150: Piggy Bank Parenting

In this episode, you’re going to learn a few important truths that made a big difference in my parenting journey. I hope that, as you learn from my experiences, you will be able to stress less and lean into the joy of being a conscious parent more. Imagine a ceramic piggy bank full of coins. These coins represent your perception of your worthiness, a small stream of day-to-day psychological rewards, and you receive one each time you feel good about yourself. (You can imagine that the power of the psychological reward lies in saving the coins in the piggy bank, or getting the coins dispensed to you from the bank, whichever you prefer.) When I was unconscious, I tethered the behavior of my children to my worthiness. They were my metric for “am I good enough,” and they held the piggy bank. When my kids met my expectations — when they were well-behaved or polite or didn’t cry when something bothered them — I got a coin from the bank. Boom, a little hit of dopamine. But when their behavior didn’t match my expectations — when they fought over toys or made a mess at Chuck E. Cheese or threw a tantrum in Publix — I allowed those moments to mean something about me and my worthiness as a parent and as a person. It was like they were denying me my worthiness, and I often freaked the flip out. But no surprise there! I was handing my worthiness piggy bank over to a one- and three-year-old. I was giving people with literally no life experience full control over my life. That’s crazy nutty nuts! Yours is the blessing and responsibility of controlling your own piggy bank. Your worthiness was given to you the day you were born and will remain with you as long as you exist. On top of that, you get to set your personal metrics for success based on what you do, not based on what your kids do. Hold your own piggy bank! Don’t pass it to your kids, your spouse, your boss, nobody. It’s not their job, it’s not their responsibility, don’t do it. Starting today, you can recognize your inherent worthiness. You get to hold your p