Episode 250: Back-To-School Confidence with Kristen Arnett of Meant To Be Me
Welcome back to Live Free Creative Podcast, Episode number 250. I’m so excited to have you back again, another week. Last week I gave you the full fun inside scoop. of our current adventure in Costa Rica as a family. And today we’re going to jump forward to back to school.
We still have two weeks here in the country and we’re so excited. We’re having a great time. And also, a portion of my mama heart and brain is going to planning for the future for getting the kids ready for starting school again, a new school year. And whether you’re a parent or not, or whether the academic school year affects you directly or not, I’ve always felt like September It is the natural rhythm of a new season. It’s going into the fall. It’s the new school year. It almost feels like a second new year.
Today I have a friend, Kristen Arnett, who’s going to share some great ideas for helping build confidence in our kids as they head back to school this year. These same principles will apply whether you have your own children, whether you interact with kids as an aunt or an uncle, or whether you’re wondering how to parent yourself a little better, how to build your own confidence a little better.
But for the sake of the conversation day, we’re going to be focused on building confidence in your kids as they head back to school this year.
To begin today, we’re going to jump into a quick pause for a poem.
Segment: Pause for a Poem
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be confident, little one!
If by Rudyard Kipling
I love the simple confidence in that poem the simple reminders of all the things that we don’t have to depend upon for our worth. There’s a whisper of this foundation and balance and centering that’s in that poem that I really appreciate.
If you didn’t hear that, I’d encourage you to rewind and listen to it again until you find what that center feels like for you and maybe can even recall in a moment in your life when you felt that feeling that Whatever else is going on, you’re okay. Just you being enough is okay.
Back-To-School Confidence with Kristen Arnett of Meant To Be Me
That idea is a central core component of what we’re going to talk about today with Kristen. Kristen Arnett is one of the most wonderful, lovely, generous, kind people that you will ever encounter. I’m so excited to share her with you today. I’ve known her for several years.
Kristen signed up for one of my Creative Camps a few years ago. She’s since returned to a second Creative Camp, and we’ve worked together in a creative mentorship for probably over a year.
Kristen is one of the co-founders and now the sole owner of a confidence education company based in Gilbert, Arizona called Meant to Be Me.
The website is meanttobeme.org, and I suggest that when you have a chance, you go check it out. Even if you’re not located in the Arizona area. The information on the website is wonderful. She has some great opt-ins. When you sign up for her newsletter list, you can get a cool document for free that is five ways to help your daughter build her confidence in five minutes a day or less.
Really thoughtful, intentional teaching and I’ll just give you a quick intro from her website before we jump into the interview.
I love just the bio page so; I’m going to share a little bit of it with you.
Kristen says, “I’m just a girl from the middle of the Arizona desert. And if there’s anything I know, it’s girls.”
Kristen is the oldest of four girls and she has three daughters. In addition to one son, she spent over 12 years working with girls ages 8 to 18 in her community, and she understands the struggles they face and how to connect with them. She likes to describe life prior to about five years ago as sunshine and rainbows.
Then, when things got tough, she wasn’t prepared and didn’t have the tools that she wanted to get through it. She discovered life coaching and therapy and realized that her feelings were actually coming from her thoughts, and that true confidence is the realization that it’s not possible to be better or worse than any other human.
A few of her friends and her got together and thought, what if we could find a fun way to teach all of this to our daughters right now when they need it? With a little research, they learned that Girls, especially, self-esteem often decreases during their tween years, and she kept finding in her parenting research that all roads led to giving children a foundation for success was about confidence, how they feel about themselves.
She combined her love of teaching with her passion for mental health, and the rest is history. Four years later, Meant to Be Me has helped hundreds of girls have confidence in themselves. in their amazing worth. The majority of what Meant to Be Me offers is in person classes for tweens in the Arizona area, in the Phoenix Gilbert triangle.
If you don’t live in that area, be excited because Kristen is working on and about to launch, if it’s not launched already, an online course that will help parents with some of these same principles. We’ll talk a little bit about it in the interview, and I’ll make sure that you have all the links in the show notes that you need to be able to discover all that you can absorb, all the goodness, the classes that you could sign your girls up for if you happen to be lucky living in Arizona, or the online class that is available that you can sign up for now and learn from Kristen.
Let’s get to the interview where we can discuss and share a little bit about building back to school confidence in your kids.
M: Hey, Kristen, I’m so happy to have you here on Live Free Creative Podcast. Welcome to the show. Hey, thanks so much for having me. I gave just like a very brief intro, but as we get started today, I would love for you to just walk my audience through who you are, a little bit about you, where you’re from and what you’re involved in right now as your business.
K: Okay. I am Kristen Arnett. I have lived in Arizona for my entire life, the desert. I live in Gilbert, Arizona, and my background is in education. I got my degree in elementary education because I loved kids and I taught fifth grade for a couple of years, which was really fun before I had my four kids.
So I have three, Girls, and then we got our little boy and during those years that, they were young, I was always teaching something, I did a lot of private piano lessons, private tutoring, and then I started doing some group music classes that I’ve done for the past six years but right now what I’m doing is music About maybe four years ago, a couple of friends who also had a bunch of girls the same age as my girls that were like fourth through sixth grade, we all just noticed that they could really use a boost in their confidence during those years, all of a sudden they were like spending so much time and their appearance and, just starting to doubt themselves a little bit more.
So, we all just got together and we’re like, hey, what if we could create these classes in our community where a bunch of girls just came together, and we had classes all about the power of your thoughts and how to love yourself and supercharge them with those things before they went to junior high.
And the pressures got really hard. So that has been really fun. We did that for about four years. And then just recently, I took over that business as my friends have moved on to other things. And now my girls that are now going into 11th, my older two going into 11th and ninth grade come back and help me teach these classes to the young girls in our community.
And so, it’s been full circle and really fun.
M: I love this. Your company is called Meant to Be Me, and your classes are live workshop style classes in Gilbert. I loved this idea when I first met you a couple years ago and just thought like that is so brilliant. I think at the time Plum was like six and I’m thinking, oh, I can see we’re headed for that.
And now here she is almost 10. And I tell you all the time, if we lived in Arizona, Plum would come to every single class because I just think it’s so smart to supercharge them with this information and with a little group of friends, a little cohort with some clarity around who they are before things get tough.
Because I think that, once you hit middle school, high school, everything gets a little rocky and everything’s tossed up into the air and supercharging them up before they get there just seems so brilliant. So, I’m in awe and just super admire the business that you’re building and the way that you’re helping.
I’m curious about you said you had daughters and your friends had daughters going into those ages. Was there anything else in particular? You have a background in teaching, so that obviously like education made sense to you. Was there anything else you can think of that was like, this is my zone. These are my people. This is who I really want to serve as an audience.
K: I feel like so much of what we teach really is in the field of mental health. I don’t have an education in that, but I feel like I have an experience in it really in the last five years or so, as some of my family members have had different emotional health struggles and challenges.
And I just feel wow, like the tools that I feel like we’ve been able to learn, that’s where I want to be able to serve my community. And we don’t necessarily. Call them mental health classes, right? But it is definitely, your thoughts and your feelings and loving yourself and calming strategies And so I feel like that’s why it feels extra aligned to me, especially right now to continue with this It’s oh this is you know, this is for sure where my passion is right now so take my teaching take the things that I’ve learned that have become really personal to me and To serve in that way.
M: Yeah, absolutely. And I know we’re going to talk today about just generalized, boys, girls, kids going back to school right now is, we’re rolling into August. I was really struck this last year, though, in particular with teen girls. I so a lot of my program was talking about, it was mental health.
It was positive psychology. And we I’ve looked at a lot of data around smartphones and social media and how that is really affecting kids and teens, but it’s also really affecting girls and, where I think my natural inclination is to be like, yeah, but both. And then the data is no, but girls like this really matters for girls.
And so, I think there’s something there too, to like the buffer that you can create when girls are probably a little more naturally inclined to some of their, competitive thoughts or comparing themselves to their friends or things like that. And then that just all gets exacerbated when they get to junior high and high school, especially right now in the tech age that we’re in.
Even more reason to build a foundation of mental wellness and of confidence and of understanding themselves so that they can navigate that. It’s still tricky. It’s tricky as an adult. We talk about this in our own social media usage can be difficult sometimes and much more so for our little ones.
So, I’m so excited to just have a chance to talk through specifically confidence and some ways that you have learned to teach youth about. What confidence is, how they can build it, and why it matters in their lives. So, let’s start with just like your definition. What is confidence? What is confidence for you when you’re thinking about its definition or different ways that you apply that idea? What comes to mind?
K: I’m glad you asked because I really am a definition girl. I love looking up different definitions and piecing it together with my own. I thought it would be helpful to define confidence and self-esteem because I feel like those two words get used interchangeably a lot and they have a lot in common and there’s also slight differences and I’m going to talk about both today.
I’m going to talk about self-esteem. First, because when I first started getting into this field specifically, it really came out of my love of research. And so, when I wasn’t a teacher anymore and I was a parent, I was like, okay, I got to know all the things to be like an intentional parent.
And I want to, just do my best in that area. So much of what I was researching on. What do your kids need? And I want to teach them this and that. And like the foundation over and over again was self-esteem. Like in order for your kids to have any of the things that we all want for them.
I’ll use the word success, but that can look like, different things, different people, but we all want our kids to be able to grow up and have the experiences they want to have and, have the tools. And so, when I realized, oh, like the underlying factor in all of this research is self-esteem, which is really.
defined as how they feel about themselves, right? I do they feel like I am lovable? And so, then confidence is similar, but it’s more of the, I am capable feeling more of the I believe in my ability to do something. So, both of them though, are really important. Like a child needs to feel lovable no matter what they accomplish.
And what they do. And then they also need to feel capable. Like I have, certain strengths and skills and I can really be able to contribute and enjoy life. It’s even more fun that way when I can use my strengths too. To bless the world. And then along with that, I feel like I will also be talking a little bit today about how, yes, while confidence is believing in your ability to do something.
I think we often think that if we have confidence, that also means that we feel like, not afraid sometimes. And of course, I’m going to do amazing. And I love this recent definition from Dr. Becky when I just read her good inside book. And she said, my definition of confidence is being willing to feel any emotion.
So that includes scared and embarrassed and uncomfortable and confused and still trying to move forward and do the thing. And so, I feel like that as parents is helpful to know of Oh my gosh, my child’s not confident right now. They’re feeling, these feelings, but it’s no, like teaching them that that’s okay to feel that way and that this is part of confidence has been really cooled to expand my definition to that.
M: Yeah. I think that’s so important that confidence isn’t mistaken for like blind courage because they are so distinct. And I think often, our belief in our ability to do something is accompanied by difficult emotions. Like we may, and it may even be exacerbated by them that we know that we can do it.
So then why do we feel so afraid or why are we so nervous or why? I’m thinking about the other week that we have a pool membership at a local pool and there’s this really cool big twisty tube slide and So for most kids they look at this thing and think this is so fun What a blast that we get to have this really cool tube slide and for plum my daughter She looks at it as like a tool of terror and she we’ve been now three years in a row that we’ve gone to this pool and she has not wanted to go down the slide and she has all these different reasons, it’s enclosed and so she feels like what if she gets stuck or she can’t come out or she won’t be able to see or it might go too fast or at least she has all these really valid reasons to not want to go down the slide.
And at the beginning of this summer, she said, mom, this year I’m going to go down the slide. And it was like a switch had flipped in her that she believed that she could do it. And she was. Absolutely terrified. And it took about a week and a half of going every day to the pool. And she would even climb up to the top of the tower and look at it.
And one day she was even standing up there, just like holding onto the railing, shaking, crying. And I’m like, you don’t have to go down the slide. Like I know there’s nothing riding on this. And she really wanted to, and she knew she could, and she still was terrified. And she ultimately did. We broke the rules and I told; they’re only supposed to go down one at a time.
And I told Eliot he could go with her like she sat in front of him like choo-choo style. They went down when the lifeguard wasn’t looking and luckily no one got in trouble They were totally safe, but I knew that having someone with her Just one time. She just needed to get through it one time and some of that fear would go away.
And now she’s like a sliding regular and it’s amazing, but it was such a juxtaposition and so counterintuitive because she wanted to do it, she knew she could, and she was still very afraid.
K: Yeah, that’s a perfect example. And I feel like analogy for so many things and also just being able to recognize that as she was going up there feeling afraid, like that is confidence, like she, yeah, she had worked on her thoughts over that time to, to believe, to work out some of those valid concerns before and get her thoughts to that place of okay, I can do this.
M: So yeah. Yeah. So those are great definitions and I love the clarity around a generalized self-esteem where you just, you like yourself and you feel pretty good in your skin and then confidence being a little bit more specific, maybe toward or directed at a particular task or skill. And so, what does confidence look like in kids and tweens? Can it look lots of different ways depending on the personality of the kid or are there some characteristics that you notice like, oh, that’s a pretty confident kid or that kid feels good about themselves?
K: Yeah, I think that for most kids that grow up in, like safe, loving environments, of course, that most start out pretty confident, and you hear them, I’m awesome and willing to walk up and meet new friends and try new things and bounce back the kind of bounce back quickly after failure.
And so, I think of course, some kids that might have a little more anxiety and stuff, even at a younger age, you can recognize that. But it’s interesting that the research shows that. At least for girls that between 8 and 14, there’s just like a 30% drop, overall. I think that it can be really painful for parents to be like, wait, what happened?
Like my child was confident because most of them do start out, loving themselves really. They’re only surrounded by people that love them, in those early years. And we pour so much goodness into them. So, I feel like we see a lot of that. And then as those, outside influences and that natural comparison starts of like, how do I fit in that we can really start to worry of Oh my gosh, they’ve forgotten how amazing they are.
And so, it’s interesting girls. bottoms out. I think the research shows like at age 14 is typically like their all-time low. And it says that boys decline around those same ages also. However, like at that age 14, boys are like 27% on average higher than where girls are. So that’s interesting just to know for parents to watch for and also just to realize that there’s so much that you can do even during those years as a parent to really build that self-esteem back up and get your child to where they do feel like they’re, not as afraid of failure and perfectionism and, not as worried about what others think of them.
M: Yeah, it strikes me that those correlate pretty overlap a lot with changes in puberty and adolescence. And really, there’s a real transition in physical and emotional stage at that same time frame. And so there also probably needs to be, like, a rediscovery of self because you become a new person during those years.
And I’m just imagining, I’m sure there’s research around this that I haven’t looked at, but just this, I, the idea of getting to know yourself and knowing who you are now, and that’s okay that it’s different than who you were a couple years ago, and maybe your friend group changes, and maybe your interests changes, your body changes, and there’s so much going on during those years.
Milo is now 14, and. I remember a couple years ago, probably when he was 11, 12, we started to notice just wow, this is going to be a whole different season of parenting because he was very, he was acting more like a typical teen. And Dave and I had this mantra that was helpful for us as parents that we would just, whenever something was off kilter in the household because of the teen attitudes or, not wanting you to conflict, whatever it may be, we would just back and forth tell each other, it’s really hard to be a teenager.
It’s really hard to be a teenager. And rather than feeling like it’s hard for us to parent a teenager, it helped us get 11, 12, 13 are really disorienting years. Our job now, right now, is to support him in figuring out what’s happening with his life and his mind and his body and being mad at him for not picking up his socks for the hundredth time is not going to contribute any good to any of us, so we can remember that what they’re going through is really tough.
It creates this level of empathy and compassion that’s a really sweet starting place. Even if the dynamic is tricky, it is a lot more helpful, definitely, as a parent to, to start from compassion.
K: Yeah, I love that because it’s making me think of how, even though teens have that desire to belong and to fit in with their peers which can be so hard sometimes, I think it’s Brene Brown who said, yes, they’re going through that, wanting to fit in and belong and with their friends.
However, being able to feel like they belong in their family and having that home be the safe, loving environment. Like where the parents are being understanding of it’s hard to be a teenager. We’ll back up on the socks and some of those things. Yeah, that is even more important to them, for that during those ages is to absolutely feel that at home. So that’s awesome.
M: Yeah, that consistency is really helpful. And today you are, you have some ideas of ways that parents who are approaching the stage with their kids, or maybe it’s a little way off, or maybe they’ve just been through it, but they’re like, okay, steel reeling from how do we help our kids feel a little bit more confident?
How do we instill that in them as the safe harbor at home. I’m excited to hear about a few of the suggestions that you’ve brought to share with us today. So why don’t you start with your first?
K: Okay. Yeah. And that, trying to narrow it down to just a couple of them was so hard, but I feel like these four really, if I had to choose like what are going to be the most impactful, impactful ones that you can work on right away, I chose these So the first one being Teaching them the power of their thoughts, and Anytime you hear me say teaching them, just keep in mind that this is when they are in a calm, teachable state.
I think that’s the mistake I was making with my own kids for so many years of, I knew so much of this research on self-esteem and also, some of these, when we’re talking about this thought model here about how our thoughts create our feelings, that’s like a very life coaching kind of therapy thing that I’ve learned.
So, it’s I know all the things, why am I trying to teach? And I’m not getting through to my kids. And I’m realizing because I’m trying to teach them when they are in fight or flight, it’s when they’re scared about doing the thing or they’re, anxious or really mad or upset. And that’s when I’m like trying to give them these tools.
And it’s they’re learning brains are turned off. And I don’t think I really realized that. And so, I realized, Oh, okay. So, my job at that time is just to validate, sit with them, be with them when they’re teachable, whether it’s a casual conversation that we’re having driving together which I feel like sometimes it’s easier for the older kids or it’s a sit-down family, little whiteboard lesson and teaching about their brain.
But it has to be during that time for them to soak it in and then be able to use it when they need it, when they’re upset. So just wanted to add that because that’s, yeah, really helpful.
M: Yeah, that’s an important tip. What level I, Dave and I try to use a one to 10 scale and we’ll say he’s in an eight. There’s nothing, there’s nothing happening. You just have to ride this one out, and then sometimes they’re at a five. And then I feel like five and below is when we’re like, okay, she’s a little myth that we can talk about it.
But if they’re in full fury, you’re like my hands are tied until you come down from that, and I can I like that you said, I can sit there, I can validate your feelings, I can be there with you, but there’s no learning happening in those stages.
K: Yeah. When they are calm and you’re ready to approach them about this idea, like, how, where do you begin teaching someone about their thoughts? Yeah. So, I think that this is really helpful to teach visually if you can, especially when you’re first showing it to them. And this is like the first class that all the girls that, come to our workshops get is basically learning all about the brain and how amazing this tool is that we have inside of us.
And it has a lot of jobs. And one of them, probably one of the most important things is keeping us safe. Which was a really helpful thing, when if we are actually in danger and like a car is coming towards us and we. Know to run. But helping them recognize that, a hurtful comment from a friend sometimes can feel just as scary, and that feeling that comes after, after that, and then just helping them realize, but that’s something that we actually can have control over, and we can change our thoughts when we want to feel better about something.
So, we just write out like situation, thought, feeling, and action, like our thought model that we use. Which is helpful to do with your kids too. So, for example, back to school is coming up. So like situation there might be school starts in two weeks, right? And that’s like a neutral situation.
It’s our thoughts that happen next about that situation. And for a lot of kids, it might be, it’s going to be so terrible. And so scary, whether I’m going to a new school, or I don’t have any friends or so much work or whatever it is that might be their thoughts about it. And then asking them, okay, what are you going to feel like?
When you’re thinking that, and often that’s going to be, anxious or scared, right? And then the next part is action. How do you act when you go to school feeling that way, right? Probably maybe stick to yourself more and maybe not participate or not reach out to friends as much. And. And that’s okay.
However, just knowing that you have the power, if you don’t want to dread the next couple weeks leading up to school, if you want to feel better about it, what is a different thought? Because we can’t change that situation, right? It’s, school is starting in two weeks. That’s still happening. So maybe it’s something like thinking, it’s going to be an adventure.
How does just that little it’s not like going like from this is going to be terrible. It’s I can’t wait. It’s going to be amazing because we want to, teach our kids to have it be a believable thought. So, if it’s something like, okay, this is going to be an adventure, then maybe what does that feeling change to?
And asking them, along the way of okay maybe I’m curious, like what’s going to happen. Maybe I’m a little excited about some parts of it. What’s it going to be like? Who am I going to meet? And then how do you act, right? When you’re feeling a little more curious or maybe even a little bit excited maybe more willing to reach out to friends and make some of those connections at the beginning of school.
So just visually showing them and then having them see, oh, wow, like that is actually really powerful with an example like that. And then I will do the same thing when has.
Specifically, is going through something, right? And then when they calm down of like helping them realize, okay, what are you thinking about this right now? And how are you feeling? Do you want to keep feeling that way or do you want to change it? So yeah, I feel like just teaching them about our brains.
This is normal. It’s normal for us to be scared of a new experience like this. Our brain wants us to be safe and comfortable. However, yeah, you have the power to feel better if you want to. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. And so powerful to teach them using examples that they understand and that they’re giving you the answers like this is how I would act, or this is how I feel when that happens, or and then walking it backwards to okay, what do you want to think about?
M: I think for many of us learning that our thoughts were not always to be believed was something that happened as adults. I know for me, it wasn’t until my maybe 20s that I even heard the idea that like thinking was different, like the difference between conscious and unconscious and metacognition and like thinking about thinking.
I just thought things and just mostly believe them, and it’s really powerful even as adults to do this. So how much more powerful for our kids to have someone who can help them understand not everything feel like that feels like an emergency really is one. And Some of that self-regulation is really important.
K: Yeah. I want to add onto that. Cause I think that also really spurred these classes when me and my friends learned these life coaching tools a couple of years ago, like you said, and all of a sudden, I’m realizing in my thirties, Oh my gosh, really? My thoughts create my feelings. I can’t wait to teach my kids this.
And I think it is just helpful for parents to keep in mind that yes. This is, I’ve seen a lot of success in teaching this to your kids and also just remembering that their brains are still developing, especially that, that part of their brain that can make the logical decisions and think through things and just realizing, okay, they’re actually not adults yet though.
So, while they have these tools, we can’t expect them to use them as much as a grown adult was. Their brain’s going to hop into that panic mode a lot more and that’s normal.
M: Yeah, absolutely. And even, I think, having some shortcuts available, like some favorite thoughts, like discussing with the kids, some favorite thoughts to go to, I like, I love the thought, it will be an adventure.
Or even using the phrase, “I wonder what’s going to happen,” rather than having people just jump to conclusions about what’s going to happen, just opening up the I wonder, won’t it be interesting to find out and leading with curiosity. If you can choose one or two sort of favorites that just become.
Infused into the culture of your family and it becomes natural for your young kids to start asking. I wonder or what might happen rather than oh my gosh, I’m so nervous because I know that all these things are going to go wrong that opens up their brains to new pathways as well without them even being consciously aware of what’s going on.
One thing I do want to mention. about just this whole process too is how intentional you are about it. Like when you’re teaching classes, these kids are coming into a workshop, you’re spending several hours with them. You’re teaching actively. And when you’re doing this at home with your kids, you mentioned like sometimes it’s a casual conversation.
Sometimes it’s sitting down with a whiteboard. These things generally don’t just absorb into our kids from our own heads, like usually there’s going to be some conscious, level of us deciding, I want to have this conversation with my kids. I want to bring these things up. I want my kids to learn something new.
And I know life is busy and I’m sure right now people are running around getting ready for back to school. And I just want to invite you to consider that maybe preparing your kids mentally and emotionally for school is just as important as taking them back-to-school shopping for a new backpack and pencils and pens and add this to the toolbox of all the stuff that you need for this year, not just all the physical things, but also having some of these conversations and, having fun with it.
But using the tools that Kristen’s giving us to teach your kids so that they feel a little bit more prepared emotionally for school this year.
K: Yeah, I love that. I think that sometimes we do spend all the time on the. the back-to-school supply list, right? And then when their fears come up, we’re just like, oh, it’s going to be fine.
Everyone feels good. It’s going to be great. But yeah, you’re right. Really having that on the to do list also of we’re going to talk this through. Make a huge difference.
M: Absolutely. Okay. So, what is next after we’ve given them sort of a basic rundown and we know these things we’re going to have to reinforce over and over again, but once we have the language even to talk about thoughts with our kids, what do we do next?
K: Yeah. Then the next one is going to be helping them feel their feelings. And if we go back to the definition of confidence, right? Is being able to feel any feeling. In order to give them that confidence, we have to help them realize that. Again, their feelings are coming from their thoughts and that even though a lot of these feelings, maybe half the feelings that we experience can feel really uncomfortable that our bodies actually know what to do with them.
And so, teaching them some calming strategies, also called coping strategies, that are healthy ones is really important. So, I like to teach my kids, and, in our classes, what do you do when your clothes catch on fire? What are those three things you’re supposed to do?
Still, I, they still teach it in school or wherever everyone can just shout out, stop, drop and roll. And it’s yes, that’s so amazing. Cause that is totally going to help you. And sometimes we feel like we are on fire on the inside, whether it’s from anger or anxiety or whatever it is.
And. What are three things you can do, and usually like they don’t know, I haven’t thought that through and that actually came from a school psychologist who we met with once who was saying, yeah, if every kid and especially teen had their go to like healthy, calming strategies for when those.
Uncomfortable feelings came up like the difference that would make in their self-esteem in, in their mental health would be so huge. So that is just something to do with your child and then to give them lots of suggestions of, here are some good ideas, right? Maybe it’s listening to music, going in your room, turning lights off, listening to music.
Maybe it is taking five deep breaths. Maybe it’s spending some time outside going for a bike ride and just brainstorming with them. What are all the different things? I try and have them. not be things that are on a screen and not be things that are turning to food. Yes, we all are like, we all need the ice cream and the TV sometimes.
But obviously turning to those things every time, cannot be the healthiest habits. Just that alone, doing that with your child of okay, helping them identify what their top three are. Cause it’s going to be different for everyone. And then having them. Practice some of those things, even when they’re not when they’re not on fire.
Yes. Yeah, exactly. That was my other mistake I was making too, as I would, try and get my kids to jump to those things when they needed it. But it’s they weren’t, if they weren’t practicing it beforehand, they didn’t naturally go into that to calm themselves down. And so, when we’re talking about back to school, the main feeling we’re going to be trying to help them feel.
is anxiety, really a lot of it. Those new experiences, that nervousness, that, that kind of scared energy. So really helping them, obviously some of their top three things can be things they can do at home, before school starting, whether it’s listening to music or journaling, whatever it is.
But I always like to have one of those things be something you can do. Yeah. Because at school they can’t just go in the room and listen to music or go to nature and they might be experiencing a lot of those feelings at school. So, I just think it’s really helpful to have one of those for your kiddos be one of those breathing mindfulness techniques, right?
Whether it’s five senses one of okay, look around and five things you can see four things you can hear. I think you’ve talked about this one.
M: Yeah, grounding.
K: Yeah, just any of that kind of grounding, things it’s just really helpful to prepare them with so that yeah, when you feel this at school, remember, you can do this and it’s going to bring you back, into your body, remind you that everything’s okay.
And really just help you like, yeah, you feel that in your body. And that when you want to feel differently, you really have the power to change your thoughts going back to the first one.
M: Yeah, I love that. The stop, drop, and roll analogy is so funny. And it reminded me, the phrasing of it, of a mindfulness technique that I learned last year.
During my graduate program, Michael Baime, who’s a physician and professor at Penn and a mindfulness instructor, like a real specialist in mindfulness, uses a practice that he calls stop, breathe and be, and he teaches it to all of his medical students and to, he, he taught it to us. And it’s really simple, but it reminded me of stopped off and roll because you’re like what do you do if you feel those things that you’re not on fire?
And I was like, oh, you stop, breathe and be, and it’s as simple as. stopping, whatever you’re doing, pausing taking one or two big deep breaths as full as you can get him. He often closes his eyes and then just giving yourself another few seconds to just be still. And he said that he as a surgeon, I think he’s a surgeon, but he would use this technique every time before he entered a tense room, like an operating room or going in to talk to a patient or going in to talk to a family of a patient that like he would pause at the door and give himself.
45 seconds of stop, breathe, and be, and it would just recenter him, all of the other emotions that were happening could float up in a way and he could remember like I’m here for this particular thing, I’m going to be fine, and I thought that was really powerful. And like you were saying, it’s great.
There are so many different ways to cope and to manage our emotions and to build positive emotion and something that we always have with us is our breath. And so being able to just teach our kids a very simple breath practice is something they can do anywhere they are, anytime. So, I thought that was a fun correlation for a stop, drop, and roll to stop, breathe, and be.
K: Yeah. I think that’s especially helpful, as school is approaching and with time being a factor to just have people just say, okay, I’m going to take that one. I’m teaching my kids, stop, breathe, and be, and that’s, we can work on some of the other ones later, but that would be amazing.
For all of them to practice. I love the BE part too. I think we talked a lot about the breathing, but then just like that after, like just sit and be still for a few seconds. Yeah. Yeah. Allow it to settle in and so yeah, so that’s great. We’ve talked about teaching kids about their brains and their thoughts, helping them feel their feelings.
M: I love that phrase, even that it’s not feelings or choose their feelings, but the feelings come automatically and allowing them to feel their feelings and teaching them to feel their feelings and be okay with them all over the spectrum, whatever they are. And so, then what’s next what’s another skill or strategy that you have for helping our kids feel confident going back to school?
K: My next one is love them and I feel like this can sound like, okay obviously, obviously we love our kids, as parents. But if we go back to that foundational piece that they need of this self-esteem to feel lovable, it was interesting for me to learn that love loving our child in a way that we thought was expressing love to them is a little different than them feeling left and feeling like they were lovable.
And so, I just think that just being mindful of how this shows up in our parenting is that. We can obviously love our children and stuff. However, if we’re communicating you are only, good if you get this certain grade, or if you follow all my rules or, and of course we want to have boundaries and expectations for our kids, communicating to them.
Your worth is set, right? Like you, there is nothing you can do to, to change my love for you. And of course, I want you to, make good choices and do things like that. However, you’re just as amazing if you don’t. And I think also. That takes a lot of that pressure off of going back to school of, I got to, try out for these things and I got to get these certain grades.
If they really internally believe I’m worthy, no matter what, like that doesn’t define me, whether it’s a, whether it’s a good thing or maybe something we don’t want them to do that, none of that defines them. So, I just feel like just keeping that in mind as we, talk to them about going back to school is really helpful.
M: Yeah, this one is so important and begins for sure in the parent’s mind really coming to a place where do we, I think on first glance, we all think, of course, I love my kids unconditionally, but what reservations do we have? What lines are we creating in our own minds and in our own relationships around?
The way we think they should be and that, the imposition of who we want them to be sometimes for their own good. And I think it can sound really pretty to say they’re going to be so much more successful if they X, Y, Z. And what if that’s not who they are or what they want? Our idea of what makes them successful and what makes them, the way that we think will be best for them may not be accurate.
And it’s really tricky to unwind from our own expectations because I think a lot of times parents feel very, entwined with their kids and we want them to do well in some ways. And it’s hard to say this, but in some ways, because it makes us feel like we’re doing well, if they are succeeding, if they’re making the teams, if they’re getting the grades, if they have all the friends, it validates our parenting.
And yeah. It’s it can be really tricky to have a kid who isn’t doing those things, who isn’t making friends, who isn’t getting good grades, who isn’t having a positive school experience, and to feel like that doesn’t negatively reflect on you as a parent. In fact, loving them through any of those challenges.
Is the only thing that they need right then, and hopefully with some, additional support from whatever as needed, but I think that in order to love our kids unconditionally, we really have to mine our own expectations and be okay with them. Walk through the process of I know what they look like right now.
And what if X, Y, Z happened? What if they stopped going to school? What if they stopped getting good grades? What if they decided they didn’t want to play football anymore? What if they don’t want to have friends? And in this environment, what if they come out to me? What if they tell me that they, feel differently about themselves, about their identity, about their relationships, about their attractions?
Like… What are all of the things that could possibly, potentially make me feel like I’m having a hard time accepting and loving them? And those are my issues to work through. And I’ve got to, I’ve got to do that work so that I can show up with unconditional love and support these kids as they are.
K: I’m so glad that you brought that up, and I think that you are completely right. I think that a lot of that comes from maybe cultural, expectations, how we’ve thought of things in the past. And I think that. Yeah, that, that’s just like I said, teaching your kids that they are good no matter what, and that they are worthy no matter what.
We have to do that same work to ourselves of, I am a good parent, no matter what my child decides to do. And really like that thought, you’re talking about having thoughts on hand, like that thought to use for yourself over and over again is what’s going to enable you to get to that place, to, to love your child, Through it all.
M: And yes, can you still have, your own personal feelings that you can work through on certain things, of course, but making sure that, you’re showing up to them in that way that you want to, that doesn’t create shame for them.
K: And I also want to add, we are human, right? Especially as moms. And so, our, fight or flight brain will still maybe get triggered through some of these things with choices that they make, or our, if our expectations. Kind of change with the things that they do and just realizing that we may react sometimes in a way that causes them to feel shame and back to, Dr. Becky’s book. It really was probably the most impactful parenting book that I’ve ever read called Good Inside. And I just read it recently, so it’s all fresh in my mind. But the biggest takeaway I took away from that one is the power of repair. She’s literally the science shows you could go back to a situation years later.
When you maybe realize, oh, the way I reacted was totally out of my own fear for that. And I probably caused, some shame there. So let me re, talk to my child about that, that it can literally rewire their brain there of the story of what happened and heal, heal their self-esteem, heal your connection.
So, I just feel like hopefully, as parents are listening to this, they’re not like, oh shoot, I’ve messed this up. It’s that’s okay. Like just, we’re all a work in progress on our own journeys and knowing how powerful. That repair is.
M: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I believe in that deeply. I use it often because I make lots of parenting mistakes.
And I also know that I’m doing my best, and my best sometimes is okay. And sometimes it’s crappy. And, I think having that same unconditional love for us is really powerful as it, as an example too, because it takes a lot of, I think it does take a lot of courage and vulnerability to show up for a repair with our kids.
K: Yeah. And that example, even in its own right of, my mom doesn’t think that she knows everything. My mom doesn’t think that she’s perfect and she still is okay, allows them the freedom to also not be perfect and to be okay.
M: Really powerful. So, tell me about this last tip that you’re going to offer today. Everything has been so valuable so far and I hope that everyone’s just enjoying digging in and listening and has many ideas about their own families.
K: Thank you. This last one is, pretty simple, but it is knowing them, right? So, loving them, no matter what, for who they are, and also knowing them as far as knowing, their strengths, because this is where we want to add the helping them feel capable part of confidence, of helping them.
They might recognize some of their own strengths, but really as they’re growing, it’s helpful for parents to point out, some of their personality strengths and also some maybe of their like, oh, you’re really musically inclined or athletically and really pouring into what lights them up, giving them chances to try a lot of new things so that they can develop those skills that will.
Kind of help them to have confidence and to be able to contribute to the world.
M: Absolutely. Yeah. I want to just call out here. I’ve shared it a couple of times on the show, but there’s a free quiz. It’s viacharacter.org, V I A character. org. And this are the VIA Institute or Values In Action Institute character lab is a huge, like research body basically that and it’s a series of 24 innate human strengths, and you can take a free quiz and it will, through these series of questions, it will give you a report of your strengths and it will give them an order of like your highest strengths down to your lowest strengths.
And they have one for kids. And so, I actually was talking, I learned about it last year in grad school. I had Dave take it. And it’s so interesting because like you think you know yourself pretty well. And. You do and having these explanations that go along with these drinks is really fun.
But Milo came home from school with a report having nothing to do with me. I had thought Oh, I should have my kids do this too. And I hadn’t gotten around to it. And he came home from eighth grade. All of the eighth graders had taken the free VIA character quiz, and he had a list of his strengths in hand.
And we sat down and were able to talk about specifically. And there’s something really powerful, not about me just saying, oh, you’re so good at this, but this sort of external third party, it felt very official because he took the quiz online and got a printout of my number one strength is humor. My number two strength is teamwork. My number three strength is leadership.
Then we were able to have this really cool conversation around how can you use humor in some of the areas of your life that feel tricky right now? How can you show up with teamwork in our family when we ask you to do this or that? And being able to like to have some real concrete, not only I love you and I see all of your shrinks cause I’m your mom, but also here’s this sort of externally validated idea.
It gave us common language at to talk about them. And then there’s such good research around. Inviting kids to lead with their strengths rather than recognizing what they’re not good at and trying to help them get better at the things they’re not good at ignore what they’re not good at and really focus on what they are good at, what they’re interested in. And as you build those strengths. Everything else comes up.
K: Okay, that’s amazing. And I’m just trying to think how I’ve missed that because I feel like I have not missed many of your podcasts. So, I’m like, oh my goodness. I need this.
M: I think it may have been on like a Happy Class episode. One of the mini-series because I was in that segment of school, and I mentioned it. But I need to do like a full episode about it because I think it’s, there’s such dynamic research and it’s really funny. Somehow it came up last month at my book club. I’m in this great book club with seven other women and somehow it came up.
I think one of my friends, I had mentioned it too. And so, she asked me for the website, and we have this text chain. And so, we invited everyone to take it. These are all like mid-forties, mid-fifties women. And we were all sharing our top five strengths and commenting on each other’s. Oh, I can see that for you.
And some people are joking. “Mine’s prudence. I’m not a prude.” We were just but it, what it, what I really love about the via strengths in particular is that it just brings a common language so that you’re talking about the same thing that you’re not just saying I would never really use the word prudence in my normal life, and it maybe feels like a negative connotation.
But when you look into prudence as like being really intentional and aware of the choices that you’re making that you’re respecting other people that you’re respecting yourself like prudence at its most healthy sort of feels like boundaries, it’s nice to be able to have some of that language.
I love this one-off knowing them and knowing their strengths. And I just wanted to throw out the VIA character free kids and teens quiz. And it’s also great for adults too. So, I’ll make sure that’s linked in the show notes.
K: Oh good.
M: Yeah, it’s a good reminder for me, too. I’m sitting here thinking, oh, I haven’t had my other kids take it yet, and they’re going back to school in two weeks. So, I need to, we’ll probably do a little family night around, have everyone take it, talk through it. And one of the exercises that is really common with the VIA strengths is to think of three new ways that you could use it this week in your normal life.
If your top, my top strength is curiosity. How, like what are areas of my life that I’m not being very curious? How do I exercise curiosity even greater? Because it’s something that comes naturally to me.
K: I like how you said you were going to maybe sit down with your family before going back to school, I feel like that would be really helpful for people also to in a way, empower their kids with those reminders right before they go back to school.
Hey, how can you use your top three as you go back this week? What are some ways that kind of makes them hopefully give them some of those positive thoughts to carry with them.
M: Yeah. The other thought that comes to mind about this know them, and I just love this idea, is we have to spend time with them one on one in order to know them.
And sometimes that feels really hard. We all have busy lives. The more kids you have, it seems like the, the less time that you have for them individually with work and school and jobs and hobbies and summer camps and all the things that are going on. Sometimes. A week can go by, and I feel have I even seen my kids?
They’re around me all the time, but am I sitting down and looking in their eyes and having a conversation with them one on one? And sometimes a whole week goes by, and I haven’t had that quality interaction with them. And this point just reminds me of the importance of that. And I’m like, even in this moment, thinking through like, how do I schedule that in?
So, I have at least 10 or 15 minutes every couple day with each of them individually to just like, how are you? You, by yourself, not you with as lumped in with all the siblings or the animals, but like you, how are you doing? What are you interested in right now? What are you excited about?
What was your favorite thing about today? It’s an easy practice to get away from, and I’m, I need to bring it back. I appreciate the reminder. Yeah, and I think that’s something I’m still trying to master too, is how can I pencil that in? I think bedtime is an easy, natural place to sit at the edge of their beds and have a little bit of that one-on-one time check in.
But your energy is also pretty low at bedtime too. And so sometimes it’s really brief. And I also am really trying to figure out how to be more intentional about that, especially with more than one child, because it’s huge. Yeah, we should all brainstorm and then leave a comment in the show notes or come send me a DM on Instagram.
Maybe I’ll put it like a question box on Instagram and see how people are getting that one-on-one time with their kids because we could all use some group think around this topic.
K: For sure. This is so great.
M: So why don’t you just review for us the four tips that you talked about today and let us know if you have any last takeaways as we’re prepping to help our kids feel more confident heading into this year.
K: So, teaching them the power of their thoughts, helping them feel their feelings, no matter what they are and loving them unconditionally and knowing them. are all just four things that, and I hope that they don’t sound overwhelming. I know sometimes, listening to self-help things can make people just feel like, oh I’m not doing that.
I just give up, but I think it’s just, if you can just grab one of those things of okay, I’m going to, we’re going to help them feel their feelings, and help them do that. Stop. Breathe and be just, just every little thing that you can do to build your child’s self-esteem is worth it.
M: I luckily don’t feel overwhelmed at all. I actually feel like these are so approachable and so necessary and are simple enough that they can be sprinkled in with the rhythms of our life. And hopefully we can find ways to do that with just, knowing is the first step, like knowing and understanding to be able to start translating into like how to actually bring these things home for our kids.
So, I really appreciate the thought and intention and time you’ve put into preparing for today. Do you have any last final takeaways to share before we, Release our listeners back into the wilds of their life.
K: Yeah. I think that just keeping in mind too, you talked about us as parents how the power of our own example is of loving ourselves and working on our own self esteem just.
Keeping in mind that, sometimes outside professional help, whether it’s life coaching or therapy, if we are struggling with loving ourselves doing some of that healing work can really make a difference in us being able to help our kids with it. So just keeping in mind how valuable that can be.
And then also, I’ve mentioned that for the last four and a half years, we’ve only really been helping our local community here in Gilbert. teaching the classes in person, which is, has been really helpful for the girls. And I’m realizing now how important it is to get a lot of these tools into the hands of parents.
Part of that came from meeting with this school psychologist who talked about the stop, drop and roll thing. And she said, I love what you’re doing. This is brilliant to be. Supercharging these girls at this age. However, you’ve got to talk to the parents too. You got to get to the parents because a lot of what you’re teaching the girls of how to feel their feelings can be undone at home.
If the parents, don’t understand that all feelings are okay. And here’s how we work through them. And so, I’ve really been, starting to go that direction next of trying to help parents from all over, taking some of the same tools that we use here. So, something that I just finished up that people can just go right to my website and get my free download.
It’s like a 12-page little eBook thing of five simple ways to build your child’s self-esteem in just five minutes a day. And a lot of them fall under that that love them category and that know them of just some really simple. Concrete ways to keep in mind throughout the day of little things that you can do that are going to make a really big impact.
So, I’m excited to be able to offer that to everyone right now. And they can go and check that out and start there.
M: This is so perfect. I love that it’s five minutes a day because that is ground level, like so approachable. Everything that you do is so well done. So thoughtful. You’re such a brilliant and experienced educator.
And so, what an offering to share. I’ll make sure that the link to the free Download eBook is in the show notes for this episode and then tell everyone else where they can find you Online. I know your classes are only available live in Arizona, but you do a lot of teaching through Instagram reels and Instagram stories You have tips Happening all the time online.
Share your Instagram handle and the website. And any of you, Arizona mama’s listening, get your kids to Meant to be Me. I wish that I may like just take Plum out for a week sometime just so she can go, because I really think that it’s so valuable and so important what you’re doing, and I wish I were closer.
K: Oh, thank you so much. We would love to have fun anytime. So, my website is meanttobeme.org and then our Instagram is @meanttobe.me. So, people can come join us there.
M: We will make sure all of that is linked in the show notes of this episode. Thank you again so much for being here and for sharing such wisdom with us.
Good luck getting your kids back to school. And I wish you the best. I hope to see you soon in person.
K: Thanks so much for having me.
Didn’t I tell you that Kristen is wise and wonderful? I so appreciate the time that she spent with me sharing these great tips for back-to-school confidence for our kids and for ourselves.
If in your neighborhood kids are going back to school right now, I wish you the best. If you’re like us and you still have a couple more weeks of summer, it’s a great time to start some of these intentional conversations that might not just pop up on their own. And as you’re doing your back-to-school shopping and getting new backpacks and sharpening pencils, you can also think about someone on one time with each of your kids.
I’m excited to chat with you again next week. I have a couple weeks of very conversational storytelling about our time in Costa Rica coming up as we finish out the summer here, and I hope that you enjoy. Have a good one. I’ll chat with you later. Bye.
