Drew is a parenting and relationship coach. He helps families create the home environment of their dreams. Drew works with parents to help them learn emotional intelligence and conscious communication so that they can lead by the best of examples. 

In this episode Drew's shares some of his secrets to effective parenting. He knows that often parents feel like they are just "flying by the seat of their pants". They don't know if they are doing it right, and all they want is to be doing the right things and be the best parent they can be. Drew wants to help parents achieve that. He shares some great advice on how to help with tantrums, how to create a peaceful home, and how to handle whining kids. He also shares a common mistake that parents make and how we can learn to change to our approach.

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Transcript

Melissa Bright:

Thank you to better help for sponsoring this podcast. I started my therapy whenever I started this podcast. And so that's exactly why they became my sponsor because they have helped me. So if you guys think you might need to see a therapist better help is amazing. They are online, you can do it from the comfort of your own home, you have the options to message them, you can do a phone call, you can do a video chat, whatever you feel comfortable with doing. Also, they have several different types of therapists if you need couples, or for marriage and family therapy, it's also available to individuals worldwide. Better help is also a monthly subscription. So you're not paying per session and financial aid is available for those who qualify. So visit better help.com/bright side of life that's better help.com/bright side of life, join over 500,000 people taking charge of their mental health with the help of an experienced professional. And for your first month you're going to receive 10% off by being a listener of the bright side of life. So let them know that I sent you by using the link better help.com forward slash bright side of life. The link will also be in the description section of this episode. I see

Drew:

you trying every parent tries every parent is trying their best there is no parent out there is trying to do a bad job. We all make mistakes. Parenting is a skill that can be learned.

Melissa Bright:

Welcome to The Bright Side of Life, a podcast where people share their personal stories of struggles, pain and grief. But through all of that they are still able to find the joys in life. Hello, bright ciders. And welcome to this week's episode of the bright side of life. I am your host Melissa bright. And just a quick reminder, before we get started to be sure to hit the subscribe or follow button if you haven't already. And if you'd like to support the podcast, you can do so at the bright side of life podcast.com/donate. I am an independent podcaster and do all of this on my own. And I spend a lot of time and creativity and resources and trying to create valuable content for you. So if you'd like to show your support, it would be greatly appreciated. Also, I have a huge announcement that I'm going to be making at the end of this episode. So you guys will want to stick around for the whole thing and listen to the very very end. Today we have a highly anticipated guest. Today I am talking to Drew Tupper who is a parenting and relationship coach. He helps families create the home environment of their dreams. Drew works with parents to help them learn emotional intelligence in conscious communication so that they can lead by the best exam best of examples. Drew was never taught the skills of emotional emotional sovereignty, conscious relating self awareness, or self self regulation, which we will talk about some of those later. If you guys don't really know what those words mean, we'll talk about them. Many of us are not aware of what some of these things are. But through consistent guidance and support, Drew is able to shift things and that's how he helps people do the same. So all of the things I listed above are crucial for healthy relationships not only for our friends, family and spouses, but for our children also. So today we are going to be going over everything parenting will not everything that would take a while and get some tips and advice from Drew. Drew, welcome to the show. How are you doing today?

Drew:

Thank you, Melissa. I'm doing really well. Today's a good day. Yesterday it was raining all day and windy. We had a storm comes with a storm come through which is kind of fun in a way. But it's sunny here today. And I've already got to walk the dog on the beach. So today's already good day.

Melissa Bright:

Awesome. Where do you where do you live at?

Drew:

I live on Vancouver Island. Oh my god Canada.

Melissa Bright:

Beautiful, beautiful. It was It was rough. It was like cloudy here in St. Louis the other day or yesterday? So I was like, Oh, do we live in the same city? But we do not know. All right, well, okay, so this is kind of I wanted to tell this little backstory. I had went to social media and I asked my Facebook friends I asked listeners on social media. This is why you guys got to follow me on social media. That if you guys had any parenting co parenting questions for Somebody that I'm going to interview, what would they be? And this is probably the most questions that I've ever ever gotten. So obviously, this is a hot topic because parents just sometimes feel hopeless. They feel like they don't know what they're doing. And they feel like they really tried everything. So Drew, I just want to let you know that like, I'm sure people are so excited to to hear this episode. For the people that ask the questions, we're going to be kind of going through those probably already touching on some of the questions I know for sure, that you guys had asked. But then we'll go over a couple of them later in the in the episode also. But Drew, can you share a little bit of your own story? And what really inspired you to become a parenting coach?

Drew:

Yeah, sure, Melissa? Well, first of all, I agree with what you said, you know, and I resonate with what you said, there's lots of parents who don't know what we're doing. That's just, that's what's happening. We're flying by the seat of our pants. We I remember coming home from the hospital with my son, and being like, so this. They're just going to give us this baby. And feeling underprepared. And then that that feeling stayed as my son grew into toddlerhood. And then I felt really underprepared. Because he started, you know, thinking and acting for himself and having his own will. And he was a strong willed kid. And yeah, so my parenting journey. Obviously, I was in love with him. And it was just amazing. And, but it was hard. It was hard to figure out what to do, how to do it, am I doing the right thing, and not really having the answers. And it was hard, because I really wanted to do a good job. I really wanted to be a good dad, my wife, and I wanted to be great parents. And to be honest, we didn't know if we were it really felt like we were stumbling our way through it. And I knew I even knew, to be honest, I knew that I wasn't doing some of the right things. Even even that confusion, I was thinking to myself, this can't be the right thing. Yeah. So the parenting, my parenting journey starts there. Having the intuition, having enough knowledge to know that I could be doing things better.

Melissa Bright:

Right, and wanting to do better.

Drew:

Wanting so badly to do it better, because this is my child. Yeah. And we had I have a daughter too. So, you know, it was it was really important to me, because we get one shot at parenting. And we know now how important parenting is we know how important the home environment is for the development, the healthy development of our children. It's so important, and it's what we have control over. Right. Right. So yeah, I really, really wanted to do a good job, I really wanted to take it seriously, and learn all the things I should be doing. And so that's what I did, really, I did the hard work I I dove into personal development even more than I already had. Because I I've been interested in personal development for years. And I thought I was I thought I was kind of ready for parenting. And parenting was a whole new ballgame. That's parenting is like the ultimate personal development course. And it challenged me It stretched me and ultimately made me a better person. So I dove into it. And I did it because there was a lot riding on it. And it was personal development. Most of my parenting journey has been me working on myself. At the beginning. I thought it was me trying to like figure out and fix my kid and figure out how to get them to do what I wanted them to do. I thought that was parenting. But it turns out like 90, whatever you want to say 95% of it was who am I? How am I going to show up? How am I going to lead by example. And that is confronting but ultimately has led to the best kind of growth I could have ever asked for.

Melissa Bright:

Wow. That's amazing. It's amazing what you just said how you ultimately were trying to learn how to parent and how to be the best parent and how to do all that but ultimately, it You're really had to work on yourself. And that's where so much of that comes from. And of course, we are going to dive into that. But I feel like that is such an important, like takeaway from this episode, that a lot of it isn't even our children, it's gonna be some work and some personal development that that we got to do first, before the child can even like, per se come into the picture, you know, they might already be in the picture. But then, yeah, we we got to do some some work on our own. Can I ask you, in terms of cuz I did mention and I don't want to skip over that, you know, you said that you were never taught the skills of emotional sovereignty, conscious relating self awareness and self regulation. Can you kind of briefly go over what those things mean? And how you weren't taught those? I guess if that question makes sense. Yeah.

Drew:

Well, yeah, I guess you can group all those into emotional intelligence, right. And that's not a skill that I learned at home, or at school. Some parents and some classrooms are starting to teach that now, which is really cool. And sometimes it goes by the name of mindfulness, or social emotional learning. And there's some crossover between each of them. But I'm really glad to see it coming into the picture now, but But what it is, is, in short, it's being aware of yourself, it's being aware of what's going on inside of you, it's being able to have a vocabulary to describe that lexicon. Some words, it's being able to express that safely. And, you know, clearly and assertively, and then take action based on that. So you know, if I'm feeling angry, it's a lot better, that I am able to identify that emotion, then, for me, just to like reactively, act upon it, if I know that I'm angry, if I can sit here and think, oh, wow, I can notice myself, I'm feeling really angry, that I can own my experience. I can take responsibility for my emotions, instead of putting them on somebody else, or projecting onto somebody else or punishing somebody else for my emotions. Yeah, which is what, which is what happens a lot in parenting. Without parents even knowing it, they're stressed out, they get overwhelmed, they get triggered, and they have a bunch of emotion. And they're not sorry to say most parents aren't, aren't skillful in these regards. So what happens is, they don't own their emotions. They don't own their own experience. They don't practice emotional sovereignty, which is this is mine, I own this. And what happens is, the parent can have their emotions leak out or explode out onto the children, you know, essentially holding the child responsible for how the parent is feeling, right. And this happens, so much it happened is it's totally understandable. Parents have a lot of stress, they've got a lot of responsibility. And without emotional intelligence, kids become a really easy target. Yeah, because there are kids, and we're behind closed doors. We don't say things, and blame kids in a way that we would never do with our colleagues or friends. Just because we can. And that's not good. That's not a good reason to be doing that. And actually, and in fact, kids need the best of us. But oftentimes, what they get is they get the worst of us, just because it's this easy and convenient outlet there in front of us. You know, there are kids, you know, there can be a feeling of ownership and entitlement, like I get to do whatever I want with my kid because it's my kid. But really, children really need the best of it. It's flipped upside down, it would be much better, better. If I was emotionally unregulated that at work, I wouldn't be damaging as many people you know, they could ignore me, right? But at home, our emotional dysregulation as a parent, it really influences the child and impacts them.

Melissa Bright:

Yes. Oh my gosh, you just said so. So many great things. I will say Drew is also a relationship coach, as you guys heard, we are not going to be talking about necessarily relationships. But if you guys can just kind of notice what he is saying can be really can be also applied to your, your spouse in the way that you interact with them. Also, because I'm hearing, yeah, I'm hearing you talk and I'm like, okay, my emotional intelligence is not always great. And I will react to my boyfriend and not such a nice way. Because, well, there's tons and tons of reasons why from like, all the way back from childhood, but it's just me not being mindful of my emotion. And he will often say, whatever it is, you have going on with you, I did not do Melissa is so like, he'll check me because he knows that he he truly is not the one that made me mad or whatever. And it's, it's easy when it's just your boyfriend or your kid or whatever. Um, another note, I also want to make is, when you said something about how parents just don't have the skills, and you said, I'm sorry, but it's, it's true. And I just want this episode to be this is not a coming down on anybody. I feel like all of us can learn to be better parents in certain ways. And that's what he wants to do is to teach us because a lot of us as children, ourselves, we're not taught the proper ways. And we don't want to blame our parents for that, either. Like they weren't given the right tools, and it's just kind of passed down and passed down. So that's okay. If we don't have the skills, that's what he's here to teach us. So don't feel guilty, like Oh, my God, I'm the worst parent in the world, because I didn't know this stuff. This is all about learning and education. And that's what he that's what you want to do here.

Drew:

Absolute Absolutely. I mean, I, I have been through this, I can speak intimately to being unskilled in my emotional intelligence in my parental role in my leadership. So I say this with love, and I say it with compassion. When I mentioned these things, and the flip side that the upside the bright side, is that we can learn these things. And you're absolutely right, is that we don't know what we don't know. So how can we, you know, be down on ourselves when we don't know, we didn't know what we didn't know, but couldn't couldn't? Who is it that says we know? When we know better? We do better? I love that is? By there's somebody that says that? I'm not sure if it's Dr. Shefali? Or somebody similar? But absolutely right. I totally agree with that.

Melissa Bright:

Yeah, so we'll just chalk that this up to a personal development episode. And we can all learn a little bit of something no matter what age your kids are, because I have a 19 year old, but a lot of my listeners might have newborns or two or three year olds, so we're really going to talk about stuff that can be applicable to a lot of the ages. Um, to kind of move things along. What the heck is a parenting Coach Drew? And where did this come from? Because I feel like we all need a parenting coach in our life.

Drew:

Yeah, totally. Well, I started off as a teacher in education. And I, I realized that there was a high correlation between, you know, the kids who had some behavioral issues, and their home life, and I started to talk with more and more parents. And I started to connect the dots. And, you know, informally consulting with parents, on how they could support their kids, because I noticed that was a huge part of how the kids showed up at school. And I ran some other programs and independent programs out of my home, and I got to talk with parents even more. And there again, was that correlation of the kids having a hard time and then the parents having a hard time. And I had had a lot of success, helping people learn the skills of emotional intelligence, emotional maturity, emotional sovereignty. And so I took it from there and created my parent coaching business.

Melissa Bright:

Awesome. I'm I'm so excited to hear about everything. Because when I first heard about you, I'm like, Man, there is literally a coach for everything. But parenting coach, that's like something that good. Super, super important. So I was excited when we we crossed paths. Um, okay, so to go along with a parenting, what is kind of like? Oh my gosh, okay, I just have so many questions. I'm so excited. I don't even know where to start. Do you necessarily go to these parents houses to see how they interact with child? What? What is kind of your first assessment? Whenever you get a new, I'm going to call them clients, new clients? Yeah, what? What is really your first assessment to figure things out?

Drew:

Well, I do all of my calls online, even the people in town, I meet them online, I guess that's a function of COVID as well. But I have had the chance to have kids present during the call or in the background, and I have watched parents interact with the kid and that does give me some information. And I can I can consult when I see that happening. And I have done and it is useful. Yeah. You know, because I can say try this. Right. And I could say, when they get back on the call, Hey, I noticed that you did this next time try this and see how it works. But most of my calls are just with the parent, one on one with the parent, because personal development is so personal, right? It really isn't parenting is about the parent. And same with relationships, as you've mentioned. And one of the things that it's hard for some people to give up is that in order for me to improve this relationship, whether it's parenting or, you know, marital, I'm going to let go of control of the other person, I'm going to focus on myself. That can seem counterintuitive to some people, because they think, Well, I just have to, I just have to figure out a way to fix the other person. And then I'll then the rest of them better. And so there's kind of a humbling moment when and if people ever get around to it, admitting and submitting in a way to the idea that in order to improve the relationship, you work on you, and that will improve it. So that's, you know, my, my conversations usually take the form of using real life examples. As things to draw from, like, what's going on what's happening, you know, what's, what are you struggling with? And then we workshop it, and I hear people out. And then we talk about alternatives. And I give them different skills to try both like self regulation skills, and then relating skills with the child. Yeah, and that, that usually helps a lot. The that's a good one two punch is like listening to someone hearing the challenge. telling them how helping them learn how they can regulate themselves in that moment. And then also help their child. It's, it's, it's usually quite effective. And if we use real life, examples, it's all all the better because then someone can go back into their home that day or the next day and try it.

Melissa Bright:

Yeah. So can you give a real life example right now of self regulating? Because this is a new, we know what regulation means. Okay. But I just now, like started hearing this word. When I read Oprah Winfrey's book of what happened to what happened to you what happened to me about self regulation. So can you talk about first of all, what is self regulation? And then how do we do it? If you want to say an example of like, I'm angry, I get angry. Yeah. How do you self regulate? Because I feel like that's an easy one. Is anger.

Drew:

You Yeah. Well, so self regulation, as I know it, is to find, you know, a balanced, emotional, even physiological state where I can function in a mature, helpful pro social way. Yep. And I can I can choose My behavior, consciously choose my behavior. So that supports me and the people around me. So the kind of self regulation that I was focused on was a lot was down regulating, because I have a higher energy I get more activated easily I could be higher strung more anxious, right? Yep, a lot of a lot of parents are, so I was up here. And the self regulation I often use and have used and employed is to down regulate. So, yeah, I think a lot of parents that I've worked with are like that, too. And what can happen is, if we're highly activated all the time, and if we're highly stressed, it's like, we're riot riding close to a line of being triggered, it's really, we get really close to an edge. And it's really easy to slip off the edge of that point, with the smallest of things. Right. And that's because that can be because I don't know anything about self regulation. I don't know where I am on this, the scale, I'm totally oblivious, and I've been climbing up stress mountain for three days, and then someone doesn't load the dishwasher properly, and I scream. So self regulation would allow me to first you know, be aware of myself and what's going on. And then where I am close to you know that line or back toward the ballot state, and then, and then choose to do things to help myself. And then with anger, that that was, that would be my go to, that's how I would express my dysregulation I would get I get angry, and I would express it and it would be loud. And it would be scary to my kids. And it was yeah, it would involve yelling and judgment, judgmental, kind of tone of voice and words. And it's all because I was dysregulated. And when and when I got dysregulated. That didn't feel good to me, my body felt bad. I felt threatened by things around me, I was looking for danger. And kind of in a fight or flight state, that point. And so then, if there was something I consider to be threatening in that state, and I could control it by being big. And if I could shut it down, or I thought that I could. And that's what I would try and do. And so that's how a three year old, being disobedient can look like a threat. Because I'm tired, I'm tapped out. I'm right up here. I've got no more energy. I haven't done any self care. I'm not aware of myself at all. And I've got some negative thoughts already going. And a toddler says no. No. It looked me straight in the eye. No. Right. And I'm just like, that's it. You know, and maybe the subconscious thought is I'm not gonna let this three year old tell me what to do. I've already experienced enough stress and I don't feel I kind of feel powerless. And this is unacceptable. I'm going to I'm going to take control here.

Melissa Bright:

Yep.

Drew:

And that's the way that's what would happen with me. And what would happen was I would totally overreact to something that was developmentally completely appropriate for a toddler to do assert their independence be try and be autonomous have an opinion. Right, I would just lose it. Because I was making so much more out of that behavior than it actually meant. Yeah, taking it taking it so personally.

Melissa Bright:

That's a good point that you bring up also in terms of the behavior like being appropriate for that age. judging it It's just so it's so interesting that you say that because that is like, my whole childhood I feel like was dictated by, let's say, like my father telling me what was good, what was bad what I was doing good what I was doing bad what I could do better what I was doing, like, No, it was all of it. So I never felt now like, that's why I'm always seeking validation because I felt like as a child, I didn't get any of that because we're always being told what to do. Yeah. So that's such an important point.

Drew:

Yeah, and I think it does a disservice to the child, it can feel like that's our job. As a parent, I'm the parent, I should be telling them what to do, I should be giving them instructions, I should, I should be doing this, I should know things. And I should be very active, and I should be the authority. That's my job. I've rebranded it, because if I really want my kids to be successful, the best thing I can help them do is to develop an internal locus of control and empowerment is to foster an internal compass within them, it's very strong. Because I would rather they do the right things for the right reasons. Yeah, you know, I'd rather than them have discernment and not be looking to others to or is what I'm doing right here. Like, right. Yeah. I'd rather them no. And so and I'd rather than, you know, be able to dictate their own lives and feel in control of their lives and feel good about that, and empowered. So they don't have to be 40 years old thinking like, what am I? Who am I like, what am I doing with my life? Amen.

Melissa Bright:

Seriously, like, oh my gosh, because that's what Well, I'm 36. I'm not 40 yet, but that's, that's how we write. That's how I have definitely felt just based on my experiences. Something to go off of. And something to keep in mind for people listening is not only do we need to be regulated, but then we haven't even talked about the children being regulated. And if they're not regulated, what that means and what you could potentially be dealing with. You see disobedience. When it could be a whole nother situation that is going on. Tell me if I'm jumping too far ahead. Am I jumping too far ahead?

Drew:

No, it's great. I think it's I think it's fine. I think that one of the parents biggest challenges is whining crying, yelling kids. It's I don't like that at all. I don't like whining Oh, I don't like whining. And crying used to bother me so much. So I like to have a nice, easy, relaxed, kind of quiet Fun Home. I don't want chaos and mayhem. And yeah, so I think it's a great place to go. And the parents ability to regulate and have a more or less calm internal environment dictates the tone for the home. Yep. So the inside dictates the outside, especially for parents as they are the energetic leaders of the home. And in some homes, what happens that's flipped on its head, the kids are energetically, you know, influencing the home. And that feels really out of control and like destabilizing because it feels like there's never any rest. Like what can I do here to like, calm these kids down. And that's when you get desperate parents. Yeah, punishing really kind of doing crazy punishes. I'll take away this. I'll take away that I'll take away take away take away. And then Oh, please, please like begging and bribing. I'll give you this if you you know. So one of the things one of the secrets to peaceful, calm parenting, and creating a calm home really is cultivating. This might sound a bit woowoo you know, that inner peace? Because it's contagious. It's totally contagious. There's things called mirror neurons, emotional contagion, and I want to do something with you right now, to show that to show that, okay? So just watch me. Okay, and just that's all you got to do. Okay, So I haven't said anything to you. I haven't told you to do anything. Did my presence have any effect on you?

Melissa Bright:

Yep. Yeah,

Drew:

yeah. Now watch this. I could even slow the conversation down right now. I could take a pause between my sentences. Like it make my voice a little bit more mellow and, and deeper and smoother. Take another breath between the sentences. I can put a gentle smile on my face. Now, how are you feeling?

Melissa Bright:

Calm? Like about whatever you're about to say is, it's gonna be okay.

Drew:

Right? So I'm okay. I'm okay, I as a parent, I demonstrate that I'm okay. I'm in control. I'm calm. That's huge. When a kid sees that and feels that their body responds a lot of the time, it just responds without even saying anything. So that is a huge secret to parenting that I was not aware of.

Melissa Bright:

Okay, I'm going to throw an example at you. Because I know people are screaming at me right now. But Drew, what if my child just insert whatever bad thing they did here? They just colored all over my refrigerator with a sharpie marker. They just Yeah, threw something at their little sister. What Ben? And I'm so mad.

Drew:

Yeah. Oh, that's hard.

Melissa Bright:

Like they legitimately did something like that they shouldn't have done like it was a bad thing. But

Drew:

so yeah, I mean, how we look at that is really going to affect how we approach it. If I see that as bad, and offensive and unacceptable, right, I'm going to come with the energy of judgment, and likely punishment. And I have not found that to be very good, very effective in terms of teaching students or children, I really haven't. So if I see that behavior over here, as undesirable, but a mistake, and understandable, I then approached that with a different energy with an energy of, okay, that's not ideal. And we may need to do some repair here and some addressing, I may need to hold you accountable for this and personally responsible, that's okay. But my focus here is not going to be on driving home the point that you're bad. It's going to be allowed allowing you to save face and say, okay, basically, this is not great. Do you understand why this isn't great? What can you do now? How can you repair? How can you take control of this? I'm gonna give the kid responsibility. And then I'm gonna say, Okay, so next time, what can we do this time? It happened because of XY and Z, right? You were frustrated? Okay, so we talked about some emotions. And next time, so my focus as a parent, is to be teaching something building skills for next time. Because of all I do is get angry, I get dysregulated. And I take it as a personal offense or a threat, and I can't control myself in that moment, I'm surely going to get judgmental and negative. And my focus will not be on teaching, but rather punishing and what happens to kids, they get raised in an environment where they get repeatedly told that they're bad. And they're not good enough.

Melissa Bright:

Well, there's a God, sorry,

Drew:

and they should be doing something different. They grew up to be people thinking those very same things as opposed to a kid has been raised in an environment of a with a growth mindset. And so in that, I would like I would invite parents to think about things differently and what they want to do. What's the long game here? How do you want your kids to be as emerging adults as they're leaving your home?

Melissa Bright:

Great questions. Okay, let's keep let's keep going down. Let's keep going down this list. Because there's a, there's not a lot, but we've kind of already addressed some of them. Do you think that we have answered the question of what is the most common mistake that parents make that they don't even realize?

Drew:

That's a pretty good one. I would say that, back to what I said earlier, probably it's not taking responsibility for themselves, and then blame blaming kids for how they feel you're making me angry. That's an abdication of your responsibility to your own owning your own emotions and putting it on a child. Yeah, it's giving away your power. It's like, you know, and on top of that, it's, you know, I think it's, it's the beginnings of codependency, where you're making me feel bad. It's like emotional leveraging, it's manipulation. And kids are susceptible to it, because how their parent feels and thinks about thinks about them is really important. So then we can get, you can get kids growing up to be people pleasers, and or codependent. So I think it's really important for parents to own their own emotions and not put them on the kids. And also not emotionally leverage the kids. Like, hmm, like a mother who's like, do it for mommy, or else you'll make mommy sad. Right, that's not good, good. Same thing, and I'm guilty of this one is like, pick your backpack up, pick it up, is like getting them to do something. Because my emotions are out of control. Mm hmm. So then they become really responsive, and really sensitive to others emotions and, and too much so in an unhealthy way. Right. Yeah.

Melissa Bright:

Something that you said that, tell me if this can be transferable. But when you were talking about, like emotional leveraging, and like you're saying, Well, you made me angry, or you did this, like, if you would apply that to your boyfriend or a friend, right? And blaming them, because you're angry, and you can't handle your emotions. Would you say that to your friend, because you had a stressful day at work or whatever, then don't say that to your child.

Drew:

What can happen, people get into relationships, adult relationships, where they bring in the skills that they learned from their childhood without any upgrade in their skills, and you can get married adults being like, I don't like what you're doing, you're making me feel bad. And then they don't realize what they're saying. And there's this complete, there's lots of disempowerment. And then what do you have two people doing that in a relationship? It's a lose lose. Where can you go? Right? If someone's if someone's saying, I don't like what you're doing, you need to change or to make me feel okay. And the other person say, Well, I don't like what you're doing. You need to change to make me feel okay. Right? Yeah. Yeah, and then that happens that can happen in grown adult relationships and generally doesn't work out

Melissa Bright:

right. And that's why like, I apply so much of this to like my relationship now and thank god that's not how it is like my boyfriend is actually like, I like to call him normal because I'm not normal. Like I grew up in a crazy environment a lot of like, chaos in my life moved around a lot of times a lot of like, abandonment issues, all this stuff where he didn't have that so like, he's normal and like regulated where I'm the one that flies off the handle over reactive, super sensitive people pleaser. And no, it would not work if it was both of us like that, but I think

Drew:

pretty can be pretty chaotic. But yeah, you have a more kind of anxious attachment maybe and he has more of a secure attachments.

Melissa Bright:

Thank God, thank God.

Drew:

I'll add to the biggest mistake that So the biggest mistake, and the flip side of that, which is the the biggest opportunity that parents make, is not seeing their children as people. Because something you pointed out was like, Well, I wouldn't do that with a friend. And the same thing goes for something I talked about earlier, which was, let's say a friend makes a mistake. And a friend is at dinner, and spills a glass of wine. At dinner, well as as the friend, you're gonna say, no problem, Susan, I got that. Don't worry, don't worry. It's not right. Oh, no big deal. She's Oh, sorry. Sorry, sorry, but not No, not at all. No, everybody. Everybody spills once in a while. It's okay. Don't worry about it. And let's move on. That's not always the case with children, what happens when a child spills a glass of milk? Unfortunately, we can take the opportunity to let out whatever suppressed, hurt and rage is present. In that moment on the kid like, what are you doing? What are you thinking? I've told you before, you weren't being careful. And, you know, that's we're not really treating that child as a person as a human with like, rights, or, you know,

Melissa Bright:

yeah. Oh, that's such a great example. A great example, if you didn't say it to an adult? Well, I don't want to say that across the board. But

Drew:

no, but it's a good thing. Yeah, it is.

Melissa Bright:

It definitely is.

Drew:

There are some there are some crossovers like, one place where I've really benefited from learning how to parent and helping people learn how to parent is comparing parenting to a leadership role. And using the example of a leader at work, and some people that I coach, are leaders out work. Yeah. And so I say, okay, so what would happen if an employee did that? Or how would you motivate an employee? Or what if an employee made a mistake? What would you say? Yep. And and they, it's kind of cool, because the leaders that I coach, they know, right? They know what to do. Yeah. And it's, it's kind of a funny moment when they realize that they could be using these very same skills at home. And even if you're not a leader at work, if you're an employee, I could still ask you the question, if you made a mistake at work? How would you like your your boss, or your your manager to deal with that? How would you like it? All we have to do is put ourselves in the shoes of the kids. And, you know, to get some really good perspective, because they are people. We don't really see them like that. And that's what that's what can hurt the relationship.

Melissa Bright:

Right? Yep. We did have a list of questions from, like I said, some people on Facebook, some of my listeners and stuff, and I do want to go through some of them. Some of them I feel like we have already talked about, but I know there are some big ones like how do I get my child to listen, they just won't listen to me. How do I stop the tantrums? Just some really common questions, some common questions, so and I know these, can't they? You know, we can't go oh, how do you handle a two year old tantrum and a four year old? We can't do that. But if you could give your advice on how to handle tantrums for a younger child, yeah. What would what would your advice be?

Drew:

Okay, so I'll I will say that my advice comes from my perspective and my approach, which is to create a relaxed, kind, enjoyable home where, where I try and foster secure attachment between myself and my child. So that means I prize the relationship and I and I try not to damage the relationship. So all of my advice and my perspective comes from that angle. So if a child is having a tantrum, is very upset. I'm going to use another analogy because I know that for some reason, this really works with parents. Let's say you have a friend who is really upset, maybe something happened in their life, something tragic happened in their life, and they come over to your home and they're kind of beside themselves and you can syllable and loud, and there's lots of emotion happening. What would you do? How would you be with that person? Now, what you probably wouldn't do is go okay, stop, Sara, stop, stop, use your words, Sara, stop, like, I can't talk to you when you're like this. Right? Yeah, probably wouldn't do that, what we would do is probably hold space for the person, especially if it's a, if it's a close relationship, which would look like what you're doing right now, Nadi, you probably know I didn't make eye contact, you would make yourself kind of like a safe place for her. Right? Like, I'm gonna be open to you, I'm gonna let you unload. I'll, I'll be a listener. Mm hmm. So many parents, because they get emotionally activated when their child is lose those skills, they lose all sight of those skills. And they start talking a lot. Which makes things worse. In many cases, the child is already overloaded. So what happens when you have someone telling you what to do it maybe in an angry voice, you know, in a parenting voice. So this is going to seem like nothing. And when I realized that nothing was something, I had a huge epiphany. Okay. So I learned how to hold space for my child's tantrums, which reduced the frequency and the intensity of the tantrums like you wouldn't believe. So I like to do things at work that are effective. What didn't work was all the other things. I tried yelling, shaming, giving my kid that cold shoulder putting them in timeout. Saying use your words, use your words. That didn't work. Right. So what I did was I learned how to hold space. And that first looks like me taking care of my body me being open, because whatever they're experiencing, we might think it's silly or trite or stupid, but to them, it's the same as that friend who is experiencing a lot of emotion. Yeah, so I allow for the emotion. I allow for it. Because kids have big emotions. They don't have like impulse control yet. They live with big emotions. And it can be tiring, but but to let people know that their emotions are very very real to them. So if we can learn how to hold space for a child's emotions like we would for a friend or a relative it really works because you get to a resolution so much quicker what happens is I make myself calm I regulate myself I withhold from speaking too quickly. And I model calm again remember what that looks like. Yep. I nod I breathe and I help the child come back down, down regulate so that we can problem solve because the child cannot talk in that state they can't talk in that state they can't problem solve that state. So once they come down once we have a hug if you can often see it the child's body see them just like those like Oh yeah, right. That's the time when I would say something like hey, what's what's going on? Can I can I help and they may talk talk about how everything this is not right. And that's not right. And I with with my kids and what I coach people is withhold from trying to fix withhold from trying to fix the problem. Because even if a parent has been able to bring a child down, when they start talking, a parent can get activated again trying to fix or what need to do is this well, okay, well I'll get in Are you all in and they just want to fix things? Yeah. And I, you know, once a while that's okay. You know, help your kid out. But I always have the aim of empowering the child. So Okay. I see. Right. You lost your favorite Lego piece. Mm hmm. And, and you're sad about that. That makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense that you'd be sad you that that Lego piece is really important to you, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, well, I'm here to help. Would you like some help? What do you thinking we could do to help you?

Melissa Bright:

That's great.

Drew:

And then so it's like, but if I see the tantrum as bad, if I see emotions as bad, I'm going to say something like, that's enough from you, young lady. You don't just get to walk around here and whine and cry whenever you like. Just because you That's silly, crying over a Lego piece. Go to your room. And when you're ready to be a good girl, you can come back out. Yikes.

Melissa Bright:

Yep,

Drew:

that's really sad. That's great. The child was just experiencing some emotion, some confusion, some overwhelm. And not only were they in that case, not had been heard seen cared about helped or empathize with the opposite would have happened right in that invalidated disconnected from shamed. What I've learned is that every situation can be dealt with in a positive, constructive, loving way. Any situation? We don't have to go dark. We don't have to go negative. We don't have to go judgmental. I thought that we did. I used to think that we did, I thought in order to teach a lesson, I'm gonna have to, like somehow scare the kid make him feel bad. Like really make a mark here. And like, you know, right. That was my thinking. How can there be lessons without some? You know?

Melissa Bright:

Yeah. Mm hmm. Okay, so let me pose this question to you, then. If, what if the quote unquote damage is already done? What if this has been your parenting style to yell at them to come down on them to judge them for eight years now? They're eight years old, nine years old, 10 years old, and all of a sudden you wake up in change in this common piece? How? How is that going to look for the child like, are they just gonna respond to it real quickly, or

Drew:

now take a look at this. This is what I'm going to invite you to do again, what would happen in an organization or a workplace where you've had in a Radek, volatile, judgmental, insecure, unregulated leader at the helm for eight years. People are burnt out, they're tired, they're they don't feel safe. You know, there's some toxic relationships happening. So if that leader has an awakening, and thinks, oh my gosh, this can be done much better. I've made some mistakes, I would like to do something better. Well, the first thing that leader needs to do, whether it's a leader at work or at home, is to acknowledge it and to address it. And to own their role in it. And to as the leader, you do not blame others for getting you where the organization has gone. Right? You have an organization Bill Gates is not going to be blaming the guys in the mailroom for, for where Microsoft is or was. The leader takes responsibility the leaders and they they hold themselves responsible and they apologize. And they they realize and discuss the impact of their behavior. And they hold space for the hurt and the pain that they've caused. Yeah. And then they collaborate with and work with their team or their children on creating something better. And they listen. And they probably get help.

Melissa Bright:

The leader,

Drew:

yep. And maybe even the kids, you know, at some point, like, it depends, you may want to, you know, I've got a client, who, you know, 15 year old child, you know, I've suggested that, you know, therapy could be a good thing. Right? Not a bad thing. You know, he gets to have some time he gets to do some healing, he gets to have someone helping him. Right. But when I realized that I was off track, and I was going down the wrong road, as humbling as it was, I had to take responsibility for it, and to bring it out into the open and make it known. And then also, the last thing I did was I said, I said to my kids and my wife, I asked for help from them, too. I was like, I didn't hold him responsible for like making me better. But I was like, Hey, listen, you're allowed to let me know. You're allowed to say, hey, I don't like that. Can you please talk to me differently, you have every right to say that to me. Because this place is home. I want it to be safe. I want it to be fun. I want us to be connected. And so there's no real place for judgment and harshness and blame and shame, right? I might make a mistake, you might make a mistake. That's okay. But let's just be clear. Like, which way we want to go, what kind of environment we want to create. And so and I talked to my wife, too. I said, Hey, you have permission to like, tap me on the shoulder. If you see me going down the wrong road. And I gave her some words to say, can I help? Yeah. And because I had advocated for myself, and I had asked for that. The next time that it happened, I was like, okay, good. And I, she tagged in. Right? It was great.

Melissa Bright:

That's amazing. That is so amazing. And we're already at an hour and seven minutes. I could literally ask you, like 20 more questions. But I know that we can't do that. But I think drew Drew and I are working on something here. Okay. We can't We can't announce officially what it is. But I think we're going to do something. Something Live Interactive. Somewhere down the road. Sometimes soon.

Drew:

Do a group a group parenting coaching call?

Melissa Bright:

Yeah, we're gonna we're definitely going to do something because like I said, we had so many questions from this, and I know I asked some, and I know we have gotten a lot of great takeaways from this. Um, I just want to go through my questions to make sure that there's like, Okay, I'm going to ask you that question. If you could leave my listeners that are parents with any last words of advice. Yeah, that you might not have already mentioned today. What would that be?

Drew:

It would be that I see you. I see you trying. Every parent tries. Every parent is trying their best. There is no parent out there that's trying to do a bad job. Doesn't happen. We all try and We all make mistakes. And that doesn't disqualify you from anything. It just makes you human. We all make mistakes, and you are lovable and acceptable as you are in your imperfect form. And you are forgivable. And you can learn and you can grow. Parenting is a skill that can be learned. And little by little bit by bit. If you dedicate yourself to this, it will improve your life dramatically over a short period of time. It really adds up. I want to encourage people to go on this journey of self improvement and use parenting as the place in which you do it. It is very, it's a treasure trove, it is totally rich, it's full of opportunities to learn and to grow. And if you can see that, I hope you do see that. It's not something to make you feel bad just because just because you've made mistakes, and you have things to learn, does not mean you're a bad person. Yes. And I would suggest that they pick up my book.

Melissa Bright:

How did you know my next question, you need to like get out of my head because that literally was my next question. So Drew, tell us about your book.

Drew:

It's called parenting for a peaceful home. I don't talk in there. Like I didn't talk today specifically about how do I get my kids eat more vegetables? How do I get my kid to stop doing screen time, the way I approach parenting is holistic. And it's based on creating a peaceful, loving, enjoyable home with empowered children. That's my deal. And that's what the books about it's about how I overcame my challenges of anger and impatience to create that environment that is really rich, and serves my children and I believe will really create a solid foundation for them going into the world on their own.

Melissa Bright:

Where can they find it? How can they connect with you?

Drew:

Yeah, it's on Amazon, you can search my name. That's probably the best way to find it, Drew Tupper. And it's called parenting for a peaceful home. And it's a it's a handbook. So it's interactive, and there's exercises that you write down, you can do it by yourself, you could do it with your partner, you can do it in a group. I really recommend it, I really recommend doing the exercises and taking the time to do them. I know we're all busy. But this is one thing that deserves our attention. Our children need us to show up. They don't get any chance. They don't have a choice who their parents are. They're just get what they get. So we got to be our best so that we can give them our best. And I also have a website, Drew tupper.com. And there's blogs on there. There's lots of resources on there. And I invite people to visit that and contact me if they have any questions.

Melissa Bright:

Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Okay, Drew, I have one last question for you. But before I ask the question, like I said, guys, me and drew have something else that we're going to be figuring out we're going to do some some kind of live on some platform. We don't know what it is yet. But once you guys listen to this episode, and if you guys have questions, jot down questions that you're you are thinking of right now that you want to ask Drew. Because like I said, we are going to do some something here in the near future, because I know that this is such a big topic. And parents want to be the best parents that they can be. And if he doesn't happen to answer all your questions in his book, then you can ask him live, live and chat live and video since it won't be live in person. So I just wanted to say that if if you have questions to jot them down, and I promise we will answer all the questions because there were literally about 50 More we can always ask, but where does the time go? So Drew, I have one last question for you. In your own words, what does the bright side of life means to you?

Drew:

It means realizing that you are never separate from yourself and your own goodness, it's to understand that you are good. You're good at heart. And with that knowledge you can have a really enjoyable and empowered life.

Melissa Bright:

Awesome. Drew, thank you so, so much. Oh my gosh, you were wonderful. And you, you know so much. And I just love that, what you're, what you're preaching and what your mission is. I think it's wonderful. So thank you.

Drew:

Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

Melissa Bright:

Yes, you are very welcome. Thank you guys for listening to this week's episode of The Bright Side of Life. Oh, my gosh, that is probably one of my favorite episodes, because there were so many aha moments that sometimes I think as parents, we have to treat our children in such a different way as like another person as if there's like, some secret to unlocking, you know, oh, how can we get them to not have tantrums? Or how do we get them to listen to us? Or how do we get them to do this. And sometimes it's, it's not even about the children at all, as you've seen, it's, it's really about our relationship with ourselves and being the best person we can. So then that reflects in kind of the behavior of our children as well. And really just thinking about our children, as people in general, you know, applying these things that we did to a friend or, you know, being a leader in a job or something like that, and how would we act there. So there were just so many great takeaways. I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. Because this is where the huge announcement comes in. I just recently found out so after I had this episode, I was kind of in limbo waiting to hear and waiting to get it confirmed. But I was just recently chosen to be a creator on a new app called fireside. And we are going to be taking our show The Bright Side of Life podcast on live on fireside. So these are going to be live chats, and Live episodes, it is an interactive platform, that means audience members like you can be part of the show now and help shape my content. So for our next show, I am inviting select listeners to join us as part of the studio audience. So you guys can ask questions. So if you would like to be one of them, please, please email me on the bright side of life podcast.com, go to the contact form. Or if you know me on social media, message me there, because there is going to be a unique link that you have to have because it is by invite only. So Drew is going to be on my he is going to be the very first guest on this app for me. So I don't know exactly when that drops. But whenever you email me about wanting to be on there, I will then make sure that I communicate with you whenever that show is and then I will be announcing it on here also. And then just to kind of clarify things. Yes, you guys will still be able to listen to this episode in your cars, and things like that if you guys can't watch live, but now this is just going to be in addition that if you do want to watch the episode live, you absolutely can. And there's going to be just a little bit different segments. Now. You know, like I said, Now this is going to be interactive, where you guys can actually ask the questions, which I just think is so awesome. I hope you guys once again enjoyed this episode. And I know that there is some parent out there that you are probably thinking in your head, whether it is a friend, whether it's your sister, your brother or somebody that might need to hear this episode because they might struggle in certain areas of parenting. So if you guys know anybody that needs to hear Drew's story, his message and some of the tips that he gives, please share this episode with them. Because we never know if this is the one that puts hope back in their heart.

Drew Arthur TupperProfile Photo

Drew Arthur Tupper

Coach

Drew is a parenting and relationship coach. He helps families create the home environment of their dreams.

Drew works with parents to help them learn emotional intelligence and conscious communication so that they can lead by the best of examples.

Drew help partners rekindle the romance in their relationships.

All of this makes for a happy and healthy home.