11. Navigating Intentional Parenting with Guest Dr. Monica Mora

In this insightful episode, we’re joined by Dr. Monica Mora, a clinical psychologist, parenting expert, and advocate for intentional parenting. With over 30 years of experience helping parents across the U.S. and Canada, Dr. Mora specializes in guiding moms to build connected relationships with their tween and teen daughters. She shares her journey into entrepreneurship, the challenges of balancing work and family life, and the power of creating intentional moments in both parenting and business.  

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:  

• Dr. Monica’s transition from traditional clinical work to entrepreneurship.  
• The pivotal decision that launched her career: a challenging 21-day work assignment while raising young kids.  
• The importance of intentional moments in parenting and how they strengthen the parent-child bond.  
• Strategies for managing "mom guilt" as a working mom or entrepreneur.  
• The unique dynamics of mother-daughter relationships during the tween and teen years.  

Connect with Dr. Monica Mora:

• Instagram: @drmonicamoraofficial
• Website: http://drmonicamora.com
• Freebie Opt In: https://drmonicamora.myflodesk.com/catalyst

Cheers! Thank you for joining us for another episode. Have a chaotic moment, question, or topic you want us to cover? Drop us a message or leave a review! If you loved this episode, share it with a friend who thrives in beautiful chaos too.

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Transcript

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On today's show, we have Dr. Monica Mora. She is a psychologist and parenting expert with 30 plus years of clinical experience. She's dedicated her life to guiding parents using evidence based methods for truly lasting change. If you have a teenager, this is an episode for you. She's trained with clinicians and multidisciplinary professionals through the United States and Canada. Her passion is helping mothers achieve conflict free communication with their teenage daughters. This is all gonna be talking about how to get a more connected relationship That's healthier happier and have a more balanced home I think you're really gonna like this fun fact. She's also got 36 animals Can you say chaotic? Also little side note for some reason my audio is off on this episode. But I do want to still share with you because Monica her sound sounds great And I do think that you are going to get a lot out of this. I do think that this is something worth telling. And, yeah, again, apologies. I don't know what happened. The mic glitched at some point during our Zoom call. And so that is why my audio sounds a little weird during this episode. Thank you, Monica, for joining our podcast today. I'm really excited that you are here. I feel like we've been following each other for a while on Instagram. It's nice to see your face. You too. Yeah. So, why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself? Okay. I will. My name is Dr. Monica Mora and I am a clinical psychologist specializing in positive parenting. I have been working with parents All over the country and even up into Canada, for about 30, well, no, for a little over 30 years, actually, I started pretty young in the field and, um, I niched into positive parenting and haven't looked back. I love it. Absolutely love it. Um, recently I. Kind of niched down and started really focusing on moms and teen daughter relationships. And we, I can tell you a little bit more about that as we go, but that's kind of where I'm focusing now. But I have helped parents from 18 month who have 18 month old little ones to getting ready to go off to college. So that's me. I know, I, I have been seeing your content online on Instagram, and I'm just like. Oh man, I can't, like, I have two daughters, and so like, seeing all your posting about moms and teenage daughters, I'm just like, like, rocking in the shower, like, oh my god. Cause I know how I was as a teenager, right? Yes. Well, Whitney, honestly, like it, what I'm working with now with moms and teen daughters, isn't like the absolute, like it's, it's not set in stone that that's, what's going to happen. Right. Right. Part of why I like to work with parents so much is The prevention piece of it, right? For wherever stage you are in the parenting game, when you become aware of what you're doing as a parent and you start to just change little things, you can prevent a lot of those rocking in the shower moments, right? You get to prevent those. So you are. Already being aware of content like mine or whoever else is out there in the parenting field, you're already kind of paying attention. You're already catching things and working with things now while you have your little ones working on that relationship, working on the way that you communicate, that's all gold as you're studying the way. Right. You're paving the way for when they become teenagers, you're going to be miles ahead of the game. Well, that's great to hear. Like, I'm so glad that like it, one, it gives me a little validation, but like I, I see where you're coming from. It's, it's building a foundation now. And then so that it's not like building a house of cards later type of thing. Exactly. Absolutely. Absolutely. Awesome. Oh, okay. So we are caffeinated chaos. So why don't we start with your little chaotic moment? You have one. Oh, do I, how do I pick just one? Well, yeah, because I have two children. My son is 19 soon to be 20 and my daughter is 15. So yes, we have had our share of chaotic moments. And the one that I, that comes to mind, um, It was such a pivotal moment for me as a parent, but also as moving into an entrepreneur, moving away from a nine to five gig, or I was working for agencies and moving into being a contractor where I was, um, you know, asked to go to health agencies, education agencies, social service agencies, and provide services. So at this point, my son was in kindergarten. My daughter was not quite two years old yet. So I was offered my very first big time paying gig at this point. It was a 21 day assignment in Northern Canada. We lived in Southern California at the time. And this was right around the end of the year. So my son was graduating kindergarten and I had to make a really hard decision of, was I going to forfeit that? I was, first of all, it was a, it was a lot of money. It was a good thing for us financially. And it was also good for just me and where I was in my career. Um, and that pivot I was making. And so we had some My husband and I had some, you know, discussions, my mom and I had some discussions because she was going to have to come in and help. And I tried to, have as much conversation as I could with my son at the time, you know, being in kindergarten, but he was chaotic because. Where I was going, we didn't have great Wi Fi service, so not only was I going to be away for that long from my children, which I had never done, but I was, you know, the running of the household, the running of my, you know, making sure that everything they need was taken care of, was going to be on my husband and my mom's shoulders, two very capable people, but, you know, as moms, We have our way. Right. But I was going to be out of communication. Like, I really wouldn't be able to have a Skype call at the time. It was Skype. That's how I think it was, you know, even a regular phone call with, you know, a service provider would be challenging. So it was really, it was a moment for us. And then. Yeah, I took, I, we ended, I ended up going, I ended up taking it, uh, taking the leap of faith and doing it. So that whole 21 days was just a, it wasn't really a moment. It was a period of time. It was a month basically of chaos. Um, and then, you know, coming back and, dealing with the aftermath, which I say, it sounds so dramatic. It just, for me as a mom, I just felt a lot of mom, I felt a lot of guilt, you know, trying to pick between my children and the business, which the business was a benefit for all of us, not just me, but it was, it was a challenging situation. And, um, I remember my husband took some photos, obviously, of my son on graduation day, and he just looked like, so like the, you know, so sad, almost just, you know, maybe that's me projecting and, you know, he was missing mom, but no, he does look like a little bit sad, you know, that I wasn't there and I know, I know he was, and we still talk about that sometimes, like, the reason why that decision had to be made and of course he understands all of that, but in the moment when we were living that moment. Yeah. It was a little chaotic. It was a little emotion. No, that makes tons of sense. I mean, especially since you said like he was in kindergarten. And so, I mean, I couldn't, you probably did way better than I could even imagine doing it right now. Like if I had to do that with my daughter, just to be like, mommy's going away for a couple of days. And like, I mean, technology is where it is now. My, my toddlers, you know, FaceTimes with my parents. Um, across the state almost every day. So like, I feel like now would be like technologically okay, but like mom guilt and the mom, like, you know, inside me is just going to be like, what are you guys doing? I wish I was there, you know, the whole time. Yeah. Bedtime was, yeah. Bedtime was hard for that. I remember, you know, wanting to, because before that, before this gig, I would go away for like one or two day assignments, but this one was, you know, major. And when I would be away for those one to two day assignments. It would always be a calm in the morning, say good morning before they go to school, good day. And then I call him at not, you know, after school just to check in. And then before they went to bed to be able to say good night. And that just wasn't going to be, that wasn't something I was able to do during this long trip. And so that just made, um, that not only was I feeling guilty, but about doing it excited for the business opportunity. But then I felt such separation from them, which was, you know, again, as mom. That was challenging. Yeah. Especially a mom of littles, you know, but this, this like moment, this month of a moment, um, that's kind of what's sprung board you into your, like your entrepreneurship, right? Um, what is it called the power of intentional moments? Is that what it's called? Right. Well, my business is just me, right? Dr. Monica Mora. Right. I guess my, my North Star, I guess the thing that, that I try to, help parents understand is really the intentionality in your parenting, right? So the power of it being intentional, these intentional moments where you are with your children, but also for entrepreneurs, um, Also being intentional in the choices and decisions we make in our business too. And so how much, um, power, how much benefit there is in making these intentional decisions, having these intentional moments for both our families and our business when we are entrepreneurs. Yeah. And then so. How did you make, or when did you decide to make the transition to, um, your niche of teenagers now? Like what, what, what sparked that too? Well, so when I talk about being intentional, I, you know, I'm talking really about relationship building. Right? Relationship building with your Children. Um, making sure that you're spending really quality moments with them, right? So that that bond and that attachment is really secure, really solid, which is Something that I've always done with my children since they were infants. And so that, that helped when I had this chaotic month, right? It helped because I knew we were solid in that way. And I knew that anything that would come up for them, we could get through the other side again, with me being intentional in these ways. Um, but as my daughter got to be in her preteens, And this happened really with her and maybe there's something there. Well, I don't say, I don't want to say maybe there is, there's definitely something there between mothers and daughters that there isn't between mothers and sons, right? Not to say mothers and sons don't have their own issues. Sometimes they do, but there's just some type of a dynamic between the mother and the daughter, right? And when she's hit her preteen years, we'd always been very close, having fun, being able to talk, giggle, laugh, all that kind of stuff. When she became, I would say probably fifth, sixth grade, I started to feel her going back. I started to feel some distance there and, and more of a kind of shutting, shutting down. And what I mean by that is, Not so much her coming and sharing a lot of things that she used to share with me before or so it was more of me having to ask like, and, and feeling almost like I'm crying it out of her, you know, and so that, um, even in with my background and everything that I know about parenting as a mom, not as a psychologist, that really scared me because I felt like she's pulling away from why is she pulling away from me? I don't want her to pull away from me and so I kept, you know, maybe I tried to go too hard in, right. You're pulling away. I'm going to go even harder in, right. I'm going to try and connect with you even more. I'm going to ask you more questions. And so from my point of view, I was coming at it as, I love you. I care about you. I want to be in your life. I want to know what's going on. I want to help. From her point of view, it was. I need space. I need to kind of figure out who I'm becoming, who I want to be, what's important to me as me, not as your daughter, you know, and in the heat of that moment, um, Again, all of what I've learned, all of what I know goes out the window was just my emotion and that motherly connection that I wanted so badly with her. And so it really created, you know, tension. It created hurt feelings. It created, you know, a separation and it wasn't until I really had to pull back myself a little bit and, and move away from being Monica, the mom to, okay, let's look at this from what you know about development and where she is and really started to understand. Okay. Yes. She's supposed to be doing some of this stuff right now. Right. It really doesn't have anything to do with me. Some of it did break. She was responding to some of the ways that I was trying to maintain that connection with her and not really understanding or respecting what she was going through, but most of it really didn't have anything to do with me. It had to do with what she was supposed to be doing in this developmental phase. So I needed to kind of step back. And look at it from a different lens and then also try to look at it from her perspective. So that, you know, we ended up, probably for the next couple of years, really just relearning how to engage with each other, relearning how to support. I had to relearn how to support her in a way that she wanted. And then she had to learn. How much pulling away was too much, right? And when did it become unhealthy? And when did she have to kind of, develop the skill of asking for help, right? Those kinds of things. So we had this period of time, um, you know, It wasn't all sunshine, but there were a moment, definitely still moments of love and connection, but also just rocky moments of how, figuring out how to communicate and how to support and all of that. So, we came out the other side and, so that was, I would say, you know, when she was probably by the time she hit 14, like, it was a totally different relationship. It's great. Like, we're very, very close. She comes to me and tells me all kinds of things. And part of what she would tell me is what other girls her age were saying about their mothers, about their parents. And that did many of those girls felt they couldn't to their parents, their parents didn't even know many things about them, what they would be doing in a day and, how alone they felt, how unseen they felt. And I started, you know, hearing it from the girls point of view and thinking, that's really. Sad. Um, you know, reflecting on my own upbringing and my own relationship with my parents, then I also started thinking about it from the parents point of view and and wondering, um, what's going on there. Are they aware of this and they just don't know how to make the change, right? Cause they, they didn't have the background or skills that I did to be able to make the change. Right. Right. Or were they just completely unaware or is it life? It wasn't life just gets in the way sometimes. And then you know, five years are gone and you're no longer. With your child. So that really got me thinking and it was actually I have to give credit to my daughter because she says, I think that's what you need to do. You need to start working with these parents and you need to get them back connected with their daughters. So that's I did it. Yay. Wow. I mean, yeah, I totally, totally agree with you. Um, I have a background in psychology as well. I took a different approach. I was more hands on than clinical, but I totally get where you're going from because I have friends who have kids and they don't have like, I'm like, Oh, that's just how they, like, that's part of their development. That's how they grow. And like, of course, all our friends are still, they're all littles right now. I think the oldest kid in our friend group might be like eight. Um, so they're still like in the elementary school phases and all that. What would you say to somebody who is feeling a little disconnected from their teen, like what, what would be a good like first actionable step that they can either do internally with themselves or, you know, to communicate with their teenage, teenager? Well, that's a great question. And in my mind, like million things are going through my mind right now. Because honestly, there are so many little things that may seem insignificant to a parent, like, Oh, that's not going to matter. Right. But it really matters. And if I had to choose one, it's hard when you can't just choose one, but I would start with, let me say that I would start with. It goes to intentionality, right? I would start with when they're coming to you, when they want to show you something, when they want to tell you something, um, stop what you're doing and look at them. That's a simple, simple thing. Put your phone down, move away from the computer, just give them your eyes and look at them. Right. And. That little gesture communicates to them that they're important enough for you to stop what you're doing and pay attention, right. That they are more important than what's on your computer and what's on your phone. Right. Yeah. That's, that's like really important. Cause it's one of those things where it's not like they don't have to go and get something. They don't have to like set up an activity. It's literally just. Yeah. But whatever you're doing down and just give your full undivided attention, which doesn't cost anything to you. Absolutely. It doesn't cost anything. And a lot of parents will tell me, well, you know, I have work to do and I have things to do around the house. And if I have to stop every single time and what I tell them is in the beginning, if you haven't done that yet, you may have to stop a bit more than you would like to. But the more consistent you are in doing that, your child begins to learn that and trust that you will be there when they need you. And so then they don't have to keep coming and banging you all the time because they know like they've learned. Initially. Yeah. They're going to probably come and be like, Oh, she looked, she put her, you know, she put her phone down. I'm going to try that again. Oh, she put her phone down again. I'm going to try that again. Right. Yeah. This is all subconscious. Yeah, exactly. But eventually the more that you do that, they're like, okay, I trust her. She's going to be there for me when I need her to be. Right. Um, and then that just becomes that again, that solidifies that aspect of your relationship. well, I will share a little story. I was working with, a mom in Seattle and it was during 2020. So we know what happened in 2020. And so she was incredibly stressed because she was having to work from home and she was having lots of zoom meetings, lots of zoom meetings, and you know, things, deadlines and things like that, that she needed to meet, she had two little ones. So, you know, I'm shifting back to little ones, but I just want to show you that the power of that strategy that I just shared with you, because I shared it with her and she said. I don't think so. I don't think that's going to work, but I'll try it. And I said, that's fair, right? Just try it. When, when your little ones come to you, just turn to them for 30 seconds max and see what they want. Right? So she did it for a week. She came back and she said, I cannot believe it. She said, I really did not think this was going to work. And she said, but it's amazing. She said, I did it every time they came, I just turned away from the computer and I just divide, I just gave them my undivided attention. And she said the first day, you know, they came quite a bit, just like you said, she said, but when I just made myself do it, she said, Throughout the week, she said they didn't interrupt me half as much as they used to. She said it really worked because I wasn't trying to pay attention to my computer and just go, uh huh, uh huh, uh huh, which they could feel. Wasn't me actually giving them any attention or engaging with them. And she said, I, I can't believe it. She said, I can't believe something that small worked that well. It does. So, I mean, so then this is a good point, like, you can use this for any age child that you're raising right now. You can use it in your relationship with your spouse or partner. You know what? Challenge accepted. Let's see. Let's see how it goes because he's not listening to this live right now. Yeah. I mean, I say that as a joke, but I'm really not joking because if you think about it, even when you go to your partner and you're trying to tell them something and they're like looking at their phone and just nodding their head, you feel that you feel like, are you, are you paying attention to me? Right. Did you hear what I said? Or you, you start to get that, you know, that feeling. And so really it's beneficial for all of us to have someone just pay attention. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. So Monica, I heard that you're going to be hosting a challenge in a few weeks called breaking the silence. I'm, I know it's mother and daughter theme. Can you elaborate a little bit more for us? Sure, I'd love to. Yes, I'm running a five day challenge. It's just an hour each day for the, for the week, for the five days. And it is called Breaking the Silence, the Mother Daughter Communication Breakthrough. And really we are, I'm walking, moms, parents, Dads are welcome to, I just market it towards parents or to mothers, but yeah, but anyone can benefit. And even if you have a son, you're welcome to join as well. It's just, it's just, my marketing is towards mothers and daughters, but really I'm walking, Parents through developing skills to, um, be able to do active listening to be able to use validation to kind of break down the barriers that get in the way of open, respectful communication between mothers and daughters. Giving them skills and tools that are I use evidence based strategies and tools. So everything that I share in there is proven to work. And also I've used it with so many parents through over the years of my career. I've seen the changes that these tools can. Can make in relationships. And we end the week really diving into emotionally intense or really difficult conversations and how to be able to walk through those conversations calmly and respectfully and out the other side without resorting to yelling or raising voices and those kinds of things, um, and ultimately all the tools that parents learn and apply. Okay. As they do that, they're also teaching their daughters the same type of communication so that it's not just a street where the parents are the ones being respectful and communication and then getting sassy rolling eyes back. It's I mean, the goal is that both. Mother and daughter, um, parent and child learn these skills and so that when they leave, they are equipped to be, you know, take the journey and go further in practicing respectful communication where everybody feels heard. Or there's an invitation to join me in something else I'll be offering. Oh, exciting. A little mystery. So do the parents just show up themselves or do they need to bring their teens? No, that's a great question. Um, no, it's just the parents, the parents show up and it's really only, I say it's an hour, but honestly, it's only about 20 or 30 minutes of me giving some information and some strategies. And then I am available for 30 minutes for people to ask me any questions they have. So there's an opportunity there to get some personal questions answered from me. Cool. And then, so how can they connect with you if they're interested in this breaking the silence in your challenge? Yeah, well, I have a bio site. It's just bio site, the forward slash Dr. Monica Mora. And if you go on that, you will find the breaking the silence challenge link, and you can click on that and it will take you to the information page and walk you through everything that's being offered. And right now you can sign up for the wait list. So it's, it's coming and you can just sign up if you're interested. Or you can also on that same, um, bio site, you can sign up for my newsletter. I'll be promoting it more in the next coming weeks. And there will be a place where you can, um, if you're on my newsletter, you'll get the information. The dates and all of that as well. Awesome. And listeners, I will put all this information down in the show notes. So there'll be a clickable link in the show notes that everyone can just access and reach out to Monica and. And also how can they connect with you on social media? Cause I know that you post a lot of social media content, and tips on Instagram. That's kind of where I get all your tips from. Yes, please. Follow me at I'm Mora official. I'm on mainly on Instagram. I do kind of pop over to Facebook, but my main jam is, Instagram. So that's where you can Nice. I, yeah, I'm always on Instagram. I've actually recently got really into threads. Have you started threads? I have, and I do post occasionally on threads. It's just, honestly, I forget a lot of times. That's fair. Go over there, you know, on my list of things to do. It's, uh, it's, I haven't made threads on the top priority list. Before you leave, Monica, I have to ask, you said you have 36 animals on top of two teenagers in your house. Like, what is the story? I want to know. You're welcome. It's true, 36 animals, um, and how did we get there? Well, I've always been an animal person. I just love animals and, um, I don't know either my family, they go along for the ride, let's just say that. And so we ended up actually after 2020, we ended up moving away from the West coast and we moved, I won't even, we moved somewhere that I thought I would never end up being, I actually was. Very happily surprised and we love it. We moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas, and we bought a, we bought about little over seven acres, and so that meant I could have all kinds of animals. And so, yes, we have 20 chickens. We have six guinea fowl. We have, uh, four dogs. We have two, um, Pyrenees, and we have our two little house dogs that moved with us. Um, we have, well, now we have four sheep. We used to have six, but we sold two of them. We have two barn cats, and we have, one parakeet. We just lost one. We had two, but we just lost one. So I think that, is that all? I think that's all. Yes. How do you find time? Well, I think you and I mentioned, um, before the podcast started that it's a team effort, right? Right. In your home, it's a team effort. And I have to say that's it. My children, Honestly are amazing. They are so helpful. And so, and I have to give a shout out to my son, because honestly, when it comes to taking care of the sheep, he's really, he's really the main one, but, yeah, we all chip in everybody kind of when the morning you should see us in the morning. We all wake up and then. My son goes and takes care of the sheep. My daughter takes care of the cats and the chickens. My, my husband's already at work. Um, he also works from home and then, and I get up and take care of the dogs and then we all make breakfast. We all get to have breakfast together and then we all, whatever we have to do in the day starts. Wow. Wow. Well, kudos. Cause I'm just trying my best with two little kids. I, you know, I, You're smart to keep it that way. I, we had dogs, we had two dogs when my children were little and that was what we could handle, right? We couldn't even keep a fish alive at that time. So, um, I would not have this, if my children were young, it would not be. So people do, people do, but it wouldn't just be something for me. I feel like my toddler would terrorize, like terrorize the chickens. Like she, she thinks she's a dinosaur. And so I just feel like she would just be running after the chickens if we had them and just like roaring the whole time. Like I would basically have Jurassic Park in my house. Well they do say they are mini dinosaurs so she'd be right, you know, she'd be in good company. Yeah. Just, yeah. Now I'm just gonna, every time I see her running around with her dinosaur hat, I'm just going to imagine her running after chickens. They're pretty hardy. So they would survive. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for joining us. I'm so glad that we got off Instagram and got to meet and have this like amazing conversation. Yeah. Thank you for inviting me. And again, I love your content as well. You're doing some really cool stuff there and this podcast, you guys, you have to subscribe to Whitney for sure. Yes. Thank you. Monica just totally stole my words. Like, please subscribe, leave us a review, like go on and, and tag me and Monica with, you know, anything that you've learned from this episode too. We want to know what spoke to you as well. Because then it helps us know what kind of content everyone is like looking for and really resonating with. Yes, please. That would be great. Um, okay. And, oh, and also for those who may not have children yet, if you have pets, you know what? Why don't you tag us in some pet photos too? Like we would love to see pet photos as well. That's amazing. Yes. Do it. Yeah. I'm sure we got some, you know, dog mom and dads out there. You know, you never know. Maybe, you know, my next venture might be positive parenting for pets. You have the experience. All right. Well, thank you, Monica, again, for coming on. And I will see everybody next week. Bye. Bye.