For Sheldon Lieberman, learning to trust his son Spike meant first confronting the fear he was carrying himself. After the devastating loss of his two-year-old daughter, Sheldon and his former partner Olivia could have held their surviving son even tighter. Instead, over time, they found themselves giving him more freedom to explore, take risks and find his own way.
That approach became the tool Sheldon calls Fearless Trust. Not pretending the fear isn’t there, but learning how to work through it so it doesn’t automatically become a limit you place on your kids. It’s an approach that has shaped Sheldon’s relationship with his now 19-year-old son and challenged his own ideas about risk, resilience and what it really means to keep our kids safe.
Sheldon is a father, owner of brand design house Big Fish Design. a kids music performer called SalmonHead, and the writer and animator of Spike and Dadda, an internationally-awarded short animation series based on real recordings of Sheldon and his son Spike from the age of three to eight.
In this episode, Sheldon shares:
- Why giving your kids the freedom to take risks can build their confidence, resilience and independence.
- How to recognise when your own fear is getting in the way of trusting your kids.
- A simple way to pause, process your reaction and come back to your child before making a decision.
- Why letting kids take progressively bigger risks can help them learn their own limits.
- How getting involved in the things that scare you can help you better understand the actual risk.
- Why other people’s judgement can make it harder to parent differently and the importance of finding like-minded support.
- How working on your own fears and experiences can change the way you respond to your kids.
KEY QUOTES
“It's not just what they're asking you to do. It's how you're reacting to that question and what it brings up in you.”
“Kids instinctively know that they can do more. And if they're not shut down by the parents, I think it's more about the parents being able to trust.”
“I realized I had to change because I was the one who was fearing life.”
MORE ABOUT SHELDON
Watch Spike and Dadda on YouTube
[TOOL] RESOURCES
GET INVOLVED WITH THE PODCAST ONLINE
SUPPORTING RESEARCH
Download a compilation of the papers and books used to research this topic.
Podcast produced by The Podcast Butler
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
