Kate Mason (00:01):
Have you ever stopped to think about your own stress, your emotions and daily habits and how they might be influencing your child's behavior? And when was the last time that you really took a moment to check in with yourself as a parent? Aside from everything else that you have to do on that to-do list, do you ever find yourself caught in emotional ruts or automatic reactions that seem to be on repeat no matter how much you try to change them? And how often do you take a step back and focus on the small positive moments in your parenting journey? The ones that are really easy to overlook because life seems so full of the negative. Now, if you were to imagine yourself as the parent you want to be in 10 years, the version of yourself that's worked through all the challenges in life and found balance, how would you describe that version from where you are now?
(00:56):
What would that look like? Now, this insight is really valuable for all of us, no matter how old we are or how old our children are, because as parents, we continue to model behaviors that they might imitate or reject. And while you are thinking about this, don't dismiss the question just because your children are now adults. I'm going to be 73 in 10 years time, and this got me thinking about what kind of parent or grandparent I'd really like to be because parenting challenges and boundaries and behavior modeling, they don't go away. They just change. And as we know, parenting is a lifelong journey. So what kind of parent are you today and what kind of parent do you want to be in the future? Keep listening because you don't want to miss out on these valuable gems that we're about to share with you. Hi, I'm Kate Mason, and welcome to Parenting and Personalities. This is the podcast that connects you to the ones you care about the most.
(02:03):
In today's podcast, we're going to be looking at some common parenting stresses and behaviors along with some simple steps to modify them. And let's be honest, there's no official rule book on parenting is there? Sure, plenty of people have tried to write one, and they're all really good, but no one's managed to cover it all in one neat little nutshell. And that's because there is no perfect way to parent. So as parents and grandparents, we've got to become expert jugglers. We've got to take in advice and spit out the bits that don't work for us and run with what actually feels right for us and our families. So today's episode's all about that gathering insight, having a few laughs, and leaving you with something useful to put into play at home. Today I'm joined by Ivan Hardcastle, an occupational therapist and parent coach who's dedicated his career to helping children with special needs and their families.
(03:01):
Ivan's journey began after he graduated from Idaho State University in 2007, and since then, he's worked with children facing situations such as autism, emotional regulation and sensory processing difficulties. In 2024, he expanded his work into parent coaching, offering guidance to help families manage the behavioral challenges and build emotional and sensory skills at home. Alongside his wife, Ivan's raised five neurodivergent children, which has given him a unique hands-on perspective from parenting. And when, he's not coaching. Ivan enjoys decorative woodworking, acting in and directing musical theater, biking, and exploring the natural wonders of the world. Welcome back, Ivan. It's really great to have you with us today.
Ivan Hardcastle (03:47):
Hi, I am excited to be back
Kate Mason (03:49):
Now. Now last chat about century needs and self-regulation. You helped both myself and our listener understand how important it is to recognize and support the needs, not only just in our kids, but actually in ourselves as well. And today I'd like to take it a few steps further and chat about the bits of parenting that sometimes we as parents don't even realize that we get tangled up in the habits and the behaviors that we fall into because we've always got the best intentions, but sometimes we haven't got the knowledge we are following the parents that parented us, or we are just basically really stressed out. So this is something that you obviously discuss with your parents and you might lead your parents through. Can you tell us how do you begin this discussion? Do you say to them, you are really doing a bad job, parenting? Hey, guess what? How do you stink? So how does it come in? What do you notice and recognize? Go for it.
Ivan Hardcastle (04:53):
Yeah. When I am starting with a family and I'm talking to the parents and the parents are talking to me about the issues that the kids are having, I listen to them, I hear their concerns. And then at a certain point, and it always comes up in the conversation, a certain point where I feel, okay, now's the time to ask. And I say, how are you doing? And oftentimes this is a very emotional point for parents. I've had tears, parents are overwhelmed. And oftentimes the social structures that people are asking about, well, how are your kids doing? But they don't take time to ask, how are you doing as a parent? And that catches people off guard and it really opens up the door to say, Hey, here's some things that I am having struggles with. Yeah, I'm overwhelmed. Yeah, I get frustrated very easily.
(05:48):
Yeah, I'm rushing from one thing to another thing and I don't know how to help my kids without being so overwhelmed myself. And that opens up the door to really be talking about this idea of a mirror. We stand in front of a mirror, I get up in the morning and I shower and I'm getting ready and I look in the mirror, and if I move my right hand, I see my right hand move in the mirror. And if I move my left hand, I see my left hand move in the mirror and I don't even think about it. And yet our relationship with our kids is very, very similar to this. We do things and they're reflected in our kids. The challenge is, is that obviously it's not so literal as a mirror, but our stress, our overwhelm, our sensory processing, the behaviors that we've picked up from our parents, the emotional and habitual ruts that we get in that we just think is normal, those are passed down to our kids and they are trying to deal with it, but they often portray these behaviors that we see as problematic, and they are just responding to the stress that we ourselves are also trying to respond to.
(06:57):
So letting parents understand that, you know what? There is a lot going on and do feel valued and validated in your overwhelmed feeling and know that there's hope that as you actually back up and take a look at yourself and consider where you are at emotionally, you can then work on yourself and then move forward and see progress in your kids.
Kate Mason (07:26):
That's a wonderful way of looking at it because when you are caught up in all of that, then you don't see the full picture because you haven't got time. And if you've got a child that's got sensory issues or you've got a child that's on the spectrum, it's really hard for you. No one teaches us about these things. It's really hard for you to pull back and readjust and look at that. So how do you get them to do that? Because there might still be in that situation of stress. So how do you get them to change those behaviors or sit back and look at it because it's still going to be overwhelming? Yeah,
Ivan Hardcastle (08:01):
Yeah. I like starting with just education. I like starting with teaching and then turning it into a plan. And I use a whiteboard a lot when I'm doing my online coaching. If I'm doing something in person, I have this great big whiteboard that sits on the wall and to help parents understand what is going on when I'm trying to interact with my kids a certain way, but the way that I grew up is influencing that. And the way that my parents grew up, I just draw a bunch of dash or straight down lines on the board in one color, and then I give it a little pause, six lines over, and then I draw another color and it goes on beyond where the first ones were. And then I draw a third. And so then you have this overlap of drawn lines that touch, but then there's open space at the end.
(08:53):
And this is our generations of parenting. We had our great great grandparents were raised up a certain way and they taught their kids and then they taught their kids. And you see this trend of parenting style or trauma or emotional stress, all of this is passed down because we haven't learned, we haven't had resources to learn from and to adat and actually draw ourselves to. And that's one step. Then I'll turn, I'll say, who do you want to be? Where is your end goal? What type of parent do you wish that you could be? Here's Shelly in front of me. He says, Shelly, who is Shelly? When you are the person that you want to be most throw yourself out there 10, 15, 20 years and come up with this image. And they'll start describing this person who guiding them too if I need to, but who's confident and who's calm and can take time to be with the kids.
(10:01):
And they really have them form a good picture of that. And then I say, okay, we are going to build towards that person because that person's already in front of us. That person's already there. We just need to know how to unlock it. And then I start talking about mindfulness and I start talking about positive thinking and how we move step by step by step when so many times we want to jump to the end. We want to scale the cliff, and that's impossible. That's why we fail. That's people who have these great goals on January 1st and then on January 2nd they fail. They're trying to do too much all at once. But if you do small changes over time, oh man, you look back and it's amazing how much you grow and how much you actually transform yourself towards who you want to be. That person who pauses to consider and reflects on themselves and has options in how they respond to their children being stressed. And when they start to change, it opens up doors and their children start to change as well.
Kate Mason (11:08):
So do you work on the child at the same time as you work on the adult?
Ivan Hardcastle (11:13):
Yeah, I start with a parent first. I say we could start with a kid, but we are going to make bigger gains if we actually pause and start with a parent first.
Kate Mason (11:25):
It's
Ivan Hardcastle (11:25):
A bit of yeah,
Kate Mason (11:26):
Because yeah, as you and I know having had children, they do, they mimic your behavior. I mean, I always remember watching, I always broke my bread up before I ate it. And I remember watching my daughter do exactly the same thing, and this is really early in the piece. I thought, oh my goodness, I've never taught her that. I've never, and we actually had a conversation after one of my other podcasts and I said to her, you don't have to copy everything I do. She's 30. And she said, but mom, I do. I watch you all the time. So this is really important for our listener to know that they are watching us every single minute and they are modeling themselves on what we do in that same respect, aren't they? Not everything. I mean, they're not going to copy everything you do, but they are modeling us on our behavior and things that we do
Ivan Hardcastle (12:22):
Well. We think about, there's times that in my marriage, my wife will be refer to me as my mother or as my father because of something I said or some way that I laughed or some way that I acted. And she says, well, there's Chrisanne or there's Gordon. And I stop and thinking like, oh my goodness.
Ivan Hardcastle (12:40):
I just totally channeled my parents, despite me trying to be my own person. They are inside
Ivan Hardcastle (12:47):
Me. A funny story, funny story, when I think this was our oldest daughter when she was little and she was playing that she was talking on the phone and my wife turned to her and she says, here's the phone you called grandma or something. And so she was pretending to be Trish, and
Ivan Hardcastle (13:06):
It just cracked us up. She picks up the phone and she goes, and the next time that my wife was on the phone with her mom, we're listening, and she would say a couple words and then she'd laugh like that, and we'd say a couple words and we're just like, oh, this is so funny and scary and scary.
Ivan Hardcastle (13:31):
Our kids will mimic us physically and they'll mimic our sense of humor. They'll mimic our thought style, they'll mimic our emotions, and they'll mimic our emotional reactions. I think about here I am in the Western United States, and we have a lot of open areas and we have a lot of dirt, country roads and pioneer wagons or something that you see everywhere. They have museums about 'em, they have displays about 'em, and you'll still see roads where these wagons, when there's people crossing the planes to come west, would be on these roads and
(14:07):
The wagon wheels would dig ruts because they just go one after the other. And so you have these deep ruts, and if you are in one of those ruts, oh man, you can almost not get out of it because of how deep the ruts are from so many wagons going through. And this is very, very similar to having generations of parenting style, parenting emotion, parenting response, parenting belief. It forms these ruts and we start, when we start to come out of it, oh man, sometimes it's really effortful because we just want to fall back into these familiar patterns that draw us back in. And this is where a parenting comes in handy. It's that encouragement and yeah, shift here, shift there, try this, rethink about yourself, and it gets the tires out of the rut. And suddenly
Kate Mason (15:02):
That's a fabulous comparison.
Ivan Hardcastle (15:04):
Thank you. Sorry, go on. Yeah, you're welcome. Yeah, no, and then you get up and suddenly I have a parent who's finishing the program right now, and she sent me a little testimonial. She says, Ivan, this is amazing what you taught me, how we applied it. I have a totally different relationship with my daughter now we have the peace in the home that we wanted. But her response beforehand, she was overwhelmed, she was stressed. Her teenage daughter was stressed. She has a younger daughter with special needs who was stressed all the time, and they were just nitpicking fighting. She says, Ivan, I want a relationship with my teenage daughter and I want the relationship with my younger daughter. And everything that we worked on was all on her. It was her being overwhelmed, her emotions, her reactions. And when she was able to get out of those ruts, the daughters changed their response as well. It's amazing. It was powerful.
Kate Mason (16:09):
So for the person listening, how do we train our brains and retrain our brains? Because you talk about our brains are actually trained to spot the negative. And I want you to know I live with a person that spots the negative all the time.
Ivan Hardcastle (16:24):
Sometimes
Kate Mason (16:25):
I tell him, just look straight ahead. Don't look up or down, because there's always fault. There's always something wrong somewhere. The ground's dirty, the ceiling. And I'm always saying to him, look, why don't you look for the positive? Because I actually think I am a more positive person. But so why are they trained to spot the negative and how can we change those things into the positive?
Ivan Hardcastle (16:45):
I really like what you say about starting to rewiring that. Yeah, our brains are amazing things, and I'm so grateful for the tendency for our brains to spot the negative. It's meant to keep us safe. It's meant to spot that here is something that could be dangerous, that's out of the norm that we need to pay attention to. And so we are without effort, we are literally hardwired to notice things that are out of place, which then tends towards the negative. And when we consider our children, this tends to be the things that we don't want our kids to do, but we forget to see the things that our kids are doing that are positive because our brains tend not to be wired that way until we take action and actually reform new neurons in our minds and create new patterns of thinking for ourselves. An analogy, I love analogies. You walk outside at night and the first thing that think, Kate, what is the first thing that you think when you walk outside? Imagine walking outside. What do you see night
Kate Mason (17:57):
Now? Is it cold
Ivan Hardcastle (17:58):
At nighttime?
Kate Mason (17:59):
At nighttime? I was going to say, if it's cold, the first thing I go is freezing out here. It's freezing. Okay. Well, where I am, the first thing I actually see is because we have a dog and he has to go out and do his business at night, and I stand there and I actually see we've got a lovely view and I actually see the stars and the moon, and I actually love it. So I actually steer up there and go, how lucky am I to be where I am? So
Ivan Hardcastle (18:26):
You've retrained yourself. Most people, I would argue, most people walk outside and the first thought that clicks into their head is it's dark. But then as you said, you have this wonderful view and you look up and you notice, well, the moon is really obvious to see is this big bright spot. And as you start to notice the moon, you start, oh yeah, there's other things up here. There's these bright stars and planets that we can see. And then the more that you notice those, depending on the light pollution, of course, you start to notice more and more stars. And if you really take your time, you can notice that the sky is full of light. And if you've ever had the chance to go somewhere where there is zero light pollution over here in the West, we do have areas where you can go and there's nothing around.
(19:10):
And you can look up and you can see the milky way, and you see clouds among the stars just going on forever. And the light, the sky is full of light. And think about that in terms of positivity. You notice the big positives first, and the more that you pay attention to those, then you start to notice the next biggest things, which would be the more obvious stars. And as you start to notice those, then you notice the smaller stars and it on and on and on. As you practice that, it becomes second nature to you. So that even I had a house flood this last winter, and as I'm mopping it up, the thoughts going through my head was, this is wonderful. I'm so glad that we came home right as this was starting, that ya, it flooded the hallway and into one room, but we're getting it cleaned up right now.
(20:01):
This could have been so much worse. This is great that we're all here and we're working together and we have each other to do this. A couple of weeks ago I burned my legs terribly so is an epic sunblock fail and my legs are actually still swollen and I had blisters. I've never had a burn so bad. And I was sitting there, they sent me to the ER because the emergency room, it was so bad. And I just remember I was smiling and my wife was just like, you're supposed to be miserable right now. You are in pain. What's going on? And I just remember thinking to myself, this is fantastic. What a great learning opportunity to remember to wear sunblock. And now I can teach other people about this and I can empathize it with other
Ivan Hardcastle (20:43):
People. I'm thinking, what is going on in my head?
Kate Mason (20:46):
That's almost too positive. Positive. You've lost that danger
Ivan Hardcastle (20:50):
Part, right? What's going on here? But you
Ivan Hardcastle (20:54):
Can start to change your brain, like I said, by those small steps, teaching those small steps. So I have parents start with, okay, at the end of the day what I want you to do or during the day, if that's harder to remember throughout the day, keep something that you can keep notes on, whether it's a voice note, whether you text on your phone, whether you have a piece of paper. When something positive happens, be looking for it. Because at the end of the day, I want you to have written down two or three positive things that happen during that day. Positive things or things that you're grateful for. And then I want you to write just one simple goal, something I want to do tomorrow. Maybe it's something I want to improve that I didn't do today that I'm working on. Maybe it's just a goal to, hey, tomorrow I'm going to wake up and do the dishes before I do anything else.
(21:42):
Maybe I'm going to wear this color shirt because I like it and it's going to make me happy tomorrow. Whatever it is, start small. And then you do that again and again and again. And what you do is you start noticing more and more positive. It's really obvious to see the sun. And this is something that I coach parents through. It's just like I'm running out of positives. Ivan, my kid did this great thing. I did this great thing. I said, okay, tell me some of the things that just happened during the day. Oh hey, a positive. You drove to work and there wasn't the amount of traffic that there normally was and you hit all the green lights. Hey, that's fantastic. Didn't that feel good? That was nice. Hey, the more that you look, the more that you see positives in the everyday small moments that we often look over. And it's purely just that you are retraining your brain, not just to see the negative that keeps you safe. You want to keep that Ivan wear sunblock, Ivan. You want to keep that. This isn't
Ivan Hardcastle (22:45):
All great,
Ivan Hardcastle (22:47):
But you begin to see the positive sides, the silver lining, and that helps change your attitude. Hey, my kid just had a behavior, but if I really consider it, you know what? That's not as big of a meltdown as he normally has. And if I consider that this was in the middle of the grocery store and there's a whole bunch of people today, and that's when he had his meltdown. He used to have a meltdown when we would just go to the grocery store and it was empty. That's a big change. He was actually able to go through a busy story and stay calm for 10 minutes. Wow. Okay. That's wonderful. And then we can, so
Kate Mason (23:25):
It is focusing on the small stuff.
Ivan Hardcastle (23:27):
It is focusing on the small stuff.
Kate Mason (23:32):
And I think there are certain people that are more optimistic and upbeat anyway. And I'd say you're probably one of them. I think I'm too, because my story is my daughter's just redoing a house and they had asbestos and I dunno you say it differently, I think in America, no asbestos. Yeah, asbestos. And we had it removed and the best part was when it was removed, we discovered that part of the roof, we could get in part of the roof and the beams to the house roof were cracked and it could fall in at any time. Oh yes. So I'm sitting there going, isn't that fantastic? We found that asbestos because otherwise we would've never known this house's going to fall down. So like you say, you just have to switch your mind over. It is that switch and it's quite hard for other people. I think I'm constantly that annoying ray of sunshine in my husband's life where I keep reminding him that's not a bad thing. So I do understand. Yeah,
Ivan Hardcastle (24:33):
I
Ivan Hardcastle (24:34):
Love Winnie the Pooh because of the characterizations that they use. He set up those characters very well on purpose. There are the poo characters who are very curious and just kind of are a steady constant for everybody. There's Tigger who's so bright and happy and bouncing all over. And then there's eor. And IOR is very aware of the negative and he's very aware of keeping safe, but he has that lower level energy and he's important. But IOR can also make gains and learn to see on the bright side with a little bit of effort and with support from his family. That's
Kate Mason (25:22):
True. And I use that in my personality workshops too, because they are quite specific personalities and it is a fun way of learning about that too. I mean even with children, it's a fun way of learning about that for them in the sense as well, watching shows like that. So what are the kind of language patterns that you commonly hear from children that, sorry, not children from the adults, when they're reinforcing, what
Ivan Hardcastle (25:49):
Do you hear? Yeah, use of positive language is an incredibly powerful tool. We don't pay attention as much as we should to the words that we use and understand that our words have power. And I was really careful about how they said that, and I didn't say that as well as I could have said because I use the word don't. And that throws a negative in there. But consider the following two examples. Don't forget to do the dishes, remember to do the dishes. And the way that our brain processes those two things, we process negatives after the fact. Our brains have to latch onto the object and understand what to do with it, and then it can process the negative and it takes extra energy to do that. So when say, don't forget to do the dishes, my brain says it's dishes, forget to do them. Oh, forget to do the dishes. Got it. I can do that. Versus remember to do the dishes. And if you practice this, start using this in your everyday language and you will see a difference in how well you can, even if you just focus on the word, remember,
(27:10):
You will remember things better if you say it that way versus I need, don't forget to go to the store tomorrow. Well forget to go to the store tomorrow is what your brain's going to focus on. And you will have a challenge going to the store, but if you say, I need to remember to go to the store tomorrow. Oh remember. Oh, okay, I can do that. I can remember. And if it's hard, say it out loud both of 'em and try and see and feel the difference. Even saying it, I can feel the difference. I dunno if you can, but
Kate Mason (27:42):
Oh, I can, I can. The minute you said remember it just changes the whole thing for me. I think that's a great idea. I'm going to have a go at that. Going to give that a
Ivan Hardcastle (27:51):
Whirl. Yeah. Physically you can actually see this in physical behavior. Well, I remember when our kids were little, we train ourselves out of this as adults, but as our kids were little, there'd be some object in the middle of floor. We're working on some craft we've got to put out there and we don't want our kids to walk on it and it's out of the pathway so we don't worry about it. And the kid is walking along here, they're going to go upstairs, but inevitably they walk over it, they step right on it and then they go back and we're like, why did you step on it? You had to go out of your way, but it's the negative. They saw it and because they saw it and they were focused on it, they went to it and then they went back. And if you're riding a bike, you can train yourselves to stay going forward if you look to the side, but as you're learning, especially when you look, your body tends to turn and your bike goes that way when you're learning to drive. One of the things that driver ed instructors constantly have to teach is keep your hands steady when you are lucky because when you look, you tend to go over. And that's the same way with our language, that's the same way with our thought processes. When we latch onto something, we move towards it.
Kate Mason (29:08):
We'd never even thought about that. That's a really great thought. Thank you for that. That's really interesting. I've never even thought about, not even when I was driving or riding, but I can visualize that. Absolutely. Now just lastly, we talk about parents understanding their own emotional regulation and identifying their own triggers. When they do that, how can they do that and how can they, so if they're about to explode, they might normally do. So recognizing that and then what do you advise them to do? Is it a breathing thing because before they yell or they get annoyed, how do they identify and then bring themselves down?
Ivan Hardcastle (29:46):
Yeah, this is a good question and I want to back up a little bit. As a parent, if you find yourself exploding in a moment of I'm stressed, my kids have done something, I'm overwhelmed with something and I've yelled, what do I do to stop myself from yelling? You're actually past the point already. What you need to do is you need to practice before you get there. And so recognize that, okay, I just had this event that I didn't want to happen. I lost my core, I got upset, I yelled, how do I stop that when I am calm? I need to practice. I need to give my brain pathways to calm reactions. And I, I teach mindfulness, and mindfulness really is about giving yourself choices. When some event happens, I can look at it and decide what do I want to do? I will start with them just noticing what is present that we often forget about.
(30:46):
And it just teaches the brain to be aware, Hey, we're going to sit with our eyes shut for 30 seconds, 45 seconds a minute, and I'm just going to listen. I'm going to try to see all or hear all the things that I can hear and see if I can notice things that I was not paying attention to before. I'm going to do it with looking, I'm just going to sit down. I'm just going to look forward and notice colors and shapes and things that I was not seeing before. If you do this inside, you might look and be just like, wow, I need to clean it here maybe. But the colors of trees and the ways that they move in the wind, and you think that the lawn is green, but it's yellow and green and light green and dark green and brown and tan and all these different variations.
(31:33):
And you just start to can do this eating. I did this eating in a butter pecan ice cream. I love butter pecan ice cream. And I remember, I'm going to eat this mindfully. I'm just going to take one lick at a time. Boy, I'm really going to pay attention to the flavor. Oh my goodness. That was the best ice cream cone I ever had. And it took me forever to eat. And I was about halfway done. I think I've had enough. I'm satiated. I've enjoyed this. But slow down in practice when you are calm, because what you literally are doing is you are recreating pathways in the brain and you need to do that when you're calm, when you have, we do not learn well, when we are stressed out, our parts of our brain actually shut down because, and this is a whole nother topic, but deep inside of our
Kate Mason (32:21):
Brain. Yeah, we'll talk about that another time though.
Ivan Hardcastle (32:23):
Yeah,
Kate Mason (32:23):
I'd love to
Ivan Hardcastle (32:24):
Go
Kate Mason (32:24):
On.
Ivan Hardcastle (32:25):
Deep inside of our brain, we have what's called the limbic system. And inside there is what's called the amygdala. I call the guard dog. And this is what gives us our fight, flight, freeze response. And that is going to warn us of danger and that's going to try to keep us safe. But in our society and in our world, there really isn't a lot of physical danger that we are exposed to. So much of it is emotional or things that we are thinking about in the future, this anxiety that we have about what's coming next or how am I going to get through my day? And so our amygdala lights up. Well, one of the challenges with that is when the amygdala is in charge, when the scar dog is in charge pathways to the front of the brain where we were thinking and rationalizing and planning and learning, they actually shut down. And then we're living back and we are being reactive rather than being active.
Ivan Hardcastle (33:18):
And
Ivan Hardcastle (33:18):
That's where we get stuck. And then we are just living day by day in autopilot and trying to survive rather than thriving and finding happiness and peace in our homes and in our parenting and in our children.
Kate Mason (33:34):
That's a wonderful explanation. And I do love anecdotes and analogies as well because it really helps. It helps me imagine that too. And I can imagine it helps our listener as well understand what you're talking about. Now, listen, if a parent's listening and they feel like they've messed everything up, what would you say to them today?
Ivan Hardcastle (34:00):
The beautiful thing is that we continue to grow and we continue to learn. And I believe that everybody has the ability to change and to grow. And sometimes that is going to be slow and sometimes it's going to be fast. But you start small and you start by recognizing that, Hey, I want to do something different. Once you recognize that you want to do something different, now you have the ability to take the next step, which is actually starting to take action. And this can be very hard, and this can be difficult. It's good to have supports and it's good to have a guide, and it's good to have resources given to you so that you don't get overwhelmed or frustrated and fall back into those ruts that we're in. And because as you get support, then you begin to see the changes. And it's just like this mom that I mentioned that's ending my program, she had a very stressful life. She has a lot of stuff going on in her life. I would argue that she still has a stressful life, but she's managing it differently now. She's taken small steps and she has changed her brain. She's changed actual neurons in her brains, and it's changed her behavior and it's changed her perspective. It's changed her positivity and she's growing. So there's hope. There is always
Kate Mason (35:24):
Hope. That's great advice. That's good to know. And that's really good note there is always hope, and there is always stuff you can learn and knowledge. How can we find you? Tell us where we can find you.
Ivan Hardcastle (35:35):
Yeah, look for me on Facebook. Facebook is, that's the quickest way to find me, I think. Look for Ivan m Hardcastle. There are not a lot of Ivan Hard castles out there, but throw in that m just because I don't have a middle name, all I get is a letter, but use it and it'll pop me right up. Find me, reach out to me, send me a message. You can also go to my website, which is www.castletwinfalls.com, and I'll lead you right to my homepage. And there are several links of, Hey, reach out to me. Hey, connect to me. And just follow one of those links. Either one of those is going to be fantastic for reaching out to me.
Kate Mason (36:12):
Thank you. Evan, thank you so much again for sharing your knowledge. It's been a real joy to have you on the show.
Ivan Hardcastle (36:18):
This has been so fun. Thank you so much.
Kate Mason (36:28):
From mindset, language, and self-awareness, there is honestly so much to take away today. Parenting isn't about perfection. It's all about progress and learning from others and learning from your mistakes, which are often our best teaching moment. So maybe today's the day to try one small shift, whether it's noticing a positive moment with your child, taking five minutes to breathe or moving your body, it all adds up. And hey, if this episode gave you one of those light bulb moments, why not share it with a fellow parent? Because after all, let's face it, we're all winging it a bit. Well, a lot. And it's better when we do it together. So here's your task for today. Ask your child, no matter what their age, what is one thing they have loved about your parenting? Does your version match theirs? If not, keep your opinions to yourself and just let it all sink in.
(37:27):
And remember no challenging their answer. If you disagree, because this is their answer, it's not yours. Your job is to just listen. Listen and listen again, and get curious, ask why, how and when, and then you'll get to learn something about both you and your child. So until next time, keep trying the small stuff. Keep learning and find a way to find the joy in the messy and beautiful work of parenting. No wonder what age our kids are. Thank you for listening to Parenting and Personalities. If you enjoyed this episode, we'd love it if you could leave a rating and a review that would help others learn about this podcast. If you're interested in discovering more about you and your family's personality types, you'll find my book who is a Monster or Treasure My House on Booktopia or Amazon. If you have an episode idea, please send a note to the personality coach@gmail.com. Many thanks to our producers at Stories and Strategies, and we'll see you next time.