If you’re a parent to a child or children between the ages of 2 and 12 years old, you’re going to get a lot out of today, especially if you have children that are particularly spicy, shall we say?

You know the ones. They seem to defy what the parenting books say. They push your buttons. They push boundaries at earlier ages then seems appropriate. They hold a mirror to your wounds and traumas – most of them unhealed – and ask you dig deeper and deeper for the healing and the lesson.

They are the kids that will indeed move the world forward, but goodness gracious, they can be challenging to parenting and to hold space for.

Thank goodness for my guest on the show today, Mary Van Geffen, a parenting coach to spicy ones. She helps parents through setting and holding healthy boundaries (or not, depending on the situation), so that parent and child together can thrive in a loving, respectful and I dare say even joyful relationship.

Mary Van Geffen is an international parenting coach and parent educator for overwhelmed moms of strong-willed & Spicy Children™. 

She teaches monthly workshops to help moms gain confidence to choose gentle, respectful parenting especially if they weren’t raised that way. 

Mary has a ministry on Instagram where she posts an inspiring parenting tip every single day.  Just reading her social media will help you delight in your child and remember that you are enough. Mary believes that when a mom realizes how hard she is on herself and cracks the door open for some self-compassion, her entire family is bathed in light! 

Mary is a certified Simplicity Parenting Counselor® and Professional Co-Active Coach®.  Her greatest achievement, however, is cultivating a calm, kind, and firm relationship with her spirited go-getter daughter (17),  polar-opposite introverted son (15) and un-Enneagramable hubby.

TOPICS:

1. Mary’s approach to parenting: compassion PLUS boundaries. For both child AND parent.

2. Non-violent communication (definition and its role in parenting).

3. 90% of parenting is in the gray. Make decisions off your values. Hold a boundary if you have the space to hold it. If you don’t, don’t hold the boundary. You have to pick and choose.

4. We don’t learn lessons by being shamed, punished or yelled at. We learn lessons by having someone hold space for us while we process, and who can hold the idea that we are lovable even when we are failing.

5. We don’t want to raise the good girls. We want to try to help people find their own inner wants and compass. That’s hard when society tells you it’s your job as a parent to control your kid. It’s not.

6.  Human development is getting some support from someone outside of yourself who can walk with you compassionately.

7. Exploring toxic apologies (i.e. I’m sorry you feel that way. I did the best I could. etc.)

8. Part of a true apology is holding space for someone to be able to express to you what it was like when you hurt them. That’s the healing work. Be a safe enough person to let someone say what it felt like when you hurt them.

9. A definition of a “spicy one:” fiercely independent, they want to be autonomous before it’s appropriate. Prone to emotional outburts, both of joy and of anger and everything in between. Innovators, not followers. They have a deep sense of injustic but are blind to the way they break the rules. They don’t tend to rest in contentedness. They’re change makers. They don’t use toys appropriately. They are silly and brutally honest and if we can see the beauty and the super powers, we’ll learn so much. They will change the way we see ourselves.

10. Temperament: Once you realize the temperament of your child, you can stop trying to put a square peg into a round hole, and you’ll realize that there are some places that nurture isn’t going to impact.

11. We don’t stay calm. We come back to calm. So have a process to get yourself back to calm when you’ve gotten out of it.