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This episode grew out of a post that long-time friend of the podcast, Dr. Laura Froyen, published in a respectful parenting group that we both work in as admins. In the post she asked people to share how they felt before and after they discovered respectful parenting, and then she created a word cloud of the results. The words in the 'before' cloud were perhaps predictable - things like 'worried,' 'overwhelmed,' 'resentful,' and 'guilty.' And the most common word in the 'after respectful parenting' word cloud? Exhausted. What on earth is going on here? In this episode I explore five important reasons why respectful parenting is so hard - and what to do about each of them. Jump to highlights: (01:00) Why we find parenting so hard (01:18) Most prominent words before parents discovered respectful parenting (01:58) Five reasons respectful parenting can be hard (03:03) 1st reason: Our needs that our parents just didn’t see despite doing the best they could (05:22) The trauma of unmet needs (06:09) 2nd reason: The long game that is respectful parenting (08:54) Our culture trains us to want results (09:56) 3rd reason: Our values and what we want to do in an ideal world (10:39) Alfie Kohn’s Unconditional Parenting (13:38) Our child's behavior brings up old trauma (14:10) Shifting the way we see our children (15:12) 4th reason: When we see these values that we want to live (16:37) The tendency to engage in negative self-talk (17:58) Self compassion and mindfulness (19:11) The last (and perhaps not the last) reason (24:47) Super short summary information. [accordion] [accordion-item title="Click here to read the full transcript"] Jen 00:03 Hi, I'm Jen and I host the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. We all want our children to lead fulfilling lives. But it can be so hard to keep up with the latest scientific research on child development and figure out whether and how to incorporate it into our own approach to parenting. Here at Your Parenting Mojo, I do the work for you by critically examining strategies and tools related to parenting and child development that are grounded in scientific research on principles of respectful parenting. If you'd like to be notified when new episodes are released, and get a FREE Guide called 13 Reasons Why Your Child Won't listen To You and What To Do About Each One, just head on over to your YourParentingMojo.com/SUBSCRIBE. ou can also continue the conversation about the show with other listeners in the Your Parenting Mojo Facebook group. I do hope you'll join us. Jen 00:53 Hello, and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo Podcast. In this episode, I want to talk about something that's been bothering me for a while, which is why we find respectful parenting so hard. And this idea actually came from a poll that Dr. Laura Froyen ran in an online parenting group that we both help to moderate where she asked people to describe how they felt about parenting before and after they discovered respectful parenting. And then she made the responses into a word cloud. The most prominent words in the word cloud from before parents discovered respectful parenting were worried, overwhelmed, resentful, and guilty. And some of the most prominent words in the word cloud from after parents discovered respectful parenting, we're confident, loving, empowered, calm, hopeful and relieved. But the most prominent word was exhausted. Jen 01:39 And I just thought, "What's UP with that?!", and then "Does it HAVE to be this way?." And that was almost a year ago. And that idea has been percolating in my brain since then. And every once in a while I would jot down ideas about why this was the case. And I'd like to walk through those, and also give us some ideas for how to move forward. Because I think there are five reasons respectful parenting can be hard, but I don't believe it has to be hard. ...