Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Welcome back, everybody, to another conversation in Parenting with Impact. Hi, Diane.

Diane Dempster: Hi, Elaine.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: This topic isn't my request, and Diane is indulging me.

Diane Dempster: It's an interesting topic you've chosen. Well, we should fully disclose that this is the first recording we've done in 2022. We've just gotten through the holiday season, and we've just gotten through our own dramas. So, this is like reality, parents in the moment.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: The holidays—tell them about broadcasting.

Diane Dempster: Broadcasting, right. Because we both just got through a really interesting holiday season. And yours, basically...

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: No matter when you're listening to it, we all remember the holidays of 2021. We were all set for holidays, and then everything...

Diane Dempster: Nothing happened.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Because of COVID. So, the topic for today is a theme I got from a psychiatrist my husband and I worked with many years ago, whom we adored. His name was Ed Tussey. 

He once said to us, and we’ll never forget it: "It’s not a question of whether you’re going to screw up your kids. It’s just a matter of how." So always remember that parenting is damage control.

Diane Dempster: Well, and I laugh because I always have joked about the fact that I had two funds for my kids, I have a college fund.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And the therapy fund.

Diane Dempster: And the therapy fund.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And me too.

Diane Dempster: I was like, no matter what’s going on with my kids, I’m like, okay, what I’ll help you pay for therapy, no matter what’s going on. It will always be something I’m more than happy to help you pay for. Because it’s important.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And by that, we mean therapy, coaching, personal development support.

Diane Dempster: Yeah, personal development support.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right.

Diane Dempster: And part of that is our own values around personal development, and how much it’s done for us over the years.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: That’s right.

Diane Dempster: And the reality is that we know the dynamic created by trying to parent someone and help them. Even though everybody—I think, I have this belief—everyone does their best in the moment with the information they have and their values. Your best doesn’t always work the way you thought it would. So, what’s important for you about this conversation?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Well, there are so many things on my mind. I’m just trying to organize my thoughts a little bit. The notion here… so, full disclosure, I’m at a point where all my kids are in therapy as young adults, which is great. I mean, for those of you who are parents of teenagers who are like, "This kid needs to be in therapy," and they won’t go, then there’s...

Diane Dempster: Then they'll go eventually.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Eventually they do go, and they’ll blame me for everything. Because that’s part of the nature of the process. But I’m really happy they’re all doing this work, because part of what became really clear to me over the holidays is that it’s hard to raise these complex kids you hear us talk about all the time. It’s hard to be a complex kid. 

And as an adult who was a complex kid, I can tell you, it was hard to be that kid, especially when I didn’t know. But even when you do, these kids are going through life and their own experiences, their own traumas. No matter how good you are as a parent, it’s hard for them to be them.

Diane Dempster: Yeah.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And as they get old enough to start realizing it was hard to be them, then they have to start processing that and figure it out. Ideally, right? This is the best-case scenario.

Diane Dempster: Well, and I think the other piece of this is the individuation process, right? So these are kids who aren’t often able to individuate as early as they are developmentally ready. 

So, they’re hanging on, they’re in a relationship with their parents that might be a little different from everyone else’s because they’re more dependent or interdependent, or there’s all this stuff going on. And so, they may be a little bit older, a little bit more kicking and screaming. 

I remember really distinctly my stepson, kind of at this moment where he was ready to depart the house. He wrote this note saying, "Okay, I quit my job, I quit college, I got a tattoo, I’m moving out. Let me know if you want to talk about anything." It was just this explosion of life, and he was like, "Okay, I’m done."

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Done.

Diane Dempster: Moving on, I’m becoming—like, it’s time. And that’s what he needed to do. But, wait a second, how that hits us as parents is not always easy.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So the work that we're all about is helping parents empower kids to become independent. But the problem with empowering them to become independent is that they begin to feel a sense of independence and autonomy and make their own choices. And as a parent, that can be really hard. 

Like, I was watching another family through the holidays—one of my kid's friends—and it was a 23-year-old young adult, whose mom said, "You're gonna come here, and then you're doing this, and then you're doing that." And it completely had nothing to do with what that kid wanted. But this was a family dynamic where the parent was going to control, and the kid was going to follow directions, and the kid was crushingly depressed the whole holiday. Right? 

Which is sad and hard to be with, and hard for my kids to be with, because it’s a lot of work for us to say, "Well, when do you want to leave? Well, you're leaving earlier than I would like, but I understand why you're making that decision." Right? That’s a hard place to be.

Diane Dempster: Well, and I think what’s coming into it for you, as you’re saying that, is, as parents, it’s a sort of designing and getting clear on what kind of parent you want to be and how you want to portray that in your relationships with your kids. 

I mean, I know a lot of people who are my age, whose parents say, "No, this is what we’re doing for the holiday, and you will come home, and this is where we’re having whatever," and it wasn’t a "Do you want to?" It was "This is the way we’re doing it."

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah, I think that’s fair. Like, as you say that, I think, really—but I hear you. Like, I get that that’s not… not everybody has that autonomy, and I just don’t really...

Diane Dempster: Really, come on. I mean, it’s like, you’re an adult. If your parents came to you and said, "This is what we’re doing." I mean...

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Parents would never.

Diane Dempster: Right.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: That’s the thing. Parents would come and say, "I’d really like this, would you do this?"

Diane Dempster: Right.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: They would always make it our choice. And the beauty of that is that when we go, we are fully at choice, and we want to be there. Right? I mean, we had an amazing opportunity this holiday, which was really, really hard for everybody to do. But everybody chose to be there, because we were given the choice, I think.

Diane Dempster: Well, and so I guess that’s what we’re trying to grasp at in this conversation—you’re talking about choice. And choice is such an important tool. I think about this when working with a parent of a kid who’s like 10, the other day, and there were constant power struggles. 

And I’m like, "Okay, let’s figure out how to give this kid some choices in the context of the structure and the boundaries you want to set as a parent." So that you’re not giving away the farm, and you still have the autonomy and authority you want as an adult. And you’re giving that child a space to have some autonomy so that they get used to it. 

And I think that’s part of what I love about the coach approach—helping your kids become independent and learning those independent skills. And ideally, maybe so they don’t wake up one day and go, "Hell no, Mom, you can’t do this. You can’t tell me what to do," or whatever it is, but knowing that they still might.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And so there’s... here’s the increments, right? If we start with the notion that parenting is damage control, we’re not going to do a perfect job as parents...

Diane Dempster: Right.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: We’re gonna do the best we can with what we’ve got. There are moments where that’s not gonna be good enough, and we’re gonna have to deal with the ramifications of that. My kids were saying to me that they realized I was a different mom with the first one, the second one, and the third one, right? Which makes sense. 

The first 10 years, I was the first mom, and I was not my best mom, right? But then when we talked about it, it’s like, yeah, but the first mom grew into the second mom. So, do you want to beat me up for being that first mom, or give me credit for who I became as the second mom and the third mom, right? So, there’s got to be some damage, if you will. 

There are going to be mistakes you make, especially early on. There are going to be things that you don’t handle as well as you’d like. And it’s going to be fair for them as they get older to want to hold you accountable for that and to try to figure out how to deal with being raised by the parent who didn’t yet know how to parent. So that’s that first phase. Go ahead.

Diane Dempster: Well, yeah. And I think part of the loop around here is that so many of us feel guilty. It’s like, "I caused this, I did this, this is all my fault," right? And so, just know if you end up in a point where your kid is saying and pointing the finger, "This is all your fault," I mean, part of that is a normal human reaction to not wanting to own everything that happened to us, and not wanting to.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right.

Diane Dempster: Not being able to navigate it and lashing out, and that’s part of the healing process. But you have to kind of figure out what you do take in and own and say, "No, what I didn’t do is I didn’t do as well then as I do now." 

I mean, I think that’s—I can reflect 10 years ago on the kinds of things... I mean, I tell the stories all the time about the way I was 10 years ago compared to now. And here’s the thing, right? I am in a situation where I’ve done my own work and forgiven myself for that person. 

If my kids now came back and said, "Mom, you really sucked 10 years ago," I could say, "Yeah. And I’ve learned from it. And that’s part of life. And here I am."

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Well, so you can, and having just experienced it, I’ll tell you, it still smacks a little bit. It still hurts just a little bit, like...

Diane Dempster: Yeah, that’s true.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Okay. And what became really clear to me was that what they needed to hear—and I say this to parents of young adults all the time, right?—what they needed to hear from me was, "I’m sorry. I’m sorry that happened to you. I’m sorry that I behaved that way. I’m sorry that I put that pressure on you when I didn’t understand. 

I’m really sorry." And it was really amazing how healing that was for them to hear me say, "Yeah, I didn’t handle that so well. I’m so sorry." And then to go on to say, "And it was really hard to be you. And I really, really respect that you’re doing the work to try to figure that out and process that."

Diane Dempster: Yeah.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Because it was, and here’s the other thing, and this is not a slight to therapists, but the therapists are going to come in at that stage, having missed all of those early years of what was really going on. And so, if you’ve got a therapist—maybe a lot of our kids will go with young therapists who aren’t yet parents—or the therapist is going to have an interpretation that may or may not be based on what really happened. 

And so helping them learn how to navigate that conversation with what was really going on. I mean, I ended up going back and doing kind of a medical history for one of my kids so that they knew what happened, because they really didn’t know, and there was a lot more involved.

Diane Dempster: That—and I mean, the reality is that there’s a stream of therapeutic intervention that really involves rewriting your history, right? It’s just sort of because we remember our history in a certain way. And it’s like, if you remember your history as painful versus if you can kind of rewire that and try to find the golden nuggets and remember that part of it. 

I mean, I think that’s the piece of it. It’s this sort of takes us back to what we can control and what we can’t control. We cannot control our kids’ personal development. We cannot control our kids’ therapeutic relationships. We can’t pick—even if we pick their therapists for them, we have no idea kind of where they’re gonna go.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: We can’t control their development at the end of the period.

Diane Dempster: Right.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Like, that’s what we start off trying to do before we realize that we can’t. That’s when we’re still in fix-it mode. And I knew I was in the first 10 years, I was trying to control their development.

Diane Dempster: Yeah.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Before I realized that my job was not to control it, but to support it.

Diane Dempster: Well, but yeah, let’s call it what it was then. It wasn’t that you were trying to control their development, it was that you were trying to do the best you could to try to make a successful human that you thought...

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right.

Diane Dempster: Yeah.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: No, I think I was trying to hold... I think in the early years, I was trying to hold them to typical development. I wanted them to fit into the lines in the realm of what was sort of normal or typical for their age and development. 

And I didn’t understand that three- to five-year delay. I didn’t understand that what was really happening was a developmental delay, and then trying to make an eight-year-old behave like an eight-year-old, who was really developmentally only five.

Diane Dempster: Well, and you were doing that for good reason—you wanted them...

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right.

Diane Dempster: To fit well in society, you wanted to challenge them to be independent, you wanted to—I mean, it’s all this sort of stuff that we do out of the goodness of our heart.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Not always so helpful.

Diane Dempster: It’s not always helpful.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So, okay, so as we move the conversation, because I want to get back to what you’re saying about choice, because I think it’s really powerful. But I wanted to go back and really land. I think my point about this notion of parenting as damage control was how important it was for me to say to my kids, "I’m sorry for the mistakes I made, I’m sorry for when I wasn’t there for you, or when I was focusing on this kid instead of that kid, or whatever they’re bringing in, they’re upset about, which is their experience and is legitimate." 

And if I had some work to do to not take it personally, so that I could be present to them and continue to be the parent they need me to be, and not make it be all about me. So that’s piece one of it. And then back to this issue that you’re saying about their personal development is their journey. And that’s a concept.

Diane Dempster: Well, it isn’t, and here’s what’s coming up for me, because I did a bunch of therapy in my 30s, and I remember really distinctly kind of going back and trying to redesign my relationship with my parents. And it’s this sort of, therapists like, "Okay, so go and ask now for what you needed from your parents years ago." 

And I tried, and I found out my parents just weren’t... they were not who they were available for the kind of thing, and it was like this sort of, "Okay, so I know now that they weren’t—they’re not that kind of person."

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: They weren’t available then, they’re not... They’re not about me.

Diane Dempster: Exactly. Well, and so I think that said, the journey again, this is sort of taking it back too, can you look at your kid’s journey as independent from your independent and parallel to your journey, and not judge one for the other? What is right? What is wrong? 

How you look at things. I mean, it’s a really hard dynamic to navigate through as a human.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: It’s super hard. And it’s so... this speaks so clearly to not taking it personally. Because, how could the child and you not take that personally?

Diane Dempster: Yeah.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right? And yet, that doesn’t serve you to do that.

Diane Dempster: Well, and it’s hard to not take it personally. Because, and this is what I was saying, it’s like we judge ourselves, right? It’s just sort of we know that we screwed up, right? And even if we forgive ourselves, there’s still part of us in there that’s going, "See, I told you."

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: If you would only... Right?

Diane Dempster: Exactly. And so those are those moments that part of you shows up. And so it’s about being aware of that and going, it’s not just my kid’s judgment that’s showing up right now.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: It just didn’t like there was one time, I remember it very vividly. But they kind of interpret or embellish something that happened as a child, and then it becomes a memory, and the story becomes based on the memory. 

And this is, I’m not judging any of them for it. Because I think this is what we humans do. I’m sure I’ve done the same thing. I’ve got some great stories about my childhood that may not be true at all. Right?

Diane Dempster: That’s a great Aha, yeah, maybe.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Maybe that’s not what happened. And so again, it’s—it comes back to doing our own work, and trusting and empowering them to do theirs and not—so here’s the thing. I can’t let them do their work if I need them to do it in a way that makes me look good. Right? 

Even though I’m a parenting person, and I do this professionally. Now, I didn’t those first 10 years, let’s be really clear. That’s why I do this.

Diane Dempster: Yeah, exactly.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: But it can’t be about me looking good. It’s got to be about them figuring out their stuff. And that goes for kids at whatever age they’re at, really because even—and maybe even especially teenagers.

Diane Dempster: Well, what’s coming up for me in all of this, no matter how old your kid is, is finding ways to own your stuff. It's not about taking things personally, but there's a difference between owning it and taking it personally, right? It's like, “Wow, okay, that happened.” 

It wasn’t my best moment. I’m channeling Brené Brown here—it’s like, “Okay, that was not my best moment, and I own that, and I’m sorry for that.” But that doesn’t mean I’m going to take on all the energy of thinking the world is going to end or that this is about blame and shame.

It’s just recognizing that there’s this fine line between ownership and piling on that can be impactful and powerful, no matter how old we are or how old our kids are. It will also set us up for having a different kind of relationship with our kids as adults, if we can do this while they’re developing.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Well, maybe that’s where we can begin to close this conversation, because we’re now at a point where we’re parenting young adults, and it’s super different. We’ve been doing a lot of work over the last couple of years with parents of young adults because it is different. And it’s fascinating, fun, interesting, and also can be scary and hard.

Diane Dempster: And really hard.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And this is what it’s about, because what we really want is to have a long-term relationship with them. And the way to have a healthy long-term relationship is to recognize that they are a separate, autonomous being on some level.

Diane Dempster: Yeah.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Or maybe that’s a bias I’m bringing—maybe that’s my bias.

Diane Dempster: All it’s about is figuring out who they are, right? I think that’s the piece of it—seeing who they are, knowing their faults, their strengths, their whatever else. I mean, meet them where they are. If they’re 22 and dealing with pain, healing from their childhood, meet them where they are and be there with them. 

Put as much of your own stuff aside as you can to help them. I mean, this is what we do at any age. It’s about trying—like we talked about last time—making sure you’re clear on where your stuff is getting in the way of being there for your child.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And then move it out of the way so you can be there for your child.

Diane Dempster: Exactly.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And it’s not easy, because I guess the goal at the end of the day—and this is, again, I think this is a bias I bring, and I think you share it—is, I want my kids to come home, and I want them to want to come home. 

I want them to want to be with us and want to be with each other. And the way to do that is to keep supporting them in feeling loved and supported, so that they want that.

Diane Dempster: And part of that is about helping them— for me, it’s about helping them feel safe in being whoever they happen to be at the moment.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah, indeed. All right, shall we wrap up on that? Help our kids feel safe in whoever they happen to be in the moment. And the path to do that is to get out of the way, knowing that we can’t do this perfectly. You can’t do it perfectly. Do the best you can, and then forgive yourself.

Diane Dempster: And, well, again, it’s about knowing where you see your stuff, dealing with your stuff, but finding a way to put it aside so that you can be there for your kid and not have it be the only lens through which the relationship is viewed.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And own it.

Diane Dempster: And own it. Yeah.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Awesome. All right, thanks for listening, everybody. I really appreciate it. I needed to have this conversation. Thanks, Diane.