Here is the transcript and summary of Kim Constable’s talk titled “Whose Fault When Children Disobey?” at TEDxStormont conference.
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
Kim Constable – Founder at The Sculpted Vegan
One Tuesday night, when I was 25 years old, I knocked on the door of my husband’s apartment. Only he wasn’t my husband at the time; he was a stranger because we had never met. He answered the door in a tight t-shirt, biceps bulging, six-pack visible. I was a little taken, I have to say.
We went on a date on Saturday. I went to dinner at his place the following Friday, and I learned that Ryan had just retired from a life of professional rugby, which I knew nothing about, except I had heard it was played by men with odd-shaped balls. So after we dated for about four weeks, and I found out that rugby isn’t a game played by men with odd-shaped balls, I also found out that I was pregnant.
Corey arrived, followed by Kai, Maya, and Jack in quick succession, all of whom are in the front row today. After Jack was born, we bought a television. I used to have four theories about raising children, and then when I had four children, I had no theories because really, I believe it’s true what they say: that the only people who know how to raise a child are those who don’t have any.
Because even though Ryan and I hadn’t known each other that long, our story had a happy ending—or four happy endings, if we’re being really precise. That one went down like a level. Because Ryan and I shared a common value that would become invaluable in the difficult times ahead in our parenting journey, and that value was emotional growth.
There is a great quote by Dr. Charles Raison, and he says, “One generation of deeply loving parents would change the brain of the next generation, and with that, the world.” I love that quote because I believe that all parents want to be deeply loving all the time, but they find it impossible to be so.
I didn’t know just how controlling I was until my first child wouldn’t sleep through the night. But I am the kind of person that when I take something on, I give it 100%. I do it with my heart and my soul, even parenting. And for the last 11 years, I have been using the tools of executive success programs to overcome the personal, emotional limitations that keep me from being the best I can be—as a wife, as a mother, and as a human being.
Executive Success Programs were founded by a gentleman called Keith Ranieri, an extraordinary human being. And Keith is a scientist and a mathematician, and he really is one in a million. In fact, that’s not true. Keith is one in 425 million because in 1989, he was honored by the Guinness Book of World Records in the category of highest IQ.
Now, Keith later became a mentor of mine, and just as a side note, have you any idea what it’s like to be mentored by the smartest man in the world? Oh, your insecurities rise to the surface. And using the tools that Keith developed, I have been able to completely transform not only my life but how I parent my children.
In our calm moments, when everything is working, when we’re not stressed, when we’re kumbaya, we are the best parents in the world. But when we’re under pressure, well, things can get a little out of control, can’t they?
I have no doubt that every single one of you here who has children is a fantastic parent when your children are behaving themselves. Kids know exactly how to push our buttons, don’t they? I mean, what is it about that?
Eckhart Tolle, the great spiritual leader, said, “If you want to test how far you are on the path to enlightenment, go and spend the weekend with your parents.” Because even as adults, we’re often irrational in relation to our parents, and psychologists call this phenomenon “ghosts in the nursery,” because children stimulate the intense feelings of our own childhood, and often we respond to them unconsciously and without thinking.
One evening, I was cooking dinner, and it was about ten to five, and my two eldest boys were watching their favorite TV show in the living room, and they were three and one at the time. And I glanced at the clock, and you know when you have that moment of synthesis when you go, “Oh my God, it was ten to five, and I was supposed to pick up my dog Molly in the groomers at four o’clock.”
And I was, “Holy, oh my God, holy crap,” and I turned off the stove, and I ran into the living room, and I said to the boys, “I said, quick, quick, and I turned off the TV show. I said, quick, quick, come on, we have to go, we have to go, but mommy forgot to pick up Molly from the groomers, and we have to go.”
And they were kind of startled, and they were like, “No, no, we’re watching this.” And I said, “No, no, no, we have to go, we have to go. Come on, quick, quick, quick.” Have you ever tried to hurry a three-year-old child? So you’ll know that this isn’t going to end well.
Corey did absolutely not want to move. He wanted to stay exactly where he was, watching his favorite TV show. So Clive was only one. He was a little more movable. So I picked him up, and I ran to the car with him, and I put him in his car seat, and I ran back to the house, and I said, “Corey, please, please, come on, let’s go,” and I used all my powers of persuasion, and he was like, “No, I am not going.”
So I picked him up, and I ran to the car with him, and he was bucking and screaming and barking, and he was like, “No, no, no,” and I was trying to put him in his car seat, and it was like trying to stuff an octopus into your stringed bag.
But I got him in, and he started screaming at the top of his lungs, and I got into the front of the car, and I started to drive, and the traffic’s heavy, because it’s nearly five o’clock, and I’m like breathing hard, and he’s screaming in the back of the car, and I’m trying to shush him, and I’m saying, “Shh, shh, be quiet, be quiet, it’s okay, shh, be quiet.” But that doesn’t make any difference, because he’s still screaming.
He’s still screaming, and I’m driving, and I’m just stuck in this fight or flight reaction, and I had no idea that I was stuck in it, but it’s making my blood pine, it’s making my head pine, my adrenaline is running through my veins, and Cory is screaming, and I’m driving, and he’s screaming, and I’m driving, and he’s screaming, and I’m driving, and suddenly I yell, “Shut up, shut up, shut up, be quiet, shut up.”
And he still screams, and I look in the rearview mirror, and baby Kai startles, and I will never, ever forget the look on his face as he burst into tears. And Cory has not stopped screaming; in fact, it’s only made things worse, and he is screaming in the back of the car, and I can’t take it anymore, and I violently pull the car to the side of the road, and I get out, and I open the back door, and with my faint sickness which remains, I say, “Be quiet, be quiet right now, or I will meet you here on the side of the road. You shut up, you be quiet.”
And Cory went, and I felt like a piece of shit, so I was not allowing myself to back down because I am the one in control, and I got back into the car, and I drove to the groomers, and he was quiet, and I drove, and I picked up my dog, and I put her in the car, and I drove home, with tears pouring down my face, and then I opened the back door, and I pulled him into my arms, and I said to him, “I will never, ever hurt you like that again. I swear, I will never, ever hurt you like that again.”
Now, Cory may have pushed my buttons, but he did not cause my response, my decision to lash out at my child is entirely that, my decision, my choice, no one has responsibility for my choices but me. There is a quote that I saw on Facebook once, and it says, “Freedom lies in the capacity to pause between stimulus and response.” In the moment that I behaved violently toward my child, I lost the ability to see my own participation, I blamed him for my limited coping mechanisms, and I punished him ruthlessly, and in that moment, I damaged him, irrevocably.
Cory is no longer 3; he is now nearly 11, and do you know the thing that scares him the most in the world? It’s the thought of someone shouting at him. If I so much as raise an eyebrow in his direction, it triggers his fight or flight. We as parents need to know how harmful parental anger is to young children because recognizing it is the first step to transforming it.
Do you know the first trick they teach an elephant in the circus? It’s how not to run away. They put a cuff around the baby elephant’s leg and they chain him to a heavy object, and the baby pulls and pulls and pulls on that chain, and it bites into his leg and it causes him to bleed and it hurts him, and he realizes when that cuff is on his leg, he is going nowhere.
So when the baby elephant grows up and he is not a baby anymore, he is now a 5000-kilogram powerhouse, to stop him from running away, all they do is put a cuff around his leg, get a little wooden peg, knock it into the ground, and chain him to it. That elephant could break that peg as easily as your eye can snap a toothpick, but he never ever tries. Why?
When you use anger to control a child, like a dog with an electric fence, they register the shock in their body, you set them on the path to obeying fear. There will be things in their life that they will not examine, you cut off possibilities for them forever, and as Keith says, there will be things that they will not look at, they will not explore, they just won’t go there.
We need to make this unconscious behavior conscious, we need to stop acting unconsciously towards our children, we need to bring it into the light, for we are damaging our children in ways that you could never imagine, but there is a silver lining in all of this, and that is, if you are open to emotional growth, your child will always show you where you need to work, and like I did, using the tool of rational inquiry that Keith has developed, you can disconnect the stimulus response, you can break your patterns and set down the baggage of your childhood, because that’s where it all begins.
You can become the fantastic parent that you always thought you would be, even when your children are misbehaving, your child deserves it, and so do you. Thank you very much.
Want a summary of this eye-opening talk? Here it is.
SUMMARY:
Kim Constable’s TEDx talk, titled “Whose Fault When Children Disobey?”, delves into her personal journey as a parent and the profound insights she gained regarding the role of parental emotions in shaping children’s behavior. Reflecting on her own experiences, she emphasizes the crucial importance of emotional growth and self-awareness for effective parenting.
Kim begins by recounting her serendipitous encounter with her future husband, who she met when she was 25 years old. This meeting led to a whirlwind of events, including a pregnancy that marked the start of her parenting journey. Despite the lack of prior parenting theories, Kim’s commitment to emotional growth and her husband’s shared value formed the bedrock of their parenting philosophy.
She candidly admits that moments of parental anger and frustration are inevitable. Drawing from her own life, she shares an incident when her young son’s refusal to cooperate led to a chaotic and distressing episode. This event serves as a turning point in her understanding of the profound impact parental anger can have on children.
Kim discusses the alarming tendency to react impulsively to children’s misbehavior, driven by unconscious emotional triggers rooted in our own childhood experiences. She likens this behavior to the training of elephants, illustrating how early conditioning can shape future responses. Kim emphasizes that children mirror their parents’ emotional states and that emotional control is pivotal for preventing fear-based obedience.
The speaker delves into the concept of “ghosts in the nursery,” wherein parents’ unresolved childhood emotions unconsciously influence their parenting. She highlights the challenge of maintaining rationality and patience, particularly when children test boundaries. Quoting Eckhart Tolle, Kim humorously suggests that spending a weekend with one’s parents is a litmus test for spiritual progress.
Kim concludes her talk by underlining the potential for growth that parenting offers. She encourages parents to see their children as mirrors for their own emotional development. By adopting rational inquiry techniques developed by a mentor, she argues that parents can gain control over their reactions and transcend conditioned patterns. Ultimately, Kim asserts that understanding the impact of parental behavior is the first step toward transformation, promoting emotional intelligence for both parents and children.
In essence, Kim Constable’s talk powerfully advocates for conscious, emotionally aware parenting. Through personal anecdotes and insightful analogies, she reinforces the notion that parents play a pivotal role in shaping their children’s emotional responses and behavior. By embracing self-awareness and emotional growth, parents can create a nurturing environment that fosters healthier relationships and emotional well-being.
