Episode Transcript
[00:00:09] Speaker A: Welcome. I'm Elida Murray, executive director of the Adams County Children's Advocacy Center. And this is Brighter Tomorrows, a podcast about mental health, resilience, creating authentic connections, and how we can build and strengthen our community. Thanks for joining us today. The Adams County Children's Advocacy center is an independent nonprofit organization serving Adams County, Pennsylvania, whose mission is to work towards community where children are safe, families are strong, and our child victims of abuse can be children again. And as an organization who every day supports children who have experienced trauma, it's important to us to support and promote activities that help to build resilience to stress and to maintain mental wellness for everyone.
So today, today's episode, we welcome back Amanda Rispoli, lpc, whom we call Spoli, our in house trauma therapist at the Adams County Children's Advocacy Center. And we also welcome a first time guest of ours, Pat Robinson from Mediation Services of Adams County. So welcome, welcome, Patti. Welcome, Spoli.
[00:01:10] Speaker B: Thank you, thank you.
[00:01:11] Speaker A: So just to get us going, Patti, can you start by telling us about the Mediation center of Adams county and the services that your organization provides to our community?
[00:01:21] Speaker B: I'd be happy to. Mediation Services of Adams county has been around since the mid-90s. It was started by a group of what I like to call peaceniks who saw mediation as a way to make a more peaceful community. And since then, we have expanded into providing many forms of mediation for people that are in conflict. And sometimes when you're in conflict, it's hard to find your pathway out. So we provide that pathway for them. We do all sorts of different kinds of mediation. Divorce, co parenting, family, mediation, business, staff, teachers, schools.
Wherever there's a fight, I want to be there.
So that's what we do. We listen to people fight and try.
[00:02:18] Speaker A: To help them find the other way out. I assume sometimes it doesn't have to.
[00:02:22] Speaker B: Have a resolution at all.
[00:02:23] Speaker A: Okay. And that's an interesting concept. So when we talk about conflict.
[00:02:30] Speaker B: How.
[00:02:30] Speaker A: Would you describe conflict?
[00:02:33] Speaker B: I would describe conflict from a transformative mediation style, which is what we all do at Mediation Services of Adams County. Most states teach, when they have laypeople that do mediation, they use transformative style.
Conflict to us would mean that the persons are both feeling disempowered or disconnected from their relationship. For whatever reason, they feel they don't have enough power to bring about the solution that they're looking for. And the conflict builds in their mind. It explodes and keeps them from being able to think clearly and rationally. So for us, that is basically what conflict is. I also want to say that conflict is important. Conflict is not a negative. It's how we deal with the conflict that causes us problems. Conflict is normal. I want to stress that it is very, very normal. Don't try to avoid it. Embrace it.
[00:03:34] Speaker A: Interesting. And I heard, as you were talking, I heard that word power a couple of times. And so I'm. And I want, you know, clearly correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm thinking that also, like, when there's conflict, there could be, or there is, I should say, like a difference in the power within the relationship, whatever it might be. A family, a couple, a mother, father, and a. All of those things. And how does that impact the environment that we work with kids, how kids grow up and what they're experiencing and how they're feeling about things?
[00:04:10] Speaker B: Yeah, the power struggle is something that we're trained right in the beginning to look for because there is always someone in charge. We wouldn't call it that. We wouldn't call someone out like, you're in charge or you're the problem, or we would just. We try to label everything from a very positive perspective.
If someone was being dominating, what we would do is we would give the other person more chance to speak. We would make sure the person who is underpowered is lifted by listening to them, by giving them positive comments, by really attending to what they're saying. And by the time they have a little back and forth, because we do this is about those people having a conversation, the people that are here, not so much the mediator. We spend a lot of time listening to them.
We try to get them to talk to each other by balancing the power.
[00:05:07] Speaker A: Interesting.
And that's kind of a thread that runs through all of our Brighter Tomorrows podcast episodes. And that thread is comfort and connection. And so while obviously we all recognize conflict is not comfortable, clearly it's not ever going to be intended to be comfortable. But trying to get that connection piece is, I think, the goal of the resolution. But unfortunately, what we see when we see with the families that we're working with, with the children we're working with that when there's conflict, especially in our home environments, especially our home environments for our kids, it's difficult for the people in that environment, whether they be caregivers or the children, children as siblings, children in their relationships with their larger family system, it's difficult to find that comfort and that connection. And that might be where maybe we talk about how we can resolve it, recognize it, resolve it in terms of family conflict, to make our homes like the optimal living environments for our children and ourselves. And that's probably a great place for me to look at Spoli here and say, can you talk about what conflict looks like from a child's perspective and how our children react to it and are affected by it in their homes?
[00:06:26] Speaker C: Sure. Well, Patty, I love that you said that conflict is okay because I think a lot of times it gets swept under the rug or we're encouraged to push everything down and conflict, just like stress is absolutely necessary to having healthy relationships and a healthy life for kids. A lot of times what I see is that when there's a significant amount of conflict in the home, if it's not being addressed and acknowledged and people are being accountable, that's when we see, quote unquote, bad behaviors.
So we'll see kids kind of getting out of line or having a lot of problems at school, or getting into a lot of fights, or on the opposite end, I see a lot of shutdown. So kids will often engage in like addictive type behaviors or self harming behaviors. And all of those are about regaining a sense of self control because things feel so overwhelming and uncertain and scary. Right. If we're not able to feel the feelings, we gotta squash them down some way or we've gotta run from them.
[00:07:41] Speaker B: What about children who show this need for perfectionism or afraid to be wrong? Does that fit into a conflict situation?
[00:07:51] Speaker C: Definitely. I think especially when we expect and message to children that we want them to be perfect, they try to present that way. That way they aren't causing additional conflict. So a lot of high conflict homes will see perfectionism or what I call parentification.
So that's where children are often expected to act like little adults, right?
[00:08:21] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:21] Speaker C: They're supposed to take care of everything themselves.
And realistically, as adults, we need to be modeling for them what we want to see.
They don't have the information or the foundation yet to just create that out of nothing.
[00:08:41] Speaker A: Right? Yeah. As Foley was talking, I was reflecting on a couple of things. And the first one is when, for people who can't see us, because this is audio only, Spoli said something about bad behavior and she did a parenthesis movement with her hands. Because what we know to be true is it's really not. We don't see this as bad behavior. We see this as behavior that is a result.
It's an outcome of something that child is experiencing. And if we can take a step back, as caregivers, as people who care about these kids, we can say, okay, what's happening? Right now or what's been happening in this environment that now we're seeing this rather than moving into a blaming mode like my kid is being bad. Well, your kid's not being bad as much as they're just reacting to the environment. They find themselves with the skills that they have. And they may not be the best skills because we all know there are times when we don't always behave the way we wish we would on reflection, but they're doing the best they can with it. And I think it's on us as caregivers to say, okay, let me step back. What's happening in my family world, I am as a caregiver, responsible for this family world. As an adult in this environment, it's not my kids fault.
And I was reflecting as I as a child of divorce, but also as someone who went through a divorce with my four kids. The oldest was 12 and the youngest was 2. Is even though it was a really, in many ways very amicable environment, it still wasn't perfect for my kids. It wasn't easy for my kids. And knowing that it impacted them, I think that's something that as caregivers we're in our own heads a little bit because this is a big traumatic place in our lives. But are we able to also think this is a big traumatic place in our kids lives and what can we do to make that better for them?
[00:10:42] Speaker B: Yeah, certainly. In my divorce mediation practice, we spend a lot of time talking about the children. And I think the parents are focused on themselves mostly because it's usually early in their separation and we have to remind them that the children are going through a lot. They're changing homes several times a week, sometimes getting home different ways, different sitters at the house, different food. That is something that parents don't think about. But parents keep different food in the refrigerator and the kids don't like it. It's very stressful to go to mom's house and not have any food in the house. You know, we put our kids through a lot when through a divorce, but also just regular kids and families that aren't divorced, there's conflict, you know, it's not anything we can avoid. So why are we trying to avoid it so much?
[00:11:36] Speaker A: And just, you know, like, and I've heard Spoli say this and the fact is, like, are we modeling the behavior that we want to see in our kids? So when there's conflict or we're saying, okay, and everyone has their own method for doing this, I'm not suggesting you should do it. Exactly the way, like, okay, something's going on here. Like, let's take a breath and let's figure out what this is. You know, let's like, let's try to talk this through rather than just, you know, like, acknowledge it in the moment to the highest degree you can. And that's hard. I mean, it's hard for caregivers, you know, especially. We're living very fast and challenging and complex lives. But at the same time, if you don't address it in the here and now, it's just gonna keep piling on. So that's the goal, right?
[00:12:23] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:12:23] Speaker A: Are there some other tips for like, how do we manage conflic? Maybe, mostly, maybe in our home environment or with our family systems, but also we see that we're kind of. Seems like we're. As a culture, we're more conflict oriented as time goes on too. And so if we think about it from the home perspective, but also, what could we do in terms of our role as community members to either handle conflict or address conflict effectively or work towards minimizing conflict. That's unnecessary conflict.
[00:13:03] Speaker B: Do you want me to take a shot at that?
[00:13:05] Speaker C: Sure, if you would like.
[00:13:07] Speaker A: That's a whole thing.
[00:13:08] Speaker B: That's a whole big thing.
Mediation Services of Adams county is an all volunteer program. We have no staff, we have no office. We are people who understand that if you sit down with a couple, with two people, no matter what their relationship is, and you help them work through their conflict through a very difficult conversation, they go out into the community and they are better apt to handle conflict. Then transformative mediation doesn't just transform the conflict. It transforms the person or the people who are involved in the conflict. It teaches them to think in a different way. And as a divorce mediator, you usually meet with people very often, and eventually we always work in pairs. We can sit back and say, we listen to the conversation. We're like, okay, we're done now. They know how to talk to each other. They know how to focus on the issues. They know how to not push each other's buttons. They have focused on what's important and our job is done. Then they take that ability to deal with their own conflict into the community, and they make the community a better place. That's why we do what we do, because community is better when people learn how to talk to each other.
[00:14:26] Speaker A: I took a little bit of time and looked at your website, and there was something on your website that really intrigued me. It was the concept of talking cards.
[00:14:35] Speaker B: Yeah, the talking cards are something we developed with a program we've been working with called Urban Rural Action. And they are a group of people that are based in California, but they're in five or six states now. And they fund, not for profits, to work on a particular issue in their community. And it's always across the political divide. So when they set it up, there's Republicans, there's Democrats, there's independents, and we have to create a project in our community working through all of these issues.
And this one, our chalk tent cards came out of the project that we did to prevent targeted violence. And what we decided as a group of there was nine people here from Adams county and mediation services was the lead. Not for profit. So it had to do with our mission statement. And so we want people to talk. So we set up Talk Tense at events and we would invite people in. We wore T shirts that said what's on your mind, Adams County? And out of that we developed products. One of them was adult talk tent cards where there's some really difficult conversation starters in there about media literacy, civics, just to get people to talk about difficult things. Because we are not taught to do that. We're taught to shut up. And we are saying no. If we are going to be a community that gets along, that appreciates each other, we need to be interested in what each other think, even if we don't agree with it. And the talk tent cards are now in all the libraries. They're in four colleges, they've been made into yard signs. I mean they really took off. And then we have some for children that are called I like me and those are translated into Spanish also. And they're in several schools, especially in Franklin county, that have a high Spanish population. And they are questions like it's just a simple question on one side and then on the back side it's open and you can write whatever you want in there. And they're about three by five size cards, so there's plenty of room for them to draw. It goes across the age span from questions for kindergarteners up to high schoolers and questions like what would you do if you saw someone wearing your favorite shoes?
Do you have any pets? Do you help at home? What do you do? What's the best way for you to handle when you're mad? What do you do?
And they're open ended. And our goal was to have parents sit down with their children and work through these cards. In some of the schools, substitute teachers use the cards because they don't often have a full program that they can do with the kids. So they'll use the cards and ask the kids questions.
The high schoolers love to hear what the other kids say to them. That is, like, the best I've seen some people.
York Suicide prevention uses them in their HOPE Project. And they'll take one card and they'll attach it to a big sheet of paper, and the kids will answer the card and write their answers on this big paper so that they all can see their answers to these questions. And it helps them feel like they're not alone. It gets them to think about their own stuff. And they've been a very effective tool. And they're free. They're in all the libraries. They're in several schools. And we have. Part of our grant was to get as many of these things printed as we could. So we have thousands of packages to give out to adults and kids for free.
[00:18:11] Speaker A: That's awesome. I was thinking about it, and this is a little bit off tangent to our subject, but I think it's kind of important at the same time is that as you think of us as adults in caregiver roles. And I'm reflecting on when my children were young and at home. They're all grown and flown now, but how many times a day did we ask our kids a meaningful question to engage in a meaningful conversation? Right. And how empowering is that when we do? Like, if I like. Because a lot of parenting, and especially I will confess as a single parent, is I like, I'm getting through the day. Like, let's get them up, get going. Make sure we have lunches. Make sure everyone's properly dressed. Make sure everybody's good to go. Thank God you brushed your teeth so I don't have to send you back, you know, to the bathroom to do that. Like, everybody looks reasonable. Like, we can get out the door. And then, you know, and then you go to work and then you come back and you do the whole thing again in terms of the night routine. And did we have. Did we make the time and space we needed to. To say, not just, how was your day at school? Because, you know, I'm sorry, but at least it was my kids. I'm not. I'm getting nothing if I say, how was your day? But I'm like, yeah, depending, because, you know, and that's just. Because.
Did we have practice with that kind of thing? Like, let's have a real discussion. And I can tell you, though. And it wasn't talking cards, but it was something similar. And. And I'm not gonna paint Myself as a perfect parent. Cause, oh my gosh, I am not. But we did cause a whole family of. And I'm an introvert. A family with like three introverts and one extrovert. As children, it's like we had to have like things. So we would have a few ideas in the middle of the dinner table, like, okay, pick a card, let's talk about that. Or it would maybe just stem into another kind of conversation because otherwise, I don't know that we would probably just sit there very quietly and not do that. But I guess my I'm running kind of along on this and talk too much on this. But it's more like, let's try as caregivers to at least once a day ask a child that you love and care for a meaningful question and elicit a conversation. But also share with them what you think, but not first let them go first. How empowering is that? Right? And maybe that's where spoli. You can give us some tips on other ways that we can like from a communication standpoint, especially empower our kids.
[00:20:42] Speaker C: Well, I think part of the thing is always making sure that we're giving ourselves space to make sure that we feel safe, be able to work through our own feelings. Because in order for us to do like logical, thoughtful processing or future oriented thinking, we need to be in that front part of our brain. Right.
And to do that, we have to be able to get through all the other parts of our brain brain which include our like stress and survival section and then our big feelings and big activating, act activating actions, activating behaviors. Right. So those are really action oriented things that we might do to have those feelings. So we have to give ourselves space to do that first in order to have those like really thoughtful, logical conversations. Like, we can't just pretend like the feelings aren't there and shut them down.
It doesn't work. And if a kiddo is isolating a lot or they're avoiding you a lot, a lot of times that means that there's a reason behind that. Unfortunately, there's that missed connection piece.
Whether that they've brought something up before and they feel kind of shut down or they feel like they don't have the right words. A lot of times I do see people who really want to be supportive and so they keep rapid fire questioning like, oh, well, how does that make you feel? What are you thinking? Why does that make you upset? And I'm five, I my juice box fell over and now all my juice is gone. And I don't know what to do because the sugar is gone.
[00:22:38] Speaker A: And I don't want to disappoint. And I don't really know how to handle this because I haven't developed that skill yet, and I don't have the words and all of that. And so I might just either, like you said, shut down or I might just, like, wail.
[00:22:52] Speaker C: A lot of times kids don't have the language for emotions yet. We haven't given them the understanding of, like, there are hundreds of different feelings and we can have them at the same time, which makes that even more complicated.
So giving them the language, modeling for them how we can process our own feelings and not pretending like we don't have them. We've all got feelings, we've all got thoughts.
So owning our part is probably where we have the most power in all of this.
[00:23:33] Speaker A: Yeah. Interesting.
So how does that comport to Patti, to what you've seen in your work with families?
And I'm really interested in what you said about transformative mediation is really about. It's a skill set that can follow into all aspects of the life, not just about the. A specific conflict that someone may have come to your organization to help to work through.
[00:23:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I think we can all relate to this idea that I use often, and I'm going to repeat it because it really works, is that think about a time in your life where you were really upset about something and you went to someone and you tried to explain it to them and they didn't listen, or they made it about themselves, or they reacted in a way that was harsh, or they didn't care, they just didn't stick with you in your pain. When you come to mediation, we have a special way of listening that we stick with you in your pain. We poke that pain in a soft way, in a careful way so that you can face it. And when you've been with somebody that shows you a safe way to listen and actually models it for you. We've used that word several times. Then you respond to it in such a positive way. You want that experience again. You want to have that experience every time you're in conflict. So with couples, I do relationship mediation. It's not therapy. I don't try to understand where they're coming from. We stick with their issues and try to teach them. I think one of my big tips is, what's your conflict style? You know, you have to know how conflict hits you. Are you going to run? Are you going to hide? Are you going to fight? Are you going to Kitchen sink. You know what's coming at you. If you're going to have a fight and pick your fights.
If you don't care about the person that's causing conflict in your life, ignore it. You don't have to engage in it. But if you have a relationship with them and it's important to you, then you need to figure it out that.
[00:25:48] Speaker A: Your relationship is important. But also, if you're in a relationship that while something. And, you know, I can say this from my own experience, things that might irk my partner don't irk me. Right. But they irk my person.
[00:26:02] Speaker B: That's figuring out the style. Figuring out both of your style. You're not in conflict alone, so.
[00:26:08] Speaker A: Right.
[00:26:08] Speaker B: I mean, well, sometimes you are. We do conflict coaching with people who have difficult time dealing with conflict in general. So the conflict's in their brain. So I have met with several people, just one on one, and try to teach them and try to figure out by listening to them why they have a hard time dealing with conflict.
[00:26:31] Speaker A: I think that's an important thing for us to think about as we're caregivers.
And one of the things I'm keying in on is like, you know, especially as kids start to grow up and, you know, I'm thinking not just middle school, but I'm thinking about middle school and all of the transitions that happen in middle school. And there's a lot of things coming at kids fast. And there are things that as caregivers and as adults, we're like, we're not. We don't necessarily think they're very big deals, but newsflash, they're very big deals to our preteens and our teens.
[00:27:06] Speaker B: Yeah, respect. Respect each other's feelings.
[00:27:09] Speaker A: Yeah, it's huge. And just say, you know, and ra. Than minimize it going, oh, yeah, you know, this is not a big deal. You're going to be fine. That's nearly not what these kids need at that point in time. It's like, you know, to the degree you can. Let's talk through that. Like, what? You know, where are you at with it? How can this, you know, what can we do to help you? Or just listen, you know, that's it more than anything else. Well, just tell me how that goes. And maybe. And I'm not the expert in the room, so I'm looking at Spoli, and maybe you could offer us some tips on that kind of piece. Like, how do you help caregivers to be more responsive to their kids?
Because if you're feeling some sort of way as a preteen. That's internal conflict. How can we make it not be so damaging to a teen or a preteen?
[00:28:00] Speaker C: Well, I guess there's a couple of different things, right?
When we want people to interact with each other more or build more connection, they have to want that.
So if you're trying to talk to your teen and they just got home from school and they look like they had a rough day and they just threw their backpack down and they're stomping around, that might not be the exact moment to jump in and be like, so how's it going on your math test? Like maybe you could take that moment and acknowledge like, hey, it seems like, like you had a rough day, what's going on, right? So acknowledging more where people are at instead of leading questions and giving teens space. I know that that is really tricky and sometimes we have to be aware of like the safety concerns around that.
But if somebody communicates that they need a moment, give them that moment. It doesn't mean that we just like drop the ball and never come back for it.
We can always come back to it. But we got to give people a chance to breathe, especially if they just do not want to be around other people at that moment.
I hear that a lot.
[00:29:28] Speaker A: And we talked about this a little bit earlier. It's like we don't always, as adults, we don't always are able to really hone in on what we're feeling and why we're feeling it. And we in theory have had a lot more time and space to figure that out for ourselves.
But when we're talking about it from a child's perspective, this may be the first time they've experienced that particular situation or feeling or whatever it was and they haven't processed it yet on any level. And so asking them to explain how they're feeling when they haven't processed it yet, process it makes no kind of sense, right? So that, that goes to that, you know, giving kids space. But you know, I, I remember and it's not a perfect solution and every kid is different. But I remember having, especially with my teens, saying, can we talk about this later maybe and just letting it go a lot just because it was the only way at that juncture I knew how to say, I'm here for you, but I'm not gonna pester you until. And a lot of times it would work out that way. And sometimes, you know, especially depending on my kids personalities, they're like, I'm over it, mom, don't worry. About it. And it was probably something that was. They were able to process it. But I would also say that that doesn't start when you're teens. That's something that, you know, kids need to have the opportunity, you know, we need to give our kids the opportunity to learn that younger than teens. But by the time they're teens, it's like they should have already hopefully have acquired a skill in. I'm feeling some sort of way.
Can I sit with this a minute and try to figure it out or know that I might need to talk to somebody and help me figure it out?
[00:31:11] Speaker C: Well, and when kids come to us with things, sometimes they're coming looking for answers and fixing. Sometimes they're coming just to be heard.
And it can be as simple as saying, do you want help fixing this or do you want me to just listen because I've got ideas and they might not be the right ideas for you. Or we might need to sit in our feels right now, like that's okay.
And I think that that's helpful to do no matter what relationship we're talking about. Because often when we really care about people, we want to fix it, we want to make it better. How do I just bandage that up and then you're good.
Which sounds nice on the surface, but it means that we don't get that real authentic connection with each other when we're in pain. And so letting each other be is crucial.
[00:32:06] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's not just kids. Right. You know, in adult relationships is the same way, you know, if you've got, you know, if, if I'm looking for. Oh, I'm so sorry you had a tough day. Empathy wise and all I'm getting. Well, you could have done this and you could have done that. I'm. That's just gonna make me mad. Right. Let's just be honest.
[00:32:23] Speaker C: That's just gonna shut down the conversation.
[00:32:25] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Like, that's not what I came here to you for. Right. That I, you know, my needs aren't being met by this and, and not being, you know, and we're not necessarily going to be able to articulate that because we're just having the feeling. Right. So I think that's always like that piece. Like, and it's really, it's. When we say talking, I think sometimes I also mean, I really mean listening. Right. When we say like, let's talk, it's really like, let's.
Let me listen is a piece that's the thing to navigate, especially with our kids.
Any other takeaways that you think we want to make sure that we share.
We've talked about a lot of different things in a lot of different ways.
[00:33:08] Speaker B: I think one thing from a transformative mediation style, and you mentioned it, Spoli, too, is to make sure you help your children by labeling their emotions, tell them how they're feeling. So if you're feeling sad and it's okay to be wrong. Wrong. It's okay to label an emotion and have your kids say, that's not how I'm feeling, or your friend or your spouse, it's okay to be wrong.
But then use that as an opportunity to explore. Well, okay, so how are you feeling? How can we figure this out? Because, again, when you're in conflict, when you're upset, you're not thinking clearly, emotions are overriding. So let's label them, put them in their places, and normalize it. You do a really great job at normalizing Spoli. I love that. It's like, we're dark people. We've got a dark side. We can't hide it. We can't keep it down. So embrace it, recognize it, and label it for these kids. That's how they'll learn. That's how they'll learn to regulate their emotions, by being able to identify them.
[00:34:08] Speaker A: Yeah, like you said, we can't keep it down. You know, it's like a pressure cooker. You gotta let off the steam. So learning how to let off the steam is the tricky part. Part for all of us.
[00:34:16] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:17] Speaker C: Well, and feelings really are information.
There are like, hey, something is happening here. What is the.
What is going on underneath that feeling? What is the maybe core belief that's really sitting heavy on your heart, that. Okay, now I'm big mad because you said this, but really what I heard was, you're not good enough. Right. So there's always these ties together. But feeling, while they're not facts, they are important information.
[00:34:51] Speaker A: They're indicators of facts, really.
[00:34:54] Speaker B: And that's why we foster the fight in transformative mediation. As a listener, that's where we get all the information. That's where we get the raw emotion that's not covered up, that's not being socialized. When they're mad, they're gonna let it all out, and we will listen and restore that and then try to find a positive way to let them know how they're feeling and how to label it in a way that they can hear. Like, do you feel like you're a bad mom? Do you feel like your kids, their lives are ruined labeling some things for them so that they can either own it or say, no, that's not how I'm feeling. But I am feeling like, yeah, very important.
[00:35:39] Speaker A: And as I'm listening to you, I'm thinking and how if we could apply that in our everyday lives too. Like, think about it. Like, let's say you have a three year old and they're throwing a temper tantrum. Can it not be about shame on you for throwing a temper tantrum? But okay, I see you're feeling something.
I don't know what that feeling is, but I'm with you with it. Or when your teen is slamming and banging and not coming out of their room or whatever, the.
That's conflict too. But don't shut down the behavior.
That's just like, can you find a way to explore it in a positive, proactive way? Not just like, don't be slamming the door. Like, okay, not great to slam the door. What's really going on here? Can I help you with something? Would be just think about how that could kind of dissolve some of that tension that often we feel in our homes because we're trying to figure out.
[00:36:36] Speaker B: What'S going on and we're looking for perfection. We're looking for a kid to go through life and never slam a door or never act out. You know, as parents, we're shocked when they do. But flip it. Don't be shocked. Expect it. Expect your kid to act out. They need to. It's important for them to. And it's also important for you to help them regulate that.
[00:36:57] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:36:58] Speaker C: Yeah, we're definitely looking for connection, not compliance. Right?
[00:37:04] Speaker A: I like that a lot.
[00:37:05] Speaker C: I'm gonna get that on a T shirt.
[00:37:08] Speaker A: Compliance.
If we want to grow up, we want our children to grow up and be independent and be able to make decisions and live their lives.
Compliance is not the key to any of those things. Just do what I say is not how you raise a thinking person who can navigate through life in a meaningful way.
[00:37:30] Speaker B: So, yeah, I call some of that thought terminating cliches.
Don't use them. Don't tell your kids these cliches that your parents told you just to shut them up.
It's not working.
[00:37:43] Speaker A: And not to overuse it. But I also think, I feel really compelled to point this out. Like, compliance is a power move. Right. And we're trying to avoid those. We're trying to avoid those. Because if you have to. If you feel like as a caregiver you have to make a power move, you failed at the ability to seek that connection piece.
[00:38:05] Speaker B: Yeah. Check Your own stuff.
[00:38:06] Speaker A: Yeah, precisely. Yeah. And we're not perfect, and we're gonna make those mistakes, and that's okay, too. You gotta give yourself some grace, but, you know, you gotta also get back in there, keep trying.
[00:38:17] Speaker C: Yeah. I would also say that kids that are overly compliant are probably at a lot more risk. Risk for abuse, definitely what we see.
[00:38:27] Speaker A: In our center all the time.
[00:38:28] Speaker C: Yeah.
And it's unfortunate. But when we force kids to comply, we're also forcing them into shutdown. And that's a really dangerous place to be.
[00:38:40] Speaker A: I like how you put that. I think that's really something. As parents and caregivers, we got to think about a lot, about what our choices that we're making as parents and how. How is that impacting the way our kids are going to learn and grow?
Well, thank you both Spoli and Patty. This information is so important for everyone to understand and to remember. There are things each of us can do to help resolve conflict in our homes and more importantly, to address issues before they become major conflicts that negatively impact our mental health, impact our family, impact our children's mental health.
For those of you listening, we hope you've learned something truly useful for resolving family conflicts. And let's remember to take these takeaways from Spoli and Patti that we've talked about today.
Patti, can you share with our audience how they can learn more about the services of Mediation Services of Adams County?
[00:39:34] Speaker B: We're all over those interwebs. You can find us out there. You can Google mediation near me. We are the only ones in south central Pennsylvania. We will come up. If you contact us. You'll get me. I do all the intake and we'll just sit down, we'll have a conversation. We'll figure out what's going on.
[00:39:53] Speaker A: Awesome. So also thank you to our listeners for staying with us through the episode. And to learn more about Spoley's work at the center with our kids and that of the Adams County Children's Advocacy center team, visit our website, which is CAC, excuse me, kidsagancac.org, you'd think I know that after all these years. And follow us on social media idsagancac. And to learn more about Mediation Services of Adams county, as Patty said, please visit their website, mediatia mediatems.org thank you again for sharing time with us today. Remember, please, let's work together to make our community safe for children and strong for families and to encourage comfort and connection for all of us. Have a great day.
