Eradicating the Female Midlife Crisis

In this episode guest Erin Tarr chats with us about eradicating the female midlife crisis, by helping tween and teen girl become strong confident women. She has some powerful advice for women as well.

Erin Tarr is a Confidence Coach for teen and tween girls and creator of the Fierce & Flourish empowerment program. As a keynote speaker, parenting consultant, and host of the #fierce&flourish podcast, she is a thought leader in the youth confidence space.

Erin’s twenty year career in education and personal development led her to be named among Central Illinois Business Magazine’s 40 Under 40,  invited to speak for the FedEx Ground Employee Parenting Group, and highlighted by the FemCity Collective. She has led countless Confidence Building workshops locally, nationally, and internationally and is a frequent podcast expert guest.

Erin’s leadership programs have impacted more than a thousand girls and young women of all backgrounds across the country by helping them overcome self-doubt and everyday anxiety, while discovering their most authentic self. 

Transcript

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

#life, #parents, #parenting, #midlifecrisis, #girls, #teens, #childhoodtrauma, #relationships, #personaldevelopment, #women,

SPEAKERS

Erin Tarr, Barb Fletcher, Deb Timmerman

Deb Timmerman  00:01

You're listening to less stress in life. With host, Deb Timmerman and Barb Fletcher, we believe life with less stress and more energy is possible with the right tools, strategies and knowledge. So we bring your real conversations around the stress of relationships, money, and the daily hassles of life. With guests that will inspire, challenge, entertain, and motivate you to take action. Hello, hello, hello, it's Deb Timmerman, Barb Fletcher and our guest today Erin Tarr. Erin is a confidence coach for teen and tween girls and the creator of the #fierce&flourish empowerment program.  As a keynote speaker, parenting consultant, fierce&flourish podcast,  she is a thought leader in the youth confidence space. Her 20-year career in education and personal development led her to be named among Central Illinois Business Magazine's 40 under 40. Wow, congratulations! She's been invited to speak for the FedEx Ground employee parenting group, and highlighted by the femme city collective. She has helped calm countless confidence building workshops locally, nationally and internationally, and is a frequent podcast guest expert. Her work with young women paves the way for eradicating the female midlife crisis. Welcome, Erin!

Erin Tarr  01:37

Thank you, Deb. Thank you Barb for having me today. Pleasure to be here.

Barb Fletcher  01:42

Welcome.

Deb Timmerman  01:43

So Erin, share the highlights of your journey, and what led you to becoming a confidence coach for teens and tweens.

Erin Tarr  01:52

Absolutely. Well, the the mantra that I kind of always say is, become the adult that your younger self needed. And so that, in a nutshell, is why I do what I do. But confidence coaching in general is something that I think I could have used at any stage of my life. I really got into personal development in college. And when I did that, I started reading books by John Maxwell and Patrick Lencioni, and going to conferences and all of these things was like, why no one teach us about this before now? And why am I having to seek this out on my own? I have many, many people in my life who love me, who are capable individuals, did they not know this, or were they trying to keep it a secret? What's going on here friends?  So in that vein, I was also an education major,  and I helped start a private school here locally. And in doing that, my passion for education and my talents in building curriculum and things like that, we're just a natural fit. To say how do I make personal development and leadership and confidence and all of these life skills that are going to help girls, women, men, boys, whoever, how do I make them fun and interesting, given that I have the skill set to make that happen? And so that's a little bit of my journey and how I came to this specific endeavor.

Barb Fletcher  03:39

We all have paths, and it's really good that you found that sweet spot for you. That that space where you can bring this passion. Was there one particular incident that was the biggest motivation? I know, for me, I have lived experiences where I can look back and say, Oh, yes, that was the turning point. How about for you?

Erin Tarr  04:08

When I gave birth to my very first daughter. I have three daughters, but giving birth to that first one and realizing this is a girl, and she is going to experience all of the things that I experienced as a young girl and maybe more because of social media, because of all sorts of other things that were emerging at that time. She's 13 now and just realizing that I wanted and needed to equip her better than I had been equipped to handle life, and relationships, and education, and business, and jobs, and all the things that I had navigated from the outside looking in quite successfully, to be honest. But knowing the internal story was extremely difficult for me. And, I wanted to make sure that she had everything that she needed to be able to be successful and how can I get these to her? How can I get these tools to her at the youngest age possible? And in doing so, my educator hat was on and I'm like, you can't just do this for my kiddo. Everybody needs this, how can I reach an impact as many girls as possible to help them in this way? So her being born was like step number one. And then just the fact that my whole passion as an educator, is to impact the next generation to do better than the previous generation in whatever ways they can. So those two things combined really made the perfect storm.

Deb Timmerman  05:53

So why teens and tweens? Why is that age so important?

Erin Tarr  05:59

Man, the human brain is going through the second most rapid time of development between the ages of 12 and 18. Really, all the way to 25.  We're finding out that the human brain is not fully formed until 25. And I've had many women argue that they're not sure it even ends, they is this rapid time of development outside of toddlerhood, which is the the most rapid time means that so much is changing internally, with our girls during that time. And so much is also changing externally. And to be quite honest, most people just don't have any clue what's happenin, and our girls feel that. So having anchors in the storm, so to speak, and I don't like to speak about teen and tween life as just this horrible time, or anything like that. I don't like to frame it in that way, because it can be wonderful, and it should be wonderful. But when you're in it, you need someone to help you see how wonderful it can be. So this is the time of life where I think girls are really both open to other people speaking truth and love and wisdom into their life, and they're also ready for it in a way that they haven't been before, because of what is literally happening in their brain and their lives.

Deb Timmerman  07:31

And I know society has changed a lot since I was a teen, and the teen years, because you don't have that fully developed brain, it's harder to navigate all of those changes that are happening. Add to that the explosive change that we've experienced in our world over the last 20 years, and most recently, what they had to go through as we navigated the pandemic. Has there been one common theme with those girls that seems to resonate, where they're, they're having challenges?

Erin Tarr  08:10

There are two things there's the thing that is external, yes. And that is friendships and relationships, very difficult to navigate in normal world, practically impossible during COVID world, because every family has different expectations of how we can get together and what we can do and what's safe and what's not safe. We're doing online school, we're doing so many things differently. We're not going on vacations, we're not experiencing those levels of independence that are normal during that age. So there's all sorts of things that's an external thing. All of those negatively impact relationships, both their friendships, which are difficult anyway, and their relationships with their family, if they're stuck at home, and they've been, you know, really quarantined in no time that they should be spreading their wings, they should be doing something new. So that's one common denominator. The second one is internal. And you're not going to hear a lot of teens, tweens or parents talking about this, because teens and tweens think they're crazy, so they don't want to talk about it, and parents don't remember that it happened to them, so they don't remember it's happening to their kids; And that's the negative self talk that's just constant. The constant questioning... Am I doing enough? Am I doing too much? Are people looking at me? Are they not looking at me? Do I want them to look at me? Should I wear this? Should I wear that? I'm so stupid. I can't believe I did that. And it never ends and it's constant. And that's one of the things we do is bring that out in the air. Let's talk about what's going on inside our minds, because that's where it starts.

Deb Timmerman  09:46

So I'm thinking about the midlife crisis and that's almost exactly what you described. What women share with us that the something happens and it's probably somewhat more hormonal, but maybe lots of other influences, too. So what you described does carry over to middle life. How has the way your parents parented you, and now the way that you are wanting to parent, your daughters, how has that changed? And what insights did you learn when you became a parent?

Erin Tarr  10:24

I think in general, we everyone bris parents in response to how they were parented parented, and that can go one of two ways. That can be like, Oh, my parents did a great job. So I want to do everything exactly that way. Or, I don't know any different, soI'm gonna do it exactly that way. Or, wow, I do not like how he's parented, and I'm going to parent the exact opposite. And I think probably the best avenue is somewhere in the middle, in general. But yeah, I look at the way that I was parented, and my parents did a lot of things, right. They did a lot of things, the best that they could. The best that they knew how, based on their own upbringing, based on their own, quite frankly, childhood traumas. As someone who has really delved into personal development, as a young adult, and has never quit going down that journey, I continue to uncover aspects of my childhood that were in one way or another traumatic, and that I then need to repair it myself. And think about how do I need to adjust how I respond versus react, as Barb mentioned earlier, and our behind the scenes conversation? How do I respond in a way that is healthy, encourages my own mental, emotional and physical health? And how do I do that while I'm trying to parent other little people, because that is where in our closest relationships is where all of our reactions come out, right? A lot of times we can hold it all in to respond to the outside world, as best we can, those of us that are, you know, on this emotional maturity path, and we can, like hold it together for the outside world. But for those closest to us, that's where it can be really tricky.  I literally was having this conversation with my 10 year old the other day, about how I was working to reparent myself, while parenting her so that she can experience a more healthy, mental, emotional, social, relational, spiritual life, throughout her life. So she doesn't have to, she's still gonna have work to do, because let's face it, none of us are perfect. But hopefully, she will have different work to do than I do to make that a reality for herself. So yeah, hopefully she won't have a midlife crisis. That's the goal. That's the goal.

Barb Fletcher  13:18

I love the notion of skilling up young people with the tools because we know that, they're, they're like little sponges, and they integrate this so much more quickly than those of us who are, are learning them later on in life. So they, know, their path won't be, as you said, without bumps, but it, it has a good chance of being smoother, for sure.

Erin Tarr  13:49

Absolutely. My therapist said the other day, I was relaying conversations I had with each of my daughters. And she's like, sounds like you have three little therapists at home. And I'm like, I kind of do because everything I say to them, every tool I give them, they reflect back to me when I'm not using it. 

Deb Timmerman  14:08

So Erin, if I were to summarize what you just said, and ask you the question, what can we do to support teens and tweens? What I heard you say is, work on yourself as a mother and a parent,  and skill up yourself,  so that you can model that behavior and help scale them up? Did I hear that correctly? 

Erin Tarr  14:30

120,000,000%. If that was a thing, if that was an actual number. That is what I would say, and that's a huge part of what I do with the families that I work with. So I work directly with the teens and tweens. But I also provide tons of support for the parents because I receive that feedback on a regular basis. I wish this is something that had been around when I was a kid. Do you have this for adults and I'm like no, but I have access to many adult women who do things like this. So I'm constantly highlighting amazing women like you and Barb who are doing this for adult women. And that's, the key, the more healthy we can become a more healthy we can respond to them. And the second thing is just trust and believe them, when they say this is how they feel, or this is what they're thinking, or this is what's going on. Trust your kids. Believe them. Empathize with them, before getting to the problem solving and the LA, da, da, da, da, da, da, you know, like, sit with them the way you would want to be sat with.

Deb Timmerman  15:09

And that's really hard, because as moms, we want to fix those things for our kids, sodon't hurt. So can you give us an example of a way that you sit with that? How do you have that conversation, and what's your approach as a mom to really hear what your daughter is saying? Or son? 

Erin Tarr  15:57

Yeah, the, the main thing that I have had to process for myself and for my girls, is being able to say, wow, that must be really hard. Because whatever it is, which 90% of the time, especially the younger, they are, seems ridiculous to me. And I'm like, we got to get our shoes on, and we got to go. But in that moment, whether it's, I can't find my bear, or I haven't brushed my hair yet, and the bus is coming, and yada yada, being able to take that breath and say, this must feel like a lot, right? Now. I can recognize that. Do we have time to process it, you know, like, taking that time, because you want to be able to sit with him with that. And I think my biggest desire is to always when they're going out the door or going out the car, for it to be a positive last moment. So being able to like empathize with them in that moment, and breathe through it. And then see if they're ready to put it in context. So there's a lot, there's a lot of Wait, Did someone die? After the empathy? After the empathy, it's like, okay, we're all still healthy. We're all still good. So let's see what we can do next. But But waiting to make sure they're ready for that, giving them that space to you know, and I mean, we're, we are co regulating constantly, we are constantly having a sense of what is the temperature of people around us, what is the energy level of people around us. So if I can parent myself in a way to stay calm, in the midst of chaos, they can pull on my calm. And for us, we're a big hugging family. So a lot of times when I am feeling stressed and anxious about getting out the door, and they're starting to feel that, when I take my big breath, and I'm like, let's just have a hug for a minute, let's just sit in the breathing and the relaxation for a minute. And you can physically see a change in our whole family, when those types of things are able to happen. I've let go of a lot of timelines. Know, I literally don't think it's the worst thing in the world. If my kids are late for school every day. I just don't, I have to, I think it is more important for my family to feel healthy and happy and whole when they leave my presence than it is for them to not get a tardy slip. I just cannot care more about what the outside world thinks about our timetable, which I used to I am a enneagram three, I am like, I care about love people. But I can't care more about that. Then the people that I'm sending into the world and the energy that they're sharing with everyone else. So that was a long answer to a very short question. I apologize. I got off on a little little soapbox there. That's okay.

Deb Timmerman  19:10

I kind of want to take that as a jumping off point. So I work with an after school program and have for a couple of years now, helping those teachers realize how important co regulation is. And on that flip side is you were talking about and describing that child who goes off without that moment to process. How they arrived at that next place, whether that school or the after school program, when they don't leave your presence under good circumstances. You guys have no idea how they carry that into their day, and how it affects their ability to have good friendships have good relationships, and be in the calm space that that brain can learn. Take nothing Else from our time together, this is so so, so important. And when you're a child and you start to wire in that way, you carry that crazy to everything that comes down to why college and your first job in your second, and maybe your temp job was literally 50. But I figured it out.  So what Erin is saying, if you make just that one change, you're gonna make a huge impact, 

Erin Tarr  20:33

Yes, yes. 

Barb Fletcher  20:35

That pause to honor the emotions and feelings is just so important because we as a society have, you know, for decades been said, you know, don't cry, don't be sad, don't feel in a particular way. And, you know, we kind of push them down. And, and like Deb said, these little ones who arrive with all of those things buckled in quite well, kind of come out in a, you know, a difficult way. unexpected. And people are asking themselves, well, you know, what, what's the matter? What, what's wrong with you, as opposed to? What have you experienced?

Erin Tarr  21:25

Exactly. And this is a huge part of what I'm working with our young girls on is we choose our thoughts. I mean, that's like, if it's the whole iceberg metaphor, right? It's 90%, of how everything else turns out in our life is that being able to choose our thoughts and giving them the tools to learn how to do that, and how to regulate and how to return to homeostasis, and all of these types of things, right? So that's 80% of it, in order to create a life we love. That's the second step, so that we can change the world. And that's where a piece that a lot of us as adult women I think are missing is we have not created a life we love because we went on default, we went to college, and we got a job and we got married, and we had kids, and we did this and we did that. And now we're at this place. And we're like, how did we get here? And why don't we love it. Because we do have everything we need. We have the home, we have the family, we have the vacations, we have the cars. And yet, we realize that's not like we're not living a life we live and that's when we get anxious about well, we have to be at a certain place on time because I can't be late to work because this can't happen. And that can't happen. And we've created this by default, not with intention. And so my that's really where I'm getting to eradicating the midlife crisis is if we learn how to choose all these thoughts early enough on and then realize we get to create our life, we don't have to do it by default, we get to set intentions, we get to move forward with each step we make and say, No, if it doesn't work for us, create a life we love. And then the magic that can happen to change the world in ways that matter to us because we have the energy, which is huge, but also the time and the money, because we've created it in a way that works for us. So that's the idea.

Deb Timmerman  23:22

Oh my gosh, I think that's the place to stop this podcast. Okay. Because, you know, what Erin is saying is so true. If we can't show up in our authentic self, we, we just can't do all those other things. It's so amazing. So, Erin, where are those people that want to reach out and talk to you about their daughters? Where do they find you?

Erin Tarr  23:49

The best place to go is to my Instagram account and hit the DM button, the direct message button. So my Instagram is be.the.benchmark. And because that's the name of my business, either benchmark and private message me. Those messages for whatever reason, get to me faster than a text message or through my website or through my facebook or any of that stuff, which I'm all over the web. So if you want to find me Google Erin Tarr, you're going to find me. But if you want one on one with me, that's the best place to start. And I would gladly welcome a call a zoom call with anyone in your audience, ladies, because if this is spoken to them, and they want to know more about what I do, and how I work with the girls that I work with, and the families that I work with and happy, happy to jump on a call with them, give them some time, a listening ear as well as tell them more about what that looks like.

Deb Timmerman  24:52

So we'll put all those links in the show notes that you can find Erin and we just want to say thanks for joining us today. For this really important conversation, and I think as we listen to Erin stories, all of us could relate to something in our growing up years that we would want to change. And how would we want to do that with the girls that we are parenting or maybe grandparenting and raising. So we hope the conversation will help you or someone, find the inspiration to move beyond stressed to feeling your best. And if you need support, please reach out to one of us we will get you to Erin. So with that, we'll say goodbye for now and we will see you next time.