Brené Brown – The Gifts of Imperfect Parenting (Audio)

sounds true presents the gifts of imperfect parenting raising children with courage compassion and connection with Brene brown and now session 1 nurturing love and belonging just recently I was at church and a friend walked up to me and said every time I screw up with my kids every time I do something just not good I just picture you and I thought oh god great but then I was driving home and I thought that's probably a good thing because I'm not a parenting expert in fact I'm pretty sure that's an oxymoron like parenting expert if you have children it would take a whole lot of courage or hubris I'm not sure which to think that you're an expert at doing this because if you're like me I feel pretty vulnerable all the time and that's what these two sessions are going to be about what these sessions are going to be about is where do we find the gifts in our imperfect parenting and the reason I'm I wanted to share this information with you is because 12 years of research has led me to believe that the most powerful meaning-making moments and our relationships with our children and I don't care if you're you know if they're 2 or 42 happen in these incredibly imperfect moments and so I want to start by kind of describing to you what I see is the parenting space right now kind of the culture that we're in as parents I think the debates around issues like you know helicopter parenting and Tiger moms and other Europeans doing it better than we're doing it are not helpful and I think that a lot of the parenting space is really filled with judgment it's filled with how do we raise perfectly happy perfectly achieving kids and I think one of the reasons most of us feel disconnected from these debates is that we're in our homes with our families just trying to do the best we can just trying to put one foot in front of the other and make choices and decisions that we feel good about you know ourselves and that we feel are moving our kids in the right direction certainly I think most of us would love a rule book or you know an instruction guide but I don't think it exists and one of the hardest things if not the most difficult thing that I've learned in the past decade of my work has been this who we are is a much more accurate predictor of how our kids will do then what we know or understand about the science of parenting there was a beautiful quote from Joseph Chilton Peirce he said what we are teaches the child more than what we say so we must be what we want our children to become in that piece of wisdom lies our greatest challenge and our greatest opportunity to be the adults that we want our children to be and to understand what it would mean to raise children with courage with compassion with connection and so what I'm hoping to do with these two sessions is to talk to you about what I've learned and what it means to raise a child who engages with the world from a place of worthiness feels a deep sense of love and compassion for themselves and others who value hard work and perseverance and respect who have the courage to be imperfect and vulnerable and creative who don't fear being ashamed or feeling unlovable if they're different or when they're struggling and really importantly I think in today's culture raising children who can move through this world with a sense of courage and resilience and so I'm going to tell you kind of what I've learned in guideposts and these are guideposts for what I call wholeheartedness and I have to tell you that again because I I move deeply from the space of believing that we can't give our children what we don't have that these are not just guideposts for how we raise our children but guideposts for how we think about our families and our own lives so let's get started with I think the most important guideposts around parenting which is cultivating worthiness in our families wholeheartedness as I define it is about engaging with the world from a place of worthiness it's about waking up in the morning and saying you know what no matter what gets done what's left undone no matter how crappy it is I'm enough it's about going to bed at night and saying yes I was imperfect yes I'm vulnerable yeah I was even afraid several times today but that doesn't change the fact that I am also brave and worthy of love and belonging one of the most profound things that I think we need to understand about worthiness is that worthiness doesn't have prerequisites and most of us have knowingly or unknowingly kind of create a list of prerequisites for worthiness you know I will be worthy when I lose 20 pounds I will be worthy if my husband gets promoted I will be worthy if I make partner if I stay sober if my child gets into Stanford the list goes on and on if no one finds out that I'm HIV positive if no one ever knows that I'm in recovery you know this if and when lists of worthiness worthiness isn't as is proposition worthiness is about believing Here I am this is who I am I'm willing to show up and let myself be seen and I know I'm imperfect but love and belonging are a birthright and those are not on the table when I'm in struggle what I thought it was very profound about my research is that if you took men and women who really struggled for a sense of love and belonging struggled to believe that they were capable of loving and they were lovable and people who felt a deep sense of love and belonging in their lives the only variable that separated those groups was this idea of worthiness there was simply a group of people who believed that they were worthy of love and belonging not despite their vulnerabilities but perhaps because of them and so one of the things we need to think about as parents is what prerequisites for worthiness are we knowingly or unknowingly handing down to our children you know the enemy of worthiness is shame so where we need to start the conversation around wholeheartedness and worthiness is around shame and what that looks like in our families so what I want to talk about a little bit is the difference between shame and guilt with kids shame I often described as this belief that we are unworthy of love and belonging that there's something about us something we've done that renders us unlovable that we don't deserve to be in connection guilt is not I'm unworthy of love and belonging there's not that there's something wrong with me but I've done something bad so from a parenting perspective let me give you this example shame I am bad guilt I did something bad shame kind of bad girl guilt great girl really bad choice one of the reasons why we really have to understand about how shame and guilt operate in our families is I can trace back to one of the first longitudinal studies on shame researchers at a group of fifth graders and measured whether these kids were using more shame self talk or guilt self talk in other words when something happened let's say they struck out at a baseball game or they got in trouble at school were they able to say god I made a bad choice or I didn't do well on this or do they immediately go to that place of I am not enough I am stupid I am wrong I am bad so researchers were able to go in and measure kids to find out whether they were guilt prone or shame prone in fifth grade this group of researchers followed these kids in a nested cohort study and looked at them again as seniors in high school and what they found is incredibly important for parents to understand the shame prone kids were more likely to attempt suicide drop out of high school and engage in high-risk drug alcohol and sexual behaviors the guilt prone kids on the other hand were more likely to finish high school apply for college engaging community activities and engage in lower risk sex drug and alcohol behaviors there is a tremendous difference between shame and guilt there is a tremendous difference in saying I love who you are but these choices are these behaviors are not acceptable and I think if there's one thing that we can do to start really cultivating worthiness and wholeheartedness in our families is to get our heads and hearts around

Channel: Sounds True

Views: 110,848

Keywords: SoundsTrue, The Gifts Of Imperfection: Let Go Of Who You Think You're Supposed To Be And Embrace Who You Are, imperfect parenting, compassionate parenting, courage, teaching courage to kids, creativity, family values, practicing gratitude, compassion, better connect with kids, understand your kids, behavioral studies, Brene Brown, imperfect, children, youth, teenagers, adolescents, brené brown, brené brown parenting, the gifts of imperfection brene brown audiobook, author

Id: SLZhG90HFG8

Length: 10min 23sec (623 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 15 2014