Communicating with Kids with Nellie Harden from the The 6570 Family Project – Episode 199

How do we help kids communicate. Not only with us, but also with the world at large?

Today’s Guest is Nellie Harden. Nellie is a Christian Family Life & Leadership Coach who focuses on helping parents and their teen daughters go from HOPING they are doing all the “right things”, feeling lost and just surviving teen life to KNOWING they are doing the right things for their unique child and getting her set on a solid path to establishing her personal authority, owning her responsibilities and living in her joy so that she has a firm foundation to build the rest of her life on where she trusts herself, stays aligned in her values and trades chasing worth for standing in her confidence every day in order to face anything and become the leader of her own life.

She is a wife and mom to 4 teen daughters, author, speaker, podcaster, retired homeschooling parent and adventure chaser. She has a degree in biology and psychology, years of leadership training and a diverse behavior background from humpback whales in the South Pacific to teens and parents in homes across the world. She believes in a life of intention, making dreams and goals realities and knows that the best way to change the world is through one living room at a time!

Big thanks to our sponsor Family Routines getting in a routine helps our kids get into routines with their life as well.

Other things that might interest you

• The Hardest Parts of Parenting for Me Right Now – Episode 195
• Having a Child Move Out to College — Episode 164
• Spanking & Better Options with Deborah Farmer Kris from Parenting 365 — Episode 152

Producer: Drew Erickson

Transcript

[00:00:00.140] – Hilary Erickson

Hey, guys. Welcome back to the Pulling Curls podcast. Today on Episode 199, we are talking about communicating with our kids. Let’s untangle it.

[00:00:18.860] – Hilary Erickson

Hi, I’m Hilary Erickson, the curly head behind the Pulling Curls Podcast: pregnancy and parenting untangled. There’s no right answer for every family, but on this show, we hope to give you some ideas to make life simpler at your house. Life’s tangled just like my hair.

[00:00:39.600] – Hilary Erickson

Okay, guys, today’s guest is a Christian family life and leadership coach. She has 14 daughters. She is also the leader of the 65 70 Family project. I want to introduce today’s guest, Nellie Harden.

[00:00:57.840] – Hilary Erickson

Are you overwhelmed by all there is to do around your house? As a new mom, I felt overwhelmed at every turn. Fortunately, I turned to systems to make a change. Whether it’s mornings, dinnertime, or even just to climb out of a pile of kid’s clothes, my course, Family Routines, can save you.

[00:01:13.440] – Hilary Erickson

I hold your hand as we smooth out these rough patches, making every day easier so we can more easily handle when your preschooler tells you they can use their urine like a lightsaber. Parenting is always going to be a wild ride. Routines are just your seat belt and they can support you. Use coupon code UNTANGLED to save 15 % of checkout. Link in the show notes.

[00:01:35.220] – Hilary Erickson

Hey, Nellie, welcome to the Pulling Curls Podcast.

[00:01:38.290] – Nellie Harden

Hello. Thank you so much for having me.

[00:01:40.570] – Hilary Erickson

So we’re talking about the thing that everything boils down to, I swear, communication.

[00:01:45.190] – Nellie Harden

Absolutely.

[00:01:47.120] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah. I talk about it in labor, talking with your doctor. I don’t even want to talk about communicating with my husband or my kids. Oh, my gosh. It’s like you have to communicate all the time.

[00:01:57.140] – Nellie Harden

I know. Unless you are going to be a true devout hermit in life, you have to deal with people. And no matter what, that’s going to involve communication, both verbal, nonverbal, all the things. And so, yeah, you need to know this very valuable tool today. And sometimes today, especially with our kids, they’re walking away from childhood without these really strong tools that they have.

[00:02:22.820] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah. Communication and then teaching your kids how to communicate, which I’m sure I’m ruining. I’m just not doing a good job at, right?

[00:02:30.860] – Nellie Harden

I doubt you’re ruining. If you are on here and you are trying, and I always say a parent that has intention to try is going somewhere.

[00:02:41.480] – Hilary Erickson

Somewhere. That’s where we’re going.

[00:02:43.380] – Nellie Harden

You’re going somewhere.

[00:02:46.300] – Hilary Erickson

Just to laugh, I had my freshman in college home over Christmas and he needed to make a phone call. I think it was to the insurance to find out if something was covered. I don’t remember, but it was like a business lost his mind over the for it. And I’m just like, how are you existing on your own? He lives in a dorm. He does have to talk to people about issues, whatever.

[00:03:07.210] – Nellie Harden

So funny. Yes, our teens today. So I have a senior in high school. I have two that are freshman and I have a seventh grader, too. But they are so afraid of the phone. So afraid of the phone. And so my oldest, not too long ago, had to call the bank because there was just an issue with her card and had to call the bank.

[00:03:25.950] – Nellie Harden

And it was like, oh, my goodness, I don’t want to talk to people. And it was like, she put it off as long as possible. As long as possible, we’re like, you should probably call. I’m not going to call for you. You need to do this. And so, yeah, it’s just funny. They’re so afraid of the phone.

[00:03:42.830] – Nellie Harden

And I recently watched this funny montage of this guy that was going throughout the generations from boomers to our teenagers today. And it started with the boomers like, I have a cough. What are the five people I can call about this right now and we can get this handled? Two all the way down to our teens and young 20s now. And it’s like, Never mind, I’ll just die.

[00:04:09.320] – Hilary Erickson

I’ll just Google it. I don’t want to talk to anybody. Yeah. There you go. We had to go see the doctor, and he was like, So you’re going to go by yourself? You’re 18. And he was like, No, I’m not. I was like, Well, you might have stuff you want to talk to the doctor about that you don’t want? What? No.

[00:04:28.340] – Nellie Harden

Yeah.

[00:04:29.620] – Hilary Erickson

It is. Anyway, so Nellie has some great tips for us communicating with our kids, but we’re ultimately teaching them how to communicate, right?

[00:04:37.470] – Nellie Harden

Absolutely. And it starts from when they’re super, super young and all the way through. And it changes flavor as you’re going through out. And in the beginning, you are all in charge. You’re building life for them. You’re telling them what to do. You’re telling them what to say in the very beginning, right? Like, say this, say this, say this. You’re spoon feeding them their dictation or their words.

[00:04:58.710] – Nellie Harden

And then you get to the other side of what I call the 65 70. That’s how many days you have in 18 years. And you get to the other side of the 65 70, and you’re just hoping that they… Nope, this is what you say now. Okay. And you have this back and forth conversation. And it’s this very interesting journey that we go on from build for you, build life for you, build life with you. And now we’re setting you off into the world. And communication is a really big part of that.

[00:05:27.700] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah. Although we had the conversation before he did the phone call, we practiced it. I was like, Hello?

[00:05:33.410] – Nellie Harden

Did some role play? Yes.

[00:05:35.620] – Hilary Erickson

And then I’d be like, Now is when you say, Hi, I have a problem with my bank card. And he’s like, Okay, okay?

[00:05:42.750] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah. He got a 4.0 in computer science in college, but cannot call the bank. It’s good times. Okay, what are our tips? Let’s fix these kids.

[00:05:56.650] – Nellie Harden

Well, first, I always say, and I truly believe that the best way to help the world is through one living room at a time. So every single person listening to this right now, you have children, presumably, or you influence children in some way. And so in that way, you’re the person responsible for them, right? It’s really hard for anyone, I mean, even podcasters like us or speakers and authors, to go out and make this wide sweeping effect of change, especially in kids.

[00:06:27.800] – Nellie Harden

And so the best way to change the world is through one living room at a time. Because what is happening during the 65, 70, like I said, those first 18 years, that is building the foundation to who is going to be ruling this planet in not so long. Because what’s happening now, it’s generations that are growing. And so the best thing we can do is help them communicate. And since we are their teachers, their guidance, their parents during this time, we need to communicate better.

[00:06:57.380] – Hilary Erickson

I didn’t want to hear that part. I would want to just fix them. That’s fine, though. I guess.

[00:07:01.950] – Nellie Harden

It’ll work. They need to be better, not me, right? So when you’re having this, especially in communication, because it’s a back and forth, it’s always a give and take. So you need to show up to the conversation in a way that then they learn how to show up to a conversation. So I want to go through a few things today. Number one is going to be the five effective ways to have a good conversation with your kid.

[00:07:26.180] – Nellie Harden

And it could be anything from, hey, how was your day? To let’s talk, sit down and talk because we have some really heavy stuff to talk about. And that always comes up in parenting. So if you are to a parenting stage yet that you haven’t had one of those talks, I promise you it’s coming. You aren’t alone. It isn’t unusual. It isn’t abnormal.

[00:07:45.420] – Nellie Harden

They will come and you will have to sit down and have those really difficult conversations. And in those cases, especially, it’s really vital that you have these things nailed down or in your back pocket because they’re not going to want to talk. They’re having to deal with something and go through something right now.

[00:08:02.570] – Nellie Harden

They’re not going to want to talk. So you have to be the teacher in this scenario. So let’s talk about first is the five things to bring to a good conversation. They all start with C, so I like to make it super easy. There’s five things. Our short term memory likes 3 to 8, I go with 5. And so there is calm, be calm. I know it’s like, of course, but are we always calm when we go to approach our kids? No, we’re not.

[00:08:28.250] – Hilary Erickson

Let’s be honest. I’ll just testify.

[00:08:30.650] – Nellie Harden

No. Yeah, same. But it’s really vitally important that we are because our amygdala in our brain, our fight or flight, that knee jerk response, all of those things fly out of our not calmness. Our critical thinking is turned off. And side caveat, your teen, or especially your younger child, but your teen, when you’re having these more complex discussions, their critical thinking is not online yet.

[00:08:58.150] – Nellie Harden

And so that’s why so many times you can look at your kid and go, why? Why would you do that in response to that? I do not get it. You’re not supposed to. You can’t get it because your critical thinking is turned on. Theirs is not yet. And it won’t be until their early to mid 20s. But especially right now in the 10 to 17, 18 age range, it’s super under construction. You might as well have the backup beep, beep, beep happening right under the forehead there. They cannot think the same way that you do.

[00:09:30.770] – Hilary Erickson

It’s physical. I’m always impressed when my kids are like, No, I really meant it. And they tell me the small snippet of the thought process that they were really thinking through. And you’re like, But did you think about the… And they’re like, No. But they’re really trying. They did think through two of the steps when they were six.

[00:09:52.180] – Nellie Harden

Yes, understood. Okay, so first one, calm, calm. The second one is to be curious. And what I’m talking about here is asking questions. If they come to you and say something and then you’re just like word vomiting all over them and giving this whole barrage, you might be talking about something completely different than what they brought up.

[00:10:13.130] – Nellie Harden

So you have to be curious and ask them questions about what they mean for exactly what you just brought up. They’re saying this one thing, but they actually mean this other thing, but they don’t have the words to put it into the way that they mean yet. So the best thing you can do is ask a lot of questions, be curious and see what they’re really getting after, right? Why they really made this decision, what their thoughts and feelings were when they made this decision and the outcome of behavior. So calm, curious.

[00:10:43.660] – Nellie Harden

And the next one is to connect. And what I mean by that is that you want to connect with them and be vulnerable, which is really, really, really hard sometimes as a parent. But I promise you, it doesn’t matter if you, like me, did not grow up with these fancy little rectangle devices that we carry around everywhere.

[00:11:02.280] – Nellie Harden

What happens as a result of everything that can happen on there still happened to you as a kid or yesterday. Embarrassment, feeling left out, fear of missing out on everything, fear of needing to have those notifications, the adrenaline rush of gaming, the adrenaline rush of, Oh, I got some likes. Oh, I got some comments. People talk to me in the hallway is now today, people liked my photo I put up.

[00:11:28.940] – Nellie Harden

So you can relate to them. And like I said, you can relate to them with yourself when you’re their age, or you can relate to them on what happened to you yesterday. Maybe you put something out there that didn’t. I totally get that. That really stinks. I know you put a lot of effort into that, or I know you put a lot of effort into that group project that went south because everybody else wasn’t doing the work that you were putting into it, and that really stinks. I’ve been there and I get that. You want to talk about it? Right? I hate group projects. So you can talk to them. I hate them. Group projects, I know. I know. We’re you were just in the thick of one not too long ago.

[00:12:02.960] – Nellie Harden

It was a thing, let me tell you. So yeah, be calm, be curious, connect with them. And then you’re going to want to cultivate, right? And that’s like developing where we’re going. So, okay, so we were calm. I know what you’re dealing with right now. You know that I’ve dealt with it, too. So we’re on the same playing field here as far as understanding and being empathetic toward one another. So what are we going to do to develop this? Let’s dive a little deeper.

[00:12:32.010] – Nellie Harden

And then the last one would be clarity. And clarity is so important because the last thing you want to do is come to a conversation, again, be it big or small, and walk away with nothing and be like, That’s great. It’s like two people coming together and saying, Hey, what’s for dinner? I don’t know. And then walking away. And it’s like, Well, that got us nowhere. So clarity is… Okay, so here’s our next three steps. Are you clear on those? Am I understanding you exactly what you’re going to do? Do you need my help with any of those? Okay, you got this. Awesome. And so those are the five right there.

[00:13:11.320] – Nellie Harden

So my tip number one is definitely to stay within that cadence right there. I know you love systems and I love systems too. Having that calm, curious, connect, cultivate, and clarity is really important in a conversation. So that is where I would definitely start off with.

[00:13:29.060] – Hilary Erickson

I love those because and especially the follow up at the end because they literally may not even remember what the first step was by the time you get to the last step.

[00:13:37.080] – Nellie Harden

100 % yes, absolutely. Okay. And then if we’re talking about those, I want to give you the flip side of the coin with what not to do. Because there’s a bunch of great stuff what to do. What should we steer away from? And those are the five enemies of communication.

[00:13:56.360] – Nellie Harden

And that is interrupting. Interrupting is just it shuts people down. And so I have some suggestions. If you have a child that just won’t stop talking, too, because I have one of those. It’s like, I want to jump it, but I can’t. I don’t want to shut them down. I don’t want to feel them to feel like they aren’t seen and heard. But I also don’t remember what they said 10 minutes ago because they’re still going.

[00:14:20.310] – Nellie Harden

Just gently raise your hand, just your hand, not your arm. Just raise your hand and be like, I really want to honor what you’re saying right now, but I know you’re on question number eight, and I haven’t answered question number one yet and I am going to forget what that was. So can we just hold for a second so I can address this? And just using that language, I really want to honor you in this and what you’re going through and what you’re asking me.

[00:14:47.100] – Nellie Harden

But for me and my brain, I need to address the first thing. And so you can just use language like that and do a soft interruption, not being like, stop or talking over them or anything like that. Just a soft interruption if you have to, but hopefully you don’t.

[00:15:04.750] – Nellie Harden

So interrupting, mocking is another one. Mocking is so rude. It’s another thing that will shut them down. And it’s always exaggerated. There’s literally, you don’t mock someone and it’s not exaggerated. You’re like, yeah, well, you came to me yesterday and you were like, well, I want to do this. Well, of course, they didn’t do that. Those gestures are that annoying, needless voice.

[00:15:26.740] – Nellie Harden

But you’re trying to mock them because you are maybe not calm yet. And you’re in a situation when you are mocking. And this goes back and forth, too. This just isn’t parents. This goes back and forth. So for them also, they cannot interrupt. They cannot mock because kids are really good at trying to mock as well. Mock the parents. And then just dismissing them is the next one. Like, Oh, you’ll be fine. It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. It’s fine.

[00:15:53.570] – Nellie Harden

Well, they’re having a valid feel session about whatever it is that they’re talking about. And if you’re dismissing them, again, you’re shutting them down and saying, I don’t hear you, I don’t see you, so go talk to somebody else about that. And then they will. And goodness knows who that is. And goodness knows what direction that person is going to give them.

[00:16:14.100] – Nellie Harden

Or maybe it’s just going to be someone online that they don’t even know that’s going to put them in some direction. So in order to stay valid as a teacher and guide and parent in their life, you need to be able to hear them, see them, love them, help them belong.

[00:16:30.460] – Nellie Harden

So the next one is sarcasm. So sarcasm actually means tearing of flesh. That is its old Latin roots right there. I can definitely attest to this. When people are sarcastic with me, it feels like tearing of flesh. I used to have one of those friends that said the rudest things and then I was like, Oh, I’m just kidding. I’m just kidding. I’m just kidding. Then another rude thing, Oh, I’m just kidding. Can’t you take a joke? It’s so funny.

[00:16:56.170] – Nellie Harden

I want to tell her and express her, if someone comes up to you on the street, well, maybe not on the street because that would be super weird. But if a person you know comes up to you and hugs you and then they slap you or the other way around, which one are you going to walk away remembering? Which one is going to rank top in your head? It’s going to be the slap. It’s going to be the negative thing.

[00:17:20.020] – Nellie Harden

Our brains are hard wired for survival. So a negative thing happened avoid negative thing. That’s what we’re going to focus on. So sarcasm, no bueno right there.

[00:17:30.320] – Nellie Harden

And then the last one in that list is ignoring. They come into the room, you can maybe even tell they’re a little downtroddened, but you’re on your device or you’re on your computer, you’re making dinner, whatever. And you’re like, I really don’t want to deal with whatever they’re going through right now. So I’m just going to pretend I don’t see anything. But again, you’re then shutting down two of their main needs that they have, which are to be seen and heard. So again, those are interrupting, mocking, dismissing, sarcasm and ignoring.

[00:17:57.070] – Hilary Erickson

Okay. What do you do? Because my office is in our dining room and my kids will come up, they’ve got a problem, and I’m like, right in the middle of workness because I don’t have a door. So what do you do when you literally or you’re in the middle of a phone call and they’re coming up and they’re like, I just had the worst day. And you’re like, I want to talk to you, but I can’t right now.

[00:18:24.710] – Nellie Harden

Yes, 100 %.

[00:18:25.880] – Hilary Erickson

Do you have any tips for that?

[00:18:27.650] – Nellie Harden

Yes. So this is actually my kid’s first year back at school. I’ve homeschooled for the last seven years and my husband and I both work from home. So all six of us have been home for a long time. So this is something that happens a lot, as you might imagine or did. And so, yeah, it’s one of those things too, setting up boundaries beforehand.

[00:18:47.920] – Nellie Harden

So letting them know, okay, just so everyone is on the same page, these are the hours or this is the time or the next 40 minutes I need to. Before I got on here with you, I let everyone know, too, just so you know, I’m recording for the next hour, so just please be quiet and no interrupting. So it’s just about that pre set up of boundaries that’s really, really critical.

[00:19:11.550] – Nellie Harden

And then knowing I want to hear what’s going on with you. I want to help you with whatever this is that’s happening, but I can’t right now because I have a responsibility. And so I want to get to you so I can make you my priority and give you my full attention in one hour or whatever that is. And so it’s just honoring them. I want to give you my full attention because I love and care about you, but I can’t right now. And so let’s table this until then. And then really do, don’t skip out on that. We can’t say we’re going to do something and then not do it. But the best if you can, we always can, or we can’t always do it. But if you can to have those pre border set up.

[00:19:52.900] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah, that’s true. That’s a good advice. All right, next tip.

[00:19:55.950] – Nellie Harden

All right, lastly.

[00:19:57.420] – Nellie Harden

No power struggles. No power struggles. Power struggles go nowhere real fast. You think about it like a tug of war. You’re both pulling, it’s hard, you’re sweating bullets, you’re saying things you don’t want to say, and it’s exhausting. It’s mentally, sometimes physically, definitely, emotionally exhausting.

[00:20:18.660] – Nellie Harden

And it takes two. It always takes two. I had someone try to argue with me last weekend, actually, that her and this other person, she’s like, I’m not trying to cause any trouble. I’m not trying to do anything. He is just doing all of this. And I’m like, It takes two to have a power struggle. So it always does.

[00:20:38.960] – Nellie Harden

Anyway, my grand super scientific approach to this is drop the rope and pull up a chair. So anytime you find yourself in this power struggle of I want you to clean your room. I don’t want to clean my room, clean your room. I have to do this, this, this, this, this, this first. Drop the rope, pull up a chair and say, I need this from you, why are you putting up a wall toward this? Be on the same eye level. You’re a team, you’re working together. Parents are team leaders, but you’re all a team.

[00:21:09.810] – Nellie Harden

If one person is down, the whole family is down. And so you want to work with them and you want to be able to understand what they’re going through using those five things we talked about in a good conversation, avoiding the things that we talked about, which are the enemies of communication.

[00:21:24.670] – Nellie Harden

But just get on their level, eye to eye and be like, okay, so this is what I need in our home, we respect one another and I feel like you’re not respecting by doing this, this and this. So give them a chance to respond. Well, I understand my room is crazy, but I have this paper that’s due and I have this that’s due. Okay, I get it. I understand deadlines.

[00:21:48.280] – Nellie Harden

Why don’t you take care of those things, but by 9 PM tonight it needs to look like, you know, maids just got out of here or whatever. And so giving them a good window, understanding their needs, what they have to do, and putting a boundary on that, wrapping it with that, and walking away with that clarity. Everyone knows the expectations. Brene Brown always says, clarity is kind, and I love that.

[00:22:13.140] – Nellie Harden

It’s so true. Is everyone clear? Everyone knows? Because one of the most hurtful things a family can do or two people can do is walk away and both of them have different expectations of what’s going to happen. And that’s just a postponed argument right there. And so if everyone has the same expectation, clarity is kind, then everyone can be on the same page. Those would be my top three tips.

[00:22:36.490] – Hilary Erickson

I love it. I think that’s so important. I think that you have to realize, especially in household chores, they definitely have a different expectation. Than yours.

[00:22:45.460] – Nellie Harden

Yes.

[00:22:46.310] – Hilary Erickson

My favorite is I did it, mom. I’m like, Okay, you sprayed cleaner and you may have wiped it, but it’s not clean. The idea is to clean the bathroom, not to just… I didn’t ask you to spray cleaner.

[00:23:02.300] – Nellie Harden

Yes. Oh, my goodness. Yes. We have one that’s in charge of bathrooms. We have two dogs that shed terribly, and we have wood staircases, and so they need to be swept off. And so I swear I’ll come up and then they’ll be all free again. I just did it. Well, when did you just do it? Well, two days ago. I was like, Well, here’s the thing. They shed every single day, every single moment. So that’s why it’s an every single day chore. And they’re good enough is not quite excellent.

[00:23:38.860] – Nellie Harden

And that’s what comes with the mindset, too. We’re trying to teach them how to master what they’re doing. I bring up karate kid a lot. You get the wax on, wax off, and karate kid, two or three or whatever it was, he drops the jacket, put the jacket back on, drop the jacket, put the jacket back on, all those things. I was like, It’s about mastering what you’re doing. It doesn’t matter how small it is.

[00:24:02.580] – Hilary Erickson

It’s so true. Then the best is they move out and they have roommates and they’re like, Mom, you cannot believe how dirty his sink is. And you’re like, I bet I could. I bet I could imagine that.

[00:24:16.490] – Nellie Harden

You’d be amazed by what I could imagine.

[00:24:19.820] – Hilary Erickson

I have so much imagination in me. All right, these are awesome tips. Nellie, where can people find you? Do you have a course on not screaming at my kids?

[00:24:28.390] – Nellie Harden

I do. It’s not called that, but that could be a working title. Yes. So you can find everything at NellieHarden.Com. I have a great parent master class in there called the Daughter Decoder. There you go. It is specifically made for parents that are raising daughters between about eight and 17 or on the way there, so 6 7, but definitely 8 to 17. It’s all about how to help them build that worth, esteem, and confidence in their lives, including all of this communication and all of the good stuff that comes.

[00:25:05.360] – Hilary Erickson

With that. Yeah. Daughters are different than sons. M y two oldest are boys, and then I have a daughter that’s 13. So it’s different. Everyone when she was a baby was like, Is it so different than with the boys? And I was like, I guess how I change her diaper. Everything else is really the same. She’s pretty much the same. But we’re definitely coming into a zone where we have a lot of feelings. And it’s more than just the diaper changes.

[00:25:27.760] – Nellie Harden

What’s so interesting is that the brain differences between male and females actually… You know super early on in utero if they’re male or female without even looking at genetics, you could just tell by brain differences, they start that young, that itty bitty. And so yeah, there’s definitely a difference. So I personally focus on raising young women. And exactly what you’re saying, there is a big difference. And I’m raising four young women of my own.

[00:25:56.370] – Hilary Erickson

It’d be interesting to just drop a computer science major in your lap and just see what happens.

[00:26:02.020] – Nellie Harden

Well, my husband’s a computer science guy, so I’m well-versed in how to deal with those two.

[00:26:09.770] – Hilary Erickson

I’m like, if only I could build a program that could fix you, that would be amazing. It’s tell you, instead I just paid for the dorms.

[00:26:16.970] – Nellie Harden

There you go. All right.

[00:26:18.770] – Hilary Erickson

Thanks for coming on, Nellie. You guys go visit her. Communication is so important. I have to say that in labor, we just are getting so many people who literally cannot communicate with their teeth, with their growth team, with their doctor. They don’t have the tools they need because it’s such a stressful situation. It’s such a big deal. And I feel like a lot of that comes from parents who haven’t modeled that for their kids. So I’m really working on that in myself, even though my kids are all going to be like, Can you just come to my doctor’s appointments with me, mom? Everything’s fine. All right.

[00:26:49.610] – Nellie Harden

Thanks for coming on. All right, thank you for having me.

[00:26:51.950] – Hilary Erickson

Okay, I hope you guys enjoyed that episode. I really want to focus on communication in this next season going forward because I just see it to be a problem. I see it to be a problem in ourselves, our kids. I see it to be a problem in me. But I think the more we can learn from other people great ways to communicate, the better we are going to be off.

[00:27:10.020] – Hilary Erickson

Stay tuned. Next week, we are talking about pain in childbirth, which is almost like painfully telling my son to call the bank or whoever he was calling. But stay tuned for that one. We’ll be wrapping up season 4 with that episode.

[00:27:21.410] – Hilary Erickson

Thanks so much for joining us on today’s episode. The Pulling Curls Podcast grows when you share us on social media or leave a review. If you do, please tag us so that we can share and send you a virtual hug, which, frankly, is my favorite hugging. Until next time, we hope you have a tangle free day.