The beautiful Heidi Allsop shares love and relationship insights about her 5 sons, 4 daughters-in-law, and much more~
To learn more about Heidi, click HERE and to get her 8 Tips to connect with your son, click HERE
Welcome to Lovin My Daughter-in-law Podcast, where my mother-in-law relationship expert and master certified coach LeAnn Austin, will help you create more love and connection with your daughter-in-law and everyone else you care about.
Hey y’all, welcome to Lovin My Daughter-in-law, episode #116: Boys with Heidi Allsop
I love observing and connecting with other humans, especially noting how they feel and implement love into their lives and their relationships.
We have the amazing Heidi sharing some beautiful love and relationship insights with us today. All right Heidi, tell us a little about you.
Well, thanks so much for having me LeAnn. This is so fun for me and and I’m so happy to be here. So my name is Heidi Allsop and I am thrilled to talk to you about all things boys and moms. We have that in common. You and I, we have sons. So I have five sons and they range in age from 29 to 16 and yeah, they are a good time. I adore these boys and sometimes I want to ring their necks, but they are a good time.
So I noticed though, over the three decades that I’ve been raising boys that the boys that really weathered the storms of childhood and adolescence and going into adulthood, the ones that weathered the storm the best, were the ones that had a good relationship with their moms. And they didn’t have to be perfect moms, they just needed to have a relationship with their mom. And I think that the reason is because then the moms knew really what was going on with their son and could help him. And their connection made it so they could communicate and be able to help them weather that storm.
So I decided years ago that I would take my education as a social worker. And become certified and get the tools as a life coach, and then combine those with 29 years of actually raising sons. And now I get to work with women and moms and help them to connect with their sons so they can have an amazing relationship. And so they can really know what’s going on with him and better help him.
So that’s what I do, and I love it so much. It’s the best. Oh my goodness. I love this. And I love when you reached out because when you said boy mom, I’m like, yes, please come on this podcast. Cause I love obviously boys, my four boys. And I think it’s so fun that you’ve taken this and just helping all of these boy moms, you know. So that’s amazing. I love it.
All right. Well, we have five questions today. And the first one is how do you incorporate love into your business and life? And how does that impact your relationships? I love this question because we just kind of think love happens and if it doesn’t happen, that there’s a big problem.
And I really believe strongly that you, that we as humans, find what we’re looking for. So if we’re looking for love and reasons to love in our marriage and with our children and in our businesses, that our brain is so smart, it will find those reasons to love. It’s going to find those reasons to connect and to love.
And on the flip side, if we’re looking for problems, which our brain is naturally going to tend to do, our brains kind of naturally go to the negative. So if we let that brain run away and look for ways to disconnect in our marriage and with our children and in our business, we’ll find that too.
So being intentional about where we direct our brain and really choosing love in those relationships and with the relationship with our business too, that will benefit us, we’ll find it. We will find the love, we’ll find reasons to love and we’ll find reasons to protect that love. And so, I just think where we direct our brain is where all the magic happens.
Yes. Oh, that’s so beautiful. And I love that love is at the forefront of that as well. That’s awesome. Okay, so what is something you love about you and why? This question is so funny because we, I don’t usually think about what I love about me, which is unfortunate. I need to do that better. Thank you for that reminder.
Yes, but as I thought about this, I think the thing that I appreciate and love about me is that I, and I’ve always been this way, I’m just kind of a glass half full person. I really, really am. And it’s benefited me a lot in my life. And sometimes I get burned. Sometimes I think that there’s sparkles and sunshine and there’s not, and that’s okay. I can deal with that. But I just prefer to think that life is going in my favor instead of life is going against me.
And so being that glass half full person has helped me once again, as I’m raising these boys, but also as I’m building a business and as I’m seeing clients. I think I have an ability to help these clients who really, a lot of them are in a difficult situation or their son is in a difficult situation and I really can see the end for them and how it can turn out well for them and help them to learn to see that.
So I think that glass half full has just loved that. I just would rather think things are going to work out, and then adjust if they don’t, then always thinking things are not working in my favor. Absolutely, and what a beautiful characteristic and way to live life, just believing that it will work out, that the glass is more than full, or half full. Yeah, Awesome.
All right. So I love talking about connection with others and ourselves, and I think the daughter-in-law relationship is packed full of endless examples to learn from. Any thoughts about being a daughter-in-law yourself or your future daughters-in-law, or if you already have daughters-in-law?
Yes, buckle up LeAnn, because this is so good. I have five sons and now I have four daughters-in-law. Oh my goodness! I didn’t know that. That’s amazing. Wow. It is. So I have four daughters-in-law and one adorable granddaughter. So collecting these girls after all these years of boys is amazing as I always hoped it would be. It’s wonderful.
But I learned a lot about being a mother-in-law from my mother-in-law. And she’s always been so good to me and my husband and I, we met when we were 12. Oh, wow. She always has just been so kind and loving and accepting and complimentary of me. And I just love her so much. And she’s taught me so much about how to be a mother-in-law and I appreciate that.
And then, you know, it’s funny LeAnn, when our kids get married, You know, there’s a big deal that’s always made that the fathers giving their daughter away. And us moms, we give these boys away and no one talks about that. That’s right. We work really hard and their fathers do as well. I never want to discount fathers. They’re amazing and so important. But I really, there is tunnel vision on mothers and sons. And us moms, like we work really hard to prepare these sons to be good men and good husbands and good fathers.
And so as I had one son after the next, after the next. I really started to worry and I spent a lot of years stewing, right after I told you that I’m a glass half full girl, human. I really started to stew and think, oh wow, we’re going to bring five daughters into this family and that’s going to change the dynamic. And I worried about that. And so much that I really had to give it a hard stop years ago.
And I just decided that, you know, I’m going to love them ahead of time. I’m going to adore these girls. I’m going to choose before any of them even get married. I’m going to choose to love and adore whoever they bring into our house. Yes. And I just seem to choose that ahead of time. And they’ve been raised in a way that I really trust that they make good decisions and it’s not my decision to make who they marry that gets to be theirs.
And so they choose that and have chosen so well. And I just decided ahead of time that I’m going to love these girls. I’m going to find things that I have in common with them and, and I have, and these girls have changed the dynamic in our family in such a beautiful way. They’ve brought such a softness and some culture and some refinement into this household of rowdy boys.
And I appreciate what they’re doing in our family. And I tell them that, and I hope that they feel that all the time that way. I just love them. And I waited a long time to love daughters. It’s so fun for me to do.
And also I sit them down those girls before they come, like, when I can see that this is going in the direction of, this is going to be a member of my family and say, Hey look, these boys, we’re boy people. We are loud and we’re rowdy and we’re fun. And we say things. And sometimes we say flippant things. And I just want you to know ahead of time, daughter, that no one will ever mean to offend you ever. We just, we’re not built that way. We will never mean to offend you. So please speak up. Please be honest. Please join in and if there ever is an offense, we got to talk about it because it’s never going to be intentional.
And I still tell them that when we do girls nights and we do girl things, I tell them, Hey look, we have to be connected and together as a family. And these boys need each other. And to be honest, us girls need each other too. So I think honesty has really helped that transition, but these girls, I love them and I didn’t have to raise them, which is so fun. I get to collect the finished product and it’s been such a gift to me and so different than I always, when I was back in the worry days, it’s been such a great, pleasant surprise.
That is so beautiful. And I love the honesty that you have in setting them down and the intention, like so many things about that, because I’m sure they appreciate that so much as well. I hope so. I think maybe sometimes they leave a family event a little starry eye because it is pretty boy oriented, but they have each found their place and I love those girls. They’re just amazing. Ah, well they are so blessed to have you. That’s really cool. Awesome. I hope sometime they feel that way. I hope that I love them. I love it.
Well, anything else you’d like to share and where can our audience go to find out more about you? I appreciate this question. There are two things that as I think about our grown sons who have brought these daughter in laws into our life. And thank you sons. The things
that I think that moms of boys still need to know as their sons grow into men, there’s two things. And the first one is that I genuinely believe that boys don’t want to disappoint their moms. I’ve seen it time and time again. And when they make decisions that they know disappoint their moms. It’s really hard. They have to adjust that in their minds because I just really believe inately, they don’t want to disappoint their moms.
And so as moms, when we see our boys, maybe making decisions that we don’t love, and that maybe are a little bit of a disappointment to us. I think we have to work extra hard to keep that connection because if the boy feels like he’s disappointed mom and he doesn’t want to face her, he doesn’t want to be around her. He will start to disconnect.
I think as moms, that’s kind of one of our jobs is to say, Hey buddy, listen, I’ve made mistakes. You’ve made mistakes. Like sometimes our choices aren’t, don’t bring us the result that we want. And Hey, look, I just love you. I just love you. And I will always, I will always love you. And that’s kind of our job as a mom to keep that connection. And so that’s the first thing.
And then the second thing is that I really believe that boys always need their mom. And I don’t talk to my sons every day. Like we connect over the course of the week, definitely. But, I know that they still need me and they’ll reach out. And sometimes it’s just coming home and getting in the fridge. And I still need them, right? They’re still my boys. And so when they get married, their relationship changes and it should, right? We shouldn’t be the first woman in their life anymore. And that’s great news. Yeah. It’s amazing news. Yeah. And I think what we need to realize as moms is that what they need from us now is they need us to love their wife.
Ah, yes. And they need us to love their children and they need us to be excited for their job. And their promotion and they need us to cheerlead them and to love who they’ve become. And I just love that thought of okay, he still needs me because sometimes we worry about that. We’re like, he doesn’t need me anymore, but he does.
And what he needs us for now is he needs us to love their wife. Yeah. He needs us to love their children. That unconditional love for everything involved. Yes, so good. So those are the two things.
And then I’m so easy to find HeidiAllsopCoaching.com is my website. And I have a free gift that I’ll leave for your audience too, I have a boy mom’s blueprint and it’s eight tips to connect with your son at any age, just little things we can do. They don’t take a lot of effort, but ways that we can stay connected. And that’s on my website as well. And then, I send out a Monday mom tip that sometimes it’s like, Holy cow, what just happened? And it’s full of humor and other times it’s full of really tangible tips that we can use. And then I’m on social media, @HeidiAllsopCoaching. I’m easy to find. I appreciate the platforms that you have, that you champion these relationships that are so vital in our lives. Well thank you. And I’ll put this in the show notes as well.
I love how often you said the word connection as well, because you know, that’s basically my favorite word, love and connection, that just resonates with me. And so I think as we’re discussing these relationships, it’s so beneficial to everyone because in some form or another, they have boys in their lives and, you know, talking about this and daughters-in-law and all the things can really, really help. So thank you so much. Yeah, of course. My pleasure.
All right. So the last question, what is your favorite quote about love and how have you used it for yourself and in your relationships? I’d love this question so much because I thought back on my parenting and And I have a lot of quotes specifically about love, about connection, about with those words in it.
But let me tell you the quote that I have that really changed the way that I mother. And, and I think it changed at just the right amount of time. And here’s the quote, “I never want my kids to mess up and think mom’s going to kill me. I want their first thought to be, I need to call my mom.”
All of a sudden we are like, Whoa, is that the relationship I have with my son? That if he’s in a bind, he needs to call me, he’s like, Oh, I need to call my mom. Like I need to run this past her. I need to talk to her. I need to, she needs to come pick me up. Like I need help. So that really changed the way that I connected and it didn’t make me let my kids off the hook for dumb things that they did. It just helped me keep that connection. So when they did do those dumb things. That they weren’t afraid to call me or tell me or share that with me.
And now I think about it with my daughters-in-law, like I want them to think that I want them to think that, Hey, Heidi’s not here to critique me. She’s not here to judge me. She just wants to be in the mess with me. And if I’m in a bind, I know I can call her.
I need to call my mom. Hmm, something to think about. Thank you for sharing your love insights with us today. I love it. And thank you for having me. My pleasure.
Have a good one y’all, and here’s to you boys, connection and love.
If you enjoyed this podcast, check out LeAnn’s Connection Crew program, where she coaches and teaches a variety of ways to have more fun and connection in our relationships. LeAnn also shares the five secrets she uses to create a beautiful relationship with me and her other daughter-in-law. She’s the real deal. I highly recommend you check this out.
And if you want one easy question you can keep in your back pocket and use to increase the love you feel for your daughter-in-law today, go to leannaustin.com and get the one question.
