Raising Whole Humans: The Power of Horizontal Parenting With Paul Blanchard

Episode Highlights With Paul What horizontal relationships are and why they matter How vertical dynamics create shame and resistance The nervous system connection in parenting and how this can help us be more connected and effective in relationship with our children How Freud and Richard Adler differed on the topic of horizontal relationships and trauma Practical examples for shifting into horizontal parenting The flaw with superior positions in relationships and how this robs us of our confidence and autonomy “Self sacrifice” and how it's a nobler term for self abandonment and how we program this into our kids How the vertical side uses extreme circumstances to argue for vertical relationships Why connection > control in raising autonomous adults How repair builds lifelong trust How this approach makes you a better leader everywhere else in your life Utility verticality vs relational verticality Reputation and the puppet strings it has on us as human beings and how this comes into play in parenting It isn’t that the strong survive.. It is the connected that survive Punishment: So much of punishment is laziness on the parents part and the fear of reputation It isn’t about just changing the behavior but addressing the underlying reason and capacity Forgiveness isn’t the letting go of what happened but the softening of the blame There are over 400 unique characteristics that will emerge in your child regardless of how you parent them How this can create space for a both/and instead of an either/or in parenting Guilt perpetuated by reputation and verticality After age 7, our role as a parent is to be a safe place for a child's exploration of themselves Resources Mentioned Paul's website and his Instagram What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma by Paul Levine Kiss Me Like a Stranger: My Search for Love and Art by Gene Wilder Bioptimizers I love and use so many products from them, but I especially love the magnesium and digestive enzymes. Visit bioptimizers.com/wellnessmama and use wellnessmama15 at checkout to get the best deal BONCHARGE I like so many of their products - from their red light products to their sauna blankets. Red light has been so helpful for me during my recovery from Hashimoto's. To find out more, go to boncharge.com/wellnessmama and use code wellnessmama for 20% off!

You can listen to Raising Whole Humans: The Power of Horizontal Parenting With Paul Blanchard online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Raising Whole Humans: The Power of Horizontal Parenting With Paul Blanchard is an episode from The Wellness Mama Podcast by Katie Wells.

This episode is 75:58 long.

This episode was published on Apr 27, 2026.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from The Wellness Mama Podcast when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.