Ep #103: Building a Strong Family with Joe and Mell Hashey

Mikki: Welcome to Co-Parenting with Confidence, a podcast for those courageous moms out there who want to move past the conflict and frustration of divorce and show up as the mom they truly want to be. My name's Mikki Gardner, I'm a certified life and conscious parenting coach with my own personal dose of co-parenting experience. Throughout my co-parenting journey, I have learned to become confident in who I am as a woman and a mother, and I'm here to help you do the same. If you're ready to learn what it takes to become a great co-parent and an amazing example to your children, well get ready and let's dive into today's episode. Mikki: Hi, and welcome back to the podcast. Today, I have a great interview. It was supposed to be with Joe and Mell from the Strong Family Project, but Joe had something going on. So Mell and I sat down for a great conversation. I was really excited about bringing this to you because I think this is one of those areas that we all need to talk about. Joe and Mell have created the Strong Family Project, and it is really a destination for parents who are looking to raise confident, independent and resilient children in a strong family environment. Everything that they do is to provide parents with tools and resources and the confidence to be able to navigate life. And listen, I know that you and I both know that a lot's come your way. When we're experiencing divorce and separation and co-parenting, it's because we've gone through a lot. Mikki: And I think that is exactly the time that we need to really get clear, get intentional and get very specific about the way that we're moving forward and what your family looks like. Just because it doesn't look like someone else's or the way that it used to, doesn't mean that you're not still a family, and so I hope that through the conversation with Mell and I, you can get some really unique ideas of how to strengthen your relationship with yourself, with your children and as a family unit. And don't worry, it's not as difficult as it seems, it's actually a lot of fun, and I hope you'll hear that in the conversation with Mell. So without further ado, let's get started. Mell, welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited to have this conversation with you today. Mell: Same here, I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for inviting me. Mikki: Yeah. This is a conversation that I've really been looking forward to because one of the things that I try to do on this podcast is, while yes, we're talking about divorce and we're talking about sort of separation, I love what you and Joe are doing to talk about family and bringing family together, and that's something that I think is so important, even as important after divorce is how you create that family atmosphere, that family feeling, and so I was really excited to bring you guys on today to have that conversation. So thank you for being here. I did give everyone your bio and all the big high-level information, but I'd really love for you to tell us what you guys are about, what your mission is and how you got here. Mell: I'd love to do that. So our mission truly is to help guide families on this path, we love calling it a path, 'cause we're all on a journey. It's not like you just take a step forward and you're there. It's a path and you might veer off and have to get pushed back on, but we've created this path to help guide families to raising confident, independent and resilient kids, 'cause truly, that's what we really want our kids to be. When they're grown up and they're out of the house, we want them to feel confident and be able to have the most successful life that they can. So it's called the Strong Family Path. The way we got there though, it's kind of interesting 'cause we didn't plan this, it happened organically over time, and just circumstances that life threw our way. Mell: So Joe and I have been married for almost 15 years, we have three boys ages 13, 11 and 5, and we were living what we thought was our best life, but it truly wasn't. So he was working as a teacher while I was a social worker, and then eventually we became entrepreneurs, well really he did, and I was kind of supporting him in that. And he was just noticing that he was working much more at his business than he was in the family, and often times I think we see families as a, "We'll figure it out when we get there, we'll kind of base it on whatever experience we had growing up," but we weren't putting enough energy as a couple and as parents into our family organization. And I would be home by myself a lot, often times people would say, "Well, you're kind of like a single mom because your husband's always at work." Mell: And he had to have that revelation, and what really pushed us was when COVID hit, we were in upstate New York, our companies had to close down for a long time, it was fitness facilities, and we thought to ourselves, "What if we can never reopen, what are we going to do?" So he suggested, being the big picture thinker that he is, he suggested that we move to somewhere more aligned with our values, and I truly panicked because I'm not the kind of person that moves. What do you mean? This is where we've grown up, this is where our families are, this is where grandparents are. However, as soon as... A couple of hours later, honestly, I started to get excited about the idea, about the potential of the opportunities that would arise, and the next morning we're printing out a list of the States and just seeing where we could go. Mell: And we ended up moving to Colorado, which is way further away than we ever anticipated, and over time, I'd say over the last six or seven years, we've started to implement these different ideas from business, like core values, like mission statements, goal setting, meetings in our family, and it might sound boring, but it gives us this amazing structure and it's created a really cool culture in our family that the kids really thrive in. And a couple of months ago, I'd say maybe six months now, someone had suggested to us who was visiting, they're like, "You do some cool things in your family, you should start a podcast." And yeah, it really... It wasn't like we were like, "We're going to turn this into a podcast. And it's this great thing." People were seeing that what we were doing was valuable, people who just would visit us and stay overnight or whatever. Mikki: I want to stop you there really quickly because I'd love for you to tell us maybe what are a couple of examples of what they saw. Mell: Great, so one of the biggest things is we make sure that we have dinner together as often as possible. So one of the steps of our Strong Family Path is family dinners. Having that time to come together kind of at the end of the day-ish, and if somebody was at work or at school, we have this time that we come together and just hang out and have fun, and we do implement some of our values during the family dinner. So one of our values is gratitude. So we go around the table every night and my 5-year-old can pick and choose the order of who shares what they're thankful for from the day. And just that structure of sitting down and not just talking about whatever, but actually making sure we share the gratitude, hanging out, talking about what the day is, just having fun together. Mell: I grew up watching the news during dinner, there wasn't really conversation, so we make sure that it's... We're sitting around the table, we're all talking with each other, we share the thankfulness, and some days it's more lively than others, just as any family is, but they appreciated that, and I think on top of that, another one of our steps is having a weekly family meeting, and whenever someone's here on a Saturday during our dinner, they're just part of it because we just do it no matter what, and the kids really look forward to it. Mell: So I think those two are the things that truly stand out, and when we mention our family values, we have them on the wall, people might ask us, "Hey, what's that about?" And then we'll explain. We actually have the kids explain it, 'cause at this point they can do a better job than we even can. But those are some of the things that they notice when they're sitting at the dinner table with us, 'cause oftentimes we'll invite people for dinner, and that's what we do. No matter who it is, if it's a kid's friend, I'll ask my 11-year-old, "Hey, share with your friend what we do at dinner, and then we'll do it." And we just include them in it. Mikki: Oh, that's beautiful. Okay, and I didn't mean to interrupt you, so you guys actually started this into a podcast, so tell us about that evolution. Mell: Sure, so once we decided to do that, now, my husband's always been more outspoken, he's used to being in front of the camera, I'm always behind the scenes. I do the book work for the business. I'm in the background. So it was a big step for me to come forward and really be able to see that I can build some confidence in that. I just listen to your podcast about speaking up, and I related to it in that way because I was so used to just kind of sitting back and watching. So once I decided I could do this, we could do this as a couple, we really went through the things that we do and documented them. So we wrote them down. Those seven different steps of the path, and then decided to start out our podcast with seven episodes explaining each piece, and then ever since then, we do a 10-minute Tuesday and then a full length Thursday, where we go through some kind of a parenting topic, and we also get questions from listeners and try to answer those whenever we can. Mikki: Perfect. So can you tell us about the seven steps? Mell: Of course, so the first step, which is really the foundation for everything we do, is having family core values. And this was something that Joe really took from business. Oftentimes businesses have a mission statement and core values. But the difference is, do they just hang out on a wall or does the business truly implement them in their day-to-day workings? So we wanted something that we could filter all of our family decisions through. So Joe and I went through a process and I can just quickly review it 'cause I think it is valuable. Each of us wrote down everything that we find valuable, so whatever value it might be, it could be gratitude, it could be reading, and anybody could do this even as an individual, even if you don't have kids. Mell: And we sat down together after a few weeks and each of us had like 50 things and our goal was to whittle it down to three to seven because we wanted it to be memorable. If you have got like 15, no one's going to remember. So we have six, but we went through this process called Kill, Keep or combine. So we would cross off the list or kill things that just weren't core values, they could be important to us, but they're not things that we're going to fight to stand for, and then we would combine things if we had similar things in our list and then obviously keep the rest and just had a real fruitful deep conversations about what are the things that we really want to stand for. And the cool thing about this is every family's values can be different. We love our values, people often want to hear what ours are, and I'd be happy to share, but it's really... Mikki: That'd be great. Mell: Yeah, it's really whatever your family finds most important. So ours are having gratitude, which I mentioned. Being genuine, there's so much uniqueness in every individual inside the family unit. Being adventurous and not just hiking and going outside, but doing things outside of your comfort zone. Having personal development. So we always want the kids to see we're forever learners. Just because you finish school or something doesn't mean you stop learning. We're always trying to teach them that there's more to life outside of just school. School's a great piece, but there's so much more to learn. And personal accountability. We tried our best to not play the blame game, we want everyone to be individually accountable for their own actions, and the really cool thing about having these values is we're able to use the language of the values. So if our kids are having a spat, I'll say, "Hey, Logan, I want you to be accountable. What was your piece in this argument?" So it keeps things calmer and they already know that language and it's almost more sophisticated than, "Whose fault was this?" You know what I mean? Mikki: Absolutely, yeah. Mell: And finally, my favorite one is wanting to be together. So some day the kids will be on their own and we want them to still be a part of this family unit, and this really plays out in fun ways, so we recently started to do a porch hang out after dinner, and it really started with just my husband and I sitting out there, and eventually the kids would come and join us and we would find some kind of fun game to play or Charades or anything that would come up, and we just see that value playing out that we want to be together. We live under the same roof but that doesn't mean that we want to be together, right? So we try to really value that time, and even if I sometimes want time to myself, if a kid comes in and starts to see what I'm up to, I try to look at it through the lens of, "They want to be with me." That's the value that we're trying to promote as a family. So those are our six values that really just guide everything that we do. Mikki: I love those, and I think for my listeners, it certainly values or something that I talk about all the time, because those are the foundational pieces to help you guide your decision, just like you're talking about, it guides your family, and so I love how you laid those out and how practical and doable and really, they resonate certainly for me, but I can see how each family would be different. I'm also sitting here always trying to put myself in my listeners ' shoes, and there's that part of me that thinks, well, oh, it's easy for you to say, because you have a husband and a family and you're with your children all the time and write all of these things that I know has, certainly not in your circumstance, but when you go through divorce, those things change. Mikki: And so you lose time, you have to grieve the loss of the marriage and all those things, so I do want to make sure that we're talking about how we can implement this into a divorced family situation, but for those moms listening, I really want you to listen sort of underneath maybe your experience, and how could you encourage and implement this into your own family so that you could enhance the time that you do have with your kids versus, sort of, we always tend to focus on what we don't have. But I love what you're saying, it's really focusing and creating intentional time and space, and so I'd love to hear about what you think about how a single mom or how someone who is trying to figure out this whole divorce thing, why this is so important for her to do now. Mell: I appreciate that very much, and I was putting a lot of thought into this before we started chatting, 'cause I love that your title is Co-Parenting With Confidence, 'cause truly this process, the Strong Family process, is about gaining confidence in your ability to parent better, to parent more intentionally, to parent with a filter of knowing what to do, what goes along with your values. So I think, yes, Joe and I developed it together but I think if you could find a way to figure out what your values are for yourself, if you're a single mom, or even if you have children who are a little older and can be a part of that process, I think that's phenomenal. Our kids were little when we did this, so we didn't really include them, but if I had teenagers and at this time and I was starting this process, I would love to include them. "What do you think about this list I've come up with? Do you have any suggestions? What's important to you?" Because the more buy-in you can get from older kids, the better it is, and I do think what this really does is it gives you the confidence to know what you stand for, 'cause I think a lot of families want to be great, but great just isn't specific enough. Mell: So I think if you can take the time to get real specific and real honest with yourself about what you're about, maybe it'll be different than what you were about when you were married, maybe it'll be different than what you were about when you were growing up with your family, and certainly Joe and I have had those conversations where you almost feel like we should put this on there because we feel like we should, because that's what I was told was important. The power of this really is that it's your family now, whatever the structure might be, and you can make it your own. And I think it takes a process, and honestly, we're never tied to something, so if five years from now, we're feeling like one of the values is not as important, we can always change it. It's not set in stone, but to even go through the process initially and have that structure, and I haven't gone through the other steps of the process, but they also are great for any family structure, really. Take for example, a morning routine. Whether you are a single parent or married, a morning routine will make your morning much more enjoyable. Everybody in the family has some kind of a contribution, we don't call them chores, we call them contributions, and they feel valuable and they know what to expect. Mell: Kids love to have their type of structure and know what to expect. I could go through that a little bit more, but I was putting my thought to this and every piece of this, really helps families to have structure, I think is what I really want to say, which helps you to parent with more confidence. "And we can't control what happens to us," I love this quote, "but we can control how we respond to it." So I haven't been through what your audience has been through, and I'm not going to try to say that I understand it, however, I think that if we really focus on response and not just reacting is super helpful. I do this with my 13-year-old a lot now, 'cause he'll hear things and see things at school, and I said, "I really want you to focus on responding and not just reacting emotionally," like a thought-through response. It's a lot more calm and it can be rooted in our values. So I hope that helps your audience, I just have these things are valuable regardless, my mother-in-law who's... She doesn't have anybody living with her, she's single now, she actually created her own family values for herself just recently. Mikki: Oh, good for her. Mell: It's already helping her just decide how to spend her time. Mikki: Yes. Yeah. No, that's a beautiful point. I appreciate you making that. Yeah, so I'm also curious how, because you're talking about a process, you're talking about sort of really sitting down and becoming intentional, deciding what matters to you, those values, and I'd love to hear how your perspective and mindset works into this because I think it's one thing to talk about these things, and I know you're going to have something for the guests at the end that they can sort of learn how to take this Strong Family Path, but I'm curious what is the mindset or the perspective that really shifts when you start to own this way of walking through this path? Mell: That's a great question. So the mindset that really comes to mind for me is just the intentional focus on family. So I think when we decide to have a family, we need to understand that it's gonna be a selfless act or a selfless endeavor to a degree, especially when you have the kids at home. It really has to be the focus on them. So this just eases things a lot. So people will ask us, how do you deal with discipline in your family? And honestly, because we have these things set up, often times things don't come to a head as emotionally or as seriously because we have these kind of intentional conversations with our kids ahead of time. They know what the values are, they know what the expectations are. So I think it brings a bit of calm to the family. Mell: So if you're a frantic family and that things are crazy, we've two kids in sports and I got one in kindergarten and it's very chaotic. So this process truly brings some calm, because if I know what to expect, if I tell my kid, "Hey, let's take this topic and bring it to the family meeting on Saturday." It just takes some of the pressure off and we just know what to expect and when things are going to happen, if that makes sense. So it does bring a sense of calm. People will say, "Well, your kids don't seem to fight as much." And I think it's because we're in this process. We're not lucky, like our kids just happen to all be calmer. That's definitely not the case, but I think the intentionality and them knowing what to expect gives a more of a calm to our family system. Mikki: Yeah. I think I love that you pointed that out. And it doesn't matter what size family you have, who's in the family, but being very intentional and clear and deciding who do you wanna be? How do you wanna parent? That's really what all of this is about, and then actually walking the walk to get there. And there's essentially the difference, and I know that I talk about it all the time here, but it's really how are we making the decisions, how are we taking the actions on a daily basis, on a moment-to-moment basis to really be creating what it is that you yearn for. Because it's possible when you are taking those steps, and I love that you guys have really honed it in on this path to be able to start to structure that. Mell: I appreciate that. And another thing I think about is I'm not raising children to remain children, I'm raising children to be adults. And I do keep that at the forefront of my mind whenever I'm having conversations with them or whenever things come up, for example, so my 13-year-old wanted to dehydrate some fruit the other day, because we have a dehydrator. And he's like, "Mom, I wanna do this on my own, I wanna do it independently, 'cause one of our values is personal development," so we want him to be able to do that, but I have to step back and be like, "Okay, it might be a mess, I might have to just some step away." And it was a bit of a difficult process 'cause he made some mistakes, but he was willing to learn them. He was willing to try this new skill on for size. Mell: And I really want him to feel that confidence now, so when he's an adult, he's not just like, "Oh, okay, I'm an adult now. What does that mean? I don't have any skills, I don't know what to do with myself." That's another one of our main goals of having this path is really guiding our kids to become successful adults, and not just hoping that it'll work out. They don't have to have the same values that we have as adults. However, we want them to have set values, know what you're about. Mikki: Yeah. I love that sort of reminder, we're really having that you have to let them have their own experience, so that they have to learn how to make... In order to know how to do something, you have to make a lot of mistakes along the way. And it's often inconvenient for us as moms, it would just be so much easier to do it yourself, but what does that do for your kid in the long run? And so, one thing that I really enjoyed, and I'd love your perspective on is this idea of problem-solving over complaining. So can you talk about that a little bit? Mell: Sure. Of course. There's this delineation between people who just wanna complain for complaining sake, and then those who need to kind of get it off their chest, but then move to problem-solving. So we have this idea in our family where we wanna move to the problem-solving as soon as possible. So one of the elements of our path is an evening debrief. And I think this is valuable to mention. Oftentimes when the kids are about to go to bed, that's when they bring up the most sensitive topics they wanna talk about. It's like, "Hey, I'm ready for bed. The day is done, it's 9:30. All I wanna do is go to bed or read a book or something." And that's when they bring up that real deep thing that they wouldn't bring up during the day. And it's really powerful because, originally, I would just kind of wanna go to bed, but now I actually set aside specific time for that so that they can talk and get it off their shoulders or whatever they need. Mell: But sometimes what happens is they start to just complain about their day and complain, complain, complain, "this happened at recess, this kid wasn't fair. He kicked the soccer ball at me," whatever. And I started to notice that I don't want my kids to revel in complaining. I want them to learn to move to problem-solving. So I might say something like, "I understand, I hear what you say, this is what happened. Would you like me to help you solve that problem? Would you like some suggestions?" Because I think oftentimes as moms we just wanna say, "Just do this and it'll be done. Just do what I say and it'll all be all right." But I want to teach them how to start to problem solve. So move from complaining to problem-solving, but also learn how to problem solve. Mell: So a real simple example, my five-year-old needs help refilling his water bottle, so a few months ago, he's like, "I have no more water." And I said, "Okay, Everett, well how can you solve that problem?" So he could have just kept complaining, but I wanted him to move to problem-solving. So he sat there for a minute and he said, "Well, I can't open it." "Okay, well how are you gonna solve that problem?" And he said, "Well, can you open the top for me?" "Yeah, sure." Okay. So I opened it and he can go do the rest. But if I had just took it from him and went and did it for him, he wouldn't learn the problem-solving process. So even though it sounds a little tedious, now, he's like, he loves the fact that he can do it by himself. Mell: He feels great and confident because he can do it alone. So I think the magic there is is my kid just complaining for complaining sake and can I move them to the idea of problem-solving? And this is especially I think a thing with teenagers because they want to do everything on their own now. And even though we might know better, that's why I've tried to use words like, "Would you like my suggestion? What if you try this on for size?" But really just always having that constant gentle pressure of let's think of how to solve this. I don't wanna sit and complaint for too long. Mikki: Yeah. As you're talking, I'm also thinking, how can we apply this to the other co-parent? Because I think that this is one of those situations where sometimes I know when in co-parenting, maybe the other co-parent just really likes to talk about all the ways that you're not showing up or all the ways that there's problems or all the ways that it's just so difficult and it becomes just a complaint fest. And I know so many of my clients and women I talk to, they're like, "I don't even wanna open the door to it," because it's like a tsunami of complaining comes at them so they just ignore. But in the ignoring, we're not moving forward. And so I also think that this is something that we could also use when talking with the other co-parent. Mikki: If there's an issue or something, we can say, "Well how do you wanna solve that? How can we solve that? Is there a resolution? Let me know when you have some ideas." And being able to close the book on the complaining so that you still feel like you have the ability to have some input or some openness to the conversation without needing to shut everything down or just lock the door and keep yourself on the other side. Mell: The other thing that we try to do with the problem-solving is sometimes emotions are running too high to be able to solve the problem. So if I'm noticing that with my kid, I might choose to try to solve it a different time, or I might even say to them, "Look, your emotions are running high and honestly, when people have strong emotions, they can't always think very clearly." And I think that might be just a good thing for a kid to learn, like, "Wow when I'm feeling really angry, this might not be the best time to solve the problem," 'cause you tend to be real impulsive. Mikki: Well, 100%. Yeah. Mell: Which is part of why the family meeting is great because we can put off things that aren't essential, like if someone's being hurt right now obviously, I'm not gonna say, Let's deal with that in a couple of days. But if there is something that can be held off, something that you can let the emotions die down, even if it's like, "Hey, let's go for a walk for 30 minutes and then let's come back in, or let's walk separately." Or whatever the case may be, come back and see if we can come to a solution. So recognizing that When emotions run high, not the best time to problem solve, but then we still need to make sure to do the problem-solving. So I love what you said about asking for suggestions, but make sure that you're doing it in a time when emotions aren't running crazy high, and then when you're really open to listening. Yeah. Mikki: Yeah, really good point. So, well, as much as I'd love to stay and chat all day, I try to keep these as condensed as possible. And you sort of mentioned this at the top, but I would love to know how you... It sounds like you've gone on your own evolution of more confidence stepping into this role, I would love to hear how you define confidence since this is Co-parenting with Confidence. Mell: Oh, my definition of it, especially given my most recent experience of starting the podcast, is to be able to find a goal that I want to achieve and then be able to ask myself, "What skills do I need to get to that goal?" And be able to attain those skills, whether it be listening to other podcasters or whatever goal you're working on, but I think focusing on acquiring skills is what helps me gain confidence. Mikki: Yeah, I love that. And it really does come through the action of learning what works, what doesn't work, and just being willing to keep moving forward. So. Well, thank you so much, I appreciate your time. I want you to... I think you have a little something for the listeners, but I'd also love for you to tell them where they can connect, where they can find out more about the Strong Family Path and other things you guys have going on. Mell: Sure, thank you. We're over at strongfamilyproject.com and all of our links to social media are there, but on Instagram we're @officialstrongfamilyco, and if you head over to our website, you can download the path for free. So it's the seven elements of the strong family path, we explain briefly how to implement each one, and it's a great starting point and we're just give it away for free. Mikki: Oh, that's amazing, thank you. I know that I'm gonna go through it and do it 'cause now I have a 13-year-old as well, and this is such an important time, we think just 'cause they're not young, this is something we can do and sort of restart every day, and so I love... I'm gonna do it myself, and I hope all your listeners do this as well. So thank you so much for your time, I really appreciate it, and I appreciate all you're doing. Mell: Thanks, Mikki, I love chatting with you. Mikki: Oh, and one more thing, the legal stuff. This podcast is solely intended for informational and educational purposes only. It is not intended to be a substitute for any medical advice. Please consult your physician or a qualified medical professional for personalized medical advice. Mikki: Thanks for listening to Co-parenting with Confidence. If you want more information or resources from this podcast, visit co-parentingwithconfidence.com. I'll see you next week.