my own body of work around. But yeah, 30 years they've been offering this free class in our town to parents at that How amazing is that? And now I teach it, Aneta. What a full circle moment years ago I studied under my teacher, who's now a grandma at 12, and now I do the class and it's just so weird. But yeah, if it wasn't for them providing that, I would have never gotten into this work.
Aneta (07:04): How long after you took the class and you started using the techniques with your daughter, did you start to notice changes in her behavior and also maybe in your own behavior too and how you were responding?
Wendy (07:12): Yeah. Great question. So it's a two-fold answer. Some of it was like instant. So section one of the book, we teach parents the importance of paradigm shifting and really like it is the biggest piece of what we teach, but it's also one of the hardest because it takes us out of the belief system that a misbehaving child equals a bad child equals a bad parent. So that's like kind of the classic. Most of us inherit that.
That's why if your kid melts down in the middle of the grocery store. If your teenager gives you an attitude at the Thanksgiving dinner table and your family's watching, you are gonna feel more triggered than if it was just alone. right? Like it's because of the fishbowl effect. We think we have inherited this belief that if a kid has imperfect behavior, then it's something we're doing bad. So a bad kid, if they're misbehaving, they're bad.
And that also means that you suck as a parent, so you better get your stuff together or else you're failing. The new accurate psychology rooted belief is a misbehaving child equals a communicating child, equals an empowered parent who can redirect misbehavior with grace and dignity and firm kindness. And so in the beginning, when you change your paradigm and you start to see your children in a different light of take the, veil gets lifted almost like,
Kids feel that energetically and I think that just creates such an that I remember starting to feel just more connected with my daughter just from that point. And the second answer to that is I was so excited to apply the concepts and then they would blow up like a volcano.
And that is because I had so much deeper inner work to do. And so it really was the beginning of the adventure. And again, we're 15 years deep now. It took me eight years to stop yelling. It took me a while to stop being reactive. I mean, I've written some really vulnerable, humble articles and I tell the stories in this book too.
But stories that get the most response from parents that are saying, thank you so much for saying this aloud, is I have written about the night I left bruises, the night I threw a book at my kid. Like I have some real reactive nervous system wiring in my family lineage and boy, boy, has it taken commitment to shed that. And even now, 15 years into this work, I still have my moments, we always say in this work, there's no perfection.
Your kids are never gonna be perfect. You're never gonna be perfect. I still lost it on my 15 year old and yelled at him like probably two months ago. But thank God now I have the ability to make amends, take responsibility without shame, which I think we might touch on that today importance of not living in shame. But it's now I have the tools to realize I'm still in the pattern.
Wendy (10:14): The nervous system is still reacting. It still feels like a bear is chasing me. And so there were so many things that worked really fast. And once I got them, it was like, wow, okay. When I replace punishment with compassionate discipline, it really works to change the behavior. And I tell so many stories in this book about real life situations where it's like, hey, here's an example of how scaring crap out of your kid doesn't work.
And then here's an example of how using compassionate discipline to teach the missing life skill works. And then, yeah, modeling was a big thing. As soon as I learned and I got the memo that I could tell Stella to chill out all day long, 27 times a day, but until I modeled what it looked like to step to the side, do what we call a stop sign, regulate my own nervous system, and then handle the challenge she was never going to do it.
And so a lot of it just really took the deeper work. And so that's what's cool about this body of work that I write about is the long-term results are insane. And you got to jump in and be ready for the adventure because it's not as easy and really I thought it was. I'd go to class, I'd come home and be like, great, today we're going to make calming kits and we're going to replace timeout with self-calming. And again, tell the story in the book is like the day that I put my finger in Stella's face and told her she needed to go get her calming kit and calm down. She stood at the top of the stairs, took the plastic calming kit that we had gotten from the dollar store thinking this is gonna be this magical thing. She threw it down the stairs, little four-year-old child, and it shattered everywhere.
And then I lost my mind. Like that's a real life story of me learning how to do it differently, and then really hitting the hiccups. But thank God I didn't give up because, to see an 18-year-old now that is so well-versed in self-regulation, when she gets triggered, when things don't go well in the volleyball court, or when friends in her have an argument or a disagreement, or she's triggered by something her best friend says, it just feels so cool to the mini-human develop the life skill that will take them through life instead of just having trained a mini human to submit to me because I'm the boss and I get to make them do what I want.
Aneta (12:42): It is hard to be so vulnerable and to share. And I know know as a parent, like I can look back with shame, as you said, so many instances where I'm like, gosh, what in the world was I thinking? And I think it's because, you know, at the time, I didn't know how to regulate my nervous system. I was passed down parenting from my parents who definitely did not have the coping skills. And the kids pick up on it.
I mean, energy is felt. Also even if we think that we're displaying calm, which most of the time we're not the kids will know if we're not. So how far in the journey did you realize, oh, I need to figure something out for myself. I need to take better care of myself so that then I can model the behavior I can be present in the way that I need to for my child. Like how long was that?
Wendy (13:30): Well, it was pretty fast because I had a teacher that was so bold with me. So I remember I was in these free workshops at my daughter's preschool for probably like six months and I'd come into the classroom and I'd say, Suzy, is not working. I need you to come to my house so you can see how difficult my child is. And she would just hug me and look me in the eyes and say, you just need to get to Freedom to Be is a life coaching weekend intensive healing program that we now teach here at Fresh Start Family. And we do it once a year here in San Diego. And she really went on to say, I would say, gosh, a whole weekend away, like have a baby and a toddler, can't have my husband, like that's too much to ask.
And she'd be like, Wendy, she'd tell the whole class, look, you literally have no excuse not to go to this weekend, deep healing program. She said, unless it's your child's birthday even if it's their birthday, she said, have their birthday party on a different weekend because this will be the biggest gift you ever give your children. I just remember she was so bold about it. And I was like, really? I was still on maternity leave and we had just gotten a bonus in my corporate job.
And I was like, screw it, I'm doing it. I'm going to invest in the ticket for the weekend program. I invested in like a four pack of private session coaching with her. And I just jumped in with all my heart. And that weekend is really what changed the entire future trajectory of my life. So I spent that weekend looking at my blame patterns, but that weekend is the deepest healing work that we do. And we do our healing work through feeling.
So we can't logically, change our ways, so to speak, but when you feel to reduce blame and shame, it like cracks open in the most beautiful way. So I worked that weekend on reducing blame, because Stella was the number one person I blamed at that point in my life for causing me to be stressed out. I worked on fully forgiving myself and loving myself, which I had never done any work around. And when we do that, we then are able to fully love others and forgive others you can't do it until you do it yourself.
I looked at my tone, the way I was unknowingly causing people in my life to not want to cooperate with me, specifically my daughter. And I worked on learning how to hold space during conflict, which I had never been taught. Like really truly holding space for somebody else, especially if they're complaining about you, which kids have a way of doing in different ways. It's not always like, mom, you're mean.
They will and complain in different ways. But then also holding space for yourself when you've got those little voices telling you, this will never or this kid's going to grow up to be a crazy entitled holding space exercise that weekend was just so pivotal. So after that initial weekend where I went deeper with my healing, that weekend is very similar on-site weekend. They're the big company here in America that does those type of experiential programs. But when I came home, it was wild.
I was like all of a sudden not white knuckling the calling break. Like basic concept we teach here space between the stimulus and the response. Victor Frankl taught us about this, create the space. That's where our freedom to choose is. But many of us are like, cool. But then the trigger happens and you're like zero to 60 reacting. But when I came home that Monday, I was is so weird something would happen, she'd shake the baby or something. And I was just it was so easy for me to like step outside or take a deep breath or like signal safety.
So the healing had actually worked. And for a few days I modeled really easily what it looked like to slow myself down, regulate my nervous system, self calm. And then surprise, surprise, it was like three days later I read this story in the book. I heard Stella march down the stairs and she taking these big breaths our black chair that used to be out there. And I came around the corner. I'm like, what's going on, honey? She's like, I'm sitting here and I'm taking deep breaths. She was four at the time taking deep breaths because Taryn did something in the playroom that was bugging her. And she decided she was going to come do this self calming moment.
And it was like, it me like a ton of bricks. was like, wow, this works. Like I had been telling her for six months to chill out, chill out Stella, relax, your brother's little blah, blah, blah. And she was just like not having it until I showed her. That's one of the earliest places where I was like, wow, this is working and I want more of it.
Aneta (17:47): I love that. And it's amazing how we can think back to those moments. And I'm glad that you have those moments where it clicked, not just the moments where you're like, I wish I'd done that differently. Cause we kind of have to go through that. When did you start coaching others? So you started doing this for yourself. You're raising your kids and tell me about your son. he also trigger you or was he easy second baby, like a sweet kid?
Wendy (18:27): He is my more mild child. I refer to like Stella's got that beautiful strong very power driven, future leader, competitive as heck, giant justice button. if she thinks someone's cheating in a game, my God, she couldn't play Monopoly she was at least nine years old without freaking out. And then Taryn's got the beautiful mild personality where...
Wendy (18:49): He just is easy going. so sensitive in his heart, he's just by much. He's very even keeled. I always say that this work helps all children. I have a tendency to really focus the parents of the strong-willed kid, because I think those are the ones that bring us to our knees the most. Those are usually the parents that walk in our doors and actually will do the because it just is like, it breaks your back.
Wendy (19:13): Literally, it feels like you're gonna die. the more mild children oftentimes, and this was our scenarios, they might just struggle more with inadequacy behaviors. That's one of the four categories of misbehavior we teach here. Separation anxiety, this was Taryn's story, anxiety to some degree. Those were the areas that we got to use these same concepts and tools and a parenting system that was based in relationship and firm kindness to redirect him out of those behaviors. And then also, of course, being able to set the firm boundaries, but do it in ways that built him up, being that like softer personality was so important through the year. So he's 15 now, he's six, two, and he's thriving in life also just so fun to see what a different personality he is.
He's more of an attention kid with a tendency to have inadequacy here and there. Again, it shows up ⁓ with a little anxiety here and there. And then Stella is just lives in the power category most of her days. So we often say that a lot of kids, they do all four categories in life, they will. But most of our kids have a tendency to hang out in one for most of their lives. And once you get to know more about the root causes of misbehavior and start to honor the uniqueness of your child and see that it's a blessing that they are wired that way, then you start again to be able to redirect the misbehavior that you don't want in ways that build them up instead of try to shame or force them into submission.
Aneta (20:38): I'm What are the four types you said that typically we spend time in one or two? are the four?
Wendy (20:42): Yes, so this is section three of the book, Root Causes a Misbehavior, and the four categories are attention, a parent's gonna feel irritated and annoyed, this is like nails on a chalkboard feeling, or a kid in the back of a SUV doing like fart noises in his armpit while his sister is screaming, stop it, stop it, stop it, and he's back there giggling and laughing, that's annoying, gonna feel annoyed, irritated, attention misbehavior.
Attention misbehavior often has a root of a child wanting to feel unconditionally loved, like they're trying to get that bucket met. So the need to feel loved bucket met. Next category is inadequacy or avoidance. We have a tendency to see less of, especially in our community where we really do a lot of focus with strong-willed kids. But again, I a ton with my little guy. Separation anxiety is a perfect example of inadequacy behavior. And they have a mistaken belief that I just can't.
I cannot do it, so why even try? And then revenge misbehavior is a big one that drives parents up the wall and ends up just becoming a continuous cycle in a family system. And then surprise, surprise, we see this in the world too. Revenge, eye for an eye culture, and it is heartbreaking. But revenge misbehavior is obviously hitting, kicking, biting, throwing, saying, I hate you, this family sucks, you're mean.
Whether it's verbal or physical, those are kind of what it looks like. And that misbehavior is all about the root cause of hurt. So most children don't understand their emotions because most of us parents weren't raised in a home where emotional literacy was a thing, but the thing with revenge misbehavior is it does have a root cause of hurt. So this child that does this misbehavior has a mistaken belief that when I feel hurt, I must hurt back.
Often, because that's what's been modeled to me. Punishment, for example, is a way that parents keep the cycle going. If a kid messes up, especially if they feel disrespected, a parent throws out punishment, like I'll show you. So we all have revenge behaviors, but kids show up in one way, parents show up in another. And then the last category that we teach in the book is power struggle misbehavior. And this is when a kid pushes back.
Wendy (22:55): Won't do what you want, says no, and this kiddo is simply seeking to feel powerful. Power or the need to feel powerful is a human healthy need. And kids that are strong-willed or in a power surge stage of life, and really all kids, they just have a very strong need to feel powerful. And so they have a mistaken belief that in order to feel powerful, I must overpower others often, again, because that's what's been modeled to me.
So those are the behaviors that are just like, you tell your kid to do something and they either say no, or they just don't take action. They might stay longer on their phone and you have to come in and you think lecturing or threatening is gonna help when it actually makes things worse. So each one of those categories, we have specific redirection tools catered to the core need that get to support our child to get that met in a healthy way, not an unhealthy way.
And what I mean by that, Aneta, is a child who argues with their parent is getting their need to feel power need met. They're just doing it in an unhealthy way. So if I get you a rise out of you, if I get you to yell, if I get your attention like this, we call it a dance and both parent and child get used to that. It's like a battle of the wills.
Wendy (24:15): And really, you don't even know what you're fighting about. It becomes all you care about is winning. And that is an example of like feeding this need to feel powerful bucket in a very unhealthy way. So we teach you how to do that differently and also most importantly, how to find power, true power as a parent that models to your children what it looks like to actually solve conflicts with integrity and connection.
Aneta (24:41): Wow. How early can you see these behaviors or these in your child?
Wendy (24:47): So early. So let me think about this. So Stella would have been 18 the earliest is gonna be like a baby who, you go to change their diaper and they might have a sore bottom. And so they kick or something, like don't touch me, Like that's a perfect example of I feel an example of knee-jerk protecting yourself.
Sometimes see older babies or say 18, 22 month olds who refuse to eat something if they are not feeling or who you start to see power struggles happening over the potty training. Like that's a great example of a kid at that stage often will start to realize that they have power over their body.
So if they are feeling pressured and overpowered, they will start to push back and they start to realize, I can have power here. And then they might have accidents that kind of stuff. So it shows up really early. I think the earlier you can just get curious about it. And then the four needs, which is important to add to this is the need to feel powerful, the need to belong, which is really one of the biggest ones. The need to feel valuable.
And the need to feel loved. All human beings are going to be consistently trying to get those needs met on a daily basis. So the sooner you can start to look at, what's happening in this moment when the kid's not doing what I want, is there a need that I can feed in a healthy way that will lessen the misbehavior and the pushback? And or is this happened to fall in a certain category of one of these misbehaviors that I can use one of these specific strategies versus a band-aid tactic?
Like every time your kid doesn't do what you want, they get a timeout. parenting is just using the band-aid tactics. And it might work in the moment to cause a child to submit, but again, the long-term is not sustainable.
Aneta (26:42): Yeah, that makes sense. So the book is called Fresh Start Your Family, Powerful Parenting to Restore Peace in Your Home. Tell me what your hope is with this book, Wendy.
Wendy (26:54): My hope, Aneta, is that parents just get excited about how fun it is to take charge of your own family legacy, and to get back in touch with the joy of why we had kids to begin with. We had kids so we could have this like fun little squad of connected humans who we feel this beautiful common bond of unconditional love and to be able raise good, kind, contributing members of society that we have mutual respect and safety in our home.
And I just think it's so honorable to be a parent that if you're not hitting the nail on the head with what you want and what you set out as a parent, that you're able to just raise your hand and be like, okay, I'm willing to look at some of these patterns I may have and make a fresh start and realize that what I inherited, we get to thank our parents for all the things they did great and also acknowledge that there are things that we do not want to pass on. And so being a generational cycle breaker is such a beautiful, brave, dignified way of parenting that I just think becomes an adventure.
And so I hope this book helps people feel less alone. I hope that it erases shame from them when they realize they are not the only one that has reactive tendencies or shamed their kid a few times or necessarily loving parenting. I think we also carry so much shame about that when my little girl was young. I just was so ashamed I just wasn't sure if I liked her. And I just thought that that made me bad person.
So now I just say it aloud and it's like, you're just in a thick season where parenting is tough. And when you invest in education and learning it just becomes so much joyful to do life with people that grow up to be big people.
Aneta (28:47): Yeah. And I find that sometimes I know the people that we find most challenging, it could be your kid, could be your parents, could be whomever, they become our greatest spiritual teachers. And so what has your daughter, Stella, taught you?
Wendy (29:02): Aneta, you are so spot on. That is one of, I think, the most important truths of the world. There's a book called The Little Soul and The Sun. Have you ever read that, Aneta? You must get it for your library. It is so beautiful. little soul wants to come down to earth and he wants to be this light of patience. He's like, I want to show up on earth as patients. And God's like, OK, cool. But to do that, you're going to need someone that test you.
And he's like, but I don't get it. And his little buddy comes along and his buddy's like, I'll go, I'll go. He's like, I'll go to earth with you and I will be someone who hurts you and triggers you. And, then he just says to him, I'll do it for you, but you have to promise me that you'll always remember who I am, like who I actually am. And they skip off to go down to It's just a really great example of what you just said of not just woo woo made up stuff, like it is factual. souls that test us and that trigger us, they really do call us into healing if we accept the invitation. So for Stella specifically, without her, I would have never been able to see humility as a strength.
As Mother Teresa says, humility has the power to change the world. I would have never, I don't think, realized that, but I was invited into humbling myself and seeing my contribution to the dance, I think I would have remained in more of a victim mindset around so many things because I never would have learned to take responsibility for my contribution as I say we are often co-creating our lives with God and we have a big part of that. And so without Stella, I probably wouldn't have really dove into learning how to take responsibility, but in a way that doesn't
Wendy (30:48): beat myself up for it and doesn't shame myself for it, but instead just be honest about my contribution and take off the blinders, so to speak. And don't think that I would have as compassionate as I am now and empathetic with other people. And really, I guess the biggest thing, shared this at the end of my D.P.Ling weekend that I led a few weekends ago, but 15 years into this work because of Stella, I am like...
I love myself so much and it's not like a cocky, I'm the best way. It's like, I genuinely am so in love with myself. And if we want to love our neighbors as ourselves, and if we want to love our enemies, it really does start with yourself. And many of us who grew up in autocratic homes where there was punishment and shame, just as part of the system, that inner critic voice is so strong once you grow up.
And many of us develop perfectionist tendencies and we think if we just do everything right then we'll be loved and we'll be enough. And many of us have so many thoughts of we're either not enough or we're too much. And I've spent the last decade shedding those shame patterns and now I can honestly say that I just love myself so
Even on the days that I'm not perfect and I mess up, I'm able to give myself compassion. And from that place, it just really flows out to other human beings, especially my loved ones. And so for her, I thank her for that because she was the beginning to this whole journey that I went on. So I'm grateful.
Aneta (32:23): Oh, it's beautiful. Yeah, and I have to check that book out because I do believe here in their lessons and sometimes those closest to helped to be that teacher in ways we don't always enjoy in the moment. But you look back and you think wow, I absolutely had to go through Wendy, share with me how folks work with you. What are the other ways you mentioned coaching?
Tell me all the ways that folks could work with you if they're listening and they're like, you know what, I need help. I don't need to do this on my own. What are the different programs that you have?
Wendy (32:54): Yes, Aneta, so first things first, if this happens to be airing before May 26, pre-orders, they help authors like myself so much. When you pre-order from an author, basically the publisher is able to communicate to the big guys, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Target, and then they place their stock orders. So when you pre-order. freshstartfamilyonline.com forward slash pre-order. And the coolest thing about pre-orders is you don't get charged until the ship date, which I will say is right around Mother's Day. So it's just a really easy way to support hearing this episode resonating with some of the things that I say, grab the book.
We have lots of bonuses that we're offering that you can just drop in your order number on that pre-order page and get you some great that are really gonna help you apply what I teach you in the book. Instagram, I'm freshchartwendy, and then I would say that if you happen to have a strong-willed kid and you wanna come get in my classroom with me, then coming and learning with me in, I have like a one-hour interactive workshop that is really helpful to learn the strategies of seeing strong-willed kids in a way that's really going to change how they cooperate and listen without needing that power over structure.
And that's fresh start family online dot com forward slash power bundle. And yeah, those are the big ways of podcast is fresh start family show. And I'd say just get in the classroom with me free workshop forward slash power bundle and then come preorder the book. And that's the best place to start. I do have a certification program, too, if you have any listeners that really are interested in actually gaining full mastery in this work and possibly becoming a certified coach in the Fresh Start Family approach, but that doesn't launch till September. So we'll keep it at that for today.
Aneta (34:38): Okay. Well, we'll leave all those links. We'll make them available in the show notes. And I love that Wendy and do our best then to get this out before. As an author to an author, of course, I know the pre-orders are important. And the book sounds amazing. I ask everyone a final question, which is what does it mean to you to live the width of your life?
Wendy (34:44): Thank you. Yeah. I love that. So I think to live the width of your life means... Lately I've realized that you can't will your will. So it's like what has been put on your heart is purposeful. Developing the ability to listen to your intuition, which to me is like your intuition comes more from your lower body or your gut, and then divine guidance comes from above and those two meet in the heart.
And I think a lot of people were conditioned to not listen to themselves. Many people were raised in homes where emotions were taught as bad and dangerous and the heart being wicked or like it's not safe to listen to yourself or women are too emotional. And it just could not be farther from the truth. In my own experience, I believe that our desires and our intuitive callings are there for a reason.
And the more you do the work to really lean into that, even if it feels crazy at times, Like right now I'm leaning into this 30 year goal that God's like, hey, remember you said you wanted to stand on Capitol Hill by the time you were 80 and end legal corporal punishment in America. Remember it's still legal in 19 States and public school systems.
And I'm like, really, but that's going to take me getting into, I don't even know, writing bills and working for a nonprofit. And it's like, yeah, that's what we're going to do for the next 30 years. And I'm like, okay, because you can't will your will. Your calling is perfect for you. And so if you are feeling a calling to dive in or expand in a certain way, or maybe go down a route that might be very different than what you were doing in the past, I think that is living the width, is like really that deep breath that you feel your whole lungs and your lower back and realizing that there's so much available, so much goodness that can be had when we just trust our inside, so to speak, our heart and our intuition. a really beautiful thing. So that's what I'm feeling today about living the width of our life.
Aneta (37:03): I love that, Wendy. Thank you for the amazing work that you are doing in this world. So many people are struggling with the things that you talked about. And I think through your vulnerability and through sharing the things that you didn't know when you didn't know. And then by sharing the things that you learned that are helpful, you are changing the world. And as we break those cycles, as you mentioned before, when we break the cycles, then our kids do better and every generation is just a little bit more healed. So thank you for the amazing work you do.
Wendy (37:37): I love that. Aneta, thank you for having me. This has been such a beautiful conversation. I am grateful.
Aneta (37:42): Me too.