Setting These Boundaries Will Help You Avoid Parental Burnout

Episode Transcript

Dr. Nicole Beurkens
Hi everyone, welcome to the show. I’m Dr. Nicole, and on today’s episode, we are focusing on ways we can support our own needs and addressing common challenges that come up on the journey of raising our children. I have got my friend and colleague Dr. Kim Swales with us today, and we are going to tackle a variety of issues that most of us have to navigate at one point or another. Remember that when we are managing ourselves, meeting our own emotional needs, setting boundaries that work for us, it also helps our kids.

So before we dive into this conversation, let me tell you a bit about Kim. She earned her PhD in Marriage and Family Communication with a concentration in counseling from Ohio University over 27 years ago. She then went on to do postdoctoral studies in counseling. Dr. swells was formerly a researcher and college professor at the University of Houston, but is now in private practice as a parenting, marriage, relationship, and life coach. She has published research on gender communication, friendship, family, and marital communication, and relationship maintenance. She speaks to schools and organizations several times a year on parenting relationships and marriage. And on the personal side, she has been married for 25 years and has three children of her own, so she brings a real-life perspective, to her practice, and certainly to the things that we are going to talk about today. Kim, welcome to the show. Thanks for being here.

Dr. Kim Swales
Thank you so much for having me.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens
So we are going to cover sort of a wide range of topics: Things that you and I have had conversations about, things we have posted about on social media, kind of a smorgasbord of stuff that I think is really going to resonate with the listeners, especially the moms and dads who are in the trenches with kids. But before we get to that, I’d love to just have you share a little bit about your own story, how you got interested sort of in all things relationships—parenting, marriage, all that stuff.

Dr. Kim Swales
Oh, I love when people ask me that because my journey to this field really came from a difficult time. My own parents separated and divorced when I was in middle school/early high school. It was a long process from their separation to when their divorce was final, and it was extraordinarily painful. I grew up in a very Catholic community, went to Catholic grade school, high school, and college, and there was only one other kid in my class whose parents were divorced. I felt such shame, and it was difficult. My parent’s divorce was ugly and bitter. And I know now, as an adult, it couldn’t have been this way. But it felt like, from the kid’s perspective, like this fairy tale family. We ate dinner together every night. We took bike rides. Sunday was family day, and then boom. Dad had an affair, left. Everything was turned upside down. It was really traumatic, and we suffered a lot. And so when I went to college, I really wanted to study broadcast journalism. I kind of wanted to be the next Katie Couric. And I loved it, I really loved it. I was a double major with communication and psychology. I loved my psychology classes, but I had a class in interpersonal communication, and I loved my professor, Dr. Sharon Kirk, and she just introduced to me that there was this whole field, where it’s not that you can just study psychology, but where you can study relationships, interpersonal relationships, and interpersonal communication. And I combined the two. I just thought, gosh, if I could help families either not get to that point of this traumatic, difficult divorce, or if that is going to happen, help them repair and rebuild, I could help people. And I just knew that that is what I was being called to do. And so once I got that introduction through that professor and through that class, there was no turning back. I took kind of a different route. I think that is one of the things I love about you, is we have kind of added — My doctorate actually is in family communication, so I had to go do extra schooling to get that certifications for counseling and do the counseling work. So I mean, it really came from this need inside of me, this desire to help other families.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens
I love that, and I so appreciate you sharing that. I think so many people can relate, either with what they experienced growing up or with perhaps what they are navigating or have had to deal with in their own marriages, partnerships, and relationships. And so I love what you said about how when we can use the knowledge and the skills and the experiences that we have to help other people going through that, whether it’s to prevent that, or to repair and help people through that, that is so powerful. And I think there are so many places in parenting where this issue of our communication and relationship with our parenting partner can come up and be a challenge, whether we are married, divorced, co-parenting in whatever way, it’s tough when it comes to kids because we want to be on the same page, we want to be aligned, but there are lots of stuff to navigate with kids. There are lots of decisions that need to be made, everything from what we feed our kids to where we send them to school, to how we discipline them and manage things, and it’s something that I see in virtually every family that comes into my clinic, that that is something that inevitably comes up from one or both parents around, “I don’t know if we are doing this great.” Or one parent, usually a mom will be like, “How do I get my co-parent on the same page? How do I get my husband/partner/whoever on the same page with me?” And I think you have such a unique background and expertise in communication, all that to help us think through that, because I know there are so many parents listening who are like, “Yeah, that is me. I know where I stand on things. I spend a lot of time on Instagram, I do a lot of research. I know what I think is important for my kid, but I can’t necessarily get my co-parent to agree.” So I’d love your thoughts on that.

Dr. Kim Swales
It is so hard. It’s a great point that you bring up, and I don’t know that I have ever talked about this on my podcast or on any other, so I’m actually really glad you are asking this question. It’s something I see constantly in my practice, and often it will come up. A couple will be sitting in my office and the husband goes, “Oh, you are the one. My wife sends me all your Instagram posts!”, in this not so subtle way, that they need to sort of change the way that they think about parenting. But it’s really hard if you are battling over the specifics of the issue, and if you are battling over the issue in the moment. So what I have families do, what I have parenting partners do is take a big step back, probably take 10 steps back, and I have them start with two exercises: One is I have them make a mission statement for either their marriage or their family, just like you might do for a company or business or any personal endeavor that you are starting. I give them some models of mission statements, but I really try to get them to come up with their own. I have had couples over the years that come in with a painting or a poem, or, but I have them sit down and collaborate on what they really want for first, their relationship, then we extend it to their family. What do they want for their family? I have them do some values exercises that I have, and they do it in steps: They first just kind of individually brainstorm what their top values are. That could be faith, education, a hard work ethic, being community-minded, environmental—there are so many things that it could be. Being fiscally responsible. So they just kind of brainstorm their own values. And then they work as a couple, and they sit down and they talk about what their values are. And then the next step would be combining their values, “Okay, well, these are yours and these are mine. What do we want that to look like for our kids and for our family?” Honestly, Nicole, this is what my husband and I did early on. I was on bed rest when I was pregnant with my oldest son, and I was watching Dateline or something. Diane Sawyer, I remember Diane Sawyer interviewing dads about not being involved in parenting, and I just kind of had this lightbulb moment. So I remember asking my husband — I was literally eight months pregnant with my oldest son, and I said, “What values do you want?” We knew what we were naming him, “What values do you want Will to have?” And he said “The value of a dollar. I want him to have a good work ethic.” We lived in a neighborhood where teenagers were very entitled. None of them had part time jobs, they didn’t babysit. They got brand new cars on their 16th birthday. And he said, “I really want our kids to have a good work ethic, and I want them to not be in credit card debt, and I want them to save. I want to teach them financial and work values.” And that wasn’t at the top of my list, but we sat down and we said, “Okay, what does that look like? How do we do that?” And so we kind of started like, okay, they see us working hard. We give them chores early on. In our family, we have a rule, it’s being broken right now, it’s a flexible rule—and I will talk about that actually, in a little bit. But our kids get a job when they are 15. We want them to know what it’s like to clock in and clock out, to have to manage their time, to have to fill out tax forms. So when we start at what our core values are, you don’t argue about those little things because you sort of have this template, and not to say that you never see it a little differently in the day to day functioning of that, but I think to step back and remind yourself: You are with this person, most likely, because you have shared values of how you want to move forward in life, and how you want to raise citizens of the world. And so when my husband and I would butt heads about how to handle things, we could go back to those values and say: This is our value. What is the best way to teach, model, encourage, support that value for our kids?

Dr. Nicole Beurkens
I love it. Such great practical tools for that. And as you are talking, I’m thinking, what a great thing to help anchor parents in the big picture. Maybe we do disagree on some of the details, or maybe we have differences of opinion over certain areas, but in the big picture, we both want the same things for our kids, right? And I think that often gets lost in the minutiae of the arguments or the negotiations or the criticisms or whatever around how we are doing these specific things. We lose that bigger perspective that you are talking about, which is: Wait a second, we both actually have the same goal here, which is to raise responsible, healthy, well-adjusted kids into adulthood. And if you are not with someone who has that as a value than yes, that is something really important to identify. But I think to remind ourselves—what I kept thinking when you were talking about those exercises is we are on the same team here, regardless of maybe some differences we have, we both actually want the same things for our kids.

Dr. Kim Swales
And then there are times, to use that team analogy, my husband is head coach and I’m assistant coach, and there are times—going back to that financial example. He is better with money. He loves investments in the stock market and he is more in charge of our bills and our financial future. So when our kids got to a certain age, kind of going along with that fiscal responsibility, he became head coach. He taught them about retirement accounts, he gave all three of our kids a little bit of money when they got into middle school to teach them about the stock market, and they pick stocks, and they trade. He kind of takes head coach on that. If our kids are having relationship problems, I’m the head coach. My husband defers to me. He doesn’t even pretend to be kind of the expert in that field, and so to give and take, and let the other person step up, and you step back, it’s so good for your kids. Because if you try to run the show on everything and your co-parent doesn’t really have a chance to lead and model, then you are kind of robbing them of that relationship.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens
Yeah, that idea of where does each of us shine? What are the skills that we have, the knowledge, the unique experiences that we have that we bring to it? And allowing each other to take that head coach position with things, and I think this is a broad stereotype, but in my own just personal and clinical experience, this rings true that often moms have a hard time giving over some of that control, letting their parenting partner step up and take the lead on some things. And I noticed that particularly in situations where moms are clearly the primary parent and decision maker for the child, especially when the child maybe has some extra challenges or needs. I see a lot of times moms becoming almost possessive, like “This is my project, my thing, don’t mess it up, don’t do something the wrong way”, and that can really alienate our parenting partner and really prevent the child from having the benefits that that other parent brings to your life, to decision making.

Dr. Kim Swales
I have talked about this on another podcast, I don’t know if it was mine or somebody else’s, but going back to that Diane Sawyer Dateline, or whatever it was when I was on bedrest at eight months pregnant I saw, that is exactly what it was. It was about how women want, in particular, their partner or their spouse to take up some of the parenting responsibility and slack, yet when they do, if they don’t do it our way, we criticize them. And then they throw their hands up in the air, and they are like, “I’m not going to help with homework because you don’t like the way I do it. I’m not going to help with dinner because you don’t like what I feed them.” And so seeing this before I even had kids and being in this field — and at the time, I was a professor at the University of Houston, I was teaching Gender Communication and I was teaching Family Communication, and I had this lightbulb moment like, yes, if we want our partners to truly be a parenting partner, we have to accept that they are not going to always do it the same way as ours and that our way is not always better. And so when I asked my husband about his values, at that time, I was a professor and he was in corporate America. If you’ve ever been in academia, you know even full-time is kind of very flexible and part-time, so I was going to be home a whole lot more with our son than he was. But I said, “I want you to pick something that is yours.” And he said, “Bath time. I want to be bath man.” And so we started when we registered for our baby registry. He picked the hooded towels, the bath toys, the soaps, and shampoos, and whatever we had. He was completely in charge of baths for all three of our kids. That was their time. I couldn’t get involved if they made a huge mess or if baths didn’t happen every night. I totally let go of that, and let that be his thing. And then slowly, I could incorporate that into other areas, but I think if parents can do that, if parenting partners can say, “I don’t have to be in charge of it all, and I don’t have to love the way my partner does it. But if I want them to do it, I have got to let them do it their way.”

Dr. Nicole Beurkens
So good. And I think one of the interesting things around that, it’s so true, oftentimes, and again, often moms, but it could be either it’s like I need time. I know, I read about self-care. I need to divide things up more, I need to take care of myself, but it’s the logistics. That means being willing to give up some things. We like having that control because in the moment, it soothes our anxieties, but we burn ourselves out, don’t we? If you are a parent who is constantly trying to micromanage everything, take it all on, do it all, there is burnout, and then there is increased resentment, anxiety, and hostility. And that is not good for our relationship with our partner or with our co-parent, but it also isn’t good for kids.

Dr. Kim Swales
No, I mean, my kids are so close to their dad, and bath time, I was there sometimes, but sometimes I wasn’t. Sometimes that was my 30 minutes to go for a walk, or be quiet, or clean up the kitchen, or whatever. But most of the time, I wanted to be there. I think about how he read every Harry Potter book from 1 to 9, or however many, with each of those kids. And they have these special, special memories of their time with their dad, that if I had gotten in there, it would have changed that. And that is just one small example, but you do give up control. In the long run, it’s so good for your kids because every relationship has different things to offer, and you are really cheating your kids and your partner if you are not allowing them to take over some parts of parenting.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens
We are going to shift gears in a moment and talk about some boundaries, but for people listening who are like, “I get this, this makes perfect sense, and my co-parent and I, I’m feeling like we are quite a ways down the path of this being contentious, of us not being able to come together on these things.” I’m curious based on your work with relationships, with couples, with communication, if you can give our listeners some of the red flags, what are some of the things that you think are an indicator that you know what? It’s really time for you to get yourself in somebody’s office or doing telehealth or working with a professional to help you navigate these things? Because I find that often by the time a parent is in here acknowledging this. It’s really, really far down the path. So what are some of the signs for moms and dads to be aware of? “Maybe we should get some help around how we are navigating this or how we are communicating with one another?”

Dr. Kim Swales
That is an excellent question. I think it becomes this really quick decline sometimes, but if you find yourself feeling angry doing those things together if you find yourself dreading bath time, or dinner time, or going to extracurricular activities — I have worked with families where maybe dad gets really loud on the sidelines, or mom, I had one couple where it was mom, and they would dread going to their kids’ sports games because the other parent was going to be so self-conscious and embarrassed about the yelling and stuff that would come out on the sidelines. And so, if you are starting to feel anger, resentment or dread around family activities that should feel really good to do together—you brought up an excellent point if you don’t feel like a team — I have so many couples in my practice, some that are married, some aren’t married, some with kids, some without, that feel like they are constantly butting heads, “It’s me against them. He got his way, so now I’m going to get my way. Keeping score. If you are keeping a score, I think that is a good indicator. I think keeping score or not keeping score is a good barometer of the health of a relationship. I know even in my own, gosh, it’s almost 26 years now, as you were reading my intro, on December 2nd, it will be 26 years. There are times when there is no scoreboard, I don’t even pay attention. But there are times when I start to feel resentment and like I’m keeping score, and then I know, okay, we are off-balance here. We are not on the same team. We are keeping score against each other. So when you start to have those feelings, that is a really good time to get some help.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens
I think that is a great, really tangible barometer of that. Really, really helpful for people to think about. So let’s shift gears a bit, and let’s talk along these same lines of managing our own stress, our own resentment, our own energy and experience, and all that. I want to talk about a few boundary-related things because I think this is such a big issue for so many parents, again, moms, especially, but certainly for dads as well. So let’s start out with boundaries around school stuff. We are in the back-to-school season, navigating that, and one of the things that I see come up for, for parents and for families, especially when the child has some challenges, is around when things aren’t going well in school. Maybe there are problems with lots of notes home, there are just challenges to navigate. And a big one that I see in families is when kids come home with just reams of homework, all of this stuff, especially for kids with developmental or mental health issues, who have struggled to manage through the entire day at school, and now parents are left like, “Okay, now we have got hours of struggles. Even if the assignment is supposed to be 20 minutes, it’s going to take the entire evening fighting and battling, and I see the amount of stress that things like that, related to school, can cause not only for kids but for parents and between parents. I know that you and I are both advocates of parents figuring out what’s healthy and workable for our family, for our child, for our situation, particularly around homework. You and I have had this conversation. But it could be around extracurriculars, how many things we are involved in, whatever. So what are some of the factors for parents to consider around, “How do I know if something that is going on with our child’s school-related or with the decisions we have made with extracurriculars—how do we know if that is a good thing, if we should pull back?” And then how do we set boundaries around that, especially with something like homework where people feel like well, that we have to do this?

Dr. Kim Swales
Yeah. I love that question. Honestly, it’s a very similar approach that I talked about in the beginning. I think that when you look at your family’s values and you really have figured out what they are, you can adjust accordingly. And then you need to look at your family values first, look at your individual child. And then other factors to consider are family time. When you talk about extracurricular, what’s your budget? What’s your child’s personality? What’s their ability? What’s their interest? I will give you two examples in our family. I told you already about our kids having to have a job when they are 15. And so that looked really different for all three of my kids. For my oldest son who does have some ADHD, actually having a job helped him manage his time better. There were bumps in the beginning, for sure. But once we kind of really taught him some executive functioning skills and some organization, it really helped him. In fact, he is in grad school now, and I insisted he got a job, and he loves it. He is so happy, and it’s helping him be productive in other areas because the more that his time is sort of accounted for the better he manages it. Anyway, our boys, one of my boys just said, well, “Kate is 15”, our youngest, “Does she have a job yet, mom?” Well, Kate dances seven days a week and there is no time for her. We thought like, when could she possibly work? She really would love to be a professional dancer. So the ages from 15 to 18, you have to dance seven days a week if you would like to be a professional dancer. So we have adjusted that accordingly for her. So what does it look like? Well, she’s babysitting, she’s volunteering, she works as a helper at her dance studio. So there are other ways she’s getting those same life lessons, but it doesn’t look exactly how it looked for our older two who were lifeguards at the recreation center down the street. Their schedules have allowed for that a little bit more. So you look at your values, you look at your child, you look at what’s working for your family, and you have to be flexible. We have had a similar thing with our son.

You asked about extracurricular activities. I think as a professional, my professional recommendation is to enroll your kids, if you have the time, the resources, the interest, in one activity for their brain and one activity for their body. So what that might look like is somebody does baseball and chess club, or gymnastics and violin, or theatre and running track, but especially as little kids, expose them to lots and lots of things. And I remember we kind of had this rule that you have to move your body. You have to be in some sort of sport or physical activity. It doesn’t have to be a team sport, it doesn’t have to be football or baseball. It could be Taekwondo, or walking, or running, but you had to move your body. All my kids are tiny, but my middle son, he is very athletic. But when he got to high school, and he was 97 pounds playing lacrosse, which he was great at, he was fast, but he was not big. And Nicole, he was getting the pulp beat out of him. He was getting concussions. It was not safe for him. And so he came to us and said, “I love sports, but please don’t make me play.” And that was our rule. You had to play a sport in high school. It was not right for him. And so we had to adjust that and say, “Okay, as long as you are going to do other things that are healthy for you.” And so, when I talk about that family values exercise, it certainly shouldn’t be this rigid template that you put on all kids, because kids are going to have special needs, kids are going to have academic challenges, or physical challenges, or emotional health challenges, and you look at that child and say, “Okay, this kid needs it to be a little bit different for them. But how can we still have those values show up in other ways?” So they may not get a job at 15, but they might do volunteer work or take a leadership role. They may not play a sport in high school, but they go down the street on the weekend and work out at our weekly YMCA. So I think being flexible, being open, listening to your children, listening to your partner, and then constantly re-examining your values because they change too.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens
So true. And the thing that I say to families, it’s coming to my mind as you are speaking, is things to be fair, aren’t necessarily equal, especially where there are multiple kids in the family. Everybody’s needs get met. That doesn’t mean it always looks the same. And I think especially when you have kids with challenges with disabilities, that is really important to have as a value for your family, that everybody in this family gets what they need, and that may not always look the same. But also one of the things that you talked about was family time, and I think that is an important barometer and value that most parents I work with have that gets totally sidelined in the quest to get all of the school stuff done and do all of the activities and all the therapies and all this, and suddenly everybody’s burned out and stressed and things aren’t feeling good in the family dynamics, and it’s like, well, you’ve totally lost that connection. You are so busy meeting all of these expectations, and doing all these things that you think you have to do, that you’ve totally sacrificed quality time together as a family, decompression time for your kids and for you. And I see that as a real issue for a lot of families today.

Dr. Kim Swales
I do too. And it’s really hard when you have multiple kids going multiple directions, and you are so busy, and your partner is busy with their job, and you have things to do. I just think that it’s really important to take a look at the family time and protect it. Gosh, I feel like I’m sounding like we were so rigid and had so many rules, but hopefully, my flexibility is showing through too. But one time that was not negotiable, particularly as my older ones got into high school was Sunday afternoon and evening. We tried to have dinner together every single night, and we would adjust it around gymnastic schedules, and dance, and lacrosse, and water polo. Most nights, we succeeded. But the one night—as they get to where they are driving and their friends become more important, they are out all the time. But Sunday night was never allowed. Everybody kind of had to be here for Sunday night dinner. Of course, if something major came up—but we didn’t go to birthday parties on Sunday nights and we didn’t hang out with our friends on Sunday nights. That was sort of family time. And then just family traditions. I love family traditions, my kids tease me.

My oldest son, his nickname is Will “Tradition” Swales, because he is 24 and he makes all these traditions with his friends. But when you have family traditions, they are a way of really protecting that family time and creating special memories. And I do think, back to your question about boundaries, is that you have to be really clear, really kind, and unapologetic. I did not apologize to people when we missed things. I mean, I might say “I’m sorry, we can’t make it, but Sunday night is our family time.” And then I let it go. I didn’t carry it around with me because there were six days of the week that we were accessible to other people, or our kids could go to parties. But that one time, I was really clear, really kind, and pretty unapologetic about, “This comes first.”

Dr. Nicole Beurkens
That is so challenging for people to do, so let’s talk about a couple of specific things around boundaries with that. So let’s say parents realize that the way the school is handling homework for their child is just not working. The child is bringing all this work home. It’s creating a lot of discord, the quality of their family time together in the evenings is sacrificed. Maybe their child isn’t able to engage in other activities that align with their family values, like having time to play outside or do a sport, or whatever. And I know you and I both navigated this personally with our own kids. And I would just love to have you share because this is an area, anything related to the school, but particularly on homework where I think parents feel like “Well, I can’t set a boundary around that. We don’t have any control here. We are just at the mercy of whatever comes home in our child’s backpack.” And I’d love to have you speak about how you have thought about or set boundaries around that in your own life and how you recommend for parents to do that.

Dr. Kim Swales
Yeah, I think when you start to see that your family is spiraling out of control or out of balance, you have to take a step back and say “What is this? What is happening here? Is it homework? Are we on too many travel teams? Are we socially over extended?” But to talk about the homework or the school projects part, I have seen it. And I have shared with you that one of the things we opted out of once was the science fair. Our school did a big science fair every year like from second through fifth grade, and it had just gotten too much. It was causing a lot of discord in our family, and a lot of stress, and a lot of aggravation, and I simply made an appointment with the person who was in charge of the science fair at our school, and I went in and I explained it. My husband is a scientist, we belong to the Science Museum, our children are getting lots of science. I didn’t feel like we needed to do another science fair project. I didn’t feel like it fit. We didn’t have the time it was just causing stress. And I went in just like I’m talking to you, and I explained what our situation was and why I didn’t fit in, and I said, “We are not going to be participating in it this year, we are going to opt-out.” And I looked up, I did the research, I knew that that was possible, even if your school district doesn’t state that it’s possible, though, you can still always ask and make it possible. They don’t get to tell you what you do at home. But I, in my case, brought that in and said, “I see that anything done outside of school can’t count toward their grade, it doesn’t have to be graded.” So we discussed other options, and we came up with an option that my daughter would research something she was interested in scientifically and do a little presentation in front of the class. If she had major anxiety, I think this was fourth grade about speaking in front of the class at fourth grade, I would have said, “Well, could she write a paper instead?”
You kind of look at what is best. And not that we are trying to get our kids out of things that they are going to benefit from. It’s looking at what is the benefit-cost ratio, and one of my big things is, I personally do not believe that kids should be on screens when the school day ends to do more work. And so we opted out of any homework that was involved on screens. I was in favor of them reading, I was in favor of them practicing their math facts, going through flashcards. I was not in favor of them playing math games and doing reading games online. I wanted them outside, I wanted them engaging in the real world, talking to me, talking to their siblings, talking to their friends. I wanted them to have time for those other activities. And similarly, at that stage, I went in to the teacher and I just said at our scheduled parent conference, “I’m not comfortable with my kids being on added screen time, so we will do spelling homework, but we are going to do paper and pencil spelling homework. We will write our sentences rather than playing the spelling games online.” And when you go in with that, be kind, be clear, be unapologetic. It worked. It worked for me and it works for the parents I work with. It’s when you go in ranting and raving and trying to undermine the administrators or change everything, that you really are going to come across opposition.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens
Yeah, I agree. And that has been my experience as well. And I think for parents to be aware, you can have control over these things, and you can collaborate with schools, or whoever you are dealing with, to come up with a plan that is going to better meet the needs of your child and your family. It should never be the case that homework, or science fair, or sports, or whatever else undermines and sabotages the values that you really have for your family, for your child, in that mission of raising them to be the kind of person that you want to be. The boundary-setting around that can be hard, and I love that you have given some examples of how you talk about that: To be clear, to be kind, but unapologetic. And that is tough. Another piece when I see this boundary stuff come up is maybe with parents in relation to other family members, or friends, or even social media comment sections, or whatever. And you had a really lovely post about that recently around: Is where we are spending our energy, our emotional energy, and our time aligned with the values that we have for ourselves, our family for our kids? Or are we allowing ourselves to get drawn into the arguments, the negotiations, the gritting of our teeth and smiling with our mother-in-law even though we don’t want to be smiling?
Are we allowing other people and other things to really take over our emotions and our time, and then that gets in the way of living out the values that we have, and so, I’d love to hear your opinion on that if you see that as an issue also, and maybe some thoughts about how parents can set boundaries around that if they notice that, “Wow, I am getting sucked into everyone’s everything and I am sacrificing my own beliefs or values or how I want to spend my time or not spend my time, for the sake of other people.”

Dr. Kim Swales
I love that question. This kind of goes back to the last question and the prior question. I wrote down one of the little tricks, and I don’t know where I got it, but I wrote it down as we were talking, is to start out, whether it’s with the teacher or your mother-in-law with “I know we both want what’s best for John. I know you want him to succeed, to be the best in the classroom, and that is what I want too.” Just like at the very beginning, where we were talking about getting parents on the same team rather than butting heads and being an opposition, get the teacher on your team. “I know you want what’s best for my daughter too, and she has dyslexia. So spelling on a screen is not best for her.” Mother-in-law, “I know you want what is best for our kids, and waking up in their own bed on Christmas morning and then coming over to your house later in the day is really what’s best for them.” So start with the presumption that the other person wants what is best for your relationship too, and tell them because we all forget.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens
Oh, so good. Yeah. So practical and tangible. You said that. I was like, “Yeah, that is great.” It frames it in a way that just takes so much off the air out of contentiousness. It’s like we have a shared goal. Whether you think they do or not, say it anyway. You are framing it that way, you are giving them the benefit of the doubt. And I think that is so powerful than for parents being able to set the boundaries they want to set around that with less guilt.

Dr. Kim Swales
Yeah. I think we all do this sometimes. My body gives me a very clear signal, unfortunately, when I’m feeling too much adrenaline. I used to think it was just when I was anxious, but I cough. That is why I have been sipping on the water the whole time. It happens when I’m excited like I am now to talk to you, it happens when I’m stressed, it happens when my nervous system is getting dysregulated. And so for me, it’s taken me 50 years to figure that out. Honestly, it’s kind of a new symptom, but my body tells me when I feel that little cough, that little tickle in my throat, I step back and I think, “okay, this is triggering something in me.” It’s like I said, sometimes it’s good. Sometimes I’m just really excited like right now to talk to you and I’m happy. But sometimes I’m like, “This conversation is not healthy for me, this is not good for me, this is making me anxious, this is making me stressed.” And I think today our society is so on edge, Nicole, everything’s an argument. Everything’s a battle. I mean, you can see it on the most simple Instagram post, or the most simple thing, everybody’s fighting about everything. And years ago, I would get pulled in. Years ago, when I was younger, I really felt like I had to prove my point. I really felt like I needed to be right or to say the last word, and I would engage.

Now I feel like there is no point. So I ask myself, “Will I remember this tomorrow? Will I remember this next week? Am I going to change the other person’s mind? Is it worth my time to engage online or in real life with someone I don’t know, or someone that is not really important to me?” It happened very recently with a very good friend, and I really debated about whether to share this, but I’m going to share it because I think every single person listening can feel this, whatever side you are on. So I’m not making a judgment about sides. But recently, someone reached out to me, a really good long-term friend, about their opinion versus my opinion on masks and vaccines. And at first, I didn’t respond, I just ignored the messages because I didn’t want to get involved or engaged, but they weren’t stopping. And so finally, I reached out and I said, “I love you. I love you so much. I love our friendship. But I don’t agree with you on this, and us talking about it, I’m probably not going to change your mind, and you are probably not going to change my mind. And I try to remember all the things I love about you, and I would not want this to hurt our relationship. So let’s just not talk about it.” And I didn’t even want to say let’s agree to disagree because that is still giving the spotlight to the disagreement, it’s still focusing on how we are different and what we see differently. And I saw a quote recently, “It’s really hard to hate someone when you look in their eyes or when you look at their heart.” And you can really disagree with somebody and still really love them. And so that is what I have tried to do.

Now, having said that, sometimes the issues are so big that the relationship is not worth it. I have had a client who has a very, very racist family member, and she cannot, in her own ethical way, be in a relationship with this person who is really, really racist. And so yes, sometimes you have to end the relationship. But if you can look at all the things you love about the person and just put that other thing up on the shelf, then you can kind of keep moving forward. And you can do that with a person online, you can do that with your mother-in-law, you can do that with your spouse. Remind yourself of the things about them that you really do love.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens
Such powerful insight, and I appreciate you sharing that example. I think this is exactly what we need a whole lot more of in the world right now. And I think a lot of the parents listening have experienced this because of having kids with sometimes very severe challenges. This sense of being in opposition, or everybody having opinions, or having to justify or whatever. And this idea that we don’t have to engage with all of it, we can listen to our bodies, the signals that our body is sending, we can step back and really think about when and how we engage. And we can set boundaries around people, or topics, or things for the good of ourselves and our kids. I think that is really, really wise advice and a really practical approach. So I appreciate you sharing that.

Dr. Kim Swales
I want to say one more thing about it. You and everyone can interpret this and substitute this for whatever their belief system is, but a long time ago, a friend said to me, “Kim, you have an audience of one.” And for me, personally, that is God. For other people, it may be their spouse, it might be their family, it might be the universe. Who knows? But think of who your “audience” is, and check-in with that. So for me, I use this example in a lot of podcasts, but my middle son is taking a break from college. And I have had so many people say, “How can you let him do that? How can you let him do that?” And that is a whole other conversation I won’t go into, but I have come to accept it. But I shared this with you actually, after last time. I have kind of come to say to people, “Do you think God really cares if he has a college degree?” So for me, I mean, that was a part of my way of making peace with it. I have to think of who am I actually accountable to? For me, it’s myself, my immediate family, and God. For other people, that looks different. I have no judgment of how that looks for you, but ask yourself that question: Who are you accountable to? You are not accountable to your neighbor. You are not accountable to the principal. You are not accountable to your parents, or your mother-in-law, or anybody else. You are accountable to your immediate people. And if you are doing right by them, you are doing right.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens
So good, Kim! We could spend hours talking and talking. I know we have to wrap up, and this has been so great. So many things we covered, some really good themes that emerged throughout. So I just know that this was so valuable for all of our listeners. I want to make sure that they know where they can find out more information about you, your work, the things you are doing in the world.

Dr. Kim Swales
So I have a podcast called Connecting with Dr. Kim Swales, and I think if people like your podcast, they will like mine. We are very aligned and talk about similar things. My podcast is pretty new. I think I’m on episode 44 or 45. It’s doing really well, and we talk about connection in everything: In food, in marriage, in parenting, in friendship, siblings, anyway that you connect. And I think that is so important in the world. I have a professional Instagram page that is @drkimswales, and I post parenting, relationship, marriage, friendship, and just kind of life, all the things we are talking about, a lot about boundaries, and then I have a website, kimswales.com, which is growing. So I will be posting articles on there, but it has links to all the podcasts. And mostly I’m in private practice, and so a lot of my time is spent there. But it’s a seed for kind of everything else that I write about and talk about. I see what my clients are struggling with and then that is what I kind of try to help everybody else with.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens
Absolutely. So definitely, Kim’s Instagram is great. Go check her out on Instagram. Definitely subscribe to her podcast so you don’t miss those episodes. Thank you, Kim, so much for taking the time to be with us today. So appreciate you, what you are doing in the world, and for taking the time to be with us.

Dr. Kim Swales
Thank you. I’m a big fan of yours. And I am just very grateful to talk to you today.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens 

Thank you, and thanks, as always, to all of you for being here and for listening. We will catch you back here next time.