86: Kicking Stress & Chaos to the Curb To Find the Best Parent Within You

Got stress?

If parenting feels like one more thing that requires perfection (or at least better than everyone else’s expectations), Erin Taylor has much wisdom for you.

In today’s interview with Erin, a certified parenting coach and mom of 4 who found her life’s work at age 11, you’ll learn:

• Why our expectations CAUSE our stress in parenting
• How to adjust our own thinking in small ways to see big changes in how we feel (and how our kids mirror us)
• One simple mindset shift to transform fear of failure into a learning moment
• The beauty of having a child who can cook (and is motivated to do so—within his own personality!)
• A simple visualization strategy that is bound to keep dangerous thoughts from chugging away with your good parenting intentions (LOL total pun there, it will all make sense when you watch the vid!)
• How to teach our children to avoid anxious thoughts as well

Here’s to getting our “parenting stuff” together by becoming a better person!

Watch Kicking Stress & Chaos to the Curb to Find the Best Parent Within You on YouTube.

No time to watch the whole video? Here are the notes!

Parenting Expectations Video Time Stamps

• 0:51: Today I have Erin Taylor on the Healthy Parenting Connector. She is a parenting coach who teaches parents how to interact with their children in a connected and confident way. Do those words sound familiar here at Kids Cook Real Food^™™? 😉
• 1:46: Erin shares her story. She began to realize her purpose in life when she was only 11 years old!
• 4:41: Once Erin got married and was ready to start her own family it didn’t happen exactly how she’d expected. After years of infertility and then IVF, her first daughter was born with a heart defect and passed away.

Parenting Expectations vs. Reality

• 6:01: When Erin’s son was born she expected parenting to be easy. She’d been studying it her entire life!
• 7:03: The first disconnect for many parents is when they realize their reality isn’t matching up to their expectations.

Your job is not to program your child to be the vision in your mind. Your job is to see the child as who they are and then create a space for them to thrive. -Erin Taylor

• 8:13: We can have expectations on a large scale for who our child will be, but we can also have smaller expectations like how quiet they will be at a restaurant, how easily they will get dressed in the morning, how they’re going to eat their broccoli, etc. When they don’t live up to those expectations it leads to resentment, frustration, and anger for us as parents.

Calming the Chaos of Parenting

• 9:42: Erin shares the first thing parents can do to calm the chaos caused by missed expectations.

There’s enough fear and anxiety about keeping our kids safe—we don’t need to add pressure to be a perfect parent to that! -Erin Taylor

• 11:17: If you parent from a place of fear, you can’t think clearly. This leads to rash decisions and reactions that disconnect you from your children.

• 12:05: When you’re struggling in a situation with your children, step back until you can see the whole picture. Look beyond the argument or behavior and find the root of the issue.

You won’t get anywhere if you only deal with the surface of the issue. -Erin Taylor

• 13:34: Rather than controlling or fixing the situation, approach it with curiosity. Why is your child having a hard time cleaning their room?

• 14:53: I share a personal story of balancing letting my kids learn on their own and micromanaging.

• 17:22: Erin has talked before about being in the kitchen with her kids. She gives us a glance into her own family’s connection around food.
• 20:33: Working together in the kitchen is a great place to practice letting go of your own expectations.

Practical Way to Calm Your Thoughts

• 20:57: Erin explains when her Platform Technique comes into play.
• 23:52: The Platform Technique helps parents release expectations and control. Erin explains how to do it.
• 29:21: The basic idea is: see the thought, acknowledge the thought, don’t let it control you and come back to the present.

The really important thoughts will come back. -Erin Taylor

• 30:10: Parents aren’t the only ones dealing with stress and chaos. Kids are experiencing increasing amounts of anxiety. Erin shares her #1 tip for helping children with anxiety.

• 31:35: We talk about the vegus nerve which connects our organs up to our brains. Our breath controls how our vegus nerve sends signals to our brain. You can teach your children these breathing techniques as well.
• 34:49: Erin has a new course, Destination Peace, for parents of anxious kids. She unpacks a bit about what it includes.
• 36:00: We leave you with a message of hope.

Resources We Mention on Parenting Expectations

• Find Erin online
• Get her free webinar “The REAL reason your child acts like that“
• Erin’s podcast episode about the Platform Technique
• Erin’s post about ways to connect with your kids
• Erin’s Courses:
  • The Chaos Cure
  • The Screen Machine Summit
  • Destination Peace
• HeartMath device helps regulate stress response
• My Healthy Parenting Connector Episodes on Stress Mastery: part 1 and part 2

Erin Taylor is a Parenting Coaching Institute Certified Parent Coach® motivational speaker, host of the Powerful Parenting for Today’s Kids podcast, and a mother of four. She holds a Master’s in Counseling Psychology and has written Connection and Kindness: The Key to Changing the World Through Parenting.

Erin was able to take the tragedy of the death of her infant daughter and turn it around, using her hard-earned wisdom to help people from all walks of life step into their power and live their best lives.

Erin founded Revolutionizing Life, a company dedicated to supporting therapists, coaches and other professionals trying to make a difference in the world. Revolutionizing Life is also an online school for parents and children.