David Taylor-Klaus: I'm excited and a little nervous to be here.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Nervous? Why on earth would you be nervous?

David Taylor-Klaus: Well, I’ve listened to so many podcasts, and now I’m in the chair!

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah, but you’re a quintessential podcast guest! You do this all the time. So, welcome to the parenting lens. Usually, David’s here with the lens of an executive coach, entrepreneurial coach, life and work balance coach, mindset coach—so today, put on your parent’s lens. You’re the father of three complex young adults—ages 23, 27, and 29—with a daughter-in-law in her 30s. You’ve been consciously on this parenting journey for a couple of decades, though maybe not so consciously for the first decade.

David Taylor-Klaus: Yeah, maybe, maybe not.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Maybe not.

David Taylor-Klaus: I was leaning into the complex, just not the complex parenting.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: (laughs) So, tell us a little bit about your relationship to coaching and how you think that’s influenced your parenting.

David Taylor-Klaus: Wow. I think coaching reshaped my parenting 100%. It changed everything. It was no longer about telling; it was about asking and being with. I’d say it almost reversed my parenting.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Some people might hear that and think, “Wait a minute, that may not be a good thing.”

David Taylor-Klaus: Well, in my world, it was a good thing. And bless my parents’ hearts, they didn’t have a good model for parenting. So, I didn’t have a good model for parenting either. It wasn’t child-focused. I grew up in a time when the goal was to shape your children into the people you wanted them to be, rather than centering it around who the child actually was and helping them learn based on who they are and where they’re coming from. There was no meeting the kid where they were—it was about dragging the kids to where we wanted them to be.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah, that’s so true. That really defines my experience too. And I think you just said that so generously, I’ll say, because I think a lot of us look at it and wonder, “Where were they? Why was it all about them?” But what you’re really saying is...

David Taylor-Klaus: That’s what they learned, and that’s what it was.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: A different generation. Yeah. The world was about adults, and kids were to be seen and not heard. Someone else was supposed to raise them, while the adults lived their lives. Then, when they reach adulthood, we expected them to behave like adults. But we don’t expect that anymore.

David Taylor-Klaus: Well, and let’s be fair—they did the best they could at the time with what they knew. I don’t begrudge our parents or anyone from that generation. They were figuring it out as they went along, just like we are. We just have so many more resources and much more access to learning today.

We know so much more about the brain and child development, and we can identify the complexities of raising kids. That allows us to meet these luscious little humans where they are. I mean, you and I have talked about this a lot—we’re raising adults. They just happen to be children while we have them, or while we’re in charge of them. And that’s a different animal. We’re preparing them more for the world that’s coming, rather than the one we grew up in.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So that’s a beautiful explanation of what we call the coach approach to parenting—meeting our kids where they are, really being child-centered. And that doesn’t mean that our kids run the roost. It doesn’t mean we don’t have boundaries and limits or that we don’t have authority as parents.

But part of our job as parents is to shape and help them find themselves. I always say that our journey is to be with them on their journey.

David Taylor-Klaus: Yeah.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So, something shifted for you when you became a coach, and the story I often tell about David is that it took him a couple of years to get on board with me, right? When I asked you what shifted, you looked at me and said, “I couldn’t deny anymore that what you were doing was working.”

David Taylor-Klaus: Well, yeah. There were two stages to it. One was watching who you were becoming as you went through your coaching journey, and how much of a shift you had as a person—the way you engaged with yourself, with others, and with the world. That was an undeniably positive and amazing shift.

And then, I saw the difference all of that was making for our children and for your relationship with them. What I was doing wasn’t working. In fact, the more I saw that what you were doing was working, the more I realized that the way I was being was getting in the way of my relationship with our children and with you.

And if something’s not working, at a certain point, when you find yourself digging a hole, the first thing you’ve got to do is put the shovel down. And that took me a minute. I live on the stubborn end of the spectrum, so it took me a little while to get there.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So, as you started getting into coaching, what was it that you began to notice? You mentioned earlier that you stopped telling and started asking. Could you speak more to that?

David Taylor-Klaus: I got curious. It’s hard to serve someone if you don’t know who they are, and to really understand that, you have to ask. That led to getting more buy-in from the kids. One example I use a lot is when we decided the kids were going to do a sport and play an instrument. But we didn’t decide which sport or which instrument.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: It wasn’t an instrument—it was something cultural.

David Taylor-Klaus: Right. It was something cultural, but it kept ending up being music for them. They picked the avenue and, in their case, the instrument. They also chose the sport. We said, "You’re going to do this for a year, but you decide what it is."

So, they had a chance to be part of the decision-making process, and that buy-in made a difference. I mean, sure, they were still ADD and navigating their challenges, but when the children had buy-in, it changed everything in our parenting.

The more we included them in the process, rather than just telling them what to do, the better our relationship became. They became better at navigating the world, and we saw them being themselves rather than trying to mold them into someone else’s version of who they should be.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So many things there. And yes, part of me wants to go deeper, but I want to pause for a second and ask—what was that experience like for you?

To shift from that formerly kind of authoritative "You do what I say because I’m the parent" place, to shifting into a more collaborative style? How did that feel for you as a human? Was it comfortable?

David Taylor-Klaus: Well, how it was for me and how it shifted—it’s a bit different, isn’t it?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Okay, answer both.

David Taylor-Klaus: How was it for me? It was wildly uncomfortable because I knew how to do the other, but I didn’t know how to do this.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: This is why I love him, y’all.

David Taylor-Klaus: I didn’t know how to be collaborative. I didn’t know how to be that person, or that parent. So, it was hard because I had to be someone I didn’t know how to be. I don’t want to make it sound like that’s not who I am, but I didn’t know how to be that person as a parent.

I had to learn that on the fly, and I had to learn it late because Elaine was ahead of me in making that shift with our kids. And that was hard. The other reason it was hard is because, for you couples doing this, Elaine was way ahead of me and had taken the primary role in parenting.

And then, all of a sudden, I was participating and had thoughts and opinions, which didn’t always help.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: No, it kind of pissed me off, actually.

David Taylor-Klaus: (laughs) So, we had to recalibrate our relationship and our co-parenting. Our co-parenting had been Elaine saying, “This is how we’re going to do it,” and I had to follow. But then it became a co-parenting partnership, and that took a while. So navigating that...

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: An effort. Not just a while, but that took a lot of effort from us. Because as David stepped in, I had to learn to let go and allow him to be a parent.

David Taylor-Klaus: And share, not let go.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Well, I had to let go of the expectations I had, so I could embrace co-parenting with you and create space for you to be a co-parent. Because I think there were a lot of years when I almost treated you more like a babysitter, which was...

David Taylor-Klaus: Well, and I think I was stepping into that. It wasn’t just that you were treating me that way—it was easier. But that’s not helpful for the relationship with the kids. And it is a lot of effort. I don’t want to skip over that.

Yes, it’s a lot of time, effort, energy, and attention. We have to be careful, though, because we’re not 20 anymore, and we can run out of all four of those resources. One of the biggest changes for me was learning to look at my world through those real currencies: time, effort, energy, and attention.

Neurotypical or neurodivergent, those are the same four that need to be paid attention to. It’s really important, as a parent, to take care of yourself and make sure your battery is getting recharged in those four currencies, so that you have them to give to the process.

Because learning how to parent differently than you were parented—holy moly, that’s a lot of time, effort, energy, and attention. And I don’t think we’re ever taught how to do it.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Well, not until we step in to learn it, right?

David Taylor-Klaus: So, the answer to your question is that it was heartbreaking and uncomfortable.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: It was uncomfortable. That’s what I’m really hearing—that you had to be willing to sit with some discomfort to allow the shift to happen.

David Taylor-Klaus: I had to sit with the realization that the way I was doing it was wrong—objectively wrong—for the outcomes that we both wanted. And that’s uncomfortable. I don’t like being wrong.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: We’re going to take a quick break, and we’ll be right back.

[After Break]

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Welcome back, everybody. This is Elaine, and I’m here in conversation with my fabulous co-parent and spouse, David Taylor Klaus. We’re talking about... Well, I’m not sure exactly what we’re talking about.

The shift in parenting happens when you bring that coach approach to parenting and shift from an old modality to a new one. When I asked you what you wanted to talk about on this show, you had a really clear answer.

You said, “Well, what do you want me to talk about?” I said, “What do you think parents of complex kids need to know?” And your first response was, “I don’t know. I’m not that close to parenting anymore.” And then I looked at you, and I said, “We’ve been doing some active parenting in the last couple of months with these young adults.”

And then you got really clear. So, what is it that you do think parents need to understand or would benefit from understanding?

David Taylor-Klaus: I think the simplest way to encapsulate it is to talk to your children about everything and let them talk to you about everything, so they can talk to you about anything. I say that because, thankfully, our kids have been dealing with some really heavy stuff in several situations, for the most part doing it alone until they finally came to us to share what was going on. And they did that because they felt safe and they felt they could.

I think the world gets busy, and even with neurotypical children (I hear they exist), we need to take the time to make ourselves available. Sit on the floor with them and let them have a conversation, let them talk to you about whatever they want. If they don’t feel like they can talk to you when it gets really, really hard, they won’t. And you won’t know what’s going on, and you can’t be there for them if you don’t know.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Well, and the term you used earlier that I think is so important here is "listen without directing." Right? Give them the space to talk and share what’s going on with them, to stay curious with them, without directing the conversation to what you think is important, interesting, or teachable.

David Taylor-Klaus: Without directing or correcting. I had a client who was having a challenge with his then late-teen child and kept asking, “What happened at school? What’s happening with applications? What’s happening with…” instead of sitting on the floor and letting them direct the conversation. Spend a full day with them, doing whatever their agenda is.

Don’t direct or correct—just teach them that you can be together without it being a constant stream of corrections and directions.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah. So often, when parents of teens come to us and there’s already been a lot of conflict built up, the first thing we say is to stop talking about school, stop talking about any expectations, and lean into the relationship. Find the space to build the trust and reconnect. And David was referencing that we’ve had a lot of things going on with our adult kids lately.

The key isn’t just the history of the relationship; with one of them, we had to reconnect in the relationship. We hadn’t seen them as much recently because they don’t live in the same city.

So, it was really important for us to take some time and have some real-time face-to-face connection and reconnection before we could have some of the harder conversations that needed to happen.

David Taylor-Klaus: Yeah. Elaine, you mentioned the history of connection. So here’s the thing: it doesn’t matter how old your kids are. There’s a fabulous Irish saying that the best time to plant a tree is 100 years ago. The second-best time to plant a tree is today.

So, it doesn’t matter if you feel like you could have, should have, or would have started earlier—start now, right now. Because you never know. Our kids are 23, 27, and 29. You don’t know when they’re going to go through hard stuff and when they’re going to need you as a parent, as a sounding board, as a coach, as an ear, whether they need to be hugged, heard, or helped—just be there.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So here’s what I want to do. I’m with you. I hear you. But I have a lot of parents in my community whose kids don’t want them to be there.

David Taylor-Klaus: Yeah.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And who are resistant to that because…

David Taylor-Klaus: There have been times when our kids didn’t want us to be there.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right. So, there’s something really important here about slowing down and building trust. You can’t assume trust because, oftentimes, I think we fall out of trust with each other. They stop doing the things we expect them to do, we stop feeling like a safe place for them, and we fall out of trust. So, what are your thoughts on rebuilding or establishing trust?

David Taylor-Klaus: Be open, be real, and be vulnerable with them. You’ve got to be human for them to be in a relationship with you. And that’s hard because we were taught never to let them see the dark bits, the hard bits, the dark side. But they’ve got them, and they’re going to have them.

They’re going to have parts of themselves they don’t want anybody to know about. But this goes a lot further. The problem is, if there’s a part of you that you don’t want to pay attention to, you don’t want to have, or you don’t want to own, then that piece becomes the denied self.

And if you try to ignore pieces of your kid, they’re not going to feel safe or comfortable with you. So, you’ve got to be open with all the parts of you so they can learn to be open with all the parts of themselves.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Well, I was talking to a client the other day, and I loved this phrase. It wasn’t me saying it, but someone else said it: Nobody likes the goody-two-shoes, right? You want your friends to be real.

You want your friends to be fallible on some level. It’s hard to relate to somebody who seems perfect or acts like they’re perfect.

David Taylor-Klaus: Or acts like they’re perfect, right?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Exactly. Because, as adults, we’re all still trying to figure this out. And if you’re not, please let me know what I’m missing.

David Taylor-Klaus: I have plenty of cringe-worthy moments in my world and cringeworthy bits about me. I think it’s important for kids to know, in an age-appropriate, stage-appropriate way, who you really are, so they can be comfortable with the parts of themselves they haven’t quite integrated.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I love that. So, we have to start wrapping up the conversation. I do have one more question, or maybe a couple, but let’s take a moment to say: How can people find out more about you and the amazing, wonderful work you do at DTK Coaching?

David Taylor-Klaus: The easiest place is dtkcoaching.com. You can also find me on any social platform by looking up either DTK or DTK Coaching. I also do work around mindset under the Rewire framework, and you can find that at dtkcoaching.com/rewire. All of this will be in the show notes.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah, absolutely. And there’s some great information. David does a lot of work, y’all, with mindset. He’s written a book on mindset, and he’s kind of a quote maestro—master. He takes quotes and integrates them to help us learn.

It’s really beautiful work. So, check out dtkcoaching.com/rewire for more information on that.

Okay, so I told you I would come back and ask you one question, but I want to ask you a question before the question.

David Taylor-Klaus: Sweet. Okay.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: One of the things I remember happening as our kids started coming out of their teen years and into young adulthood was that they, and so you’ve heard me joke that my next book should be titled My Kids Are All in Their Twenties, They’re All in Therapy, and It’s All My Fault, right?

Well, it’s actually all of our faults. But there were times when they came back to you with consciousness from their own therapy and challenged you on some of the things from their earlier years. Can you share a little bit about how important that was for them, for you, and for your relationship?

Because I know it was hard, but I really want to acknowledge that the hard is sometimes what’s most important. Right?

David Taylor-Klaus: When this happens to you—if it happens to you—shut up and listen.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: It happens to all of us, right? At some point, they come back and hold us accountable. And they’re not wrong.

David Taylor-Klaus: Well, and all the things I thought would come up for them in therapy—none of them are what they’re bringing up. And all the things they are bringing up in therapy, 90% of it, I remember totally differently. You know, there are three perspectives on everything: what actually happened, what I remember, and what they remember.

So, it’s not about saying “I don’t remember it that way”—that doesn’t serve anyone. It’s about saying, “Wow, yeah, that must have really had an impact. I’m sorry.” I can see how that would’ve hurt or upset you. I’m sorry. Defending, denying, or deflecting doesn’t work.

That’s not what they need. They need to be heard and acknowledged. It’s been hard, and I’m sure more is going to come up.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah, for both of us, by the way. I just get to ask him about it. But I think that’s true. We talk a lot at Impact about how important it is to lead with acknowledgment—to acknowledge what their experience is. And that means we need to acknowledge their experience in relation to us too. Just because, as you always quote Maya Angelou, “When we know better, we do better.” And that’s true. I think we’re doing way better than we did those first ten years or so. But we still have to own the ways we could have done better. We have a kid who’s non-binary and has transitioned in some ways, and that’s been hard to come to terms with. We haven’t always gotten it right. So, learning to say “I’m sorry” has been one of our greatest superpowers.

David Taylor-Klaus: Yeah. Owning our impact wake, whether it's in parenting or leadership, is crucial. You and I have joked a lot that the only difference between parenting and leadership is that one audience starts out shorter.

But owning your impact wake is essential. You can’t deny it, you can’t say it didn’t happen, and you can’t say, “But that’s not what I meant.” It doesn’t matter. Acknowledging it and validating their feelings is key to staying in relationship.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah, beautifully said. Now, for the final question before we wrap up with the motto. What have we not discussed today that you want to mention, or is there something we’ve talked about that you want to revisit?

David Taylor-Klaus: I think the one superpower every parent can embrace like a cape is curiosity. Just get curious. Be the fascinated anthropologist and try to understand everything going on in that fascinating little human you’re helping to raise.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: No matter their age, by the way.

David Taylor-Klaus: Whatever their age, 44 or otherwise, the more curious you can be, the deeper your relationship will grow. Always, always, always.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Beautiful. I love it. All right, folks, thank you. My friend, my husband, I appreciate so much what you bring to the world, what you bring to my life, and what you've brought to our kids' lives. And thanks for sharing that with my community a little bit today. I appreciate it.

David Taylor-Klaus: Thanks for letting me play with you.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: It was a treasure. Now, to those of you listening, take a minute. What’s your insight from this conversation? What are you taking away? What are you aware of that you weren’t thinking about 20-30 minutes ago, or maybe that you were thinking about but now see differently? What are you going to apply from this conversation into your life in the coming week?

And as always, thank you for what you do for yourself and your kids. What you do makes an enormous difference. Take care, everybody. See you on the next show. Bye.