30. Parenting with Joy with Leslie Potter

Leslie Potter is a coach, psychotherapist, and spiritual inquirer that became a mom for the first time when she was 44 years old when she adopted her daughter from China. She encourages people to become who they always wanted to be as a parent through her PureJoy Parent Coach training, and she shares some insight on just how to do that in this episode.

Whether you are a parent, grandparent, stepparent, WANT TO BE parent, aunt, uncle, etc, you will be inspired by today’s episode while Leslie offers plenty of tools to support you in uncovering your intuition to parent the way you desire instead of listening to the way others tell you to do it.

 

Five key takeaways from this episode:

1. Make space to listen to both your head and your heart. There is room for both, and it isn’t about negating either one. When you listen to both, they can start to have a conversation. That said, typically your heart will be the first speak because that’s where desire lives.
2. When it comes to THEIR desires, your kids are looking for support, not for permission. By giving or WITHHOLDING permission for them to do something, you are making the decision about whether YOU are or are NOT ready for it. Invite them to tell you more so that you can reflect their desires back to them.
3. You aren’t broken, so there is nothing to fix. However, you can start to become aware of the impact your childhood has on how you parent your own children. Take a look at what you are running from within your own childhood so that you can resolve it. If you can, look at the benefits of situations from when you were younger so that you can reframe what that experience means to you.
4. Have a healthy separation with your children. Know the difference between YOUR childhood and THEIR childhood and try not to make their childhood mean something about YOU. If there is something you didn’t have when you were a kid, you get to give yourself what you need now. Giving that thing to your child doesn’t replace your own needs. Don’t try to parent yourself THROUGH your child.
5. Having boundaries with your children isn’t about control – it’s about determining what is ok with you and what is NOT ok with you about how you treat YOURSELF. You will never have to say “not” to your child if you can offer SOMETHING. Find what you ARE ok with through conversation with them, and you won’t put yourself in the position to have to say “no” because you will be offering what you are ok with.

 

Connect with Leslie:

PureJoy Parenting Website: https://purejoyparenting.com/

PureJoy Parenting on Instagram: www.instagram.com/purejoyparenting/

Parenting Paused Podcast: https://purejoyparenting.com/podcast/

Safeseat Practices HERE

 

Connect with Heather on Instagram at @iamheatherlove.

Get Heather’s Journal Prompts to Finding Your Purpose HERE.