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[00:00:00] Welcome, or welcome back to the Parenting Without Power Struggles podcast. You're here, I'm so glad. I'm Susan Stiffelman. I've been a family therapist for decades, and a teacher before that, and this podcast covers everything related to raising great kids, having fun doing it. We've been talking in this season about internal family systems, this beautiful model of training that I finished this year, a 91-hour training in internal family systems, that brings together a lot of the pieces that I've been working with over the course of my career around this idea of being the calm, present captain of the ship.

I wrote a book called Parenting With Presence, and a book called Parenting Without Power Struggles, and those ideas have been coalescing as I keep learning. And this IFS model really brings a lot of pieces together. So today we're gonna go further. You can listen to prior episodes and hear about managers and protective parts and so forth.

Today I [00:01:00] wanna talk about an idea, it's a term that Richard Schwartz, who developed this model, uses, tormentors. Tormentors. We think of a tormentor as someone who just makes your life miserable and wants to do that. "They're tormenting me. Why are you tormenting me?" But if you break the word apart, there's mentor in there, right?

And a mentor is someone who, who brings you up, who guides you, who ushers you toward being more fully yourself, helps you explore and approach the boundaries and the edges and break through. So we all love mentors. We don't really love tormentors, but they're often inextricably woven together, at least when it comes to raising kids.

So that's what I'm gonna talk about in this episode today. Of course, if you wanna know more about my work, I hope you'll visit susanstiffelman.com, get my newsletter, be part of our community. Lots of free support. [00:02:00] So here's this idea that our children, who sometimes seem to be tormenting us, are really our great teachers, our great allies.

There's a beautiful book by, Caroline Myss, called Sacred Contracts. And these are the almost pre-incarnation contracts or agreements we make soul to soul with people who are going to be important in our lives to help us grow and heal.

And coming back to this idea of the tormentor, I believe that our children, there's some deep relationship of service and love that if we're open and we embrace the challenging moments as opportunities, we can grow. It can be like a sacred contract that they can appear and be in our lives to bring us to inhabit our greatest self.

And it's not always fun. So here's an example. Let's say that you, when you [00:03:00] were growing up, you had a parent who was often really distracted and preoccupied, maybe overwhelmed with their own challenges, maybe really stressed, maybe other more significant problems, and you learned early on that you really had to work to feel seen to feel like you were worth somebody's attention.

That ache inside of you, it's in there. It's buried in there. The IFS model might call that an exiled part of you, that longing to feel valued and worth somebody's attention. It's buried there, way off, a vulnerability that still lives there. It's that longing to feel that you really matter. One day, or many days, you ask your child to turn off their device and come to dinner, or put on their shoes, or help you clear the table, and nothing happens.

They don't even look up. And you ask again, still nothing. You've [00:04:00] already had a day, right? You're tired. You feel maybe something happened at work where you felt marginalized, or your partner forgot something important. You're just weary. And something in you've asked th- this child of yours who you love with all your heart to come to the dinner table, and they ignore you three, four times, and you feel this wave of heat, this intense emotion, outrage, rage, fury.

Where does that come from? Because on the surface, we've got a pretty ordinary moment there. Lots and lots of kids tune out their parents when they don't want to do the thing that they're being asked to do. But something inside of us, if we have a, a particular vulnerability to that, an old wound that we've buried off in the distance, sometimes it comes up.

And it comes up often when we're ready to really look it squarely in the face and bring compassion to it [00:05:00] and healing. You might not agree, but I think sometimes w- when these things happen and we're willing to look at them finally, it can be such a wonderful healing opportunity. And I know that might sound like, "I don't want healing opportunity.

I just want my kid to come to dinner." I totally get it. I've lived it. We gotta go with what's right for us. But I wanna... I just wanna reframe some of those reactions that get reactivated. It's that place inside that wants to know that we matter. Your child is not trying to hurt you.

They're not trying to ignore you. They're just absorbed in their own world, the way kids get. But they still knocked into that bruise, that tender place inside of you. And in that moment, you have this choice, and it can be a very difficult choice. You can go for broke, scream, yell, threaten, punish, ignore, withhold, throw their dinner in the sink and walk away.

Really allow the [00:06:00] activation to rule, to be in the driver's seat, that protective part that's so angry on behalf of that young part that felt unimportant Or you can do a little unblending. It's one of my favorite words in the internal family systems model because I know what it feels like to be blended, to be completely identified with my upset or anger.

And if we have a teeny-tiny bit of objectivity, if we can manage to just be curious, oh my gosh, my heart is racing, I'm breaking into a sweat, I'm so angry. But if you can observe it a little bit, that's great. Because from a... with a little bit of objectivity, a little bit of distance, instead of just justifying your anger to yourself or to your child or rationalizing it, you could bec- become a little bit compassionate toward yourself and curious about what's gotten stirred up.

Now in the moment, you might not, sit down and do some really serious reflecting, [00:07:00] but note it because that moment can be a thread that you pull that will lead you to a big prize. And the big prize, we'll talk about n- that in other episodes. But I did a class, actually, I've done two classes on IFS and parenting that are on my website under masterclasses.

They were great classes. So for those of you who want to go deeper, there's more. And certainly in the IFS world and community, there's wonderful books and teachers. But pulling on that thread when we can see, oh, something really big is getting stirred up here, turns that moment of feeling tormented, I'm being tormented by my kid who's ignoring me, who doesn't respect me, doesn't appreciate this dinner I made and I'm so tired, can become a mentoring moment.

And this is this is where it becomes the gift. It might not feel like a gift, but I know from my own experience raising a child and even now with an [00:08:00] adult son, that when I'm Curious about something that's getting agitated inside. There's so much bounty there. And boy, some of the people in my life who've been the most challenging, most difficult and by the way, they are not always...

They don't always stay in my life if they're, not kids of course, but s- I can look now from my vantage point at my, my age, my older years here, and see them as my great teachers, my great gifts. And it's sort of a rotten deal, isn't it? That we grow mostly through pain, through discomfort. We don't tend to grow when everything is hunky-dory and we're just doing great and everybody's sweet and fun and light.

We grow through the moments when we get pushed to the edge. And our kids don't mean to do any of this, by the way. They're just being children. They're not intentionally trying to trigger you, although they might be mad at you and they might activate [00:09:00] you or push a button that they know is there. But I invite you now, so to think about the times when you get really upset, not just annoyed, but really activated.

Y- you wanna p- run away or yell or send your kids to their room or do something kind of intense, that reaction. For one, it might be being ignored. For another, it's a child's whining. For another, it might be lying. It might be not cleaning up a mess, being speaking in a disrespectful tone. All of these hot buttons are exposing vulnerable places inside these young exiled parts of ourselves that once upon a time felt unimportant or helpless or afraid, unsafe.

The beauty about our children being these tor- mentors is that we love them so much, so we're not gonna leave. We're, hopefully w- we're not gonna just say, "You know what? You shouldn't be in my life anymore. You never [00:10:00] respect me. You never do what I ask." It's just not really an option. So it becomes this catalyst for really hanging in there through, through the chance to grow and heal.

And they're also uniquely qualified because they're so darn honest. They just don't soften their words a lot of the time. They're very frank and they're quite observant, and they will point out things maybe that are true without a lot of diplomacy, and they may not read the room and know that we're really tired or we had a rough day, and it can be just awful.

And sometimes you don't wanna learn from it. You just wanna kinda ugh, give yourself a big hug, rock back and forth, calm your nervous system down and, limp along to the end of the day. But on those days when you feel a little more fortified and that this is, my [00:11:00] child is just pointing out or bringing up something that is really there, it keeps showing up Instead of blaming them, they're not responsible for your reactions.

They weren't there when these young parts of you were s- were formed, and these young protectors were put in place. We can embrace those, those moments and really grow. So when your child forgets to feed the dog or, fights you about staying up late If you can be in that calm captain of the ship place, if they're speaking rudely and ideally you can say, "You wanna try that a nicer, nicer way, honey?"

Great. And when you find that you can't, you're probably being tormented, right? The intensity of your reaction is really information. It's telling you that something tender is there, something worth exploring with kindness and curiosity and compassion. And that can reframe everything about how you meet those moments, and [00:12:00] ultimately move you more in the direction of being that calm, present, clear, confident captain of the ship.

So I hope that's piqued your interest about this and maybe encouraged you or inspired you to think about the moments with your children that are really tough as opportunities, but not just opportunities to intellectually, yes, okay, I know I didn't, wasn't appreciated or respected as a child.

Great, now what? And this is the deeper work, of course, because it's not just intellectually connecting the dots and saying I have a big reaction to my child ignoring me because as a child I was marginalized and nobody cared what I had to say or what I wanted. The real work of this is in bringing your grownup self, which you have, right?

If you have a child, you are now a grownup in an adult body. Bringing that [00:13:00] in these beautiful ways that IFS teaches to those young places inside that, that aren't very up to date with how old you now are, and the protectors of those young parts. The protectors that get furious when it seems you're being disrespected, they get furious because they needed to get furious on your behalf when you were little and you needed help.

You needed that kind of emotional protection. But that part of you that gets furious, that protective part, when you start working with that, connecting with it, tuning in, where do you feel that in your body, can you dialogue with that and let it know, I am now an adult and I can be disappointed. I can be struggling with something that isn't going the way I want.

There's a lot of growth and freedom in that. So much [00:14:00] to think about because it's, again, it's not just gonna be about, oh, it's n-

Much to think about because again, it's not just a superficial thing we're doing here. We really want to f- come face to face with those places that are tender and need our loving attention and care. And who better? What love is so unique as the love we have for our kids where we will sign up for opening our hearts more, opening our minds more, [00:15:00] and discovering a kind of relationship with ourselves and with our children that we couldn't really have ever imagined.

So I hope I've given you something to think about. It's been a lot of fun to put this series together, and we carry on. Again we're looking to see if people wanna do some coaching. I'll bring that element into the seasons podcast as well. As always, please visit my site, susanstiffelman.com to stay in touch, get the free newsletter.

There's the co-parenting with a narcissist monthly support group and the parenting without power struggles twice monthly support. And lots of masterclasses, very affordable, all, every topic under the sun. And mostly, I just wanna thank you for being part of this effort, this, this community of parents all over the world.

Been developing for many years now, and what a joy it is to watch parents raising kids in a way [00:16:00] that is reflective of new ways, healthier ways of showing up. We're all have our patterns pretty heavily imprinted by them, but we can all set out on a new path with healthier ways of interacting and showing up as that captain of the ship.

So stay in touch. If you like this podcast series I sure would appreciate it if you'd write a review, leave a rating, share it with a friend. And as we close, remember, no matter how busy life gets, look for those moments of sweetness and joy. Stay well, take care, and I'll see you next time.