I am overjoyed to have Mary on the show today! Mary is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, however her formal training is secondary to the life training she received from her mother, Dr. Jane Nelsen, also a Marriage and Family Therapist and author of the Positive Discipline books and Serenity: Simple Steps for Recovering Peace of Mind, Real Happiness, and Great Relationships. From the earliest time she can remember her mother and father had her involved in respectful communication, encouragement, and focusing on solutions.
Mary loves being a wife to husband Mark and a mother to her sons Greyson, Reid and Parker. Since Mary’s first love is being the mother of three young boys, it was a natural for her to become a Certified Positive Discipline Parent Educator and to share with others all she has learned (and is still learning) in parenting classes and workshops. She is also available for individual parent coaching.
Mary is a therapist whose own life is an example of the joy in living that can be found by living the principles and skills she teaches.
In this episode, Kimberly spends time with Mary Tamborski talking about Positive Discipline tools and the transformative impact it creates in the lives of both parent and child. In their conversation, they cover the importance of recognizing that a misbehaving child is a discouraged child and how to address the belief behind the behavior for real, lasting change that sticks! They also touch on the non-negotiables that they use to thrive as a moms, wives, and entrepreneurs.
We hope you enjoy this episode; please share with others who might find it helpful! We look forward to seeing you next week for more soulful content!
Mentioned in this episode:
Where to find Mary: https://www.marytamborski.com/
Positive Discipline Products including “Positive Discipline Parenting Tools”: https://www.marytamborski.com/products/
Resources for Kimberly Virginia:
Disclaimer: The Soulful Motherhood by Design Podcast and content posted by Mel Robbins is presented solely for general informational, educational, and entertainment purposes. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked from this podcast or website is at the user’s own risk. It is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional, diagnosis, or treatment. Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical or mental health condition they may have and should seek the assistance of their healthcare professionals for any such conditions.
I am overjoyed to have Mary on the show today! Mary is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, however her formal training is secondary to the life training she received from her mother, Dr. Jane Nelsen, also a Marriage and Family Therapist and author of the Positive Discipline books and Serenity: Simple Steps for Recovering Peace of Mind, Real Happiness, and Great Relationships. From the earliest time she can remember her mother and father had her involved in respectful communication, encouragement, and focusing on solutions.
Mary loves being a wife to husband Mark and a mother to her sons Greyson, Reid and Parker. Since Mary’s first love is being the mother of three young boys, it was a natural for her to become a Certified Positive Discipline Parent Educator and to share with others all she has learned (and is still learning) in parenting classes and workshops. She is also available for individual parent coaching.
Mary is a therapist whose own life is an example of the joy in living that can be found by living the principles and skills she teaches.
In this episode, Kimberly spends time with Mary Tamborski talking about Positive Discipline tools and the transformative impact it creates in the lives of both parent and child. In their conversation, they cover the importance of recognizing that a misbehaving child is a discouraged child and how to address the belief behind the behavior for real, lasting change that sticks! They also touch on the non-negotiables that they use to thrive as a moms, wives, and entrepreneurs.
We hope you enjoy this episode; please share with others who might find it helpful! We look forward to seeing you next week for more soulful content!
Mentioned in this episode:
Where to find Mary: https://www.marytamborski.com/
Positive Discipline Products including “Positive Discipline Parenting Tools”: https://www.marytamborski.com/products/
Resources for Kimberly Virginia:
Disclaimer: The Soulful Motherhood by Design Podcast and content posted by Mel Robbins is presented solely for general informational, educational, and entertainment purposes. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked from this podcast or website is at the user’s own risk. It is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional, diagnosis, or treatment. Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical or mental health condition they may have and should seek the assistance of their healthcare professionals for any such conditions.
SPEAKER_00: Hello, beautiful souls. It's Kimberly Virginia, your host of the Soulful Motherhood by Design Podcast, where we go deep on all things motherhood. I'm a certified positive, disciplined parent educator, accredited life coach, human design specialist and mother of two precious kiddos. Through inspiring conversations, I'll guide you on this soulful motherhood journey and help you to create peace in your home and your heart, raise kind and loving humans, all while living your soul's purpose. So let's get started. I'm so glad you're here.
SPEAKER_01: Hi, everyone. Welcome to today's episode of the Soulful Motherhood by Design Podcast with me, Kimberly. I'm your host. And I have a very special guest with me here today, Mary Tamborsky. Mary, you are such a light in my life and I love you so dearly and I'm so happy you're here. Oh my gosh. Thank you. Yes. And that the world can meet you, those who have not met you yet. And you know, for everybody listening, Mary has been in my life for two years. We were just talking about this before we hit record and she has made such a profound impact on my life and how I parent and my marriage, how I operate as a human being, as a mother, all of the things that have really grounded me into what I've already been talking about on these episodes. So I thought it would be just so fitting to have her as my first guest. So I'm going to do a quick intro, Mary, if that's okay, I'm always at going. Okay. So Mary is a licensed marriage and family therapist. However, her formal training is secondary to the life training she received from her mother, Dr. Jane Nelson, also a marriage and family therapist and author of the Positive Discipline books and Serenity Simple Steps for Recovering Peace of Mind, Real Happiness and Great Relationships. From the earliest time she can remember, her mother and father had her involved in respectful communication, encouragement and focusing on solutions. Mary loves being a wife to husband Mark and a mother to her son's Grayson, Reed and Parker. Since Mary's first love is being the mother of three young boys, it was as natural for her to become a certified Positive Discipline Parent Educator and to share with others all she has learned and is still learning in parenting classes and workshops. She is also available for individual parent coaching. Mary is a therapist whose own life is an example of the joy in living that can be found by living the principles and skills she teaches. Oh my goodness, Mary, that just gave me chills. I've read that before when I was looking to work with you, but gosh, you have such a vast array of experiences specifically with Positive Discipline. So to start with, I just love to hear a little bit about your story growing up as Dr. Jane Nelson's daughter.
SPEAKER_03: Well, it's such an honor and I feel so privileged to be honest. I didn't realize it as a daughter how privileged and honored I was growing up. She was just my mom and I realized I think the first time that I realized that she was actually almost famous was when I would go to her presentations and whether it was at a school or just like a local event, people would I would be in the back selling her books and as they were purchasing her books, they were saying, oh, your mom this, your mom that, but they were sharing different experiences of how her tools, these books have changed their lives as a parent. And so again, maybe it's almost like if your parent is a movie star, you don't realize like, oh, that's just my mom, right? Yes. And until I was actually in college using some of these different principles and tools, although I didn't know that they were tools in college, I was living with three of my best friends and we were struggling with typical roommate stuff. You know, we were all adulting for the first time. He had responsibilities that roommates would have and we, you know, even one of them as far as dividing up the land line time, you know, this is back in the day. In the early 90s when there was no cell phone. So we had to share the land line and, you know, divide the bills and the cleaning and we just found a lot of challenges where we weren't running a tight ship. And I said, okay, we guys, we have to start having roommate meetings. And they were like, what are those? And I said, oh, it's super simple. We just sit down once a week. We focus on an agenda. Any challenges that we're having, we just brainstorm for solutions. We start with compliments and appreciations. And then we go and do something fun together when we're done and they're like, that sounds wonderful. And so we started incorporating these Sunday group or roommate meetings and we came up with all kinds of different wonderful ideas that were really effective. And I can tell you can believe that these ladies in my life almost like, and I had known a couple of them since grade school, we almost stopped being friends because things got really chaotic. But as soon as we started having family meetings, like we were more connected and there was just more cooperation and flow and they all ended up being in my wedding. So that was, you know, 10 years after the fact that we were stronger and better than ever in a real testimony to relationships and some of the difficulties that can come up when you don't have tools for how to solve everyday ordinary problems, whether it's ordinary problems in the home or within relationships, the positive discipline principles and tools that I learned a language, if you will, I didn't realize it was a language until I was working or, you know, speaking to other people that weren't familiar.
SPEAKER_01: Yes. Oh my gosh, I love that. And, you know, that was one of the things that was so impactful for me with, with Pete and the girls is learning how to do a family meeting. And, you know, for everybody listening who doesn't know what a family meeting is, Mary just kind of gave you a great example of how that can be structured. But she in that sense, she was doing it with her roommates. You can do it with not just your family. It's a, it's really a way to recognize each other, the things that you love about each other, the compliments, the appreciation, and then have an agenda for things, hey, this is what's going on this week. This is what's happening in my life. This is something that happened in our family that I want to talk about. And when I first started that with, with Pete, I was like, Hey, I want to start family meetings. I think this will be great for Marley and a great life skill to learn for her as she gets older. Mary told me about this. Let's try it. He was super skeptical, skeptical. He's like, really on the weekend, like I don't want to do that. You know, it just sounds hard. I said, I'll, I'll lead them. I'll make it really simple, easy, especially since the girls are so young. We will go around and compliment and appreciate each other. And then we will go into talking about a couple of things and end with something fun, right? Like we're going to have ice cream sundaes or we're going to go to the playground play a game. When we first started, we kept it super simple, just about compliments and appreciation and then something fun. And everyone loved it because we left feeling so good, even if we had had a bad morning, even if we had started with screaming and yelling and tantrumming and whatever, which is a lot of how we started two years ago when I started working with you. And pretty soon, as we started having those regularly every Sunday in the morning at some point before we went on with our daily activities, we started relying on those as a family. Hey, we're going to bring this up in a family meeting. Hey, Marley, that, that behavior. Let's talk about that on Sunday. And the reliability and the cadence of that has created so much trust and effectiveness and communication for our family that we look forward to those now. And Marley will say sometimes, I'm talking about that in the family meeting. We don't say that in this family and she'll bring it up. And she feels empowered. She feels like she has a voice, what she says means something. And she has belonging and significance. So I just had to give that, like you hearing you talk about that as a young adult and bringing that into your friend's lives, what a huge impact you probably had on them.
SPEAKER_03: Well, and that's the thing too, Kimberly. That was one of those, you know, tools. I'm doing air quotes that I didn't know was a tool. It was just a, it was a, it was a something that was just such a part of our family of a mindset. If we have a problem, we find a solution, like one plus one equals two. And what I found is, you know, fast forward even into these are like my besties. But when you're having real life problems, I noticed how the default was defined blame, was to fault find, was to find excuses was, you know, it was like, but nothing was changing. And I was like, Oh my gosh, girls, it doesn't matter who left what where or who didn't do what. Yeah, just done. Like, that's even part of it. And I'm like, well, don't we need to find out who's fine? And I'm like, why? What's the point of finding out who's fault it was? Yeah. Like all that's going to do is create shame. And one of, you know, the newer, um, Bernay Brown quotes that I love that is just so perfect in, um, you know, honoring and highlighting so much of positive disciplines, principles of when the shaming starts the learning stops. So if we ever go into like that, not amazing. Yes. And I can't remember if she said it, the blaming starts the learning stuff. But what I interpreted was as soon as we start shaming our defense as a human, you know, we feel attacked, we feel shame. So we get defensive. And it doesn't mean that what we did wasn't, you know, quote, wrong or, you know, hurtful, but it's humans don't want to feel that shame. So we protect ourselves by defending it. Yeah. And so if we could eliminate that step, like there's just no need to defend anything because you're an imperfect human being who's learning and growing. And we get to find a solution that helps us change this particular problem. No shame involved. Absolutely. And humans learning to tweak and to just do better.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah. And, you know, I love that you brought that up because we talked about a couple of the tools already that you love for positive discipline, family meetings. For those of you listening who want a little bit more information on that, I'm going to link some of these things in the show notes. So family meetings that a lot of the tool cards have some of these tips. And I linked that in a previous show, but if you're curious to learn more about that, I will, I will give a link in the show notes for that. But family meetings, compliments and appreciation, focusing on solutions is one of my favorite ones. So I'm curious, what are some of the other positive discipline tools that you've learned that are really your go to tools that either you teach families or that you use so with your own family?
SPEAKER_03: Hmm. Both. I was just talking to a client before I was interviewed and I was saying it's hard to say my favorite because I say it with almost every card. So probably 49 out of 52 are my favorites. Me too. But the top five that I use every single day and that it just become a universal language for my children are hugs. And I'm going to go into a little bit about why I feel that hugs are so important. Hugs, validating feelings, a special time and tone of voice. I think the last one is decide what I will do and follow through. And so when it comes to hugs, what I really want parents to understand is that a misbehaving child is a discouraged child. And it's not just children, a misbehaving husband is a discouraged husband. A misbehaving bus driver is a discouraged bus driver. And every single positive discipline tool is encouraging. So we have an encouragement model. And so when children feel better, they do better. And oftentimes parents were stressed, were overwhelmed, were over scheduled and were human. And so we also get triggered. We can lose our regulation. We can lose our calm, our patience. And we can, I can talk a little bit about the brain and the palm of the hand and what we call flip our lid. It's when we dysregulate and we get into our primal reptilian brain. So what I love about the tools that I mentioned is especially the validation of feelings and hugs is it's the fastest way to regulate and get back to our rational brain. Because as parents and as humans, we can't predict, you know, what it's going to trigger us or what's going to push our buttons. I mean, it could be somebody even just a traffic jam. Right. So we have to know the tools for how to get back to that regulation. And what better modeling, another tool modeling for our children than for us to practice how to regulate because the rest of their lives are going to have it's not just parent to child, this is going to be just human interaction forever. And I can tell parents, you know, because I know this just personally speaking, none of us have mastered this. None of us have mastered how to, you know, to be to stay regulated or how to regulate so super quick that we don't, you know, say things that we don't mean or do things that we don't mean or gosh forbid, we ever yell, right? It's like, we know better, right? It's like I'm doing air quotes. We all know better. But it's practice, it's skill and it's repetition over and over again. So we can't expect our kids to regulate when we as adults don't know how. So if we can model for them, giving them a hug, when they're feeling really upset, you know, you can validate their feelings and say, you're so mad. You're so mad. You really want that ice cream. You really want to watch more TV. You really want to stay at 15 more minutes. And it's time for bed. And what was our agreement? And I love you too much to stay up late. So it's kindness and firmness, which is what positive discipline is. But it's validating their feelings. And then maybe saying, you know, you can be as mad as you want as long as you want. That's part of being human. Would a hug help you right now? I would love a hug. And if they say, no, you're the worst mommy ever. Oh, you sticky hug. You could say, okay. So that's them being upset. That's them, you know, having their feelings, parents let them have their feelings. And you say, okay, come find me as soon as you're ready for a hug just by giving them permission and space and time to feel what they want to, or what they need to feel that in and of itself is so powerful long term. And in the moment that gives you a chance to calm down and regulate and get back into your rational brain. And then once your child says, okay, I'm ready for a hug. I'm ready for a hug. You can hug them and just watch how fast they catch their breath and melt into your arms. And then this goes into brain science that now we can begin to solve the problem. Well, maybe like hold your horse's parents maybe in 20, 30 minutes, even maybe tomorrow like don't rush it. But this is a big lesson for them to learn, just be patient, just focus on connection. The more regulated and connected they are, the more they're going to learn. The parents are so quick to teach and to discipline. I'm doing discipline and air quotes, right? Discipline, I got to teach my good discipline. Most parents think disciplining their children is, you know, punishing, disciplining is punishment, but discipline actually comes from the Latin word, dyspeilius, which is pupil learner. And we as parents, that's what we want our children to, you know, develop and cultivate these skills. And it might not happen in the first 30 minutes. You might have to teach these lessons over and over again. And they're going to learn and it's going to sink and really resonate when brain science has proven that they are regulated and open to learning. There's zero shame involved. There's zero blame. There's zero fault finding. You are an imperfect human being and you have never been five and a half before. And now you know, and you just learned something that a lot of adults don't even learn and you celebrate those mistakes.
SPEAKER_01: I, there's like everything you said right there was just, I wanted to like go off on each single little topic because it, everything you just mentioned has made a personal impact on my and Marley's relationship. And again, for those who don't know, Marley is my five year old, five and a half year old now. And the connection before correction is one of my favorites because it reminds me she will eventually learn because just for the mere fact of us practicing in the way we're practicing as a family, she will learn. But the connection piece is one of the most important things to her to feel that she belongs in this family. She's significant in this family. And I love her. Like it doesn't matter if she's, you know, making mistakes or had a quick tantrum and needed to get her emotions out. She does not have to be perfect for me to love her. And if something happens, it doesn't diminish my love for her or take that away. And having that really solid connection has created a huge improvement in what I will air quote misbehaving with Marley, you know, because the discouragement has gone away. The feeling of being discouraged that, Oh, I have this new baby in our family. And now I'm not the only one. I have to split my attention and do my parents not love me as much. All of those things, which that is hard for some parents to grasp that even with my husband, I know he wouldn't mind me saying this, but he's like, I don't understand why she wouldn't just be happy that we that she has a sister now. Like it is her journey to have to feel upset about this. Our role as parents is to be connected to her, love her, encourage her and continue to show her that we have enough love to not take away the love we have for her and the connection before correction, the hugs and then the waiting to teach. You know, I just wanted to speak on that for a second, Mary, you had shared with me a really powerful analogy. I'm hoping you'll speak on this, the butterfly analogy, the in the cocoon. And do you know what I'm talking about? Oh, my mother is a great girl. You share that because I have shared this with so many of my clients. And when I say this analogy or this little like anecdote to them, something just clicks in, oh, my gosh, that resonates. So if you'll share that, that would be awesome.
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely. You can really, and it's funny that you say that too, because even being raised, you know, by the author, the expert and, you know, being a new mom, struggling, I remember like, you know, 911 emergency expert mother, tell me what to do. And at the time she would say, what is your heart saying? You know, listen to your heart, Mary, you have so much intuition. I was just giving me the dang tool, you know, but I'll never forget when I did call her completely panicked, you know, wanting to quit my job in the preschool parking lot because my son was holding onto my leg, begging me not to leave me feeling like the worst mother ever is so super unnatural. And any mother that's gone through it, it's like, I think it's even like, like the, the current precursor to that is like when you're, you know, putting them in their sleep, you know, a crib to take a nap or sleep and they're crying. It's like, it doesn't feel natural, right? But once your child is, you know, reached the age of five, you know that it's beneficial long term that they're developing that, that resilience that they can survive, that they can sleep to the night that they can learn how to self-suit. And a lot of parents, it's hard. You know, so even then we'll just like, co-sleep till they're 20 because we can't go through
SPEAKER_02: that natural experience.
SPEAKER_03: But it was when I was dropping them off. And again, I had found the best preschool. I just, they all be, I just have to put it out there. The director at San Diego State Children's Center, she took my mom's teaching parenting workshop in this. I think it was like the early 80s. So when she saw my mom is, it was like, oh my gosh, we'll do anything we can. I hope I'm not throwing her under the bus. We'll do anything we can to get, you know, Jane Nelson's grandson here. So it was a really supported environment. I trained all the teachers personally. They were using positive discipline that couldn't have been a better environment. So knowing that he was, you know, in this space should have helped me stay calm and to be more confident in me leading him. So I call my mom up in the parking lot and I'm crying and I'm saying, I'm ready to quit. This isn't natural. I'm going to be a state home mom forever. And she says, Mary, she goes, I want to remind you that your son, you know, Grace and who is, you know, in the best environment possible, we both made sure of that. He's building his disappointment muscles. And I said, what? She goes, Mary, she goes, you remember the story of the butterfly, the little boy with the butterfly? And you know, and I'm still kind of new mom at this point.
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, what story?
SPEAKER_03: What are you talking about? She goes, there's this little boy that saw the boy or this little boy that saw the butterfly struggling in his cressel, Chris, and he felt so sorry for him that he wanted to rescue him to free him because he thought that struggle, you know, he'd be doing him a favor. So he peeled open the chrysalis and what do you think happened to the butterfly? He dropped to the ground and died and the little boy was mortified because what he didn't know was part of the struggle was building his wings, building that strength so that when he finally had enough strength to break it open, he could fly. And the boy didn't understand that, that that was part of his development. And so my mom says to me, Mary, this is part of Grace and building up the strength in his wings. He is in the safest space and environment possible. He is going through disappointment. He is probably already stopped crying as we're speaking. And he will learn that he can survive the ups and downs of life, Mary. And by you rescuing him, if you were to quit your job and go free him right now, you are going to be depriving him of that. And Kimberly, it's like any mother naturally, what mother wants to deprive their child of strength to deprive their child of resilience. It's like, absolutely not, but she had to frame it in that way for me to say, Mary, this is natural. This is good for him. It doesn't feel natural. And so from that, you know, to the next temper tantrum and target, when he didn't get his lego set, I was like, he's developing his disappointment muscles. He's getting stronger. You got this, mama. Don't give it. Because then he'll learn he can survive and why not train them with, you know, a healthy preschool environment and knows that it target and knows for ice cream and knows for later bedtime to know that they can survive so that fast forward when they're in college and their girlfriend dumps them or they lose their job or they don't pass the class that they worked so hard for. Guess what? They're 18 years old and they subconsciously know I can survive hard things. I've got the resilience, even though they might not articulate that word. They've been through it. So it starts with those disappointment muscles that are way harder for the parents than it is for the children.
SPEAKER_01: You are so right with that. And I just kept getting chills as you're telling the story. And just now, even hearing me say like when they're in college and their girlfriend dumps them or they lose their job or they don't get into the college that they want to get into or they don't make that team. Things like that, like us swooping in, fixing that, robs them of being empowered and self-reliant and the life skills that they need to navigate without us. And this might not be a very popular thought, but it is true that our kids are meant to be separate from us eventually. They're not meant to be with, under our wing our entire lives. And that's hard for us moms who just love our kiddos so much and we enjoy being with them. And this is just like the most amazing journey. But our job is to really train them to be able to be functioning outside of our house, outside of our home. You know, something that you and I have talked about a lot is the vision of what do I want it to be like when Marley and Sailor are in their 20s and they're coming to visit on the weekend with their friends or their boyfriend, girlfriend or their wife or husband, whatever. What is the relationship I want to have with them? And what do I envision for our family as a unit outside of the parent-child relationship? What about just a human-to-human relationship? And those are the things I think about like our communication with one another, our solid bond, the ability to talk out our problems, focusing on the good stuff. All of that is what we're doing with positive discipline in these early years. And mistakes are opportunities to learn. The thing I love about positive discipline and your mom talks about this in her forward in the addition of the book that I have, that there is no place for shame here. This is not a place to like point like, oh, I'm like that mom didn't do it good enough and I'm going to tell people how perfect I am at positive discipline. She says, this is a community where we have conversation. And there was a period of time in history where we really went away from sitting around the campfire and talking about what happened with our kids that day because we're all in it together. Let's exchange stories. Let's exchange tips and tricks so that we can all help each other. And there was a period of time where we left that and it was all about showing that my family is perfect and my family's got it together. And even if we're struggling on the inside, at least people think that we've got it all figured out air quotes. So what I love about positive discipline, and I mentioned this in one of my first episodes I think it's episode number three, and I talk about how for me, the community and grace that I found in positive discipline is one of the biggest impacts that I that it's made on my life. So building all these skills for our kiddos, but the wonderful enrichment in our own lives is parents that we're not doing it by ourselves.
SPEAKER_03: We're not alone. No. And there's no such thing as a perfect parent, right? And so going on the even just the principles of mistakes or opportunities to learn, I thought I really knew that. I used to wear a t-shirt proud to school. Mistakes were wonderful opportunities to learn. And it wasn't again until I was in college, I was like, doesn't everybody know this? And it was like, no, mistakes are bad, mistakes are, you know, she and I was like, no, no, no, no, no, that's a lesson. It's this opportunity. And so for parents, like even one of my favorite quotes, you know, my mom and I have kind of tweaked a little bit is from Maya Angelou. And she says, you know, when we know better, we do better. And my mom and I both laugh and we say, not true. When we know better, we just feel worse when we don't do better. Yes. Right. And so a lot of parents, you know, that are especially the ones that are listening to this and you're learning tools or diving into the books and the principles, it makes so much sense. Like these tools seem tangible and, you know, hugs, like that's simple. But like, what happens if hugs don't work, you know, then, you know, what, what, what, what, fine, then I don't want to hug you anyway. Then you say something horrible, right?
SPEAKER_02: Because I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm a terrible parent. I'm a failure, right?
SPEAKER_03: Okay. Then you can go back that mistakes are opportunities to learn. And how do I recover from those mistakes? Well, we have the four R's of recovery. And what I'm learning, Kimberly is that adults don't even know how to recover from their mistakes. I have couples in my office and it's like the very first one is recognized. You know, there's the four R's. First R is recognizing you made one. Then the second R is to take responsibility. Do you know how many people get stuck on that? I have so many victims or I know of so many victims. It's like, it's almost like it's weakness in their minds. You know, it's like it would be like a fault thing, like my fault. It's like, yeah. But if you take responsibility for your part, guess what? The other person's going to take responsibility for theirs too. And you're also teaching them. So if you say, you know, like, like, for example, so I'll go through the R's and I'll give you an example. So, you know, you recognize you take responsibility and then you reconcile. You say you're sorry. And how many parents say, you know, I'm so sorry, but if you would have just listened to me the first time and I didn't have to tell you 37,000 times, then I wouldn't have had to yell. Well, then your apology just went out into space. No, we're gone. Gone into the abyss. Then the fourth R is to resolve. And when you break down the word resolve, it's re-solve. And I can't tell you how many couples I have that are pretty good at even the first three. But I said, okay, but what did you learn? You know, you're going to do differently next time and they're like, uh, well, we're not going to do it again. I was like, oh, cool. How are you not going to do it again? Well, we're just, we're not. Okay, cool. Like, like, if I wish that I could just say that and have it be as magical as per material, I think it is, but magic wand. We want to have solutions, right? How we're going to solve that in the future. So I'm going to give you a real life story. This one's in the positive book of how my imperfect mother, right, she is very proud to, you know, and humble to admit her mistakes. And even after she wrote a book, made a big one, she took me to get my haircut. I have naturally curly hair. And she thought it would be really cool to give me a poodle haircut in the 50s. It was basically what I interpreted in the 80s was just a boy haircut. But in the 50s, it was called a poodle haircut. Oh my God. So she took me to get this poodle haircut. And as I was getting butchered in short, short, short, I was mad. So by the time home, I couldn't hold in. I think I held in all my feelings in the chair. I wanted to be polite to the hairstylist. But when I got in that car, I unleashed. And I said, what kind of stupid haircut is this? What are you thinking? I look like a boy. I hate you. You're the worst mother ever. I can't believe I listened to you. And my mom, you know, in the three mile drive home, she probably kept it cool for two and a half miles. But I mean, she is human. And I just kept just berating her and, you know, given her a good one. And finally she lost it and she blew it. And she said, you are such a spoiled brat. And you know, it was third 40 years ago. So I can't remember exactly the words. If I read the book, she might remember more of them. But she called me a spoiled brat. And I said, huh, don't come to me later and tell me that you're sorry. Because I know in a, you know, positive, but I knew well enough and eight years old, she was going to come back and tell me she was sorry. And I was not going to forgive her. So I said, don't you come back here later and tell me you're sorry. And you know what she said, Kimberly? You don't have to worry because I'm not. And so she stormed off and I slammed my bedroom door and I sat there and I patted. But guess what I found in my copy of books, my copy of positive discipline. So I took that book and I took my marker and I wrote all up in it and just telling her to lie or fake fraud, phony, just butchered it. And so when she came back in to apologize, she saw that I wasn't ready. But she left. She knew that the problem wasn't ready to be solved right then. She let me have my feelings. She knew that it wasn't time to connect yet. I think she might have tried, but I was still too mad. So she came back later and I was, I was, I was finally calm at that point. And she said, you know, Mary, when I called you a spoiled brat, I was being one. So she recognized that's the first star and she took responsibility. I think she recognized it when she came back to apologize, but I wasn't ready yet. But so she did kind of the two for she says, you know, when I called you as well, Brian, I was being one. I am so sorry. You were so upset. This is not what you expected. I talked to you into it. You're extremely disappointed. She didn't try and talk me out of my feelings. And she said, I'm so sorry. You know, will you forgive me? I don't know, but she just said she's sorry. And then the resolve was, how can we fix this in the future? And it wasn't about, you know, the haircut. That's done. But when we're upset, when I'm berating her, when she's locked in the car and she can't escape my words, what could we do in the future? And I remember even this 40 years ago, I said, what if we touched our nose? It's like a button, you know, she said, or what if we pat our heart? And I said, I love it. So we brainstormed together for different silent signals that we could give. And silent signals is a positive discipline tool. This is a tool that's now generational. Like I use it with my husband, I use it with my children. And so we could do that. And we practice that. And most of the times it worked. If it didn't work, it was because we had to find another tool or we just needed more time. But we were able to resolve that so that we didn't, you know, go down into name calling and hurting each other in the future. And does it mean that we were perfect every fight? No. But did we catch ourselves sooner? Did we recover faster and fast forward? I always want parents to know like these are game changers for present time, but holy cow, to give your kid this gift in their adult relationships, imagine like just any parent listening and any adult listening right now, imagine any adult relationship you have for that person that you are having a tiff with or a person where you feel wronged. You know, where they could come in and say, you know what, I blew it. I'm sorry. It just isn't even natural to say, yeah, you should be. You know, it's like, unless they're trying to defend it, but when you take full on ownership and responsibility for it, it's just the repair starts and the connection starts. Yes. That's the connection. And then we go into correction.
SPEAKER_01: It, you know, I love that you, that you shared the story. I've, I have heard it before, but every time I hear it, it feels like I hear a little different nugget of gold and just continue to go back to the fact that your mom, the one who authored this book and came up with these amazing tools is sharing with us one of the examples of like, that was a mistake. She's not we're all human as parents. We make mistakes and being able to connect with your child by saying, I blew it and then stopping, stopping with that. When I called you a spoiled brat, it's because I was being a spoiled brat. And just like even that, that is so powerful. And that responsibility and that accountability being modeled by their parents, somebody who has quote unquote power over them, right? Like we're bigger, we're stronger, we're older, we have a lot of control in their, what happens in their life and then being able to feel like they have some control that this is a partnership. This is not something being done to them. It's a partnership where we're working together. You know, I can share an example of me and Marley too, when it was just the other night and we were trying to read a book altogether instead of doing separate books with the girls. We're trying to do more stuff together with bedtime now that Taylor is getting older. And Marley just wouldn't stop talking. She was just, it was like, she gets so much energy at the end of the night because she's just like freaking out about having to go to bed, right? And she wouldn't stop talking and it's getting later and like Marley, we got the book, we're ready to go. And we get to a point, this is now happening for about 10 minutes. And at the end of the night, you know, it's like, we're all tired. Pete and I want to go to bed. We want to have like our 30 minutes of alone time, get the girls down, all of that. So our, and I'm showing for those, I mean, you guys can't see this, but I'm showing the reptilian brain, my hand being unfurled, like me and Peter just empty. We're out of gas. We're like, we're ready to turn in for the day. And I just snapped at Marley. I was like, Marley, we need, it's time. We need to stop talking. It's time to listen. And she started talking again. And I said, no buts. No buts. She goes, we don't say that in this family. And it is something we have said, we've talked about in a family meeting. We don't say that kind of stuff. That's not respectful. And I just glazed over it and kept going. And I just saw her little face look so disappointed and so upset and confused. Like why, why is it that I have to follow by the rules, but mommy doesn't have to. Like that's just what I imagined she was thinking. So I finished the book and I looked at her and I said, you know what? I owe you an apology. And she just kind of looks at me like, what? Like really curious, why did I? I said, you are right. We do not say no buts in this family. That was really disrespectful. And I'm tired, but it doesn't make it okay for me to say something like that to you. I'm really sorry. And she goes, mom, thank you for apologizing. It's okay. And it was like we connected just with that. The ability to like for me to recognize and it was humbling, but that's the beauty of it. It's like, this is practice every single day. I'm right alongside all of you who I'm talking to in this podcast and coaching. I'm practicing too. And a big part of practicing is showing up for our kids with that vulnerability, humility, getting out of our ego, ego mind and connecting.
SPEAKER_03: And you know, it's funny because we sit again teaching our kids that through modeling, right? And it's easier such and done. I had a really good friend of mine visiting and I've known her since I was in third grade and our boys are the same ages. And I can't remember exactly because this is probably about 10 years ago. No, maybe less. I said, no, I was saying apology, something about apology. And she calls me Louie from back in the days of Mary Lou Rhett. And she was said, Louie, she goes, you apologize to your kids. And I said, all the time. I said, don't you? And she goes, no. And I said, why not? Like I'm curious, right? Why not? And she goes because then I would be admitting how like basically that I don't know what I'm doing.
SPEAKER_02: And he said, I don't want to say her name. I was like, but we really don't know what we're doing.
SPEAKER_03: I don't know what we're doing. I'm figuring this out. And it isn't better to have them know. So you can have some grace and kind of learn and navigate through this parenting journey and raising children to get. She's like, no, because I would lose respect. And I was like, oh, and I said, OK, let's ask your boys. And so I brought them over and I said, boys, do you guys, when somebody apologizes to you, do you lose respect for them or do you gain respect for them? And they said, we gain respect. And it was like that simple. And it wasn't about mommy. It was like, when anybody apologizes, it's never like I and these are these these these boys were probably like eight and seven, you know, six at the time. But even adults, at what point do you say, I'm so sorry, I messed up and to have another adult say, yeah, you did. What were you thinking? You're such an idiot. I mean, that wouldn't even be natural. But if you said, like, I messed up, but let me just tell you all my reasons why. You know, the traffic was this, I, you know, my alarm, and it's like, spare me. All of a sudden now the person listening is just like, all I hear is excuses and you being a victim. You know, and taking responsibility. Right. But when we can own our mistakes and our apologies with grace and with humility, like you said, and that it's courage and strength, it's not weakness. We are then helping our children. I mean, there is not a bigger turn on. And I mean, I'm speaking as a, you know, heterosexual female that if my husband said to me, I made a mistake and I'm so sorry. We don't even have to talk about it anymore. It's like, you're like, it's done. We're good.
SPEAKER_01: You're forgiven. Yes. Yes. I love that. And gosh, it's, it's crazy to in the work world, like being, you know, outside, just outside of coaching moms, I have some corporate clients. And there are people who walk around with a victim mindset. And I'm not saying that in judgmental or a shaming way. It's this is exactly what we're talking about these people, these humans who have not learned to just accept responsibility. I was late for work again because blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and cannot do not have the life skills, have not developed the ability to look inward and recognize and share that to connect with someone and do better. Right? Yes. So I love that. And, you know, you just mentioned, you know, as a wife, you know, talking about your husband and it made me think of, you know, kind of veering away from positive discipline, permanent in the time we have left. Because we're, we're running out of time, you're going to have to come back. Of course. As a, as a wife, a mom, a therapist who has a very full busy practice and all of the other things I'm sure you're doing, what are the non-negotiables that help you really continue to ground into who you are, what your, what your purpose is, feel aligned and feel like you can continue to be present with, with everything you embody in your work and as a mother. What are those non-negotiables for you?
SPEAKER_03: Well, it took me almost 40 years to really figure it out and master it. And I think it was when my oldest was maybe, you know, kindergarten, I started to kind of say, okay, I need to figure out more of a morning routine. My husband would joke and say our house was like home alone, you know, when they're leading
SPEAKER_02: for the airport, yes, way slept. And then, and then they forget you. What's his name, Kenny? Kevin.
SPEAKER_03: Kevin. They forget Kevin. You know, but that was like our house. It was just like, you know, just hurricane storm just running in and out. And it was just, and then I remember the drop off. I would, I would just feel like I was like, I ain't over. I was just guilt and, you know, mistakes and imperfect parenting and all the ways that I just messed up my kid for the day and, oh, yes. So, so it's like, oh gosh, okay. So what I found is that in order to fully show up for my children, I had to be fully ready to go as a person. So like if not comparing myself to a Ferrari, but like if you were to look at this beautiful Ferrari engine, you know, a Ferrari car, you know, just sitting in a parking lot. Wow, you know, it's got, you know, shiny red, beautiful, whatever it is, expensive. But the value of that car is zero if it has no gas, no engine. Like we're even if it has an engine, but there's no gas to run it. And so we are these beautiful, you know, I love that. I'm sure I could have probably come up with a better metaphor, but we are these beautiful are creating Ferraris, if you will. And we take premium unleaded fuel. And that most of us are topping off like on the go, you know, with a gallon or two at a time, probably not even remembering to close the lid of the tank, leaving our credit card in the machine. Yep.
SPEAKER_02: Try to get a few more miles to the next destination.
SPEAKER_03: But if you can just premium and let, you know, full tank, you know, all the tune up is there and you can just full throttle that engine all day. It's like what would be so we as mamas need to make sure that our engines are full. So my non negotiable are I wake up and I don't and I want to like highlight too, because this is going to intimidate a lot because I've seen some people's faces when I tell them what my morning routine is.
SPEAKER_01: I was one of them when you first told me I was one of them.
SPEAKER_03: Yes. So small. Let me just start with that that it didn't start this way. It started with 15 minute increments, but I give myself two full hours in the morning before I even greet my children. And part of my 30 minutes, even before it's time to have them fully ready to go, I will spend time connecting with them. One of my love languages is physical touch, even though my boys are, you know, 16 years old grown men, Harry, it's still almost awkward, but snuggled. It even sounds weird, but just to lay with them in the morning when it's innocent and you know, just rub their hair, scratch their back, just me, right? And to wake up with that in the morning, and now with the older ones, it's more of like a foot massage, but some type of physical connection.
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
SPEAKER_03: But they can wake up and then, so they wake up with good energy, but in order for them to have that energy, mom has got to bring it. So I wake up early, I meditate first thing. I then stretch. I listen to some sort of inspirational, intellectual information. I love Jay Shetty's, the Daily Jay, it's seven minutes. My 10 year old and I will sometimes listen to that together. I'm always listening to an audible. But the meditation is what fuels me for my intention and really grounds me for the day and stretching or exercise any form of exercise just to get the adrenaline, your orphans, your serotonin, the dopamine, all the feel good chemicals. Because what happens for most mamas that I work with that I have found is they wake up after their children and Rachel Hollis, I love her. She says, mamas, if you wake up after your kids, you are waking up on the defense. Yep. Absolutely. And so to wake up even 15 minutes before your children, you are waking up on the offense, have one cup of coffee without any interruptions. I'm telling you, that's premium unleaded. That's like a half a tank right there. So if you can just have that time to set intention and intention is huge for me going back to Wayne Dyer. I don't think I mentioned him yet today. But Wayne Dyer was such a huge influence in my life. My mom used to play his cassette tapes and love him and drive. And he just has such a beautiful mindset of just intention and one of his books is the power of intention. But when we can set an intention to our day, how do you want your kids to wake up? That's an intention. I want them to wake up joyful. I want them to wake up smiling. I want them to wake up calm. Okay, mama, how are you going to help create that? You're going to be it and then you're going to play soft music. You're going to have a big smile on your face. You're going to have a mantra. You're going to have their favorite breakfast. You're going to have whatever it is, but you got to bring it. We can't expect our kids to bring it if we can't bring it. And so modeling and taking care of ourselves. And so that's a little bit of my morning routine. But intention for me is the most important and that usually comes within some point in that morning. Yes. And so when you're sharing that with me, you know, as my therapist and coach and all of
SPEAKER_01: these things that we've worked on together, I kept sharing with you. I am waking up and just feeling like I am on a crash course to a G double hockey sticks like in the morning. My mornings are miserable. I'm so unhappy. It's chaotic. And then I feel so guilty when I drop Marley off. Like that's how I set her up for the day. And then I would be like, I'm so nervous to pick Marley up. Is it going to be chaotic? Is it going to be this? I feel like I have to get prepared to pick her up. It's hard for me to admit that, by the way. That's that vulnerability and sharing how it used to be. But it's so important to share that because I feel the complete opposite now. And a big part of that for me was learning about your morning routine. And you know, people will say like, Oh, just get it. I get up really early and I prep for the day. But understanding exactly how you did it and like, or what your routine is and some of the things you infuse. I do the same thing now. I wake up not two hours yet. I'm working my way up there. But about an hour, I would say before the kids get up, it doesn't take me very long to get ready. I take 10 minutes for a quick shower, get the kids food, lunches, all of that ready while I'm making my breakfast and making coffee. So I'll eat my breakfast alone, got the coffee ready for me and Pete, Pete and I greet each other every morning with a kiss and a hug, which is one of our non-negotiables as a husband and wife. And then I go into my bedroom. I'm ready for the day. Kids stuff is ready for the day. I sit down. I do a quick meditation, guided meditation, like 10 minutes. And sometimes if I feel like I need extra calm, I'll do just an extra five minutes of no guided meditation just to get clear. And then I set my intention for the day too. And a lot of times that's infused with human design or astrology. But just doing those things and then being done with them and having it still be quiet in the house and like, oh my gosh, I feel fricking on fire. I could do anything I want today. And then I go in and I, and I'm not, I'm, I'm, this is complete honesty, people. I feel like I can hear some moms just listening to like really like, yes, really. And I can go into Marley's room while she's still sleeping. And she's this beautiful little angel and I can give her kisses and wake her up to love and softness and kindness, which for Marley, I mean, all kids need that, but Marley has this just this fire in her. So starting her day with a soothing touch connection, love and waking her up with enough time to pick out her own outfit, to not be rushed to tell us with the two options we give her for breakfast. What would you like? And she can choose. She can sit with us at the bar store and we have a calm morning that we have fun. We have fun in the mornings now. And that routine really has changed the game for me. And I enjoy our mornings and they're fun and it's possible people. It's possible. And with sailor, this journey of bringing her into our family, experiencing that chaos that was going on as a baby and a newborn and then into her turning one, it's like, oh, is this normal? Like this chaos is normal and this is how mommy feels like this energy. She's a very energetic being. And now just kind of having our family aura for the most part, it's not always perfect. I'm not saying it's rainbows and butterflies. But for the resonant aura of our family to be joyful and calm as we start our day, I mean, my girls leave with huge smiles on their faces hugging and dancing in the living room and being silly, giving each other a hug. They wake up and I feel like some, again, some people are like, is this for real? I'm telling you guys, this is real. My girls wake up and sailor sees Marley and she goes, Marley and she runs to give her a hug and Marley will look her. Oh, sailor, you're so cute. Like, that is what's happening before it was, I don't want to get dressed in that all this chaos because that's what I was bringing. I was waking up on the defense. So thank you for sharing that like that. And I know there's other things you do like yoga and things like that, but the morning routine is just like a game changer. Game changer.
SPEAKER_03: Well, I realized too, it's one of the things that I've been practicing for so long. And I had someone say it so funny. They said, you know, there's certain things that you do in your life that you don't really appreciate it until you skip a day, like brushing your teeth. You know, it's like, I didn't realize the benefits of meditation until I skipped a day. And my goodness, like the energy, the stress, the frustration, the lack of patience. Like, I was like, Oh my gosh, this was me 10 years ago. Yes. That was how like you can really go where I was like, it just felt so stressful all the time. And I was just shaming myself and beating myself up. And it's going to be like this forever.
SPEAKER_02: And why can't I be better? Why can't my kids just cooperate? Why can't my kids just wake up and get dressed?
SPEAKER_03: And I was like, it was, and I just felt so defeated. And I was like, okay, for some change. They're not going to change until you change. And so it's like, if you want them to bring it, I got to bring it. And I want to say something to the, this is, I know we have to wrap up, but this is for me, one of the most, like, because it's newer, it was, you know, like first two days a pandemic. And it was something that has changed my life and that has really stuck in our family. So because there's 52 different tools and, you know, what I've found is that when, you know, the, feels like the sky is falling and everything is unpredictable and stressful, I couldn't even pull on my tools. I was feeling just like so out of sorts. So just this regulated. And so I remember it was like two nights into like, you know, schools, I think we're just getting shut down for six weeks. And I thought that was a typo. And then, you know, like all my trips to China were getting canceled and it was just like, oh my gosh, everybody was just, you know, kind of freaking out. And I felt myself on tilt. So I had already lost my temper a couple times and I went to the, the, to dinner. I think I was calming down from probably snapping. And I said, all right, family, I have announcement. Mommy is not going to speak when she's mad. Like I just, like there will be a mute button. I'm going to find it. If I'm upset, I cannot talk because what I found these last 48 hours is everything I say. So I'm just not going to speak because I'm just feeling so upset so much. I just might be like silent like a monk. I don't know, but I can't speak when I'm mad. And they all kind of looked at me with blank stares and said, okay, great. Peace out, mom. And it was fast forward, you know, an hour later. And my son, maybe two hours later, and he said, Mommy, why are you talking right now? And maybe you could get irritated or frustrated. Obviously I was like, what do you mean? Why am I talking right now? And he says, but you're mad. You said you weren't going to talk when you're mad, mom. And Kimberly, holy cow, he might as well just punch me in the gut. And I was like, didn't say a word. That shut me right up. Oh my God, she's so right. But then fast forward a day later, he's like, I'm not talking right now. And I kind of, you know, in my mind, I'm like, oh, you are. I was like, what do you mean you're not talking? He said, I'm mad. I was like, oh, you take as much time as you need, buddy. Would a hug help you right now? And I can't remember if he said yes or no, right? But the point is, is that I wasn't doing it to help regulate my kids in their emotions. I was doing it because I could not keep regulation and control of my own emotions. So by me making the announcement, it was more for the accountability piece. But you're like, you're like, I am doing this, right? Yes. And then they could hold me accountable. But then the double effect of it was like, no, I'm not talking. I was like, oh, this is so cool. So parents, we are modeling all the time. Our energy is infectious. It's contagious. We are teaching our kids without even saying sometimes what we're going to do. You just bring me in the morning with good energy. It's like when we smile, you smile when I frown on you frown. If I get angry, you're going to be angry. It's just, it's contagious. It's mirrored neurons. Yes. And what I love about the routine that I've got, you know, 10 years plus later. It's just, it becomes a default practice. You know, 63 days to create a habit without thinking about it. 21 days to start a new habit. 63 days to where I'm getting up with an alarm clock now. Yes. And it's not like a five o'clock club. It's like, no, it's a 4.30 AM club. It's like, I'm proud of it. And so almost sometimes embarrassed by it because it's not normal. But it works for me. It might not work for everyone else. Maybe someone's routine is in the nighttime. Yeah. Maybe you set yourself up for success at night. Mm hmm. But you set an intention for how you're going to wake up in the morning for those kiddos. Yes. Right? Maybe you hit snooze only one time. But just try, try, try to get up before they do and feel the difference. You deserve it, parents. You really do.
SPEAKER_01: Yes. And even if you just start in small chunks, you know, I started with 20 minutes because for, I mean, and we will wrap up here, Mary, because I know you are such a busy lady. You've got a lot of stuff going on, but even starting with 10 minutes and then 15 minutes made a difference for me because after I had sailor, I was just sleeping as long as I could. And then I'd get up when the girls would get up and then that trailed into my maternity leave. And then that trailed into when I went, quote unquote, back to work when I was still with my corporate job because we were all working from home. So I would just kind of roll out of bed. So I got into that habit and had the realization it wasn't working anymore for our family for the reasons I just mentioned. So starting in small chunks, five minutes, 10 minutes, add one thing here and there and then start to see the compounded impact it has. I love that you shared that. And I think that we're going to have to have you back on soon because this was just so amazing. I absolutely adore you and am so appreciative of your time before we say goodbye. Where can people find you if they're curious about your work and what you're doing in this world?
SPEAKER_03: Marytamborsky.com. I am not the norm. I'm not on social. It's part of, you know, one of the things I gave up in my morning routine when I did the math and I figured out the time and the investment that I was putting into social media. I just eliminated it altogether and I've just found, it's not to say it's gone forever, but any information you would, you're to contact me, just send me an email. Reach out, go to my website. I'll connect with you one on one. Holds away.
SPEAKER_01: Marytamborsky. I love that. I've found more and more people taking that approach and have considered it as well because it is a time suck. I mean, I love that I can reach people on Instagram and social media for now, but I do feel like there might be a quantum leap happening right now with how people spend their time, especially on social media. I love that you have that organic approach that people can just email you. Go check out Mary's website. She's amazing. Mary, thank you so much for your time. It was an absolute, absolute pleasure.
SPEAKER_03: I was going to say Kimberly, the pleasure was all mine. I adore you too and thank you for having me. It really wasn't on her.
SPEAKER_01: You're so welcome. Okay, everyone. We'll see you next week for another episode. Bye for now.