Ep. 1 with Kelsey Wesley - Nov 12, 2024
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Emry Kettle: Hi welcome to Parenting for Thought, the podcast that talks about things parents want to know, or maybe not, but we're here anyways.
Kelsey: I love it.
Emry Kettle: I'm Emry Kettle. I am a child behavior specialist. I studied early childhood development, so think everything from pregnancy through about nine years old. I'm going to dive heavy into the psych and how kids minds Absorb and interpret information, how they interpret the world around them, why it matters that parents know these things, and why I think that we failed parents miserably, and I want to get you all the information that you need so that you can raise happy, healthy kids and have happy, healthy families. For our first podcast ever I've got Kelsey Wesley here who Kelsey, do we want to tell the people how we met?
Kelsey: Yes, absolutely. Go for it. Oh my God. Yeah.
Emry Kettle: So for the last, oh my God, has it been two years now? Two years. Two years this month! I have been taking care of the coolest kid in the world. I'm pretty sure mom has no problem with me sharing names. What do you think?
Kelsey: Oh gosh. Kiki won't care.
Emry Kettle: So this kiddo's name is Magnus and man if he isn't the light of my life. And so his mom knew Kelsey from what, spin class in Germany?
Kelsey: Yeah, we were both Americans living in Munich at the time and met at a spin class and immediately got along and became friends, basically. And after she moved away from Munich, which I was very upset about, and moved to Vienna, though, which then she got to then meet you which all ended up okay, and now here we are.
Right. Somehow, the fact that she moved and abandoned me allowed us to then now be connected and be friends.
Emry Kettle: Yeah so I've been Magnus’ person for two years now and, a few months ago I'm doing this whole career pivot where I said I'm tired of bringing my message to one family at a time. This has taken too long. Parents need more. I want to get my message out there. I did this whole pivot to running my own business, being a solopreneur. I speak entrepreneur speak now. It's a whole language and Then at some point Kiki was like, Oh, I have a friend who's a coach too. Maybe, maybe there's something there for you two. And that very same day I wrote, Kelsey I looked at your Instagram and I was like, Oh my God, This person's messaging is so on point and amazing and look at them go. So I'm thinking Kelsey doesn't have time for me. Kelsey did have time for me. Spoiler Alert!
Kelsey: alert! I'm so glad I made time for you. I'm so glad I made time.
Emry Kettle: In your super busy coaching day. Yeah so we connected and then through our conversation, even figured out that we were at Magnus's parents wedding together and didn't realize it.
Kelsey: So funny, man. So funny.
Emry Kettle: It was written in the stars way ahead of time. .
Kelsey: Exactly. Yeah. I mean, the universe does that though. Sometimes, right? They throw people together. And then now, I mean, it's what I love about our relationship too, is we are talking back and forth to each other anyways, about certain subjects in our own area of expertise. And so it feels so right to be able to be on this, in this setting with you in a little bit more of a formal way and to see where kind of magic comes out of it.
Emry Kettle: Yes. And it was such a values match, which is the number one thing for me before I go into a collab with anybody I'm very values led. . And I want to make it so super clear to the people that I'm servicing that I'm going to be -in a positive way- the gatekeeper and make sure that they're not going to be receiving yucky messaging about parenting.
If it's not empowering, if it's not child focused, if it's not relationship centered, none of that is coming through.
Kelsey: Yeah. . .Â
Emry Kettle: So, Kelsey, you being a confidence coach -which I promise I'll let you get into that in just a minute- for me, by the time parents are coming to me, they're usually so ragged, and they're so tired and they're exhausted and they've tried that they know how or that they've had available to them and their confidence is shot. Probably your typical clients aren't coming to you to become confident parents. But this is the magic of a collab, right? Is you saying this is what I see and me saying this is what I see. And this is the crossover in our Venn diagram. This is what we can bring people.
Kelsey: Well, exactly. And I mean, confidence is one of those things. And the reason that I chose confidence is kind of the area of expertise was not only my, my background and kind of the things that I've overcome in my life, but it was also because I, you see the effects of low self confidence. In all areas of life, and it's one of those things that, you know, if you are low confident in, you know, your job and you're feeling a bit like shit, right, then you're going to feel it's that's going to sneak into your parenting.
And if you're feeling low confident there, that that's going to sneak into your relationships. So it's one of those things that touches every single part of our lives. The good news though, is that if we work on it. You can also see the benefit of confidence of higher self confidence start to spread out as well across your life.
So if you start to build on your relationship or your confidence as a parent, then you start to feel more confidence in your relationship as like an individual human being. Right? And if you feel better in your relationship, then you feel better in your job. So it's like one of these things that, You know, I feel like one of the biggest, one of the biggest problems we have in this world is untapped human potential because we don't believe in ourselves.
And we give those lack of good self belief onto our children. And it just continues this perpetual cycle. And I just feel like if we were able to give everybody just like 10% More confidence in what it is that they're doing, whatever it is that they want to do, however it is they want to live their life.
We would have so many more, like just better human beings out there. And we'd have more confident. We'd have more tolerant. We'd have more kind. We'd have our, I mean, all of these things, it would solve so many issues. In my opinion, because we're all just little kids running around who are injured inside.
And if we were to help re parent ourselves and become confident, we wouldn't pass on that shit to the next generation.
Emry Kettle: Kelsey, you're just speaking my language, right?
Kelsey: A rant over mic dropped. Okay, we're done. No, I'm kidding.
Emry Kettle: I'm also here thinking about how reactive we are, when we are lacking that self confidence, when we are hurt and injured. But before we get into that, Kelsey, can you for the people who have no idea who you are, who are you? Why areÂ
you amazing?
Kelsey: Yes, of course. I should probably start there before going off into rants. Yeah. So you know,
Emry Kettle: Now they gotta know.
Kelsey: right here we are. So, you know, I My background is very non typical, I think, for many people. I, for those of you who are maybe watching the video recording, might see that I have scars on my face. Obviously, I'm wearing some makeup, but I do not have a symmetrical face.
I have a square face. Visual facial difference. I was born with something called a giant nevus, which is a large birthmark. They say that covered the entire right side of my face. And my parents decided for both cosmetic and for, for for medical reasons to remove the birthmark. So I've had since.
Age eight months old have had 17 surgeries to remove the birthmark and reconstruct The right side of my face. I've had countless skin grafts. I've had so many Treatments, you know scar removal treatment Cosmetic tattooing. I mean everything that you can think of right to bring us to where we are a little bit today these are the scars you see the scars that you don't see Are the years and years and years of being A kid and then a teenager and an adult who looks different.
And if there's anything we know is that kids can be brutal, man. Luckily, you know, in, in my instance, I, I think I was quite lucky, or at least I don't rememberÂ
so many challenges. I remember a few instances, but, you know,
I was.
quite lucky that I think my parents did a really good job in giving me kind of the foundational tools to have a good sense of self and self esteem.
But there was still a very long battle and just process for me to gain a level of self acceptance with the way that I look and to not only just tolerate it, but actually celebrate it and then bringing it into become kind of a core center of my being. I mean, it's the key story I tell. It's the reason I do confidence coaching because if I, If I can look the way that I look and still show up being confident and feeling good and being this lighthouse of energy, which I get feedback often that I am,
I become the source of inspiration for other people.
Emry Kettle: And,Â
Kelsey: I've tried out so many different methodologies for myself to figure out what works and what doesn't. And so the combination of
my personal experience as well with the traditional coaching educations and the work i've done in corporate environments with leaders and employee wellness and all of these different types of things.
say
have kind of been ableÂ
to come together to allow me to,Â
step into this
role now as a confidence coach.
So, and confidence is not just about kind of, Oh, do I feel good in my body? Although that is a very important part of it. Do I like what I see in the mirror? But to me, actually, confidence is much broader, right?
It's how do I approach my career? Do I feel good about the life I'm living? Am I living in alignment with my values? Right? So the it's confidence is just kind of a bit of the branding, but there's so many layers underneath it there because my vision is to help people just build that unshakable confidence each they can live their lives boldly and fearlessly in whatever way that they want, right?
It's not my position to judge. So upon that's a little bit of the, I guess
to of my story, but I also come from a corporate background. So as much. years as a consultant working with C level people, so I, I bring a lot of structure and knowledge into things as well, which is yeah.
these different worlds. But for me, Everything that I do is, is not only for, for it to help the adults, but to help also raise another generation of children who we're not giving them the shit that we've been dealing with.
That was a big part of my personal journey, was to make sure that I didn't give away some of the baggage I had, that I healed that so when the time comes that I have a child, I'm not going to give them some of that stuff. Mm hmm. Yeah.
Emry Kettle: Thank you for sharing with us. I there's two pieces here that I want to address. Number one is if we take this bodily confidence idea. And, very specifically, parents of girls, right? content warning, we're gonna talk about this!
Kelsey: Yeah, it's such a good example. It's such a good example.
Emry Kettle: It's so difficult, and I see this, and I hear this, and it absolutely breaks me. To hear parents or grandparents or aunts and uncles, people in the extended family talking to girls about their bodies.
Kelsey: Absolutely. Yeah.
Emry Kettle: someone whose confidence is in a developmental stage, not to say that we're not, that our confidence isn't permanently in a developmental stage, because I do think it is, it's a very different kind of development when you're a child, right? When we're giving them this messaging and we're teaching them that the foundation of their existence. Their bodily presence in this world is something that is undesirable off of center. You experienced this for sure.
Kelsey: 100%. And I mean, I mean, even, and it's so interesting, right? Because like, you know, my, my scars were always really accepted, right? It's like, okay, she was just born this way. She looks different. It's fine. And it's interesting because especially with the bodily confidence, you, you have a very big range, especially for young girls, but also boys too.
I think we don't want to leave them out.
Emry Kettle: All genders.
Kelsey: all genders, really all genders. You have some parents, right? Who are very, very nitpicky about what their kids look like, their body looks like, which is one level of it. And I never had that, right? I never had my parents being very like this or my grandparents or anything.
But what I did have was an awareness of how my mother felt about her body.
Emry Kettle: Oh. The
Kelsey: how she felt, because my grandmother would comment, and actually she would be saying very, very flattering things. She would say, Oh, you're looking so skinny. You're looking so, so thin. And, and when her, the intention was actually very kind it, it, it, luckily I was older.
Emry Kettle: is
Kelsey: Yeah, right. I mean, I mean, I I, I knew that it was in good intentions, but it was one of these things you had this deep awareness that my mother did not feel good about her body. She was always on some sort of diet. She was always trying to to change something. And it was just. So it was never directed at me, but I always knew that there was a sense of discomfort within her.
And then you would get comments, even on, even when they are positive about it. And you, I remember sitting there, luckily I was a bit older when these comments were coming to me. But I ended up having to talk to my grandmother at one point and say, Look, I don't appreciate those comments because that's not, it's not a compliment to me.
Emry Kettle: Yes,
Kelsey: Like, I, I feel good in my body, like, but I, I don't need, this isn't some, some value thing of, oh, I'm skinny, therefore I'm looking beautiful. I should be beautiful no matter what. So it's this interesting boundary I had to set up too with my friggin 82 year old grip.
Emry Kettle: well, and I've been thinking about intersectionality this entire time as well, because you are a slender person, which does give you. Some privilege in this world. We
Kelsey: Totally. Yeah. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Totally.
Emry Kettle: a lot of boxes here, so someone like you can. unquote, get away with some kind of a visual difference a lot easier than someone who is fat, someone who is not white, someone who is poor. There's intersectional, intersectionality never not be a part of this conversation, right? And,
Kelsey: That's funny.
Emry Kettle: we're saying that as two white people. Yeah, I just, I think that always deserves to be acknowledged.
Kelsey: exactly. But, but I think that, you know, the key, the key thing that is really there for that, which was something, you know, when we first started, we're talking about doing this podcast, I was thinking a lot about is, you know, there's always this question of like, well, how do I raise? Confident children, and it's about being a confident parent.
Like if there are insecurities that you have about yourself those are gonna be turned up to dial to level 10. When you're a parent and you, you talked previously about this, you know, this reactivity to things, you know, and there's always this question that I talk to my clients a lot about is like, are you reacting or are you responding?
To something
Emry Kettle: Every time I say those words constantly,
Kelsey: like, oh,
Emry Kettle: core value teachings.
Kelsey: for sure, man. And, and, and, and how are your, how is your reactivity being rooted in trying to sort of protect your ego or protect this little kid inside yourself that feels not confident, right? And, and we do so many things to try to cover up or mask that. Confident that low that lack of confidence, right?
And we try to find it in externality So we try to find it in our job if we just over perform and get this really high, you know Wage and a great promotion and we're doing really well And we have the car and all these things like that Then it's finally going to fill This internal hole that we have and what we come to find out is you climb the mountain and you still have this injured Child inside you who is trying to seek validation outside of us, you know, or you finally get the body that you like, and you still feel this way
Emry Kettle: Yeah.
Kelsey: happens all the time or you have, you start to project out onto your children that, oh, now they're the, you know, they are the top football player.
They're now the top student, you know, you're now living through them and to try to fill some hole.
Emry Kettle: without knowing. Oh, sorry.
Kelsey: Yeah, yeah, yeah, sometimes without even knowing exactly, but it's all to try to cover up this feeling of this with fear of inadequacy that I am not enough as I am and that is the foundation of low self confidence.
This belief that I am not enough.
Emry Kettle: Oh, wow. If we could all just love ourselves in that way.Â
Kelsey: Yeah, I mean, it's fucking hard, man. Like it's so when you with all of the external stuff, it's so hard, you know, when we think about like self confidence or self esteem, you know, there's really you. Like when you read like the literature and you know, it's all sorts of, you know, academics who have talked about this, but there's really kind of two key pillars to.
Good self confidence, right? One is this belief that I have that I like can figure things out Right that I can I believe in my abilities I can overcome the challenges in my life, right? There's a certain level of self trust that comes into this and the second piece is this Belief that I am worthy of happiness and I'm worthy of good things And so often we, we focus a lot on the abilities, right?
So that, you know, that, that type of confidence kind of ebbs and flows with the things we've learned, right? Sometimes we have situational high confidence because we've done that task many times. So we feel good about it. And then situational low self confidence. We're a new entrepreneur. We're trying to figure out how to be like everything.
And we have a little bit of low self confidence, right? So that's That's quite normal though. But if you have an underlying belief that you know what, like this is hard, but I trust myself enough to figure it out. That's a very good foundation of confidence. The other piece though is so important, which is this belief that I am worthy.
Of good things that I am intrinsically where that I do not need to earn it that I do not need to work for it that I do not need to prove something but I myself am simply worthy of good things because I am a good human being right that is the piece that we're constantly trying to like run after and it's it's if you don't have one of them then there's always it's you're going to be on shaky foundation.
Emry Kettle: I would love to talk about the, that second piece that I, wanted to bring up a bit ago, I think now is a good time for that I cannot tell you how many times I have modeled a behavior for parents. For example, giving directions to a child. It's time to clean up now, right? Happens a hundred times a day, every single day. And. Parents go into direction giving with such a lack of confidence that it yields such poor results that then takes their confidence and the cycle continues. Whereas I'm very practiced, I've been doing this for so long, decades, that I've practiced it way more times than a parent has practiced it because I've been doing it for more years. So I go into it with the expectation of, I know I'm speaking clearly. I know I'm setting a clear expectation. I know that this child developmentally understands what I'm saying, and has the physical capacity to complete the task. So I come into it going, Alright, it's clean up time. Here's the expectations.
Ready, go. And they do it. And the parents will look at me like I'm a witch. And
Kelsey: We've been trying to do this for ages!
Emry Kettle: How did you get my child to do this thing that I've been desperately begging them to do? And I go like literally, sometimes it's just the way that I look at them, or it's my tone. It's this confidence piece where I'm going, I know exactly what I'm doing and why. And why it's fine for this child, right? So because my confidence with kids is rooted in something. means that confidence is unshakable and that
Kelsey: Mm hmm.
Emry Kettle: I make a mistake, I know how to correct it. I know how to handle my mistakes without it shaking the foundation
Kelsey: Mm hmm.
Emry Kettle: I'm doing with that kid.
So if I give them a task that they can't accomplish, that they're not ready for, so if I say, clean up all your blocks, but there's too many blocks and the kid doesn't have that focus level yet, I can step in the middle of that and switch it up and go, Oh! Wow, you cleaned up half the blocks.
That was great. I'll clean up that other half. I can switch it up. I can change it around. and none of the learning or the discipline gets lost.
Kelsey: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It's, you know, it's this, it reminds me so much, you know, of, of parents and as they're stepping into this new phase of their life and they're in the, all these transitions and everything's new and you're not really sure where the kid is. In everything
That there is this expectation out there of this perfect parent that if I don't know how to perfectly do it right away, that like, I'm going to totally mess up and I'm going to mess up my kid or something.
And I feel like so much of confidence comes from anywhere in your life is comes from the ability for you to give yourself the space to make mistakes. To fail, to pick back up, to apologize for something, to not be a perfect parent. Because actually, you know, if your child sees you just being perfect all the time, they're never going to learn the skill of being human and allowing themselves to be human and, and what it looks like to apologize for mistakes.
Like there's so much value to that. And yet we don't, as adults almost create. Our own space within ourselves to make those mistakes and to flow with things, you know, to flow with things and to pivot and to come back, right? There's this lightness to it.
Emry Kettle: Yep. Wow. I, this is such a good conversation that it's bringing up so many things for me and I'm sitting here going, which direction do I want to go? Do we need to have a part two?
Kelsey: Always, always. I mean, this is what happens, right?
Emry Kettle: To share with my audience and maybe even to yours, part of the reason that I'm doing the work that I'm doing is because of the way that I was raised, right?
You're talking about a parent who needs to be perfect. Gosh, if that just wasn't my mom all over and her need to be. Super performative and have this facade of perfection taught me that anything less than that was not worthy. And it took me. ages. One of the things that I still do now to maintain that is I'll do art or I'll do some kind of a craft, like a childhood craft, just cutting out, like doing a collage. And I do it with a childlike mind. I go into it for the fun of creating, remind myself that the goal is not to turn out a perfect product. The goal is to enjoy myself.
Kelsey: Yeah, it's such an important component, you know, and, and this is something that I do, so I work with a lot of, you know, high performance people, right? They are, they are women or men or, or non binary who are up in their companies. You know, they're doing a lot of like very high pressure things and they want to have it all right. They want to have the job. I have the body.
They want to have the family. They want to have the, you know, the car, the house. Whatever it is, right. They're very high performers and and perfectionist. And one of the first things I do with them is inviting play into their lives. Because when you are used to getting your validation from outside of yourself, when you're used to getting the, okay, from your parents or from your boss or from whatever it is, you lose this childish.
Enthusiasm and this play that can come with it and actually the art of being confident in yourself is in so many ways and it has been for me has play has been a critical piece of this, this lightness right confidence is not supposed to feel heavy. It's actually supposed to feel light and airy and play is very much that it is light and airy.
So can we allow ourselves to go into new situations we've never been in with kind of just like, This little like mischievous sort of fun,
Emry Kettle: Love it!
Kelsey: behind our eyes where we're like, you're like, you know what? I have no idea how this is gonna turn, gonna turn out, but we're just gonna do it anyways and, and.
100%.
Emry Kettle: 100%!
Kelsey: that, that sense of lightness into anything that you do, you realize that like failure doesn't exist. Making a mistake as a parent is it isn't actually a mistake. It's a learning opportunity because I'll tell you what I. Never learn as much from my, my successes as I do from my failures and my mistakes.
I learn way more
Emry Kettle: Every time. Every
Kelsey: time, every single time. And so, and that's the thing. That's the, we, we want to teach our children not to fear mistakes or not to fear failure because there is always a pathway forward and there's always something to be learned.
Emry Kettle: Absolutely. Kelsey, I think it's written in stone now. We need to be doing a part two.
Kelsey: because we didn't even, we didn't even get into talking about how do you raise a confident kids, you know, with like, what are the key elements like, but, but, but it's, but again, like the, you know, confidence, confidence for your children starts with confidence in yourself. It's just, there's no other way to do it.
Emry Kettle: That's it. That's, the aha moment for today. If there was one thing that you wish someone would walk away today knowing, what would that be?Â
Kelsey: Them and their development. But I would really encourage people to carve out some space and some financial backing to support their own development because it is going to be the foundation for everything else that That they do, and they will not only see the benefit in their parenting, but they will also see the benefit in their relationship and their job and their career in their friendships in in their experience with themselves behind closed doors, because confidence.
It's an inside out job. And so you have to be willing to go in and confident children. They get that from parents modeling healthy, confident behaviors.
Emry Kettle: There's our mic drop.
Kelsey: There's our mic drop.
Emry Kettle: And so this ties in so nicely as we, we go into the final minutes of the podcast episode, which is this free workbook for anybody who signs up for my newsletter and exactly what you're saying is something that I offer in this workbook where it takes you through. The self reflection of first acknowledging what's happening in your home with your children, with your co parent, if there's one present, and with yourself. And if I could encourage every parent listening to give back to themselves as much as they are to give to their kids. Oh, man. What a world this would be. So where can people find you and what can they get from you?
Kelsey: Yes. Okay. So the best way to connect with me is usually on Instagram or LinkedIn. I'm at Kelsey Wesley coaching. You can also find me online my website Kelsey Wesley coaching. com. And I offer a lot of different things. Whether it's one on one coachings, I do a confidence coaching program that anybody who's looking to focus on confidence in any area of their life.
I focus a lot on relationship confidence as an individual, coming into a relationship, career confidence. Also potentially, you know, getting into some of these types of parenting confidence topics as well. And Yeah, and really just trying to to support people on their journey there I also do a lot of corporate stuff as well So running workshops on things around confidence on emotional intelligence emotional awareness I love doing topics around soft confidence as well, especially in the corporate world So learning how to be soft in your confidence.
You don't have to be hard and intense You can actually have this beautiful soft confidence as well. So I do workshops. So if anybody wants to connect, I do speaking gigs as well on the topic of confidence. So anything and everything to get the mission, to get the, you know, the, the mission and the, the, the thing out there, right.
So really help people live that, that confident life that they've always wanted to have.Â
Emry Kettle: I am Emry Kettle. You can find me at Emrykettle. com. I'm also on Insta, Emrykettle. coach. offering group coaching, webinars, workshops, I've got it all. All right, Kelsey, this is amazing. Thank you so much for joining me and stick around for part two, folks.
Kelsey: Thank you, Emry. I'm so honored that you asked me to do this one. Yeah, we're definitely going to have to do another one. I think that's the case. Yes. Amazing. All right. Cool.Â