The Power of Multidirectional Communication in Parenting

Paula: [00:00:00] Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Chatting With The Experts tv show. I am the host of this and every week I bring to you amazing women from Africa, from the Caribbean, in the Diaspora, who have so much to share with you. Every week, I get feedback that someone has learned something new, or they’ve been inspired or empowered by these amazing women and men, because I’ve had some men come on the show, and I know this week will be no exception. So the topic for today is Multidirectional Communication for Effective Parenting and I have an amazing [00:01:00] woman who’s going to tell you and talk to you about this. Her name is Dr. Ayo Adenuga, and she is a distinguished public health physician and the visionary founder of IEA Impact Consulting. When I read her resume or her bio, I was so impressed that I told her that I don’t even know where to start in describing all the things she’s done. So what better thing should I do than ask her to join us? And let her tell you a bit about herself before we delve into this very exciting topic. So with that, I want to welcome Dr. Hario Adenuga to chat in with the experts.
Dr Ayo: Thank you so much. I’m so honored to be here today. Thank you for having me on your platform. I’ve listened and heard about this [00:02:00] platform, about everybody on board coming on, the impact you’ve been making. In fact, I was in one of the interviews and I was so inspired by the way you bring experts on just to impact people’s lives. So thank you. Thank you. for all you do. I appreciate it. Again, I’m Dr. Ayo Adenuga. I’m a public health physician. I’m the visionary for IEA Impact Consulting. And what we do is to inspire and equip leaders and people to be able to achieve impact and to be successful personally and professionally. Also based on my parenting, coaching and leadership, I’m also a parent and team coach, and I also have an NGO nonprofit where I bring leadership and health equity to people.
So I’m so happy to be here today, knowing that we are focusing on women of all races. It’s bringing social equity, bringing life to people and just making sure that people are empowered to be the best version of themselves. So thank you. [00:03:00] Thank you. Thank you for having me. And again, I’m a mom who has teenagers, a husband of one and a child of God. So I’m so blessed to be here today.
Paula: And see I told you that there’s so much that she brings to the table. I couldn’t say it all. So the best person was her and she did so well. Such a fantastic job. So we are going to be talking about Multidirectional Communication for Effective Parenting. A big mouthful, but I know there’s so much about this. So tell me about this. What do you mean by multidirectional communication?
Dr Ayo: Thank you for asking. So I’ll start with one thing and that is as parents, we embark on this challenging, but thrilling journey as our children navigate and transition from the kids they are to adolescence.
Paula: Mm-hmm.
Dr Ayo: And I’ve heard before that [00:04:00] enjoy them when they are young because the variance in when they are younger and become adolescent is so wide, almost 95 percent and at that time that sweet, cuddly, hair bunny person that used to have transitions and become this enigma. This person that will challenge your values, the person that will say, mom, your taste is not as up as it should be, or your values. Why are you telling me this? And yet in that whole changes that they are in, they’re also navigating the challenges of adolescence, trying to understand themselves, trying to understand their identity, trying to fit into societal values and pressures, trying to just say, who am I?
And if that thing we as parents are there to help them navigate successfully this life challenges, helping them to move from where they are to [00:05:00] where they want to be. And the best way we can do this, and the focus of it all is effective communication so that they know who they are able to let them launch forward from adolescence into adulthood, being assured of themselves, their identity, their self worth and knowing that they are living in a house of love. So now your question goes to, what is multidirectional communication?
Paula: Yeah.
Dr Ayo: I’ll start again with the fact that if you think about it, And the question I will ask is, what teenager would like to open up to a parent that is punitive? A parent that criticizes them, judges them? Or what teenager would want direction from a parent that is so permissive that everything goes? Now, before we are used to parental authority. Where communication is just one direction, I tell you [00:06:00] the rules, I tell you what to do. And then you just do it. And the child comes back and say, yes, dad, yes, mom. And that is it.
Paula: Well, let me stop you right there, Dr. Ayo. Is that not what we grew up with?
Dr Ayo: That is what we grew up knowing, where you say yes and yes, but things have changed sincerely. Things have changed whereby before we were enclosed in knowing our dad and mom and just our family members and maybe some school and the influence of the family was so vast then, but now more children have been exposed to the world of different cultures, different travel, different phases and things have changed and experts have said we have to move from parental authority to parental influence. Now, people are seeing, actually they are seeing that my parents can make mistakes. My parents are not God. They are not [00:07:00] demigods. My parents are human and children of those days are different from the teenagers or children of nowadays. They’ve been, they’ve gone through so many things and exposed to so many things.
So now multidirectional communication is where you are able to communicate effectively without, I mean, irrespective of the roles without any block ways in communication. And it goes from either you’re communicating upwards, downwards, Horizontally, externally, or internally. And I added that. I added the internal and external to the model. So multidirectional communication is effective communication whereby communication flows to achieve your goal. And there is no stop way. So now I will start with the first one. And the first one is internal communication. Communicating just with yourself.
Paula: Okay. So [00:08:00] that’s self communication for the parent?
Dr Ayo: Self communication for the parents.
Paula: Also for the child? Or do we come to
Dr Ayo: So the first one is internal communication. How do you communicate with yourself?
Paula: Okay.
Dr Ayo: The second one is down-up communication. And I’m talking about mother to father. Don’t forget, we’re all equal in the eyes of God, but in the rules in the home, I want to put the father as the head and we are talking to women right now or a man down, but let’s talk about we women. How do we communicate upwards? Then how do we communicate downwards? That means from the mother to the children or parents of the children. Then how do the children communicate among themselves? That’s horizontally. And then how do the children communicate outwards out of the family? How are they being ambassadors of the family?
So, this model has been used in top organizations and I’m going to apply to parenting here. So this is a proven way of communicating. That’s being a fulcrum of successful organizations. And we’re going to relate [00:09:00] that to us ourselves.
Paula: So the family, that is?
Dr Ayo: Yes. So the family.

Paula: Alright.
Dr Ayo: To Family. So I’ll go with self communication now. Now many at times in my parent coaching that I go through, One of the questions that I’ve been asked, for instance, is what do you want to see in your children? What do you want for them? And many parents from the ones I’ve spoken to and the ones even I’ve read about to say, I want my children to be happy. I want my children to have security you know. I want my children to feel secure, even in themselves. I want my children to have self worth. And faith based parents I’m a faith based person would say, I want my children to know God. To be a person that wants to please God. So in that way, if you ask a big question for ourselves, when you want that for your children, do you want that for yourself?
Are you filled with happiness? Are you filled with self worth? Are you [00:10:00] secure in yourself? So communication starts with you. What do you say to yourself? How do you communicate to yourself? How do you see yourself? Many of us, and you mentioned this earlier, that is that what we grew up with? Many of us grew up in homes where we have authoritarian parents or parents that would say, hey, do this, they determined what we do, they determined even our career projection, they determined whatever our outcome. And some parents really have also filled us with words that are negative, that people feel less of themselves. That’s where they don’t even feel good enough. You are irresponsible or you did sociology. You should have done engineering. You should have done… you should have been a doctor. You should have been this. And we carried that baggage with us even into our homes, into our children. Right? And if you had the type C or I type personality, you don’t want to feel, you want to always prove that I can’t feel. And when the [00:11:00] children do things, you feel you’re a failure. You carry your children’s behavior as your identity.
Paula: I’m happy you said that. I’m so happy you said that, because as you talk about that, I was talking to, I think, some young people recently. I live… I say I live in a house with young people, but I think people have told me to say young people live in my house with me. And because of that I’ve learned so much about, you know, the younger generation, how to communicate with them, how they, you know, what they think as being valuable or influencing their lives. And so it’s great to hear you say that, you know, about the authoritarian role that a lot of us came from families like that, where what dad said or what man’s mom said was the rule. You know, you go out into the world and you find out people have different ways of approaching that. And so, yeah, I like that talk about self communication, because then you have to come to terms with this new way of looking [00:12:00] at yourself internally, because you’ve been brought up in a household and sometimes been in a community with not been like that. Thank you.
Dr Ayo: Yeah, thank you too. Absolutely. I’ll say a story of a client that I had personally and professionally, let me say she’s successful, but she had a very hard time growing up a dysfunctional family and she carried all that in. So while coaching, the first thing I have to say, what do you want me to know about your path that will be helpful here? Because we have to put that baggage down. And she’s telling the story about her father, her mother, the dysfunctional system, and it was so heavy on her heart that she deflected it to her child as well. So the first thing is, sincerely, our children want a mirror. You might provide for them, you might do all kinds of things, but the mirror you give them is reflective of their self worth.
It’s [00:13:00] the worth you have of yourself that reflects on your children. They see themselves in you. So you have to be able to self regulate and fill yourself with that identity that is beyond yourself. As a Christian, I find my identity in God, right? I’m not good enough. I will mess up as a parent, but my identity is not in my job. My identity is not in my children. My identity is not in my husband or my status or my finances. My identity is in God. So you are solid. I show up that way. So as a mom, how do you want to show up for your children daily? One of the things that I’ve learned is the way you show up is to, we’ll set the tone in your house.
You have to cultivate what we call positive psychology and that is happiness. You set a tone of happiness, not necessarily because you’re always happy, but because you are cultivating every day. Now, hear me, people will say that negative [00:14:00] mindset is stronger than a positive mindset. In fact, you need three positive experiences to remove a negative experience. Now, what are positive experiences? It’s you deciding that I’m going to be happy, irrespective of what’s happening. Even when you are sad, be sad for 24 hours and move on.
Paula: I love that one.
Dr Ayo: Mourn for 24 hours and move on.
Paula: So in other words, you’re giving permission.
Dr Ayo: You’re giving permission.
Paula: Yeah. Okay.
Dr Ayo: Be sad. It’s not as if you’re like, Oh, because when you don’t express your sadness, you’re living in denial.
Paula: Yes.
Dr Ayo: So you have to express it. And I have a model here. Okay. The first thing I want to say, of course, is… when you cultivate positive, just like you’re walking on the sidewalk and you fall into a ditch, right? There are two things that could happen. You could find a cushion there because we’ll always fall. And the cushion is the positive experiences that you’ve been cultivating [00:15:00] and you get up again a little bump. But if you don’t have positive experiences, when you fall, you fall on concretes and they have bruises, you have scratches and it’s more difficult. So how do you cultivate this internal communication that gives you positivity?
Now, there are four C’s, and I believe that is one, curiosity, two, connection, three, compassion, and four, collaboration. Now these four C’s are the ways in which you communicate internally daily, and it takes a self aware person to be able to do this. So as mothers, as women, you have to be self aware. When you wake up in the morning, ask yourself, how do I feel today? Give yourself permission to ask, how do I feel? What is my mood? What is my body telling me? And you check it, right? Some people will journal, they will write it down and say I feel happy. And you say, why am I [00:16:00] happy? Because of A, B, C, and D. And you hold that on. I feel sad. I feel as if I didn’t sleep well.
You know, I feel like I don’t even want to get out of bed. And you ask, why? And you note it down. Then the second thing that I see is connection. Connect with yourself, connect with your body, connect with God. Now, when you wake up, that connection means that you meditate and say, God, I feel sad today. I feel overwhelmed. Right? I’m not sure why, but God this is how I feel. And you pray, you say words of affirmation because 95 percent of our thoughts are negative.
Paula: True.
Dr Ayo: And you have to bring yourself to that positive path. I’m spending a lot of time here because it is important to have a self positive mindset because you can’t show it to your children if you don’t have it. You can’t pull from an empty cup. So the first thing is to connect, meditate, then regulate through prayers, regulate through breathing, [00:17:00] touch your chest and take a deep breath in. You sometimes in the morning just feel overwhelmed and your heart is just beating on Monday morning for no just reason. And you just feel your heart and you feel heart beating and you pray to God and you take a deep breath in and out and you see yourself calm down. You want to go for a meeting, you take a deep breath in and out. You calm down. You want to go and have a hard conversation with your teenager and you don’t know what the outcome is. Or your teenager is going from being a teen to adult. I know that there are different dynamics right there, but you take that so you self regulate.
The other C is compassion. Be compassionate with yourself. It’s okay, right? It’s okay. It’s okay for us to feel and get up, right? Have self care. Do you want a cup of tea? Do you want a cold or warm shower? Do you want to go for a massage? Take [00:18:00] care of yourself, right? Compassion on yourself and collaboration. You might not be able to do it alone. Who do you need to connect with? Who can help you in that situation? That can bring you out when you are down. So those are the ways that you can actually communicate internally. But I have something that is even hotter for you. So just hold on. I hope you guys are writing.
Paula: Yes, I was just about to say, I want you to go over those four C’s because they are important. And I know you have something even hotter. But before we go to the hot bit, let’s get these three, those four C’s.
Dr Ayo: Four C’s is curiosity. Asking yourself questions. Being self aware that what’s happened? Why is this happening? What can I do? How do I want to feel at the end of the day? Right? So at the beginning, you can say, how do I want to feel at the end of the day? I want to feel energetic. I want to feel happy. I want to feel fulfilled and then you walk towards it. Right? So curiosity, [00:19:00] asking yourself those questions. The second thing is connection, connecting with your soul, connecting with God, connecting with your body. You have to connect with yourself. The third thing is compassion.
You have to be compassionate with yourself. You can just ask, if a friend of mine comes and say, I’m going through this issue, what would you tell the person? So tell yourself that, be compassionate with yourself. Then the last thing is collaboration. Which friend do you want to talk to? Which resource do you want to leverage? Which parent, coach do you want to talk to? Which of your friends that you know that when you want to talk would listen to you without judgment? So those four things are important in self communication. That’s curiosity, connection, you have compassion and collaboration. So those are four.
Paula: Thank you. So if you saw me looking down, that’s because I was writing them down because these are important. The [00:20:00] self communication with these three Cs, four Cs, I keep saying three, four Cs, it’s easy to ask yourself those questions when we wake up in the morning. All right, you said there’s something you don’t have to. Go for it.
Dr Ayo: And I’m saying this part because it’s from Positive Psychology and by Dr. Sullivan. And I heard this also from Valerie Bortin, who is a very renowned coach and is called PEMA. PEMA is an acronym that encompasses how we can engage in positive psychology and positive thinking and positive mindsets. So the P itself is positive emotions. So like I mentioned, the positive emotions are when you ask yourself and you tell me in your mind, I want to set a tone of happiness.
I want to be joyful, right? So positive emotions is so important because negative things will come. But you have to set the tone so that when those adversity comes, you are pushing the north. And you can do that by [00:21:00] journaling every day. Just write, what am I thankful for today? What am I grateful for? So you write it down. E is engagements. Studies have shown that people that are engaged in one thing or the other are more likely to feel happy. And let me tell you something about positive emotions. When you have positive emotions, you find that you are more likely to have a successful relationship. You are more likely to be successful at work.
Paula: Yeah.
Dr Ayo: You are more likely to be healthy. You are more likely to be forgiven. Your children are more likely to come to you because you are not grouchy. So positive emotion is so integral that it is, it has been a good strategy for successful lifestyle. So you have to cultivate, but so you hear me say cultivate because it takes time to build up. You don’t just wake up one day and you’re happy. You have to be intentional in building for yourself and for your family.
Paula: So in other words, we’ve got to work on this.
Dr Ayo: Absolutely.
Paula: Don’t just work overnight [00:22:00] and it takes, depending on personalities, it may take longer or shorter time, but we’re applying some of the C’s that you meant. I love the collaboration. Have a friend, have somewhere that you feel safe. You can talk with the person if it’s a friend or with a professional, a therapist, or, you know, have some other resources that you can look into. But yeah, that collaboration. I love it. Okay. All right. Engagement.
Dr Ayo: Thank you. Very well. So yeah, so the hours to go there is relationship. And I like the fact that you mentioned that part of collaboration because it’s important. Studies have shown that we’re as happy as our good relationships. Either with your spouse, with your children, with people that you trust. Because we as human beings, we are social beings, we are emotional beings. So if you have grouchy people around you.
Paula: Environment, environment. [00:23:00] Yep.
Dr Ayo: It’s important. So we’ve mentioned P, positive emotions, E, engagement, how to find something that you’re doing, either ministry, fun. You have to be engaged. And then we have the R, which is relationship. The M is find meaning, find purpose, right? We have to find a sense of meaning. So one thing people would ask is that people say, I don’t know what my purpose is. I don’t know what to do. The first thing is that what is your talent? What are you good at? When people cross your path, how do you influence them? So I’m like, sometimes when people talk to me, they just feel happy after talking to me, you know, or some people are in trouble, they need help.
And I’m just there to help them. Some people say, Oh they needed something. I was able to help them organize it and things were better for it. That is a purpose. That is a talent, you know, so you can find that I’d be happy in that itself. And the A is achievement. Every day, write your to do [00:24:00] list and check it off. Studies have shown that when you write down your goals and your to do list, almost do list, I check it off. It gives us good hormones and makes you feel good. So at the end of the day, you can say, Hey, I actually achieved something because there are some times when from morning to night, I’m like, what did I even do today?
The day has gone. I’m like, Oh my God. But I go back to my to do list and I say, Oh, I actually did a lot. So they’re just remembrance. And I say, well, I’m grateful for all the things that I’ve done. And you feel good. You don’t feel unfulfilled. You don’t feel as if you’re useless. You don’t feel as if you’re getting old and forgetting things. Or you’re no longer relevant. You can see it. I called this person. I influenced this person. I blessed this person. I gifted this person. And you can check those things off. So at the end of the day, as a woman, you feel blessed. You feel happy. [00:25:00] You are positive. You are not going into depression. You might feel sad, but it’s temporary. It’s a phase and you move on again out of that.
Paula: Now, all these things you talked about, which are so powerful and so good, I know this is a woman’s show, but we have a few men, and I know a few men may join us. Can are these things applicable to men as well?
Dr Ayo: This is the most beautiful part of it, we are all human beings. You’re a man, a woman, a child, a teenager. Once you are listening to this, you would gain because we all need this positive emotion. So it’s not just women, it’s everybody. And that’s why this is so important. If you’re listening now and you’re joining the live chat. As you’re listening now, everybody, you would always gain from it now or in future when you listen to the recording in the future, share with your people, share with your client, share with your communities. They would always gain from this. [00:26:00] Positive emotion is a fulcrum of our wellbeing because we are emotional human beings.
Paula: We are. Let’s not forget about it. No matter how much you push it down, it’s going to come out in some way or the other. That’s just nature. There’s no vacuum in nature.
Dr Ayo: There’s none. And people are used to focusing on negativity, right? And, oh, this happened, that happened, da da da da da. But they’ve noticed that positive emotions are really the things that makes us to be resilient. Things we are grateful for, things have worked well and we can say, Oh, even though I’m feeling now I can do it. I’ve done it before. I’ll tell a story about a ladybug that fell and fell on his back and tried and tried to get up every time and kept feeling and this woman was watching this ladybug for hours.
Then after a [00:27:00] while, the ladybug rested and paused. And then flipped over on his legs as they’re walking off. Now, that didn’t make it less of a ladybug. It just took it time to get back on his feet. And that’s how it is. Even for us human beings, we would always fall. But we have to try and try because you are going to get up at the end of the day. I will move on and fly. It’s only a phase.
Paula: Yeah. Wow. So that was self communication.
Dr Ayo: Thank you. And then the most important next communication is with your spouse. your partner, your husband. And that’s a now… I know the men would join. I mean, would probably view this in future or listening to us now as we’re talking, but the truth [00:28:00] is there are different dynamics in the family. As a man, you should drive ahead. You should be the visionary, right? I let the family know. But right now, I’ll talk about the woman. The woman being the mother in the home. Right? And I’ll talk about the Bottom up approach, which is I’m talking to the head of the family, my husband. Don’t forget I’m not being derogatory, even though we are all equal in the eyes of God, both male and female, but we know that there’s hierarchy in the home.
We can’t remove that even as rules, right? Either you’re the head of the home, even if you’re the breadwinner and you have a man in your home, the man is still the head. Now let’s go forward. How do you communicate with your spouse in the house? The way your relationship is with your spouse, reflects on the children. [00:29:00] They see it, they consume it and they act it. Children are not good at doing what you tell them to do at all, but they are good at doing what they see you do. So how do you communicate with your spouse? Many times we all, as spouses, we come together with our different baggages, our different background issues, our different ways of communicating, and we come together.
And you find that as the children come, our parenting styles differ because of our background. But how do you deal with that? We see people criticizing, we see people blaming, we see people resenting each other, we see people being very tough on each other. But as women, a woman builds her home, a wise woman builds her home, a foolish woman tears it down. How do you want, how do you communicate with your spouse [00:30:00] daily? You have to move from that towards being affectionate, communicating positively, being in the mood of collaboration and connection. Those are still Cs, and you have to con be congenial with your husband. That means in everything you do, you are having a positive affection and kindness towards your spouse.
You have to affirm what he’s doing. He may not always get it right. It may not always be the superman you want. But in front of your children, it is important you present a common front. Don’t let it be. We versus them, let it be us. The children are fighting the world. You don’t stay on and fight in the house as well. So communication is important. And I will talk about this very quickly, right? Now you have to be intentional about communicating with your spouse. I’ll be very quick. [00:31:00] That’s my alarm. I apologize.
Paula: We’re not hearing.
Dr Ayo: Okay. So be intentional about building your relationship. At the end of the day, what outcome do you want when you’re discussing issues in the house? What role do you want to play? What do you want to take out of that communication or that deliberation? Validate your husband or your spouse. Avoid criticism. Avoid blaming. Avoid name calling. We do that a lot. Either in front or behind. Avoid negative triggers. Focus on affection, communication, congeniality and collaboration. Now, how do you do that? I have 4 As. Many at times when we come to our husbands and we are discussing, sometimes the women are naturally sometimes more smarter than men. Nobody should kill me for this. [00:32:00]
Paula: We may get a lot of comments. We may get a lot of comments for that, but all right.
Dr Ayo: But guess what? The husband sometimes feel defensive when we are saying, no, this is not right. We shouldn’t be doing this. And I’ve noticed even in my home, let’s say I’m discussing my husband, we are just alone. Sometimes it would hate and we’ll go back and forth. But once the children come in and we are still talking, then it becomes more defensive because it wants to protect that ego and it’s natural, but guess what, there are four A’s. Number one, the first A is being aware of your own negative emotions. Right now I’m feeling angry. I’m feeling fearful. I feel as if I’ve lost control in this home of mine. I feel as if the children are not going the right way. Right? So you pause, you regain focus, right? Because it enables you to know what the next step is.[00:33:00]
And then what should you do? You can tell your spouse that, okay, it sounds as if this is what you’re saying. Is that right? You could also say, okay, tell me if I got you, if I got the straight, I feel what you’re seeing is A, B, C, and D. They say, yes, exactly. Or no, this is not what I’m feeling, right? So, or you also acknowledge his own feeling, right? I see you’re very upset when I said this. What exactly did you want to hear? What exactly were you trying to tell me? And he says it. I say, okay, can you tell me more? What else are you thinking about in this situation? They want to talk. They wanna express themselves, right? So even if you want to talk, still allow that person because that person’s already been defensive in that situation.
Remember, you have the aid in mind. You want a solution to this issue in your home. You want him to be able to come to a common ground between both of [00:34:00] you. Cause many times it happened to me. We’ll argue, we’ll fall out. Okay. Yeah. Let’s just go, you know, at that point, but that defeats the purpose. So that is number one. A is address your own negative emotion. Number two, acknowledge the other person’s negative emotions. The third is ask follow up questions, right? What else are you thinking about? What else do you have concerns with? What else do you think is the situation here? And you talk after they’ve exhausted it all, you can now say, okay, I think we should have what? Reach a common ground here.
I’m on your side. I see what you’re saying. I hear you say this and we have the same thoughts, or I agree with some of the things you said, can we do it this way? What if we did it that way? Because he has spoken and he [00:35:00] feels heard. It feels understood. Right. You’re not necessarily agreeing with what everything is saying, but you can say, Oh, I agree with some. I see what you’re saying. We’re coming to this. It escalates the issue, but most importantly, you want an action out of that discussion. What is the action?
What is the action?
Paula: I love all of this. And as you’re saying all of these, you know, you know, you’re talking as a woman, primarily to women. What’s also going across is. Your children, as you say, mirror what they see in the house. So whether they’re men, I mean, they’re male or female, they’d be mirroring your communication style with your spouse so that they in turn, sometime later in life can bring it into their own home. And even before they bring it into their own home, be able to communicate with, you know, their peers in a similar [00:36:00] way.
Dr Ayo: Yeah. Absolutely. Because we’d always have conflicts.
Paula: Yes.
Dr Ayo: When you have conflicts, how are you resolving conflicts in your home? And you always have conflict with your children, and when they see that you don’t affirm, validate, and hold your husband or your spouse or your wife in a positive regard, they do the same. In all your communication, do you have a positive regard for your partner? And sincerely, when you come to a point whereby You find that you are bitter, you are angry, you are enraged, as a parent, seek help. Seek help. And get it over with. Snap out of it.
Paula: That’s the behavior I think that has to be learned or acquired or, yeah, [00:37:00] learned or acquired, especially, you know, we’re talking to immigrants. This program is mainly, it’s for women from Africa and the Caribbean and who either continue to, who are still living there or in the diaspora. And what I’ve seen in the past is that seeking help is something that culturally we don’t like. And how do you encourage people? How do you encourage adults?
Dr Ayo: That’s a very good question.
Paula: Seek help.
Dr Ayo: And we always feel shamed about things and we feel we’re alone. Oh my God. Why should people hear? What would they say? Blah, blah, blah . I’m a good person in church. How would they know that things are breaking up? No, I’ll give a quick story that somebody told me recently. And it’s about Mr. Norman. Mr. Norman is a nice tall man, right? And he noticed that he started growing feathers. [00:38:00] And in growing the feathers, he was like, what’s this?
It’s poking out. And he continued to wear a coat to cover it. And the feathers continued growing and growing. And it was uncomfortable. The more he wore the coat every day, the more uncomfortable it was. And he discovered that wearing the coat over was even more painful than not wearing the coat. So one day he went out and he removed the coat and his feathers just came out and he was like, yeah, I don’t care.
I’m okay. And they were like, oh my God, Mr. Norman has his coat off and he has feathers. And guess what? Everybody said, removing their coats. They all had feathers under their coats. And Mr. Norman now said, it is only normal. What is normal to us is to us. Everybody has their bag and baggages. You are not alone.
Paula: You are not alone.
Dr Ayo: Every family has its own issues. So when you’re having issues in your marriage, don’t be afraid to come out for help [00:39:00] because we all have one issue or the other. You are never alone. Seek help.
Paula: Love that. Well, Dr. Ayo, we have, you know, Ooh, we’ve been talking for a while and I know we were talking about Multidirectional Communication for Effective Parenting. We’ve addressed the parents. How about the children?
Dr Ayo: That is good. I have a feeling that we’re going to have part two of this.
Paula: I just was about to say, I think we are going to have part two. Because we’ve talked, and it’s been so interesting. I got so taken up with the conversation, I forgot to check my time. So, in part two, I guess we’ll be talking about the children. How do children communicate with each other if they’re siblings in the family, and how do they communicate with [00:40:00] their peers?
Dr Ayo: Absolutely. Now, the first thing is, how do you as a parent communicate with your children?
Paula: Yes.
Dr Ayo: Many at times, the way we communicate. This is a… it’s even a whole.
Paula: That’s a topic on its own, an episode on its own.
Dr Ayo: That episode on its own, but I’ll give a snippet here, hopefully we’re going to do another one. So number one, as parents, what do you want your children to know? What is the family values? What is the family vision? What do you want them to know? What do you want them to carry in their minds every day when they go out? Do you have family values? What do you tell them? Do you have your vision plain and clear, or this is who we are as a family? What do you want them to see? There are possibilities that they can make it. That the world [00:41:00] is there for their taking.
The sky is their limit. What do you want them to feel? Do you want them to feel loved? Do you want them to feel self confident, valued, esteemed? What do you want them to feel? Do you want them to feel heard? Do you want them to feel safe in your home? Those are the things, and then what do you want them to do? How do you want them to multiply and expand those teachings you’re giving them that beyond your home, you have influence? And that’s where I started from, parental influence.
Paula: Yes. And I think this is where we’re going to segue into part two. So I love how you just did that. And let me just stop the recording here because I can take this out and then we can continue to record and that will be our part two. Is that okay?
Dr Ayo: Yes. So, the recording is still on.
Paula: Yes. I’m going to just end it now.
Dr Ayo: Yeah.