Autonomy-Supportive Parenting with Emily Edlynn

On today's episode of the "Helping Families Be Happy" podcast, host Dr. Carla Marie Manly, a practicing clinical psychologist, wellness advocate, and author based in Sonoma County, California talks to Emily Edlynn. Today she will be talking about her fabulous new book Autonomy, supportive parenting, reducing parental burnout, and raising competent and confident children. 

Episode Highlights

• 01:11: Emily grew up in Southern California and was always a big reader and also always loved working with children. 
• 02:57: Emily has noticed in a lot of parenting books recently; this idea of autonomy is becoming more and more part of the dialogue. 
• 03:32: Autonomy-supportive parenting is using practices to help our child develop a strong sense of self and a sense of mastery and competence. 
• 04:22: The other way that Emily approached the book differently than a lot of parenting material is that they really wanted to center the parenting experience as much as the child's experience.
• 05:37: When parents describe greater autonomy levels, they are doing more autonomy support practices. 
• 07:12: Parenting doesn't mean you drop the child in the sandbox and say see you 5 hours from now. 
• 08:38: As parents, we are really the first experience of relatedness. 
• 10:03: Emily explains how her book helps families. 
• 10:40: Emily explains how her book is trying to empower parents.
• 11:24: When people are feeling more confident when parents are feeling understood and empowered and confident, they are passing that on to their children and their children can absorb that same positive emotion and then the relationships are stronger.
• 11:50: Emily's book considers parents, caregivers, grandparents, and whoever is pitching in on the caregiving duties from all backgrounds and walks of life and different needs and actually meets them where they are. 
• 13:27: It will be helpful for parents to realize that you are not just throwing them into something without giving them a chance to do some examination of the situation. 
• 15:14: To all the other parents living in this modern era of parenting, it's important for all of us to do some self-evaluation. 
• 18:04: Emily gives several scenarios as to how one should avoid controlling their kid. Controlling ends up being more punitive, and that means the child's not learning.
• 19:46: Kids' ideas for consequences that have been very appropriate. And once they came up with the consequence, it was so much easier to enforce because it was their idea. 
• 21:33: A very trust-based relationship that has elements of friendship. It can turn into a more mature friendship over time. 

3 Key Points

1. Emily explains the self-determination theory. Autonomy is one of the three components of this theory.
2. Emily talks about the importance of creating a sense of belonging, safety, and community within the family.
3. Very loving, well-intentioned parents are becoming more controlling with their children and that is undermining the autonomy child. 

Tweetable Quotes

• "We need to make time and space and prioritize our own sense of autonomy so that we can better practice that for our children." - Emily Edlynn
• "A child learning that they have skills, and they can trust themselves in their emotional life. Their social life, their academic life, all across their areas of functioning. It's building that strong sense of self, which is very different." - Emily Edlynn
• "The book does cover toddlers, school age, children, teenagers. So, I would say you can just flip to the part that you need for now in your parenting season, but I try and use a lot of very different examples and scripts for a template." - Emily Edlynn
• "Everyone loves a good quiz, so I modified scientifically validated questionnaires that are used throughout the literature and have everyone do a self-assessment of how controlling am I versus how autonomy-supportive am I." - Emily Edlynn

Resources Mentioned

• Helping Families be Happy Podcast Apple
• Familius Instagram Twitter  Facebook
• Emily Edlynn Instagram
• https://www.emilyedlynnphd.com/
• Pre-Order the Book: HERE