Episode 75: Powerlessness

I'm so delighted that Kim Cousins is back on the podcast! Kim is an Aware Parenting instructor as well as a registered nurse who works on a perinatal mental health unit. She is also studying a graduate certificate in family therapy. She was also on episode 136 with her colleague, Erin. Please note that this episode talks about painful experiences in relation to food and feelings. As always, I invite you to listen in to yourself about whether you feel called to listen, and if you need to pause or stop at any time. I loved this episode! Kim shared about her process of learning to trust her children's innate body wisdom in relation to food, and how that has also invited her on her own journey too. Kim shared some powerful examples of how she trusts her children in relation to food, and the amazing effects that she's seen. We also discussed guilt and shame and food and suppressing feelings with food as adults. Kim highlights the cultural and societal effects that leads to so many people eating food to suppress feelings. Kim shares about a painful experience she had as a child and the effect that had on her and her relationship with food. Kim talks about the shift from shame and guilt to self compassion in relation to eating to suppress feelings. She also talks about a challenging experience she had with her daughter as a baby around breastfeeding, and yet, how her daughter now deeply trusts her body in relation with food. In addition, she highlights how much support mothers need in these challenging situations in relation to breastfeeding, and how much understanding about birth trauma and babies' crying can help in these situations. You can find out more about Kim and her work at: https://www.instagram.com/kimberley.cousins/ I invite you to sign up for early bird information and my next book about Aware Parenting and sleep here: http://eepurl.com/8ifhn You can find out more about my work at www.marionrose.net You can also find me here: https://www.instagram.com/_marion_rose_/ https://www.instagram.com/awareparenting/ www.facebook.com/MarionRosePhD

This is the last episode in the series related to my latest best-selling book, 'I'm Here and I'm Listening', before I return to finish the food series, so this episode is a kind of bridge back to that! Then I'll be starting the second sleep series! Today, I share a story from my book, again from a child's perspective. Before that, I talk about how in Aware Parenting, one of the core aims is to help our child/ren stay connected with, or return to, the innate wisdom of their body, including in relation to food. Doing our own inner work in relation to food, and getting clear about our own beliefs and choices, is so vital to this. There's a really in-depth chapter on all of this in 'I'm Here and I'm Listening'. You can buy 'I'm Here and I'm Listening' on Amazon by searching for 'I'm Here and I'm Listening' on the Amazon store in your country. Or send me a DM for the direct link! Big love xoxox You can find out more about my work at www.marionrose.net You can also find me here: https://www.instagram.com/_marion_rose_/ https://www.instagram.com/awareparenting/ www.facebook.com/MarionRosePhD

In this episode, I talk about why children aren't fighting sleep, and why we're often fighting their natural relaxation response. I share concisely about how we can trust children and follow their lead and can then cooperate with their natural relaxation response. I explain the power of play before bed, and why we can look at the "it'll all end in tears" phenomenon in a very different light. At the end, I share a story from a child's perspective that comes from my latest best-selling book, 'I'm Here and I'm Listening.' The book has a chapter on sleep. If you want to understand more about sleep and Aware Parenting, there is the first sleep series already recorded, and I will be starting a second series soon, to correspond with my next book, which is about sleep and Aware Parenting. You can find out more about my sleep and Aware Parenting course here: https://marionrose.samcart.com/products/sound-sleep-and-secure-attachment-with-aware-parenting-course/ You can buy 'I'm Here and I'm Listening' on Amazon by searching on the Amazon store in your country. Or send me a DM for the direct link! Big love xoxox You can find out more about my work at www.marionrose.net You can also find me here: https://www.instagram.com/_marion_rose_/ https://www.instagram.com/awareparenting/ www.facebook.com/MarionRosePhD

In this episode, I share about how we can stay connected with children in relation to screens, including with attachment play. I offer some information that I wish I'd had when my children were younger, about loving limits. I also share a touching story at the end from my new book, 'I'm Here and I'm Listening', from the perspective of a child. Putting ourselves in our child's shoes can really help transform our parenting experience with screens. I talk about one phrase that I found really helpful around screens. There's an in-depth chapter on screens in my latest best-selling book, 'I'm Here and I'm Listening.' You can buy the paperback or ebook on Amazon by searching for 'I'm Here and I'm Listening' on the Amazon store in your country! Or send me a DM for the direct link! Big love xoxox You can find out more about my work at www.marionrose.net You can also find me here: https://www.instagram.com/_marion_rose_/ https://www.instagram.com/awareparenting/ www.facebook.com/MarionRosePhD

In this episode, I share about what's going on when a child is hitting. I talk about them being in the fight or flight response, and how we can help them move out of that state of hyperarousal, through feeling physically and emotionally safe, to return to homeostasis through healing raging and crying (or laughing and playing) with our loving support. I mention ways we can prevent hitting from happening in the first place, what we can do if we don't get there in time to prevent it happening. I talk about the choice we have between loving limits and attachment play in response to hitting, and what exactly we might choose to say with loving limits. I finish with a story from my latest book, 'I'm Here and I'm Listening', which is through the eyes of a child who is hitting. You can buy the paperback or ebook on Amazon by searching for 'I'm Here and I'm Listening' on the Amazon store in your country! Or send me a DM for the direct link! You might also enjoy my Loving Limits Deep Dive! The link is here: https://marionrose.samcart.com/products/loving-limits-deep-dive/ Big love xoxox You can find out more about my work at www.marionrose.net You can also find me here: https://www.instagram.com/_marion_rose_/ https://www.instagram.com/awareparenting/ www.facebook.com/MarionRosePhD

In this episode, I talk about when children use have a soft toy, blanket or other object as a control pattern. This might be something they use to suppress their feelings when going to sleep or during the day when feelings bubble up. I explain about how they used to be known as 'transitional objects' in Winnicott's work, and how we see them differently in Aware Parenting. I also share my own experience of having a bunny as a control pattern for many years, and the touching experience I had in my early twenties. I offer ideas for how you can help your child if they have a control pattern like this. Then I read out the story from a child who has a bunny control pattern from my latest book, 'I'm Here and I'm Listening.' You can buy the paperback or ebook on Amazon by searching for 'I'm Here and I'm Listening' on the Amazon store in your country! Or send me a DM for the direct link! Big love xoxox You can find out more about my work at www.marionrose.net You can also find me here: https://www.instagram.com/_marion_rose_/ https://www.instagram.com/awareparenting/ www.facebook.com/MarionRosePhD

In this episode, I respond to questions about loving limits that parents asked on my social media accounts. They include: What happens when loving limits don't seem to work – eg, the child moves on to something else and doesn't express any feelings; When loving limits aren't actually the most apt response; When our own feelings come up; When we find it hard to be with the crying and raging that happens after loving limits; When the child experiences the loving limit as a punishment; Whether loving limits are possible in response to shouting; How we can care for two children after a loving limit if one is trying to hit the other one. To celebrate the birth of 'I'm Here and I'm Listening', my updated Loving Limits Deep Dive is 50% off for the next week with the code: UPDATE (all in capital letters). That means it's AUD $55 instead of $111 The link is here: https://marionrose.samcart.com/products/loving-limits-deep-dive/ I am so willing for 'I'm Here and I'm Listening' to continue to be a best seller, and to reach the hands, hearts and minds of many many thousands of parents. If you'd like to support me with that, are you willing to share about the book, such as on social media? If you have been thinking of buying it, are you willing to buy it now or really soon, to support it to continue being a best seller? You can buy the paperback on Amazon by searching for 'I'm Here and I'm Listening' on the Amazon store in your country! Or send me a DM for the direct link! Big love xoxox www. marionrose.net

In this episode, I share an update on loving limits, after gaining lots of new clarity through the process of editing my latest best-selling book, 'I'm Here and I'm Listening'. and having conversations with Aletha Solter, PhD, the Founder of Aware Parenting. The update includes: The importance of giving information when offering a loving limit; The language we might use when offering loving limits; The three situations where we don't recommend offering loving limits. I will be updating all my courses with this information and will let you know when that happens. For now, I've updated my Loving Limits Deep Dive, and to celebrate the birth of 'I'm Here and I'm Listening', it's 50% off for the next week with the code: UPDATE (all in capital letters). The link is here: https://marionrose.samcart.com/products/loving-limits-deep-dive/ I am so willing for 'I'm Here and I'm Listening' to continue to be a best seller, and to reach the hands, hearts and minds of many many thousands of parents. If you'd like to support me with that, are you willing to share about the book, such as on social media? If you have been thinking of buying it, are you willing to buy it now or really soon, to support it to continue being a best seller? You can buy the paperback on Amazon by searching for 'I'm Here and I'm Listening' on the Amazon store in your country! Or send me a DM for the direct link! Big love xoxox www. marionrose.net

This is part of a series of episodes where I refer to topics in my new best-selling book, 'I'm Here and I'm Listening', and I read a story shared from a child's perspective. In this episode, I talk about the process of helping a child move out a freeze state (which in Aware Parenting we tend to refer to as dissociation, or a control pattern) and back into connection with their body and feelings. Once they do that, they can then express the feelings they were needing to suppress or dissociate from, and return to calm presence. I've always seen control patterns as like frozen feelings. Our role as parents is to offer the warmth and safety required to our child can experience those frozen feelings melting into flowing feelings, which can then flow out, generally in the form of crying or raging, but sometimes as laughter. To do this, we need to be relatively present in our own bodies, to support them to know that they are safe to become present in their own body, to feel and then express their feelings. Dissociation can show up in a myriad of ways, including thumb or finger sucking, dummy/pacifier use, repetitive nose picking or hair twirling, screens, eating when not hungry, and so on. In this episode, I share about what we can do as parents to help our child move out of the suppression of feelings into expression. I am so willing for 'I'm Here and I'm Listening' to continue to be a best seller, and to reach the hands, hearts and minds of many many thousands of parents. If you'd like to support me with that, are you willing to share about the book, such as on social media? If you have been thinking of buying it, are you willing to buy it now or really soon, to support it to continue being a best seller? You can buy the paperback on Amazon by searching for 'I'm Here and I'm Listening' on the Amazon store in your country! Or send me a DM for the direct link! Big love xoxox www.marionrose.net

Long gone are the days where parents who wanted to leave the park were told to just walk away and say "bye!" to their child. However, it can be so common for us as parents to feel really powerless when we want to leave the park and our child doesn't want to. This can often correspond with times when we're hungry or tired, and our own feelings can easily bubble up and out into responses we later regret. Putting ourselves in our child's shoes at these times can help us be less likely to respond in harsh ways. Free play, explorative play, these are such innate needs for children, and they're ways that they make sense of the world, explore new abilities, making connections, and release stress. For our hunter-gatherer ancestors, children would have been playing freely in these ways a lot. Valuing both our needs and theirs helps us be more likely to feel compassionately connected when we go into the situation of eliciting their cooperation to leave the park. Attachment play, a core part of Aware Parenting, is a beautiful way to create connection, help your child feel deeply valued and cared about, while also eliciting cooperation. In this podcast episode, I read out the child's story of leaving the park from the my new best-selling book, 'I'm Here and I'm Listening'. After the "Go away!" story that I shared in the last episode, this is one of the ones I love next. In the book, I talk a lot about eliciting cooperation. I am so willing for 'I'm Here and I'm Listening' to continue to be a best seller, and to reach the hands, hearts and minds of many many thousands of parents. If you'd like to support me with that, are you willing to share about the book, such as on social media? If you have been thinking of buying it, are you willing to buy it now or really soon, to support it to continue being a best seller? You can buy the paperback on Amazon by searching for 'I'm Here and I'm Listening' on the Amazon store in your country! Or send me a DM for the direct link! Big love xoxox www.marionrose.net