I Can Do It (With Mama Nous) #94

Toddler emotional regulation feels impossible some days—especially when your child melts down over socks, refuses to listen, or completely falls apart at bedtime. In this conversation with Mama Nous, we talk about why music can calm tantrums, reduce power struggles, and actually help kids build confidence and resilience in everyday moments.

If you’ve ever wondered how to help your toddler cooperate without yelling, how to stay calm during hard parenting moments, or why emotionally intelligent songs seem to “work” when nothing else does, this episode connects the neuroscience with real life. We talk about toddler meltdowns, emotional regulation, parenting triggers, power struggles, confidence-building, and the hidden ways our own childhood experiences shape how we parent today.

What You’ll Learn:
• Why singing can help toddlers transition, cooperate, and calm down faster
• How music supports emotional regulation and reduces power struggles
• Practical ways to help kids build confidence without pressure or shame
• Why “good enough parenting” matters more than perfection
• How to model emotional resilience without hiding your own feelings

This episode blends developmental psychology, neuroscience, and honest parenting conversations in a way that’s practical enough to use during the hardest parts of the day. No rigid parenting scripts. No shame. Just tools that help parents stay regulated, connected, and more confident while raising emotionally healthy kids.

If parenting feels overwhelming lately, and you want calmer days, fewer battles, and more confidence in how you respond to your child’s behavior, this channel is here to help. Subscribe so you have grounded, research-informed support the next time your toddler melts down, refuses to cooperate, or pushes every button you have.

Check out Mama Nous' book: "I Can Do It!"

Transcript

A Car Ride Mood Reset

Jon @WholeParent 0:08

Welcome to the Whole Parent Podcast. Mama knew you are one of our absolute favorites in our house. We actually were driving back in the car yesterday, having a little bit of a hard time. Like everybody, nobody wanted, it's like witching hours. It was 5 45 p.m. Everybody's losing it. And I plugged my phone into the Augs cable or whatever the Apple CarPlay. And I turned on Mama New, and all my kids were singing in unison your songs. Although they some of them they only know the first verse because they know them a lot from the the book that you that you made. But anyway, welcome to the Whole Parent Podcast.

SPEAKER_03 0:47

Thank you. I'm so excited to chat.

Jon @WholeParent 0:49

Yeah, uh, so for those who don't know who you are, who who are not up and with it, what is it that you do?

SPEAKER_03 0:58

So I make family-friendly music with emotionally intelligent lyrics that help kids and adults build confidence, courage, and resilience. And when I first started sharing music, I thought I was a children's musician, but a really interesting piece of what I do is the way that sharing these messages with kids also then become available to the adults around, too. And that's one of the most fun things I think about the music that I make is the way that it really brings families together and creates shared language for how to navigate those kinds of hard moments and can also like really shift the mood. Like music is such a helpful tool for not getting caught up in those moments and um transitioning out of them in a fun and playful way.

Jon @WholeParent 1:43

It's so crazy because like I a lot of what we talk about in the podcast is like neuroscience and like just kind of basic psychology. But the craziest, one of the craziest neuroscience facts, and I like I I don't talk about this a lot on my podcast, but when I go on other podcasts, this is like one of the things, one of the things that I love to pull out, you know, you have those things that you pull out as like, oh, you're gonna love this. One of them is is the power of music to actually change not only mood and the moment, but like to change how people think, because music has this way of interacting simultaneously with our prefrontal cortex and the way that we logically think about the world, but also like our emotions and our limbic system. And so I it's so amazing that you are making this music that has these lyrics that are so kind of like affirming and so and they speak to real adult truths, I mean in a in a kid-friendly way, but they speak to these adult truths, and I find myself reflecting on like I'm proud of myself, and I'm like, and I'm really, really cool because I did that thing that I didn't want to do. Yeah, and it's like I I hear myself saying that when I do those things because you've brainwashed me.

SPEAKER_03 2:57

In a good way, I hope.

Jon @WholeParent 2:59

Absolutely, but that is the power of music. So I wanna, I wanna I wanna kind of take you on a on a on a little bit of a journey, give people a little bit of a window behind. But is there a lyric that you can think of like right now, a lyric that you've written? Maybe everybody else absolutely loves it, but your kids totally ignore it.

When Kids Rewrite Your Lyrics

SPEAKER_03 3:21

Ooh, I it's not that they ignore it, they love trolling me. So one of my favorite songs lately has been Change is Inevitable, because to me, a really important piece of helping to raise resilient kids is reminding them that everything ebbs and flows. So, like, you're gonna be happy sometimes, but life is always gonna change and there are always gonna be hard moments. And so it's a song that's about capturing the fact that like everything is impermanent. So, you know, we gotta just be flexible and strong and brave. Um, so the chorus is change is inevitable. And every time they look at me in the eye and they're like, change is a vegetable. I'm like, okay, thanks. Keep me humble, kids.

Jon @WholeParent 4:05

I love that. I love that they like viciously troll you. Are there any other examples like that? Or is that like is that the one that's like really resonating right now?

SPEAKER_03 4:13

That's like the one. I gotta say, like, my kids love my music, which is so validating and so affirming, but they sing these songs all the time, um, and they know pretty much all the lyrics, so yeah, they don't really change it up on me.

Jon @WholeParent 4:26

You know what? It's it like kids just have that ability to just go with us. I we've experienced this, so it's funny, like I didn't plan to have you on the podcast for this reason, but my wife and I, and by the time this comes out, it will it'll have been out for a while, but it came out this week uh when we're recording this, wrote this children's book, Set My Feelings Free, which is set to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. And it goes through all these emotional regulation exercises. And what's been really affirming to us is that our kids want to read the book. Yeah, and like and I think that that's like so taken for granted that lots of people can celebrate your work, but it's different when your own kids celebrate your work, like it's different when your own kids embody, and my wife has some other books that are kind of in the in the pipeline that her and I have talked about, and she like makes little mock-ups of them and sketch, you know, like literally on print or paper, she'll like make a little mock-up of a book that she has. But when any whenever my kids pick up one of those books and it's just like, I want to read this one, and not like the highly polished, whatever, hungry, hunger caterpillar, not to knock on Eric Carl, like it's incredible. But when they want to read your book, like it feels and so I imagine that's the same thing with you, when they want to sing your song, that feels really validating.

SPEAKER_03 5:38

A hundred percent. I also have twins who have distinctly different personalities, and one of them went through a pretty long phase when he was a toddler where he hated it when I sang, and when I would start singing, he would just be like, Stop, mama, stop. And it was like very much just a power struggle control thing. So I did my best to, you know, not sing at him, not annoy him, but also say, Sometimes I sing so that I don't yell at you. Because I was starting to get really frustrated, and I would rather sing a song than lose my temper. So I'm using this as a tool for myself. But watching him now come around

Singing As A No Yelling Tool

SPEAKER_03 6:10

and like pick up my book and play the songs to him, I'm like, okay, I navigated that moment in a way where it's all turned out well.

Jon @WholeParent 6:18

So, like, what yeah, what does that look like? Because you said, like, I've heard you say this in the past in other places, like the you you sing to keep yourself from kind of losing it. What is like the most unhinged song that you've come up with in like a desperate parenting moment? Or or like any song? Like, how how does this stuff come out of you? How do you how do you decide what to write?

SPEAKER_03 6:41

Uh well, a lot of my songs just like pour out of my mouth. So I am just like a wordsmith. I just love words, I love word scramble games, like words are just my medium, and my whole career has been in communications. And so, like, I don't know, I'm just able to like sing words that rhyme very easily. Um and I I started to recognize pretty early on that for me, I didn't want to be a parent who yells, right? We know that yelling is not helpful, not supportive, um, and just not useful, right? It just doesn't work, and I'm interested in tools that do work. But what I noticed is like when I reached a certain level of frustration, it almost feels like this itch inside me, like there's just this energy that I have to express in some kind of way. And I found that I could just do kind of like a tarzania, like oh, and then find words that would just like move them through whatever it is in the moment. So when they were like a year to two years, the number one song I sang was, oh, outside, outside, one, two, three, outside, outside, come with me. And it's like, it's not fancy. It doesn't even necessarily rhyme, but it grabs their attention. It got me out of that mindset of like, come on, come on, get your shoes on, let's go, let's go. Put me in a more playful mode and kind of like scratch that yelling itch, right? I was able to express that energy and sort of like, whoo, clear that hurdle.

Jon @WholeParent 8:10

I love this. Like, literally, this is like it's so funny because like you you intuited that. You felt that in yourself. Like, wow, this is like this is what I need in this moment, and this is what my kids need. There's such an interesting neuroscience basis of like why language that is sung, it basically exactly what you said, it scratches a different part of our brain. And it's not it, it's really cool to hear that it helps you. What's crazy is that kids can hear sung language way better than they can hear non-sung language. So when you say like w uh one, two, one, two, one, two, three, like, come outside with me, or whatever, I I'm forgetting what it is in the moment. But but like when you sing that, actually, like saying, All right, let's go outside, like actually is going to be far less likely to get through. And so, like, you you felt that you you experienced that, and then you just ran with that. I love that.

SPEAKER_03 9:00

Yes. Another great example is a song called Getting Geared Up. And I have no idea where this came from. Again, it just sort of like poured out of me. But what I noticed was I would get frustrated in certain moments. And when you've got twins who are like a year and a half, two years old, and you need them to get all their stuff on and go outside, it is a frustrating moment. And so I came up with a song and it just goes, We're getting geared up to go outside, and what do we need to get ready for the ride? We need something on our feet. That something on our feet is called. And so instead of telling them what to do, they feel empowered. They're finding the answer for themselves. They're like, I know. Oh, wait, okay, that reminds me, I need to go get my shoes. Like, my whole thing in parenting, as much as possible, is to try to avoid power struggles where I'm like, you need to go do this, and they're like, wait, but I don't want to do that. And instead, I just come up here and I'm like, oh, if we want to leave the house, we need something on that we don't have on yet. Can you figure out what it is?

Jon @WholeParent 9:59

It's so powerful. It's so powerful.

SPEAKER_03 10:01

It works really well.

Jon @WholeParent 10:02

I feel like every single, I mean, I want to talk about your book. Like, I feel like every single one of these songs could be an amazing children's book. Like just stand alone. Um, and and and I experience that because like I've already so we're now four days into launch, and so f my book, the book has been technically out in the world for four days, and I've had one person on I don't know, like Goodreads, which I know I'm not supposed to read your own like reviews on Goodreads, but I read all of the reviews, and I've had one person be like, Ah, I could have done without the twinkle twinkle. And it's so interesting because that was actually part of the initial process was we got a lot of pushback from our publisher of like, we don't know if you should make a songbook, like we like this songbooks are overdone or whatever, and we were like, no, staunch, adamant, no, it needs to be a song. Like we were really stern on it. Like, we they were like, This is uncom like we are uncompromising. And even at the end, they they wouldn't put it on the cover of the book, but they would put it on the back and they would put it on like the first page that you can sing this, and but they were like, we will not put it on the cover. So, so even up to that point, like they like we were like still fighting about it. One person on Goodreads, the rest of the comments were like, I can't believe how much my kids like to sing this already, three days in, two days in.

SPEAKER_03 11:24

Because they get it, because it reaches that part where they already know the melody, the structure is already familiar, and that makes memorization so much easier. I do not claim to understand the neuroscience part of things, so I'm really glad you can speak to that. But it really is amazing how much more accessible words become when you attach it to a memorable melody.

Jon @WholeParent 11:42

Oh, it's it's literally like like there's only thing that we can explain is that like it doesn't make sense in the way in which we understand language and neuroscience. So, like, the like it's it's it's one of these places where there's like there's a gap in our understanding. And from what I can like, at least a gap in my understanding, where it's like, oh, we can explain all of this stuff. The one thing we can't explain is why like basically the limbic system or the neocortex like activate like in rapid succession with one another, usually limbic system first because it's faster. Or if you if something is profoundly non-emotional, then just the neocortex, but not the limbic system, like this is how it works. Music is the only thing that we have that activates them simultaneously. Like we don't know why it happens, but like there is some part of our brain that like music fits like a lock into a key or a key into a lock where it like unlocks and and literally draws a bridge when we talk about like recentering a brain or like getting kids back online or like helping them integrate their emotions. Music music draws

Modeling Emotions Without Oversharing

Jon @WholeParent 12:40

a bridge that like nothing else does. So I have to ask like if your kids use your philosophy against you though, because I like this is something that happens to me all the time. My kids are like, Okay, we know what your philosophy on parenting is, so you don't live up to it. Like, do your kids ever do that where you sing a song and you're like telling them a thing, but then if you don't live into it, they're like, But mom, you can do hard things. But mom.

SPEAKER_03 13:09

Uh they definitely call me out on hypocrisy. Like, they are very, very attuned to like, wait a minute, mom, you always tell us to use kind words, but that was not very kind. Um, and then one thing that I'm really big on with my kids is letting them into my own process with challenging emotions. So, like, I experienced disappointment, I experienced rejection, and I try not to shield that from them because I think it's really helpful. Like, I don't make them responsible for my emotions, but I let them know like I'm going through kind of a tough time, and you know, I'm doing these things to take care of myself. And I can't say they use it against me, they're actually just like really sweet and empathetic, but like sometimes they'll sing the disappointment song to me. Like, sometimes we don't get the things we want, and it's like so affirming actually to hear it coming from them of like, oh yeah, okay, you're right, I can move on from this.

Jon @WholeParent 14:05

Yeah, I think a lot of parents would, yeah, even just the framing of the way that I asked the question, right? Like, like, like a lot of parents would see that as I think could see that, I should say. Like, could see that as like, this isn't what I need from you right now. But actually, like you've done the work where you're like, no, actually, this is what I need. And Mark Brackett, who's been on the podcast, who's the director for the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, he was one of the first people who's uh who was on the podcast. You talked about exactly what you're saying, which is like, I actually go to those places with my kids. I think a lot of parents are afraid of that, they're afraid of like letting their kids in. Like, how how did you decide, or did you decide, or just like did that always feel right?

SPEAKER_03 14:47

Well, okay, let me zoom out because I think a big part of this is that a lot of adults still feel discomfort around their own challenging emotions. Like, I think a lot of adults were raised with the mentality that you're only good when you're happy and like you need to have a smile on your face, and anything else is not acceptable. And so I think that like with that underlying framework, if that's really what you believe, that your own challenging emotions are not okay, then of course it's gonna feel like dangerous or unacceptable to share those with your kids. That is not my mentality at all. I am very accepting of my entire emotional landscape. Um, you know, I see my emotions as information and I try to be growth-oriented and be curious about them. So to me, like, I'm not scared of my own negative emotions, I don't see them as a bad thing. One thing that really helped me early on was the concept of good enough parenting. Because I think, especially like in this moment where so many of us are getting parenting advice from like content creators online where it's like very sort of blanket and not tailored to our situations, it can feel so overwhelming to like weed through that and figure out what's right for you, what's right for your kids, what applies to your situation. Um, and early on, I'm a pandemic parent, so my kids were born at the height of COVID quarantine. And I remember that feeling of watching videos and just being like, I don't know what I'm supposed to care about, and I feel like I cannot do all of this. Like I'm I just feel set up to fail, right?

SPEAKER_01 16:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 16:17

And so this concept of I think it's 80-20 parenting, where it's like if you get it right 20% of the time, the other 80% is gonna kind of work itself out, so long as that 20% is like really attuned, really responsive. And I was like, 20%? I mean, I think I can realistically do more like 60%. Right. But then also there's a piece of I want my kids to be equipped for the real world, right? I hate it when people comment that on my videos, but I think it is really important that my kids understand that life isn't always easy, it doesn't always work out, and they're gonna experience challenging emotions, challenging situations. And it is easier to face something when you've seen somebody else do it already. When you've seen your mom handle her own disappointment and like, yeah, it didn't feel good, but like I was able to breathe through it and take care of myself. Like my mistakes actually give me the opportunity to give my kids the gift of seeing what it looks like to be resilient in practice. And that's really powerful.

Jon @WholeParent 17:21

I feel like I feel like you could just be the co-host on this podcast. Everything you have to do.

SPEAKER_03 17:25

We have so much we could chat about. I was looking at your website and I was just like, uh, this could be a long conversation.

Jon @WholeParent 17:31

Yeah, everything that you just said, I mean, like it was like you were going, you were ticking off chapters in my in my book, Punishment for Free Parenting. Like, literally, like, I have a chapter on modeling and why like our job is to model the things that we want our kids to do. I have a chapter on emotional superpowers. You actually, in many ways, when I first heard it's is it Grumpy Bunny?

SPEAKER_01 17:50

Oh yeah.

Jon @WholeParent 17:51

The first time I heard Grumpy Bunny, I was like, oh man, I like would have cited this in my book. Like because that song, and I would love if you I'm I I hate to call you out on it, but I would love if you could sing like a little bit of that song. Because I think when when we hear in parenting in in adult in adult circles, like I'm only good if I'm happy. Like that is basically there is no emotions that you like, and this is why a lot of men, I think especially, process all emotions as either happy or rage. Because rage is the one that you can't control. So disappointment, frustration, sadness, grief, loss, those all get jumped in the bad bucket, and the way that we do bad emotions over here on the uh XY side is to, you know, just just just like rage about them, right? Right immediately. So so like I yeah, I that song really has stuck with me. And I can you I can you share that with the audience?

SPEAKER_03 18:51

Yeah. I'm a grumpy bunny, and that's okay. I'm feeling super duper grumpy today. I still love my friends and my family, but that doesn't mean I gotta be happy. And that was one of those songs that I was really surprised took off in the way it did, because to me it just felt so obvious. Like, I was like, I don't even know if this song needs to exist, because like I don't know. Of course, it's fine to be grumpy and acknowledge that. But the number of adults I have heard from who were like, why am I bawling at a children's? Like, you told me that this is a song for kids, but like it just healed something in me, and I just made it my alarm sound in the morning. It really like boggled my mind. And I guess it's made me realize like how many of us didn't get any kind of like real emotional education as kids, like there was no like discussion of what it feels like to feel your emotions and how they're supposed to feel, and we carry that into adulthood, and a lot of us don't realize that we're carrying it. But a really cool thing is it's a skill that you can start to develop at any time, and there's tons of resources for kids that you can actually like watch or consume alongside them that can help you grow into the parent that you want to be while they're also developing these skills alongside you. I just think it's the coolest thing.

Jon @WholeParent 20:14

It's fantastic. Okay, I want to take a quick break and then I want to be back and talk a little bit more about your work.

Building Brave Kids With Song

Jon @WholeParent 20:24

We are back with the one and only Mama New. She, oh my gosh, I can't, I cannot speak to how you've already changed my household uh with your book, and that's what I wanted to get to next. We you have a songbook out. I don't know, I I got mine, I think, in the TikTok shop. You're holding it up for those who are maybe not watching. It's called I Can Do It. And that's you know, that's that's one of your songs in the book, but you're it's full of your songs. How where not only where can we find that, but like what inspired you to package what you're doing in that way?

SPEAKER_03 21:02

So the book is published by Callie's Books, which is a publisher of interaction interactive soundbooks for kids, which are really cool because they're rechargeable and I hate button batteries. So I had been an admirer of their work for a long time. And they reached out to me, and a lot of people have asked me for a children's book, but I am DIYing my whole music career, so I have no desire to DIY self-publishing, too. Like that just was not a bridge that I was gonna cross on my own. So when they reached out, I was like, yes, absolutely, let's talk. I have a bazillion ideas because there's so many different directions we could go. I have standalone songs that could be a single book, um, or I'm very good at writing to a theme. So, like, let's have a conversation. And their team is fabulous, and we batted around a bunch of different ideas, and I honestly don't remember exactly how we got onto the topic of anxiety, but we started to talk about. Songs that would help kids build confidence and courage in the face of adversity and anxiety. And I was like, Oh, I have two songs already for that. So the first song and the last song I kind of see as like bookends where the first one is I can do it, and it's all just about like I wrote it as a hype song for my kids when they were like two, and it was originally in the second person. I was like, you can do this, blah blah blah. But with the book, I really wanted to package everything in the first person because I want these songs to be resourcing kids' innate confidence. I want these songs to become part of their inner narrative rather than coming from someone else. So that was a great way to start the book. And then you mentioned I'm proud of myself, which is one of my favorite little jingles, because honestly, it has been really healing for me to learn how to feel proud of myself. Um and then they were like, Yes, let's definitely go with this angle. Can you write a couple more songs? And I was like, Yeah, I'll figure it out. Give me like a month and I'll get back to you. Three days later, I sent them an email and I was like, hi, actually, I just wrote four new songs and I think they're all perfect, and like here's the whole thing. And they were like, uh, okay, great, cool, let's do this. So it was just one of those things that like aligned perfectly. They were the perfect company to partner with. They really believed in me and let me do what I do best, which is really inhabit my own childhood self and think about how I felt as a kid when I was experiencing anxiety in the face of new things, and really capture the messages that I needed to hear to help build that innate confidence.

Jon @WholeParent 23:34

I could just speak to like as an owner, as a connoisseur of the book. I didn't, I I didn't buy the book knowing that you were gonna be on the podcast. But after my kids had the book for a period of time, it became clear that I had I just like I gotta get her on. Because it would my kids sing I Can Do It and Proud of Myself. And I'm sure that like the the other songs I I I have them memorized too, but those two they sing all the time. And Proud of Myself is is one that we've really kind of attached to as a family because so much of life is doing stuff that like you don't always want to do, and that's uh you know, a big criticism of the positive parenting movement. I think it's an unwarranted critic warranted criticism, but uh is this idea that like we never make kids do hard things, right? We're just gonna be permissive and just they're just gonna do whatever they want and eat cocoa pus for breakfast, and dinner, and like that's it. And if you know the parents who are practicing this and who have read my book and who are actually trying to raise kids, like like that's not that's not true, but we need language for that. And I'm proud of myself that and I'm really really cool because I did that thing that I didn't want to do, like that that has become kind of a mantra of around cleanup time. Not that we don't still sing the cleanup, clean up, everybody do each other. I don't know how that was burned into my shared consciousness of the entire millennial generation, but like literally there's other songs, but but that one is the one that we kind of go back to over and over. And I just was talking, part of the reason why we turned it on with my nine-year-old yesterday, and that's a nine-year-old, right? Like this is an older kid, is because we were talking about how he didn't have extra socks for forest school, and I was like, Yeah, my bad, I didn't pack you extra socks, but also you too can pack extra socks. And he was like, I don't like this at all. I don't one bit get out of here. What what next you're gonna tell me that I could have packed my own lunch? And I was like, You can pack your own car, you know? And he was like, and he's like, No, I hate this so much. And I was like, but like you will be so proud of yourself when you do those things, and so like it doesn't have to be like just because you don't want to do it doesn't mean that it is unrewarding. In fact, many of the most rewarding things are the things that we don't want to do that like we look back on and go, that was really important. Yeah. So your your songs have been changing our lives.

Healing The Inner Critic Voice

Jon @WholeParent 26:02

Is there any skill that I'm thinking about like, or maybe it's an emotional framing, something that you're still trying to unlearn from your own childhood? You talk a lot about parents unlearning things from their childhood. Um what's that thing for you if you're willing to go there with us?

SPEAKER_03 26:18

Totally, yeah. One of the biggest things for me is shifting my own inner narrative. So, in many ways, like my mom was very emotionally attuned and responsive, but I also had a lot of caretakers who were very critical in my formative years, and my inner voice is really mean to me. And over probably the past eight years, I have learned that you know, that voice inside my head isn't necessarily me. It's not necessarily a reflection of who I am. Spoiler alert, I have a song called Bully Brain on my album Ocean of Emotions, which is about this concept, which is like that voice isn't true, and I can listen to my heart instead of my head. Um, but it's I it feels weird to talk about the fact that my own music has actually been incredibly helpful on my own healing journey. And I'm proud of myself was kind of the catalyst for it because for many years that critical voice meant I I never felt proud of myself because I suffer from what I call shifting goalpost syndrome, and I will set a lofty goal for myself and I'll be like, this is gonna be so hard, I'm gonna invest all my time into it, and when it's done, I'm gonna feel amazing. And then I get there and I'm like, oh, well, I was able to do it, so it couldn't have been that hard. So let me just move on to my next goal and whatever, whatever. And like, spoiler alert, that's not really great for my self-esteem or my mental health. And so I'm proud of myself as one of those songs that like literally just like came to me and I sang to myself in the mirror, and then I was like, I kind of think I need to sing this to myself in the mirror when I do kind of anything. And it was a little bit silly at first, but like I started to sing it like when I did anything I didn't want to do and let myself like actually feel what it feels like to be proud. And that sort of set the stage for a really big mental shift that's happened over the past like year with my own inner narrative where you know it still pops up that critical voice, but I can be like, oh wait, that's not true. I'm not taking that. I'm not gonna listen to you.

Jon @WholeParent 28:22

I've never heard somebody describe my my experience in such clear terms. Like I feel like this is exactly, I mean, I'm I'm maybe we're I'm I'm shifting the the the focus from a place that I thought I was gonna go to a place that that I need to go, but but man, I've totally and and as a content creator, now as an author, that's so easy to do. To be like, you know, I will feel fulfilled when I have X number of followers, or when I have X number of, you know, when I've when my book comes out, or when my book is a bestseller, or when I sell this number of copies, or whatever. And then you do it and you go, Oh, but I just did that and like like so it couldn't have been like Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 29:05

It's so dismissive, right? Like I would never speak to my own children that way, right? I'd be like, that is amazing that you did this thing.

Jon @WholeParent 29:12

Yeah, but what do you think that I mean I what do you think that comes from? Is that is that like a thing that like I try and reflect on that in myself of like where like where did I get that voice from? Or is that just like culture? Is that my parents? Like what like where was it for you?

SPEAKER_03 29:28

Yeah, I mean, I do think that there's a lot of like cultural messaging, and I think specifically I think that there's like kind of this generational mindset of feeling prideful means that you're not humble, or it means that you think you're better than other people. And if you feel proud of yourself, it means that you're bragging and putting yourself above other people. So I think like that's some of the messaging. But for me, I have a few distinct memories of like showing these more critical caretakers like something that I'd made that I was really proud of, and they were like, Yeah, but you didn't do this, or like, yeah, but like like I was really into sewing, and I didn't really like using patterns, and so I just like kind of came up with something that looked good on the outside, but if you looked on the inside, it was like, oh, you know, all the seams are really messy, and you know, someone was was just like, How did you not even notice those seams? Like, that's not even actually finished. I'm like, oh, okay. And for me, I think that's where it came from is just this feeling of like, oh, even when I try really hard and I feel like I'm proud and I'm asking for validation, I'm asking to be witnessed in that, and what is given back to me is like, yeah, but you didn't do this. That's really, I think, hard for kids and easily gets internalized.

Jon @WholeParent 30:40

I feel like I could just, I think that there's a couch behind you. I think I feel like I could just go lay on that couch and we can have a therapy session about this right now. Cause this is like exactly man, that's such a thing. And you kind of had an a a non-traditional educational experience, right? Like, so you you came from, and I know that you don't talk about this that much, but you came from kind of an educational mindset where it was a little bit, it was kind of supposed to be more internally motivated and it was supposed to be more self-driven. But then also you had these, you know, and I'm not saying it's every caretaker, but you had critical, this kind of thing that many of us experience, and I think that's where mine comes from too.

SPEAKER_01 31:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:21

Yeah, I'm very grateful for my non-traditional schooling

Unschooling And The Need For Limits

SPEAKER_03 31:25

experience. So I was homeschooled in various forms for my whole childhood. My mom definitely had an unschooling mentality of where she wanted learning to be fun and she wanted us to like explore our own curiosity and kind of be in charge of our own learning. And I'm so grateful to have that foundation because so much of the way that I see the world and the way that I think is influenced by the fact that I had so much freedom and really do just like love to learn and I love to play, and that's I think something that's very much rooted in my unschooling experience. I often hesitate to get into this conversation because I have mixed feelings about the way that I was unschooled, because honestly, I was the kind of kid who needed a lot more structure, a lot more limits, and a lot more accountability. And so I always get a little itchy about some of those gentle parenting conversations, which I know are not fair because they're not reflective of how it's supposed to be, but of like, I don't tell my kid no, or like my kid decides their own bedtime, and I'm like, Good, please don't do that. They need you. Like their job is to push against the limits, but your job is to hold those limits, and they really need that. So, not saying that I like needed the structure of like a classroom environment, but um, but there are ways in which like kids don't always know the best way to direct their own learning and and can really benefit from adults in their lives who see who they are, see what they're passionate about, and help guide them toward that. Um, so that's like a shift in my own parenting with my own kids where we're we're bringing in more structure and more limits.

Jon @WholeParent 33:02

Well, and I think like two things can be true, right? Like the pendulum can swing both ways of like, okay, there's like this shame-based, which often then like hierarchical authority, shame-based authority that often manifests in like very high, you know, school kind of mirrors that, right? In in many ways, like traditional school mirrors that. I think I I wonder sometimes, and not to say that every musician has come from an unschooling background, but when I think about your lyrics, when I found out that that was part of your story, I was like, but I wonder, right, even if there were non-ideal parts of it, I wonder if there's part of it too where it's like, but you felt encouraged to like go out and take this risk and put yourself out there.

SPEAKER_03 33:53

Yeah, 100%. One thing my mom always said in my childhood, which never made sense then, but uh absolutely makes sense now, is her top priority was protecting our spark. Like as children, she wanted to honor our spark and protect that. And for her, I think public schooling and the way that it is very authoritarian and hierarchical, would risk that. Um, and so I definitely had this core mentality that I mattered, that I was valuable, um, and that I was deeply loved. And and also there is a level of confidence you have to have in your kids, I think, to unschool well, right? There is the cohort that is just like emotional or educational neglect and like go do your own thing. But like if you are a conscious unschooler, you're confident in your kids because like you know that they're gonna end up okay, and they will.

SPEAKER_01 34:54

Right.

SPEAKER_03 34:54

And I think that mentality like really shines through in terms of like how I see the world, is even if I've wrestled with my own low self-esteem and my own like critical inner narrative, I am very confident in the fact that like I'm a person who matters in the world, and that's so beautiful.

Jon @WholeParent 35:12

That's so beautiful. I yeah, I and I think that like that, you know, I I I think about this too because I talk about this a lot, and I'm I think about like how the the educational neglect situations exist. My my thing is now I'm I'm and this is like a topic for another day. I've I find that most of the educational, like most most learning happens at home whether whether we send our kids to school or not. Right. And so educational neglect I find is like actually more with parents who send their kids to school.

SPEAKER_03 35:40

Because they think, oh, you're off and it's done, right? My work is done.

Jon @WholeParent 35:43

My work is done here, and like I don't know what's happening over there, and I don't like I don't know what you're learning, and I don't know what social emotional tools you are or are not getting.

SPEAKER_01 35:50

Right.

Jon @WholeParent 35:51

But um but I'm gonna trust somebody who's doing it. So when you come home, like and not to say that this has not been my I I have done this exact thing, but but here's your mac and cheese, and and like here's the remote, you know, and and that's like that's and it there are times like we had the flu, you know, here's your mac and cheese and here's the remote. Is like, is that a survival parenting? Like there are times, but but when that becomes the norm, I think, then we we restrict kids from expressing these really interesting, unique things that they are wanting to do, and when they dig into those things, they might wind up being mama new.

SPEAKER_03 36:33

Yeah, people are often surprised to learn that our kindergartners are in public school, and honestly, it was a decision that we really wrestled with, and like before I had kids, I mean, I thought I was gonna have like a gaggle of children, and I would unschool all of them in my linen dresses and baking sourdough bread. Turns out I hate baking with kids first and foremost. There are a lot of things about that fantasy. I hate it, it's the worst.

Jon @WholeParent 36:57

Wait, wait, we have a hundred percent rate of people who hate cooking with their kids. That's because it's the worst. Why does everybody think that this is gonna be good? It's never good.

SPEAKER_03 37:06

It's never good. Nobody enjoys it. It's so hard. It's yeah, it's I don't know.

Jon @WholeParent 37:12

Yo, it's it's propaganda. It really is, yeah. The people who cook with their kids on the internet, it's propaganda. Yeah, that was not what they had for dinner. 100%. That was that what they did it for the content.

SPEAKER_03 37:23

Oh, I feel so validated right now.

Jon @WholeParent 37:26

100%. I literally, our last episode, the person was like, you know, you know what, maybe this makes me a bad mom, but I hate cooking with my kids. I was like, it does not make you a bad like all of us. Welcome to the club. It's the worst. Objective. Mama new, aka Michelle. Where can we find I

Where To Find Mama New

Jon @WholeParent 37:45

Can Do It and all of your other resources so that we can learn as much about ourselves as we are going to be teaching our children about their feelings?

SPEAKER_03 37:53

Yeah, so my book, I Can Do It, Six Songs for Brave Kids, is available through Callie's Books, my publisher. They have a website and they also sell on Amazon and TikTok shop. I am on all of the social media platforms where I share songs, but also parenting reflections and I guess lots of reflections on my own journey in motherhood because I'm a whole person and it's not just about my kids. Um, and then I have five albums that are streaming everywhere, and an album of emotionally intelligent lullabies that is only available on my website, mamao.com.

Jon @WholeParent 38:30

And that's M-A-M-A-N-O-U-S. Mama New. Awesome. Thank you for being on the podcast.

SPEAKER_03 38:36

Thanks for having me. This was such a fun chat.

Jon @WholeParent 38:45

Thanks again for listening to this episode of the Whole Parent Podcast. I hope it was worth the time that you gave it today. I hope you learned something, or were challenged, or maybe it just made you smile. If it did, there's a couple of things that you can do that would really, really help me out. The first one is to go right now and subscribe to my channel at Whole Parent on YouTube. YouTube is getting full, unabridged versions of every podcast episode ad-free right now. I am really trying to get people over there because I have so much awesome YouTube content planned and I have such a small following over there. So if you want to get the best of Whole Parent, hop over to YouTube. There's awesome stuff there, it's going to absolutely change your life. The second thing that you can do is actually go to the link in the description. You can find YouTube there as well, but find the link for the Parent Lab. It's my exclusive community where I do group coaching. I have a whole course library there full of amazing educational resources for parents. It is a subscription model where you gain access for a low monthly fee. Go ahead, check out the Parent Lab. There's so many amazing things in the Parent Lab, and if you want to grow in your parenting, it's the best way to do that. The third thing that you can do, and it probably costs you the most because it costs you vulnerability, is to share this episode or this podcast in general with people in your life. There are parents in your life who are struggling, there are parents in your life who could use this in their life, and we know that the number one way that we can get more people to listen and watch and follow along with the podcast is by personal referral. People want to know what you're listening to. They want to know what's helping you to parent more effectively. And so if you can do that, find somebody in your life who needs this podcast and send it to them. I would be so, so, so appreciative. Thank you again so much for your time. You can find links to everything that we talked about in the episode, including my books, Punishment Free Parenting, and Set My Feelings Free down below. And I'll see you next time.