I'm going to start today with a quote. Listen to this one carefully. You may even want to rewind it

and listen to it twice. We're often afraid that if we give our kids an inch, they will take a mile.

Every single grain of rice in their bowl must be eaten up, every toy in its proper place, every eye

dotted in tea crossed. We believe that this is comforting to our kids, knowing that their parent

will always be steady and unchanging. We mean what we say and we say what we mean. Rarely,

will we make an exception or change direction midcourse. We are solid and dependable, like steel.

Unfortunately, the Titanic was also made of steel and we all know what happened there.

We are so strict with our rules that our consistency becomes rigidity. But what happens to

something hard and rigid when it meets a blow? It breaks easily. The very strictness that we think

makes a strong actually makes a brittle. Instead of steel, we can strive to be more like bamboo,

firm yet flexible. That quote comes from the book Untaggering, which was written by my guest today,

Iris Chen. I think you're going to love her wisdom and perspective.

Hi, this is Dene. I'm the founder of Simple Families. Simple Families is an online community for

parents who are seeking a simpler, more intentional life. In this show, we focus on minimalism with kids,

positive parenting, family wellness, and decreasing the mental load. My perspectives are based in my

first hand experience raising kids, but also rooted in my PhD in child development. So you're going

to hear conversations that are based in research, but more importantly, real life. Thanks for joining

us. Hi there. Before we jump into today's episode and my chat with Iris, here's a 60-second word

from today's sponsor. The sponsor for today's episode is PrepDish. If you're anything like I was,

you probably don't recognize a need for a meal planning service. First, let's talk about what

is a meal planning service. PrepDish sends a PDF document to your email once a week. In that

PDF document, you get a three-part plan. The first part is the grocery list. The second part is

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