Parenting has so many parallels with team leadership and after today’s episode, you’ll be better equipped to raise healthy, emotionally connected kids AND be a stronger leader that enables your team to collaborate and perform more effectively. Today, my guest parenting coach Sarah R. Moore shares insights from her new book Peaceful Discipline: Story Teaching, Brain Science, and Better Behavior.
Sarah is the founder of Dandelion Seeds Positive Parenting and today, she shares her story of leveraging more than 20 years in Corporate America and had no idea how well her executive negotiation skills would serve her in parenting! We discuss what peaceful discipline means, why empathy in parenting is more important than people realize, and why brain science tells us that punishments or punitive leadership fails or backfires and doesn’t help you achieve your goals. We also talk about the power of vulnerability and why it may look very different from what you may think. Throughout, we talk about the parallels between applying these principles as parents and as organizational leaders.
To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
- For children and adults, it is only possible to learn when there is a sense of emotional safety in the body.
- There are ways to set our children and employees up for success with empathy, no matter what age they are. Speaking with curiosity and neutrality rather than accusation can help to foster the feeling of safety.
- Every human on the planet wants to be viewed positively and have a sense of belonging and community.
- Story can give people a sense of safety, even in business. And everyone can tell those stories, even if they don’t feel creative or like they’re good at it.
“If we lead with punishment, the learning part of the brain shuts off. So (they) might be able to go through the motions in the moment, but there’s not going to be any lasting change in behavior because they’re literally not in a place where they can assimilate new information.”
— Sarah R. Moore
Episode Reference:
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About Sarah R. Moore: Parenting Coach, Speaker, Author, Peaceful Discipline
Sarah R. Moore is best-selling author of Peaceful Discipline: Story Teaching, Brain Science, and Better Behavior, and the founder of Dandelion Seeds Positive Parenting. She’s a public speaker, armchair neuroscientist, and most importantly, a Mama. She’s a lifelong learner with training in child development, trauma recovery, interpersonal neurobiology, and improv comedy. As a certified Master Trainer in conscious parenting, she helps bring JOY, EASE, and CONNECTION back to families around the globe. Her work has been featured in HuffPost, Scary Mommy, Motherly, Yahoo!, Her View from Home, and The Natural Parent Magazine, among others. She worked in corporate America for 20 years and had no idea how well her executive negotiation skills would serve her in parenting.
Connect with Sarah R. Moore:
Dandelion Seeds Positive Parenting: https://dandelion-seeds.com/
Book: Peaceful Discipline: Story Teaching, Brain Science, and Better Behavior
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-r-moore-b0535b7/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DandelionSeedsPositiveParenting/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dandelionseedspositiveliving/
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FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:
Welcome to the empathy edge podcast the show that proves why cashflow creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host Maria Ross. I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy from trends and research to the future of work, to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society, it’s great for business. parenting has so many parallels with team leadership. And after today’s episode, you’ll be both better equipped to raise healthy, emotionally connected kids and be a stronger leader that enables your team to collaborate and perform more effectively. Today, my guest is parenting coach Sarah are more and she shares insights from her new book, peaceful discipline, story teaching brain science and better behavior. Sarah is the founder of dandelion seeds, positive parenting, she’s a public speaker, armchair neuroscientist, and most importantly, a mama. She’s a lifelong learner with training in child development, trauma, recovery, interpersonal neurobiology, and improv comedy. As a certified master trainer in conscious parenting. She helps bring joy, ease and connection back to families around the globe. Her work has been featured in HuffPo, scary mommy and the natural parent magazine, among others. Today, Sarah shares her story of leveraging more than 20 years in corporate America, and how she had no idea how well her executive negotiation skills would serve her and parenting. We discuss what peaceful discipline means, why empathy and parenting is more important than people realize, and why brain science tells us that punishments or punitive leadership fails or backfires and doesn’t help you achieve your goals. We also talk about the power of vulnerability, and why it may look very different than what you think. Throughout we talk about those parallels between applying these principles as parents and as organizational leaders. I selfishly loved this conversation both as a parent and an empathy speaker and leadership trainer. And I know you will walk away with so many great nuggets, take a listen. Quick offer for you. Listen up all your marketers, business owners, entrepreneurs, all of you trying to connect and engage with an audience to grow your impact and revenue. I’m all about strengthening empathy to achieve radical success. And this all started for me in my wheelhouse of marketing. See, I realized the key to attracting and engaging the right customers is all about understanding them seeing things from their point of view, empathy is a marketer’s superpower, if it’s wielded responsibly, so after running two successful real time cohorts, I now opening up my brandstory breakthrough course as an on demand offering. Take it when you want how you want for as long as you want five modules of videos and playbooks designed to help you articulate your goals. Understand your customers, define your different and land on your perfect brand story and marketing message. So you stand out and attract that perfect fit audience. Marketing is not about lying to people. It’s about empathy, elevating the truth of your story. And in this on demand course, you’ll learn the exact steps that my past brand clients have gone through to craft a clear and compelling and consistent brand message that guides everything you do. You’ll walk away with a brand story strategy, ideal customer profiles, and even website and social media profile copy. Plus, with this on demand course you get access to weekly Friday office hours with me. Yep, ask questions, get feedback, share new memes discover new insights to help your business shine. It’s insanely cost effective and extremely valuable to your business and goals. So check out the details@bit.ly slash VSP course, that’s bi T dot L y slash BSB course, or click the link in the show notes. See you on the other side. Hello, Sarah Moore, welcome to the empathy edge podcast, I can tell you as mom of a nine year old, I have been eager to have this conversation with you about children and empathy, and also how we can apply some of those lessons to us adults in the room. So welcome.
Sarah R. Moore 05:24
Thank you for having me. I appreciate you.
Maria Ross 05:26
So tell us a little bit about just briefly about your story. How did you get to this work of working with parents and being a parent coach? And speaking about positive parenting?
Sarah R. Moore 05:38
Yeah, honestly, I never saw it coming. I spent 20 years in corporate America, doing corporate America things I spent time with, you know, all of these executives, I was in leadership roles. I had a lot of very adult interactions with executive negotiation, persuasions, sandeels, effective communications, all of these things. And I had so much business sprain, if you will, that after a while, I realized that I needed to do a little bit of something to bring some more joy and creativity back into my life. So at night, when I was done working, I went to improv comedy school. And we the funny thing is, I didn’t realize that every single one of these experiences was setting me up for parenting. Because as it turns out, executive negotiation, guess who the best negotiators are their five year olds?
Maria Ross 06:34
Oh, my gosh, my husband always says it’s like negotiating with terrorists. Yeah.
Sarah R. Moore 06:39
Exactly. Yeah. So I didn’t realize that most of my formative years in corporate America, were actually preparing me for parenting. Now, that being said, when I was about to deliver my child, I was about two days away from becoming a mom. And I was a so called older and mother, everyone loves that terminology.
Maria Ross 06:56
Yes, magnetically.
Sarah R. Moore 06:58
I remember this executive vice president leaning over to me in a meeting and saying, and to his credit, he was a great guy, I still think really highly of him. But he leaned over to me and said, Hey, Sarah, just so you know, I know you’re planning to take the full three months off. And, you know, in our culture, we can collectively roll our eyes and say that goes by so quickly. And but he’s just saying, you know, you’re not going to miss a beat here. I will be feeding you work under the radar within 48 hours of you having that baby, so you won’t have to miss anything. And that was really my first clue that maybe this path wasn’t going to serve me in the long
Maria Ross 07:37
Yeah. Yeah. So there’s a reason we need the three months off. Yeah, for sure.
Sarah R. Moore 07:43
Fast forward, I made it through my maternity leave my full maternity leave, you know, all whopping three months without really plugging in very much. And at the end of that time, I knew that I needed to ship something, because I was going to crumble. I could not be 150% at work, and 150% at home, which of course is the minimum requirement of any brand new parent with a child who doesn’t sleep for more than 20 minutes at a stretch. And I talked with my pediatrician at my child’s early Wilczek. And he said, By the way, how sleep going before you go back to work. And I said, Well, honestly, she’s up every couple of months or every couple of hours. But this is normal, and holistically, she’s getting plenty of sleep, so I’m not too concerned about it. And he looked me in the eye and he said, Sarah, you’re ridiculous. Don’t ever go to her when she cries. She’s manipulating you. It’ll let me know when you’re ready to get serious about parenting. Well, jaw dropped moment I was in. But she’s tiny. And of course, I want to be responsive to her. And all of my nervous system just rose in that moment. And I really couldn’t even respond to him. And why when I started researching that, indeed, we should be responding to our young children. And guess what, we actually should have empathy and understanding and connection with our older children, too. Yes, I dove into the research for my own parenting, the more I realized, this guy is working with outdated information. Now, it’s the switch pediatricians. But number two, I want to help empower other parents and caregivers so that when they hear advice like this, they feel like, I know that I can push back on this. Because whether it be me Thera or somebody else who does this work doesn’t have to be me. They can say, I’m not going to take that advice, because I know better. So that was really my first shift into I needed a career change because I did indeed get serious about parenting not in the way that he implied. But in my own brand of being passionate about supporting parents and caregivers to be and I responsive all of these things, and went and got all of the credentials and everything I would need. So I wouldn’t just be some random mama on the internet. And people could say It was with a trustworthy source I, she knows what she’s talking about Zalora it really came from a passion to support not only my own child, but also to make this shift in being available to the extent that I could be based on what we know about brain science, child development, all of these good things that we know under.
Maria Ross 10:18
Right. And I would say your lane is positive parenting and with the new book, which again, is called peaceful discipline story, teaching brain science and better behavior. Can you talk to us a little bit? Because I think there’s going to be we’re going to weave in a lot of lessons here on how to apply this to adults, especially in your relationships at the workplace, but your relationships as an adult with other adults, because quite frankly, many adults act like Children and Toddlers a lot of the time. And so, talk to us about what peaceful discipline means, because it does sound a little bit like an oxymoron. I’d be happy to Yeah, I intentionally
Sarah R. Moore 10:56
chose this name. Because when I say the word discipline that most of us have a fairly negative association. We have a finger wagging? Yeah. Yes, oh, that means punishment. Oh, that means somebody who’s in trouble. Oh, that means correction? Well, in truth, if we go back to the original definition of discipline, it means to teach. If someone is a disciple of something, it means that they are a student of something they are learning. So the initial definition, it was not at all associated with punishment. And I really want to bring us back to that poor. And the peaceful part is intentional, for two reasons. Number one is when I think how do I want to teach my child using discipline to mean to teach, how do I want to teach? Well, I want to be peaceful about it. Bringing it back to Brain science, we know that the learning part of the brain for children as well as for adults, is only available to learn when the body feels a sense of emotional safety. As a parent, my job is to create emotional safety, so that my child can learn. And then even more importantly, the flip side of what I’m saying is it has to be perceived as peaceful by my child, because it isn’t about my intent. It’s about their perception. And so it’s a good reminder to all of us that we want our children to perceive us as being peaceful, benevolent teachers, rather than harsh, harsh punishers, or whatever other you know, methods parents commonly use, because we simply didn’t have the the research that we do now to know that this is actually a much more effective way of teaching.
Maria Ross 12:46
Well, and I imagined to especially just looking at my own parenting journey with my nine year old, it’s also about setting that model. And again, you can apply this to the workplace of, of a leader needs to set the model and set the tone for the team, so that the team feels safe, the team understands what’s acceptable, what’s not acceptable. And also they feel connected enough to continue to learn to continue to ask questions, to take risks, to innovate, to do all these things. And that’s what we want for our children as well. And part of that journey is, like you said, sort of having empathy for your child, and looking at the world through from their perspective. And so why is empathy and parenting actually more important than most people realize?
Sarah R. Moore 13:37
Because empathy is really what creates that emotional safety. Everybody has this deep desire to simply feel felt, as Dr. Daniel J. Siegel calls it, he talks about do you just do get me? Do you understand me and when we will lead with empathy when we feel when we help our child children feel that we are simply curious about their perspective, we want to understand them. And they, Oh, if you want to understand me, if you care enough, to dig deeper to learn what’s going on for me, I feel emotionally safe and not with you. That number one, I’m going to tell you what’s actually going on for me, and especially older children, although little children can practice this too. And it’s not emotionally safe enough that I can run to you whenever I have a problem, rather than running away from you and hiding from you because I’m afraid of how you’ll react. And from that place of emotional safety. We can brainstorm with our kids. We can work together we can collaborate, we can find Win Win solutions to problems, where our children feel like my big person is not out to get me. They’re out to support me with no matter what comes up in life. And what a paradigm shift. This is. As I say it out loud. I feel more peaceful. My inner child feels more peaceful. Just
Maria Ross 14:53
what that well, I’m just imagining not in a work context. Like I’ve had, I’ve had managers who were Not who lead with fear who lead with punitive action. And you just didn’t never knew where you stood. And you never knew what you could contribute. And you were so worried about watching your back, that you weren’t enjoying the work, you weren’t contributing to the work because you actually weren’t focused 100% on making the work better. And so I see all these parallels now that I’m a parent of the leaders that I’ve had that have been really effective, applying a lot of the lessons you’re talking about and creating that environment that you’re talking about. But also that concept of just, I need to feel like you get me I need to feel like I am seen, heard and valued. And this is what I’m always educating teams on is that it doesn’t mean I agree with you. And it doesn’t mean that we’re going to take the course of action you want me to take, it just means we’re going to have a productive conversation and at least you’re going to feel heard. Yes, exactly. And we really are empowered to get to the root cause of any problems. We may have
Sarah R. Moore 16:02
the adult example for a second and then extrapolate it across parenting, let’s say. And by the way, this hypothetical situation may or may not come from my own corporate life, many years, it was in my you know, but when hypothetical me it was in my early 20s. And in a new sales job, I remember, I think it was my very first month in sales. I didn’t make quota. And I felt terrible about it. But I just I honestly didn’t know what I was doing yet. I didn’t know how to do it. And we had this person who was two levels higher than I was at the time. And she said, Tell you what, Sarah, I’m going to invite you and a couple of the other new trainees who didn’t make quota to have breakfast with me so we can unpack some of what’s going on. So we went to the breakfast, we showed up hungry as we would at this 6:30am breakfast, or whatever it was. And this is an incredible example of horrible management. She showed up literally, with moldy food, nothing that was edible whatsoever. And she proceeded to say, You know what, I bet you’re disappointed in your breakfast. Just like I’m disappointed in your sales. Oh, my gosh, yes, exactly. I never want to feel the way that you made me feel just like you probably never want to feel this way again, either. Again, this is like classic, what not to do. Oh, my goodness. But you know, it had she simply said, Help me understand what is it that you would like to learn? What would support you? Do you need more information about the products so that you can sell them better? Do you need some more training, you know, that would have helped me grow and thrive. But instead, all I did was say I want out of this job ASAP, I got out. So there’s that and we had the parental equivalent of, you know, go to your room, and taking all your devices, you know, Santos not going to come like all these ridiculous things that parents say sometimes that do nothing other than make the children, number one resent their parents. And number two, make them want to emotionally retreat from their name. Now, the flip side of this, of course, and I don’t need to go too detailed, because everybody can imagine. But I have also had, by the way, in the same company, many years later, I quit. And then I came back. I had one of the best bosses I have ever had. And from the get go, he would come and sit in my office with me. And number one start with things like how was your weekend? Is anything fun going on for you? How can I support you? When you mentioned your mom’s coming to town? How did that go? You know, I felt like a real person to him. I wanted so much to do well for him, because he was such a great guy and such a great leader. Parenting equivalent, of course, is the parent who says, Hey, I saw you were struggling today. What was happening, what was going on for you helped me understand I want to hear your side story. Because that emotional safety and creating a child who then says, I want to do well for my parent, right? So that I they believe that I am a whole human I’m a whole person worthy of love and empathy and respect and compassion above and beyond this one tricky thing that might have happened earlier today.
Maria Ross 19:16
I have a question about that about what is it? What do you do, whether it’s a child or an adult, but we can talk specifically about a child? When you try to open that dialogue? And you’re met with? I don’t know, nothing? It’s fine. Like what is the appropriate response of the parent or the leader in that situation? Where you’re trying to connect and you’re trying to let them tell you the information but you’re getting nothing
Sarah R. Moore 19:44
really in question. Couple of things can be going on. First of all, the younger the child, the more trouble they will have articulating what was happening because young children and I talk about this in peaceful discipline that young children are largely driven by impulses they literally do not have the part of the brain called the prefrontal cortex fully developed yet, and they won’t until they’re between 20 I’m sorry, 25 and 30 years old. So it takes many, many years in most cases till they’re out of the house before that part of the brain is even fully developed. Well, what does that part of the brain do? It plans, it thinks about the consequences of actions, it considers others feelings, we can talk about the empathy piece a little bit. But it does all of these things that little kids simply are not equipped to do because they literally do not have the neural wiring there quite yet. And so our primary step, especially with little kids, is to reset our expectations, and say, they probably won’t be able to tell me because odds are pretty good, that whatever they did, they did because of a lack of developmentally normal impulse control. Instead, what I can do is, let bygones be bygones. But it doesn’t mean I need to not address it, what I can do is, let’s say there’s a child who struggles with hitting, what I can do is I can say, you know, I’m pretty sure there’s a Daniel Tiger episode that addresses hitting, let’s watch that. And here, I can be careful not to shame them or blame them or anything, but I can through the lens of empathy. Say, I’m curious if earlier today, at school, you felt kind of angry, like Daniel Tiger felt in the show. And you help the child make the connection between Oh, feelings, and actions. And over time, you can simply especially when the child is emotionally regulated, you can help prepare them. And I talk a lot in the book about how to do this proactively, you can help prepare them for when you feel angry, again, here are some things you can do, again, blaming or shaming way, but in a way that is supportive of the child because guess what, it doesn’t want to go around hitting people either nobody wakes up and think, who can I hit today, right? Shouldn’t say how old you are. So we can really help it set our children up for success. Now, let’s pretend that it’s an older child who seems to be clamming up, they just seem to not want to talk about it. And this is a little bit of a tough pill to swallow for a lot of parents, because it can stem from a couple of things. Number one, the child may not feel emotionally regulated enough to talk about it, it might be too raw, too fresh in their minds, they might just not feel safe, emotionally, to go there. So one of the things we can do is know that especially with older children, we don’t have to address things immediately, like we did when they were little we can give it a day. And we can say hey, that thing that happened yesterday, I’m curious about it. Notice my wording here too. I’m curious, that lands so much more safely in a child’s nervous system, then why on earth did you do that thing? Don’t you know, that’s wrong, all of the narratives that honestly many of us heard growing up, just because we didn’t know as much back then thing we can do is neutrally approach our child with the story of empathy. It might have nothing to do with the actual child and the actual situation at a surface level. Instead, I might come in and say, you know, I don’t know if I’ve ever told you about this before. But there was a time when I was 16 years old. And I didn’t have my driver’s license yet. But my friend gave me driver driving lessons. And here’s what happened, you know, positively or negatively or whatever. But we can share something about ourselves that help our children feel like oh, they might actually understand, but not least going back to the importance of our words and our approach. Our children may be operating from a place of our history together. Instead, we might be a peaceful parent today, we might be using everything I talked about and peaceful discipline, we might have taken the courses done already, that are, you know, available on the internet these days. But if our child has a history of a lack of safety with us, they might say I am afraid to be transparent with you. It’s simply going to take time to build trust that No, once they tell you, you aren’t going to turn around and punish them or shame them or whatever and instead say, What do you want to do about this? How can we work together in the incident says of them feeling emotionally safe with you, the more likely they will be over time to divulge more that information rather than clamming up
Maria Ross 24:53
well and also this is so I mean, I just can’t help seeing the parallels because it is As a parent, you can’t just flip the switch and the child’s going to trust you the next day, just because you’ve decided to read your wonderful book, and change your ways. And it’s the same kind of thing when I’m talking to leaders, if if they’ve had negative patterns, whether intentional or unintentional, and they’re committed to leading in a different way, and leading in a more people centered way, they can’t just come into work one day and be like, right, so now I’m going to be the empathetic boss. And so, you know, hopefully, you’re all psychologically safe, my doors always open, come talk to me. And then they leave the room and everyone’s going, what just happened, right, and it never quite happens that way. But I think there is an expectation that leaders have. And so I always invite them to get vulnerable and let their teams know they’re working on this. And actually, the parallel to parenthood is I do that with my son. You know, when I’m working on my impulse control, and my you know, my yelling, and my arguing, I say, Look, honey, I’m, I’m working on this, just like, I want you to work on this, too, let’s work on this together. And at least he knows what I’m doing. And he knows and you know, we’re not going to be perfect, I’m not going to be perfect, you’re not going to be perfect. It’s a process. And it doesn’t solve every problem for us. I mean, I do not want to leave the impression that we’re, you know, 100% on the parenting thing. But it’s this idea, I think that leaders can adopt that to have, you can’t just flip a switch with a child, or with an employee, that you are going to change your ways there has to you have to build that trust with people and you and what I hear you saying is, if we acknowledge it, if we talk about it, and if we give it time, the more credits we rack up in the bank account, the more the trust will build is that kind of an accurate way of of looking at it
Sarah R. Moore 26:46
100% accurate. And we have to know from a psychology perspective as well, that people subconsciously will continue to do behavior and sometimes even amp up their behavior until they reach a familiar response. Because it’s what they know, even if it’s not optimal, even if it’s unhealthy. People say but that’s what I know. Therefore, I’m going to act out in that way. So especially with kids or with employees, they might seem like, hey, you know, you’re getting more gentle, but I don’t know this version of you. So I’m going to act out more this is happening at a subconscious level, right? You need all the more isn’t for us to throw in the towel and say, Well, nevermind is well, this fiscal discipline didn’t work, I’m going to forget about it. Instead, they need us to lean in with that exact vulnerability that you’re talking about and saying, and acknowledging, I know this is a shift, and I’m going to get it wrong sometimes. But I’m working on this, this and this. And here’s why. And here are the specifics of what I’m going to change and what it might look like for us. People have that emotional safety, of understanding the transformations that we are trying to make, whether we’re parents, whether we’re bosses or whatever, it really helps them trust us because we were willing to be vulnerable. Vulnerability is a scary thing. But it’s one of the bravest and strongest things we can do.
Maria Ross 28:15
Absolutely. And I think, you know, people miss perceived vulnerability a lot in terms of it means I’m going to show up as a parent or a leader, and just completely act like I don’t know what I’m doing, and I’m going to lose all respect, and no one’s going to have faith in me. But really, you have to be very strong and confident to admit, I don’t know, or I am working on this. And you can I always say you can do it, you can be confidently vulnerable. There’s a way to express that and have an exchange, where the other person doesn’t feel like you’re going off the rails or your child doesn’t feel like you’re going off the rails and you know, you’ve just given up on everything. But that you’re saying, hey, this, I’m very conscious of this. This is very intentional. And this is what I’m working on. And that’s from a place of power that’s from a place of strength. And so when people say, Well, I don’t want to be an empathetic leader, because I’ll be seen as weak. I’m like, Do you know how much strength it actually takes to be an empathetic leader or parent? Can we talk briefly about why? Because I think this is so important for both parenting and leading in an organization is from a brain science perspective. Why do so many punishments end up failing or backfiring? Is it because of what you said earlier about we go for the reaction we know or why when we think that a punishment will be a deterrent enough to change someone’s behavior. What does brain science actually tell us?
Sarah R. Moore 29:42
It tells us a couple of things harkening back to that emotional safety that I mentioned before. If we lead with punishment, the learning part of the brain shuts off. So the child might be able to go through the motions in the moment, but there’s not going to be any lasting change and child’s behavior, because they are not, they’re literally not in a place where they can assimilate new information. Instead, it’s a fear based response, they go into fight or flight, and nobody thrives and fight or flight, nor can we learn at our best, you know, you can imagine trying to learn how to, you know, God forbid, why this example come to me, you try to fly a plane under duress, you’ve never flown a plane before. That’s not a situation anybody wants to be in. And I think, look, bivalent of what we sometimes ask our children to do. And when punish them, we take an emotionally safe approach, when we lead with curiosity, nonviolent communication, empathy, all of these things, children say, number one, again, subconscious level, I want to do well for you because I feel safe with you. Number two, every human on the planet wants to be connected emotionally and in a positive place with other humans. So when we now that we can create this virtuous cycle, with other humans in our lives, and good will continue to be get good. So we create that emotional safety. And it’s going to be the antidote to the brain shutting off instead, the brain, you know, will turn on and say, how do I learn more from you, because I want more of this. In my reward centers get activated, because it feels good to be in community with somebody else, whether it’s a parent child, whether it’s organization. So that sense of community, that sense of belonging, that sense of trust, and the other Nubbins is, the learning part of the brain has to have an emotional anchor that is positive, in order to want to replicate future positive behavior. And I talk about some strategies in the book to do exactly that. But let’s say for example, I have a comic and a nine year old, because you’ve got a nine year old, a nine year old who is not wanting to go to bed at night. I don’t know if that’s your reality ever. But I noticed that a lot of parents, nine year old doesn’t want to go to bed, it’s a struggle. And we want to change this behavior because everybody needs their sleep, and so on and so forth. What we can do is we can say, Yeah, number one, I’m starting with emotional validation, it makes sense that you want to stay awake, because everybody else is awake, and it’s more fun to be awake than it is to be asleep. Not to mention, it’s a transition. And we think only little kids struggle with transitions. Well guess what, we all struggle with transitions. That’s why many of us are still scrolling our phones at 1030 at night when we should be good. So we get to validate the feelings to help the child feel like okay, emotional safety, and I want to pay attention here. Number two, we can work to create Win Win scenarios, we can have a positive negotiation, whether it’s business or child, we can have a positive negotiation where the child or the adult feels emotionally invested in the outcome. Tell me child, how can I say this in a non threatening non shaming and blaming way? How do you feel on the nights when you don’t get enough sleep? What’s that like? For you help me understand your perspective. What would make going to bed feel more peaceful to you? You know, you start asking that question to get the child to think about what would actually feel good in my body, as opposed to this into intellectual knowledge. That’s purely intellectual, of Oh, leap because they say so. Right? I create this emotional anchor of I want this thing. And I want this relationship. Therefore I am naturally drawn toward the behavior that’s going to work for everybody. And it’s much more likely to stick because then the child has a positive association with the interaction, rather than a fear based one. So good, so good.
Maria Ross 33:51
I’m selfishly soaking all this up for myself. But I know my listeners will love this as well. So as we kind of wrap up, I’d like you to address a question that you talk about, which is story teaching. What is it? And does it actually work for all ages?
Sarah R. Moore 34:06
It actually does work for all ages, as Tao street teaching is my brand, if you will, of storytelling, storytelling has been used for basically, as long as humans have existed to help teach to help create narratives in the very literal sense that we can record and pass board, historically through the generations. But honestly, we use stories all the time. Now, lest anybody get scared and think, oh, no, I’m not creative. This isn’t going to be my thing. I have very good news for you. Every single one of us has a part of our brain called the hippocampus. And it is the brain’s natural storyteller. It’s what will remind me some day that I really liked your glasses, and that’s a great color on you and you create emotional safety for me and in all of these things that my brain is recording around our conversation right now. It’s a story. It’s a simple story, but it’s a story nonetheless, my brain is recording this so that someday, six months a year from now I see your name. And I say, I like her, I want to talk to her again, this is something that every single child, adult, you know, older adult, we all have it, it does not ever expire. And I realized I’m going to be sensitive to people with memory loss. That’s not what I’m referring to. But for those of us who aren’t dealing with that this is very accessible. We can use stories, in all walks of life, we can use them for things that have happened in the past that we want to make sense of, to help release trauma to help release toxic stress, we can use them in the moment to help make sense of our stories and figure out how we want situations to go. And use them proactively to help prepare ourselves or others for things that are to come. So very quick example, let’s say I’ve got a child who’s going off to a new school for the first time, rather than simply saying, Oh, you’ll have a blast, don’t worry about it have fun, good luck, which leaves the child emotionally floundering. And yeah, you can help paint a mental picture. This is how big your class is going to be. This is where the classroom is going to be. How will you know? If you see somebody who looks like they might be a friend? How will you know when that’s going to feel emotionally safe to start a conversation with that person? And what might you say, How’s that gonna go, you start creating enough of a narrative around the situation, that you create that safety that the child is needing in this example, to say, I feel like I know what to expect. So my anxiety can go down, my worry can go down, my stress can go down, because I’ve got a plan. And like it past, present, and future, and I outlined in the book, how to how to do it, but all those scenarios, but essentially, it’s using our brain for optimal outcomes. And it’s so much more effective, particularly for behavioral change, or behavioral modification in a very broad sense, not just behavior modification in the, you know, psychological sense, so to speak, and so much more emotionally accessible, to create that safety that everybody needs to reduce the stress load, and increased resilience. And that’s why it’s so great for all ages, because we all still need it.
Maria Ross 37:20
We all need it. And it’s how it’s how we remember things. It’s how we know this is something we want to be part of. And a lot of my work that in brand strategy, for example, is about elevating the true story, not the fake story of a business or an organization so people can understand what to expect, what is the promise that you’re making? How can I feel safe, investing with you spending time with you doing all those things? That’s what we mean by the story of a business as well. So I’m loving, loving all these parallels, I am going to actually ask you one more question, which I think is a big question that’s very top of mind for parents. When is empathy in children developmentally accessible to them? Because I know, as someone who speaks about empathy all the time, there’s the stretches where I worry, you know, is my son really learning empathy? Is he is he ready to learn empathy? Or is he too self centered at this point? You know, how? How can you help advise parents listening on when to expect empathy from a child? And when you know, sort of when can they relax about you know, your child will not be a sociopath? You know, can they? Can they learn it? Do some children need to have it nurtured more than others? In terms of like nature versus nurture? Can
Sarah R. Moore 38:43
you talk a little bit about all of that? Happy to so developmentally, even newborn babies show glimmers of empathy from time to time, for example, if you have a newborn baby who starts to cry, and there are other newborn babies in the room, some of those other newborn babies will start to cry too. And that is coming from the empathy center of the brain. Right now, that being said, Nobody panic. I’m gonna give a very quick answer. Empathy doesn’t fully develop until adulthood. Period, hard stuff, we start to see it grow a little bit more in the early elementary years. Usually ages six to nine are aware we start to see it a little bit more often. This is not Sara talking. This is the research talking. A 10 has to develop faster in girls than it does in boys. So again, that’s not stereo speak and I don’t want to be jet out it but just says, is that a result of socialization or is that actually biological? From from the research biological? Yeah, when it’s biological that because from an evolutionary perspective, if you look at what boys were exposed acted to do at a young age, it was go help get the food, where empathy probably actually would have been a detriment to them if they had too much empathy when they were responsible for getting the food, whereas the little girls historically were involved in taking care of the younger siblings. So that’s where that stems from biologic t. Now, you will see another jump in empathy around the teen years. And what I’m trying to illustrate here is that it’s kind of like a stepladder. It keeps going up. It’s not like we have a child and we say, well, they’re 15. Therefore they should be fully empathetic by now. Not at all there are moments where I lack empathy, and I’m not
Maria Ross 40:43
well 100% 100%.
Sarah R. Moore 40:48
Grass to your question about do we need to help nurture some children more than others? I’m gonna say 100% of children benefit from us modeling empathy, us talking about empathy, reading books about empathy, making it a part of our daily dialogue. And I really mean that daily dialogue. This was not something we bring up. Only when there’s a crisis, or somebody’s going through something horrific. It can be we’re reading a story, what do you care about child, which character is that and why we can have it in such simple ways. So that when the bigger situations do come up, it’s already kind of built into their vernacular. So I’m gonna go with all kids all days, all the time, nobody’s gonna suffer bird having talked about empathy too much, right? Oh, I
Maria Ross 41:35
love that so much. And I think that gives hope to a lot of people, including me about the fact that, you know, your child is not a sociopath right now, just because they are very self focused as a child. In fact,
Sarah R. Moore 41:47
I want to touch on that super quickly as we hear children, again, from a historical perspective, we’re supposed to be 100%, self centered. Because back in the day, before we had walls and roofs and things like that, we were at much higher risk of attack from neighboring nations, or animals or whatever. So children had to learn to fend for themselves very, very early. Well, guess what? That stuck. And there’s nothing wrong with a child who is quote, unquote, self centered. They’re just doing what biology told them to do. And it takes time to learn the other stuff. So I wanted to address that too, and say, there’s nothing wrong with your kids. Again, not a sociopath at this point. This is developmentally normal, and in fact, healthy. Love it, love it.
Maria Ross 42:35
And you know, as I was talking about, it’s never too late to learn empathy either, because it biologically is innate in all of us as human beings. It’s just for some people, that muscle may have atrophied over time, or because of their childhood or their family or their workplace. And so the good news is, you can go back to the empathy gym at any time. But what I am very hopeful about what I mentioned at the end of the empathy edge, leaving it on a very hopeful note for the future, is that this generation of young children, they’re talking so much more about empathy, and emotional connection and mental health. And I’m just excited to see where that generation goes in terms of the impact they’re going to have on culture and society.
Sarah R. Moore 43:20
Yes, I agree wholeheartedly. This is snowballing in the very best direction. It’s complete, in a great way, and it’s honestly I think, part of healing the world. Totally.
Maria Ross 43:29
I’m with you. Well, this has been such a great conversation. I could talk to you more, but we’re running out of time. So Sarah, we’re gonna have all your links in the show notes. But please tell folks, where’s the best place they can learn more about you or get in touch with you? Sure. So
Sarah R. Moore 43:43
my website dandelion seeds.com. There’s a hyphen dandelion hyphen, def BA, you said you’d have it now my English is failing me, but I accept my mistakes. Dan seeds.com is where you can find my website. I’m on all the socials that you’ll have. And of course, the book is peaceful discipline by Sarah, middle initial are more if you Google, Sarah Maurya get 10 million of my closest friends. So middle initial art, you’re more likely to find me. I love
Maria Ross 44:11
it. And we will make sure we put that in the episode title for you as well. And I assume the book is available wherever books are available for people. Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for your time and for your insights. I know this will be very beneficial for a lot of my listeners. So thank you. Thank you so much for having me. And thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you liked what you heard, you know what to do, rate and review and share with a colleague or friend. And until next time, remember that cash flow creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy, visit the empathy edge.com. There you can listen to past episodes, access show notes and free resources. booked me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes, insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria. Never forget, empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.
