What’s The Episode About:

In this episode, Paul and Stacey will do part one of a two part series on relationship development parenting. They teach a lot of tools on how people can stop doing demand parenting with their kids, and start doing relationship development parenting so they can create peaceful harmonious households, build up their relationships with their kids over time, and reduce the kerfuffles that they have of parenting. They are actually building a relationship development parenting program which will hopefully be released in 2020. It’s going to be a substantial program with lots of tools and strategies, and they’ve so far been recording and filming content for it. 

They will share a couple of pieces from that filming that are so key to helping parents in their relationships with their children. Parents always have the absolute best of intentions, but parenting kerfuffles keep happening because they don’t realize that they’re applying demand parenting by using their leverage as the power players to try to get the results that they want from their kids.

It’s a really predictable pattern, and it’s only so easy to fall into demand parenting because nothing can ever prepare us for being parents. To help us out on that, Paul and Stacey will break down how to apply relationship development parenting, so that we can learn from that and create shifts in our households that will help us build phenomenal relationships with our children. Listen in and enjoy!

Key Points Discussed: 

• The difference between demand parenting and relationship development parenting (02:19)
• The ramifications of demand parenting and how to create a safe place where our kids can grow to become the people they’re supposed to be (06:07)
• Why demand parenting no longer works (10:30)
• How parents teach their kids how to lie and manipulate them (14:00)
• Building up a real relationship with your child with rapport and trust (15:30)

Where Can I Learn More:

• Get access to the Relationship Breakthrough Retreat – here
• Join the 14-Day Boost – here
• Join our Relationship Development Community – here

When Did It Air:

01/16/2020

Episode Transcript:

Disclaimer:  The Transcript Is Auto-Generated And May Contain Spelling And Grammar Errors

Stacey:             00:00 Hey relationship transformers. Welcome to the Relationship Transformer podcast. Alright. On today’s episode, we’re going to do part one of a two part series on relationship development parenting. We teach a lot of tools on how to stop doing demand parenting with your kids, and start doing relationship development, parenting to create a peaceful harmonious household, and build up the relationship with your kids over time. And so many people ask us about our tools and strategies for parenting all the time, and I know you know we’re building the relationship development parenting program, hopefully to be released in 2020. It’s going to be a substantial program with lots and lots of tools and strategies, and we’ve been recording and filming content for it. We did some in the fall. We’re doing it again this month. We have a filming day where Paul and I are actually filming the content for that program, and the Relationship U students are the audience for that filming.

Stacey:             00:57 And what I wanted to share with you in this podcast today, and the next week’s podcast, are a couple of pieces that are so key to help you in the relationships that you have with each child, to create a peaceful, harmonious household, and build those relationships up, and reduce the kerfuffles that you have of parenting, that I know you have the absolute best of intentions, and those kerfuffles keep happening. It’s a really predictable pattern. And in these next two podcasts, I’m going to share a section of us filming the relationship development parenting program, so that you can start to learn from this and start to create shifts in your household as well. So let’s cue up the intro and then we will dive into part one.

Intro:              01:45 So the big question is this, how is it possible that one person alone can transform any relationship, save their marriage, great their unshakeable love and unleash passion, divorce, proof their family without needing their partner to get on board and do this with them and yet still get to be happily, authentically you without compromise. That is the question and this podcast will give you the answer. We are Paul and Stacey Martino and welcome to the Relationship Transformer podcast. We are Paul and Stacey Martino and welcome to the Relationship Transformer podcast.

Stacey:             02:19 Let’s talk about, what is relationship development parenting. So… and this really comes down to the difference between demand relationship and relationship development. Right? And so you all know, we’ve been through this before, that demand relationship is where we’re not happy with something, and we tell other people how they need to change in order to make us happy, to please us, even to make us more comfortable. And, relationship development is learning how to be happy, regardless of what’s going on around you, and relate in a way that doesn’t try to control or oppress others.

Stacey:             02:59 And it’s the same in demand parenting. What’s really been modeled to us forever, in the history of parents and children, is different levels of demand parenting, where children do or say as they’re told, or there’s consequences. Right? Do this or else, to varying degrees. And, in demand relationship, there are two primary roles, the power player and the…?

Audience:           03:30 Non-power player.

Stacey:             03:31 Non-power player. Excellent. And so, you know, at times in our life when we’re talking about demand relationship, we’ve played the power player, we’ve played the non-power player. Sometimes we switch, right? Okay, power player isn’t working, let me know, I’ll be the pleaser and maybe that’ll, that’s not working so we can switch. But there’s the ones who don’t switch. Those are the kids. They’re the non-power player and they know it. And so when you do demand parenting, what you’re doing is you’re using your leverage as the power player to try to get a result that you want from your kids with the best of intentions. Sometimes that result is to do their work, their homework. Sometimes that result is to fucking wash themselves, right? This is not a surprise. We brush our teeth, we did it yesterday and we’re doing it again. I’m holding you down.

Stacey:             04:34 Not that we’ve ever done that. It’s not that we don’t have the best of intentions, we totally do. And yet when we run to the end of our skillset to inspire them, we ended up using our leverage, which we know we have, which is that we’re bigger than them. We end up calling the shots, we have power over everything. It’s our house. We bought everything, all the things that come out of our mouth, right? This is all my stuff. That’s not your toy. Guess whose toy it is. It’s my toy, right? I get it. And so what happens is it’s only so easy to go fall into demand parenting and nothing can ever prepare us for being parents. I remember before we had our son Jake, who’s our first, I read like every book cause I’m a growth person. So I read every book on parenting and I remember having like judgments of all the other siblings and my worlds who had kids like not going to be doing it like that. That’s a hot mess over there. I got this, I have all these books and I know how I’m going to do it until the kid comes out. Clearly the kid hasn’t read the book and is not behaving the way that the book made it sound like it was going to be. And so quickly run to the end of our skillset and we’re like just right and we slip into what is demand parenting.

Stacey:          06:07 That’s totally just the way it has always been. At least in our world. We’re demand parenting somewhat elevated level because we actually really love our kids. We care about them, we care what happens to them. Many of us were raised in a different time when people didn’t care about that, but we still, even with the best of intentions, slip into demand parenting on, we’re going to talk about the ramifications of that because the boomerang back from demand parenting as they grow is very negative. There’s a lot of consequences that you don’t want and they’re actually a result of the demand parenting that we’ve done. They’re not a new symptom that we need to handle and we’re going to talk about that. You want to talk about why it’s important?

Paul:               06:52 Yeah. So there is a way of creating a safe place, a place where they are loved. They know they can grow to become the people that are supposed to be, and that’s what we’re, our job is to create as parents so that they’ve got something to ground themselves, no matter what the world is around them. They bring this sense of inner peace. They bring this sense of capability, they bring the sense of, I’ve got this that is lacking in a lot of kids today. A sense of purpose and other things that need to come from like this grounding that they grew up in, like a plant with a proper fertilization. Everything else grew to be strong. That’s our job as parents. It’s not a lot of this other stuff that’s out there, but nonetheless, our job is to help them become a strong independent person who was capable of navigating the world.

Paul:               07:33 Whether it looks a lot like the world that we came from before or the world that the world is today, there’s a certain element that we can support in them and help nourish and grow. That’s our job as parents and without it, the costs not only to us, but the world as a whole start to increase. It’s like nuclear vision, you know, it keeps splitting off. So you know, the awakening of demand relationship versus relationship development is the first step. And we will say we’re not parenting experts. Well we are relationship experts. Your relationship with them is the key Avenue that’s going to facilitate the kind of growth that you need. So that’s why we’re bringing this to this arena. So we’re bringing into the parenting. Yeah,

Stacey:             08:14 and that’s perfect because relationship development, it really is about all the whole mission behind this organization is actually the kids. I’ve said it many times, we’re very transparent about it. We completely love you and we want you to have the greatest possible life. And the impact we’re trying to create is actually with your kids, through them being able to watch you navigate life from relationship development so that it will flip the switch for how they’re showing up and they won’t need us when they’re 40 to unravel their crap because they learned by watching you what to do, how to respond, how to show up. They learned relationship development. And so yes, we’re not parenting experts and we are relationship experts because the truth is, even with the best of intentions, even with the best parenting strategies on the planet, if you grab a parenting strategy from the perspective of I’m going to use this parenting strategy to get my kid to do what I want them to do is demand parenting.

Stacey:             09:27 It doesn’t work as much as we want it to work. And then we say this parenting book is no good, or this parenting strategy is no good. It’s not that it’s no good, it’s that we picked it up with the intention of trying to get our kids to listen, get them to do what we want them to do without nagging all of the stuff. What are those things? Those are demand relationship things. And if you even are successful, the ramifications are super negative. So that’s why we’ve developed relationship development parenting, because you can actually inspire just the literally the same principle, right? Most people come to the work that we do for relationship development and in the beginning we’re all on the spectrum with it, right? And then the beginning they come to us. Why legit? Why? Cause they’re like, Oh, this works. This will help me get my partner to do what I want them to do.

Stacey:             10:30 Great. What you got right. And we switched that perspective. That’s why you all laughed because that’s the whole premise for what caused all the symptoms that you see today that you don’t like. Right. Those are just symptoms. The source was demand relationship. It’s the same thing with parenting. Yeah. We’re going to give you loads of tactics too. Don’t worry. And those tactics will only work on a base of relationship development, parenting so that it can actually be effective. And so that’s why we do what we do. So let’s talk about why demand parenting no longer works. Well you know that demand relationship fails as soon as both people become free. Yes. So when both people are free, demand relationship doesn’t work because eventually whoever’s assumed the non-power player role will hit threshold and there’ll be like, you know what? Fuck this. Whatever I was scared of in the past is not as bad as this.

Stacey:             11:38 I’ll do it, I’ll leave. I’ll get my own place. I’ll make my own money, I’ll take care of the kids myself. I don’t even fucking care who knows what or whatever. I’m out, I’m done. And of course this happens in demand parenting as a very predictable pattern. If all that’s been done has been demand parenting, the minute that child becomes bigger than you, financially independent from you or no longer needs to live in your house, what happens? Yeah, they’re the fuck out of there. They can’t wait to get away from you fast enough. And do you really have a relationship when they flee? No. It’s like there’s a child shaped hole in the door that like on the old cartoons, right? You don’t actually have a relationship. What you have is a loss of control. You didn’t have a relationship before. What you had was an arrangement based on your own leverage and just like anybody else who’s been oppressed, as soon as we can get away, what do we do?

Stacey:             12:52 Run. There are only two outcomes to demand parenting. When demand parenting is all that has gone on. There’s only two possible outcomes. One, you succeed, you condition them to conform, you win, they become the non-power player and you have created a pleaser, they’ll please you. But when they leave your home, they’re also going to seek out a new power player who may not have their best interests at heart. And I think we’ve actually seen enough of that in this world right now. The second possible outcome is they learn how to navigate you. They figure out ways to make you happy, to make you think they’re doing what it is that you’ve asked for. And as soon as they’re out of your sight, they do whatever the fuck they want. And some of you’re laughing cause this is like, that was me. Yeah, I know exactly what to say to them to make them think that everything is fine.

Stacey:             14:00 They’re happy with me, I’m doing whatever the fuck I want the minute I’m out of here. And they’ll never know. They rebel and they’re literally owning their own power. And all you’ve taught them is how to navigate you. You have not instilled values in them. You didn’t teach them anything, you didn’t prepare them. All you taught them was how to con you and they’re pretty good at it and as much as we may have used a man parenting to try to prepare our kids to protect them, to help them instill values, what we’ve actually done is taught them how to lie and manipulate and you already know that because one of those two descriptions describes most of us when we were navigating our parents. Now there is another way, thank God,

Stacey:             14:53 right? How many of you are like, Holy fuck, thank God I’m here today and it’s relationship development, parenting. I agree. By gaining clarity of your role as a parent and consistently demonstrating relationship development, parenting as they grow up, you can avoid many of the downfalls of demand parenting that we’ve just described. And the beauty is that while you’re doing it, you’re actually building up a real relationship with your child with rapport and trust and instead of watching it all slip away, as you lose control over the arrangement that you mistook as parenting, you actually end up with a phenomenal relationship with an independent person who actually is ready to navigate the world. That’s why we’re here today. That’s why this program is all about to give you the skills to do that.

Stacey:             16:11 Okay, awesome. So here’s the actions and the takeaways from this week’s podcast. What can you do now to start getting results? Now? First of all, you’ll start seeing it. Start seeing where demand parenting is creeping into your patterns so that you can start stopping that pattern of demand parenting. The second is take action, right? Start getting the tools, start getting the strategy so that you can start shifting things for your household, for your family. You can do two things. One, make sure you catch next week’s podcast where we’re going to go into more demand parenting versus relationship development, parenting and give you some perspective on that and to get into the next 14 day boost program you can go to 14 day boost.com and sign up because we literally are teaching you tools and strategies for how to reduce kerfuffles and improve relationships in your household and particularly days six through 10 of the 14 day boost are all about strategies that you can use with each child and it’s really, really awesome tools.

Stacey:             17:19 And then in days 11 through 14 of that program we teach about alignment and how to create alignment, which you can also use for your alignment and parenting. So if you haven’t done the 14 day boost yet, definitely get into that as well. We will see you for part two of this podcast on the next one next week and until next time, remember together we are changing the way relationship is done.

Outro:              17:43 Are you ready to catapult your relationship to the next level? Would you love to do that in three days? Well, Relationship Breakthrough Retreat tickets are open. This is our live three day event. We only do this event once a year. It’s a three day live immersion experience with me and Paul, where you get to have your relationship breakthrough within those three days. This is not a couple’s event. Your partner does not need to come to this event. There’s no couples’ work going on. It’s a fun, high energy, life changing, impactful immersion experience where your relationships will catapult forward within those three days. It is not to be missed. Check out RelationshipBreakthroughRetreat.com for information and tickets.