scott noelle transcript

Copyright © 2011 Om Freely Presents. All rights reserved.

Interview with Scott Noelle October 11, 2011

One Big Happy Family: Four Powerful Secrets

to Creating a Joy-Filled Home

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Jacqueline: Hello, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. I‟m Jacqueline Green and I‟m the host of The Great Parenting Show. Now is our fourth week of a twelve-week program. What I would like you to do if you haven‟t already done so already is to submit your questions to our incredible guest today, Scott Noelle. So go to www.greatparentingshow.com/live. You will find the question and answer box there in the middle of the page and Scott‟s topic today is One Big Happy Family: Four Powerful Secrets to Creating a Joy-Filled Home. So submit your questions or your parenting situations that you would like some help from Scott on and I promise you he will shift your perspective if you‟re not already clear how to raise your children in a noncorrosive manner and how to enjoy parenting more. So again, that webpage is www.greatparentingshow.com/live.

So before we start I‟m going to emphasize once again that you are your child‟s expert

although I have chosen 24 top parenting educators as well as a few bonus speakers for their fantastic content. You will hear conflicting opinion and that‟s okay. Take what you like. Take what resonates with you and apply that to your family and leave the rest. We would also love it if you could help spread the word about these fantastic parenting interviews on the parenting show. We‟ve had over 10,000 parents sign up and we know that there are 10,000 more parents out there who really need the help from these wonderful experts. So please, you will see the Facebook application on the bottom of The Great Parenting Show live page. Enter your tips, share why your friends and family should join you and, of course, we will make the replay available of these interviews as we always do. Thank you very much for all the many of you that have already been sharing and posting to your friends.

I will have one other surprise. We will have a bonus question and answer session again

booked. Many of you have written in or put on the Facebook application or the Great Parenting Facebook page how much you wanted Shelly Lefkoe to come back, so she is actually coming back tomorrow morning same time as usual, 9am PST. You will get an email with details. As usual it will be on this live event page.

So now I have the fantastic pleasure of introducing our guest today, Scott Noelle, and

as I mentioned his topic is One Big Happy Family: Four Powerful Secrets to Creating a Joy-Filled Home. Scott believes children are innately good and that responsive, natural, creative parenting is the best way to foster their goodness. This approach is at the heart of his book The Daily Groove: How to Enjoy Parenting Unconditionally. As an author, speaker, and a life coach he supports leading edge parents who are making the shift from the old paradigm of control and coercion to the new paradigm of creative partnership between parent and children. He lives in Portland Oregon with his partner Beth Noelle and their children, ages 12 and 14.

I have been very impressed at his unique approach and I wanted to share testimony

from one of his students to start off. [PH] Tamila from Connecticut says, “The change is amazing. My daughter is now joyful and pleasant again. Her meanness is gone, so thank you, really!” I will share a couple other testimonies throughout because it really is powerful hearing the experience the people who work with Scott have had. So without further ado it is my great honor, Scott, to welcome you to The Great Parenting Show.

http://www.greatparentingshow.com/live


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Scott: Hey, Jacqueline. How are you doing? Jacqueline: Fantastic, Scott and I‟m delighted. I have thoroughly enjoyed every moment of

investigating your work further and as I‟ve said to everyone listening you will have a perspective shift if you‟re not already in that place of loving parenting and finding it easy to be noncorrosive. I‟m delighted to dive into our topic, but first I want to start with asking you, Scott, the question I‟m asking all of my educators. What do you think is the number one problem facing parents today?

Scott: I‟ve heard you asking that of the other speakers and I‟ve been thinking about it. I

thought I had it, but then I had a second idea and they came up as a tie because there are a lot of challenges that we face.

I think the first one is isolation because we live in a society where there is just so much

disconnection and there is so many people running around, but not really being present with each other. One of the biggest struggles that I hear about in my work is people saying, “If only I had more support. If only I had a more supportive community and everybody is looking for their tribe.” So that‟s one of the things in my work that I do focus on is how do you connect not only with your children, but also with other people for support.

The second thing is actually related and that has to do with personal power or

empowerment. I just think there is sort of an epidemic of people feeling powerless, people feeling like their caught up in the stream of technology, all the chaos and all the other problems that they face. They just feel like they can‟t do anything about it. So that‟s the other major focus of my work is to how to help people feel empowered especially as parents.

Jacqueline: I know that‟s something I will circle back to because that powerlessness fuels a lot of

the more traditional control based parenting, as well. Just before we get into that, though, what got you started as a parenting educator in the first place?

Scott: I‟ve been asked that a few times and every time I go back a little further because I think

I started about the age of three. In other words, I was sort of a weird kid and where the other kids were playing, I was a little philosopher and I was always looking at things and questioning things. In particular, I was lucky that my parents were pretty gentle so whenever I saw my friends‟ parents who were more authoritarian, I questioned it. Actually, it really frightened me and I think that fear and the contrast between what I was experiencing and what other kids were experiencing really planted the seed for me to have this desire to help all people and all children to be able to grow up without really being in fear of their own parents. That‟s where is started at age three and I could tell you stories, but we probably don‟t want to take time doing that.

It really came around when I started parenting myself and I realized I had a lot of

confusion about what to do. So I just got busy and started studying everything I could about nurturing. In particular, I wanted to do things naturally. I‟m very keen on the idea of understanding human nature and aligning with it rather than what seems to be more conventional approaches. They seem to oppose our innate characteristics. It was

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actually a book called The Continuum Concept that really lit me up when I discovered it. Both my wife and I got very excited about a resource that gave us a new perspective on how human nature really works and how we can work with it rather than against it. So that‟s how it all started. I just started as a learner.

Jacqueline: Well, the best teachers are great learners. Scott: And true participation and support groups. I just got to be more knowledgeable and I‟ve

always been a natural teacher type so people started asking me if I‟d support them. That‟s really how it happened. I didn‟t really set out to become a parenting coach. I actually was a music coach and so I had a lot of experience working one-on-one with singers. If you know any singers they tend to have a lot of problems and drama, so I ended up being a life coach to them, as well. That‟s really how I got my feet wet in the world of coaching and I just began applying that in the parents that I was supporting and pretty soon I say, “Oh, I‟m a parenting coach.” So it wasn‟t really something that I set out to become it just sort of found me.

Jacqueline: I can see a parallel between more dramatic music types and children because children

are often more in touch and have stayed in touch and drama people have stayed in touch with music people with that are more creative and more expressive. So I can see the connection there. You‟ve described a little about your parenting approach as an educator. Would you like to talk a little bit more about what is unique about your approach?

Scott: Well, I‟ve begun to call my approach PATH parenting and the PATH is actually an

acronym, P-A-T-H. Let me give you my elevator speech because I‟ve just finally defined this and I love it when I can take a big idea and put it in one short paragraph. PATH parenting is a natural, creative, compassionate parenting style that empowers children and parents to enjoy living, loving, and learning together in harmony. It makes the adversarial methods of traditional parenting obsolete by focusing on four positive pathways to power: partnership, authenticity, trust, and heart. That, of course, is what spells the word path.

Scott: That really sums it up in a nutshell. Are we done? Jacqueline: Well, yeah, except now I‟m wanting to dive in and talk because I love that you have an

acronym because that makes it easier to remember, but can we start by talking about path and what does each one of those mean more.

Scott: Sure. Let‟s start with partnership and, by the way, these are the four secrets that I was

talking about. It‟s not only a concept of principal, but I‟ve also created some tools for each one of these pathways to power and we will go into that with the examples working with the people on the call here. Let‟s start with partnership, though. Partnership is a pathway to power through connection. It‟s a pathway to power through connection. Basically, a healthy partnership is a mutually empowering relationship that grows stronger through empathy and creativity. When people feel connected to each other, basically, more power to one is more power to all. The more you give the more you have, it‟s like a win-win game. A partnership-oriented parent doesn‟t seek power over

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their children because they enjoy being powerful with their children. Does that make sense?

Jacqueline: Absolutely and I like that model because getting back to when you talked at the

beginning, one of big issues is powerlessness. I know that resonates with many of listeners because parents nowadays do feel completely out of control with being overwhelmed of their busy lives. All the new issues that they‟re having to face and I think that can lead a lot of parents into staying stuck in that more control-oriented parenting style and yet power with our children, I‟m sure, resonates with everyone listening. So you‟re saying that the P stands for partnership.

Scott: Yes and you‟re absolutely right. People often not only feel powerless, but they will feel

powerless about how to relate to their children. In other words, they feel pressure. They feel like they have to dominate their children and they don‟t necessarily know because we just haven‟t been given good models that you don‟t have to control your children when you can partner with your child. Partnering doesn‟t mean that you aren‟t the leader and in fact, leadership is a form of partnership. When parents get wind of this idea they often feel a huge relief because they really didn‟t want to be their child‟s enemy. They want to be on the same side.

Jacqueline: I‟m going to remind people. By all means, submit your examples especially if you‟re

listening thinking it sounds great in theory, but what about this situation. You can go to www.greatparentingshow.com/live and submit your examples of the situation that you would like Scott to look at. So that is the P of path. What is the A again?

Scott: The A is for authenticity. Authenticity is a pathway to power through alignment. It‟s the

quality of being true to yourself, emotionally honest, aligned with your innermost being. As a child, for a lot of us our elders resisted our authenticity. If we were authentic we were upset, or loud, or spirited, or whatever. Often we were told to sit down and shut up. We learned to create a false-self that is “acceptable” to society and then as an adult that false-self undermines our efforts to create healthy partnerships with our children and with our family and friends, too. A lot of the drama we have is because of the way act or think or talk is really not aligned with our true selves because we sort of have been just conditioned to present ourselves in a way that‟s not really authentic.

Jacqueline: I think that‟s a huge issue because so many adults spend a lot of time wanting to

connect with who they are and as you said find that true self again. Again, the idea of raising our children so they don‟t have to go through that battle I think will be something that many people will relate to. So far you‟ve covered partnership, authenticity…

Scott: The thing about authenticity also is that this is not about being a particular way, but it‟s

about how you show up with your child. It really has a big impact on your relationship because children can really smell authenticity. When we aren‟t in alignment or we think one thing, but say another or we feel one thing and we do another, the kids can sense that and it makes them more challenging, really, but when we get into alignment; when our thoughts and our deeds are all lined up with our innermost truths and our deepest values then children can feel that, too. They tend to be more cooperative and more respectful whenever they are around an adult who is aligned in that way.


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Jacqueline: I‟m moving along quickly because we‟ve got so many questions coming in and I want to

get to some of the practical applications. Again we have partnership, authenticity. So trust, that‟s your third one. Do you want to say a little bit more about trust?

Scott: T is for trust and trust is a pathway to power through clarity. In other words, when you

have a clear understanding of human nature, for example, then you trust the children‟s behavior is ultimately an expression of their innate goodness and I will have to give examples of that later on because it‟s not obvious. When you have clarity about your own emotions and what they mean then you can trust them to connect you with your inner guidance instead of just feeling pushed around or doing things that aren‟t really in integrity for you. That creates a sense of trust and inner-peace, as well.

Also, when you‟re clear, this is more kind of very big picture, but when you have clarify

that the universe is benevolent then that‟s really when you can let down your defenses and just trust life. When you see parents that just seem to have that groove that I talk about in the Daily Groove they just sort of go with the flow and feel good a lot of the time and everyone has stress, but when parents have that easygoing quality it‟s usually because they‟ve cultivated that kind of trust. It‟s not about who makes an agreement or follows rules. That‟s not the kind of trust I am talking about. I‟m talking about this deeper trust that I trust life. I trust how I feel and I trust that human nature is inherently good.

Jacqueline: That will be interesting to hear people's reactions to that because I know I have shifted

to a place of much more. I've also framed it as much more optimistic and much less pessimistic, but I'm very curious and I'd love to hear everyone listening, where do you feel on that because I think that that's something that a lot of parents do struggle with and that does lead to a lot of helicoptering and a lot of behaviors that are actually counter-productive, as well. So not all arguing with your saying that trust is important, I'm just very curious what people's reactions are as they listen to that.

Scott: I'll tell you what is a common misunderstanding, that when we talk about inherent

goodness, it doesn't mean that it's not the same thing as obedient, it's not the same thing as children just always doing what society expects of them because a lot of the things we expect of children are really in opposition to their nature. For example, a lot of kids just don't do well at all if they have to sit and be quiet in the classroom all day. That would be one example of if a child is fighting. There's goodness in that. You see what I'm saying?

Jacqueline: Absolutely and… Scott: Because that child is expressing her nature and, yeah, maybe the teacher doesn't like it.

Maybe it's disruptive to the classroom, but it's not a bad child. It's a child who is natural. Jacqueline: Yes, I know that part of your…we talked about this in the introduction is that focus. I

know what we focus on really shifts things energetically and focus very much on kids being innately good and that fits into the trust, as well. Again, though, just to wrap up on the path and your overall approach, what is the H? What does that stand for?

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Scott: H is for heart and the heart is the pathway to power through unconditional love. When you value the intelligence of your heart you open a door to an abundance of wisdom and creative possibilities. These would otherwise go unnoticed by your rational mind alone. Your heart is also a source of courage, especially the courage to love even when you‟re bombarded with good reasons not to love. Loving unconditionally is not something you do because it's nice or because you should. It's really a bold act of reclaiming the power that's rightfully yours. It's the power to choose love for no reason at all.

Jacqueline: Again, that's a real strong shift. I would like to get into anger and maybe we'll jump right

into it. Now, we just had a question come in a couple of minutes ago from Amy in North Carolina and I know that I love your approach to dealing with situations with your kids when you‟re angry. She says, “My husband and I both struggle with anger issues and while we try to remain calm with our kids during the chaos, we both tend to suddenly explode. I've worked very hard over the past year reading many books, blogs, etc. on parenting. Many of which share similar philosophies to you and other Great Parenting Show speakers and I have been able to shift some of my bad habits. However, I find that that I can identify them in my husband immediately and then I find myself interfering and undermining him simply because…” she says undermining with a question mark…“him simply because I happen to be in a calmer state.” She goes on to describe a little bit more, but I'd like to have you – she has two questions – I'd like you to talk about the overall approach to dealing with situations with kids that tend to get parents angry and then maybe we can circle back to her side question of, “Is it best for me to stay out of conflicts between my husband and my kids?”

Scott: Okay, I'm sorry. What was the first question? Jacqueline: How about start with and then I'll ask you the second one, but if you'll start with just

explaining the role of anger in your approach because you have such a fantastic approach and refreshing approach for what a parent can do and when that angry thought comes into their head, how to break that cycle. I thought of it when you talked about the heart and how to connect from a heart-centered place to our child and then shift our parenting.

Scott: Right, right. Well, I have a unique perspective in that I think anger is a good thing. I'm

really kind of relentless about seeing the positive aspect of things. Anger – the reason anger is good is because it makes sense when you understand the sort of the root phenomenon of why we even have that kind of reaction. I always use the analogy of looking at a like when you take a wild animal and you rope them or you put them in a cage and how they just sort of freak out and get all this steam coming out of their nostrils and pacing back and forth like they‟re really mad. They've gone mad, but they‟re really angry.

If you could assign emotion to it you would say that animal is angry. The reason it's

angry is because it knows it's supposed to be free and it's knows it supposed to be empowered and have freedom. When you take away the freedom of any animal anger is a natural response because that energy of anger, it's there to energize you toward freedom. For example, if you got stuck in a bramble or something then that energy is

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what you might need to get yourself unstuck. In humans, of course, it's more complex, but it's really the same kind of phenomenon at the root.

The question to ask yourself when you‟re angry is in what way do I feel constrained,

restricted, or that my freedom has been undermined in some way? Ask yourself how do I feel not free? The answer to that question, of course, is many different answers to that question because there's so many ways in modern society that…so many rules and restrictions and obligations and duties and all these pressures on us that make us feel like we're a caged animal. That anger that arises, I think it's there to serve a very good purpose, which is to activate you toward your freedom. Perhaps we could use a specific example to talk about how that would arise and how you might deal with it in a positive way.

Jacqueline: Sure. Okay and then I will circle back. Well, how about while we're on Amy from North

Carolina. I'll give a specific example and you can talk more about in a second, but when she says, “Is it best for me to stay out of the conflicts between my husband and my kids?” So she's watching his anger and she says, “Each time he comes down on my daughter, I catastrophize the situation and doom her in my head to bad boyfriends, etc. just because my husband just exploded, even though I have done the same thing many times.” What do you recommend she does in that situation?

Scott: Before I answer that I want to just backup and say what I just did in my explanation of

anger. My rethinking of it, that's an example of using trust. In other words, the power of trust comes through clarity, so when you get clear about the deeper nature of things then all of a sudden you can trust that anger. There's something about that you can trust. I can trust that it's there to serve me. I don't have to use it destructively. I can use it constructively. That's just one example of using one of these four power moves.

Jacqueline: I just wanted to say that‟s very, very powerful and I do absolutely agree from my own

personal experiences of a mom with many anger issues, it's a powerful motivator to change which it is meant to I believe alert us to that, but yeah, it is a great question when Amy asked about what to do with her husband and his conflicts when he's not managing his anger potentially as well as he could be.

Scott: This, again, this is also a trust issue. In other words, if she feels like she has to interfere

or to meddle then it's possible that maybe she doesn't necessarily understand what's going on or doesn't have clarity. Often what gets in the way of clarity is sort of baggage from the past. For example, if she had a father who was mean to her or her siblings, then that…then anything even remotely resembling that in her husband would tend to trigger that pain. That might get in the way it might cause her to overreact, for example, when in fact, maybe her husband and their child are working it out. I'm not suggesting that you would always be passive and not do anything, but you do need to ask the questions.

Am I seeing this clearly and am I missing something about the good nature that

underlies this phenomenon? Also, that clarity also gives you insight about how to help solve, how to help solve this sort of issue. Maybe you, for example, Amy would notice that there's something else going on with her husband. Maybe he feels a lack of his own

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freedom. Maybe he feels too much pressure on him, but whatever it is then she can start to have compassion and move into partnership with him, make a connection. For example, talking to him and say, “Hey, have you had a hard day at work? Do you feel like things are piling up on you? I'm wondering if that‟s affecting your ability to stay calm with our child.” You see what I'm saying? That's a partnership move and a trust move through clarity.

Jacqueline: Your tone is very clear that you‟re not asking from a judgmental place of „you have to

change‟ either. Scott: Right and again that's in partnership. One of the main characteristics of partnership is

the sense that we're all on the same side. We're partners. We're not on opposite teams here. We're in it together and whatever I point out is to serve the partnership. It's not for me to put myself one up over you and put you one down.

Jacqueline: Okay, here for a specific example, Jan from Mission Viejo says that her daughter Kelly

is 12. “She has never questioned our authority before this year.” I have a 12 and a 14 year-old, so I can understand where she's coming from. “It seems that we cannot tell her what to do anymore without her getting defensive. She is challenging us now more than helping us. We've two other daughters ages nine and seven, and she is important to our family as a role model. I try not to raise my voice, to stay calm, and to remain scream-free, but have difficulty when she talks back. Any strategies to work around this would be appreciated.” I'm picturing the situation, her saying to her daughter do whatever and her daughter is saying no and certainly when she's saying, “I‟m battling to stay scream free,” her having anger pop into her head. What would you recommend Jan does in that exact situation?

Scott: Any one of these four moves can be effective, so I'm just going to sort of pick the one

that we haven't really worked with yet, which is authenticity. Again, authenticity is a pathway to power through alignment. The way you know you need to work on authenticity is that you feel a kind of inner conflict. Like a part of me wants this and a part of me wants that and I feel like I'm being tugged in opposite directions. That would be an example of being out of alignment and that makes it very difficult to show up in an authentic way. It tends to bring up all this other baggage.

Moving into alignment is an inner process. You don't have to do anything to you child in

order to make that move from misalignment to alignment and, therefore, into authenticity. The move is made by often just by stopping and pausing and sometimes you might even just, instead of reacting, to just stop and do nothing. Often if you do that your child will be confused because they‟re sort of used to you fighting them. They‟re used to getting into a brawl with you if you have that pattern going on, so they'll kind of cock their head like a puppy dog and say, “What's going on?”

And then you can say, “Well, I'm getting into alignment,” and they won't know what that

means at first, but eventually, especially as you cultivate some good tools for inner alignment what happen is that as soon as you reengage with your daughter that connection is going to be much more of a partnership connection because you'll have the inner alignment, you'll be sort of aligned with your values that's the desire you have

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to really make things work in partnership. Does that make sense? Jacqueline: It does and so you‟re saying part of the beauty of the PATH program is you can

approach. You can look at it from as a partnership. You can look at the authenticity and how to be authentic and aligned in that moment or trust or your heart. You can approach it from various ways.

Scott: There is certainly a lot of crossover. For example, one of the things that happens when

you get into alignment is that you align with your heart‟s desires. It really activates your heart and makes it easy, much easier, for you to show up in an unconditionally loving way.

Jacqueline: I love something that you said in one of your articles as an example of the heart

connection. You gave an example of an inner dialogue you could have where you say, “I‟m sick and tired of bleeding. The child's behavior can shut down my heart.” You go on and you say, “My heart and the infinite love that fills it are so huge that nothing can stop them, nothing but my belief that I'm not buying anymore. I am powerful. I can choose what I focus on and I'm determined to choose thoughts that open my heart.”

I love the idea of having a mantra like that to say in the middle of the situation, so that

as a parent you can both be looking at your child and feeling that anger, but targeting it and I also love how you talk about using our anger to say, “Okay, what belief is it I need to examine in this situation and turning the anger on the belief instead of on our child?” Those are a couple other ways of approaching anger that you've also shared.

I'd love people to give us feedback on whether or not that fully answered your

questions, Jan and Amy. Amy, I know you already entered in and said, “Yes, I see myself in my daughter and my dad in my husband.” Fantastic, Scott. Obviously, you‟ve given her a great feedback there. Is there anything else you wanted to add?

Scott: Yeah. The thing that you were reading was from something I wrote about how to

transform anger, if I recall correctly. Jacqueline: Yes, absolutely and very powerful. I posted it on my page. Scott: Oh, good. What really makes it magical and what makes anger into a positive force is

when you transform it into determination and that's what that quote, that sort of mantra that you‟re quoting is, just sort of an example of that kind of determination. In other words, anger and determination are very similar, but anger – the way we usually think of it – is sort of anger against something whereas determination is that same energy of anger, but it's pointed towards something positive. I'm determined to find my way. I'm determined to open my heart. I'm determined to end this pattern. Anger – in that sense – if you take that energy, if you‟re not resisting the anger, you can take it and funnel it into these positive intentions and it can really be effective.

Jacqueline: That PATH analogy that you‟re teaching, that anger and finding a path toward

determination and change.

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Scott: There you go. Jacqueline: I think anger is such a huge topic and one that so many parents have so much shame

over and certainly we see many times…I certainly see people out in public and blowing up at their kids and it's a very destructive force, that way that many people apply it. I really appreciate you talking more about it because you have a very refreshing approach. I want to move on to a question from Rachel in Czechoslovakia asks, “Is it possible to raise a boy and a girl as a single mom and give them the balance and the love they need or is it inevitable that you will fail on many counts simply because of absence of the man?” I know at the beginning you talked about isolation and that in your work you help parents see how to build a community. It seems that this would be the perfect time to talk about that.

Scott: Yeah, well, I kind of chuckled a little bit when I heard you read about this „will I fail‟

because I can always answer that with a resounding yes. There's all kinds of failure that's sort of par for the course, but not failure in the sense of all is lost or all is hopeless, but it's just the nature of the path is that occasionally you hit a rough spot and you stumble. I don't even look at failure as a bad thing. When I slip and I yell at my kids or I let the stress get to me and then I forget to keep my heart open to my child or whatever, then it's like, “Wow, that really sucked.”

But I can accept it, so I don't have to beat myself up about it. I can go right into “Alright,

now I know what I don't want. Now, let's move toward what I do want.” That practice of self-acceptance is really important. Let me get back on to the question, which is an unusual one, one that I don't get that often. I just want to say that the premise of the question is a little bit askew in that it sort of presumes that it's natural for a child to grow up in a household with one adult male and one adult female. That's not really natural at all.

What's natural if you look at the history of the human species from most of our history,

what we kind of had was a kind of a tribal, you know, where everyone was as close…everyone in the village was a close to each other as we would normally think of as how we're close to our own parents like that was just the norm. It's not like the way we think of a village or neighbors that we kind of know and we kind of get along, but we don't really trust them that much. This is people that you've grown up with your whole life and you know them as well as you know your immediate family.

In fact, in many cultures they don't necessarily have a father who is the biological father.

They may just have other male role models that are just sort of part of a child's life. You don't specifically need a father. In fact, you don't even need a specific mother. One of my favorite people, her name is [PH] Sobonfu Some and she…if you go to sobonfu.com you'll see it's a beautiful picture of her. She's an African woman from West Africa and her people…right on her front page it says, “I was 6 years-old before I realized I only had one mother. That's how profoundly close these people are. Just to sort of clarify the premise and again, this comes down to being able to trust human nature, is to see clarity about what's really natural. When you understand that then you can say, “Okay, I don't necessarily need any particular people with any particular role because children have a way of finding them.”

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As long as you have a variety of people in your life then your children are going to find

the role models. It's not necessarily just like a father role or a mother role, but there is, maybe there is, for example, a man who's more adventurous and then there's another man who's more intellectual. They could both be role models to that child whereas if you only had one role model, which is your father, you might get one or the other, but not all of that richness. My basic approach is to say that more is better, more connection is better, more variety is better. Children are so authentic that they just glop onto the person whose influence they need. If they've been really shy, they'll glop onto someone whose more of an adventurer because they need that influence. Does that make sense?

Jacqueline: It does and my question then, though, is how would this help Rachel in Czechoslovakia

and all these other people figure out how to create more of a community, more of a tribe?

Scott: I would have them work on these PATH skills, really, because especially partnership,

which is it's not just a specific relationship, but it's an attitude about how we connect with each other. We have in our society, especially in America. It's very sort of individualistic. It's too far in that direction. We tend to feel we don't even feel good about going to the next door neighbor and asking if we can borrow something. Well, I'll just go buy my own.

Everyone‟s keeping to themselves and missing out on these opportunities to connect

and to become more interdependent, more communitarian, and to build stronger partnerships. I would just say for her to really focus on that attitude of partnership, which is noticing the ways in which we tend to think in terms of either/or – either it's mine or it's yours. What if maybe it could be ours? Maybe it doesn't have to be exclusive. Look for ways that you‟re exclusive and question those ways. Could we be connecting instead of competing, for example?

Jacqueline: Okay, excellent. Scott: It's not a very…it's not a precise practical thing, but I mean I could give advice like go

out and look for support groups, but it's really…I've seen people who go from one support group to another and they never connect. It's because they haven't made that internal shift to say, “I'm ready to be about partnership. I'm ready to let go of my defenses. I'm ready to stop trying to do it all myself. I'm ready to be vulnerable with another human being.” That willingness to be vulnerable is necessary in order to make the kind of connections that give you a life that feels like more like partnership and less like people vying for control.

Jacqueline: Again, it's a perspective shift that once we have more of a partnership model in our

head you‟re saying we'll find the community and all the different people out there who are needing more community can find it or figure out their own ways to more of a tribal community once they make that shift.

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Scott: Yes, partnership really just gets you going really because what makes a community really thrive and feel wonderful is not only that you can connect with each other, but you can be more authentic with each other. You can align with each other's values, you can accept each other, you can love each other unconditionally and you can build a deep kind of trust through a clear understanding of each other's needs. All of those, all four of these power moves, are they factor into community. It's a very worthwhile endeavor. I hope she goes for it because the payoff is really sweet when you make those connections and you start to feel like you can breathe because you‟re not carrying the whole world on your shoulders, but you've got someone who‟s watching your back.

Jacqueline: Okay, I'm going to shift gears because we've just had a question come in about chores.

I know that's a huge issue for many parents and I think another tangible example where you can really apply your unique approach. Someone who‟s anonymous says, “Thanks, Scott, for your daily group emails, that help me tremendously, that parenting in a more groovy way, and led me to find the show.” Then she says her second child is very playful, her natural self loves games, teasing, is funny, so she keeps doing it. “She doesn't like to do chores and recently when we ask her to do something, she starts parroting us. Having her assist with chores is challenging and I'm wondering how do we partner with her versus getting negative and attack her character?”

Scott: That's a great question. Did she say how old the child is? Jacqueline: No. Scott: The approach is different depending on the age of the child. Sometimes even a

teenager you kind of have to do the same thing that you would do with a toddler or a younger child. You just do it in a slightly more sophisticated way. Basically, how to partner with your child, first thing you have to do is let go of the idea that you‟re their boss and they‟re your employee, which is kind of, you know, chores is kind of like a job. I don't even really like to use the word chores because it has so much baggage on it. The fact is there are things around the house that collectively as a family we need them to be done in order for the household to function. That might mean mowing the lawn or doing the dishes or the laundry or whatever. You can call those chores, but I would just rather call it say maintenance or just the stuff that we do that makes our family work well.

Jacqueline: Just to interrupt quickly, she did add that her daughter is five years-old, but it's great if

you can… Scott: Okay, okay… Jacqueline: Refinement for the teenagers and also the 5 year-old answer, that'd be great. Scott: Okay. We have a 5 year-old girl and she's playful. I love that she appreciates her

daughter's playfulness. I think one of the things a playful child will do especially if they have parents who are avoiding the kind of fear-based parenting where it gives the child…it emboldens the child to be more authentic whereas if the mother were more punitive then the children would sort of suppress that kind mischievous playfulness.

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When children are mischievous, a lot of time what they‟re really trying to do is be our teachers. They‟re trying to teach us to not take ourselves so seriously and to not take work so seriously. I would encourage…I'm sorry, I didn't get her name.

Jacqueline: No, there's no name. Scott: Okay, I would encourage my friend, Anonymous, who loves the daily group. I would

encourage her to take her child's cue and approach the whole thing in a playful way because you might as well have fun while you‟re making your life work, while you‟re doing the maintenance that's necessary for life to work. The first thing you want to do is show your child that you can have fun taking care of the maintenance of life. Maybe, let's say, it's doing laundry or tidying up the living room. Turn on your favorite music and boogie around the house while you‟re doing it. Have a blast so that you'll be modeling joy instead of drudgery for your child. She'll see it and even if she doesn‟t jump in with you immediately, she's going to register that, “Oh, taking care of life can be fun rather than a drag. It doesn't have to be a grind.”

That would be the first thing and then when you‟re having so much fun that she can't

stand not to participate, that's when you invite her to join you. It reminds me of something I used to do when my kids were small. If I wanted them to clean, instead of saying, “Hey, clean up the floor.” I would just grab her and say, “You‟re a vacuum cleaner,” and I would hold her sort of at an angle like a vacuum cleaner with her hands down by the floor and she be picking things up and I would carry her and she would put them in the box or whatever. We were having a grand old time cleaning up the space. Then the more you do that kind of thing the more that your child just becomes accustomed to the idea that it's okay to do work. It's not this terrible thing that we can't tolerate. It's just something that we do and we can do it joyfully or we can do it begrudgingly, but we might as well do it joyfully.

It's especially – here's the partnership part of it – you‟re not saying I'm going to make

you do it. You‟re saying, “I'm willing to do this and I know how to enjoy it and I think you could do this and enjoy it, too. Would you like to do it together?” In other words, lets partner with each other and get this work done. I didn't mean to literally say to ask the child would you like to. If you ask them they'll probably say no, but if you just say come on join me and you‟re having a good time, there's a good chance that she'll go along, especially if you‟re doing it playfully. I don't know if that's too many words to describe something so simple, but it really is just a matter of creating a pattern. You have to keep looking at the big picture and the big picture is, “Over time my child is going to understand that it's okay to clean up and it's fun to take care of our household.”

Jacqueline: How would you tender, well, I think that is a great approach and particularly in this case

this parent is in a great situation because her daughter is young and so she can shift patterns pretty quickly. How would you suggest doing that same type of approach with the teenager then, especially if there‟s a tradition of arguing over chores and not having them be a joyful experience.

Scott: Here's the interesting thing. If you spent your whole, the child's whole life, in resistance

with them, in other words, arguing over chores or be making subtle threats or sort of

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glaring at them if they didn't do it whether it's a blatant threat – you know you won't get these privileges – or whether it's a subtle threat – I won't approve of you – it still turns it all into a drag if that pattern has been established. The interesting thing is that lost opportunity is something that your teenager would really long for. In other words, it‟s the natural order of things is to have that early experience of being in partnership and if that was missing after you get through sort of the outer layers of resistance you‟re going to find that there is more than a little willingness on the part of the teenager to partner with you.

Especially if you‟re not attached to it, all children and especially teenagers they know

exactly what you‟re attached to. It's like you‟re giving your power away to that thing your attached to. If you feel like if they don't do it, it means something bad about me or about him or whatever, then they‟re not going to go for it. You really have to approach them from a detached place in the sense of „it‟s okay if you go along with me and it's okay if you don't go along with me‟ because I'm going to enjoy this work either way. Then you invite them in to your bubble of positivity. They might resist for a while. They might be sort of testing you – is this for real or is she just going to yell at me if I don't join in. They might test you a little bit and your challenge is to stay in that aligned place, to stay authentically joyful about the accomplishment that you‟re creating.

Jacqueline: I really appreciate that example because by chance I did something like that yesterday

with my kids, a chore that typically we have done together, but it's not been something we've, me particularly, has enjoyed doing. I had tackled some paperwork that had piled up with a real estate business that we have and I approached both the kids and was turned down by my 14 year-old, but my 12 year old joyfully agreed to help and it was a delight. A completely different experience then just saying, “Okay, we've got to do this and off we go and do it.” I like that idea to keep in mind that maybe at some point my 14 year-old will decide he wants to do that, but I also get that there will be other things.

I did say to my daughter, “Let's turn on some music and do some things to make it more

fun, too.” I definitely can share that that works with the teenagers, as well. I love that patient model. Also, I can imagine that parents may sometimes have to do work to watch that they‟re not, as you said, there not attached and maybe that will involve them doing some visioning instead of feeling like they need the results now. I know impatience is a huge issue with many of us, myself very, very much included. That's been a huge journey of mine is becoming more patient.

I know that many parents…we are going to go a little ways probably 15-20 minutes past

the hour to get time to answer more questions and continue to submit them – www.greatparentingshow.com/live. I know that many parents listening really want to shift to your non-corrosive style, more unconditional love-based parenting. I also know that many parents really need help with that shift because they‟re struggling with one…

Scott: May I add just one thing? Jacqueline: Yeah.


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Scott: Let me add that a lot of people think that unconditional love sounds so wonderful and I feel bad that I don't love unconditionally, that I react to things and I get angry about things or whatever. I like to remind people that the best reason to love unconditionally is not for the sake of your child, but for the sake of yourself. In other words, you are the main beneficiary of your choice to move into unconditional love, and partnership, and authenticity, and trusting. You are the one who gains the most because being adversarial and being out of alignment or inauthentic and being suspicious instead of trusting and having your heart closed, those are very painful ways to be. Don't do it just to try to be a good parent. Do it to try to please yourself and your children, of course, will benefit.

It's not just something…it's not a sacrifice you make for nobility. That's why when you

were mentioning the word „patience‟ a kind of a red flag went up for me because a lot of people when they talk about patience they‟re really talking about it's kind of a self-sacrifice, you know? I'm just going to keep tolerating this stress that I feel until I can't stand it anymore. I'm going to try to stand it as long as I can. That sort of patience doesn't really engender a good outcome. It almost always will lead to some sort of blowup later on. Patience may be…I don't know what the best word is. I think it's good not to tolerate too much stress. In other words, if something stresses you out, don't try to just be patient, get to the root of the stress and get some relief for yourself. Everyone will benefit from that.

Jacqueline: Thanks for that clarification. I certainly have some questions that are coming in from

parents who very much are feeling self-sacrificing, so I will get to those in a minute as well, so you can clarify a little bit more. I know that one of the thoughts that came to my mind right away, too, is the fact when you do talk about creating that tribe and not parenting in isolation that that could help a lot, too. Then getting back to managing our expectations, when we ask our kids to help, that again made me think of the self-sacrificing model versus as, you‟re saying, realizing that ultimately we are learning better leadership skills and to be happier people if we move into that place instead of fighting with our kids. I don't know of a parent out there who likes the fighting with their kids part, for sure.

just wanted to talk…I'm very excited for our listeners because I know that you had for a

while plans to launch a brand new course this fall and it's a course that's designed to help parents learn what they need to know about your PATH approach and also have the support they need to shift into this style of parenting and to shift into a place of a lot more joy and having a lot happier family. For listeners, if you want to follow along its www.greatparentingshow.com/scott. I know that not only did you move up the launch date, but you've also made the course available at a deep discount to help our listeners. I'd like you to tell us more about this brand new course of yours, How to Enjoy Parenting No Matter What.

Scott: I didn't actually move up the launch date. What I did was I just opened a pre-

registration. So the official launch for registration is going to be a couple two or three weeks, but I wanted to open it for the people now who some of whom may be hearing this for the first time and really excited about the possibility of creating this sort of path vision, the partnership, the authenticity, the trust and the heart being the central values

http://www.greatparentingshow.com/scott

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that are featured in their parenting and really the rest of life. That's basically what this course is about. It's kind of an intensive six-week course. Each week we‟re going to focus on one of these four facets and talk about ways, some more advanced ways, to work with these ideas so that they become more practical.

You have very clear ideas about how do I identify in a situation what, which of these

four areas is going to serve us the most. Do we need to move into partnership and if so, then we need to activate some connection and how do you do that. Do we need to move into…do I need to get into a more authentic place? Then I need to do some inner alignment work and how do I do that? Is there a lack of trust? Am I feeling disconnected because of trust issues, then how do I gain the clarity that's going to allow me to feel like I'm back in that trusting space, like I trust my child, I trust myself and I trust life. Then does my heart feel closed and how do I move into a place of unconditional love, so I can open my heart even though the conditions aren't to my liking? How do I do that?

We're going to spend a whole week on each one of those. There's going to be some

online video training and some online discussions, question and answer, some live interactive Q & A, conference calls similar to this, but with the members of the course will be actually on the call. So we can interact directly instead of through text. I think it's going to be a major opportunity for some growth and deepening for those who feel ready to do that. If they feel like they‟re tired of all the stress and disconnection and eager to move into partnership, feel more authentic and trusting and open hearted.

Jacqueline: I though after a couple of other testimonials that I have on another piece of paper and

one that I thought is a nice short one is this woman from Virginia, a mother of two boys says, “Scott has really helped me. I feel centered, connected to my children and I feel a wonderful sense of freedom to be the strong, compassionate mama I want to be.” I love that balance between her saying being a strong mother and being a leader in her family and yet feeling that she‟s doing that from a place of compassion. What type of parent would your course help?

Scott: Ideally it's someone who has a pretty clear idea that they want to parent in a very

positive way without any sort of relying on anything that's coarse, like punishment and reward, consequences and that sort of thing. One of the things that you find as you cultivate these skills is that you become much more creative. You know, when your heart is open you have more access to your creativity. When you‟re in alignment, you have more access to your creativity. When you feel connected you have more creative impulses. When you have clarity then you can see those ideas and possibilities more easily.

I think the opposite of coercion is creativity. Instead of saying, “I just have to force it.” I

can generate a new possibility and we can do that together when we're open to it. Really, that's who I'm hoping to serve is people who want to move into that creative space and sort of tired of the power struggles and the adversariality. Especially if you have a vision of wouldn't it be great if, you know, you can imagine yourself really living in harmony and not never having conflict, but always feeling confident that you can move through conflict out the other side with some sort of creative solution.

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Jacqueline: So it's a great course for parents who may have been raised more coercively themselves and would like to shift. I know I've heard you say something to that line, you know, that effect in another interview. I love that because many of us do feel we are stuck sometimes shifting into parenting traits that we did not intend to. Melanie from Salt Lake actually asked a follow up question about whether or not people can refer back to the course, are there going to be replays available or is it a one-time only thing?

Scott: I believe unless there‟s some sort of technical reason, you should have lifetime access

to be able to refer back to the online videos and that sort of thing. Other things you will be able to print out or download the audio material. You will be able to download and save it. That sort of thing is…I certainly want people to be able to reference the tools.

Jacqueline: I know it's so important that you talk about you have the one-on-one interaction and the

live Q & A's, that if people are able to attend those live they can ask their own questions much as they can here, as well. Once again, thank you for…I guess it's opening up the registration early. I really appreciate that and for offering your course at half price. I know that's a very big deal and is something that just makes it very affordable. Your course was around $200 and now it's $97, which is fantastic. Again, everyone listening, to take advantage of the transformational program that Scott's put together, How to Enjoy Parenting No Matter What, at the…

Scott: I think you‟re reading from the bonus there. Jacqueline: Okay, so what's the title then? Scott: The title is The PATH Parenting Power Course. The focus is really going to be on

empowerment, how to feel powerful in parenthood. I was going to say, this is just a comment about something you said a minute ago. You don't have to have been raised by really authoritarian parents to need this sort of thing. A lot of people, myself included, were kind of raised by hippies or whatever and maybe they never spanked us and you know weren't really strict, but even so I think we come out of a generation where there was a lot of confusion about power.

There's an article I have on my membership site where…and I'll make that available to

this group as well because it's a really important idea to realize how much confusion we have about power, especially because people in the 60s who were protesting against abuses of power. Power got a bad rap, but we need to understand that power is neither good nor bad. It just sort of amplifies whatever your intentions are, so if you have good intentions and they‟re clear and pure and then you apply power to it, that's a way to create a really wonderful life for you and your family. One of the first things we do is get really clear about what power is and how it can work for people rather than against people.

Jacqueline: Great clarification. I know other people like [PH] Barbara Calosa talk about basically

doormat versus the brick wall and you‟re saying obviously that both parents could benefit very much and their family could benefit very much from your approach. I really see that if this is something that resonates with parents who are listening that they…I really encourage you to take advantage of this special offer that Scott's put together.

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Again, that was www.greatparentingshow.com/scott. I'd like to have you one last thing before we go back to questions. Would you just explain then a little bit more about the bonuses that you've also offered.

Scott: Yes, I have a set of several audio recordings that they can get instant access to, people

listening, if they want to pre-register for this program and the program doesn't start for about a month. That's a long time to wait. I wanted to have something that they could really benefit from right away. This is a recording of a tele-course that I delivered some years ago called…you were saying it a minute ago…

Jacqueline: How to Enjoy Parenting No Matter What. Scott: Yes, so it's really about unconditionality, which is the sort of skill that underlies

unconditional love and it's the „no matter what‟. No matter what the conditions, I can keep my heart open. No matter what the conditions, I can find a way to enjoy life and to enjoy parenting. It's a series of seven recordings. One of them is a bonus that is How to Enjoy Holiday Parenting. Since we have the holidays coming up I thought that would be fun for people to hear. Some people…most of it is really in depth coaching, so you get to hear people with this very specific issues and challenges and I'm coaching them through how to transform their perspective and approach it differently, so that the problem simply dissolves.

Jacqueline: I also have heard you talk, Scott, and I'm sure that you'll go into this a lot more about

how parenting when we're parenting effectively, I think you'd argue that we should be…I'm sure you wouldn't say should, but could be in a joyful place as opposed…so that our own emotions are a really powerful barometer for where we are at parenting. Do you want to speak a little bit more about that?

Scott: Yes, well, that is one of the things we talk about in that bonus course and we'll be

talking about in even more depth in the PATH parenting power course because, really, we live in a culture that really kind of devalues the emotional side of life. It's kind of a male thing, a male dominated kind of a thing. It's like the intellect, not that men don't have feelings or that women don't have intellects, but it does seem to be that women are more feeling and men are often difficultly accessing their feelings. I think that's probably more cultural than natural, but nevertheless this tendency it affects everyone, men and women, fathers and mothers, who often have difficulty accessing their emotions and using them in a positive way.

We tend to try to feel less because only the negative emotions are coming through, but

in fact, you need to be able to work with all…the whole spectrum of emotions in order to really be guided through your day-to-day experience and understand that when something doesn't feel right, that's an indication, that when something feels wonderful, that's an indication. It's guiding you in the same way a kind of…you play the hotter or colder game. It's guiding you towards your goal of whatever that is, inner peace or joy or happiness.

Jacqueline: That's a powerful tool that parents can use right now and have an idea as they‟re getting

back to the chore example or one of the questions she had like to lead into is Stephanie

http://www.greatparentingshow.com/scott

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from Austin talking about how do find the PATH approach that stands up when pressure from external sources is applied. She is saying for instance getting to school on time or in a situation where certain behavior is expected, a concert, a restaurant, a hospital. Can you apply that your PATH program and the concept of parenting from a place of enjoyment to this situation for Stephanie?

Scott: Sure. Most of the people who like my work are also the people who tend to want to think

outside the box and do things differently. If you want to live a very conventional life and do everything that people are supposed to do in this sort of square box of what's considered normal, then you‟re probably not going to like the kinds of things that come up when you work with me. A lot of the people that want to work with me they really want to be free of all those constraints. They want to live their own lives, not the life that society tells them their supposed to live. One of the first you do is to start questioning things. Do we really need to get there on time? Why are we forced to get to this place on time? What's the big deal anyway?

A lot of people choose not to participate in those things. Quite a lot of people that like

my work are homeschoolers precisely because they are attached to homeschooling for the same reason they‟re attracted to my work, which is they value freedom. I'm not saying that everyone should be a homeschooler, but we do tend to give our power away to the schools when we participate in them. Why not make a shift that you think, “Well, the school is supposed to serve us not the other way around. Why am I all scared about being late to the school?” Then you can start to relax.

That would just maybe be one example. I'm not saying you should just be flaky and not

keep your agreements or, you know, get places when you say you‟re going to get there, but when you relax, that's the first step toward being able to shift things in a way that allows you to sort of get in a groove, get things working.

Jacqueline: Well, Scott, I'd love a follow up question to that. Can you give then a partnership model?

Say it's doctor's appointments or school on an ongoing basis or things like that where the parent feels very strongly that the child needs to get there, needs to work into the place where they can get there on time. I understand the parent being relaxed in the short-term, but showing up at school 20 minutes late all year long is probably not what your advocating either. Can you give an example of how to make that a partnership and how to talk that through and come to a better place?

Scott: Sure. First of all, I mean if you really want it to be a partnership then you have to

persuade the child that they ought to be there. A lot of kids really like going to school, mostly because it can be a very interesting environment, especially socially. There's a lot going on and it's just boring to stay home all day compared to all that's going on at school. On the other hand there are some kids who are very sensitive and would really rather not be in a place where they have no freedom and people are telling them what to do and that sort of thing. You really have to attune with your child and figure out what does this really even work for them and maybe in most cases it kind of works, but in other words, some things about it work and some things about it don't work.

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Then you can move into a partnership conversation, which is first I'm connecting with my understanding of who you are and I'm empathetic. I understand that it's hard, this part of school is hard, maybe you love the social connections, but you really hate getting up early. Maybe you‟re naturally more of a night person. How do we work with that? How do we create some pattern, so they‟re going to make it workable? If the child feels that you‟re working with them instead of on them or over them, not trying to overpower them or control them, they understand that you‟re just trying to make the best of an imperfect situation.

Then they‟re much more willing to and open to your creative ideas. It might be

something like, “Well, you seem to be chronically 20 minutes late, is there some way we could shift our whole day by 20 minutes? How would that work? What would we have to do? What could make it fun to get up 20 minutes earlier? What could make it fun to go to bed 20 minutes earlier? How could we do this in a way that really feels light instead of forced? Do you see what I'm saying? Those are questions that you ask from a partnership mindset.

Jacqueline: Okay, excellent because I do know that there are various view points and some of our

listeners certainly will be more open to more structure and some to less, but there still is a certain amount of structure that tends to work for most people's lives in terms of being able to make some of those important appointments and school and things like that. I appreciate your following up.

Scott: Let me add this, this is an example of a trust issue. Where it's not about „do I trust them

to get there on time‟, but do I trust my own understanding of this person? In order words, if I have a real clear understanding of who she is and how she ticks then I can reasonably trust that she's not going to be ready to go on time. You see what I mean? That's a different kind of trust, that she won't be ready.

Jacqueline: And then start working with that and seeing what things to do. Scott: Exactly, so instead of putting my head in the sand and say, “Well, she said she's going

to go on time,” and then ending up in a power struggle because I didn't trust my own understanding of her, instead of that it's like, “Well, I trust and I understand her, so I'm not going to put my head in the sand I'm going to keep my eyes wide open and look clearly at the situation and find a way to make it work and hopefully it's going to be a way that feels good to both of us.”

Jacqueline: I also want to add that I do think it's important in the moment. If you‟re going to be late in

that particular moment there's not any point like relaxing in that moment makes a lot of sense, then strategizing for the future. I think that's anger defuser right there. Now, Scott, I have a tall order. I'd like to get through two if not three questions in five plus minutes. We'll see if we can, but I have lots more questions than that, but I've highlighted a couple of them that I thought were particularly apt and in this first case it's a question that's come in before and I haven't been able to get to it with other experts.

Theresa from Livingston says, “What is your view about handling a child who is now 13

and has been, and is still, a late night owl and the parents are not? We are trying not to

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force an earlier bed time, however, it's hard seeing him going on past one or two in the morning and then sleeping in until noon.” My recollection from before is that she is a homeschooler and so she‟s got that flexibility, but what do you have to say to Theresa?

Scott: I'd say I would like her… was it a son or a daughter? I don't remember. Jacqueline: Son. Scott: I would like her son to meet my daughter. She does the same thing. In some ways I

think it‟s just it‟s a phase that teenagers go through when they have the freedom that home schoolings have. They don't have to get up then they sort of go through a phase where they like to experiment with pushing limits. I think that particular limit is one that you can push and it‟s not really dangerous. Other limits obviously can be dangerous, but it‟s important to give a teenager space to explore their own will and their own volition. What happens when I make my own choices? What are the natural consequences? I hate to use that term because people misuse it, but there are natural consequences. So staying up until one in the morning, you know, maybe they'll come up with a pattern that works. Maybe they don't mind sleeping in. Maybe they get up early for something and then take a nap in the afternoon, they‟re cool with that.

Why should that be wrong? Eventually they'll get involved in something where it

requires some structure, like my daughter who loves to stay up until three or four in the morning often – usually reading – she will sometimes be involved in a play where they have a rehearsal early in the day and so she cares about it enough to shift her structure for that sort of thing. That's a good thing to be in touch with, so I want Theresa just to sort of feel good that she's giving her son that space to really be in touch with those things for himself. Sorry, I'm trying to speed up here because I'd like to go into a lot of detail, but go ahead.

Jacqueline: I know and its challenging because there's so many great questions I'd love to ask, but

both on Michelle who is from Sherbrooke, Quebec and Sue from Connecticut both ask similar questions. Sue says, “My husband and I have developed a gorgeous authentic connection with our 3 year-old son in huge part because of your daily group emails, but hands-on parenting has taken a brutal toll on our marriage. How do we keep our relationship intact as we parent like this?” Michelle has a similar thing because she is saying, well, she talks about how that she's exhausted and not feeling like sitting at the table most of time for meals. So in both cases I'm curious if you have what you want to add besides building up their community, building their support network, so that they‟re not feeling this exhausted. What else would you like to add to Michelle and to Sue?

Scott: Wow, it's difficult. The one about the marriage is kind of difficult to answer without more

detail, but I would say in general, I mean they've done a great job of making adjustments that work really well for their child and so rather than to think that's the way it is to think, “Okay, now once we got this group going let's get an even better group going and go back to the drawing board. How can we make this groove even better? How can we get into a creative space, so that we're not too tired to enjoy each other, as well, as our child,” if that makes sense. It definitely involves some creativity especially when you‟re doing the nuclear family thing. It's so much easier if you have expanded

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family or close friends who kind of co-parent with you where there's an attachment all around. The kids feel like if your friends are aunties and uncles. That's great if there is that level of extended attachment, so that it makes it possible if you want to go away for a while or whatever you can. It can be tricky with things like nursing because that's something that most people don't share with anyone else, although there is nothing unnatural about that. I'm blabbing a little bit.

Jacqueline: I know and I know it‟s… Scott: I would just say keep at it the way they describe, how good it is with their son. It's just

like, okay, you take that mastery and apply it to your own relationship and give me a call if you want specifics because I didn't really get any.

Jacqueline: Michelle from Sherbooke had also said, “How do I actually keep the joy and happiness

and enjoy parenting when they keep answering back?” I think I will refer her back to relisten to the replay, which will be available in a couple of hours here because some of what you talked about – staying heart centered – and well, she can also check the Great Parenting Show Facebook site, which you can just put Facebook.com Great Parenting Show because that transforming anger article is linked on there and I think those will really help her with the shift. I love that you‟re talking to Sue about layering, that she's got one groove going well and it sounds like Michelle has some things going well, but she can really work on her exhaustion and some of her irritation or anger when her kids aren't responding the way she wants them to. One last question and then we'll to sign off for today.

Jeffrey from San Encelmo talks about being in a situation. His girlfriend has two children

and the eldest daughter who‟s eight is having a lot of troubles handling her emotions, he says to the extreme. It's almost reminiscent of being bi-polar. One moment she's very loving and sweet and as soon as you say no all hell breaks loose, so how can we change that? His girlfriend and himself are really trying to hold the space and be firm and calm, but they've tried rewards, no rewards, and he says, “She's so dang stubborn. How do we help her joint the rest of us who are peaceful and loving?” Again, I know you have answered this partially with some of your talk about transforming anger, but would you like to leave him with one or two specific thoughts?

Scott: Sure, that sort of explosive anger can be rather involved, so I can't get too much in

detail about it, but what I want to say is a little bit snarly, but I'll just say it for fun, which is that if she freaks out when you say no then don't say no. What I mean by that is not to just automatically agree with everything she asks for, but I talk about, actually in my book, and also you can get it on my website, as well, when you follow the daily groove. I talk a lot about, yes, energy. In fact, I talk about it quite extensively in one of the audios that's in that bonus course that comes with the one that we're offering here. Yes, energy is the idea. It really has to do with alignment and authenticity, when you‟re aligned with yourself and your heart is open even when you say „no‟, it has „yes‟ energy. You find other ways to say it so that it doesn't feel like a brick wall to your child.

When you have one that is that sensitive, even the slightest sort of resistance will feel

like a brick wall to her and that's probably why she has this explosive reaction. In order

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for you to really handle that well you need to learn how to shift your energy. I'll just call it yesness. It's another word for alignment. Shoot, I was going to say one more thing. What you‟re doing is you‟re regulating. You‟re helping to regulate her emotions and in order for you to do that you really have to be sort of masterful. You really have to be a ninja with your emotions because someone who has delicate of a balance is just going to need that extra kind of calming presence.

Jacqueline: Another one of your concepts that could be applied, too, is since you said yes energy,

your idea of inviting our children to join us. If it's chores and things like that and having some patience while they shift into that that could be powerful, too. I wanted to add just as we wrap up here, one of the many reasons I thank you so much for your package that you put together and the discount, a $200 course available for $97, and then throwing in all the bonuses that you have is I know that people also can do individual coaching with you and I believe that's like $90 an hour, so they will get in lots of chances to hear your individual responses, some of them specifically to their problems if you‟re able to listen to the calls live that you‟re doing as part of your course. I just want to thank you again because that is a very generous offer and very, very helpful for the people who are listening. I do need to wrap so thank you. Thank you, Scott. I am deeply appreciative.

Scott: We can't talk can we? Jacqueline: I could go on and on and the questions do continue to come in and it's wonderful that I

know people are resonating very strongly with what you‟re saying and we've also had a number of people put comments in about just how much they found your work helpful, so we've got many of your fans listening, as well. Thanks a million, Scott. I look forward to talking with you again and I look forward to hearing, everybody, your comments in the Facebook application and on the website or the Facebook Great Parenting site about all the tips that you picked up today. Scott, I'm going to just take care of some housekeeping issues with our listeners. Have a fantastic day and thanks for sharing your gifts in the world.

Scott: Thank you so much, Jacqueline, and just thanks to everyone who took the time. I'm

sorry it took so long, but we do have so much to share and I'm really honored that…really sort of proud that people are putting so much effort into this cultural shift that we're all collectively creating. Thank you so much.

Jacqueline: Our pleasure because as you said, that cultural shift is so profound for us individually,

as well. So it's the journey worth taking. The only one worth taking in my mind is the great parenting journey to becoming more and more who we want to be and know that we can be as parents. Thanks.

scott noelle transcript

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