Introducing the Conscious Parenting Framework

Margi Dehlin [00:00:07] So a lot of what we'll be using in our presentation, it comes from the work of Shefali Savery. And Shefali Savery is actually. Her first book was called the Conscious Parent, and it is. The Dalai Lama wrote the preface for her first book, so. So she received her doctorate in clinical psychology from Columbia, and she kind of combines Eastern and Western in a blend of parenting. So, anyway, just wanted to give credit where credit's due.

John Dehlin [00:00:43] Go ahead and tell me about the other books, too. I think they're all important.

Guest [00:00:46] Sure.

Margi Dehlin [00:00:46] So her first book is the Conscious Parent. A lot of people tend to start here, which I understand because it is the first book that she wrote. It's really a philosophical kind of groundwork book. So it can be difficult for some people who are wanting to really get practical. Her second book, out of Control, is great for people who find themselves in control paradigms a lot. It's a little more accessible, a little more practical. It's John's favorite, would you say, out of the three? And then my favorite is actually the third, and it's called the Awakened Family. And I like it because it's kind of a blend. She kind of, in the beginning of the book, goes through myths that we have with regard to parenting, and then at the end, really gets into practical tips for, you know, there is no one way to Conscious Parent, but there are more kind of principles or shifts that we'll be getting into today. And she kind of goes into more of those practical situations that I think parents can relate to, if that makes sense. So should we start? Let me start. Okay. So before we start, we're going to talk about kind of where we come from. And the majority of us come from this traditional, authoritative model. So most of us here were raised with parents who kind of fell somewhere in this spectrum. And I want to just say, culturally, we're really reinforced with this model as well as you can have this layering that happens, right. So we have culture, then we have the L faith layered on top of that. And then we have our families.

Guest 2 [00:02:24] Right.

Margi Dehlin [00:02:24] That play into that. So we really come by it honestly. And it's a conditional love model. There's a heavy emphasis on control in this model. The idea for children is that children are like empty vessels. They come depraved. And our job as parents is to fill them with a sense of morality and goodness or they'll run amok. Okay? So we fill them with values. We mold them. That is our responsibility. And so the commute, the way that we do that, if we're going to talk about methods in this paradigm. It would be power, control and punishment. And when we're talking about this model, it's very behavioral.

Guest 3 [00:03:12] Right.

Margi Dehlin [00:03:12] So. So very behaviorally focused. So we're.

John Dehlin [00:03:17] And when she says child centered, it means the child is the problem to be fixed and controlled and boundaried.

Margi Dehlin [00:03:27] That's right.

John Dehlin [00:03:27] As if the parent is not an important part of the equation.

Margi Dehlin [00:03:32] Yeah. So and where we're going to and what we're going to kind of introduce today is the conscious parent model. And this is an unconditional love model. And we start with the idea that our children come actually full of goodness. Right. That they come with this innate desire to embrace goodness. They come with a general sort of sense of ethics and caring. They have a desire to learn and to grow. It's very connection focused. There's a desire to feel safe and heard. And parenting is seen as a spiritual partnership with the child. And it is parent centered. And what it means by that is. I don't know if you've noticed in your journeys as parents so far, but what we get triggered by tends to have to do with us. And in that way, it's an invitation for us to look at ourselves and our own wounds and to heal ourselves through our children. And in that way, it's like we are growing ourselves up or healing ourselves through this relationship that we have. So we're going to kind of introduce this through some shifts that generally happen or talked about with regard to conscious parenting. And we'll start with the first is where we come from. Then would be control. Right. And we want to move to connection, if that makes sense. So to kind of generally outline what this looks like. Control, where is it rooted? It's rooted in fear and discipline. Right. Well, conscious parenting is rooted in respect and connection. Right. Control is almost exclusively rules based and performance based. With connection, you have enlightened boundaries. So these shifts, you know, we mentioned the depraved view to the abundance mindset with your child. With control, it's very much like minimal discussion. It's very much what the parent says goes with conscious parenting. Both viewpoints are actually considered. You will ask your child how they're feeling or the child can have a say in what chores they do or. But there's at least a discussion, the child is part of that. In control, there's this constant evaluation. You're failing, you're not good enough, you need to improve. Right. There's this evaluative quality, whereas with connection there's this healthy embracing of Mistakes and what did we learn? Or what did you find out about that? Or you know, control and independent will is viewed as negative. So if your child speaks out or says I disagree or maybe they're not feeling well, that is something that is viewed as something negative. Whereas for connection, you're, you're not threatened by that. It's something that's, that's welcomed, that you can hear, that you can hold. And then what you decide to do with that is something that you talk about.

John Dehlin [00:06:46] Disagreements viewed as a sign of strength. That's right, you want to. Because if you don't want your kid to be harmed by authoritative figures in the world, you want them to learn to stand up for themselves and have questions and to feel comfortable disagreeing. So why wouldn't you want to nurture that in your relationship with them?

Margi Dehlin [00:07:04] That's right.

John Dehlin [00:07:04] As a modeling.

Margi Dehlin [00:07:05] It also points to another shift that we'll talk about, which means that your child is most likely going internal. And we, we like that. We like supporting our kids. Actually being able to consider and have an awareness of their own feelings around something and then being able to vocalize that is the best ever. Them being able to know their needs and speak their needs is something we welcome and we encourage and we try to be a safe place.

John Dehlin [00:07:29] Frankly, it's what many of us didn't get to do.

Margi Dehlin [00:07:31] Exactly.

John Dehlin [00:07:32] We're allowing them to do it.

Margi Dehlin [00:07:34] Yeah. And then some other kind of things. There's a lot of perfectionism, shame, worthiness in control. And you have this sense of, you know, innately worthy. You're just innately, you come worthy of love with this connection based parenting. Yeah. So control paradigm, what I would say about it is oftentimes it works in the short term. You may have a child, for example, that loves structure or is a pleaser or. So it can work in the short term behaviorally. You may get a behavioral result that you prefer. Right. But in the long term, connection is the thing that's sacrificed and it doesn't tend to work long term. So that's kind of the control to connection shift. Is there anything you want to add?

Shifting from Control to Connection

John Dehlin [00:08:26] And the blast bullet is true too. You know, you can, you can set limits and controls and boundaries and punishment and fear and consequences. And either you'll, you know, either you'll get short term positive results. But who knows what they're, you know, what they end up doing later in their lives when those controls aren't there anymore. So they don't learn intrinsic motivation and morality and center based living. Instead they're just waiting until the structure's gone, and then they're gonna go do whatever they're gonna do. Or you teach them, like many of us learned in a religious context, just to hide and lie.

Margi Dehlin [00:09:03] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:09:04] So they. They dress modestly as they leave the house, and then they have a change of clothes in the car for how they actually dress, you know, in the real world. Or they, you know, their. Their history, their Internet history looks great, but they just learned how to use private mode or to clear their cache, you know, every time they use it. So they learn to lie and hide things. And there's danger in that because you bifurcate the self where there's a private self and a public self. And that's when a lot of really unhealthy behaviors emerge, when we encourage that splitting of a hidden, secret, dirty, private self and approved, good boy or girl public self.

Margi Dehlin [00:09:45] So good. So important. Yeah. Control tends to drive behaviors underground. They still exist, but they're just driven underground. You may not see them.

Guest 3 [00:09:56] Perfect.

Margi Dehlin [00:09:57] Okay, so are we going to do examples? Okay, why don't you. Okay, I'll do the first one. So. So an example of control to connection that happened in the recent. In the last year for us. So this is a great way to kind of just bring it into a situation that you can see, which I think is helpful for people. So I have a child that was in ninth grade and kind of around Christmas time came to me and just said we were in the car driving home from school and mentioned. And I had noticed behaviorally too, but really feeling kind of depressed around school. Right. That it's a waste of time, that this particular class, the teacher just wasted time, didn't feel like, well, I'll use he or she interchangeable. So he was learning anything and that it was really getting him down and he could tell. Now, this particular child, I feel like, you know, is very creative thinker. Also doesn't particularly value structures overall and does well in school. But also I feel like, you know, the systems don't particularly appeal to him in particular. So at this moment, I had some thoughts come up. And my initial. And I think this is very normal for parenting was my control. And I look at it, I look at sort of the reason why I went into authoritative is oftentimes that is our operating system. Unless we get conscious about it. Right. We tend to do what was done to us. You know, even if we really feel determined not to. When we're stressed particularly or hurt or put on the spot, we tend it's our default it's kind of our reaction, right? So my default in my head was I was. Started having these thoughts, and I even said, you know, do you think there's value in, you know, working with different personalities, different teachers? Maybe in life you're not going to have teachers that you particularly, you know,

John Dehlin [00:12:02] like, or bosses or.

Margi Dehlin [00:12:04] Right. And maybe there's value. And believe it or not, this was sort of the control kind of piece coming in. I'm like, can you stay with the status quo? Suck it up kind of, what's wrong with you? Adaptive? What's the problem? And he came back at me and he got really soft and said, I'm just kind of telling you that I need help here. And it would really help me if I could just look into options for this last period. It's really getting me down, right? And then at that point, I was able to emotionally connect and realize he was being vulnerable. And I said, I see that. I hear that. Do you know, do you. Did your school offer, you know, online? And he said, they do and they do for this class, you know, and I was able to. And. And that's where the conscious parenting is around connection, right? Is you say, I hear you. You know what? We went right into the counselor. We were able to put him online, and he finished the class in the, you know, the same time.

John Dehlin [00:13:07] Just to explain what we're saying, that meant that he. If I. If I remember correctly, it made it. So with the schedule, maybe one instance might be he was able to wake up a little bit later and go to school a little bit later. And instead of having a schedule that he felt was too full with some classes that were sucking a ton of his time, but not adding anything to his actual life, he was able to just take the class online, be really efficient about it, get it done, get a little more sleep and enjoy his days more. And of course, my reaction, my old reaction would have been like, I did hard things, I got straight A's, I went to all my classes. And we might have thought it inconveniences us to have to take you to school a little bit late. And, you know, but what that teaches him is, you know, he's saying, I value my time. Should we ignore that? He's saying, I'm really sad. Should we ignore that? He's saying, I'm reaching out. This really helps me. Could you please help me? And we just decided instead of doing the control when I was young, this is what we did sort of approach. We actually just considered trusting him to know his own Life. And I was really surprised because I thought there's no way he's going to actually do the homework when there's not a teacher and there's not like a forced schedule and someone all along making him do his assignments every week. And sure, he did it a little bit differently. Sometimes he'd wait until, you know, deadlines and he'd, and he'd assemble all of the assignments in one sort of or two concentrated study sessions. But he ended up getting as in the several classes that he's taken now, he's happier, he's learning more, he's happier and, and he was really grateful to us for listening to him and supporting something that meant a lot to him. And so he got the A's, he learned the stuff, he was happier and our relationship's better. Like, where's the loss?

Margi Dehlin [00:15:12] And the irony there was he shortened his day, which is what he wanted. He, he kind of wanted the, which we were able to work through. But it also gave him, he took, he took online classes over the summer. So what it did was it gave him energy during the school year, you know, when he was feeling, you know, very. And then now he's ahead because he, he took summer online classes. But he's. I just think too hearing your children where. What I hear from him regularly is I'm an alternative learner. Right now he, he's in high school and goes to the GTI and is learning.

John Dehlin [00:15:46] You know, computer people don't know what that is.

Margi Dehlin [00:15:48] GTI is like a technical. It's almost like a junior college where you can learn computers. And he. So he's shuttled off campus or. But to knowing your child and allowing them to kind of create a world for themselves, to feel empowered to adapt or change things in their own lives can be a key part of connection.

John Dehlin [00:16:08] And it was really good for him. I'll just say this again to become an autonomous learner where he was setting his own deadlines, tracking, being responsible for his own learning, because you're going to need that throughout your life. So why not learn those skills when you're young?

Margi Dehlin [00:16:24] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:16:25] Second example, I'll just say really quickly, I, even though I lost my belief in the Mormon, you know, orthodox mormonism back in 2001, I still very much parented as a, as a priesthood holding, you know, orthodox Mormon father. And I was the stereotypical Mormon dad of like guarding my daughter's chastity and making sure that they dressed modestly and that they were never alone with boys for too long and that I always was trying to police and make sure they never did anything inappropriate with a boy, you know, while they were dating or going out and setting curfews and getting really angry if they violated curfews. And what I learned from, we'll just say one or more of my daughters was that that was a really damaging way to approach parenting. A daughter and sons would be very similar. You know, in my mind, I was just trying to keep them safe and healthy and no pregnancies and ostis and whatever. But the truth is, what I was doing was I was making them. I was, I was adding a really sour element to their courtship experiences. I was projecting all my fears and baggage onto them and. But most importantly, I was simply encouraging one or more of my daughters to just hide and lie and to do whatever they were going to do, but then never feel comfortable ever talking to us about what they were doing and making it. So if they did have some sort of encounter or experience, whatever happened, they were just going to have to deal with and figure out on their own because the last thing they were going to want to do is come talk to mom or dad about what they were experiencing. And. And it was really. It was really awful. And it just drove a huge wedge where for multiple years, with at least one or more of my daughters, there was just this really frigid, untrusting, difficult relationship. And why would you want that? Why would you want that type of parent child relationship? So what I learned, let's just say one or more of my children has experimented sexually, and maybe they've even been sexually active, and maybe they even have a boyfriend now, and maybe they even live with their boyfriend now. Maybe they've tried marijuana, maybe they've tried alcohol. Some of these things I've never tried. Right. And what I realized is success. Success now is not measured by are they maintaining themselves to be pure? Are they living this law of chastity that I actually stopped believing in a long time ago, but instead it's how comfortable do they feel talking to us about everything they're experiencing? What was it like to try marijuana? Okay, thank you for sharing. That's interesting. How do you think about health? How do you think about safety? How do you think about sleep? What was alcohol like? How did you think about your safety? And how much fun was it? Was it enjoyable? Do you feel like it's risky? And what it's done is it's transformed it so that I'm no longer measuring their success or mine by their maintenance of purity standards. I'm measuring the success of my role as to what extent are they willing to tell me everything that they're experiencing? And that's a very different metric. And some of you already parent this way. That's not how I parented, but it's made all the difference in the world. And oddly enough, I'm very much of the belief. And I think Natasha often backs this up with what she says. The more information, the more conversation, the more, the less STIs, the less unwanted teen pregnancies, and in some cases, even the. The lower degree of sexual activity when there's actual information and communication. So you actually, again, just like, just like other things like we talked about with porn, you actually end up with the healthy, healthiest result that you want by leaning into connection instead of control. Does that make sense? It's more effective at what you ultimately want, which is a healthy, happy kid. Does that make sense? Yes, we have a microphone. Quick question or comment from Becca.

Real-Life Parenting Scenarios and Conversations

Guest 3 [00:21:03] When, like, I tend to be more relaxed because I have. I like to talk with my kids and I like to hear the why and how and. And I found that because I was really controlling to start with, and then I found this isn't working. But my husband's approach is it's, you be home at 12. It's 12:01. Oh my gosh, you're dead meat. I can never trust you. You've broken my trust and I can see my daughters just fighting against it, but I need to show a level of respect to him at the same time. So how do you show respect to your spouse when you totally disagree and it happens repeatedly, even if you've discussed it, I don't really agree with how you're doing this. He doesn't agree with him. But still trying to show respect in the moment or when your child comes to you because they are going to talk to you about it because that's the relationship you have.

John Dehlin [00:21:53] Do you have a. Okay, that's probably its own workshop, but truth be told. But if assuming a partner who, you know, assuming a partner who's malleable, who's open, who's genuinely wanting to do what's best, and is open to your perspectives and is willing to learn and grow and has a growth mindset. I know for me, Margi was bought into this model a lot earlier than I was. And so she would just lovingly say, we'd start getting in a big fight with our daughter. It would be really wearing on our relationship. And she would just say, will you freaking read this book? Will you just you know, and she would. And if you look at this book, like, I don't know if this is the version, but it's just like got marks all over the place from both of us. And because I care about her, her and because I could tell things were going wrong in our relationship, her loving, her example of modeling informed parenthood, and then her loving persistence and encouraging me to actually get educated about these things. For me, it took time, it actually took years. And I'm not there yet. And she would say we're all learning as we go, but that helped. But I, you know, I don't. That that all assumes that your partner is, is open and willing and interested. That's one idea.

Margi Dehlin [00:23:14] Yeah. The other idea behind that too is the issue, like fundamentally with what happens when you disconnect, when you have that control paradigm, is that you no longer have influence. If you want influence, if you want them to care about what you say, to hear you, it is only through connection. It is only through you being able to listen to them, you being able to validate their perspective, you being able to hold it and show you hold it. That's the only real influence and power we have. And so slowly, like bringing up, even with your husband, how do you feel like that went? How do you feel she feels about you asking questions or going internal, which is our next shift, can allow him hopefully in a non judgment judged kind of way, really be able to see is this dynamic working and you know, is she confiding in me or is she walled off or am I noticing that there's growing resentment or.

John Dehlin [00:24:17] Because we would have these. Yeah, well, take away your cell phone or we'll ground you or you're grounded from the car too.

Margi Dehlin [00:24:22] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:24:23] And we made all those mistakes and you feel powerful in those moments, like, I've got power. But they can just sneak out at night, they can just, you know, use a friend's cell phone, they can find ways around the Internet passwords that you put. Or they can just build up resentment and then wait until they have freedom and just completely rebel. And so it's worthwhile, especially with husbands, to have a conversation with them about perceived power versus actual power and punishment. Just with kids that are in their teenage years and older and even small kids, power doesn't reside in punishment. Power resides in influence. Because if they actually care about what you think, if they actually feel loved by you, and if they actually respect your perspective, that's where you have power is in that influence. And it's limited, but it's better than Either A, no power or B, creating the opposite. Like creating rebellion through. And that's what out of control is just all about. It's just basically saying the control paradigm is broken. Focus on influence, not control.

Guest 3 [00:25:38] Right.

Margi Dehlin [00:25:39] Cause I think too what you end up with is then a reactive team. And a reactive team is a whole different thing. Right. Than if you have a teen that feels safe to share things, to be heard, to be, you know, their behavior tends to be within a certain realm because our kids are no real, no different than us, you know. How much do you like control? Sometimes I do that. Like I think about the way I'm approaching it and think, how would I feel? They're no different than us. No human being with like a lively just sort of appreciates the feeling of being controlled or punished as you're learning and growing and developing. Right?

John Dehlin [00:26:19] Yeah. With my kids I'd be like, why are you on video games so long? And then Margi would say why are you on Facebook so long? And I'm like, stop that. That's not your job to be telling me how long. Why are you monitoring how long I'm on social media and judging me. That feels awful. And she would just kind of. Interesting, Interesting. Let's let that sit there. Let's let that marinate. Camille. And then Holly, did you still. Stand up? If you don't mind.

Guest 4 [00:26:51] Sorry. Where does behaviorism then fit? Does it, does behaviorism in your mind then fall completely within the realm of control or do you still incorporate some of it into connection?

John Dehlin [00:27:03] In my training as a psychologist. Do you have an answer about that? In my training as a psychologist, behaviorism is for small children and animals. But once you get into the teen years, it fades away more and more as having a real place. But you know, who's to say,

Guest 2 [00:27:25] you

Guest 4 [00:27:25] know, we have very. I'm sure you do too in your home. Very different children. Our 19 year old really didn't have a curfew because she was just so self motivated and driven and the next kids got was very different. And so there is a curfew. And I last night, you know, got home and he wasn't there and so I just texted him and said, you know, I'm just. Because we just have a contract that, you know, your phone get turned off for 24 hours if you're late. But there's no anger, there's like, hey, still, how was your evening? Did you have fun? But what are your thoughts about that?

John Dehlin [00:28:03] Consequences, right? Is that what you're asking about?

Guest 2 [00:28:04] Consequences?

Margi Dehlin [00:28:05] We're actually going to cover that in the shift from sort of punishment or consequences to enlightened boundaries. And so don't mistake. Conscious parenting isn't the child gets to do whatever they feel in the moment. The difference is with the boundaries. They're actually set up for the child's needs. So what you're talking about on some level is, like, safety, you know, kind of. And that is one of the things where there is an enlightened boundary. How that is created and how that is held is completely different, though, than the way we conceive of, like, a punishment or what we like to say is a consequence because it's a little more palatable. Right. And so we'll get. We will get to that. But there is a place for that.

John Dehlin [00:28:51] Holly had a hint. Behaviorism is Pavlov's dog. It's rat. It's pellet. You know, it's like positive reinforcement through giving of a. Either giving of a reward or withdrawing a reward or giving a punishment or removing a punishment. Yeah. It's what we do with dogs and pigeons and rats, and it works. And young children.

Margi Dehlin [00:29:20] So I was going to say my response to that is going to be with this next shift, which is.

John Dehlin [00:29:24] But. But Holly wanted. Okay, Holly raised her.

Margi Dehlin [00:29:26] So what I would say.

John Dehlin [00:29:27] Is there another microphone, a second microphone

Margi Dehlin [00:29:29] in response to that comment really quick. Is behaviorism. And Shefali Savary does go into this idea of approval. Approval is a way to manipulate our children. It's just another more acceptable look at sort of conditional love. And we'll talk about that. When it comes to, like, external, which is what a lot of us kind of are very, like, it's very approval based, very worthiness based, very. You get a lot of external feedback to tell you how you're doing. Right. And ideally, what we want are children that are more internal. Right. The approval can come and go, but they're living their values. They have a sense for what they love, what they enjoy, what they want from their lives.

John Dehlin [00:30:14] Holly.

Guest 2 [00:30:15] Oh, I was just gonna say I was just sitting here, like, another epiphany moment. Like, we're all here because we got tired of being controlled and having people make our choices and feeling like there's. We were punished and like, we're here because we want connection and we want options and choices. And so we're just like our kids. And I'm just thinking about, like, the last few, few months since I have left the church, and my parenting is much more geared towards connection. And I realize how, like, I was really controlling and, you know, didn't give them a lot of options. It's this way or this way. And now I give them more options, and we connect more. We're closer. So it's just interesting. We're just like our kids.

John Dehlin [00:31:03] Thank you.

Guest 2 [00:31:04] Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:31:07] Yeah. Really quick.

Guest [00:31:12] I wanted to give a quick example of what you're talking about. When one of my daughters was 15 or 16, she had an older boyfriend who I didn't necessarily love. And she. We have this habit of going on family walks, which sounds super cheesy, but, yes, we go on these walks together around our neighborhood with all seven. Seven of us walking around together. And we chat. And sometimes I'll go on a walk with just one kid. So she and I went on this walk together, and she confessed to me that she'd had sex with her boyfriend. And I said to her, oh, and I had this moment where I had this flash to the TV show Friday Night Lights. I don't know if any of you seen that, but it was great for me because I had. Had not had a good model of how to do this moment. But Tammy, in that show, has this great moment with her daughter, and she tells her, well, your punishment for having sex with your boyfriend is that now we have to have a talk about sex. And so I told my daughter that. I was like, well, your punishment for having sex with your boyfriend is we have to have this talk about sex. And I could see her face just fell. And I said, did you enjoy it? And she was like, mom. And I said, did you use protection? And I just asked the questions that Tammy asked on Friday Night Lights. But it was just this great example because, like, none of my Mormon friends could have told me what to do. Like, they would have told me to shame her or to be like, you should promise me never to do that again. I didn't do any of that.

John Dehlin [00:32:37] Or get mad at the boy and want to get the boy out of her body. I don't know anything about the boy.

Guest [00:32:41] I just. I also ended the conversation with telling her, you make sure you understand that just because you said yes once doesn't mean that you ever have to say, say yes again. And it made it so that our relationship ever after was that she came and talked to me about sex with her boyfriends, even though I don't really know anything about sex. She probably knows a lot more than I do, so I probably learned more than she did. But I was a safe space for her to talk about sex. And anyway, I was just gonna say, we have to look for models outside of Mormonism for this kind of parenting. And that was one show. That was a good one.

John Dehlin [00:33:15] Beautiful.

Guest 4 [00:33:16] Thank you.

Guest 3 [00:33:16] So true.

Moving from External Rules to Internal Values

Margi Dehlin [00:33:21] All right, so the next shift is moving from the external. So that's kind of where most of us, you know, come from to the internal.

Guest 3 [00:33:30] Right.

Margi Dehlin [00:33:31] So with the external model, the idea is authority exists outside ourselves. Right. So we look to bishops, we look to our teachers, our parents are. But we don't. We don't have it. Someone else has it and they tell us what it is. Right. But the shift to the internal is our own voice is actually honored, and it's developed in the parenting process. And I'm going to tell you, the way that happens is questions. It's all about questions with your kids, because all that does is it. It actually provides a space for them to reflect on themselves, what they feel, what that experience was like. And so questions are your best friend in this area. Another idea, approval is paramount. We seek it. A lot of pleasers, a lot of. And with the internal, the idea is to explore and create. Our kids do their own values. And that's something that we explore for them. That's something that we've talked about with each of our kids, what they want out of life, what they're valuing as teens.

John Dehlin [00:34:40] Yeah. And we want them to be able to stand firm in who they are, regardless of conformity and authority. So that's the bullet that goes with that.

Margi Dehlin [00:34:50] Oh, I see.

John Dehlin [00:34:51] It's just that who cares what a religious person thinks or even your parents, if this is what's really important to you and who you really are.

Margi Dehlin [00:34:59] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:35:00] Learn to stand in your truth.

Margi Dehlin [00:35:01] That's right. We're handed our values oftentimes from authority. And I love this comment from Holly about the idea that, you know, our default will be to keep the structure as we transition from the church, move away from that authority, but then want the authority. We become the authority. So it stays external. But. But we're it now, as opposed to.

Guest 2 [00:35:25] To.

Margi Dehlin [00:35:25] And so it really does take a level of kind of awareness and honestly, practice. It's just a lot of practice.

John Dehlin [00:35:32] And how can we expect our kid to go out into the world and stand up against authority? That isn't healthy for them if we don't model in our own homes that they're safe to stand up against our authority when they disagree with us. And that's the shift where there should be a part of you. This. Even if it's annoying for your kid to disagree with you or even defy you, there should be a part of you that in this model that's excited about that, because if you don't want them to be abused by authority when they go out into the big bad world, they have to learn how to stand up to authority. And you have to model that in your home.

Margi Dehlin [00:36:10] Obedience is paramount in the external kind of model, where you're told how to live, you're told what to do, you're told what decisions are right or wrong, you're told, you know how you're doing if you're failing, if you're not. And in the internal model, it's, we want children that can stand independently amidst conformity, amidst authority. Right. And we also want them weighing many options, that they're free to kind of explore a lot of things independently, weigh them according to their values and test out. We welcome that process of testing out. And then last, their worth is assessed again by someone outside themselves. But with the internal, all they're trying to do is kind of seek to live their values. And noticing when they don't, there's no shame. We just talk about it, we reflect about it. We reflect on what it felt like, what they would do differently, and love them up.

John Dehlin [00:37:13] There's this moment of panic when you find out your kid may try marijuana or alcohol or sex where you're like, well, they'll become a prostitute or they'll get pregnant or they'll become a drunk or they'll drop out of school. Right. It's a really powerful thing when they experiment with stuff and then settle into their own perspectives, whether it's, yeah, I didn't really like marijuana that much or, oh, well, you know, I've tried it, and occasionally it's a thing, but it's not something that I care about regularly. Or, yeah, I tried alcohol, but I really didn't like it, you know, and there actually is the possibility of those types of conclusions that your children will arrive at if they're just allowed to experiment. And they can arrive at those on our own. I can tell you that we, you know, we don't. We don't teach our kids any, you know, like prohibitions like the church did regarding the Word of Wisdom. And so far, our kids are living very responsibly, you know, in ways that we're very happy with all four of them, as far as we know, with regards to the Word of Wisdom. So even though we're not in this prohibition mindset and fear mindset, they're somehow arriving at their own healthy conclusions about those things and with sexuality as well. So, you know, it's scary at first to let go of that Mormon mindset, but your kids very well may surprise you. And again, a lot of times when they do enter into those unhealthy behaviors, it's because the home is so toxic. They're like self medicating or escaping all the distress that they're experiencing from the home. And that can be what drives the unhealthy behavior and substances or sex. Did you want to tell the grandma experience?

Margi Dehlin [00:38:59] I think you should.

John Dehlin [00:39:00] Okay, so. So one example of how going internal with your child can be useful. I'll use a she for this one.

Guest 3 [00:39:11] Great.

Margi Dehlin [00:39:12] So.

John Dehlin [00:39:13] So I. My mom, my mom is a wonderful person and lovely and sometimes grandchildren may not always enjoy hanging out with their grandparents. Right. Or they just may not be interested or they may be developmentally not, you know, in a place where that's important to them. Right. And I can remember a particular time where we went out with grandma to a dinner and I'll just say our daughter just wasn't interested, acted disinterested, disconnected, staring off into the distance, playing with their food, never asking grandma any questions. You could just tell they didn't want to be there at all. And I was hurt because this is my mom and I, they, you know, I want my kid to treat my mom well. And I worried that my mom was hurt that they were so detached and disinterested. So we decided to have a conversation with this child afterwards and we just said, hey, just noticed with, with grandma you're totally all these things, what's going on? And the child was just like, very honest. The child said, grandma never asks me about me. Grandma always talks about weird things, illnesses or pains. I don't, I don't really enjoy being with grandma right now and that's how I feel. And you can make me be with her, but like I don't want to be a fake and act like I'm really interested and happy to be there when I'm not. And the old, you know, the old me would have been like, oh well, put on a happy face and treat your elders with respect and just, you know, be kind and show interest and love and blah blah, blah. And we tried a different approach and we just said, well, let's talk about your values. And you know, I just want to understand better, you know, how you think about it. And so we had a really beautiful discussion where basically this child said, well, I don't value being fake, I don't value lying, and I don't really value right now being with grandma. And then we're just like, okay. But then they also said, but I value kindness and I value acting loving. And now that I think about it, and this was coming from them as they were doing their own processing, internal processing, instead of me saying, when we're with Grandma, you're going to behave this way. Right. Instead they were able to say, now that I think about it, I can see how that might hurt Grandma's feelings if I act that way. One of my values is kindness. And so I think I want to change my behavior and treat Grandma kindly because that's part of my values. And do you see how that's a very different energy and motivating factor when the child arrives at their own conclusion and when it's couched within the framework of their own values versus some control or punishment, forced paradigm imposed upon them by an external authority? Does that make sense? So that's an illustration.

Margi Dehlin [00:42:35] Brilliant.

John Dehlin [00:42:36] Okay, should we go to the next one?

Margi Dehlin [00:42:40] Yes, we should.

Embracing Diversity After Leaving the Church

John Dehlin [00:42:42] Okay.

Margi Dehlin [00:42:42] So the next shift is conformity and obedience. And the shift is to differentiation.

Guest 2 [00:42:49] Right.

Margi Dehlin [00:42:50] So think about kind of where we come from. It's sort of like everyone in the family is the same. We think and we feel the same about everything. And the shift would be actually, we're all different. We have different thoughts, we have different feelings. We experience things differently. We can actually have, you know, be at the same place and feel very differently about something.

John Dehlin [00:43:15] So.

Margi Dehlin [00:43:16] And then back to conformity. Our main job is to kind of memorize or repeat back.

Guest 3 [00:43:21] Right.

Margi Dehlin [00:43:22] And with the idea of differentiation, it's that we. We actually appreciate different viewpoints. So at family dinner, it's. We can talk about topics and we would expect everyone to feel differently. And we learn how to have conversations that allow for that, where we can. Can hear each other and we can hold those differences and that they're things that we actually appreciate about one another. Yeah. So then we've got kind of do what's asked of you and live the formula. And the counterpoints to that is sort of this idea of we view differences as actually oxygen, much like in our marriages. Honestly, it's not. All these principles actually fall very well into marriages, too. But the oxygen are differences. That is oxygen to a relationship. And that instead of living the formula, it's more, we wanted to have our children practice honoring themselves. What does that look like in this situation? What does it mean for you to be authentic? Right. To feel like you're being you in this situation in a way that you really connect with conformity. You try to make your desires fall in line with the rules. But if we're going to do differentiation, our values and our goals and the way we live, those can look extremely different from one another. And then finally, the conformity and obedience, it is a conditional love model. Whereas with differentiation, kids explore all sorts of possibilities with you. And our children have. And what they're really asking is, is your love big enough to hold me now? Is it large enough to hold me now? How about now? And every time it's, yes, yes, yes, yes,

Guest 3 [00:45:22] yes.

Guest 5 [00:45:27] As a child, one time my mom said, you know, this is my daughter heather. I was 8 or 9. And I immediately turned around and said, I'm not yours. And she was like, yes, you are. You know, I gave birth to you. And I'm like, I just came through you. I'm not yours. And when I joined the church, that got lost for me. Because actually, while it sounds really nice, the doctrine of eternity and eternal families and everybody will be all together, keeps in your mindset that I'm going to have my children forever. They will be mine. And so leaving the church allowed me to go back to what I already knew, which is, my children have been living their own lives since they were born. They've never been mine. You know, they've always been just whoever they are. I have given them maybe the shape of their eyes and maybe some health condition they might have later, they may be susceptible to. I've given them those things, but they're not mine. You know, their lives have already started. They don't start at 18 when they move out. And so anyway, beautiful.

Margi Dehlin [00:46:50] So a simple illustration of sort of conformity, obedience to differentiation in our home. You know, there was a time when we were recreating a Sunday, what we wanted Sundays to kind of look like. And it was like family hiking, which really worked for kind of our two older children. We would go on family hikes. Really beautiful. Two older children left. We've got the two young, and we're like family hikes. And, you know, one of our children in particular was like, I hate hiking. Like, that's the. I do not want to spend Sunday hiking. I actually would prefer to go skateboarding. I feel a sense of peace and flow actually doing that. And so that's something I would really want in my Sunday. And it was that piece of, like, being able to honor that and say, hey, let's make room for that. So you're saying you would like to kind of skateboard. Let's. Let's support that. We can find a way to kind of infuse that into the day. And then, you know, let's. For the rest of the day, you know, what do you think about that and what are your ideas? But you go back to the drawing board and it gets creative every time and you're. And it's co creative. Everyone's involved and everyone's honored. On some level, you want people to kind of feel heard. That differentiation piece is huge.

John Dehlin [00:48:15] It is more work. You know, it's easier to say everyone's going hiking. And we did that for a while. But it builds resentment over time. And. And they just like, they got to hate Sundays.

Margi Dehlin [00:48:25] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:48:26] It's like Sundays are like, we. We just do whatever you want us to do. And it's not restful and it's not enjoyable. And it was just building resentment.

Rethinking Family Boundaries and Belonging

Margi Dehlin [00:48:34] And I think our default, if. If we can just be candid, was a bit enmeshed. It was kind of like, but this is what we do and we do it together, you know, and here's like the play by play of what the new Sunday looks like, or this is what Christmas Day is gonna. And it's just like togetherness, just like. It just wasn't natural. So for us really creating space to have people have their own space, you know. You know, another child was like, I just don't want to be family like the entire day. I want to relax on my own and I want to, you know. But honestly, we come by these defaults from our own upbringing and we bring them to the table and we can know all of this. But again, if we're tired or if we're. We get afraid it's going to come up and our default, automatically we will go back to the default and not to the. And so having this sort of sense of grace for ourselves and knowing conscious parenting can start with a lot of bad moves. And you know what? You can regain it. That happens to me all the time where I may have a reaction, then I realize I've had a reaction and I loop around back to a conscious parenting principle. So don't get stuck in the binary of like, I'm all in or I'm, you know, in trouble.

John Dehlin [00:49:55] We only have five minutes left. So, you know, okay. Whether it's a kid choosing to have tattoos or a kid choosing not to do college or to have a job, that's an alternative thing. We've had to be more flexible about what success is, and it's very hard to accept these sorts of things. But as we are allowing our. One of our children to not go to college, but to Start their own business.

Margi Dehlin [00:50:23] Not allowing.

John Dehlin [00:50:23] But yeah, accepting. I don't mean or accepting as we're accepting a child's decision to drop out of college but start their own business. We're seeing them flourish. And I can tell you, as a therapist, the worst thing you can do is have your kid be in college when they don't want to be and they flunk out and they get depressed and they become suicidal because they don't want to be there, but they feel forced to be there. And then it's miserable for them and it's, you know, so we're learning all sorts of things as we allow our kids to differentiate. And we're seeing them flourish in ways we wouldn't have expected.

Margi Dehlin [00:50:59] Okay, so we're almost kind of there. So moving from consequences or punishment to enlightened boundaries. Right. So we come from this idea, you know, even with consequences, they tend to be highly reactive in nature. And that's how we get into like, you know, you're rude. I get your phone, Give me your phone. Or right. Not really connected.

John Dehlin [00:51:22] You're grounded.

Margi Dehlin [00:51:23] It comes to us all of a, you're not going to the party. And then I don't know if you have had this experience, but I've had experiences where I'm like, oh, man, I said that. Like, I did not mean that. And now actually. So they're highly reactive in nature. And when you move to enlightened boundary, an enlightened boundary, the energy is grounded. It's not triggered, so it's not reactive. You honestly are looking at the situation and you're having a conversation with the child, and it's ground grounded in reality. So.

John Dehlin [00:51:55] Which sometimes can be taking time to cool down and waiting to discuss consequences or boundaries when you're not in your fight or flight brain.

Margi Dehlin [00:52:05] Yeah. So remember how I was talking about the boundary in marriage? Boundarying yourself? This happens with kids, too. So if you find that you're really upset at your child and you're being reactive, one thing that is a great tool to do is just to see say same thing. You know what? I'm going to just pause for a second. I can tell that I'm getting upset and I'm just going to take a moment because I love you and I really care about this. And I'm just going to circle back in maybe 20 minutes or an hour or an hour and. And we can talk about this later. It is a great tool. A great, great, great tool. Anyway, with the consequences that we come up because they're reactive. They're Highly in the moment. They tend to tend to not relate to the behavior. Whereas an enlightened boundary is behavior focused. So whatever you come up with as a boundary, it is going to be related to the thing that you're having an issue with. You know, rules or the consequences. They have less a regard for the inner experience of the child. They tend to be more parent focused. Actually, this works for me. This is easier for me. You know, it's more stressful to have everyone kind of doing different things. Whereas an enlightened boundary really can hold the child's experience, it holds the child's personality and even the child's preferences. Right. So a consequence often comes as a result of rules. Yeah. That are convenient for the parent. Well, as the other one, it comes from the child's basic needs. So we kind of talked about things like safety. It can be like a respect for kind of home or environment or. But it comes from sort of basic needs. And then lastly, I would say we've got kind of communication tends to be one sided. And when you do enlighten boundaries, there's a lot of communication. It's like the difference between, you know, if you have a late child, you're saying, I'm experiencing this every morning. This is my experience of you.

Guest 5 [00:54:06] Right.

Margi Dehlin [00:54:07] Because you're late, it's stressful. It feels like things are pushed to the last minute. What do you think? How can we work on this thing and having a dead stop and really meaning it? So that's kind of the basic difference

John Dehlin [00:54:20] we've explored having our kids set their own consequences. So instead of us imposing some unrelated arbitrary consequence that just makes them more mad, exploring the idea of them. Okay, next time you're late for school, next time you are doing X, Y and Z. That we agree based on our values, your values, and mine isn't healthy or safe for you. What's a consequence that you think is realistic? And then they came up with their own consequence. And again, it's important if you can to root this, Camille, this conversation about boundaries and consequences with their own values. So if you could start with the conversation about safety. Do you value your own safety? Are you unsafe? You know, out late, after midnight? What are the potential risks? Do you value your own safety? Do you agree that safety is a concern? Okay, then when we have a curfew, it's, it's regarding your own safety. Now what consequence can we have? Because you value your safety, I value your safety. And if you can get buy in on a values based conversation, sometimes it gives you a Little more success.

Setting Enlightened Boundaries with Your Children

Margi Dehlin [00:55:26] You can also, though, share your feelings. It's a good thing. They're going to share their feelings and you're going to hold their. You can share your feelings. Here's how I feel. Kind of past midnight when you're late. I have this experience when you're late. And by the way, enlightened boundaries, It's. It's. If I had to say, what is the most important thing, it's emotional connection. It's that you. The way you hold it is connected. Do you get that? So instead of there's a. There's a punitive effect to sort of a rule and. And there's a disconnect that happens. But emotion. But enlightened boundaries are very much like, you're very emotionally connected and you can hold it. And it doesn't mean, even if you choose to, like, decide to change a rule after something that you've heard or even if you decide if you decided to do nothing different, the experience of them being able to communicate why they're late or why they don't like their curfew and you validating that. I understand why that would be hard to leave your friends when it's super, you know, later, or when they're really having a great time. That act of validating, that act of being. Having it held right, and you sharing and then saying, I'll think about it. And even if you don't change anything, it is completely different. Completely different than 1202. Give me the phone. Sorry, you're out.

Guest 2 [00:56:49] Right.

John Dehlin [00:56:49] But also, it's very powerful to change. You know, we once had a kid say, mom, okay, I have a curfew at midnight, but that's arbitrary. I'm at a friend's home. Their parents are there. We're watching a movie. Everybody's safe. We're having a blast. Do I have to obey an arbitrary curfew when I'm safe and having fun? Why can't I stay out till one or two under those circumstances? And we're just like, wow, yeah, actually, why not? Why not have a really good time? And why enforce an arbitrary curfew when in this instance, it's really safe and fun?

Margi Dehlin [00:57:26] And the beauty is, you'll get to know your kids. Like, you'll go in thinking a situation, you've got it. And then. And through talking to them, you'll be like, I really understand how you're feeling, and I kind of think differently about it. Give me a minute to figure out kind of what I want to do.

John Dehlin [00:57:41] Let's go ahead and end with embodiment.

Margi Dehlin [00:57:44] Yeah. Embodiment is one of my favorite principles. And the idea of it's actually the most important. Yeah. So it's. I guess we could just say we're ending on this. Yeah, that it is. Basically, you do not ask from your

Guest 3 [00:57:58] children

Margi Dehlin [00:58:01] to do things you yourself are having trouble doing. Right. So if you're doing the behavior, what I suggest is for at least a couple weeks, you check your own behavior. If you're having phone use issues with your teens, maybe for a couple weeks, practice your own kind of awareness around phone use. And then when you go to them, you'll have this perspective of, I get it, like, I have issues with my phone, sometimes I have a hard time putting it down. But you come from a place of understanding and kind of, we're in it together. But you always start with embodiment. What is my relationship with this thing? What am. What is. What am I showing to them? What is their environment around this thing?

Guest 3 [00:58:44] Right.

Margi Dehlin [00:58:45] Because what you don't want and what kids pick up real quick is hypocrisy and duality. And, you know, as part of our growth, we want to be the thing. Right. Don't we? That we're asking. We want to have the insight as to what that takes, and that's the hardest.

John Dehlin [00:59:01] But the most powerful part of conscious parenting is so much of it points back to you. The energy you bring to your relationship with your kid is often the reason why it's dysfunctional. So if you could do the internal work to be less triggered, to bring a better energy to your interactions with them, that solves the problem. But it begins with you. Or if you're having a hard time controlling your emotions, or you're disrespectful in your communications, or you're always on social media, and then you're expecting them to control their emotions and to communicate respectfully and to never be on social media, you're sunk. It's this do as I say, not as I do paradigm that just is rotten to the core. So the most frustrating part about conscious parenting is most of the problems you're having with your kid are yours. They're you. And so it requires you. But the opportunity is. It's an invitation to do the spiritual work to heal or the emotional work to heal, and then magically you become a better parent because you're not causing the problem that you're having with your kid.

Guest 3 [01:00:20] Bam.

John Dehlin [01:00:20] Is that it?

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