Ep #92: Navigating the Teen Years with Dr. Jessica Peck aka Dr. Nurse Mama

[music] Mikki Gardner: Welcome to Co-Parenting with Confidence, a podcast for those courageous moms out there who wanna move past the conflict and frustration of divorce and show up as the mom they truly wanna 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 Gardner: Welcome back to the podcast. I'm super excited you're here with me today. I just got off a great call with our guest today and I am so excited to share her with you. I honestly felt so many emotions during it and just feel so encouraged, hopeful and empowered. And who has done this? Dr. Jessica Peck. For those of you who don't know her, she is a pediatric nurse practitioner, and she has been for over 20 years. And she really has made it her mission to be engaged, encouraging, equipping and empowering families to raise holistically healthy kids. She really guides parents to help navigate the challenges of parenting and escape the shame and the stigma with grace and hope and courage. And I know that's what she did in the conversation with me today. And so I'm so excited for you guys to meet her. Mikki Gardner: Jessica Peck is a native Texan. She's a clinical professor at Baylor University now, and she's also an internationally award-winning nursing leader. She is a author of a great book, which she'll tell you, a little surprise at the end of the interview, about the book this summer. And she also has a wonderful Instagram, Dr. Nurse Mama, that I follow and love because in it she really gives us some tools and some insight into things that teens are facing that we may not know about as parents. Half the time our kids don't talk to us all the time. That's totally normal and we talk about that during the conversation. But because she's a nurse practitioner, she sees so many kids and she really gets the opportunity to be in communication with them. And she shares a lot of that through her book and through her podcast and through Instagram to really help encourage and support parents. Mikki Gardner: So without further ado, I wanna dive right into this conversation. I would love for you to share this with other parents that need to hear it. Just take a screenshot and post it on Instagram or Facebook. And if you're there, please do tag both me and Dr. Peck. We would love to connect with you there and see what resonated and hear about your thoughts. I can't wait to hear what you think of this conversation. So without further ado, let's dive in. Mikki Gardner: Jessica, I'm so excited to have you here and share you with my audience. So audience, we have a really incredible guest today and what I know is gonna be a wonderful conversation. And so I just wanna dive right in. And I've told my audience a little bit about you with your bio and your vast experience and all the amazing support you offer, but I'd love to hear from you a little bit about you, how you got here and what it is you do and sort of what your mission is. Jessica Peck: Well Mikki, thank you so much for having me on today. It's such a joy to be able to share with your audience. And I think when you read my bio, it's easy to see me through the lens of where I am now and all of my accomplishments. But you have to remember, I am an associate-degree graduate. I graduated with a 2.6 GPA, I'm just gonna put it out there. [laughter] And I was the first woman in my family to go to college. I was extremely timid and so I feel even as a scholar I started out so timidly and as a pediatric nurse practitioner, I felt like I did this as a profession. But I had a broken relationship with my mom and behind closed doors, pun intended, I was failing miserably as a mom. My daughter and I were in constant conflict. And then even as a nurse, I see that I'm not alone. I see parents and those struggles where they're very transparent and sharing. And so I feel that just gave me a unique lens to look at the world through. And that's where Dr. Nurse Mama came from. As a brain of a professor, hands-on nursing experience and heart as a mom to be a guide on the side. So right now I'm teaching at Baylor University and my oldest daughter is a journalism major there. My second one is about to be a nursing major there. Jessica Peck: So I'm not even going to try to hide the fact I'm so excited to have a mini me. [laughter] And then I've got two boys at home who just want to be outside. That's their life's ambition. It's just to be outside in this moment in time. And I do joke, yes, that I'm married to a rocket scientist who is amused at the perception that I'm the smart one in the relationship when he is, in fact, a literal rocket scientist. So that's what goes on [laughter] around here with my kids always telling me, "It's not rocket science, mom." Mikki Gardner: Well, it is and it isn't, right? Well, I appreciate so much you sort of telling us that and your honesty and just giving us a glimpse into your life because I think, like you just said, we can perceive someone a certain way and then when we really look at it, we all share the same struggles, we share the same things that we're going through. And I love that you were able to put all of the wisdom and experience and stories into the book which, when I reached out to you, I know has impacted me so much and I share it with people all the time. So I'm excited to allow our audience today for those who don't know yet to be introduced to you and the book and the ideas because you really are helping parents navigate this whole teen experience because it is a whole nother world. Jessica Peck: It is. And if nothing else, it's keeping it real. So when you open up this book, I think your listeners should have the advisory that this is not easy stuff that we're tackling. And it is a challenge. It's not just, "Oh, read and enlighten your perspective." It's... No, we're gonna play parenting Jumanji here, is what this is. Roll up your sleeves, get your hands dirty, your feelings will get hurt, you will have setbacks, you will have failures. But the good news is those things are encouraged. And pursuing the heart of your kid and pursuing at new mindset and a new skillset to build healthy relationships that will last the test of time is an investment and adventure well worth the pursuit. Mikki Gardner: Oh, I love that so much. And I have to applaud you too, your Instagram. The book is amazing, but the Instagram's fantastic too 'cause there's times I'll open it up and I'll say, "Oh, I didn't even know about this." But now I know and I'm so grateful for just how you are keeping it real and sort of telling us about some of the things because you're seeing so many kids and have that experience to sort of look at a wide swathe of... Group of people. And I know when you're alone in your home with your children, it can feel like you're on an island and, "This can't be normal, something must be wrong." All of those things. So I'd love to hear from you, what do you see as some of the biggest issues teens are facing and parents facing to raise them? Jessica Peck: Well, first of all, Mikki, you just made my day by complimenting my Instagram because I feel like I'm 107 years old when I get on there. I can do a podcast in five minutes flat, but a reel, I'm telling my kids... Mikki Gardner: I'm with you. Jessica Peck: "Can you come help your old mama?" [laughter] 'cause I don't know what I'm doing. So thank you for that. I appreciate it. Mikki Gardner: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Jessica Peck: Yes. Okay. And then now I just forgot the question. What was your question? Mikki Gardner: Oh, that's okay. I know, I should have separated those two things... Jessica Peck: That's okay. Mikki Gardner: 'cause... No, I was asking sort of what do you think, and I know there are many, but what do you think a couple of the really big issues that teens are facing or that parents are facing raising their teens? Jessica Peck: Well, in Behind Closed Doors, I talked about the top 12 issues that I'm seeing. And so those are there in the table of contents. But if pressed, if I must choose the top one or two, I would say that is mental health and social media. And those two things go hand in hand. This is just a world that we did not grow up in and that we are not prepared for. We don't know what it's like to grow up living at the speed of a smartphone. And it is so overwhelming. The world for us was a lot smaller, and the world looked like our community. When we saw problems or you heard about something horrible, like a school shooting, it seemed very far away and very distant and very rare. But now if kids look up one tragic thing on the internet, the social media algorithm is then going to feed them every story that's available in that same line until all of a sudden they think, "This is the way the world looks. There's a school shooting happening every day on every corner and this is going to happen to me." And it makes them afraid. Jessica Peck: They also have the pressure to be Insta-ready all the time. When we were growing up, we had cameras that were not digital. Their pictures were terrible, but we still cherished them and took them to the pharmacy and got them developed. But now one stray word can go viral. And whereas before, we would be afraid of being humiliated in the cafeteria, in front of dozens of our friends. Teens today are afraid of being humiliated on the worldwide web in front of millions of people. And so I think that is crashing in. We just saw the Surgeon General Issue, yet another advisory and another warning about the detrimental impacts of social media on mental health. And those are the things that I'm seeing the most. Everything else in the book really funnels through those things. Sexting and sexual risk-taking behaviors, a lot of that comes through social media, through internet usage, substance use we're seeing a gateway through social media. All of these things are really interconnected, but I think if you boil it down, we're talking about a mental health crisis that's really being fueled by an online world. Mikki Gardner: Yeah. Well, I'm noticing in my body right now just sort of the tension just talking about it. And I know I'm one of those parents that just wants to desperately keep it away. My son's 13 now. Jessica Peck: Yes. Mikki Gardner: He's like, "Can I have social media now?" Mikki Gardner: "No! Mm-mm." And every time he asks I'm starting to feel bad 'cause I say, "Well, you're lucky because they just put out another report about all the negative effects. So no." And he's like, "Oh my gosh, mom, my God [laughter] you're killing me." Mikki Gardner: "Maybe, but I think I might not be." But so I just wanna say for those moms that are listening, because... And I wanna get to... I was so appreciative that you put an entire chapter on divorce in your book. But I think that is one of the things I hear from clients and I hear from women that I talk to via Instagram or here on the podcast, is the helplessness that you feel when you lose half of your kid's life. When you have... There are two households, two sets of rules. It's just two of everything. But most importantly, it's less for you to feel in control, capable, being able to protect your children. And so I know this is a very big topic and question but I just wanna say to the moms out there that are listening, there are ways for you to always show up as the protector and the loving mother that you wanna be. And divorce makes that challenging at times. Mikki Gardner: But I just want to say while we're having this conversation, if your kids are on social media, if there are things happening, let's not go into shame, blame or judgment, but really using it as an encouragement to sort of move forward and how can you help? And so I did a little PSA there, but [laughter] I wanted to... How can we help parents? Because like you said, we didn't grow up with this so we don't... I don't think we have an understanding of what our children are going through. And so what do you think is one or two things for parents to be really cognizant or know while raising teens with all of this happening? Jessica Peck: Well, I think what you said really resonates with me, especially looking at families who have experienced divorce. Because social media can be even more complex. You might have one parent saying, "Yeah, you can have it, I don't care." And another parent saying, "Absolutely not." And then that can be even more difficult when you have different rules and different households or, "I would let you have it, but your other parent isn't." And while I haven't experienced divorce personally, I'm the oldest of five kids. And we grew up in church. My dad was a deacon and divorce did not spare our family, substance addiction did not spare our family. And three of my five siblings now as adults have experienced divorce. And I have a lot of nieces and nephews who are all along the age spectrum from toddler all the way up to teenager. And I see these issues playing out in real-time and it can be really discouraging. Jessica Peck: So what I would say, to start with, is that I think so much in this world that we get messages of fear-based parenting and we live constantly afraid where our head is just whiplashing around at the next threat that's coming to take our kids. "Oh my gosh, it's human trafficking. Oh, it's fentanyl. Oh, you're gonna order drugs off Snapchat." Every time we see one of these fears, we just feel that fear grip our hearts and we have to run to our kid and say, "Oh my gosh, don't do this." We really have to take a step back from that and just refuse to engage in fear-based parenting. There is always going to be a new threat that comes to threaten to steal the heart, the mind, the life of our child. I found such great hope and encouragement in really flipping the paradigm and just saying, "You know what? I'm not gonna put my effort into making sure my kid doesn't order a fentanyl pill off the internet. I'm gonna put my effort into building my relationship with them so that I have a close, upfront seat so that I know they know they can come to me with anything. So I know what's going on in their life and I can encourage and equip and engage and empower them to fight threats as they go." Jessica Peck: As we see a lot about gatekeeping parenting, which actually Gen Z uses gatekeep as a very negative moniker. "Oh, you're a gatekeep." And the truth is, we can't protect our kids from every outside influence that will come their way. That's part of our layered strategy, but that's a defensive strategy. We need an offensive strategy to pursue the hearts of our kids and invest in building relationships. And honestly, Mikki, the hard thing about this, the hardest thing is that we as parents in today's generation, we do not have tolerance for long-term problems, for long-term projects. We want it to be solved today. We want that relationship today. 'cause I can open up my phone, I can order my Starbucks drink exactly like I want it, which my husband begs me to do by the way, because he can't order my Starbucks drink for me. That gives him all kinds of anxiety, or my teenage son, like, "Please don't make me go up and ask for your Starbucks drink." But we can customize everything with the tip of our fingers through an app. And we act like that with our kids. We wanna be a virtual assistant-type parent. Jessica Peck: Like, "Oh, what is the problem you have today? Have you tried this solution? Okay, please fill out a survey about my service." And that's just not the case. Our kids' brains are not there so we have to be patient. And I say in the book, "Your kid isn't a Chia Pet. You can't just put a little water and then have them all grown and beautiful by tomorrow." It's like growing a pineapple that takes two years to grow. So we water even when we don't see growth, and we have faith that planting and harvesting don't happen in the same season. Mikki Gardner: Such a beautiful reminder. And I think one of the things I really admire about your writing in your book too is how vulnerable and honest you were just from the get-go. Just right off the bat. Here's how I have, not failed, I think, but really here's how I've messed up. Because I think so often we don't see that from people, especially experts like yourself that with all of the credentials you have. And I really appreciated that vulnerability and it really goes to what you were just talking about, is really going to the hearts and minds of your children. And I appreciate you saying that and I'd love for you to just maybe touch on it a little bit for my audience, if you don't mind. Probably sick of telling the story. So good. Jessica Peck: Oh, I'd love to do that because really, truly what I've discovered is that kids do not need a perfect parent and we are trying to be perfect. We really are. We are subject to the trappings of social media as well. We look at that mom with the impossibly flat abs and the yoga pants who comes and she's all dressed before school and she's already gotten her latte and we're rolling up in our PJ bottoms and our slippers thinking, "How did she do that?" And so we are trapped in that prism of perfection. But kids don't need a perfect parent. They need a present parent. And if you are showing up, then you are doing what you need to do. That is more than half the battle because a lot of times we just invest in trying to buy them nice things or have the nice experience or the nice vacation. That's not what they want. They really want our time. And so my story in a nutshell, the opening scene of 'Behind Closed Doors' is my daughter when she's 13, throwing a book at my head, which it was a four-volume book by the way. So this was commitment, I almost passed out while I was driving. Jessica Peck: And that was really the watershed moment for us, and I had a broken relationship with my mom, and I didn't know how to be a mom, and it wasn't too soon after that that I was sitting on a recliner in my house and I was crying, I was, hysterical really, trying to navigate conflict, and my husband came out and took a photo of me and he had to go get a camera. Jessica Peck: 'cause this was before smartphones. And I was so angry with him, I said, "Why are you doing this?" And he turned the camera around, showed me that picture, and he said, "This is what our kids are seeing every day, you crying, mourning for a life you will never have while your real life is just passing you by. And you're investing all of your time and effort trying to rebuild the life that is gone." And like I said, I haven't experienced divorce, but I have experienced loss of a relationship, and I have experienced that kind of pain. And so something shifted in me and I just vowed to be present, to show up, to be authentic, to know I wasn't gonna always get it right, I was going to mess up. But now my oldest daughter is 20 and she was just... Recorded the podcast episode for me yesterday, and we shared some of this. Saying, "Hey, yeah, we don't have it perfect, but it's healthy, and healthy doesn't have to be perfect." Mikki Gardner: And I appreciate you saying that because there's a lot of times too we look at other people and say, "Well, I can't have that." Especially, again, putting myself in maybe some of the listeners' shoes, they don't have that support, but it's really, just to hone in on the point, put an exclamation point on it, that it's about being present with your children when they're with you, and not spending the time pining away for what's been lost or for the time that they're gonna leave. That's what I see so many moms... Their kids are finally with them, and they're spending all their time either worried about when they leave again or all the past things, "Why did this even happen?" When the kids are sitting right there. And then the kids are gone and they're, "Oh my gosh, I didn't get to spend time with them, I didn't use it." And so I think it really is about just the commitment to be present and really realizing that we are the constant living, breathing, walking, talking examples of what it looks like to be a mom, a woman, a human and adults in the world. And so, what a gift, painful gift your husband gave you that day but. Jessica Peck: And it's so true, Mikki, when we're parenting in the future, or we're trying to parent in the past and fix that, you are so right in that we miss the present. And whenever we see our kids experience things that are beyond our control that we wish that we could fix, we spend so much time and effort trying to fix the external circumstances, trying to smooth the way, to make every circumstance as easy as possible, and that is discouraging and overwhelming because there's so many things that are not within our control. But we really under-value and minimize the importance of just being there in the moment. Because research is very clear and shows that kids who are resilient, kids who develop resilience, because all kids will experience some sort of hardship, obviously some more than others, all kids will experience that and divorce occurs for more than half of children here in America. But just being there and being present and being supportive in the moment, that is the number one predictor of kids developing resilience as they go on. We tend to minimize that, we're like, "Yeah, but I'm broken, I'm not in a good place. Jessica Peck: I was crying, I gave them peanut butter and jelly every meal, I didn't cook anything, I didn't take them anywhere, I didn't give them a Pinterest worthy summer." And so then we just down-talk ourselves with vicious self-talk, when really we should just be saying, "I was there. And that's what counts. I was there, I was present. They know I love them." That's the most important thing. Everything else is just icing on the cake, it really is, and that's backed by science. Mikki Gardner: Yeah, I love that reminder. I'm always telling moms, "This good-mom idea is unrealistic, it's fake, none of it exists." We just have to be good enough, and good enough is just there. Present like you said. Jessica Peck: It's good enough. I think about that, Mikki, the first time I went to... When Pinterest was first starting to come out and I went to my son's kindergarten party, I walked in and I thought, "This is literally nicer than my wedding reception." My kids ask, "What are those orange lines on the floor in your pictures mom?" I'm like, "That's a basketball court. I got married in a gym." And that pressure that we put on ourselves it is just so self-imposed and so unnecessary. Mikki Gardner: Absolutely. Well, I was a wedding planner in my previous life. And I did weddings all around the world, million dollar, multi-million dollar weddings. And I will admit my son's first couple of birthdays [0:23:58.5] ____ lost a little bit. The expectation was there. Now I, you know, "Happy birthday." Jessica Peck: It's okay. My sister-in-laws do that for me, they're the party planners and I love it. I love going to those moms' houses, and I just say, "Thank you. May I give you some money?" 'cause I don't have some talent to contribute. Mikki Gardner: My son asked me all the time, "What happened to those parties?" Mikki Gardner: "Oh, they're gone. It's a new mom now. It's good enough mom now, that's it." Well, what is it... And you lay out the 12 really big tough things facing kids, and so I'm just curious, if you could boil it down, what is it that you see divorce really, how is it really impacting teens in their families? Jessica Peck: The main way that I see divorce impacting kids is first of all, just the physical structures around them, a lot of times that means that they may be having to move, that means they may be in a smaller house, they may have financial constraints without a dual-income family, they may have to be changing schools, it's just some of those physical structures of change are really difficult, they can be very disruptive. And then I see, usually, it's just the mental health aspect of it, and it can be so hard for kids, especially teens, because they may love both parents and then they're trying to float between these two worlds that are very different, and sometimes they may not want to confide in you and tell you something because they think, "It's not that I wanna hide this from you," and sometimes that's what parents can think. "You're hiding this from me, you're not telling me what's going on." But they think, "I don't want this to hurt you, I don't wanna tell you that dad is happy. I don't wanna tell you that we went on this nice vacation or he bought me this." Jessica Peck: And that can be really, really hard. I think it's really important for parents who are experiencing divorce to intentionally point out other adults who are trustworthy in their circle. It's important for every kid, but especially for kids who are experiencing divorce, just that neutral party that they can go to and hash it out, feel it out, get a response, 'cause that's a lot of times what kids want to do, and they may have that reassurance to say, "You know what, your mom's gonna be okay with this, I really think you should talk to her about that." Or thinking, "Ooh, this is a really big deal. Let me help you craft this in a way that's going to be easier to talk about." It's just important for you to say to them, "Hey, here are three people, I'm putting their names in your phone, you can text them, you can call them." And then you talk to those adults, of course, and say, "Here are the boundaries, obviously, these are the things that I want to know." And those have to be people that you know and trust. But that's one of the most helpful first support systems that you can put into place so that they know that they have a village and they don't have that extra worry of hurting you. Mikki Gardner: Oh, that's such a beautiful piece of advice, really so smart, because kids will naturally, especially teens, they'll go to their peers, and their peers don't, even if they're coming from a divorce situation, do not have the capability, the perspective, anything, to be able to handle that. To really lay that out in advance with people that you know and trust is such a great idea. I appreciate you saying that. This is a great natural transition into a method that you lay out in the book that I absolutely love, for lack of a better term, it's the LOVE method. Can you tell us what the LOVE method is? Jessica Peck: Yes, Mikki, I'd love to cut into that. This is actually a professional tool, it's a modification of a professional tool I use in practice called Motivational Interviewing. And people ask me all the time, I feel like a teen whisperer, I talk to teens all the time and honestly, they will tell me anything. Now, part of that is because I'm a neutral third party, and frankly, they don't care about what I think of them as much as they care what their parents think about them. But they also know I'm someone who can help them, I can connect them to resources, I can give them advice, and I can give them that meter or that gauge of, "Oh, this is not bad," or, "Oh, this is really significant." And to have them prepared for that, 'cause they're afraid of what will happen. But really, I encounter so many parents who just say, "My teen won't talk to me, I've tried, I've tried, I've tried and I just can't get anywhere." This is really... Honestly, there is a little bit of magic in it. I'm just gonna throw it out there. It's four easy steps. Jessica Peck: LOVE your teen, L-O-V-E. L, listen with your face. Mikki Gardner: I love this one. Jessica Peck: If you don't do anything else, if you don't do anything else in all of your parenting technique, if you do this, I promise you will see results. 'cause so often today, we listen with our face glued to a screen, we're cooking, we're driving, we are distracted, and what happens is when our kids make eye contact with us for 20 seconds or more, their brain secretes oxytocin, just like when you're nursing a baby, and they feel physically bonded to us. This is actually called phubbing, P-H-U-B-B-I-N-G, phone-snubbing. And that's what we do, we phone-snub our kids. Of course, if you give them your face and listen and say, "This sounds important, you have my full attention." There's times when I'm driving, I'll just pull over and I'll say, "This sounds important. I wanna make sure you have my face. I'm gonna listen with my face," and so they feel heard. The second thing, O, offer open-ended questions. So often we lead with lecturing, we listen to what they say, and then we're like, "Okay, this is how you need to fix this," blah, blah, blah, blah. Jessica Peck: "Do A, B, C, and D. And by the way, you better not do D, E, F and G." You're telling them this, but if we just cultivate some curiosity and just say, "What is the hardest thing about this for you? What is your plan? What are you going to do? Wow, this sounds like a really big problem. How are you dealing with it?" That's going to get you more information. Then V is validate their emotions. Just saying, "I can see this is really upsetting you," or "I can see you're really excited about this," they feel seen, they feel heard, they feel known. And then the last step is E, explore next steps together. What you're doing is really building a relationship communication bridge, that you can then walk across and they are now in a place where they're ready to receive the advice that you wanted to give them in the first place. And you've learned a little bit more and built a little bit more relationship. I'm telling you this has worked wonders for me as a nurse practitioner, and most importantly as a mom. And, Mikki, you can edit this out if you want to, it's a little bit borderline inappropriate, but I'll tell you anyway. Mikki Gardner: Go for it. Jessica Peck: I give my kids permission to call me out when I'm phubbing them, because I do it, I'm guilty. I tell them, "You tell me." My son said, "Mom, you know what you're doing?" He said, "Do you know what you're doing? You're being a mother phubber right now." [laughter] You can edit that out if you want to. Mikki Gardner: No, it's so good. Jessica Peck: But he wasn't wrong. He wasn't wrong. And I thought, "You're right." Because we are so quick to call out our teens on their phone use. But... Mikki Gardner: Oh, 1000%. Jessica Peck: We are just as guilty. We are just as guilty and we justify it. "Oh, it's for work. I'm talking to my sister." We're so sanctimonious about it, but we're still modeling that, "I prefer the company of my phone to your company right now." Mikki Gardner: Oh, that breaks my heart when you say it. We do it all the time, but it's really, I love the listening with your face. If you take anything away from this conversation, I hope you take the LOVE method because it really is so, so helpful and it gives you a framework to know where to go. 'cause in those moments when you just wanna fix it... "I'm a fixer, I just wanna fix whatever problem is there." And our kids don't need us to fix it, they just need us to be there with them so they can figure it out for resilience, like we talked about a little bit earlier. As much as I'd love to keep you all day, I try to be very respectful of time, I just have a couple more questions, but through your practice and your research and experience and all the things, what do you wish you could sort of download into every parent, especially co-parents, to help them through these teen years? Jessica Peck: Oh, what I wish I could download into them honestly is just hope. Hope and encouragement and confidence that, "Yes, today is hard, yes, this month is hard. Yes, right now is hard, but the work that you're putting in will pay off." And it's so hard, especially as co-parents, if you're thinking, you don't have that person in the house. I don't know about you, but my teens are not standing around saying, "Well, mother, I just wanted to tell you before you went to bed that you were an amazing mom today, you did a great job, you gave discipline balanced with love and toughness, you fed us well." They don't say this. But I wish I could download that inner voice that would tell parents that every night before they go to bed, "Hey, you were a rockstar parent today, even though nobody saw it, even though nobody bore witness to what you did, even though your kids didn't appreciate it, even though you were criticized for it, you were awesome." That's what I wish I could download into every parent. Mikki Gardner: Well, I will... Just play this back to yourself everybody when you're heading to bed. I love that. 'cause we do need that support. And so often when parents are trapped in the conflict of co-parenting and divorce and all of the things, it's even more "evidence" that you're doing it wrong, or that the other person is right, or all of the negative things and so really just coming back to being present to where you are, and like you said, just really being present and showing up for them because that's all they really need. And I say it all the time, but the reminder that kids only need one parent who loves them, who is present, who is consistent who shows up. If you get two, it's amazing. But so many kids don't even get one, and so for everyone listening to this, I know that you are that parent and you're showing up, and so just continue to be that for them 'cause it's really all they truly need. Jessica Peck: I couldn't agree more. Mikki Gardner: This is Co-parenting with Confidence. Confidence is a big topic here. How do you define confidence? And how do you cultivate it in your own life? Jessica Peck: This one is such a hard question to think about, but how I define confidence in the terms of being a parent, is knowing that I'm investing in the right thing and being confident that those efforts will pay off in the future and not expecting that instant gratification to give me confidence. Because that's what we expect. We somehow give our kids the job of giving us instant gratification, like, "I am going to invest in this experience for you, I'm going to set aside my afternoon to spend time with you, and then I expect you to be grateful and tell me I was a good mom and then that makes me feel better." We also try to micro-manage our kids' behaviors, because that gives us confidence that, "Oh, they're doing the right thing, I must be doing the right thing." But we have to release our kids from the pressure of providing us instant gratification because they don't grow instantly. They don't learn instantly. I've found that parenting is much more about me, honestly, than it is about my kid. Working on my own healing journey and being confident that that healing will transfer, that it will be caught and not taught, and that whatever efforts that I'm putting in that I feel like are the best things for my kid, that they will bear fruit in another season. Mikki Gardner: And that's, I'm guessing, where really the faith that you have in yourself and spirituality in life is really probably serving you really well now. Jessica Peck: It is so true. Honestly, faith is so integral to who I am and what I do, and I think about a scripture that I often go back to that's in Lamentations, and it says, "God's mercies are new for us every morning." And I think about that, and I think, "It's not once in a lifetime, it's not once a month, it's not once a week, but every morning, because we mess up every single day." But every day we wake up and it's fresh with no mistakes in it, and that faith and looking to that for strength instead of my kids who are broken just like I'm broken, that has definitely been a very significant encourager to me. Mikki Gardner: Oh, that's a beautiful one, I love that you mentioned that. It's such a good reminder and really does bring hope. Thank you so much, Jessica. I have just enjoyed this conversation, I enjoyed your book more than you know and I'm so grateful for all you're doing in the world and supporting people, and just really grateful that you're here with us today. Thank you. Jessica Peck: Well, thank you so much, Mikki. I am so appreciative of people like you who reach out and it resonates, and I'll share just this little exciting tidbit that just recently my book was selected by Candace Cameron Bure for her summer reading list. Mikki Gardner: Oh my Gosh. Jessica Peck: I was at my kid's graduation trying to be a good mom, not on my phone, and my phone was just going crazy, just dinging, dinging, dinging. And which was... I couldn't believe it when I opened it up, it was so exciting to see that. But the better part of it was the street cred I got with my kids, 'cause they said, "DJ Tanner gave you a shout out? I'm so shocked." That's all they cared about. Mikki Gardner: Yep, that's exactly what just happened. Jessica Peck: But I have learned so much in the journey and found so much hope and healing, and I really do wanna share that with other people. Thank you again for giving me the blessing of your confidence and for sharing my book with your listeners. I'm so appreciative and I just wish many, many blessings over every single one of you. Mikki Gardner: Well, thank you so much and do tell us where they can find you. Where do you hang out, what's the easiest way to find you, all the details. Jessica Peck: Well, you can find my book anywhere books are sold. And you can find me at drnursemama.com, that's D-R nursemama. My podcast is on American Family Radio. Every Monday we drop a new episode. And I hang out a lot on Instagram and Facebook, and you can find me there. Mikki Gardner: Awesome, well, if you guys are not following her on Instagram, I highly recommend you do, 'cause she's killing it there. I love what you're doing there, and definitely read the book. Even, I think, certainly sometimes I applaud you for being so upfront. Sometimes people shy away from talking about their religion or spirituality, but I really encourage people with an open mind, whatever your background is, religious, non-religious, this book really does give you a framework to navigate through and so many different ideas and techniques, and so it is a must-read. Thank you so much and I appreciate you being here. Jessica Peck: Thank you so much, Mikki, I appreciate you so, so, so much. Mikki Gardner: 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. Thanks for listening to Co-parenting with Confidence. If you want more information or resources from this podcast, visit coparentingwithconfidence.com, I'll see you next week. [music]