MegAnne is NOT a parent, but...

Have you been looking for a kind, warm, non-judgmental parenting community? Join MegAnne while she shares stories, tools, and tips from her nearly 20 years of helping parents enjoy raising strong-willed children! As the creator of The C.L.E.A.R. Method of parenting, her mission is to build a community of parents who are ready to stop yelling and enjoy raising their strong-willed children by supporting parents in taking action to create a calmer home environment. Welcome to Be Kind Coaching, a Positive Parenting Method that works. Bekindcoaching.com

Releasing the Dream Child and the Dream Parent Ep 5.42 09/06/2024

Are you doing your P.A.R.T.? Ep 5.41 08/30/2024

What does our “nervous system” do? Ep 5.40 08/23/2024

What does our “nervous system” do? Ep 5.40 In today’s episode, we'll be talking about what our nervous system does, and let me tell you, when it comes to behavior management and positive parenting, it plays a huge role. So, get cozy, grab your notebook, and let’s dig in! Alright, friends, we’re going to start by revisiting the concept of temperament, which we've discussed in the past few episodes. Temperament is a crucial factor that influences our attachment and how we interact with the world. As a reminder, temperament affects how we take in information, process our environment, regulate ourselves, and ultimately, how we behave. In the last episode, we explored the nine traits of temperament and learned that they generally fall into three categories: easy temperament, slow-to-warm temperament, and difficult temperament. It’s easy to get caught up in labeling a child as “difficult” simply because we find them challenging. However, when we talk about temperament, it’s important to focus on the child’s experience, not ours. For example, a child with an easy temperament finds it easier to regulate themselves—they’re flexible, calm quickly, and are generally happy and easygoing. On the other hand, a child who is moody, explosive, or has big outbursts is struggling to regulate themselves. Their behavior is a reflection of how difficult it is for them to feel safe and calm in their environment. Remember, a child who is having a difficult time isn’t giving you a difficult time—they are experiencing difficulty themselves. This perspective is a major paradigm shift when we think about behavior management. It helps us see that difficult behaviors are often signs that a child is struggling to regulate their nervous system, and temperament plays a huge role in this. It’s important to recognize that temperament is an innate part of who they are—something they didn’t choose but were born with. 🐝 Welcome to Be Kind Coaching! 🐝 Transform Challenges into Opportunities with a Parent Coach Effective parenting doesn't just happen. It's intentional. 🌐 /episode/index/show/megannesnotaparentbut/id/32658737

9 Traits of temperament E 5.39 07/26/2024

What is temperament? Ep 5.38 07/19/2024

What is temperament? Ep 5.38 We're going to start today is by grounding back into the three factors that influence our attachment. As a reminder, attachment means the quality of the bond between parent and child, and those early attachment styles and bonds will influence all of their future relationships. Wow, that's a lot, but it's also such an opportunity because we can always learn, grow, and take intentional moves to do better. The three factors that influence attachment are: The quality of caregiving: As a parent coach, I help parents like you improve the quality of caregiving, including the tools, methods, and approaches you take while interacting with your child. The emotional climate of the home: This means the tone and emotional temperature. Have you ever walked into a room and thought, "Wow, this is tense and cold," or into another and thought, "Oh my gosh, I love coming here because it's always so warm and inviting"? You’re tuning into the emotional climate of that space. Temperament: This is a big piece of the puzzle that often goes overlooked. Today, I hope that by the end of this episode, you have a clear understanding of what temperament is, its impact, and how you can support your child's temperament. They say, the powers that be, say that a child is just difficult. Perhaps you've heard this about your child or someone else's, or maybe you've even said it yourself. What I say to that is: Are they being difficult, or are you having a difficult time with them? As a teacher, I encountered children who gave me a harder time than others. Initially, I thought I needed to change them until I realized they were showing me opportunities for growth and expansion. The biggest "aha" moment for me in this work is understanding that behavior is communication. When a child exhibits difficult behavior, it signals they are having a hard time. As soon as I stopped labeling them as difficult and instead identified that their difficult behavior was a signal of their struggle, many things shifted for me. Difficult behavior indicates difficulty in regulating emotions and energy. 🐝 Welcome to Be Kind Coaching! 🐝 Transform Challenges into Opportunities with a Parent Coach Effective parenting doesn't just happen. It's intentional. 🌐 /episode/index/show/megannesnotaparentbut/id/32215612

What Impacts the Attachment Bond? Ep 5.37 06/07/2024

A good Relationship is a Secure Relationship Ep 5.36 06/06/2024

Unseeing Parent Ep 5.35 05/16/2024

Unseeing Parent Ep 5.35 We are on the final episode of this eight-episode stretch, examining the difference between showing up in trusting ways and showing up in non-trusting ways through the aspects of feeling safe, feeling seen, feeling secure, and feeling soothed. We've been exploring these foundational steps to building a healthy relationship. When discussing attachment and attachment qualities, we're talking about the dance between rupture and repair in a strong relationship—making a mistake and working to repair it, messing up and fixing it, experiencing stress, and then finding soothing. It's this constant ebb and flow of life that influences the quality of attachment. Attachment theory focuses on the quality of that attachment bond, which affects your child's development mentally, physically, intellectually, emotionally, and socially. The strength of that relationship is the main predictor of how well your child will do both in school and in life. How they learn to find security within themselves and their primary caregiver, often you, will extend to how they handle stresses in other areas of their lives—friendships, school, and future romantic relationships. This primary connection to you, their caregiver, is crucial. The child looks to you as a safe base, and their sense of safety is determined by the quality of attachment to their primary caregiver. This means how safe they feel to leave you and come back to you, repeatedly. The bonding perspective of the child is different from your perspective as a parent. You see things through the adult, caretaker's perspective, while your child sees things from their own viewpoint. In this eight-episode series and in my work, I invite caregivers to see things from the child's perspective. We look at what safety, being seen, feeling soothed, and having a sense of security means from the child's point of view. I always emphasize that a good foundation of this understanding is worth the investment. 🐝 Welcome to Be Kind Coaching! 🐝 Transform Challenges into Opportunities with a Parent Coach Effective parenting doesn't just happen. It's intentional. 5-days to learn a repeatable parenting strategy ⭐ 🌐 /episode/index/show/megannesnotaparentbut/id/31337762

The Seeing Parent Ep 5.34 05/10/2024

Un-Soothing Parent Ep 5.33 05/02/2024

Un-Soothing Parent Ep 5.33 We have made it to episode six of this episode stretch, talking through attachment theories and the quality of attachments, and how parents can show up to create a sense of trust or distrust. We've been going through, just talking about the foundations of what creates that connection in a relationship, and we are coming off of the foundation of attachment theory, where it states that strong relationships are that dance of rupture and repair. There are benign ruptures, meaning like little blips in the relationships, and then there are big ruptures that require major repair. The quality of that dance, how well we are sensitive to the ruptures and quick to repair, and the quality of the repair made is what signals the quality of the attachment bond. So we're talking about attachment theory. Attachment theory is the quality of that attachment bond that affects the way that your child develops mentally, physically, intellectually, emotionally, and socially. The strength of this relationship is the main predictor of how well your child will do both in school and in life, meaning how well you are becoming aware of the ruptures and doing the repair work with them is empowering their toolbox so that they take those skills into their future relationships. In all of this, the child is looking for a safe base, somewhere to land and somewhere to launch from that creates a sense of safety in them. It's important to know that your sense of bonding, your sense of safety with your child, is different than their sense of safety with you. For example, I work with parents, and sometimes they come to me and say, "No, no, no, I'm not punishing them," but they act this way. And when we flip it and I say, "Well, do you think that they are feeling punished?" then they start to say, "Oh yes, they are." It's when we shift out of our own perspective and shift into a child's perspective, we can start to see like, "Oh, the ways that I'm showing up is creating this threat response in them." And as soon as we can become aware of that, then we can start to step into our own empowerment of growth and change. 🐝 Welcome to Be Kind Coaching! 🐝 Transform Challenges into Opportunities with a Parent Coach. Effective parenting doesn't just happen. It's intentional. 🌐 /episode/index/show/megannesnotaparentbut/id/31085663