Conscious Parenting with Kristin Van Wey - Parenting Series Part 1

A Personal Note From Orion

Welcome to Part 2 of the Stellar Life parenting series with my guest Kristin Van Wey! Kristin shares her extraordinary wisdom and experience to give insights into how pivotal gut health is to building holistic health and strong immune systems in our children.

As a mother to seven children and a grandmother to five grandchildren, she certainly has the experience, mixing that with her vast training across various holistic modalities. And I am sure you’ll be as blown away as I was. Kristin is the founding director of LETS and the CEO of Essentials First. She is a wellness expert and a sought-after speaker and educator. She has helped tens of thousands of people. She’s also very active with charities, working with communities in crisis, and is one of the first to volunteer when disaster hits.

In this episode, Kristin discusses the connection between our children’s bodies, immune systems, overall well-being, and gut health. By nurturing our children’s gut health and allowing them to explore their environment, we empower them to fulfill their purpose.

If you’re a parent, I highly recommend that you listen to this episode, as Kristin equips us with practical and beneficial tips and offers guidance on constipation and other gut health issues that can negatively impact children and adults alike.

As I stated, this is the second episode in a series that Kristin and I did about parenting. In the first episode of the series, episode 317, we talked about conscious parenting, and in the upcoming one, we will cover how pregnancy affects a child’s entire life.

And now, without further ado, on to the show!

In This Episode

[02:44] – Orion welcomes Kristin Van Wey, the first episode of their parenting series, where they initially discuss the importance of discernment as a parent.
[04:57] – Kristin describes the shift to the new generation of conscious children and relates some of her discussion to The 100th Monkey Syndrome.
[11:35] – Kristin explains the seven core wounds of humanity, prompting Orion to discuss a concept from Kabbalah.
[23:16] – How to become a perfect parent for our children.
[27:56] – How to de-escalate conflict by listening to each child.
[35:53] – How to be a conscious parent without being a “helicopter mom.”
[40:16] – Kristin discusses different forms of communication depending on the child’s age.
[44:24] – How to avoid temper tantrums and how we can set parameters with our children.
[49:04] – Kristin’s top three tips for stellar parenting.

Jump to Links and Resources

About Today’s Show

Hello, my sweet darling, Kristin. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for joining us on this beautiful parenting series. I can’t even wait for us to start and dive in. Today, we will talk about conscious parenting and how to be present with your child. We always start talking about something and then go somewhere else, so we’ll see. It’s going to be a wonderful unfolding surprise. Thank you for being here.

You are so welcome. I can’t wait to talk about something so near and dear to my heart, and that is so needed in the world today. Being conscious in our lives as women, mothers, and fathers, who aren’t represented on this call, but conscious parenting and raising a generation of conscious children.

Yes. Do you think that the new babies that are coming into the world, do you see that they act differently?

There’s some baseline human behavior in all babies from all generations. But I will tell you that my younger children, I have seven kids. So my older children up through my first five, the last two children I have, are wired differently. Now I have five grandchildren and have seen the newer generation coming from my own family. So, there are subtle mindset shifts and how their brains operate. It could be because human beings are so smart.

The kids now are more evolved or evolved differently.

As the world evolves, babies are being evolved with us. They come out of the womb knowing how to operate a remote control, a cell phone, or technology. They’re just wired a little differently. That doesn’t have more to do with our conscious mamas’ exposure. When the babies are in our stomachs, their nature heads start there. If it is that, a new generation of children will take the world in a new direction. It’s a lot to contemplate.

A lot. One of my coaches saw that she is seeing a shift in the last decade with kids. Younger kids have behaviors they are supposed to have when they’re teenagers. For example, my two-and-a-half-year-old decided to close the door on me one day when he wanted privacy. He’s two and a half. This should come much later. I’m like, “Oh my God, what’s going to happen? We’re going to be teenagers. How will I handle that?”

Then we went to a Passover dinner, which was amazing. She’s got a toddler. He’s got big brothers, but he’s the same age as my son. At the end of dinner, he did the same thing. He just locked the door and turned off the light. What is going on with those kids? Babies and kids will be kids, but there is more mature behavior on their part.

Yeah, I can see that. I think brain development is changing a little bit the neurostimulation. There are a lot of levels to this conversation. We are moving into a new era. We are moving into a time of more synarchy, this model where everything is this way and teamwork and working together versus autonomy and top-down corporations and things like that. We see that, and I believe that the kids coming now, we’re seeing that they are more evolved or evolved in a different way.

Many spiritual traditions teach or believe that as we move closer to (whatever you want to call it: Zion or the Age of Aquarius), this mindset is what’s coming. As we move into that, though, the entire nervous system, the structure of our brains, will evolve into that. So we are evolving into a new type of person.

I really love Gene Keys and Richard Rudd’s talk about human design. They talk about in 2027 how this nine-centered being that we’ve been evolving into for almost 300 years will be fully on board. So if something like that were true, you could all return to the Mayan calendars.

What is the nine-centered being?

A nine-centered being, right now traditional—what’s that?

Sounds like a dragon.

No. In energy medicine, you’ll typically hear seven chakras — seven main information centers.

We’re going to be more centered.

We’re going to be moving to a nine-centered being. That means there will be a completely different way of handling life. Our first brain is our solar plexus, this whole space of information and knowledge from the gut, which receives information far faster than our brains do in our heads. So when you say nine-centered being, it’s more about the evolution that our emotional center and these ganglia of information in the gut will start making more sense to us. We don’t track much of it right now, but it will start making more sense and be part of our consciousness.

What will trigger it, and how can you tell you have this?

Well, I believe it’s going to come in the way that we treat each other. First, it will happen that our children are going to be more geared toward communication and relationships. It’s going to be a transition. I think we can gauge that by how society is run. Right now, we have—I’m going to call this—a global pandemic of everything from sex trafficking to domestic violence and abuse, to rape culture, to child brides worldwide in different tones.

As we heal ourselves, the capacity to understand and see beyond the veil increases, which allows us to help our children embrace their unique genius and become fully actualized. Share on X

When we start taking care of each other, you’re going to know it’s like a network where the entire network is aware of the entire network. Right now, we’ve got the seven centers, and we’re not as aware as we could be that it impacts us. That somebody, all totally across the world, which we don’t know, we are impacting each other. It’s this universal sense of love and awareness that our actions do matter.

That’s the gauge. We can gauge it right now in our personal lives and the way that we consciously raise our children and talk and communicate love with our partners, families, and jobs. We discussed this top-down ego model going away right now, but it will take generations.

I don’t see how because the people in power would love to have this thought. If you’re at the top, why would you like an equal society where everybody can get wealthy? You will do anything to destroy.

Well, under the old model, you will. The newer model will say that when you are allowing the consciousness of everybody, everyone rises together. There will not be power struggles for even them. I think the world is governed by fear.

People on the top are orchestrating many disasters in this world to control the population. Some will have an awakening and will mold into an equal society.

How to Teach Your Baby to Read by Glenn Doman & Janet Doman

I don’t know that they’ll see it that way. It may take a generation to lose some of the hierarchy. But when the world begins to awaken collectively, and there are more people, it’s like the hundredth monkey syndrome. You will see through the illusions when more people have pure, open hearts.

You will no longer be able to be lied to, so it’d be like, we’ve got these allegory stories from Disney stories to fairy tales from long, long ago, but maybe you think of the yellow brick road, and you think of who was hiding behind the curtain all this time. So these roles and the things being played in front of us will eventually pull the curtain, and we will be able to see the truth, and that will be all that matters.

In Kabbalah, there is the term seeing beyond the veil. According to the Kabbalah studies, we only see the 1%, and sometimes we have glimpses beyond the veil and to the 99% of what it is.

What if this new evolution of humanity helps us see even 5% or 10%? Then eventually, it increases as we can manage these new feelings and behaviors, and we get out of survival mode. We’re not in fear anymore. We’ve dealt with what is called the seven core wounds of humanity. It’s in every tradition, but seven core wounds need to be healed individually. Then they need to be healed collectively.

Yeah, and the core of what you said was that we need to be able to handle it. Again, I’m drawing from my study. We are the vessel. If a lot of light comes in and we can’t handle it, it can almost break us. So we need to pass it to contain all this light and knowledge because it will make or break us because it’s intense.

So how do we do that?

How do we do that, and how do we do that as parents? We are parents to a new type of kids that are souls coming to this world and are more evolved than us. They came here because they’re ready to handle what’s going on and all. We’re going through such a major shift in history. They’re here because they can be leaders, contain it, and move forward. As parents, we have a bigger job, so how do we expand our consciousness to be good for our kids?

The most important gift we can give our children is our growth and development and recognizing what is ours and the collective’s because many of us are very sensitive to what is happening around us, which can impact us.

Love is the glue that binds us all together.

So when we are willing to go through and better understand our challenges, our challenge patterns, and the seven core wounds that live inside each of us. As we heal ourselves, the capacity to understand and see through that veil will increase, which allows us then to help the children that we birth to step into their genius and become who they are at earlier ages than we did because we still have neurology. We still have a mind and a body; we still are human.

These kids are more evolved. But, if parents don’t see who they are and don’t know how to raise them to live into their genius, then it takes yet another generation.

How do we see who they are? We know the world as we are, not as it is, so how can we see our kids for what they are without our filters, judgments, and core wounds? In any communication between a parent and a child, all these layers block the truth of what this child may need or be capable of. Even when you have the best intentions, you’re conscious and evolved. Just being a human being, you have all these conditions.

The answer to that is twofold, probably a lot more than that. But you are the perfect one to raise your baby because it was co-created in your body. So the more that we can consciously co-create life from conception is important. Now a lot of us don’t get to go back to conception. We weren’t that aware. We just made a baby. But if we can go back and realize first and foremost that that baby was created from our DNA, and there are parts of us moving through them, we are going to be the best person to see our children because there are many of us we see in them. So the more we heal ourselves, we’re not mirroring our own projections onto our kids because we’ve made it through. We’ve healed those wounds that we have. It’s called fragmentation. We pull it back together. We must pull our wholeness together with the best we can so that when we see our children, it is through a divine filter of love. It’s love, and love is the glue that binds us all together.

The more we can work with our partners, the more we can communicate and heal the core wounds that trigger us, and the more we will have this filter for our kids. The other part is that our kids are who they are regardless. We have story after story of kids who come out of horrific backgrounds and ride into massive amounts of impact and leadership. There’s something encoded within each one of our DNA. We have the genetic part, but then we have who and why we are here individually.

We can’t micromanage all of our shadows and challenges. That’s a big job and a lifetime journey for all of us.

We’ve got both of those. But with love and presence, we will be guided to see. We can’t micromanage all of our shadows and challenges. That’s like a big job. It’s a lifetime journey for all of us. Having faith that our kids are who they are, they came encoded with everything they need, and that you’re the perfect parent for that child. As you said earlier, our children chose to go now on the planet because they were designed to manage it. They came through us as physical beings and spiritual beings.

Bruce Lipton says that the womb is nature’s head start program. I’ve seen that with my own kids. I’ve seen it as I traveled the world. If a child is born in the rural communities of Haiti versus New York City and the environments are completely different, that child was nurtured to be fine in whatever environment it was birthed into. That’s not always healthy, but it is prepared because the mother’s hormones, food, energy, emotions, and chemistry flow through that child while in the womb, that’s a completely different conversation if we talk about adoption and other circumstances because there’s always that birth energy of the parents. Love and presence, the willingness to look at ourselves as conscious parents, and taking care of ourselves as conscious parents is the best gift we can give our children and allow them to see who they are because they are loved.

I think I was the perfect mom until I gave birth. I had all these ideas about what it was going to be like. If I saw a parent with a child with a tantrum, I was like, “Oh my God, I’m going to be so disciplined with my son,” and he looked at me with puppy eyes, and I was like, “Okay, have whatever you want.”

There are so many things I feel like, especially recently, I’ve been dealing with a little bit of at the age of between two and three when they become more present into who they are, their separation from the world, and the need to prove to themselves that they’re capable. They’re a little confused at this age, I believe—a separate being and figuring out their place in the world and the family. So I’ve been dealing with some tantrums, crying, and my wounds surfacing.

My work now on myself is much deeper than at any other time in my life because I intend to raise a phenomenon and not mess it up. We all mess it up, eventually. I have messed up many times, but I try to the best of my ability not to mess him up and raise him so he will have the best life ever, which every parent wants for their kids.

I also feel like, you know, how you said they feel your energy, affected by your hormones, and it was dealing with a little bit of postpartum depression. I lost my cat during pregnancy and was dealing with grief, anxiety, and strong emotions. So while my baby was in utero, there was a lot of strong emotion in the first year when COVID hit and a strong emotion with everything going on.

Collective consciousness allows us all to rise, united.

I still breastfeed him occasionally, and I heard so many times, “Oh, he’s taking on your emotions.” I feel so guilty sticking to my feelings. But, on the other hand, what can I do about it? These are my emotions. How can I put them aside and say, okay, now we’re breastfeeding? I will put everything aside and breastfeed you or something like that, or I will shove my emotions because it will influence you. So how do you navigate that?

Well, first off, emotions are energy, and they are chemicals. There is no way to shut them down. The best thing you can do is learn how to navigate and express them naturally. What is the most important question we have to ask when raising our children? What essential elements are necessary for human development and life and joy in life?

Regardless of how awakened or aware and present we are, we can never block pain. We can’t stop all that. All we get to do is be more authentic with it. That is the difference. There is a lot of mom guilt and shame. We are trying to do our best and feel like we fail. But in essence, we are asking the wrong question.

We all have emotions, and we all have bad days. He had a bad day. You have a bad day. Your partner is having a bad day. So the right question is, can we show up in love? How can we communicate those times with the people we love?

We can’t push it down. That comes out in illness. It comes down and out in all kinds of other areas. You can’t put it away. You can’t hide that. Especially in children from birth to eight years old, at least seven years old, the brainwaves are still forming in a very real way; they are receiving. I love the work of Bruce Lipton because it goes into brain chemistry, and every part of our system is still in play and record mode up until that age with how our system responds. Then eventually, we get to seven, eight years old, and it just goes on playback.

Even knowing that feels like such a huge responsibility.

Regardless of how awakened or aware and present we are, we can never block pain.

It is, but remember, your baby was born specifically for you and at his development level to match your level. He is going to be okay, and you grow together. The more that you grow, the more both of you evolve. In my opinion, it takes a deep love to become a parent for the first time, then each child you bear after that.

This sense of this is a big job, and there’s so much responsibility, but there’s so much love that can grow and expand us because maybe we wouldn’t make the same decisions if it was only us. So now I have to take responsibility. I’ve got to get my act together for this other human in my life.

If I didn’t have my son, my communication would be neither gentle nor kind. Instead of being the parent, I was a two-year-old with my two-year-old. It took those times for me to go deeper and heal some things inside, to work with somebody to help me. Because if this didn’t happen and I wouldn’t see myself like that, I would yell at him.

I don’t want to be that mom that yells. So I reach for help so I can understand myself better, so I can act. Sometimes we are so out there that we don’t even look inside and check what’s happening to us.

Yeah. That’s a really real thing. That’s why we discussed the best gift you give your kids at the beginning is your own personal development. I would say generational patterns as we break, knowing it’s not just you. You inherited such a big part of the patterns that you have. You were raised in an environment up until you were seven or eight years old.

The environment that I was raised in was super duper tough.

Yeah, so there’s no blame there, personally, when we are often acting out of auto-response. There are ways of becoming more aware as we mature. We first have even to recognize we have something to be aware of. Then we began to notice, but would it be okay as a mother to have a temper tantrum? No. But then catching ourselves and then laughing about it or forgiving—forgiveness is a big part of the process.

Part of being human is to have polarities. That adds variety; it adds drama.

It’s part of the process because there isn’t a day that goes by that we’re probably not going to do something that we wish we hadn’t done or thought something. Maybe the question isn’t, “How do I become the perfect parent?” How would you like to have energy like this all the time, or do I always feel joy? Part of being human is to have polarities. That adds variety; it adds drama. That’s every good story in Hollywood, in movies or books.

Yeah, it’s life. It may not be so much about not having them because we want the waves, but it is knowing how to listen. I always say, “How do we hear the inner wisdom within us that will guide us to make the right decisions?” If we as adults can learn how to identify that part within us, how do we hear the divine or our higher selves to make decisions and teach our children how to do that? Then these waves will be okay because they know there is a safe space. They know that there is also a safe space to express themselves.

We weren’t given that as a child, most of us. The average adult did not have a safe place to express themselves emotionally. I would love to take a poll. I don’t know anybody who was. I certainly didn’t feel like I had great parents. But I felt unsafe expressing my emotions and sharing my biggest dreams. So if we start asking these questions about ourselves, our own parenting is how to identify the triggers and start working through them just like that’s why I’m here on Earth?

How can I be more and more aware of what those triggers are? It’s not the situation that we’re having a temper tantrum over. It’s all this other stuff that builds up. How do I begin to recognize it? Then how do I teach my child how adults who love can also manage that? Can we sit down and apologize? Can we look at each other and go, you know what, I was really tired that had nothing to do with you. Let me be more present. What do you mean?

Yeah. “I’m sorry. You don’t even like mommy talks like that.” But, yeah, we all have conversations.

That’s so beautiful. That’s conscious parenting right there, Orion.

The average adult did not have a safe place to express themselves emotionally.

There was a great moment we had. We went to a Passover dinner, the one that I mentioned. When we came back home, it was midnight already. He didn’t want to leave the car seat and was like, “No, I’m not going home,” and he was crying. I just stood there. I could have just pulled down and like no. I didn’t do that. I just stood there. I’m like, “What is it? Are you sad? Did you have a lot of fun, and you’re sad you ended up leaving?” Yeah.

Then he was talking to me, and I’m acknowledging his emotions. I’m like, “Did you have a good time? Did you play? Did you have fun? That is why you want to go back?” And he’s like, “Yes, yes.” The more I give language to his feelings, the more he calms down. Then 20 minutes later, he’s telling an older kid was there. He was like, “The big boy was talking to me.” He was so enamored by the fact that the big boy was talking to him.

Then he started telling me all about it in the evening, and we kept talking. We have cool conversations. Then I’m like, “You know mommy’s tired. Can we go and lay down?” Is that the case? No, he’s like, “I’m comfortable here.” I’m like, “Yeah, I know, but mommy’s standing. It’s late, and Mommy’s tired. Can we go? I promise you; we can keep talking.” So we sleep, and he’s like, “Okay.” And that’s how we resolved it.

That sounds so beautiful. I think it’s that presence. I raised my children, I have grandchildren to observe my children raising their children, and I can see the patterns and just all of us as we’re out in the community. We have friends with kids, and we have our own.

We watch how we could de-escalate some of these things by just listening. But, again, each child is going to have a different personality. You can’t raise every child the same. They’re not the same. They come intact with so much of their spirit. I watch sometimes, and I’ve been observing myself more often. It’s like my auto-responses.

Love yourself. Whether in the midst of a meltdown or at your greatest moment, self-love is vital.

The more I tailor to the individual child, the more response I get. He’s 18 now, but he’s always been my lover. He puts his arms around me, and he touches me. He still snuggles me. He’s a toucher, and he’s a communicator. It’s so effortless for us. For me, not so much with my husband.

My husband has others of our children that communicate well with him. So I have had to learn. Like with Rylan, I’m more touch-oriented, and I listen. Whenever I listen to him, I know that I have to stop everything I’m doing, I look him in the eye and touch him. That works for him, and he feels heard. So, therefore, he comes to me with all kinds of things.

That’s the other thing. Starting early, having the conversations, as you did with your son, creates a relationship of trust and a root system so that later as these children get into their 9, 10, 11, 12, and 15-year-olds, there’s a relationship.

Yeah, even when he was one year old, we used to have conversations when he just learned a few words before bedtime. I’m like, “Yeah, did you see the plane?” He’s like, “Plane, plane.” So it’s like a thing for us to have conversations before bed. Not every night, but many nights.

Each child is going to have a different personality. You can’t raise every child the same.

You start the habit. You start the habit of what works for you and your child, then build on it as they get older and learn more vocabulary and skills. A side note is I used to be in this program, How to Teach Your Baby to Read by Glenn Doman. I took all the homeschool classes by hand.

His daughter was on this podcast, and we took the course.

I loved it. I’ve been doing flashcards and bits with my babies since they were in the womb. My older children were raised with Glenn Doman’s work as soon as they popped out. He says babies are linguistic geniuses by nine months old and can’t articulate it because of their motor skills, but they understand everything we’re saying.

A lot of parents may not understand that. A lot of babies are reading by 9-10 months old. They can point to words. They can differentiate. They’re very, very intelligent.

Before you keep going, I know the work of Janet Doman. I took part in the course because I couldn’t get a bit, but I haven’t done it yet. Is it too late, or can I start now?

Start now. Below two years old is when so much of the brain is developing. You start exactly where you are at whatever age your children are, and you can influence their thoughts.

She’s talking about doing bits of intelligence. If you have big cards with a photo and words on them, you go fast and show your kid, and because their brain is about 800 times faster than ours, they get it. But I haven’t done any language with him. I haven’t done reading with him.

It’s so much fun. They are so smart. By three years old, my oldest daughter was reading, reading, reading. The moment she was born, I did their whole program. I just wrote big words in red letters. I did the flashcards and would say the words like truck and doll, and I picked their favorite words. Whatever their favorite words are, you do ten words at a time. You only learn in that system when you’re in a good mood.

You start exactly where you are at whatever age your children are, and you can influence their thoughts.

Yes.

We can talk a lot more about Glenn Doman’s program, how to teach your baby to read, teach your baby math, and develop intelligence. Whether it’s bits of information on your favorite topics from artists, inventors, mathematicians, or musicians, it doesn’t matter. Whatever you enjoy, you teach. But, of course, you only teach when you’re in a good mood and when the child is in a good mood, so they always love learning.

Yeah, what’s your take on TV?

I would throw them all out the door. My kids did not have TV, almost at all. It’s almost impossible nowadays. Make it the exception, not the rule. A lot of children have been raised by TV now. I know a lot of children who are raised with gaming.

There’s no judgment against that. It’s our society; they may grow up to be coders, inventors, or something. I don’t know. Each household is different in how they feel about it. But in Glenn’s program, the research at the time and maybe there’s more research out by now, but the brain development doesn’t need to be influenced by that type of learning system until a little bit older.

When the babies are younger, it is ideal for letting them touch, feel, and be in the physical world. Let them climb trees. Let them get dirty. Let them go out in the garden and help you. Let them work with you in the kitchen from two years old.

I do all that. I like the work of Maria Montessori. Recently, my babysitter left for a month, and I find myself like, “Let’s watch Bob the Builder for 15 minutes or 30.”

It’s like a break; look at it that way. But, yes, they are building intelligence.

Yeah, I know it’s not good for him. I try not to show him any TV I don’t know the content of. I stop it slowly and do not finish the frame through the frame. Getting all his TV sessions can be confusing and overwhelming for a little brain. When I see some toddler programs, it’s great. It’s just for a toddler.

That’s a different topic, but our children are desensitized to violence, crime, and things. Even though in a cartoon setting, there’s still a lot. I’ve watched some of the cartoons with a lot of slight violence. So a lot of things are programming our kids’ brains.

There’s a lot of research as we get older into brain development and the importance of the things they’re exposed to, overstimulation and dopamine effects as they are young. Of course, the average parent will do their best to screen items and ensure they’re getting good content but understand that not everybody has a pure heart or mind. There are a lot of addictive qualities to the things we watch.

We know subliminal messaging is implanted in almost every single thing that’s created. That’s just part of marketing. It’s not necessarily bad subliminal messaging, but it could be as much as you can’t see a picture of popcorn as they used to show us at a movie theater. Your brain picks it up faster than your eye can comprehend it.

Work on yourself and be present with your kids. You'll find that the parenting journey is perfect when it’s truthful. If it's messy, remember that there is magic in the mess. Share on X

I don’t have a level of trust in the media and the people who are creating these series. So I don’t want to fill that up as much. But I understand that moms have to have a break as parents who take care of their kids too. There are some good programs out there. They can learn about nature. I love nature programs and exposing them to things like music.

Sometimes when we talk about the holidays, it’s just so much easier to show something about a holiday and try to explain it. It’s becoming more discerning, like, he woke up dreaming about Bob the Builder, then I was like, you’re watching too much. It’s not a good idea.

Use your discernment. Again, there’s no make-wrong or no judgment for anybody. Just use your discernment and know the difference between the TV being a babysitter and what’s best for the child and where the line is.

Right, yeah. It’s always about the 80/20 rule. How can I be a conscious parent without being a helicopter mom? For example, two kids interacted with my son today at the playground. They were mean to him a few times, and I said nothing. I was like, “Oh, he’s going to solve it.”

My son is that type of upsweep bean who doesn’t do anything when somebody pushes him. He stands there. How can I teach him the lesson of protecting himself and not being there to protect him all the time without just doing it for him?

That, again, it’s discernment. What is it triggering in you as a parent? Looking at it, we have to keep our children safe. We also have to believe that, innately, our children are geniuses. They have so much intelligence. We forget that sometimes. We take the whole role of ourselves.

There’s no make-wrong or no judgment for anybody. Just know the difference between the TV being a babysitter, what’s best for the child, and where the line is.

If I gave my kids anything, I wanted them to know they were loved. I wanted them to have a love for learning and a curiosity for life. I also wanted them to have the confidence to solve problems. I didn’t always do that as well because I had my mama bear moments too.

I have many mama bear moments. I’m overprotective.

Yeah, that’s normal, especially with your first child. If you have more than one child and you see how they interact with each other, then you have this built-in observation. But you don’t know the parameters when it is with somebody else. You don’t know if they will go too far.

I think it’s back to communication and the child’s age. If he’s two and you were to stand beside him or sit down on the ground while those other kids were coming, but not too soon, like see how he will react. And then, as you did with the other example of sitting down, discussing what’s going through for him, and asking him about his response. If he’s not responding, let him explain that to you, depending on his age.

They’re very resilient. If we are helicopters like we are super protective, they will not have the confidence to know how to respond when they enter a setting where we are not there.

Oh, gosh. I mess up a lot.

No, you didn’t mess up. What you get to do, though, is observe yourself in the situations. Is he in harm? Does he have the skill set or toolset? Roleplay at home in different ways. Give him examples of what it feels like to be in his power because we have these core wounds.

How do I roleplay what happened in the playground?

You have a conversation around it. He’s only two. This is a tender young age, but you guys have a deeper communication relationship already.

It’s really right, yeah.

I would ask him. When somebody comes up to you at the playground, they’re pulling a toy from you, and you don’t know who they are, just ask him. Ask him how he feels, just like you did the other night. Because, again, even though he may not be able to articulate it, roleplaying in it may be as simple as giving him an outcome.

When this happens, is it possible, or do you feel comfortable doing this, or what would it look like? Or can you have a signal? It could be as simple as that. Can you give Mommy a signal? Let’s create something so that you always know that I’m right there and watching, but I am 100% confident that you will learn how to manage your friendships on the playground when meeting new kids with all different personalities. But if you ever need me, you give me the mom, whatever the mom is, the “mom look,” the “mom finger,” or something so that he always knows you are there.

When we are super protective, they will not have the confidence to know how to respond when they enter a setting where we are not there.

I have this friend who was teaching her baby to have nighttime patterns, to go to sleep, and to stay in bed. This child was under a year old. It was really beautiful for me to watch how she was doing that. It was as simple as letting the child know the parent was always there, even if he couldn’t see her.

It was this series of training for him for a few weeks where they had the little audio thing going so he could hear her voice. She would say, “Hey, I’m going to be there in just a minute.” There was this whole routine that they went through. He is under a year, and he’s not speaking at all, but he could respond, and she could watch him on the video camera and his expressions.

It was just a matter of awareness and taking the time to converse with her nine-month-old. It’s the same concept of walking them through. I didn’t finish telling the story earlier. One of my sons is snuggly and communicative, and my other kids don’t like to be touched as much. Other children who aren’t touchers want to hear me auditorily.

I’d say, “Hey, you need to look me in the eye when I’m talking to you because I’m very visual.” But if they’re auditory, they don’t like to look. Those types of understanding of how our children communicate are being able to have conversations in a language they can hear. Could you give your son some possible scenarios? Just talk him through.

When my kids were little, and I knew some would have a temper tantrum if we left the park, I used to say, “Hey, kids, we’re leaving in 30 minutes. “Hey, Ashton, we’re leaving in 20 minutes. Is there anything else you guys want to play on? We have 10 minutes.”

I had certain kids that I had to walk down and get to where they were ready to leave so that we didn’t have a meltdown, rather than just saying, hey, we’re leaving now, and then dragging them into the car. Those are different scenarios so that you can communicate them beforehand. Or if I knew that we were going somewhere they had to sit still, I would practice.

“Okay, we’re going to practice being at the wedding today. Hey, here’s your chair. You will sit in the chair, and then we will practice sitting still and build that time up.” They have to be taught behavior. Kids need parameters before ages seven to eight years old more than anything. They need structure. They need parameters.

We’re living in a society right now that doesn’t like parameters. They often don’t want to be told what to do—the parenting I have seen shifted from no discipline, like spankings back in the day, to no discipline.

Back then, I thought, where’s the line?

There is a line, and it depends on the child. But again, is it loving? Is it respectful? Is discipline coming out of an auto-response that’s aggressive of somebody? Again, that probably never feels good. But if you look at your child’s personality and start to be more aware of the line before the breakdown, you can avoid most temper tantrums.

Discover what nurtures your soul and allows you to move forward on your life’s path.

Don’t go to the store with your toddler if he’s exhausted, missed nap time, and just gave him a piece of sugar. He’s probably not going to do very well. You keep feeding him sugar; eventually, he has a flat-out meltdown. We can avoid those things as parents by scheduling things a little differently.

However, the child doesn’t need to grow up shamed, either. Remember how earlier we talked about as adults, we probably didn’t have a safe space to express ourselves emotionally? We are training our children right now on how to express themselves emotionally.

If they need to have a meltdown, it’s okay, depending on how it’s managed, the timing, and letting them know it is okay to feel this way. It would also be okay to get in the car and go home so I can hold and listen to you. It’s okay to cry. It’s okay to have that.

Right. Regardless, there’s so much to learn.

We learn with our kids.

Yeah. What was the difference in your parenting between kid number one and kid number seven?

Kid number one, I cared about every single thing. I micromanage every morsel of food, every bit of sunlight. I wanted to be the perfect parent.

It sounds familiar.

Yeah, that’s normal. By child seven, I wondered why I was so uptight. I wondered why I didn’t just let things happen organically and why I was not present because there is so much more joy when you see the child instead of the schedule or the structure.

We did talk about how kids need structure and parameters. I don’t mean that, but two years old came, and she was potty trained. I was doing the how-to potty train in less than a day. I had her in ballet, and I had her in all these things. It’s fine. My children had many varied experiences, and we have had fun with them.

I found that giving my child a box and a marker, letting him climb trees and play outside, and working with me in the garden was probably more healthy and effective in bonding with them and developing themselves than trying to do so many other things that I think were expensive and took them out of my home and in my awareness. I should rephrase that. All those activities are fine, but it was my mindset behind why they were necessary.

When we collectively care for one another, we become aware of our interconnectedness and the universal love that’s ours for the taking. Our connection with everyone around us proves that our actions matter. Share on X

While my youngest children have had many of the same sports, activities, music, and all those things, the stress behind it and the reason I did it are different. That may make more sense than the first way I said it.

It makes sense for us parents. What are your three top tips for a stellar parent?

Just be you and love all of you. Love yourself when you have a meltdown, feel like a two-year-old, and don’t love who you are. But love who you are in all of that. Love yourself in all of your glory. Be present for yourself, your partner, and your child. It would be the key one.

Do some things for personal development. Learn about your triggers. Go back. I can’t say enough about the Gene Key golden pathway to bring awareness to our triggers and patterns. Find something that will nurture you and help you move forward on your path.

Whether taking an art class, a music class or reading some books, do things that develop and nurture you. Work on yourself and be present with your kids. You’ll find that the journey is perfect because it’s the truth. Just live the truth. If it’s messy, the magic is in the messy.

I love it. Where can people find, work with, and learn from you?

You can find me at kristinvanwey.com. It’ll be the easiest. You can look at my website. You can send me an email. You can find me on social media channels just under my name.

What can they work with you on?

I run the gamut. I have a lot, but it all goes down to who I am, why I am here, and how I can live fully in my purpose. That includes conscious parenting in the workplace or our homes—relationships with ourselves and other people.

I love to walk the journey with people. I’m here to look at the parameters if somebody wants to create an experience and then work with them to achieve that so that they have a safe place to discover their genius.

Beautiful. Thank you, my friend. It’s always wonderful. It’s always lovely to interact with you. I was still expanding after we had a conversation. I love to share your thoughts with the world. I wish you good things. I appreciate our discussion.

Thank you. I feel the same way about you.

Thank you. Thank you, listeners. Remember, be you, love all of you, and be present for yourself, your child, and your partner. Do some personal development, like listening to the Stellar Life podcast because it’s all about personal development, business developing, life developing, relationship developing, and everything about developing. So just love yourself and have a stellar life. This is Orion. Until next time.

Your Checklist of Actions to Take

{✓}Be mindful of your actions and their impact on others, especially your children. Remember that even small actions can make a big difference in someone’s life.

{✓}Embrace your children with love and acceptance. Create a positive and nurturing environment that supports their individual, unique growth and development.

{✓}Communicate openly and honestly with your partner to heal any triggering past traumas, and learn to heal these experiences for the benefit of your children.

{✓}Organically navigate and express your emotions. When you feel mom guilt or shame, allow yourself to authentically experience your feelings to help you process and move forward.

{✓}Develop a routine or habit that works for you and your children, and build on it as they age. Consider enrolling in a program that collectively resonates with you.

{✓}Encourage your child to explore and experience the physical world. Support their curiosity and imagination. Let them get dirty and allow them to express creativity.

{✓}Prioritize self-care and take needed breaks. Recognize that investment in your own well-being will allow you to create lasting memories with your children.

{✓}Establish clear boundaries and expectations for your children’s behavior. Provide structure and parameters that help them feel safe and cultivate self-discipline and responsibility.

{✓}Use discernment in raising your children. Recognize that there’s no one right way to parent, but always consider what’s truly best for your children.

{✓}Explore the resources available from Kristin Van Wey’s website to learn more about wellness and connect with others on a similar journey. Remember that caring for yourself will help you to become a good parent and partner.

About Kristin Van Wey

Kristin Van Wey is an internationally recognized leader, educator, speaker and trainer in innovative approaches to well-being. She helped thousands experience: insights, understanding and remarkable results. With over 30 years of professional experience in health, Kristin is one of the leading voices on the use of essential oils. Her humanitarian efforts have brought hope and empowerment to communities in crisis; she’s dedicated to partnering with others to serve communities globally. As a mother to seven children and a grandmother to five grandchildren, she certainly has the experience, mixing that with her vast training across various holistic modalities.