Sustainable Parenting | Raising Confident Kids with Positive Parenting Strategies
Are you tired of power struggles, whining, and tantrums with your kids? Does it seem no matter what you do, they just. won't. LISTEN?!
Friend, you are not alone. I have been there. And I can't wait to share with you the pathway to more joy and ease, showing you how to get kids to listen in a way that is still loving, kind, and connected.
Welcome to Sustainable Parenting.
Here we bridge the gap between overly gentle parenting and overly harsh discipline, so you can parent with kindness and firmness at the same time.
In this podcast, you’ll learn positive parenting strategies that actually work, so you can focus on raising confident kids while practicing parenting without yelling or shame.
With my master’s degree in counseling, being a mom of 2 young kids, and 12 years of experience coaching and mentoring parents internationally, I have found the secrets to being a calm confident parent.
These 15 min. episodes will drop each Wednesday and boil down parenting theory and psychology into bite-size strategies that are easy to understand and implement, and for that reason...finally feel sustainable.
Sustainable Parenting | Raising Confident Kids with Positive Parenting Strategies
121. Attachment Science: Resolving Parenting Conflicts in Your Marriage
Parenting disagreements can feel overwhelming — especially when emotions run high.
In this short episode of our weekly podcast, couples therapist Rachael Maher shares how understanding attachment science can bring more calm, connection, and teamwork to your marriage.
You’ll discover how parenting conflicts often go deeper than surface-level disagreements — and how to approach them with gentle parenting principles.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- Why parenting conflicts often hit at the “fight level” — and how to shift toward shared hopes for your children using positive parenting strategies.
- How calm parenting tips can make tough conversations about parenting more productive.
- The surprising role of attachment wounds in sparking arguments — and how they affect your parent-child connection.
- How understanding what’s behind your parenting approach can help you stop power struggles with kids and bring more alignment with your partner.
If you’ve been searching for parenting tips & tools to bring more harmony to your marriage — from parenting without yelling to strategies for raising confident kids — this episode offers insights to help you stay grounded, connected, and on the same team.
Visit littlebearcounseling.com for more information on couples therapy focused on parenting conflicts.
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There are these universal attachment needs that I think we're playing out in our parenting, of the needs that maybe our parents weren't so good about meeting for us.
Speaker 2:Let's be honest, friends. Sometimes parenting can be the hardest challenge in our marriage. And did you know that 90% of divorces are initiated by women and one of the top three leading causes is issues over parenting? Friend, if these challenges are coming up for you, first of all, you're not alone. Secondly, I'm so excited to offer you the wisdom today that came in my conversation with Rachel Marr, couples therapist, EFT specialist and founder of Little Bear Counseling here in Bozeman, Montana. Her passion is for helping clients build a strong scaffolding for success in their relationship, and it's all based on the incredible evidence-based wisdom of emotion-focused therapy, EFT and attachment science.
Speaker 2:I'm so glad to share Rachel's wisdom with you, as in our conversation she shared with me how you can see what you actually have in common during your conflict and what's truly getting in the way of that conflict resolving, which is not usually all the surface stuff we think it is. Let's dive in. Hello and welcome to the Sustainable Parenting Podcast. Let me tell you, friend, this place is different. We fill that gap between gentle parenting and harsh discipline that's really missing to parent with kindness and firmness at the same time and give you the exact steps to be able to parent in ways that are more realistic and effective and, for that reason, finally feel sustainable. Welcome.
Speaker 1:I want couples to know that chances are there're a lot more aligned than they probably think. And really parenting is one of the highest stakes. You know occupations out there, and so it makes sense that we feel a tremendous amount of pressure and urgency to get it right in those high pressure moments. And so under that degree of pressure we revert to fight, fight or freeze, and usually in couples there's one person who's the fighter and there's one who flees or freezes. And I have found that in talking with couples, the more that we can get to that level of the conversation, the softer they can become with each other and less threatening those high tension moments become, so that they can navigate through them and fall back on the strategy that they both agree on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm just like really interested for us to talk this through, because I see this all the time. I just got off a call with a couple that this was exactly it. They're thinking they're in different camps.
Speaker 2:One is sort of the stereotypical, overly gentle parenting oriented mom which is often what I do see, and the dad was raised with a very authoritarian style and it's sort of like look at me, I'm successful. Yeah, I may have had some emotional things to work out through the years, but like, I'm doing well and I want my kid to do well, Right, so what's so bad about that? What's so bad about just saying what they have to do and right. And yet, like you say, I think it really does absolutely come down to fear, fear on both sides that am I going to have an unsuccessful kid or am I going to have an unloved or unnurtured in the emotional sense.
Speaker 2:Kid, what do you see that they have in common?
Speaker 1:emotional sense, kid. What do you see that they have in common? Well, I think I think you're nailing it. Let's back out, because most couples are coming in at the fight level of your parenting is wrong, mine is right, and if we stay with them at that level, they get stuck at that level. And so I like to zoom out and say big picture, let's paint a picture of what is it that you're both hoping for? And it's amazing how hard it is actually for couples to talk about that. They want to talk about these very granular things. If I want my child to graduate with this GPA and at least play, you know, however many sports or musical instruments and and things like that. And it's really hard again to zoom out and say I want my child to be successful, I don't want them to struggle too much, I want them to be pro social, pro relational.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and positive discipline. I love they often. I often do these in my parenting workshops is start with a list of like what are some characteristics or personality traits you'd love?
Speaker 2:to have in your child when they're 25 and I always have found that lens to be so unique because, right, it's like not also not only the granular about the sport or the grades, but but it can be so immediate. I just want him to listen to me. Why won't he listen? But then if you zoom out to 25, like, well, no, I don't want a 25 year old who just listens. What is that Really? I want him to make wise choices, I want him to be a problem solver, I want him to take initiative. So then it like gets our scope on the right thing, absolutely.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of nervous system grounding that happens when you do actually engage in a joining conversation about a shared goal and a shared big picture vision. And what I have found is that when we're grounded and when we feel like our partner understands us enough, then we feel safe enough to get into the granular and to disagree. But until that happens, when we get into the granular right away, immediately, we're usually at odd and our guard is up and we have a much harder time being curious and flexible.
Speaker 2:So I can see how that kind of question of values clarification gets them to understand each other more, in that shared like understanding grows alignment. Tell me more about the grounding, then. What helps that happen?
Speaker 1:I like to ask them to check in with each other of like, what does it actually feel like to feel on the same page in this way, like taking stock of what is the relationship feeling like between the two of you. Usually it's positive, sprinkled with some anxiety. Of like I know this won't last, and then so really marinating in that I encourage a lot of marination in that where you are together and then noticing what happens then, when you start to bring the granular in and if it starts to feel threatening, that just tells us we need to go really slow on this and we need to ask ourselves is this something we urgently need to fix or is this something we can kind of pick apart over the next few weeks very slowly. Most things can take time. You know, like the, I love the example of like I just want my kid to listen. Like does that have to happen tonight? Because newsflash it?
Speaker 2:probably isn't going to. Yeah, I mean, I think I want to dive even deeper into then the like regulation, like you're saying. Then if we start to notice, okay, some of what we're, I love what you're saying absolutely about needing to back up and be patient about how and when these things are going to be quote solved or resolved. And yeah, I'm interested. I do hear a lot of couples talk to me about like now I'm learning how to think about things differently but I can't seem to get my body to react differently because of my own fight or flight, like childhood. What about childhood is informing how they're both reacting and ways to shift from then the behavior management of how do we get the kid to listen and fight over who's right about the right way to do that? We need to love them into it or we need to be stern enough into it. How?
Speaker 1:do we shift?
Speaker 2:from behavior management to our own emotion regulation management.
Speaker 1:Totally. I think how we shift is when we're outside of the chaos. Don't try to do this in the chaos, too many balls up in the air but when we're outside of the chaos to really start asking ourselves what am I afraid? What am I afraid is going to happen in this moment? If I don't whatever your strategy is, if I don't manage it, contain it, control it, or if I don't love enough, understand enough, comfort enough, what am I afraid is going to happen? So, really asking ourselves like, what will happen if I don't do the thing that I do that actually is causing friction in my relationship. I love that question.
Speaker 1:Oh, good, good, and that is something that I encourage people to do on their own or with their therapist, because their partner can get really triggered at this juncture. There can be a lot of defending and that sort of thing, but what am I afraid is going to happen? And typically what I hear is I'm afraid my child is going to become me, which is really heartbreaking, right.
Speaker 1:Whatever those wounds may be, I love your example of kind of like the permissive mom and maybe more rigid authoritarian father, because that is such a common dynamic and usually for those more rigid authoritarian types it's one. I was raised this way and I turned out fine, so there's that. But underlying that it's like I don't know how else to do it. I just don't know what to do Right, and I'm afraid that if I change, my child will be less successful or more hurt than me. I know sometimes for their authoritarian parenting it's like, well, that was just how I was raised and I'm fine, right. Um, but also what I see sometimes is people who were raised by very permissive or absent parents kind of going that direction because they crave some kind of structure and predictability, which to me again says like I want to provide safety for my kids, which is such a loving intention.
Speaker 2:You know, yep.
Speaker 1:I don't want them to feel lost.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like there's this innate pull that, if we were raised by someone overly firm, we either lean into copying that without really understanding all the reasons, or we go the opposite, like you're saying, towards the overly kind. I see that dynamic a lot. Either I did it and it's fine, or I had the opposite and I'm trying to give structure. Yeah, I see what you're saying.
Speaker 1:Right, there are these universal attachment needs that I think were playing out in our parenting, of the needs that maybe our parents weren't so good about meeting for us.
Speaker 2:Would you give a little more like what are, say, the three to four main attachment needs that? You see playing out that somehow parenting really pushes that button for couples.
Speaker 1:The biggest one I see is safety. Right, If I had very permissive parents or very volatile, rigid parents or just absent parents, right, Safety is the big one and people try to give their children a sense of safety in a variety of ways and I often find that people will partner up who had unsafe feeling childhood, but then how they try to parent is at opposite ends of the spectrum, but then how they try to parent is at opposite ends of the spectrum, Whereas when they can kind of get down to I'm trying to give my child safety and predictability, we can have a much more fruitful conversation. So that's the first one, I would say just overall safety. I think the other one is acceptance. Right, If we only experienced acceptance through performance when your parents said I'm proud of you based on a GPA or a sports score, something performance oriented, the wires get kind of tangled up in their brains and they go oh, acceptance and approval equals high performance.
Speaker 2:And do you see that in women? I feel like I see that too in women, on a little bit of a shift of the acceptance in terms of like, do you like me Wanting to be that people pleaser? And so then when a child is like you're the worst mom ever because you set a boundary, it pushes that acceptance button in a different realm.
Speaker 1:That's a really good correlation of like and acceptance. Yeah, because I do think likability as we grow up we kind of find these different ways to be liked in different realms. But as little girls, that container can be pretty small of what's likable in a little girl. So like absolutely is one of the big ones. And then I think, uh, this is kind of but a sense of belonging, do I belong, which I find with a lot of permissive parenting they're trying to give their children a sense that they belong, no matter what, because they often felt they didn't really belong in their family when they misbehaved.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I hear a lot of moms will tell me the phrase I was just told I was too much. Oh yeah, so safety, acceptance and belonging Absolutely makes so much sense. And isn't it interesting, Like I find, that some of the interesting dynamics that happen in marriage because of kids is like those triggers may not have been pushed by any of your dynamics of the relationship before children. Right, If you had similar hobbies.
Speaker 2:You love camping together. You had similar senses of humor, night owls or morning people, whatever that. Nothing in your dynamic may have even been able to challenge you, to test out if you had those three things in any order that were bumping up against each other. And so then I find that parents are like I loved my husband. I'd like we got along so well till we had kids. Why are we like pissing?
Speaker 1:each other off so much now.
Speaker 2:Why are we so at?
Speaker 1:odds.
Speaker 2:I thought we'd be so aligned but it's like, yeah, because you didn't have something pushing your button of missing out on the acceptance, the performance of am I a good enough? Mom, or dad? Am I having a sense of that belonging feeling like I fit? In here as a mom doing it right or a dad doing it right.
Speaker 1:Coming together and really understanding those deeper attachment, goals and reactions can be so humanizing and so helpful.
Speaker 2:Yes, I'm so grateful for the work you're doing with couples and everything that you've offered in this conversation, so please share where. How could people follow up with you or the other counselors you supervise under Little Bear Counseling?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you can just look us up at littlebearcounselingcom. We are getting more involved in the community, so you'll probably see us at community events. We also, as a service to the community, we offer free little one-hour workshops on attachment needs styles, how they impact us in the workplace and our romantic relationships. I'm going to leave the parenting stuff to you, flora, because you're so good at it and we regularly direct people your way. But that's how people can find us, little bearcom, and if they have questions about community offerings, please do reach out. Or questions just about couples therapy, please reach out. We highly value parenting well together, and so a lot of people think we don't need couples therapy because we're good except for parenting. But I think parenting is just kind of like a gateway into a deeper connection and a more fulfilling partnership.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm so grateful for your work and, I agree, I just sent some clients your way this week.
Speaker 1:It's so nice to have a space, thank you, yes and I I really didn't know.
Speaker 2:you had some of those workshops, so you'll probably see me taking one soon, because I'd love to learn more Great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, fantastic. Well, thank you so much for collaborating with us and I love what you're doing and, yeah, I look forward to more conversations in the future, if you're up for it.
Speaker 2:Yes, thanks so much, rachel Friend, if you'd like to leave a review to share how sustainable parenting has been impacting your life, I would be so grateful. It helps others to know what's possible in their families too, and you can do so easily by scrolling to the bottom of all episodes, clicking on that fifth star and leaving a comment. Also, be sure you subscribe to the podcast so that you regularly get the downloads each week and don't miss a single tool and strategy to be parenting with more kindness and firmness at the same time. So parenting finally feels sustainable.