Episode 20: Transforming Parenting with Mindfulness with Hunter Clark Fields
Join mindfulness expert Hunter Clark Fields as she shares insights on mindful parenting, breaking reactive cycles, and fostering kindness and confidence in children.
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Hello world and welcome to Always Have Choices podcast. Today we have a wonderful guest. Her name is Hunter Clark Fields. And in order for us to know a little bit about her, I'd like to read her bio to you. So here we go.
Hunter is a mindfulness expert, author, and speaker known for her work in mindful parenting. She is the creator of Mindful Parenting Course and the host of the Mindful Parenting Podcast, which is garnered over 3 million downloads with more than 25 years of experience in meditation practices. Hunter has taught mindfulness to thousands around the world. Her mission is to help parents reduce their reactivity and foster more peaceful, cooperative family dynamics. Hunter is the author of the bestselling books Raising Good Humans and Raising Good Humans Every Day.
Her writing has been featured in various prominent publications including CNBC, NBC, The Huffington Post, Tiny Buddha, and Mothering. She is also a global speaker and mindfulness meditation teacher, providing resources and training through her platform. Mindful mama mentor, New Harbinger Publications, Inc.. Apple and tilt parenting. How did I do? I'm good at. Yeah. Hi. Hi, Jay. how are you?
I'm so excited to have you on this show. You know, we try to cover a lot of different subject matters, and this is a very unique subject matter, so, I'm really glad we're tackling it today. And thank you for joining us. All right. If you don't mind, I'm going to pop right into the questions, if that's okay with you.
Let's do it. All right. So question one, what inspired you to write Raising Good Humans. Was there a particular moment or experience that sparked that idea? my own miserable failing as a parent inspired me to write Raising Good Humans I was, when my daughter was like, 18 months, two years old. My first daughter, you know, she's a highly sensitive kid. I'm a highly sensitive person. And this temper came out of me, and I was yelling. I was scaring her. and it was exactly the opposite of what I wanted to do. You know, because my father had a temper growing up like so. It was. I could see that I had, you know, I had so much to learn, and I there was a way I wanted to parent, yet I couldn't make myself do that. You know, in the moment. So I, so I basically saw, like, I was following these, parenting coaches and teachers that had really good advice.
Really great ways to respond to your kid that I simply couldn't follow, I couldn't follow. I mean, I could I would be like, okay, today I'm going to do this x, y, z. And then I would start to get triggered and I would start to get reactive. And then it all went out the window like I couldn't remember any of the good things I wanted to say. And so it was so frustrating. And so I really, I ended up having to kind of go back to mind diving into mindfulness, which I had been reading about and studying since I was 17, to just for my own, to help me with my own sort of ups and downs and challenges and sensitivity.
And I, I started to go down a rabbit hole of learning, but just really realizing that, like in the parenting world, like there was this expectation that you could just respond this way. You know, this is how you respond, just respond this way. And there was no kind of like understanding of like, well, parents are humans with their own, their own stuff. And you know, we are wired for reactivity and this, you know, this nervous system, this, but, you know, biology. And so I, I saw that the tools of mindfulness really could help enormously to build awareness and help reduce reactivity in the moment, but also build awareness of, you know, us overall.
Excellent. Excellent. All righty. So, I'm glad the, the information was out there and then you took it and, you know, use it for your particular way of teaching others how to do it today. So, question two, can you explain what mindfulness means in the context of parenting and why is it so important?
Well, in mindfulness is very simple. You know, it's just the the choice to put your attention into something in the present moment with an attitude of kindness and curiosity. Super simple, but it's really different from the way we are normally living life like we are, you know, are I we are kind of wired to be, you know, we're culturally we're going and doing rapidly.
You know, we have achievement orientation. We are also wired to be kind of like looking for threats as well. being in the present moment is not necessarily what you know, how humans are wired. And so I that mindfulness is so important for parents because it, it's kind of like it helps us to build that non reactivity muscle. This is the way I see it a 2600 years ago they figured out this weird hack for humans that if you sit still, you practice being peaceful. You know, then we can start to sort of build that muscle of peacefulness. And so for parents, we're generally we're in other words, like things are when we're when things are great, it's great. Like we can love our love on our kids and everything's wonderful. That's wonderful. That's not when we have the problems. Problems are when it's tough and we start to get reactive. And so when that happens, the mindfulness can be a tool to help us to calm that reactivity. Because, you know, it's it's kind of wonderful how it works.
You know, there's all these studies, of course, that show the Johns Hopkins did a meta study of 47 different studies that showed that mindfulness reduces anxiety, reduces depression, increases sense of well-being and things like that. But they've also have all these, MRI scans of the brains of meditators and show that after, you know, eight weeks of a meditation practice, that the parts of the brain responsible for that reactivity are amygdala, the limbic system in the brainstem, the kind of oh, oh, crap centers of the brain, if you will.
They actually shrink. They actually become less dense and gray matter. And they and then the parts of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for, you know, verbal ability, you know, problem solving, impulse control, like, these are all the things we need to be able to remember those good things, to say well and to solve those problems. A mindfulness practice actually makes that part of the brain grow denser and gray matter and it's so it can help us to just kind of start to, to build that muscle of reactivity. And, and no one really knows kind of how this works. But I kind of think that, you know, as you sit, you, maybe you sit in meditation, maybe do a walking mindfulness practice or you, you make a practice of slowing down and putting your attention in the present moment as you do this.
It's not like, I don't know, like, you know, rainbows, sparkles of joy, like, shoot out of your ears. Like, actually, all this stuff comes up for you. You know, you start to think about all the things you have to do. You know, anxieties come up, worries, fears, all kinds of things arise when you're just trying to put your attention in the present moment. And then period of time, you're deliberately practicing to say, okay, that's a thought. Right now, I'm not I'm not going to react to it. I'm going to stay present. I'm going to again deepen my breath again, re relax into this moment. And so then when we get to those really challenging moments with our kids, we're, we've kind of built that muscle a little bit.
And B we can then sort of step back a little, you know, we're more likely to be able to step back and to then use our whole brain, which is what we want. Right? We don't want to yell at our kids because we know it causes disconnection. Because as kids to be scared of us, it makes us so they can't learn because they're fight, flight or freeze. Stress response is activated. everyone's going to yell sometimes, like we're not aiming for perfection, but like, we can reduce that and be more skillful more of the time. That's great, because then also that's what your kid is going to model. So, so I kind of think it as of that as it's like parental brain hack that we could all tap into. It's free. It's there's no side effects. Great.
Yeah. I have found in my own meditation practice that, you know, practice is what gets me there. I mean, it's been years. I've been meditating for over 46 years. And it's just it takes so much time to get there, even though you can get the benefit right away. Like I was told in the beginning, sometimes, you know, you're fidgety, you want to move around a lot, but if you keep your body there, the mind will eventually follow. But I would imagine for parents in the moment, you know, when they, you know, which they all have where there's a lot going on and, you know, they're doing a lot not to act out and just yell or scream, but to grasp what you're saying and then to be able to put that out. I would imagine that takes lot of practice to be able to to, you know, work with your children on that level. So very exciting stuff.
And it depends, you know, and it's there's all these different sort of levels of that. Sometimes you catch yourself, you start to become aware, getting frustrated. I need to do some things to calm my fight, flight or freeze. And then other times, you know, it's like 0 to 100 and point five seconds, right? And then sometimes, you know, but then that practice can help us in some ways. Like, I remember when my younger daughter was nine and she, she, we had all had a movie night. And then of course, at night, kids get a little crazy and ramp at night, and you're just so exhausted. It's the end of the day.
You just want to go to bed. And she started, like trying to bug me. And I was like, oh, it's kind of, I want to read this book. I'll ignore her and she'll go away and go to go upstairs and get ready for bed. And then she like then she, she laughed at me. So she was. And all of a sudden it was like this new trigger that I didn't know.
And all of a sudden I felt like, like this. Just like a volcano had erupted and I could feel the, I was so reactive and I was so angry. All of a sudden, I could just feel it all in my body. And yet I was so proud of myself because I was, like, 100%. And I instead of instead of maybe the because of all the practice of the skillful communication of practicing non reactivity, I was able to I yelled, but instead of like yelling something really mean or unskillful or whatever, I was able to yell.
I'm really angry right now. and I was like, not so much. but explain just like naming my feelings. And then I slammed the door and I threw my book down to the carpet. I walked back and forth up the street for ten minutes, but I was like, this is like, this is a good moment. This is progress. Because this is I am the that awareness has sunk in that this is these are my feelings, you know, and this is just about me. And so there's different degrees of awareness and the way those years of practice can hit you.
Absolutely, absolutely. Which brings us to our next question how content we just talked about this. How can parents break the cycle of reactive parenting? What are some of the practical steps they can take? So just what you said about not reacting immediately, but you know, I'll let you take it.
Yeah. I mean, you know, it's funny. So weird. mindfulness practice is really great. And as a long term to tool as, you know. Right. Like it's not like it's, it's, better as a, like a long term.
You're going to the gym kind of it's not a quick fix right. Yeah. Yeah. But we can I think it's just really important for parents to realize that we there are tools we can use in the moment and so when we're reactive with our kids, our kids like freaking out or yelling or something like that, and we lose it and we yell, it's not.
It's not like we made a choice to lose it and yell, right? Like I never woke up in the morning. I said, I'm going to scream at Maggie because at, you know, 10 a.m... No, no one does. No parent does that. Right? So no one's consciously choosing to yell. And it's important to understand that and then also understand that what the yelling is or the losing it is for parents, it's our fight flight or freeze stress response triggered. Right? Our stress response is seeing our kid as a threat, right. So then if we can start to stop blaming ourselves but understand that this is just biology, this is just the way our nervous systems are wired. This is the way we all are. It's not a personal failing on your fault on your part. You're not a terrible person.
This is just the way humans work. Then we can start to say, okay, well, we can be a little more compassionate with ourselves. And then we can also start to understand that taking care of our own ourself and taking care of our nervous system is the number one priority. If our kids are freaking out and losing it, and we want to be able to respond effectively to that child, whether it's with words or whether it's with our presence or whatever it is, we have to take care of ourselves.
We have to then in that moment realize, oh, hello, nervous system, you are starting to we're starting to feel activated here, right? We're starting to feel triggered by this moment. Maybe my kids in a public place and it's embarrassing and I'm starting to feel triggered. I'm starting to feel my jaw tight. Right? I'm starting to feel like I just need to just stop everything right now.
I want to control this situation. Oh, hello. Hello. Nervous system. So then we can start to implement some tools, mind body tools to kind of calm that nervous system and know that it's just it's not. It's not us. It's not the kid. Okay? We need to just take care of the nervous system. So things like the breath is cliché because it works longer exhales than inhales. it's kind of like biohacking because each inhale is like a little mini fight flight or freeze stress response. Each exhales a little mini rest and relax response. So do some longer exhales. You can shake out your limbs like you know, like after a zebra's been chased by a lion and they just, like, shake it all out or like your dog and all, you can shake out your limbs because this is, stress is like a tension in the muscles, right?
You can shake the tension out. It's very practical. You can tell your nervous system, like I, there's a mantra I like to teach people, which is, this is not an emergency. This is not an emergency, right? Or I'm helping my child. This is not an emergency, right? You. So you're directly telling your nervous system, oh, we can we can slow down, you know, even though we can, you know, and we as a combination of those tools, it's really good idea for parents to practice those things like practice these longer exhales, practice sitting still and calming the body.
Right. Because what you practice grows stronger. You can't just depend on yourself to you know, you can't. You don't just choose it in the moment. If you don't just, you know, you think you can. When everything's cool, you think I'll just do this. I'll just I'll just pause right there. No you. And even pausing. Right. You even have to practice that. Like you can practice that in a calm moment. You can say, you know, for the next week or so before you answer your child, you can take a breath in and a breath out and just practice
Mindfulness to speak about, you know, take a breath in. Am I right here, right now? What I hear you, I yeah, excellent, excellent. You mentioned raising kind and confident kids. What are some of the key strategies for fostering these qualities in our children? How do you do that?
Well, I mean, what I talk about in raising good humans, I think that is the most important to understand is that we are always modeling in every moment. Right? Our kids are learning how to be from us. So we have to live what we want to want our kids to learn. So a lot of the ways we, promote kindness and confidence in kids is that we work on a, like our own, we take care of ourselves and we also work on our communication. Right. How are we communicating? And one of the things that can be challenged that is that in, in kind of the mainstream of parenting culture, there's a lot of the way we talk to kids can be actually kind of a little bit rude, right?
We're we're giving them orders and commands all day long. Put on your shoes. Put on your jacket. Come over here. Go over there. Get in the car seat. Get out of the car seat. Right. All these things, we're doing it all day long. Every day. And, you know, sometimes we're also like, we're dismissing their feelings. Yeah, we're, you know, a kid comes to you with a booboo. Oh, you're okay, you're okay. It's fine, it's fine. Right. Or, you know, we want to jump in and solve their problems for them. So some of the things that the in the second half of raising good humans and, and in the mindful parenting course, we talk about this idea of like, how are we communicating? What are we modeling for our kids?
Are we model, are we yelling at them and barking commands? Kind of rude. You know, if you thought I would, I wouldn't yell at you, Jay, or like barks and commands at you. You know, you would do it to your respected auntie right? So but then we do it to our kids, and then we expect them to speak respectfully back to us, you know, so it's a we're a little bit and as I say this, you know, some parent may be listening and saying, oh, yikes. Yeah, that might be what I'm doing. And I'm not saying it's a be blamed for because this is just the way this is the normal, the cultural norms. And so if that's what you're doing, that's, you know, that is just what the for the water we are swimming in. So it's not like it's not your fault necessarily if that's what you're doing.
But it's really good to be aware of it and then start to say, oh, that's how I'm talking to my child. That's what I sound like. If I want to have a kind, if I want to raise respectful, kind kids, I have to actually model that kind of speech and action to them.
I love, I love that, I love that you said we have to model because I know growing up, you know, I as a kid, they put you in front of the TV and a lot of the heroes that I modeled, I model after that. But especially your parents, like, sometimes you can, you can talk to a child and sort of know what kind of parent they have. If they're calm, cool, collected and as opposed to, you know, some other parents that don't practice a lot of these wonderful ways to raise children. So that I think that modeling thing is huge, huge. In your book, you discuss the importance of self-compassion for parents. Why is it so crucial? And how can parents practice self-compassion?
Well, it's so crucial because we're going to mess up. I mean, all of these things we're talking about, if you're aiming to parent skillfully and mindfully, you're going to mess up. You're going to yell at your kids.
You're going to say something dumb, rude, and stupid because you're human. That's what humans do. We make mistakes and that's okay, right? So we're going to make mistakes. We're gonna mess up. And so that's inevitable. But what happens when most people mess up or make mistake? They say to themselves, oh, you know, I'm a terrible parent. I'm a terrible mom.
I'm a terrible dad. What's wrong with me? Right. They we talked to ourselves in these really unkind ways. And the practice of self-compassion is just like when you inevitably are human and make a mistake, you, you know, you offer yourself some kindness. And so self-compassion involves three things involves mindfulness to be aware of the kind of thoughts, the kind of things you're saying to yourself in your head, right. Like, are you aware of what the voice in your head sounds like? it also involves understanding that you're not alone, that everybody makes mistakes. Hunter makes mistakes, Joey makes mistakes. Everybody is making mistakes. and then three, you know, can't self kindness. Can you speak to your self in a kind way? Can you say, oh my gosh, that was a hard moment or, wasn't my best moment, but this is parenting stuff is hard, right?
Like, okay, you know, and what is self-compassion? And it can feel awkward if that's not the way you're used to talking to yourself, but it can be something that's learned and practiced. and it's actually quite practical too, because, like, if you're really harsh to yourself, then you make a mistake and you just spiral down and you know you're miserable and what you for you to anybody like, you can't be present for your family if that's what your goal is like. If you are kind to yourself and you give yourself a soft landing, you can kind of say, okay, I can get back to you, I can begin a new I can start again because we have to do that so many times. We have to just begin again a zillion times.
Yeah, yeah. That guilt, shame and remorse gets us nowhere. I like, you know, when you said, you know, realize it own it and give yourself a break. I think that's so important. So very important. what role does communication play in mindful, mindful parenting? And how can parents improve their communication with their child?
Yeah. well, I mean, we can start to realize here, then we go back to that modeling. What are we saying? I remember really, as I was starting to really dive into this, starting to really dive into better communication and being less reactive. And then I saw my daughter, who was like three and a half or four, talked to her sister and like, barked these orders. And I was just like, oh my gosh, cringe. Like, this is what I sound like.
This is not good but it's never too late to change, our practices of communication. And so. Yeah, so in raising good humans and in mindful parenting, I teach really like wonderful classic basic communication skills, which include things like reflective listening and iMessages. Right. So what do we do when somebody else has a problem. Right. When a lot of for a lot of parents, when your kid has a problem, you immediately well you could you might dismiss it.
Oh you're fine. That's okay. Or you might immediately just start to solve their problem for them and just offer them a solution, which actually isn't that helpful. Right? Right. You know, I don't know that we think it's helpful. We want to just, you know, help our kids make their problems go away. But sometimes, oftentimes the vast majority of times we are some if you are upset and you go to somebody, you want someone to acknowledge what you're saying, right?
You want someone to see and hear. You hear. That's what our kids want, right? Our kids want to be really seen and heard so reflectively. Listening is reflective, reflecting back the feelings and the content of what kids are saying. You know, offering some empathy. Oh man, that's really hard right now. You hate it. Yeah. You hate it when your brother knocks over your stuff.
That's really frustrating, right? Like, yeah. You know, and just that feeling of being heard and seen is an incredibly powerful step. And that can make kids feel really connected to you. And, it helps them to then ultimately solve their own problems. And then I messages are such a great skill because orders and commands and threats, they're actually like, that's kind of like kind of the go to for like let's get for parents wanting to get stuff done, but they're not actually that effective because, it turns out that no one at any age likes to be ordered around.
No one at any age likes to be threatened, makes kids resent parents, and makes them ultimately, you know, push back and build. That resentment builds over years. So how can we communicate our needs without doing that? And so in raising good humans and mindful parenting, you talk about this classic iMessages that, like Thomas Gordon talked about in 1970, you know, like how do we communicate our needs, you know, explain how your behavior is affecting me, explain how it makes me feel. All those things.
Cool. Very, very cool. Okay Okay. This is a good one. How can parents manage their own stress and emotional triggers to be more present and calm with their kids? Yeah, I mean, so managing your own stress involves all the things we know it involves, right? Like regular sleep and exercise and time with family and friends and time and nature. And that's, I know, a big ask for a lot of people. But we have to remember that, that should be a priority in your life. If you want to be present for your kids and not be stressed and reactive, right? You have to take care of yourself. But then we also have like we have stressors in life, but we also have triggers, right? That we have things from our own childhood that can arise.
You know, you may feel like when your kid doesn't listen to you, it may put you right back in that feeling of when I was a kid and no one listened to me, and you feel just like a little crazy from that. And that's not necessarily your child's fault, that that this produces a big outsize reaction in you.
And so actually in raising in humans, I have a bunch of questions, like to help us kind of understand, you know, take a little look into our own upbringing and understand how were you raised, how did things affect you? What are some things, you know, so that we can kind of carry your own baggage right here, you know, dump it on our kids. Right. That self-awareness is really, really important. You know, they they've shown that through research that Doctor Jen Siegel has done that they've shown that without some awareness of your past and your upbringing and all those things, like you're likely to just repeat unhealthy patterns. Yeah, yeah. So let's not do that. Let's just start to do some of that work to become more aware. It's it can be challenging, but it's so fruitful.
Yeah. Yeah. It can be challenging. You know, I'm a I come from a family of four and I'm the youngest. And to get them to notice me, I really had to, you know, jump over these humongous hoops and I saw that as I was growing as well. And I needed to say. Oh, okay. You know, you don't need to be the center of attention. They hear you, people hear you. So. And it took work. It took work, therapy, meditation, all the things that you're talking about. Okay. What advice do you have for parents who are just starting this journey? How would they go about it?
Well, I would say to don't panic, like the healing and yourself, which is kind of what we've been talking about, right? It should transforming maybe the way you speak and helping yourself become less reactive and all that. It takes some time and you want it all done. Yesterday because now you have a three year old or whatever it is. but that's okay. It's okay to make mistakes. It's always fruitful to practice more skillful means. It always helps. And it's never, never too late to do that. I just want to say that right off the bat that it's never, never too late. Even if you have adult children, it really can help to change the way, communicate and be less reactive.
But I guess I would start to look at, you know, what do you need most? You know, do you, do you need more support in your life? Do you need do you need those basics? Do you need time? Buy yourself time with supportive family and friends. Do you need better sleep? Right? How are your interactions with your kids? Are they what you want them to be?
Yeah, I would I would even go as far as saying, like, if I'm starting out and I don't know how to do this, maybe to read one of your books, to listen to your podcast, you know, just to get an idea. Okay. You know, is this the kind of thing that I need to get started on my own journey to have a better relationship with my children? So I think those are some good choices to make as well.
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks. I mean, yeah, hopefully it's, you know, raising good humans. Like I didn't expect it to do as well as it has done in the world. It's in like 17 languages now, which is crazy. And I just think that, it helps people to like to see that from a different perspective, you know, and to rather than think about, oh, this child, I need to make this child change so that I can feel better, we can start to make some of those changes from the inside out, and then it ripples out to your child. but yeah, absolutely. Like the The Mindful Parenting podcast, you know, we have over 400 episodes. So it's an incredible archive for, for parenting knowledge.
Perfect, perfect. I think that's a good place to get started. how do you suggest parents balance the demands of modern life with the need to be mindful and present with their children? I guess that's that can be tough. I got my life, my stuff's going on, and then I. I also have to watch after these kids and help them become better human beings. That's got to be some kind of balance.
Sure. I mean, I think I would say that for a lot of parents, as we have kids, we have to remember that our needs matter, our needs are actually just as important as our kids needs. Ultimately, you know, when you have an infant, their needs are a lot more immediate. Of course, and that's important that those needs are met. But you can't neglect your own needs forever. I think that's really, really important to understand. That is a recipe for burnout and resentment and bad parenting. Honestly. so so don't do that. Like, yeah, balance. Remember that you are human too. Beyond mom or dad. You know, it's beyond this role. You know, you and I think that's important to connect there is, any burns. I wrote a book a long time ago called Soul to Soul Parenting. And she said, beyond not role to role, soul to soul. And I thought, that's so beautiful.
Like, let's be a remember that we are allowed to be authentic, well-rounded humans. And that will only benefit our kids because we're modeling, right? We so just give yourself permission to be a full and complete human and get all the help and resources you can when they're young because it's so, demanding at that time.
Okay, we're ready. What's one piece of advice or key takeaway from your book that you hope every parent will remember? What's the most you have? Anything that sticks out most of all?
I mean, I think that for a lot of people, what sticks out most of all is remembering that this idea that you're taking care of yourself is not selfish. I think that we want to put our all into our kids, and that's so that's a beautiful, you know, an impulse.
And yet we cannot give what we do not have. And so we have to be really the foundation of skillful, mindful parenting is to take care of yourself and to be a complete and whole human being, and to honor that and to I think that that piece, taking care of yourself and self-compassion are the two ultimately the most foundational pieces, because we have to take care of ourselves and we have to give ourselves permission to be human. It's not. This is super hard. It triggers you in all these crazy ways that you you don't realize they're going to happen before you have kids. And so you have permission to be human. And you can always, always, always, always begin a new.
Excellent, Excellent. Hunter. I got to say, I really think this is such an important subject matter, and I thank you so much from the bottom of my heart for you to come here and share it with us.
And, I just want to say thank you to the world that comes in and listens. And I have a few parting words.
this will bring us to the close of today's podcast. It was such a pleasure having you tour, so please visit us every Tuesday for new and what we feel is a helpful way to live a better life.
Thank you. God bless you and we will see you next Tuesday and thank you. We will let you know when, when, when we're going to edit it. Look at it. I don't think we needed very much work. You were fantastic. And then we'll send you a little email when it's when it's being out there and you can look at it, send your friends to it. Because I think you really did a great job. Great job. Well, thank you so much, Jay. Yeah, it was nice to meet you. And yeah, we'll share it around for sure. Excellent. All right. God Bless you. You too. Bye, Bye.