Intro: Hi there mama. Are you searching for another way to approach motherhood? One that puts your needs first? That allows you to live it all without guilt or holding back any of your amazing talents and unique gifts? Then the live it all mommy podcast is made for you. Each month we are taking you behind the scenes looking into the real world of motherhood.

Giving you a roadmap to unleash your unique potential, your passion, self trust, and purpose as an amazing mother, deep soul, and powerful working woman. It’s time to live it all, Mommy. Let’s dive in.

Pia Dögl: Today I’m delighted to meet with Sarah Scott, mom of three children, five, eight, and 10 years old. Sarah is not only passionate about her family life, but also successfully runs her own business called Elite Media Strategies, where she helps entrepreneurs and parent coaches like me to manage their podcast and share their proven tools, approaches, and strategies with the world.

Sarah has been my podcast manager from the very beginning. She is the magical hand behind the scenes. And today she’s my guest. She’s going to talk about her current struggles and challenges as a working mom. Sarah, thank you so much for having the courage to speak about what currently stresses you most at home for sharing your most urgent parenting question that you feel overwhelmed and maybe

Sarah Scott: I’m happy to help. I love your advice. So you’re always, you always have such wonderful insights anyway, so I’m happy to have other people hear what you would share with me anyway.

Pia Dögl: So let’s dive right into your mommy life. It would be amazing if you could just share, give us a short description of the challenges you are facing and what it is that you want to change.

Sarah Scott: All right. So I at least have two. So as you said, I have three children. I have two girls and a boy. So my oldest is 10. My oldest daughter, I should say is 10. My middle daughter is eight. And then my son is five. I always feel like my son is okay. I don’t know if it’s because he’s my boy, or if it’s because he’s still just five, but…

It’s my girls I tend to struggle with the most. I don’t know if it’s because I’m a mom and they’re my daughters, if that has that kind of an impact. But there’s two things that we constantly seem to be struggling with here at home with them. And one is with my middle daughter, who, like I said, is eight years old.

She’s going into third grade. She. Is my, for lack of a better word right at the moment, she is my defiant child. She is the one that It feels like she’s constantly struggling for power and in that struggle, it comes out very often as anger. It comes out, it can come out, not necessarily violently, but it is definitely a very high level of emotion, a lot of yelling, a lot of screaming.

At times it has become where she, she physically needs to do something to release that energy. And that has certainly been something very difficult for us to manage both my husband and I and the other issue that we’re facing comes with my oldest daughter who is transitioning into the fifth grade, which I swear now feels like my transition into high school at this point, but she, I struggle a lot with her self esteem and her ability to, what’s the right words I’m really looking for? I know it’s a lot to do with her self esteem, but for her, it’s a lot to do with how she reflects herself back into the world, how she is connecting with other people and really making sure that for us, we’re very concerned that she may be very easily susceptible to outside influences because she’s not as secure yet in who she is.

So how we can best support her, help her make those decisions. Like clearly we’re not there with her in the classroom or with her friends, how do we clearly help her so that she learns the best paths for herself to be able to have a strong foundation moving forward. And that’s a huge struggle for us, especially, like I said, this almost middle school girl drama seems to start much earlier than it did when we were kids. So those are the two paths that we’ve, we’re struggling with. And it’s with me and my daughter. So

Pia Dögl: Yeah. Makes totally sense. Thank you so much for giving this short description. And as we focus on one struggle today which topic would you like to focus on?

So what I’m hearing with your younger girl who is eight years old you are struggling with resistance, with power struggle. Yelling, screaming, et cetera, et cetera.

And with your older one, it’s not so much the struggle she’s causing you. Currently, it’s more your fear that she might be not self confident enough to handle the situations that come in the future. Is that, would you agree to to,

Sarah Scott: Yes especially with my oldest daughter how do we best support her? How do how? And I think sometimes it comes back, some of your previous episodes with some of your experts had talked about, how My past, how I grew up, that has play in the back of your mind in terms of, I know the situation she’s in.

I’ve been there. I’ve seen it. I remember the advice my mother gave me, which was, I know to her good advice at the time, like her favorite piece of advice whenever I struggled with somebody was always, Oh, don’t worry. You won’t ever see them again. Once you get out of high school, whatever. That was a lie.

My entire life right now, I was still surrounded by people I went to high school with. So that did not work so well. Plus the advent of Facebook and everything else, they’re all still there. For me, it really does though, how do I not necessarily let those things, take the best out of what I know to share with her and to really help her navigate those situations.

And I think for. From a parenting perspective, I think that’s one of the, I think that’s probably the situation I’d like to talk about more than with my middle daughter. My, we’ll manage that somehow and she’ll grow out of it, I think, at some point. But I think from, I know from a mothering and a parenting perspective of, with friends that have daughters at the same age that are going through the same thing that are hearing all of this stuff, how do we take who we are as parents, but yet still help support that development for these girls that are coming into this very crazy world a lot faster than we had to

Pia Dögl: Yeah it’s all has to do with our own development. That’s how I define parenting. So parenting, in my experience, is truly. To raise our self awareness to develop ourself because we children learn through example and imitation and particular during the first seven years of life, but later on as well.

And everything builds on you as a role model. So if you would like to focus on the situation with your older daughter, I’m pretty sure we will come to some points that are helpful for the conflicts with your eight year old girl as well. If you would like to give one example where you had the feeling, oh, this might be tricky for her at some point, can you give us a very practical recent example where this fear from your side came up that,

Sarah Scott: Yeah, absolutely. So she’s had a couple of recent incidences with what I, what from her perspective are bullies at school where she has been. So we’ll go with summer camp because this literally just came up a couple days ago where There is a girl younger than her actually her sister’s age who is at summer camp with her and her, you know with her she doesn’t have friends at summer camp This is a different group of people than who she would typically hang around with and they were playing a game and this young girl just came in and started stepping on her toes, from my understanding of the situation.

They were choosing teams. Addison was chosen to choose her team. She went about choosing it and then this other young girl came in and started to… Take over and just took over the situation from her said, no, I’m going to do this now and starts doing that. And, I guess later on down the road, later on that day as well, Addison was explaining to me that she then heard these girls talking about her behind her back and snickering towards her.

And she was getting the impression that some of the other kids weren’t playing with her anymore because this particular was in a sense, she felt like they were leading her, leading them away from her. These kinds of situations, this isn’t uncommon for Addison. She has seen this before even in the classroom and we’ve had to deal with that differently.

But for her again, it’s how does, how do I help her handle this situation moving forward? It’s not always, yes, we’ve told her to go talk to the parent or the teachers in charge and to do all of this, but. I, from my perspective as a parent, like I’m not there, so I can’t help her navigate it.

I can’t help navigate her perspective on that, what, how do I give her a solid advice to help her navigate that in a way that’s not necessarily belittling the situation? Because I don’t want to be, I don’t want to say to her, Oh, don’t worry about it. You won’t ever see these people again because you don’t know that’s the truth anymore, but also, these are situations.

These are uncomfortable situations throughout life that we are going to have to navigate just differently as we get older, which I now. how do that? we do that?

Pia Dögl: . Yeah. So what I would suggest that you first, before you look at how to handle the situation and what kind of advice can you give her to ask yourself? How do you feel? And what kind of situation do you get remember of when you are hearing the story? I can give you an example with my own child.

She came home. Once totally desperate crying that two girls excluded her, et cetera, et cetera. And my first feeling was I’m left out. I’m alone. No one loves me. A feeling of shame came up. So I realized that while she was talking about her situation, it triggered me to go into my. Old w wounds.

In order to be truly present for her, and to give her the support I want to, first, I have to raise m the awareness about my own feelings. Because, if I’m not aware of what’s going on within myself, I can only say, Oh, don’t worry. You won’t see those people again, and I’m not judging at all what your mother told you.

It’s simply, we are saying, don’t worry if there is nothing else we are connected with. And so the first guidance is really to connect with yourself and. If you have a clarity of what’s going on within you, then you can start to share your feelings. The first step is that you get aware of what’s going on because then you feel more comfortable and you can share your vulnerability, but you have already this awareness of what’s going on.

And Then you can share, maybe, you know what, that reminds me of a situation when I was your age, and I got the advice from my mother, but it wasn’t helpful, and if you don’t know what might help her, then you can invite her for It’s not your job as a mom to always know the answer and to always give the best advice. This expectation puts a lot of pressure on your shoulders. And to ask your daughter or to invite her in an open hearted communication gives both of you the chance to develop a deep relationship for the future.

Where… Of course, there will be always questions. Really to use this as a way, and you know what? I am your friend at home. I am always with you. So let’s discover how we can find solutions for situations that might be fearful outside there or that might cause particular emotions but we can count on each other and let’s figure out what this could be.

How could you feel? How can you get out of the situation and feel good? What would help you to feel good? And and if she doesn’t know, you can also use a strategy that I love to use in relationships, and your daughter is 10, so she has already an age where this might be possible, that you switch roles, that you invite her to take, to jump into her role.

It’s pretty much the same principle what actors do, they Just are very empathetic. They put their themself into the shoes of someone else and you could just take her role and feel what might help her. And we can play with that right now. So if you are open to it simply close your eyes for a moment, close your eyes and give yourself a moment to focus inwards and maybe Simply focus on your breathing, how you’re inhaling, and how you’re exhaling, and now put yourself, imagine, sense, and feel that you are your daughter, just bring yourself into her life. And into the situation, just a very practical situation in which she was struggling with and ask yourself what would be helpful for you to handle the situation in a way that she feels confident and calm and that she can be her authentic self without trying to be better, stronger, cooler, whatever.

What would give her… Ground under her feet. What would help her to really, yeah, stay grounded, stay herself. Are there any ideas that come to mind? What would help her?

Sarah Scott: Mm-hmm

Wow, This is a lot harder than I thought it would be. One of my first thoughts with that and her, and understanding her in that situation, part of it is this idea that she loves rules. She is, she’s my rule follower and my rule creator. When plays games, sometimes it can be difficult with her, because if something breaks a rule or goes against, she’s not always as…

Flexible with that and I think that may have been part of that situation to make it uncomfortable for her was that a rule had been set and this other child was, quote unquote, breaking the rules. I think in her situation, as much as I would love to allow her for some perspective to say, is it really that important?

I don’t think at this age she can take that perspective,

But I think what she can try to do is possibly look to flex her rules a little bit. So how can we, how could she maybe suggested a different approach to the selection of teams? that didn’t make her necessarily feel like she was. Losing, quote unquote, losing control or giving total control to the other child either.

And knowing my daughter, I am quite certain she could have found another path that,

Again, you can’t control how other people respond, but it may have at least given her some sense of not feeling like somebody was just taking things away from her

by offering up a different suggestion to how to approach that with this other child, does it go every other child? Do you choose one? I choose one. All right. If you choose first, then we get to start the game, whatever that happens to be. But I think if we helped her with some creative thinking there a little bit, for a future subversion of this situation, I think that would help something for her.

Pia Dögl: mm Beautiful. Beautiful. Yeah. First of all what I want to point out is you found the solution. It wasn’t me as the parent coach who told you this solution. You have the wisdom within yourself. So that’s the very first thing I want to point out. And then this is a process for your daughter to learn how she can stay in control and this has to do with getting to know herself better.

And what you mentioned is so wonderful to realize she has a clear picture of how things should be. And you said she’s missing some flexibility. And I would add she is maybe very loyal, which is a huge capacity and a wonderful potential. So really to point this out to her, what a gift and how powerful to have this loyality because it speaks for a very deep idea of friendship.

And to bring this across with your full appreciation helps her to to grow her self appreciation, which is a wonderful way to grow her confidence and if she, and that’s just the beginning, of course, she’s only 10, but it’s a wonderful age to start.

If she is getting more self aware and learns to, to understand that there are different people out there, which doesn’t mean she has to give up her values. No, but she has to learn if she wants to hang out with particular classmates that she might have to open a little bit her strategy not to lose herself, but to stay in contact because not everyone is able to be So loyal than she is or whatever.

So it’s really a growing process How can I adapt myself without losing myself and without denying my values. Does it make sense?

Sarah Scott: Yeah, absolutely. Makes sense. So my question back to you on this is how do I as a mom help myself in those situations? So while you were able to walk me through this right now, how can I help myself in those moments or, what things could I rely on for myself to let help me to help in those situations.

Because I know you’ve done this on more than one occasion with me. When we’ve had conversations, you’ll, you say things that sort of stick in my head. And then when I find myself in these situations with my children, your voice pops up in the back of my head and says remember to do this or remember to do that.

How can I help myself walk through that? Cause it is very emotional, right? For us as well, when we hear that our kids are like, they feel they’re being bullied or they feel like they’re going through something. And so we get emotional about it too. So how do I step back and myself to the point where I understand. To a place where I know I can have that conversation with her?

Pia Dögl: Yeah. So the fundamental strategy and that’s something I would advise you for your younger child as well, when she is reacting extremely the first and most fundamental step is always to check in with yourself first, before you start to connect. with your child. Connect with yourself first.

And the reason for that is because if we are triggered either through power struggle, through any kind of tendrums, through the stories we hear from our child, what they went through at school, whatever it is that triggers us. our brain is goes into a state of inner stress. And once we are in a stressful mindset, we can’t fully be present for our child.

It’s on a physical level. It’s not possible because our brain, once we are in this state of flight or protection, Is not possible to fully engage in a way that we can be empathetic that we can compassionate with our child. And that’s what we need to be what we that’s what we want to be. So in order to help your child.

Whatever it is, you have to calm your mindset and the question to you is, how do you relate to breathing, for example, to pay attention to your breathing or what works the most for myself is always ask myself the question, what am I feeling right now? And then when I’m feeling anger, I ask myself, where is this anger coming from?

And. Then I’m automatically focused on my inner self and then I realize, oh, hold on, this has nothing to do with my daughter. It has to do with my own whatever it is. For example when we have power struggles at home, a lot of time I notice, oh, I am so angry because I fear to lose control. And when I’m seeing or when I’m sensing this fear, then I can calm myself down and tell myself, Oh, this is my fear.

It has nothing to do with her. She just triggers it. And to The process on this feeling of control allows me to let go of the need to control everything. It’s more as I’m, it’s not the first moment I get aware of it. It’s not possible to transform everything, but it’s a process. So it starts with your growing self awareness.

And once you are more aware of what’s going on within you, and you can then give yourself the self compassion, for example, I see that you are frustrated now because you are losing your fear to lose control. And I totally understand that. Only those Simple words helps you to calm down. And why is that?

Because we then feel seen. And we don’t need to wait till someone else sees us. We can give us this portion of self compassion in every moment. We can only change ourselves. We can’t change Others, we can only change ourselves and through that’s the biggest gift because Then you come down if you feel seen and it might feel strange a little bit at the beginning to talk to yourself with That much self compassion.

We are not used to that But if you only tell yourself I see what you are going through you automatically come down And once you come once you have calmed down then you can look at your child And whatever she is doing, it is her process. And depending on her age it’s totally natural what she is going through.

But if you are calm, then you can help herself to calm down as well. And only by not overreacting or starting a conversation where you have this back and forth shouting contest you help her to calm down as well.

Sarah Scott: Yeah,

Pia Dögl: Does that

Sarah Scott: does. It absolutely does because that’s exactly what happened with my middle daughter. That is exactly what happens.

Pia Dögl: So if you first focus on yourself and then you realize, oh, she is having an issue and she is going into puberty, so there are hormones, there are things that she is struggling with, she is not yelling at you. because she loves to yell at you. She is yelling at you because she is out of herself.

She is struggling with something and the best way to help her is that you stay calm and not only calm but Empathetic, that you are there for her, no matter what, because that’s where she needs you the most, that you are with her. Because she lost herself for a moment, and she might feel very embarrassed about that.

And if you stay calm, and you don’t have to say much, and if you give her the feeling, babe, I’m here for you, no matter what, which doesn’t mean that you don’t set boundaries, of course, boundaries. are important. But how would you feel if you are totally out of yourself and you have no idea why and you start to yell and after you yelled your heart out of your body you are so ashamed of what you did.

And then there is a person right in front of you who doesn’t judge you, who doesn’t blame you, who is simply there and shows you. I love you just as you are.

Sarah Scott: Yeah, imagine that.

Pia Dögl: I would say that’s something we, we rarely have

Sarah Scott: Mm Agreed.

Pia Dögl: And then we can calm down and It is a process, and if you can only give your daughter a piece of that, and if you only bring across that you are working on you to help her the most, all those steps, are

And to get back to your older daughter, if you start to focus on yourself first when she comes home and tells you some of the stories, then you will find out, oh, the feeling that is coming up now, the anger, etc.,

etc., the tendency to protect has to do with my own story. And of course it’s natural and positive as well to protect your child. The question is what helps her the most. in that moment. Sometimes, of course, it’s absolutely the right thing to protect your child. But the first step is that you figure out for yourself what are you feeling and what is what your daughter needs the most in this moment.

And what you learn from putting yourself into her role that she needs to work on her tragedy so to make her aware of that again and to talk about That with her might be in this moment, then the most helpful thing rather than to protect her in a way. And yeah, they are all stupid, et cetera, et cetera,

Sarah Scott: Yeah.

Pia Dögl: does that make sense?

But it starts with being paying attention to. What are you sensing? So you can distinguish what belongs to you and what belongs to her. And then you can more clearly look at her situation and try to see, okay, what’s most helpful for her now.

Sarah Scott: That makes a lot of sense.

Pia Dögl: Yeah. Any other thoughts that come up or any other questions around

Sarah Scott: No, although I will be putting it into practice very shortly. I’m very soon. I’m very sure of that.

Pia Dögl: Always remember, when there is coming up, always check in with yourself first I love the quote connect with you before you expect, but in your case, it has nothing to do with expectation. It’s more how you should react, connect with yourself so you can distinguish what belongs to you, what belongs to your child.

And. To calm your mindset is for every situation the most powerful advice because then you are able to be compassionate, then you are able to listen to your child in a way that they feel seen and you are able to find a strategy that is most helpful for them and not Triggered by your own, whatever it is that you are going through that doesn’t might be helpful for them in this moment,

Sarah Scott: Oh, that’s wonderful. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Pia Dögl: Sarah, thank you so much for being with us today and for opening your heart and showing your courage and your vulnerability. You are an amazing mom and best role model. Your child could have and to open your heart and to be willing to grow is, I think, the most beautiful gift you can give to your Children.

So it’s not that only they have to grow. You are growing together. And I know from my own experience, how difficult it can be to speak honestly about my struggle as a mom, because I often fear being judged and care what I what other people are saying. And we also know how helpful it is if one person has the courage to speak first, to open, share what’s going on behind the scenes, then we can experience that we are not.

The only mom with challenges and that we are not alone and that we are all right, that we are women on a path of personal growth. So I invite you, dear listener, dear mommy, to reach out to me directly if you want to join my podcast as a welcome guest. To talk about your struggles as a mom and get simple tragedies to make you feel more confident, patient, and most importantly, more your authentic self.

So if you have an issue as a parent, want, for example, find relief from self limiting beliefs, such as I’m not good enough, transform feelings of anxiety, guilt, or shame, want to We want to learn simple and effective ways to remove daily power struggles with your child. I’m here for you. Just send me an email at info at beginning well.com and share your issue. And we will do our best to invite you to one of our upcoming shows. Thank you.

Outro: Mama, are you ready to learn how to keep your cool even during the hottest family fights and biggest struggles at work? Head over to my website at beginningwell.com to get our free self care guide And the top self compassion tools you need to know in order to feel more patient, confident, and more yourself It’s your decision to be a fulfilled mom and woman.

I truly believe in your amazing unique potential. Until next time Don’t forget to live it all mommy