Parenting problems and divorce - Bethan O'Riordan

Tamsin talks to Beth O’Riordan about her work with parents. She is a parenting coach and a psychotherapist. They talk about parenting in and out of divorce. She has some excellent ideas  to keep us doing the best that we can!

Bethan is a Psychotherapist and Mum of 3 who supports parents so that life is easier. Her work helps parents to meet their own needs alongside their children's so that life is in balance. Parenting doesn't have to be complicated and Bethan's work helps parents to be the parent they'd like to be so that parenting is easier.  She supports parents to work through difficulties such as shame, guilt, anger, anxiety and children's emotional and behavioural difficulties in 1 to 1 therapy sessions, parenting consultancy sessions, or in her Membership, The Calm & Confident Collective.

Here's my free workbook 5 Steps to Calmer Parenting - 5 Steps to Calmer Parenting (kartra.com)

And people can find me in my FB Group Calm & Confident Parenting (facebook.com), or on Instagram.

Tamsin is a Chartered Financial Planner with over 20 years experience. She works with couples and individuals who are at the end of a relationship and want agree how to divide their assets FAIRLY without a fight.

You can contact Tamsin at tamsin@smartdivorce.co.uk or arrange a free initial meeting using https://calendly.com/tamsin-caine/15min. She is also part of the team running Facebook group Separation, Divorce and Dissolution UK

Tamsin Caine MSc., FPFS
Chartered Financial Planner
Smart Divorce Ltd
https://smartdivorce.co.uk

Transcript

(The transcript has been created by an AI, apologies for any mistakes)

Tamsin Caine 0:06
Hello, and welcome to the Smart Divorce podcast. In series four, we're going to be talking to various different professionals and authors who have gone through divorce and dissolution of a civil partnership to talk about the future, and how you can start helping things to look much more positively. And we have some fantastic guests lined up. But if there is anything specific that you would like us to cover, please do get in touch. And you can contact me through our website, www.smartdivorce.co.uk. And I look forward to hearing from you soon. Enjoy!

Hello, and welcome to the Smart Divorce Podcast. I'm joined today by Bethan O'Riordan, who is over in Ireland today. So nice international field and my conversation with Beth and it is absolutely fascinating. She is a psychotherapist who specialises in parenting support. And two of the things that really stuck with me about our conversation today were children never need more than you can offer. And that you get to set rules. Absolutely brilliant conversation about parenting. So I'm gonna let you jump right in. Hello, and welcome to the smart divorce podcast. I am delighted to be joined by Bethan O'Riordan, who is over in Ireland. So yeah, we're going we're going slightly more international this week, which is really exciting. So I randomly met Bethan because I saw her being interviewed by the wonderful Lisa Johnson, who will be joining us in a few weeks. And, and she was being interviewed I kind of thought Beth Ann has some interesting things to say that I think would would be of interest to you guys. So she is a psychotherapist, not a physiotherapist. So I can about Vogue. And she specialises in parenting support. And she's also a mom of three fairly little ones. And so we're gonna talk a little bit today about parenting as a single parent, and also co parenting with somebody that you don't live with. So, Hi, Beth. And thank you so much for joining me today. How are you doing?

Bethan O'Riordan 2:57
Hello, I'm good. Thanks for having me. It's exciting to be on. And it is exciting to be internationalism.

Tamsin Caine 3:03
It absolutely is. We have had a couple of American guests pop up quite a while ago, perhaps, perhaps 669 12 months ago. And but yeah, I think it's really exciting to get get a glimpse into different ways of doing things. Although I think there are probably more similarities than differences between the way we would parent over here in England, and how you would in Ireland, so. So let's get straight cracking in with the questions. And so in terms of parenting as a single parent, so whether you're a single mom or single dad? And are there specific things that you need to think about, if you're parenting as a single parent?

Bethan O'Riordan 3:58
Well, I think the most important thing ever in parenting, like I had a couple come and see me recently and they said, we just want to know what the most important thing about parenting is, and oh my god, where, where do I begin? I said guys, like what what do you want what you want to hear? But I think the most important thing to realise for any parent is that their internal world then creates the internal world of the child, you know. So the internal world of the parent creates the environment in which the children in which the child or children are going to develop. And now I know when I say this, most parents go, Oh, my God, the pressure that's, that's the arm. But I didn't say that you had to be okay. No, I didn't say you have to be okay all the time. So I think the most important thing is to be an authentic parent because you're always mirroring to your children what life is about and if children don't see what life is about out before they leave home, the world is going to be a mad place for them. You know, and I think parents who are single parents, and, or, or, or CO parent, I think it's really important that they place as much emphasis as possible on minding themselves. And you know, I think sometimes we think of minding ourselves as like going and getting our hair or speaking from a woman's perspective, my perspective going to get your hair done or like your nails done or something like that. But really what I'm talking about is in those moments, you know, everyone has moments in their day that they get totally exhausted by or, you know, I know for me getting the kids out the door in the morning, I need half an hour afterwards to just sit and have a cup of tea so I can gather myself and go on for the day. So I think if a parent can tune into the moments in their day that exhaust them, and try and offset them with something else, because then the internal world that they're creating is a really safe one for their children to grow up in.

Tamsin Caine 6:04
When you said about minding yourself, this phrase that came into my head was one of my granny's phrases, which was minding your P's and Q's. When you said minding yourself, I thought it meant kind of check for checking yourself and stopping yourself doing kind of crazy mad outbursts, things which I guess, the whole, checking in on yourself and making sure that you're in a good space is kind of part of guys.

Bethan O'Riordan 6:36
Yeah, absolutely. Just checking in with what you need. You know, I think it's this kind of, you know, I know minding yourself is like this massive thing. And it's generally something that we're not taught, you know, I thought myself care was great. But when I had my firstborn when I was pregnant, because like, I went for a massage, once a week, I did a bit of acupuncture. And even though I was a therapist, by then, and even though I'd been working with people, I wasn't really tuned into what I needed. You know, I wasn't really tuned into rest when I needed to rest and go when I needed to go and share, like having kids made me really have to tune into that, you know, so

Tamsin Caine 7:20
I think it's really hard to go from not having kids to having kids don't realise everybody who has kids does that. But he kind of like, so tired. And you have an we as parents watch people, you haven't got children growing up so tired, and you're like, you don't have it.

Bethan O'Riordan 7:40
Yeah, no clue whatsoever.

Tamsin Caine 7:44
And it is, it is just exhausting. But moving that into a single parenting relationship. That's a whole other ballgame. Because it's it's all a new whilst you're with that child, and even if you're sharing care, and knew the child or children 50% of the time, and your ex has them 50% of the time, the 50% that you have them. It's all on you. Yeah. I wonder how? How do you kind of give yourself that time and give yourself that self care in that in that time when it's all on you?

Bethan O'Riordan 8:30
So what I do when I work with people, because I work with loads of mums, mainly in this situation is two things I say, Well, you have to lower expectations of how it is you're trying to parent right, you know, we have to be realistic because we're one person. And don't forget, children never need more than what you can offer. You know, so children are always looking for less than you think they need. You know, it's almost like a double edged sword, all this awareness we have about children and their needs and their development. And we should be massaging them to get to sleep otherwise their brains don't develop and they're not listening to Mozart music. And that's just not true. All children are looking for is connection. You know, and connection always happens when the parent can connect with themselves first, if it means they have to sit and watch telly for three or four hours a day with their kids. Well, that's totally fine. You know, if it means that you go to bed at seven o'clock, if it means that you eat premade meals for five, six nights a week with a raw carrot that's been peeled at the edge of it and that's your bed and that's your veg for that meal. That's fine. But the other thing I say to parents is, is to consider your micro moments, you know in the micro moments, to me the parts of the day, or the situation or the emotional outbursts that exhaust you the most and literally after that it's about stopping because Most of the time, we can make the time to stop, even if it's for like a minute. And even if it's for 10 minutes, that's a luxury. But what I always say to parents is as well, whatever time you get up in your day, you should try and start every hour and a half to two hours and have something to drink, like, whiskey came into my head. And I don't mean with, you know, you should just stop and have a cup of tea or a glass of water or something, but stopping. And it's a really great thing to teach kids and like, you know, the place could be like crazy around you. And it could be kids crying, and there could be, but you need time to stop and kind of bring it all back together. And over time, you know, if you have a book there for your kid or a little toy or a puzzle or something, then over time, the kids will come and join you and stop as well. Because you see, as a parent, you get to set the rules, you know, you get to set the rules for your family based on what you need, and how you feel. So if you are a single parent, and it is that really intense time of being needed, by yourself for 15 1618 hours a day, and then at nighttime as well for feeds. Well, you get to choose how you do that. Even though the kids will need you and they'll need things. We used to get to choose how that's done. And I think sometimes that's important to remember.

Tamsin Caine 11:23
That's so interesting outgrew in Rick. Oh, there, it's gonna be one of those.

Unknown Speaker 11:30
It's the weather if the weather

Tamsin Caine 11:33
its a bit warm. Yeah, so to the things that you said then really struck a chord with me. And those were children never need more than you can offer, which, which is amazing. And you get to set the rules. And I think we spend such a long time beating ourselves up and trying to be Wonder Woman or Superman, and, you know, trying to be everything. You know, there's this huge pressure on us all to be wonderful business people are fantastic employees for an incredible parents, and a brilliant friend, and an awesome partner, and Earl, and it all builds up, doesn't it? And you can only do so much. And I think you have to kind of figure out what you where your priorities are and what you can realistically do and what you can offer. Yeah. I mean, there are some obvious sort of basic, sustaining life type requirements of children need to feed them.

Bethan O'Riordan 12:51
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think so. But you see, you know, and this is where parenting is, like, simple, but complicated, perhaps like everything in life. Because all parents who I meet are trying their best not to be the worst parts of their moms. And they're trying not to be the worst parts of their dads as well. You know, so it's like, you know, I'm 10 years into being a mom now, a little bit more than 10 years into being a mum. And I'm always really guiding my internal compass, around what my parenting ethics and values are, and aligning them to actually me, rather than my parents in default mode, rather than just trying not to be my mom, or trying not to be my dad, you know. And so, one of the first things I do when I meet people is I have this workbook called the parent map. And I asked them just to map out their parenting, you know, and go into these situations of trying to think of an example of feeding time someone came to me with recently, they're like, you know, my one and a half year old, wants to feed themselves, but the food is going everywhere. So I want to feed them and, you know, all these power struggles that go on and I say, okay, they say, Well, what should I do? And I say, I don't know what you should do. And that's up to you to decide, but I will help you decide, you know, because, you know, it's up to a parent to figure out what how do I want this situation to be? What do I need to do to make that happen? And how do I need to be in myself to make that happen? And okay, sometimes it's not quite as linear as that right? You know, life isn't this beautiful? Just Oh, I thought I planned this and it went like that. But if we can have a plan over right, how do I want to be then the internal compass will always guide you in the right way for that? You know,

Tamsin Caine 14:48
I think I think there's a there is a bit of pick your battles when it comes to parenting like is, is this something really important that you need to you need to stick to your guns on or actually, is it a bit of a while I can ease off a little bit with with this particular thing, because it's, it's not all that that was interested when you said about your parenting values and ethics? How would you go about and my children 16 and 17? I'm not sure I could tell you what my parenting values and ethics are have never thought about it until the two minutes ago. That's okay, that's quite worrying.

Bethan O'Riordan 15:42
We'll accept that as an answer. Well, I guess you see, for me, you know, I had to figure out who I was as a parent, because when I became a parent, I went to this really dark place. I had, I mean, before that I was a really capable person, and suddenly becoming a mum made me feel as if I wasn't capable. You know, I lived in a different country, I bought my own place to live, you know, all these kind of, like measures of I had friends, I had relationships, the social measures, I guess, of like, are you okay? You know, so I went to university, I could keep a job down, I could be with friends, I could party, I could do all the things and have a great life. And then when I became a mom, that really changed. And what happened for me is, I suffered birth trauma with my first I had like this really crazy birth. And then after that, as well, I came home and I didn't feel great and myself is the best way to put it. I don't mind talking about it. But you know, so I think what happened in a mother's brain is that postnatal depression and birth trauma, they're very real. But what they are, is they're a catalyst of previous trauma in somebody's life. Right. So it's like, postnatal depression isn't just a thing that arrives, it's like, from a part of the brain gets triggered from the birth process from being in a traumatic situation. The brain remembers all other traumas. So and then I became really shouty, you know, and I became a very angry person. And it just like, wasn't me at all. So I really had to do a lot of thinking about who who am I? And what on earth am I offering my children, you know, and then a few years down, that's when I had my middle girl, Ruby. And that was amazing birth. And I came home and I was like, I'm Wonder Woman. And then I had my third son, or my third child, second son, and he got very ill. He started to have seizures. So he was about four months old, and he didn't start he cried for 18 hours a day for two and a half years. And I mean, he cried, and he cried, and he cried. And then he and then after about four months, I was like, Ah, he's doing weird stuff. And you know, at his worst, he was having about 60 seizures a day. But they were non epileptic. So it was kind of this weird thing. We were lucky. But we weren't so lucky, either. You know, so I really had to dig deep. And, you know, when you're faced with just sitting with a child in a hospital bed, it really kind of strips you back and makes you think, Well, who am I and what on earth am I doing? And how do I want things to be? And I thought, well, you know, I just want my kids to be okay. And then I had to work out what I had to do to make that happen. And it was that I had to be okay in me. So long story short, hope that answers the question there.

Tamsin Caine 18:43
Yeah, absolutely. I can't imagine you being shouted. But then I suppose. I suppose that's kind of the point, isn't it? Because you're there. You've kind of worked on that and come up the other side. There's an I mean, it's probably not for this podcast to go into huge details on this. But there's an interesting conversation to be had around postnatal depression, I think. I mean, I think that I suffered it with my eldest. I know, I didn't with my youngest, but I kept being thrust questionnaires. And the last thing that I wanted to do was to answer the questions so that somebody would tell me that I'd got paid postnatal depression because I felt like that would tell me that I was failing my child. Yeah. And I say it's got a bit better. I had a so my son didn't quite cry to the extent that your youngest did but he didn't sleep for 18 months. You know, we didn't have a full night's sleep vitamins and, and that was exhausting. You know, it's used as the foot sleep deprivation is used as a form of torture and could choose that torture and and it picked, you know, I was not in it a great place, but it do you think yeah questionnaire that you can you know what answers were gonna trigger what response results and you know, like right well I'll just start the kind of middle one.

Bethan O'Riordan 20:24
I'll just say no to that. And yeah, I think you see this is where like I'm and I guess what I want to say, you see emotions don't talk the language of logic, you know. So doing a questionnaire on one hand is lovely or not lovely, but then actually feeling a feeling is totally different. You know? So that's why I don't do assessment pieces I'm not trained to either. And I don't do you know, I get a lot of people asking me, well, could you work with this type of personality or this diagnosis? And I say, I work with anybody who wants to who wants to be in the room with me? Because it doesn't matter about the diagnosis, it doesn't matter about the percent here and the yes or the no there. It just matters about where someone wants to get to, and how we get them there. The rest just doesn't. To me, it doesn't matter at all.

Tamsin Caine 21:25
No, that's really interesting. So how, how do people find, like, find you come to you? What, what's the process that What process do they go through to get from? Like, I felt like a dreadful parent to sit in a room with Beth and start into work through this stuff.

Bethan O'Riordan 21:52
Yeah, so I think people come to me mainly, first of all, for sorting out their children's behaviours. You know, people come to me with their toddlers generally. And they say, you know, my toddler won't stop being angry, or they won't stop throwing or they won't stop being annoying. Basically.

Tamsin Caine 22:13
Yeah. Share or they keep Sorry. Yeah.

Bethan O'Riordan 22:18
Yeah, yeah. So then I do it, they can really small, psycho educational piece around the child and the child's developing brain. So basically, the sharing part of the brain isn't even established until the child is three. So children, and also like, sometimes I don't like sharing, you know, you know, I mean, like, because these things are really difficult emotions. And the other thing is that, you know, people want their children to be good. And say, Please, and say thank you, and, you know, be really grateful when they get a present. And I say, I don't like shit presence, either, you know, I just sort of like, alright, chairs, you know, so, so people come to me generally to sort out their kids behaviours. And then we realise that actually, children have developing brains and their brain moves faster than they can control. You know, I'm a lot a lot older than a toddler. And I can honestly say that I cannot always control how fast my brain goes either. You know. So first of all, all parents must lower expectations, and trust in children's innate ability to develop, and be kind and be great. And because we are humans, we're actually a social species, you know, so if that's the first thing that we have to really remember about children, and the second thing we have to remember is that parents really have lots of skills available to them to support children in their developing brains. So most people focus on children's behaviour. And what I say is, well, behind every behaviour, there is a feeling and behind the feeling, there is a need. So if we can just bypass the behaviour completely and think well, what does your child need? And how can you help them with that need, but of course, you can't help a child with their needs until you've met your own needs. So that's how we go from the child and we kind of filter down to the IT, generally mothers but I do work with dads as well. So like in my parenting membership this month, we had a workshop on Monday, I forgot what day was on Monday about releasing fear. And how you know, every parent holds fear around, you know, will my child be okay? Will they fit in? Are they doing the right thing? You know, I had one woman come to me because she's like, I really want my nine year old to do piano but she won't practice. So well. Sounds like she doesn't want to do piano. She said, but you're not listening to me. She doesn't, you know, and I said, but what are you afraid of? And she said, Well, I'm afraid afraid that she won't be musical? And I said, okay, and why are you afraid that she won't be musical? And well, you know, she might not fit in somewhere, then. Okay, so it's nothing to do with piano, it's that you're afraid that your child won't fit in. And then I say to the parents, did you fit in as a child, and we always have a memory of not fitting in or being left out, or just not being in whatever gang or doing this or doing that. So I work with parents so that they don't spill all the time, because we spill a little bit anyway, right? You know, so we don't spill all the time into my children's world, you know, and we can let children suffer the pain of being rejected and not fitting in and all the rest of it, but know that that's part of life. And that's going to help the child really find their way and who they want to be with. Yeah,

Tamsin Caine 25:51
we can't take all the lessons for them, can we want to wrap them in cut Morlan and not have to not have them have to suffer the things that you have had to go through as a child? And I think that's, that's massive. So that's really interesting that actually people come to you wanting to fix that kids. Yeah. But mainly, it's a, it's the parents that not need fixing, but need to change, like a twist of how they're dealing with the situation or how they're viewing the situation. Yeah. Sounds like that's kind of what you're saying. Have I?

Bethan O'Riordan 26:32
Yeah, yeah, that's right. I think the other thing is, is that I get a lot of people saying, well, you work with my child. And I say, I say, honestly, I could do, I'm qualified enough, I'm experienced enough, I'm insured. Most importantly, I've got all my child protection skills and qualifications. And I say, but really, the work that I would be doing with your child you can do, we'll just give you the skills to do it. You know, so there's one thing I really wish there was maybe like a more personal thing, but I really wish that parents could get to a place where they believe that they might be good enough, because I know like, I'm not really one for affirmations. I'm not one for kind of, you know, I'm a strong, beautiful, independent woman, even though I am. But you know, because it's, you know, there's a big difference between saying something and believing it. Yeah. So my work is to get a parent to a place where they believe in, they know that they are enough. And you know, what you said, Then about wrapping your child up in cotton? Well, you can totally do that. But you have to do it with their emotions. So trauma is a bit of a buzzword at the minute. And trauma isn't the thing that happened to you, it's the fact that you are alone in the aftermath of it. So the one thing you can do as a parent is be there in the aftermath. And like, you can do that even when your child is asleep, you know, you can go in, and like in a non creepy way, you know, you can just you know, is that, you know, did you ever wake up when your kids were at the side of your bed as a toddler, and you're like Jesus Christ, you know, so you don't want to be doing that to your kids. But you know, you can go in, and you can just be with them, and you can just wish them well. And you can say, kind of stay mentally. Oh, I know, this was really hard for you today. But I believe that you'll get through it. And I totally trust that you'll get through it. And then you can leave them, you know, so you can wrap them up in cotton wool, to toughen them up, to go out and be able not toughen up. But you know, what it means is that they're able for the knocks that life will naturally give

Tamsin Caine 28:40
them, like giving them the tools, isn't it? Yes,

Bethan O'Riordan 28:43
yeah. And I think you see another buzzword is resilience and this word so. So like when I first went into, so I used to work in addiction for wholeness and suicide prevention services for a long time. And then I went out on my own, I set up a company called resilient minds, but I had to close it down because the word resilience just literally did my head in. It because, you know, resilience has all these connotations of being tough, and like, I will withstand whatever you want. But we don't want kids to do that at all. We want kids to be able to say, No, that's enough, actually, I won't be treated like that. And to do that, it's about parents teaching them their value, their worth, but it's also about teaching them the kind of levels of difficult emotions as well because it's almost like a big problem I see with teenagers when they come to see me is that they almost have no range of like, feeling bad. So they're like, I feel really bad today, or I feel really bad and I haven't gone to school and it's like, yeah, that's part of life. You're gonna feel bad, you know? And I maybe that sounds a bit callous, and I don't mean it in a harsh way. But it's about teaching Children the range of emotions, yeah, sometimes you will feel really, really bad and you'll get through. And sometimes you'll feel a bit bad. You know. So I think teaching them the range is really important as well. So they're not totally floored.

Tamsin Caine 30:12
It's a bit like, sometimes we'll have a light drizzle, and sometimes we'll have an absolute downpour. But you're not going to appreciate the sunshine. If you don't have those bits as well. It's like you, you have to have the not great days to have the really great days.

Bethan O'Riordan 30:28
Yeah, I think so. And I think really, really believing that happens when the parents can sort of sit in their own shit days as it were, you know? Because Because like, we do a lot of comparing like, oh, you know, well, I don't have a child with a disability, or I don't have a child with a diagnosis. So really, I should just get on with it. And it's like, well, no, you're having a hard time. You know, you need to remind yourself within that hard time.

Tamsin Caine 30:56
Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. So you mentioned earlier about your membership. And when we were talking, when we were talking about recording this podcast, we talked about your membership. And I thought that it might be something really useful for our listeners. So do you want to talk just a little bit about what that is? What, what what it does? What your what it's aimed to do? Yeah, so

Bethan O'Riordan 31:26
the membership is a group of mainly mums at the moment. But it's really the place to get the answers that you're looking for in parenting. So there's loads of different parts that make up the membership. One of them is that we're in a Facebook group together, so people and ask questions whenever they want to, and the group and myself will reply, and it can be you know something about the parent themselves, or be like, Oh, my God, my child is doing this what on earth we do. And then you know, and then once a month, we do a master class. And either I do that, or I get a guest and depending on what the parents are looking for in the group at the time. So the first one we did was mapping out parenting. This month, one was fear. We did another one on working with trauma, minding our own traumas, so it doesn't spill. And then also, we have a live question and answer, monthly question and answer with me. So it's a time that we can sit together, sometimes it turns into kind of a therapeutic thing. Sometimes it literally is just people firing questions. And I love it like, because sometimes like they'll be like a mom in the car, that's like, I'm just dropping the kids off to football. Why guys, right, what we're doing tonight, then, you know, and other times, it'll be people really upset and really crying about something that's going on for them. And the other thing is that there's an online hub as well, that I've put the resources that I think parents need, because there is so much information out there at the moment, that it's really overwhelming. And I think you see the most important thing for parents to know the basics about the child development, the child's developing brain and what to expect, you know, the boys develop their teenage hormones, they start kicking in around nine, and what you can do about that, and things like you know, yeah, and things like with teenagers, the the memory power of a teenage brain, kind of what would be the word now kind of loses its capabilities when they're in the throes of the teenage years. So if they go bananas over something one day, they really may not remember it the next day. So it's really important that the parent doesn't bring it up and add shame to watch this happen. And then there's other so in the in the Facebook group, people ask questions, and sometimes I come on and do a video response if I think it's helpful. So there are stored there as well as different worksheets for parents. I've really consciously not put much in there for parents to do with children in terms of worksheets, because that is not what children are looking for. Children are looking for the relationship with the parents. And also important to say if it's okay, I guess you know, your your work is mainly with people who split up that it's okay, if the parents don't parent from the same page, people say, Oh, it's going to be really confusing. It's going to be this. It's going to be that and it might be, but it's really important that say this is only because I mainly work with moms, that the mom can almost kind of like debrief the kids when they come back and be like, yeah, that is what your dad does, or yeah, this is but we do it this way here. You know, so that so that there's a level of understanding within it. And we talk about all this kind of stuff as well, because there's a lot of single moms in the membership. Yeah,

Tamsin Caine 34:52
setting your own boundaries in your own house. This is important but kind of recognising what Not bad just because it happens differently somewhere else. It's just not gonna that's just not how it's done here. Yeah, yeah, I think that's that's really important thing. Your membership sounds amazing. And and it's it's not just open to people in Ireland. So our parents who are UK based can can join away?

Bethan O'Riordan 35:24
Yes they can we have someone from America who's part of it as well. So it's like because you know, the parenting experience is universal. You know, we all suffer with the same emotion, we all guilt and shame and fear and not knowing what to do, it's the same, it doesn't matter what country you live in. And that's the really nice thing about it, you know, is that there's a lot of healing in the group, there's a lot of wounds that are brought to the group, there's a lot of really practical like, Oh, my God, like once a week, we have a venting week. And everyone just is like, why is my mother in law so awful to me? You know, it was just like, of course, the big question. But we also do like the, you know, it's just great just to get so I guess what I'm trying to say is, it's done with a sense of fun as well. Yeah. Because parenting is this like, I mean, it is theories if you make it be, but it's also like, everyone's trying their best. And the best thing about the membership is, is that everything is there that you need to level up or upscale or read. It's about trusting, you know, trusting that you're enough. And anything new that comes your way will only add to that. Yeah,

Tamsin Caine 36:33
absolutely. were amazingly, because these things always fly. Coming to the end of our recording

Bethan O'Riordan 36:43
is amazing, isn't it?

Tamsin Caine 36:46
I talk to you happily for hours.

Bethan O'Riordan 36:50
Brilliant.

Tamsin Caine 36:51
Is there anything that I haven't asked you or anything that you would like to say to wrap up?

Bethan O'Riordan 37:00
Yeah, I'd like to say that I think, honestly, that a child's parents are the best therapists that they will ever have. I know that perhaps children do need to go to therapy for different things. But I'd really love if parents got to a place. And I know I did say this already. But I'll say it again, where they could begin to believe that they were enough for their children. You know, so whatever has happened to the parent in their lives, that they know that they are enough for their children. And often putting the child into therapy sometimes, I mean, every situation is different, right? But all they need is their parents to perhaps believe that a little bit more however that looks and that changes everything.

Tamsin Caine 37:50
That's really lovely. A lovely thought to finish on Beth and thank you so much for joining me today. It's been an absolute pleasure to have you as my guest

Bethan O'Riordan 38:01
Thank you very much

Tamsin Caine 38:08
i and i hope you enjoy the episode of the Smart Force podcast. If you would like to get in touch please have a look in the show notes for details or go into the website www dot smart divorce.co.uk. Also, if you are listening on Apple podcasts or on Spotify and you wouldn't mind leaving us a lovely five star review. That would be fantastic. I know that lots of our listeners are finding this is incredibly helpful in their journey through separation divorce and dissolving a civil partnership. Also, if you would like some work further support we do have Facebook group now. It's called separation divorce and dissolution UK. Please do go on to Facebook search of the group and we'd be delighted to have you join us. The one thing I would say do please answer their membership questions. Okay, have a great day and take care