Transcript of “The Magic That Makes Kids Want to Cooperate”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.

Interestingly, lately my inbox seems to be flooded with questions about toothbrushing. So much so that I was even thinking about doing a podcast all about toothbrushing, helping kids to brush their teeth. But I kept thinking about it and it’s just not an interesting enough topic to me. I mean, it’s not interesting at all to me, to be honest. It’s this mundane part of my day, and I imagine also for kids, too. And probably—I mean, I could be wrong—but even dentists probably don’t find it a super-intriguing topic.

But then I received a question and a comment on Facebook on my post, This May Be Why You’re Yelling. The comment was not about toothbrushing, but it reminded me how all of these cooperative activities, these tasks that we need our kids to do, we want our kids to do, how they’re all related, and that there is a magical approach for helping our kids to do them.

This magic isn’t, unfortunately, a magic wand that we can just wave. And unfortunately it also isn’t saying some magic words or playing magical games, like what is sometimes offered on Instagram and TikTok for “getting” kids to do these things. This magic also isn’t about giving a child a certain period of attention, playing with a child, filling their cup. Even that, unfortunately, isn’t a formula for a child to be reliably willing to brush their teeth, help around the house, try new foods, clean up their toys. Yes, those do help to build intimacy and connection.

But the magic that works is when our relationship or connection is through and through. It’s through the happy times, it’s through the special times, it’s through the tough and disappointing times, it’s through when we’re setting limits, it’s through when our child is upset, when they’re having a tantrum. It’s staying on our child’s side, as I often say, partnering with them and, ideally, not being at odds with them with anything throughout the day. I know, this sounds probably superhuman, but I’m going to get to how we can do this.

When we do find ourselves at odds, we take responsibility for that. Because at least until kids are adult-age, it’s on us to be the more mature ones, to essentially be in charge of setting the tone for our two-person relationship. And when changes in our dynamic with our child need to be made, it almost always needs to come from us. Now, that’s good news and bad news, depending on how we look at it. It’s good news because it means we have the power to make changes at any time. We can do that, and our children will adapt readily. It’s bad news because we can’t count on our child to treat us a certain way, to be kinder to us when we’re asking for or demanding that they do something, just because they should respect us and do what’s right. If we aren’t setting the tone by modeling respect and honesty and kindness and forgiveness and helpfulness and taking responsibility for our behavior, we can’t expect our child to be the one to do those things.

The magic here, unfortunately, isn’t a magic bullet for gaining cooperation, but there is something that’s much clearer and simpler to understand and more effective and comprehensive than these bite-sized scripts and strategies that we hear about. Comprehensive in that it infuses everything, it works in all areas of our day with our child, with all kinds of behaviors. And it feels good, because it’s genuine. It’s not a strategy. And the positive effects it has are lasting and real. It’s relating to our child as—an imperfect, less mature than we are, much less mature—person. What a concept, right? Who we know intimately and we understand, or at least aim to, and we unconditionally adore.

That doesn’t mean we’re perfect. It’s this overall feeling that we have. Not every second of every day will we like the way our child’s behaving, what they’re doing, that we’re not annoyed with them. We are going to be. But we know that there’s something to understand there when we are. That there’s something in our expectation of them in that moment or something that, through their behavior, they’re sharing with us. Awkwardly, as it is with children a lot of the time. So we’re coming to that place eventually where we understand why they’re acting as they are. This is an overall job. It’s a relationship job. I know that probably sounded unclear and confusing. I’m sorry about that.

Now I’m going to explain via this exchange I had on social media with this parent who was responding to something I posted, a piece that I wrote a few years ago, This May Be Why You’re Yelling. This parent wrote:

I know I’m yelling because when I’ve asked five times, being calm, and nothing happened, I’m running out of patience. Sometimes it seems like when I talk nicely, nobody can hear me. I can’t be the only one, am I?

And I wrote back:

Can you give an example? I have a policy: never repeat yourself.

And then I link to a popular podcast of mine, Repeating Yourself Won’t Help (What to Do Instead).

This parent wrote back:

So I just read this article and I get what it says. [She read the transcript.] So here’s the latest example: Right now where I live, it’s Saturday morning, almost 8:00 AM. If my son’s behavior is induced by stress or tiredness, then he must be permanently worn out. My son, four-and-a-half years old, has a clock by his bed that indicates with a sleeping/playing bunny when he is allowed to get out of his room. He’s had it for more than a year now.

I had set this clock on 9:00 AM yesterday. I told him yesterday while putting him to bed, “Remember, you stay in your room until bunny is awake. You don’t come into our room. You let daddy sleep.” And he agreed. His dad is in an exhausting situation right now and needs all the sleep he can get.

Today at seven, our son came into our bedroom and started asking his dad a question about a new toy he got. I got up real quick, escorted him back to his room (right next to ours, and the wall is very thin, you can hear everything), and showed him his clock, whispering, “What did we agree on yesterday? You stay in your room, you are silent, you don’t wake us up.” I was upset, I admit. Plus he can’t for the life of him not talk. He talks all day long, from wake to sleep. He can’t keep his thoughts in his head.

And I don’t know how to follow your advice here in helping him to do what I ask him to do. There’s no lock on his door and he might need to go to the bathroom anyway, and I hate the thought of locking him in. And I can’t reasonably shut his mouth with duct tape to make him stop talking. Any thoughts?

And she put this distressed face emoji. And some other people commented before I was able to get back to her. Somebody said:

Lock dad in? Maybe after several times where he finds the bedroom door locked, he will just assume it’s not worth getting up to try it again. At first, maybe, with you on the outside but not really accessible to him—in the bathroom, for example—and go out if he becomes frustrated and help him work through it. But please, anybody correct me if you don’t think it’s appropriate.

That was all the comment somebody made back. And the original commenter said:

There aren’t locks anywhere on our doors. And the whole thing is about not waking daddy up, so we need silence. Rattling on the door doesn’t do the trick. I tried several times on other occasions to give my son a timeout in his room with the door closed, to no avail. He opens the door immediately and refuses to keep it shut. If I hold the handle from the outside, he turns total havoc, including screaming and door-kicking. And the whole point of the timeout—allowing us both to calm down by getting ourselves together before discussing the issue—is ruined because I can’t calm down either when I have to hold his door shut and listen to his screaming. So I’m stuck here.

And then a different commenter wrote to her:

What time is he going to bed? Does he normally wake up at 9:00 AM or was this a weekend thing? My son does, but I know our routine is a bit abnormal. If I were you, I would get up and go out with him so that dad can get some extra sleep.

And she wrote back:

He sleeps a good night and doesn’t lack sleep. I don’t ask him to stay in bed, much less to stay asleep. Just to stay quietly in his room. Most weekends he does just that. But this morning was particularly frustrating because I insisted on it yesterday evening and he didn’t follow through.

So then I finally commented that I had some ideas for her and it was very long, though, and I realized that this might be a good topic for a podcast. So I was going to share them here, and that’s what I’m doing now.

What I wanted to say to her is that this is one of those situations where I believe in letting go for the win, the win being next time. Because we can’t control when our child wakes up and asking them to stay in their room and wait for a clock to tell them it’s time to leave is not easy for them. And that is always going to be a voluntary activity on their part, right? It’s not something we can force if we don’t want to lock doors, and most of us don’t. And with voluntary activities, it’s always going to be about the positive connection that they feel with us. Both in general and around that particular activity, around that ask that we have of them. We make it harder for our child, and therefore for ourselves, when we make a big deal out of it not working. We get upset or mad, or we try to force them to do it, etc.

So what this parent might do instead is go into this expecting it to be an imperfect process and maybe problem-solving with her child ahead of time. “Hmm, I know sometimes it’s hard to stay in bed and to wait for that clock. What could help? Would you like me to leave some fruit or a snack bar there for you? Some special books or puzzles here by the bed?” And whether or not there’s an answer that we could both of us together figure out, I wouldn’t expect my child to be able to stick with the plan, because young children are impulsive. And the more emotion we have around something, the more intensity we have around it, the harder it is for them to not be impulsive. Because they’re absorbing that and it’s uncomfortable for them. It’s like the more we want them to do something and they feel that coming from us, the more it ruffles their feathers and the harder it is for them to do. You would think it would be the opposite, right? But he has the best chance possible of cooperating in this manner if we approach it with this kind of connection and empathy.

And then, if it doesn’t work, if he does come in or he makes some noise anyway, let it go for the win. For the win next time, and for the bigger picture of more goodwill and cooperation all around. That’s what I mean about this not being a magic wand or a quick fix, but it is magical when we commit to being on this less mature, more impulsive person’s side and requesting things from that team relationship, that very open, honest, teamwork relationship. So when it doesn’t work, we might say, “Oops.” And then while we’re ushering him out of the room, I might say, “It was hard for you to wait this time. I know, it can be so hard. Daddy will answer your question when he wakes up, of course. What would you like to do in the meantime? Let’s figure something out. You can go back to your room or play quietly here in the family room,” or whatever. Safety, connection. This is how we will get what we want. We didn’t that time, but it’s too late. So let’s give ourselves a better chance of getting it the next time and the next time and the next time, in all the other requests that we have of our child during the day.

Now, how does this look in regard to toothbrushing, or helping us with housework, encouraging kids to try new foods, help them to get dressed, or to be quiet while the baby’s going to sleep, etc. etc. etc.? Here’s some points:

1. Expect that there might be resistance and that it might not work at all. Our expectations matter because they create certain feelings in us. When we’re putting an expectation out there that might not work, naturally, we’re going to get disappointed. And whether or not that’s a reasonable expectation, I don’t know. But it turns out it’s not reasonable for this child, at this time, at this age, in this situation.

I know that for me, we didn’t have those special clocks when my kids were little and I never once thought I had any control over when they got up and came in. I remember there was one point where I had tried to encourage my older child to stay in her room a little longer, and I did put a special snack there for her, because we explored it and one of the things she wanted was something to eat. So that did help for a little while. But mostly what helped was her feeling the safety in our connection and that she wanted to try to be helpful when she could, as much as she could. I wasn’t doing anything that might unwittingly put her into a zone of being at odds with me.

Our expectations are what can give us this light attitude and help us not set ourselves up for anger and disappointment that will end up hurting our chances the next time. Let’s use the example of hoping our child would try a new food. That light attitude, I’m not expecting they’re going to try it. Why would they? They don’t want to eat something strange that they might not like, right? So I just offer it, Oh, here’s something that you haven’t tried before. It’s quite an interesting taste. Let me know what you think. Do you want to try it? Instead of, “Here, can you please try this now?” And we don’t have to say all those words about it being an interesting taste or anything, just that idea of Would you like to try this? Instead of that kind of automatic demand mode that we get into as parents. Not even a demand, but that sort of request mode that we get into with young children where we’re telling them to do this and telling them to do that. And they don’t like it and they feel like there’s that distance between us.

This is true for all of these cooperative activities that we want our kids to do. Our expectation matters. So that’s number one: Expect that there might be resistance and that it might not work at all.

2. Request from a place of authenticity and openness, maybe even vulnerability. Let’s say, the example of helping with housework. Okay, I’m going to be honest here: I did not do this thing that I hear so much being written about now, the importance of kids doing chores from the time that they’re little. I didn’t put a big importance on that. Maybe because I remember as a child that my sisters and I would get all excited about, Oh, now you’re going to do this chore and I’m going to do that chore and we’ll make a little chart and we’ll cross it off! And we wanted to do these things and got very into it for about two days or maybe a week, and then we didn’t want to do it anymore. My mother—who certainly, like all of us, was an imperfect parent—she let it go. She wasn’t one to put herself in the position of nagging at us to do things that she sensed were voluntary. Using her power that way, in a way that’s often not very fruitful for us. And she just wasn’t that kind of person.

And actually, I’m not either. I don’t like, I mean, the least amount of limits I can give… I’m actually very strict with limits around certain things, but I don’t want to be telling other people what to do all day long. That’s not where I want to put my energy. And when it’s something like this, that there has to be a certain intrinsic enjoyment of for young children for them to want to do it consistently, I trust that.

At the same time, all the way through from the time they were little, whenever I needed my kids’ help or really wanted my kids’ help for something, they never said no. Maybe I’m just lucky that way, but I really believe it’s because of the way that I asked. Which wasn’t a demand or a nag. It was, “Oh, I could really use some help here. Would you mind?” Or, “Could you give me a hand?” And because this wasn’t a dynamic where we had distance between each other, they always did. They knew I wasn’t using that “ask” card all day long. And in the rare case that they didn’t, and I honestly don’t remember this happening very often at all, but on the rare case they didn’t, there was a reason. They were unhappy about something that actually they needed to talk to me about. And at some point I would figure that out and I said, “What’s up with you? It seems like you’re not feeling that good, or you’re mad at me. Is there something we can talk about?”

So yes, I would offer opportunities for young children to help in ways that they want to. And doing chores, it’s great for their confidence, right? To know that they can do these things and contribute to the household. But I wouldn’t hold them to that in a way that became another limit that I had to try to set every day or another coaxing I had to try to do. And although I didn’t probably use this on a daily basis, I bet it would work if you did. I bet you could say every day, “Oh, and today I actually need a little help. Could you help me, my love, clean up this stuff?” Or offer a very reasonable, logical consequence that’s just honest. “I don’t want to take out more stuff until we put this away. So can you please help me put this away if you want to take that thing out?”

But I didn’t expect that they were going to have tidy rooms or that the play area was going to be clean. And in fact, I liked them to have projects that were left out so that they could revisit them the next day. But I know that’s me, and not everybody feels that way. All I know is that this works and that my kids, whenever they go to somebody else’s house, they’re always the first ones to help. They are well-mannered kids who are cooperative and helpful. So that’s two: Request from a place of authenticity and openness, maybe even vulnerability.

3. Lean in to empathy and connection. Meaning, I understand all the reasons why you wouldn’t want to do this right now. Not that I have to get into them with you and make a whole list, but I’m coming from that place of getting it. Brushing teeth, it’s tedious, right? It’s this thing we have to do to clean our teeth, but please, let’s find a way we can do this so we can get it done and there’ll be time to do these other things. What can I do to make it easier? And again, I’m not talking about saying these exact words, but it’s that approach. Leaning in with empathy and connection. Connection, meaning, I’m wanting to help as much as possible for this to happen, and we’re making plans together. “How about you do this part and I’ll finish the rest?” Or, “Here, maybe you want to try one bite of this carrot and I’ll eat the rest.” Or again, going back to the comment on Facebook, “What can we do to help daddy get this time that he needs? He’s so worn out. I’d love any ideas that you have.” This is an issue we have going on in our family, and what can we do? Or, “What can we do? I know it’s so hard to not be exuberant right next to where the baby’s sleeping.”

So that’s three: Lean in to empathy and connection.

4. Don’t come at this with intensity or be pushy or try to force or insist on these voluntary activities. (This is the only don’t on the list!) Remember, these are in the category of voluntary activities. We need the lightest touch. When we try to force or even bribe or threaten or punish in these situations that we have no control over our child doing, we and our child both tend to lose. Because we end up disappointed and maybe angry, and they end up with this feeling of distance between us, and maybe shame, maybe guilt. They failed. And for us as adults, maybe that feeling of failing makes us do better the next time. For children, it doesn’t tend to. It depletes their self-confidence. It tends to make them doubt themselves.

And interestingly, I think that might be the main point that got in the way this time with this parent on Facebook. Because she said something interesting, not back to me, but to another commenter. She said back to this commenter, “He sleeps a good night and doesn’t lack sleep. I don’t ask him to stay in bed, much less to stay asleep. Just to stay quietly in his room. Most weekends he does just that. But this morning was particularly frustrating because I insisted on it yesterday evening and he didn’t follow through.” And she also talks about times when she tried timeout with him in his room.

Let’s just take the fact that she insisted on it and the vibe her son got from her. That bit of intensity, it goes into a child’s system, and it’s almost like that ends up churning up the exact response that we don’t want and they don’t really want. Which is, Now I just have this impulse to get up and do this because it was so insisted on! So I know that sounds totally unreasonable, which young children often are, and maybe doesn’t make sense to anybody out there, but the toddler in me gets how that was a setup for failure for me, that obviously my parent didn’t intend that way. That my parent became so insistent instead of using that light touch, what I said was number two, request from a place of authenticity and openness, maybe even vulnerability. “Here’s something we need to do for dad, and how can we do this?” instead of, “This is really important and we’ve got to do this because daddy’s so tired.” Where I’m not really including my child, they’re not feeling the comfort of that connection.

I have the inkling that that insistence, along with the past experiences of the timeout in his room where she said she was holding the handle from the outside and “he turns total havoc, including screaming and door-kicking. And the whole point of the timeout—allowing us both to calm down by getting ourselves together before discussing the issue—is ruined because I can’t calm down either when I have to hold his door shut and listen to his screaming.” And right there is the common misconception about timeout. It’s sold to us as this way that is going to help children calm down and be more reasonable. Because maybe that’s what it does for us when we take a break, maybe for us it calms us down. But when we’re directing a child that they have to do this, what they’re feeling is, I’m being told to do this. I’m being punished. It’s not their choice, I want to calm down, and therefore they don’t calm down. In this case, he was screaming, but sometimes children will seem very quiet and they’re screaming on the inside. The studies show that they’re still dysregulated. They’re not calming down. In fact, they’re getting more upset because of the distance and the emotions they feel from the parent. So this parent really encapsulated right there why timeout doesn’t work, why punishments don’t help us. Definitely not in the bigger picture, but even in the short term, it didn’t help her to get what she wanted, which was for him to follow this direction.

So four: Don’t come at this with intensity or be pushy, trying to force or insist on these voluntary activities.

5. If it doesn’t work or they turn us down if we’re requesting something, let go for the win. And that’s what I meant by this parent saying, “Uh-oh, that didn’t work. Let’s try again next time, and maybe we’ll make a plan.” And it helped that I didn’t have that expectation in the first place that it was going to work. Makes it so much easier to let go. And when we let go, our child gets all that comfort and safety from us that makes them desire, and also be capable of, cooperating the next time. They want to do that for us, because we’ve shown them that we understand them, that they’re not always going to be able to do it, and we don’t hold grudges. And yeah, sure, we’re disappointed maybe, but turning against our child right there—which none of us mean to do, but it can easily happen—is not going to be the answer. It’s not going to help.

So that’s five: If it doesn’t work or they turn us down, let go for the win. For the win next time and the next time and the next time. Without snarky comments, rise above, believing in the goodness of your child and the strength of your love for each other. From those beliefs, all the best things will come.

I hope some of this helps. And for much more detail and a very deep dive into all of this stuff, to really be able to internalize what it feels like to have strong boundaries from this relational perspective, please check out my No Bad Kids Master Course at nobadkidscourse.com, and consider if that might be for you. Also, all of the resources on my website, free for you to read, and the podcast, there’s 325 now, something like that. Every topic under the sun, all together. You’ll get this perspective, if it sounds good to you. It’s certainly saved me.

Thanks so much for listening. We can do this.

The post The Magic That Makes Kids Want to Cooperate appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Transcript of “Should We Resort to Using Force?”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.

Today I’m going to be doing something a little different, thanks to a couple who graciously agreed to consult with me here. One of them reached out via email with concerns about her four-year-old’s unwillingness to cooperate with the steps leading up to bedtime and also during morning transitions. The parents wondered if there was a point when following through with limits around bathtime, toothbrushing, dressing should mean using force. And as a couple, they have differing views about this issue. They’ve tried sticker charts, taking away storytime if she doesn’t get ready in time, working with her to help develop a bedtime routine. But none of those strategies have worked out. So they asked if I could share any thoughts that I have.

As is often the case, when I read their note, I had way more questions than I did answers. So I very much appreciate them being willing to share with us here.

Hello, and thank you so much for being here and being willing to share with me and listeners about your issues. I imagine there’s other parents going through similar things, so I really appreciate you being willing to be on with me. I would like to start with your note that you sent me a couple of weeks ago, and here it is:

Thank you so much for all your lessons on parenting and developing respectful connections with my two daughters while holding boundaries and ensuring that my needs matter too. My current challenge is with my almost-four-year-old, who often engages in testing behavior at bedtime. She stalls, refuses, or delays putting on her pajamas, brushing her teeth, getting in bed, and staying in bed. For a few weeks we used a sticker chart and that helped motivate and then that behavior stuck for a while when we discontinued the chart, but now we are back to the same testing behavior. This behavior also happens when getting ready for preschool in the morning.

So my question to you is, how to enforce boundaries that seem like they would require physical intervention within the respectful parenting framework? When she won’t put on her pajamas, do we hold her body down to do so? If she will not go into the bathtub, do we pick her up and put her in, then keep putting her back in each time she climbs out? Do we brush her teeth for her while she tries to keep her mouth shut?

This has been a major area of conflict with my husband, who believes that these actions are part of following through after providing clear limits and acknowledging feelings, while I see them as overly controlling. To me it is really hard not to see it as too physical, and triggers my own history of being held down by my older brother when I didn’t do what he wanted me to do. I don’t want to be so physical, putting on her pajamas while my daughter fights it with her body and screams. But other options we have tried, like taking away storytime if she doesn’t get ready in time, using sticker charts, working with her to help develop a bedtime routine, haven’t worked.

Any thoughts you have would be so helpful. Thank you for your help.

As I mentioned in the note that I sent back to you, one of the reasons I wanted you to come on and talk to me here is that I have a lot of questions for you about what’s going on here. If you don’t mind, I’d like to start with that. Why do you think she’s struggling this way? What do you think could be going on there that makes her want to stall and resist and refuse?

Parent 1: Well, one piece that we’ve noticed just this last week is that we’ve moved up bedtime a bit. And realizing that some of it had to do with her just being overtired, and that’s helped some. It had gotten to the point where she was kicking and spitting when we were trying to help her get to bed, and that’s not typical behavior for her. And so recognizing that she, I mean she’s often going to be tired in the evening, but she was really overtired and that was making it even more challenging. That’s one thought that comes to mind.

Another is that she has an older sister who maybe she wants to be playing with and sometimes the older sister gets to stay up a little later.

And I think another part of it is just the testing part. She can see that I’m tentative, perhaps, in terms of I’ll say, “It’s time to put on pajamas,” and she just won’t answer and she’ll walk away and I kind of don’t know what to do. And I know from reading and listening to your podcast that sometimes that confidence is needed that can help them see that I’m her strong leader. And so perhaps that also plays a role.

Those are some of the thoughts that I’ve had. I don’t know if you have any others.

Parent 2: Well, you nailed the two big ones, which are that she’s probably been overtired and moving up the bedtime over the last week I think has made a big difference. I think a lot of it is sibling-related, dealing with her big sister is a big part of it. I think that her older sister, of course, is further along developmentally and more capable and more verbal. Even though our younger daughter is quite verbal and communicative, she’s not as communicative as our older daughter. So I think it often feels hard for her to get attention, get a word in edgewise, and she’s often using behaviors that are maybe more intense to try to get some of the attention that she’s looking for. And then I think part of it is the boundaries that you were just talking about. I think sometimes the boundaries aren’t totally clear to her.

One thing that I’ll add on to that is that you and I just do things a little bit differently as parents. Like when my back was hurting and it was really hard for me to reach to the far side of the bathtub to do her bathtime, that’s one place where I put in a boundary that I don’t think you have, which is that, “I can’t wash you if you’re on the far side of the bathtub. I need you to be on the near side of the bathtub.” And so she’d learned that that’s a boundary where she can try to test it and see what happens with me. So that’s one place where, to finish a bath with her, I would pick her up and take her out of the bath. But for you, that’s not something that you like doing and it’s not a boundary that you have in your mind. So there’s a difference between the two of us there. Does that make sense?

Parent 1: Yeah, yeah, that definitely makes sense. I think that we do have differences in some of the boundaries. I think she learns some of them really well and then other times I can see that might be confusing to her, to know where the boundary is between the two of us.

Janet Lansbury: Well, I’m hearing a lot of insightfulness here on both of your parts, so that definitely works in your favor as parents and in figuring this out, figuring out what’s going on and what we can do to help. I love that you both nailed the tiredness thing. It’s so all-consuming for young children and they aren’t able to see it coming in the way that we might as adults, where we’re like, Ah, I’m getting tired. And a lot of children have the temperament where they go right into this hyperactive, really unreasonable, dysregulated place. So that’s great that you’re both noticing that element, that you can help her there by starting earlier. I also wonder how old is the older one, your older child?

Parent 2: She’s six. They’re two-and-a-half years apart.

Janet Lansbury: And do they have time together at the end of the day?

Parent 2: Yeah, they do have time together at the end of the day. They often play together really nicely in the evenings for half-an-hour or an hour before dinner, after dinner, before bathtime, before bedtime.

Janet Lansbury: Wonderful.

Parent 1: And they also share a room, they have bunk beds, so they kind of are in the same space at night too.

Parent 2: They also do have conflict between each other and they work on resolving that. There’s lots of the older sister trying to keep things away from the younger sister and the younger sister trying to destroy the things that the older sister is working on. I mean, something along those lines probably happens every day, but they often are able to resolve it on their own, and then of the times that they’re not, they’re often able to resolve it with a tiny bit of observation from one of us.

Janet Lansbury: Yes, that I would say is par for the course, that they have conflicts. And that’s actually the benefit of having a sibling, is that you learn how to work through conflicts with other children and with peers and in all relationships in your life. It’s an incredible gift that they have this kind of relationship. It sounds ideal.

Why is it that you believe, though, that this is getting in the way with bedtime? Because it sounds like, well, your younger one has to go into the bunk bed before her sister does and be alone in there, and then her sister comes in later after she’s asleep. Is that how it works?

Parent 1: There was a period where we separated them because the younger daughter would just kind of scream, not letting the older one sleep. So we tried this for a year and we would just bring our older daughter into our room to sleep until the younger one stopped screaming and then we’d carry her back into the other room when our younger daughter was asleep. It was just a long time of really wanting them to share a room that wasn’t working, in the sense that I think that our younger daughter was getting some attention. I don’t know, I’m guessing that it’s attention, just doing a lot of screaming and yelling, not letting the older daughter sleep.

But that sort of got fixed in the last few months, so we had them in the same room going down at the same time, but half the nights there’s a lot of this testing behavior. And then in the last week, really, after I sent the message, we were like, Let’s put her down earlier! And that’s seemed to have helped some in terms of the intensity of the behavior.

Janet Lansbury: So now she has her own bedtime that’s earlier and she’s going to bed without the sister there?

Parent 1: Correct, yes.

Parent 2: Right.

Janet Lansbury: And that’s working better. That’s interesting. Yeah, the children can sort of play off each other, which does make it harder for them to let go. What all of us want at the end of the day when we’re going to sleep is to be able to kind of let go. Let go of the excitement in life, let go of the dramas that might be happening, let go of how we might be winding our parents up. She sounds like a very intense person, this younger one. I love that kind of child, but it does have challenges. It can be so much harder for them to let go.

Anyway, it sounds like you’ve gotten over one hurdle by figuring this out that she got too tired, which makes everything much harder for her and harder for you. The other part here that I wanted to talk about is, since you sort of know why she’s struggling, stalling, and resisting, so we want to be able to do what you’ve done by acknowledging the overtiredness. Which is kind of fixing this from the inside out by understanding what elements are making it not work, what she’s expressing here that she might need. And then from there, partnering with her. Because even sticker charts, while totally harmless, they’re kind of pitting you against her. That’s how children feel: Here, you get to do this fun thing if you comply with what we want. Whether that’s a sticker chart or storytime, it makes children feel a distance between them and us that can kind of make these matters worse. It just looks and feels a lot different to a child than when we’re partnering with her.

Another part of this, I don’t know if it’s the way that you expressed it in the letter, but it sounds like—and you can correct me if I’m wrong—that you are kind of asking her to do these things, in terms of getting ready for bed or in the morning, and she’s not doing them. Is that sort of the way it’s going?

Parent 1: Yes, I would say that’s correct. “It’s time to get dressed.” And she won’t get dressed.

Janet Lansbury: Right. So what she’s showing is that this is a time when she needs more of a helping her through these transitions. Especially the night transition is the hardest one of all because children are tired, but all transitions tend to be challenging. And getting up in the morning and getting out the door—I mean, I can totally relate to the stalling and the procrastinating and all of that stuff because I do that myself. At this age, though, children often need that parent helping them, guiding them through the channel. That feeling that we’re totally willing to do that. And actually we want to do that, because this is a way that we get to really separate from you when you go to school in a way that feels like there’s a lot of relationship that’s a part of it. And it feels better to us, too, than getting in a battle with her in the morning or at night before she goes to bed, certainly. It can feel better to us to hold on to that I worked with her and I helped her from the beginning.

Yes, she’s four years old and can do a lot of this herself, but there are often periods that children go through with transitions where it’s like they revert back to being a one-and-a-half-year-old, where they really need us to walk them through. And she sounds like she’s either going through that or she’s that kind of person right now. It doesn’t mean you’re going to be doing this forever until she’s a teenager. But for now, I would consider both these periods—the morning and the night—as this is time that you’re going to be connected with her, that you’re going to do caregiving. It’s like baby caregiving with her, to help her get from point A to point B.

Again, it’s that feeling of distance that she has where we’re over here and she’s over there. I want you to do this and you’re not doing it. But what she’s feeling is, There’s a part of me that’s still in independent-mode. Just because you tell me to do something, I can’t do it sometimes. And just be on my side and help me through. I mean, she can’t obviously say that, but that’s often what children are needing. That we are like, okay, it’s bedtime. And you said something about that you developed a routine, so here’s a routine that she hopefully had input on: What do you need at bedtime? What do you need from me? How do you want this to go? And then knowing that no, we’re not going to be able to make a deal that she’s always going to be able to shake on and follow through with. She still needs the backup of, We’re there, we’re taking you through.

That’s how I would approach it, so that right from the beginning, you’re, “Okay, now it’s time to get your clothes on. Here we go. And now we’re going to do this, and then we’re going to do that.” And I’m not saying that it’ll all be perfect and smooth then, but that’s the way I would look at this for yourselves. And you two could take turns or whoever’s available, to give her that 100% nurturing through that time. Okay, so now she’s saying, “No, I don’t want to do that!” The thing is, children often don’t, or they do it a lot less, when we’re in there with this positive, helpful, we’re doing this together, here we go, my love vibe, instead of the it’s time for you to do this attitude. So sometimes that will actually just override. They might still go, “No, I don’t want to. I don’t want to!” But they give in much easier because they’re getting that nurturing that they’re unconsciously asking for.

Parent 2: I think that is great advice. And just speaking for myself, I’ve heard you give that advice on other podcasts and we’ve been doing that and I think it has really helped. It has been great, for me at least, to switch my mindset from I need my daughter to do these things! to, Oh wow, my daughter really needs my help right now. And I remember you saying on a podcast about hard pickups from preschool or daycare, about kids running away: “Just don’t let your kid run away from you. Get there and give them a hug and then stay by their side for the whole time and then your kid can’t run away. And then there’s no conflict there anymore.” Or with these sorts of routines, to switch from saying, Wow, I just need my daughter to do her bedtime routine, to, Oh, my daughter is really tired and she’s only three, so she doesn’t know how to do this on her own and she needs my help. And I think that has made a big difference.

Even doing that, when we go into it and we let her know that the transition is coming: it’s going to be bedtime in 10 minutes, it’s going to be bedtime in five minutes, it’s going to be bedtime in one more minute, take one more moment to do one more thing. Then when it’s bedtime, I say, “Okay, it’s time to head up for bedtime. Do you want to walk or do you want me to carry you?” I will carry her or I’ll hold her hand. And I’ve had a lot of success doing that. Even so, she might start screaming that she can’t walk, and I’ll say, “Oh yeah, you are too tired to walk. I understand, that makes sense. I’ll carry you. I’m happy to carry you.” Sometimes that works.

Or sometimes she screams, “No, I want mama to carry me!” I mean, sometimes we look at each other and maybe mama is free and can pick her up and carry her, but I think this is where I start wondering about boundaries. Because if I’ve told her, “It’s time to go up for bedtime, I’m happy to carry you, I’m here,” is that a place where I ought to be saying, You really had these perfectly good options in front of you and you said no to walking and I’m here and I’m taking the lead in this bedtime, so I’m just going to pick you up. Even though mama’s on the other side of the house and she’s fully capable of taking you upstairs, right now I’m the one who’s doing it. But then that will often become a point of conflict between my daughter and me where she’ll just be screaming for the entire bedtime that she wants mama to do whatever. Does that make sense?

Janet Lansbury: It does, it does. And it’s great to hear these details of what’s going on. So the other thing I would say is, knowing that transitions are very challenging and a time of dysregulation, especially the nighttime one for young children. She’s still totally in that category at age four, four can be a challenging age. Six does get a lot easier by then, but four is still ripe for falling apart when it’s time to do these things. So knowing that going in, I would give her the most minimal choices, if any, and I wouldn’t give her that kind of countdown. Because putting my toddler hat on or my four-year-old hat on, I’m getting wound up by that. One more minute, here we go . . . For a child with this kind of sensitivity, it can be unraveling to feel that warning vibe. I know you don’t mean it that way, you mean it very lovingly, but it can come off as, Alright, here we go . . . and like, I have a feeling there might be trouble here. That’s the way you said it in your voice saying it to me. Maybe you’re not saying it that way to her, but that trepidation feeling.

Instead I’d say, “You know what? In a few minutes it’s going to be time to go upstairs and I can’t wait to do bedtime with you.” That’s the only warning part. And saying it very positively like that and then going up to her, “Okay, come on, let’s go.” Taking her hand, putting your arm around her. You see her starting to stall, “You know what, I’m going to pick up my little baby bear” or whatever, and, “I’m so glad I can still do this!” And now she’s screaming, Mommy, mommy! “Oh no, you want mommy.”

And maybe she can’t hear you from then out, but if she goes there—which again, there’s so much more chance of it when we’re leaving open those choices and all those things that she can’t handle. It’s like, I can’t handle this, I can’t handle that, I can’t handle that. And it’s like one on top of the other and, Now, I’m done. She’s gone off into that dysregulation place. And so if she gets like that anyway, even if you do kind of come in early with this, I call it the “confident momentum” of not giving her those choices and all those pauses and all those places of making decisions that are really, really hard for most young children. Or all of us when we’re in tense periods in our life, and young children still are in their development, there’s so much going on.

Even with all that, if she’s now screaming for mommy, I would see it as, You know what? She’s venting her day right now. I would perceive it that way. And, I’m going to be the hero that doesn’t get flustered by that, doesn’t try to call in mommy.

I would not do that, even if mom’s right there. I would not try to fix it that way because it will help her if she can just let go and be gone at that point. I would just take her up. If she’s screaming, cover your ears or if she’s trying to hurt you or something, say, “You know what? I can’t.” Or don’t even say it. Just put her down and just somehow get her along that way.

When you talk about force, you could call it force, but it’s not the kind that you two are both worried about where you have to hold her down. It’s that papa bear/mama bear momentum that I guess could be called force, but it’s really more when you can’t do it yourself, I’m going to carry you through attitude. And not all these words to her. I wouldn’t try to talk to her about it, especially if she’s at that point.

Then with details like the bath, I mean the bath is optional, really. Bathing is a nice luxury, I think. I mean for me at least! But for her it’s like you could wash her, you could washcloth her back a little if she’s been playing in mud or something like that or wash her hands. And I would do that with confident momentum. “You know what, we’re going to put these hands in here and we got to do this,” and, “Oh, you don’t want to and you want mommy and this is just not going your way!” If you’re going to say anything, just be understanding that she’s falling apart and coming from that place. But a bath should really be a voluntary thing because we want to present it positively. And like I said, I think it is positive.

It’s not make or break that if she doesn’t have a bath—unless she’s been working in a construction site or something—that there’s going to be something wrong with that. It’s just that we want this routine to go, and also maybe she said she wanted to do that. And then you might say, “It looks like it’s going to be too hard for you to be in the bath, so we’re going to skip it this time.” Not mad at her, not, Well, you said!, not going up against her in that way. But really on her side, as somebody that you see is almost like a basket case at this point. This is especially true if she was overtired.

Brushing the teeth, you do the best you can. The pajamas, I mean, if she has to sleep without pajamas, it’s not the end of the world. But I think you’ll find it’s easier—I mean, you say you’re already finding it easier that she’s not overtired, but I think you’ll find it easier when you approach it as, Okay, I got to get you dressed. That’s my job, and I got to do this. And we’re not annoyed with her, because we know she’s not in her best mind right now and she just needs help. She just needs us to get her from point A to point B as best we can. It’s not purposeful behavior that she’s doing. And then I think you’ll find there’s less of it.

I wanted to talk to your partner here about her feeling tentative because that is, as you both realize, that is also getting in the way. And understandably. I’m so sorry you had that experience as a child. A lot of parents that I work with have trouble with being physical in the way that I was just describing. Having that confidence to start early with momentum, to see your job as heroic, and there are physical aspects of that. If we’re tentative, then we’re leaving open all those spaces, we’re going to keep giving her those kinds of choices. Oh, you don’t want me? Okay, daddy, and, Okay, are you ready for me to do this? Instead of, You know what, I’m going to do this. I know I’m doing the right thing, I know I’m caring for you, that you’re showing me you need my help, and I’m happy to do it. It’s not the same as going up against you. I’m overriding some of the difficulty that you’re having, is really the way it is.

Parent 1: Yeah, that’s helpful. I think it’s some of what you described as putting pajamas on, the bathtub, those sorts of things, being voluntary, I think sort of trying to better understand that piece. Because I think there are times where we can come in with that more positive attitude and catching it earlier and it works. And other times where she just hides under the bed or hides behind furniture. I think she can kind of feel her power in terms of the pajamas, getting the pajamas on. And so I guess I wonder if in that situation when she’s—I’m using the word fighting, but that’s not what I mean—where she’s just really having a hard time or testing in those moments, would that make sense to let that go? Or would you say that’s important to get her pajamas on?

Janet Lansbury: That’s interesting. I don’t disagree with you saying fighting. But what you said is so key, about the power. So yes, she’s unconsciously trying to understand also, besides feeling not her best self and kind of a mess, she’s trying to understand and reckon with, in a way, the power that this has with her parents. That when she hides, now you’re frustrated or however you’re being or mad or trying to get her out of there. So what we want to do with that is not give it power.

That’s what I meant about cutting our losses sometimes and letting go of certain things. I mean, it’s not like I can give you a set plan. It’s a feeling that you have with her of she’s trying to get you wound up by something—again, I believe on an unconscious level—and you’re not going to do it. You’re not going to take the bait because you see beyond. Going under the bed, it’s so silly. So am I going to get annoyed with that? If I have this agenda, I’ve got to do this and she’s got to have the pajamas and she’s got to have the bath, that’s going to set me up to be annoyed when it’s not going my way. But if I’m just like, I’m going to do the best I can to help my little girl, and I’m not afraid of touching her and picking her up and doing all those things. Because it is loving, especially if I’m acknowledging.

If she’s screaming for mommy and daddy’s taking her and if you’re like, “You want your mom, you don’t want me,” knowing it’s not personal, then it’s so compassionate. It’s so loving. There’s nothing even remotely abusive or wrong there for her. She’s feeling that hero come in and take care of her.

But yeah, when she’s doing that kind of silly stuff, I would say maybe, “Okay, I’m going to go file my nails and let me know when you’re ready for the book because I’m happy to read it for a few more minutes.” Very positive, very you’re not going to get me with this stuff. And that will give you confidence when you realize you’re the one that actually has all the power, not her. She doesn’t want to have the power to annoy you with these antics, and she doesn’t have to if you don’t give it to her.

Parent 1: That feels really powerful. I could just feel myself, I have to get these nine things done to get her in bed! I think that’s where she gets the power. You’re absolutely right that I am like, Okay, now how do I convince her to put on her pajamas? And now how do I convince her to brush her teeth? And if she doesn’t, I have to make her do it. So then I’m trying all the tricks. We can’t read a book, or you’re not going to get to say goodnight to your sister, all the things. I’m pulling them out because she has to get the pajamas on. But if she doesn’t have to get the pajamas on, then okay. If she doesn’t have to brush her teeth. I mean, hopefully she doesn’t not want to brush her teeth every night, it doesn’t get to that. But I don’t think it does. The other day that came up and we were like, “Oh, okay, you don’t have to brush your teeth to go to school today.” She’s like, “Oh, I want to. I don’t want cavities.” And so she still did. I think that’s just really powerful to take the air out of it all by recognizing none of it has to get done.

Janet Lansbury: Right. I love that you had that experience where she wanted to brush her teeth! What does that tell you? I mean, everything, right there. This is about your dynamic with her. That’s all. And so what she’s feeling when you’re putting this really intense agenda on yourself. I mean, look what you’re doing to yourself. You’re kind of making it impossible for you to be a confident parent right there. No. Own your power.

You don’t have to tell her and talk her into things. Say, “Okay, here’s your clothes. I’m going to put this on.” You really can’t do it? Don’t do it, then. Maybe there’s ways that you can practice with her during times when she’s not having difficulty like this, where you come in very positively with physical touch. I mean, I’m sure you do have this. You just put your arm around her right away, you’re not tentative about touching her, that you have to ask her permission for everything or whatever. I mean, I know that that’s out there. You’re not one of these people that anybody should worry about making a child do things and breaking their boundaries physically. You’re the other direction. But children read that as, She can’t be the leader. I don’t want to be the leader, but I’m kind of stuck here trying to get her to be the leader. It’s not a comfortable feeling for her.

Parent 1: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. There’s definitely a place for picking her up and helping her and coming to it from that perspective as her leader and helping her through things. And letting go when it starts to feel like a power struggle. That feeling that I have in my body is a cue that, Huh, maybe this thing isn’t necessary. Maybe she doesn’t have to eat a banana before she goes to school. Let that go. If she doesn’t want to eat breakfast, then she doesn’t want to eat breakfast. I can let go of all those things.

Janet Lansbury: And you can take it in the car and, instead of that disappointment in her, say, “You know what? We’ll bring it in the car. Tell me if you change your mind.” If you don’t mind her eating in your car, but if you do, don’t do it.

You’re not willing to engage in a power struggle. You’re just not. Not because you’re afraid of it, but you’re just too big for it. You’re way too big for it, both of you. You’re not going to stoop to that with a four-year-old. And that’s what will give her heart so much relief. That she’s not in charge of these things, that she doesn’t have to make all these decisions, that her little antics don’t throw you off your game, you two. That’s the main thing that she’s looking for here, I think.

Parent 1: Yeah. I feel like I have a new approach that’s going to really help the evenings feel. I think you’re right, there’s a sense that, Here comes the bedtime routine . . . How is it going to go tonight? So hopefully I can shift that mindset, because I’m sure she feels that too.

Janet Lansbury: Yeah. And if you’re feeling that, this girl’s feeling it for sure. It’s like seeping out of you, that trepidation. And it’s a really typical thing, you’re not unusual, that we go into these things where our child, maybe we’ve had difficulty before and now, “Alright, five more minutes until your bedtime. Okay, it’s time.” Like we’re almost asking for trouble, right?

Parent 1: Right.

Janet Lansbury: Yeah. Even though of course we don’t really want it, but that’s how it can feel.

I think it’s also wonderful that you also have the connection now that you’ve made between your childhood experience and the tentativeness that you feel. Keep exploring that, maybe writing about it from a place of that feeling, of how it felt. So you’re not writing a story about what happened from this kind of objective, distant place, but you sit down with that feeling of how that felt when your brother was doing that, and you just write from that. Ah, I’m scared, whatever comes from that. That can be a helpful way that I learned from Elisabeth Corey, by the way, who I’ve had on my show. Do you go to therapy or anything like that?

Parent 1: I have at times. I’m not in therapy right this minute, though. Yeah.

Janet Lansbury: Well, just keep in mind that that may need more healing for you to be able to put it in its place and not let it interfere with this important role that you’re taking on.

Parent 1: I think the challenge is actually sometimes more just like when my husband has to help her put her clothes on. I kind of trust myself in those moments, but I think the conflict comes when I’m watching him put her pajamas on. That’s more of when the conflict arises within me, is kind of watching that and probably putting a lens on it that’s more related to what happened to me when I was a kid. He’s just trying to get her pajamas on, and in my mind, I often intervene in those moments. And not just in my mind, I intervene and I tell him to stop because that’s what comes up for me. And so I think figuring out how to allow him to parent in those moments. I mean, I certainly think it impacts me. I think in terms of how it impacts our parenting overall. It’s more in just my intervening in those moments when he’s having to be the confident leader and take those steps that it ends up being a challenge for us.

Janet Lansbury: Well, I would just keep your sense of humor about it if you can. What both of you are doing here, exploring this, is the way that I would recommend. Because it’s like, let’s say you’re building a wooden box and you have this lid and the lid’s not going on. We wouldn’t try to force it, force it, force it on. We would look and see what’s going on here that’s making this not go on. So that’s what we want to do with children, even though obviously they’re not wooden boxes, much more complex than that. But that’s the way we want to be as parents. We want to go from the inside out, helping our child with the issue that they’re having.

In this case, I think overtiredness, way too much power, getting people wound up, and maybe too much of a strict agenda on things that, really, we don’t have the power to force that easily. Like to make someone sit in a bath and enjoy it or to make someone get their clothes on or brush their teeth when they’re holding their mouth shut. So where we don’t have power, we really want to lean into mama/papa bear, loving, loving, loving relationship. And way above her struggles and tests and all the things that happen when she’s not at her best self.

Parent 1: That’s super-helpful. Thank you so much. I feel kind of relieved that I have a plan that feels a lot more doable than I had before. Yeah.

Janet Lansbury: Good. And if she starts screaming for one of you when the other one’s having their time with her, don’t other person come bail her out. Because then that can be that accommodating thing of, I really can’t do this, and you really do need daddy or you really do need mommy right now. It’s better then to just kind of face the music and carry on, knowing that you’re being a hero.

Parent 2: Can I ask a couple follow-up questions?

Janet Lansbury: Yes.

Parent 2: Since we’ve got you on the line, and normally I just have to listen to your podcast and then guess how it applies to our particular circumstance.

Janet Lansbury: Of course.

Parent 2: So yeah, I hear what you’re saying about if she is screaming at my wife that she actually wants me to do bedtime—it happens in both directions—that that’s not her decision to make, and we’re both capable parents and either one of us can do it. We don’t need to acquiesce to that. What about this morning when she was screaming at me that I was sitting in her seat at breakfast and she wanted me to move? I mean, am I acquiescing to some unreasonable demand? I mean, I can go sit somewhere else.

Janet Lansbury: But why would you?

Parent 2: Is that me being flexible? Or am I being too stubborn if I say, “No, I was sitting here already, I’m just going to sit here,” knowing that she is going to scream a lot right next to me as I’m sitting there eating breakfast if I don’t get up and move. I mean, she ended up screaming a lot about other nonsense this morning.

Janet Lansbury: There you go, that’s your answer. She needed to scream about something. I’m really glad you brought this up, because that’s a sign that there are some places where you’re kind of letting her have power that she cannot be comfortable with, and then it’s bleeding over into these difficult situations like bedtime as well. Because when there are things going on in one area, it always makes everything harder, especially the transitional times, which are already the hardest.

It’s an unconscious power play on her part. Yeah, of course you could get up, but for what? Of course you could get her a different color cup that’s right there, but you already brought that one with the water in it. The way that you respond matters, no matter what you do. So you could sit there still and say, “No, I’m going to sit here. You can’t tell me what to do.” Or you could be like, “Well, that’s really interesting. You’re giving us the seating arrangements. I’m pretty comfortable here. This is where I’m going to stay.” With that comfortable, confident attitude, instead of responding as if she’s making a serious request. And then she will scream anyway. And I love that you noticed that in a way. I mean, I’m sorry you noticed that!

Parent 2: It’s hard not to notice.

Janet Lansbury: I know. I’m sorry that happened, I guess I should say. But that tells you right there, she was going to find something to scream about. And by me doing this totally reasonable thing, which is staying where I’m sitting and not jumping up for the four-year-old pointing their finger at me, she gets a chance to.

And she also gets this incredible message that her parents are just not going to fall for that stuff. We’re just not going to take the bait. And she doesn’t have to worry that we’re going to take the bait. Because underneath what she seems like she wants is her wanting us not to do that, her wanting us to not give her all that power, that she can be the boss of all these adults. Because she’s only four and she knows that’s trouble if she’s the boss. Who’s going to take care of her?

Parent 2: Can I ask another follow-up, though?

Janet Lansbury: Yeah. I hope it’s along the same lines, because I love it.

Parent 2: It’s along the same lines. I know I’ve heard you give people advice that when your kid is screaming, if they’re actually screaming in a way that is bothering you, you can tell them that. So part of what I was thinking at breakfast this morning is that of course I can stay in my seat, but I know she’s going to start screaming. And then if she starts screaming at me, I can tolerate that for like a minute or two, but then I’m not going to like it anymore and I’m going to want to leave. And I’ll tell her like, “Oh wow, that noise that you’re making, that’s really loud. That’s actually bothering me, so I’m going to go somewhere else.” And then it’s like she’s gotten the thing that she wanted anyway. So she does have a lot of power, you know? She can scream and I can’t stop her from screaming. And I can white-knuckle it and tolerate it for as long as I can, but I’m still a limited human being. I can only take so much of my kid screaming in my ear before I want to go sit in a quieter room to eat my oatmeal. You know what I mean?

Janet Lansbury: Yeah. So putting your hand over your ear doesn’t help enough, it sounds like.

Parent 2: I guess I could do that in between bites.

Janet Lansbury: As much as possible, we want to try to do the most minimal thing, because that shows that we’re not bothered. And ideally we see this as a kind of ridiculous thing that’s going on here and that we’re not going to play into it. But if that’s really hurting your ears and you can’t take it anymore, I would say, “You know what? I feel like going over here.”

And then, no, she hasn’t gotten what she wants there. Or she has actually, but it’s not what we think she wants. So we think she wants us to get off that chair. But what she wants is to know her leaders are unruffled, she wants to know her leaders can totally handle anything she throws at them. So you not sitting there is not her getting what she wants. But your attitude about eventually moving or not moving is going to give her what she wants, which is an answer: You know what? You can try all these things and you’re not going to blow me off this chair. I may choose to get up, but you don’t have the power to force me. It’s that little subtle adjustment of you owning your power and seeing the ridiculousness of this and the need that’s really behind it, which is, Dad, don’t play into this with me. Don’t let me be this kind of boss-child instead of the little tiny girl that I am. So it’s the way that you do it. Does that make sense?

Parent 2: That does make sense. That makes a lot of sense. And I think that’s really helpful. Thank you.

Janet Lansbury: So making it your idea. “Oh, you know what? I’m going to go over here. I’m going to bring this in the kitchen because I have some things to do,” or whatever. I mean, I guess maybe it’s acting a little bit. But have there ever been other people in your life, like when you were a kid or something, that just were trying so hard to annoy you and bug you and get a rise out of you, and you finally realized, if I just kind of not ignore them, but ignore the bothersomeness of this, they stop.

So ignoring them is different because that’s actually a kind of aggressive response of, I’m just going to ignore you for doing that.

This is, Oh gosh, here she goes. Oh well, I’m just not going to give this thing power. It’s so silly. I’m going to get up because I want to.

Parent 2: Sounds really helpful, and I hear what you’re saying about it kind of being acting, but also just saying the line of dialogue out loud kind of forces you to go along with the scene. So that is good.

Janet Lansbury: It’s acting yourself into believing it, or it’s even better when you just really believe it. When you really see this as not this tremendously annoying child this moment, but this silly, tiny person that is not really asking for you to get off the chair, but asking for you to not be wound up by her.

Parent 2: Yeah, I think that’s really helpful advice. I’ve been using your advice along those lines during bedtimes when she’s just totally overwhelmed, overtired, completely fallen apart, saying out loud, “Oh wow, you’re having a really hard time. I love you. I’m here to help you.” That has really changed my attitude about what’s going on in those moments. And I think sometimes she’s so deep into her tantrum that I don’t know if she’s hearing me at all or, if she’s hearing me, I don’t know if she’s actively processing it at all. But it still helps me.

Janet Lansbury: Good.

Parent 2: And my wife can correct me if I’m wrong, but I think I’ve seen a change in her over time as I’ve shifted that attitude and the words that I’m saying to her in those moments.

Janet Lansbury: Yeah. Another one you could say to yourself is, This too shall pass. It’s all good. My son always says it’s all good to everything, but she’s venting away. It’s all good.

Parent 1: I don’t think we realized how much of our power we were letting her take. I think this is just really useful for getting a bigger picture outside of my own brain of what’s actually going on, than how I was seeing it. Super helpful. Thanks again.

Janet Lansbury: It’s my pleasure. And that’s the key: that zooming out, having somebody else to talk to about it so you can see the bigger picture. And then when you step away from her, you can see how tiny this person is. Do you ever go out on the street and think, How did she get so small? We thought she was huge in our minds!

You two are doing an incredible job. Kudos to you. All of this self-reflection and self-awareness that you have is really going to continue to inform your relationships with these two people that you’re raising.

Parent 1: We’re lucky that we ran into your materials.

Parent 2: We really are.

Parent 1: I don’t even know. I sometimes think, what would I be doing if I hadn’t run into your stuff online? Who knows! But we are just really grateful that you are around and you’re so good at explaining it in a way that makes it clear and understandable. And providing the language at times. Sometimes “I won’t let you do that” is so helpful. Just those little things, that you just have a gift of putting things succinctly in helpful ways. So thanks for putting that out into the world.

Janet Lansbury: It’s my pleasure. And thank you so much for your kindness and again, for your generosity in being here and sharing with all of us. Bye.

Parent 1: Bye.

Janet Lansbury: And thank you all so much for listening and for your kind support. We can do this.

The post Should We Resort to Using Force? appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

In this episode, Janet shares an easy-to-remember, viable alternative to the strategies, games, scripts, threats, patient waiting, or coaxing we may have unsuccessfully tried in the past (while also explaining why those responses don’t tend to be sustainable). She offers examples through two letters. One parent, who resorts to eventually picking up her toddlers when they resist, shares: “My 3-year-old is getting much heavier, stronger, and faster, so the moments of resistance are becoming more difficult to overcome without struggle, and I don’t know what I will do in a year or two when he becomes even faster and stronger.” Another parent asks: “Is this level of dilly-dallying normal? If so, how should we deal with that? If the gentle ways don’t work, threats don’t work (or even make things worse in the long run), what else can we do?”

Transcript of “Resisting, Stalling, Dilly-Dallying”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.

Today I’m going to be talking about a topic I think many of us can relate to: What do we do when our kids resist all these things that go on during the day that we need them to do? It’s frustrating, right? When it seems like we just can’t budge them or they just seem to push back on everything. From getting out of bed in the morning to getting out the door, sitting down for a meal, brushing their teeth, getting ready for bed, going to school, leaving school. This can even become a pattern that just goes on throughout the day with children, it seems to be getting worse instead of better. So I’m excited to get into that topic, and I have two notes from parents about it.

What do our kids need from us? What’s going on with them? How can we fix this, or at least ease this, so it’s not happening constantly? Because we’re pulling our hair out, right? And really this topic is more than about helping our children to not resist as much. It’s really about helping ourselves, because this is so frustrating. And reading these notes, I can feel myself getting frustrated along with these parents who are sharing with me, I can feel my own stress level rising just imagining what’s going on there. So I get it. And I think—well, I hope—I can help these parents with some subtle shifts in their thinking and their approach.

Here are some of the shifts I’m going to explain: One, simplifying. Minimizing our agenda for kids to what’s really needed, letting go of some things. And then also simplifying by saying less, helping sooner and more readily. Closing those gaps where we’re waiting for our child to do it.

Two, being mentally prepared in regard to our expectations for the possible resistance that we’re going to be facing. Especially if this has been a pattern, we can sort of know, Oh, this could happen, so I’m ready for it. That’s how we set ourselves up for success.

What this will look like is instead of trying to negotiate with our child or get them to do something—I don’t even like that phrase, “get them to,” because it’s work. It’s us trying to make something happen with our child, and subtly we’re pitting ourselves against our child: I’m trying to get you to, so in a sense, I’m trying to sell you on and make you do this. Instead of what I recommend in regard to everything about parenting: partnering with our child. If we think about it, we don’t use strategies in other relationships in our lives. Well, maybe we do in certain business relationships, I don’t know, but with our loved ones, we’re not trying to get them to do this or that in a healthy relationship. We’re connecting, we’re communicating honestly, we’re encouraging. We’re working with, not against. We’re not using scripts. We’re being open and honest and receiving honestly from the other person as well.

Okay, so with all that general advice, here are some notes that I received:

Hi, Janet-

First of all, thank you. Your teachings about parenting have given me so much more peace and confidence than anything else I’ve tried as a parent. I find that a lot of my kids’ boundary-pushing behaviors lessen over time as we all—me, mostly—calm down.

One question I’ve had for a long time is how to help older kids when they’re resisting. My understanding of the early years is that we give babies and toddlers the opportunity to do what they need to in their own steam, for example, to come and clean their teeth or get dressed or put down the heavy object they were about to throw. But then if they don’t do it, rather than having a long, never-resolved standoff, we just calmly help them.

With my two—my first is three-and-a-half years old and my second is 22 months—this usually looks like carrying them places, as they’re not usually willing to walk or cooperate at all in those moments. I try to do this as you have modeled, calmly and positively. Neutrally, without being annoyed at their resistance. “I can see you’re having a hard time putting that toy down, so I’m just going to help you,” or “It’s hard to stop what you’re doing, isn’t it? I’ll help you come get dressed. I can see that’s really hard for you right now.” Okay, maybe I don’t always say it as perfectly as that, but I try to get somewhere close.

Anyway, my question is, my three-year-old is getting much heavier, stronger, and faster, so the moments of resistance are becoming more difficult to overcome without struggle. And I don’t know what I will do in a year or two when he becomes even faster and stronger. What if I can’t catch him as he runs away? What if he’s too strong to help with getting dressed when he’s refusing to let me put his pants on? He’s already kind of there at the moment. Carrying to help has been the most wonderful way to diffuse the situation when the kids are small and it is still socially appropriate to carry them around. I use it all the time and we are happier for it, but what is the replacement end-this-power-struggle move when the kid is older and I can’t just set a boundary by physically helping them comply?

Also, you’ll want to know that baby number three is on the way, and of course that will be a big factor behind any of my boys’ behaviors over the next few months. This is another reason I’ve had this question as when you’re pregnant, most people will tell you not to lift. But I couldn’t figure out how to go about life without carrying my toddlers when they dug their heels in, so I went back to just lifting them whenever I needed and hoping my inside baby wouldn’t mind.

Any advice for this issue would be so greatly appreciated. I would also apply it to my interactions with resistant kids at school when I go back to teaching primary school one day. Thank you so very much.

Okay, so a lot of little things here stand out for me. First of all, I want to help this parent. She says, “When I stick to it properly, I find that a lot of my kids’ boundary-pushing behaviors lessen over time.” So even this idea of “properly,” and I think later she says, “Okay, maybe I don’t always say it as perfectly as that.” Properly, perfectly. I would love to encourage this parent and all parents to just lose those ideas that there’s a proper, perfect way to do anything as a parent, but especially to help our child when they’re pushing back like this or when they’re stalling or resisting us. And to, again, get more in that mindset of partnering with our child.

Because I’m also hearing in this note that she’s supposed to do this “calmly and positively,” “neutrally, without being annoyed” at her children’s resistance. So it feels like a lot of should here. It’s natural to be annoyed with children when they’re not behaving as an adult would in that moment or an older child would, or behaving as they can when they’re in a different mood, right? They’re not always like this. It’s normal to get annoyed by that. What helps us to feel better and less annoyed is what I was mentioning earlier about our expectation of what our child’s going through, what their behavior could very well be, because they’ve been showing this pattern.

Understanding as this parent does that, yeah, they feel this transition coming on with their mom expecting another baby. And from pretty early on in the pregnancy, children feel that shift. I can remember as a child—I was thinking about this just the other day—I was three when my mom was expecting my younger sister, and I have two older ones as well. I could sense my mother sort of pulling her attention away from me, ever so subtly. I mean, I think I’m a sensitive person, but wow, I remember that feeling that I was losing her. Children feel that, and it’s scary. It’s this shift and you notice it as a child. So I’m sure they’re feeling that, and yes, it will continue after she has the baby, I imagine. But there’s a lot of reason for them to be struggling right now, as this parent acknowledges.

So going in knowing that, I would way simplify. Physically help more earlier, and say much less than what this parent is doing. Because she says she’s saying things like, “I can see you’re having a hard time putting that toy down, so I’m just going to help you.” Maybe that’s something we say the first time our child does that, but we don’t really need to say all of that. When we partner with our child, we can have shorthand, we don’t have to explain all of these things. The fact that she says, “I can see you’re having a hard time putting that toy down, so I’m just going to help you.” I don’t know, I just, as I’m saying this, I feel my temperature rising. I’m kind of, Ugh. Instead of just noticing that. Maybe that’s part of my inner monologue, Oh, they’re having a hard time putting that toy down. But you know what? I’m not surprised because a lot of things are kind of falling apart these days as we’re all in this rocky family transition.

So as soon as I see that hesitation to put the toy down, I’m going to be on that. In fact, I may be on that even before. I might be ready, if I want my child to put that toy down because it’s time to go or do something else or maybe they’re using the toy unsafely. I can kind of see that energy coming or I’m expecting it, and I come close and I say, “Oh, you know what? I’m going to help you out here,” as I’m helping take the toy. So that’s what confident momentum is. You’ve heard me talk about that a lot. This idea that we’re coming in early with momentum to help our child through all these little transitions that they struggle with, especially when there are greater transitions going on. So all these little transitions, I’m going to help close the gaps.

And when we’re there early, we don’t have to resort to picking our child up as much. That’s usually a sign that we’re waiting too long. I mean, sometimes we are going to be a little late to the game and we are going to need to pick them up or that’s going to be the right move in the moment if it’s an emergency or whatever. But coming in early with partnership and seeing them and seeing what’s going on as early as we can, expecting it. That will help us to just take their hand or be ready, not allowing that standoff. What this parent calls power struggle, which is sort of what can happen when we wait or we try to verbalize what we want our child to do or even what we’re going to do, as in this situation. We don’t have to verbalize it to that extent, our thought process. We can just think our thought process and maybe pretty quickly, because we’re expecting this, make that change, give that help, offer that partnership right there. My child needs me, I’m going to help them. I see they’re not able to do these things themselves these days, so I’m going to kindly help.

And then she says, “It’s hard to stop what you’re doing, isn’t it? I’ll help you come get dressed.” We still might say that, but I would say it while you’re already in motion. “Yeah, I know. You want to keep doing that. Here we go. We’re going to get dressed, my love. It’s time.” So simplifying it, starting earlier.

And then, “I can see that’s really hard for you right now.” Maybe we don’t express that because it can get a little—I don’t want to say “shaming” because I really don’t want this parent or any parent to feel even more like they’re not doing it properly or they have to be perfect. That’s the last thing I want. But we don’t need to kind of rub that in and say those words. We can just say, “Come on, here we go.” Yep, I know it’s hard to do this sometimes. So here I am, I’m always going to help you. It’s not a script, but it’s an attitude. It’s a recognition of what’s going on and what children need from us. Then we don’t have to try to battle against what she says is her three-year-old’s getting much heavier, stronger, and faster. So she says, “the moments of resistance are becoming more difficult to overcome without struggle.” So we overcome them by anticipating them and helping out sooner.

And she says, “I don’t know what I’ll do in a year or two when he becomes even faster and stronger. What if I can’t catch him as he runs away? What if he’s too strong to help with getting dressed when he is refusing to let me put his pants on? He’s already kind of there at the moment.” So when a child runs away in those situations, I wouldn’t try to run and catch them because there we’re getting caught up in a power struggle with them and it’s going to be frustrating for us. There’s no way around that. Instead, don’t try to control what we don’t control. Say, “You know what? I’m going to go be in your room with your brother. I’m going to help him get dressed. You let me know when you’re ready. I can’t wait to get you dressed, too.” That’s how we partner with and avoid the struggle. We kind of cut our losses. Maybe this is going to take five or 10 minutes longer, but I’m not going to put myself in the position where I’m chasing after this guy, which only encourages him to keep running and resisting, right? We can help melt away that resistance by not engaging in it. It takes two to be in a power struggle. So we can let him try to engage us in that struggle, but we’re just not going to take the bait.

And, “What if he’s too strong to help with getting dressed when he’s refusing to put his pants on?” So I wonder if she’s approaching that early enough and just, “Come on, let’s do this. Ah, you don’t want to.” And acknowledging, allowing him to have all those feelings. But then if you feel like you’re starting to butt up against him, “Let’s take these pants and we’ll bring ’em in the car and you can change there.” Let it go when it’s not working, like that. With all the love in the world, refuse to engage in the struggle. Either override it or let it go.

So she says, “What is the replacement end-this-power-struggle move when the kid is older?” So I wouldn’t wait until a child is older, I would actually start this right away. It’s not a replacement, it’s partnership. And not being willing to get into a tug of war or any kind of struggle with them or a chase. Rising above it. And she talks about, “when you’re pregnant, most people tell you not to lift.” Right, even more reason to practice that confident momentum, helping earlier, letting go of the things we don’t control.

Now just circling back to one thing which she mentions: brushing teeth. And I know I brought that up. Things like brushing teeth, where there isn’t a “picking them up and making them do that” option. How do we do this without trying to make a game out of it, and we have to figure out a way to coax them and get them there? It’s being honest in the partnership. “You know we’ve got to brush your teeth. That’s something that’s really important. Because I know you like to eat things that get in your teeth and sometimes like to eat sweets. So we’ve got to do this. What can I do to help? How can we do this?” Letting go of it sometimes, because we don’t really control it, and the less control that we have in an area, the more important it is to partner, approach it lightly and politely, with a lot of understanding of our child not wanting to do it. Not just saying the words, “I know you don’t want to do it,” but really getting that. And while other kinds of tactics like play, it can make it work sometimes because to be able to play, we have to be kind of in a light mood anyway. So it does work for that reason, but not in the long term.

What works in the long term is that honesty. “You know you’ve got to brush them. I know you’ve got to brush them. How are we going to do this? We could do it earlier in the evening when you’re not so tired. How about we bring it to the dinner table and after you eat dinner, you brush your teeth? How would you like to do this?” And whether we’re actually talking all about it that much or not, it’s just that idea of, I’m with you and I get it. So that’s the direction I would go for this parent. And the more she does it now, the more our children will want to cooperate with us in the future because they feel that. They feel us with them, not so frustrated by them all the time, which is natural to feel if we’re working at it this hard. So I hope some of that can help this parent.

And here’s another note. It’s long and wonderfully detailed. I thought about editing it, but then I thought, why not just share all the details here? It might be helpful to hear the whole story that this parent’s giving me:

I’ve been following your podcast and reading your book and wondering if you could provide further guidance on a topic my wife and I are still struggling with almost on a daily basis. We have two kids. W is a boy, three-and-a-half years old, and E is a girl, five months old. And the issue we have is with his dilly-dallying on everything, from eating to getting ready to doing his “homework.”

I’ll illustrate with a few examples: Getting ready in the morning. It starts with him refusing to wake up and get to the washroom to brush his teeth and pee. I’ll try various gentle ways to wake him up. For example, tickling him with his stuffy and playing music. When those don’t work, I’d tell him, “We need to get ready quickly, otherwise we’d be late and I’d have no choice but to drive really fast. You don’t like me to go really fast, do you?” Which is pretty much a threat, and unfortunately I’ve had to use this more often than I like, even though I’m aware that this is doing more harm than good. I even often ask him if he wants to sleep longer on the condition he eats his breakfast at the daycare instead of at home. Ninety-five percent of the time, he’ll choose to sleep longer, but most of the time ended up playing right away instead of eating his breakfast first when he gets to the daycare. When even the threat doesn’t work, I’d scoop him up and carry him to the washroom. Often he’d try to wiggle away on our way or when we get there, he’d run back to his room. I’d carry him back, get him to stand up, where his legs turned to jelly.

Next, brushing teeth. I’ve come to the point where I’ve helped him to brush teeth and getting dressed 95% of the time, helping him move along with confident momentum. I’d start with helping him gargle, but because of his jelly feet, some water would spill on his pajamas and hence the next source of meltdown. By now, I’ve gotten used to his crying and wailing while I help him brush his teeth. This initially made me uncomfortable and though difficult, I’ve learned to understand that he feels upset and I should allow him to have and express that emotion.

After he gets dressed, he usually chooses to play for a bit instead of resting or lying down while I get dressed. The strange thing is, by then he’s like a completely different kid, often all smiley. It’s like the struggle just five minutes earlier never happened.

On the way to daycare, I’d ask what he should do when he gets into the room, to which he always recites all the steps. But once we step into daycare, all of those go out the window. He’d run and hide, wanting me to catch him despite my posture, in addition to mentioning it explicitly that it’s not a game. I’d remind him what we talked about, what he needed to do, almost always to no avail. As above, I’d end up getting him ready, taking his jacket off, washing his hands, etc., which gets the quickest result. But I worry by doing that, I’m not setting him up for success because when all of these are happening, to add insult to injury, other kids, some younger than him, often passed by heading to their lockers and getting ready on their own.

Eating. Long story short, he can eat quickly when he wants to, but he often does not. He’d stand up, walk around his chair, etc. We’d be the ones getting anxious and would end up imposing time limit if he’s been taking too long. He’d still dilly-dally and finally would get anxious toward the last couple of minutes because he knew he wouldn’t make it and hence would not get his treat, for example, chocolate. Recently we have started letting him take the lead regarding the portion he wants to eat. We no longer require him to finish everything on his plate. We took careful consideration in terms of portioning, but finally realized we were fighting a losing battle. However, once he starts dilly-dallying, we take it as a sign that he’s getting full and will take away his plate. He still gets his treat, but when it comes to snack time, he’ll need to finish his dinner first before he gets to eat his snacks. Otherwise, he’d game the system, and we have noticed he would eat much more snacks. No bad kids, but boy are they really smart.

When we take his plate, he’d start screaming, saying he still wants to eat. We would say that he started moving around and slowing down, so we take it as a sign that he’s full and that if he still wants to eat, we’ll eat again soon. He’d march to the kitchen and take back his plate. We’d say if he insists to eat again, now versus later, this would be his last chance to demonstrate that he’ll continue to be seated until he’s done eating, because the next time he shows the signs again, the plate is not coming back no matter how much he kicks and screams.

Homework. After dinner, we’d get him to trace alphabets, two letters, 18 times each. Again, he’d dilly-dally. He’ll want to pick his own crayon, he’ll put the crayon on the desk. He’ll stand up to get something, tipping the desk in the process. Crayon would fall down. He’d grab the crayon, put it down on the desk, try to grab something else. He’d finally start to write, but he’d press down too hard, break the crayon, have a meltdown because the crayon breaks, demand we fix the crayon and give him another crayon. This ritual could easily take 10 to 15 minutes. It’s like watching a clown performance for kids with him as the main star.

Again, he can do these two worksheets very quickly in about 15 minutes. However, with all this nonsense at the start and dilly-dally while doing it as well, the whole thing could take 45 minutes. As a result his TV time, which comes next, is cut short to 10 minutes. He’d then scream and wail again when we tell him to turn off the TV.

I know that kids live in the now and there often is a lack of sense of urgency, but is this level of dilly-dallying normal? If so, how should we deal with that? If the gentle ways don’t work, threats don’t work or even make things worse in the long run, what else can we do?

And although we just had a newborn, this dilly-dallying has started before that. We just have less time and energy to put up with it because we have more things to do and an entire additional human being to look after. If we continue to help him do things that he can technically do on his own, are we doing more harm than good in the long run? Can this method/principle mesh well with William Stixrud’s The Self-Driven Child, where the more we do for our kids, the less they do for themselves? And ultimately, with all our efforts in parenting, how and when do we know we’ve succeeded? Especially if the goal is not pure compliance.

P.S. I was raised in a family that focused on academic achievements, so I vowed not to let my kids go through that. That is, until our close friends’ kid didn’t make it to a kindergarten of their choice. Their kid is very bright, so I take it as the failure on the parents’ part that this happened. And it’s exactly because my kid would be considered relatively bright that I do not want to fail him and take it as my responsibility to ensure he’s well-prepared.

Okay. So this parent, as with the other parent, but even more so, is taking on so much responsibility that, in my view, doesn’t belong to them and is making everything harder. This responsibility to get him to eat a certain amount, to get him to do homework at three years old. No early childhood educator would agree that that’s something that a preschooler needs to do or even a kindergartener or first grader needs to do. So that stands out especially to me as something to totally take off your plate as a parent. Not even consider. Because if children want to do this kind of work at that age, they do it. And I’m a believer that homework at any age is between a child and their teacher. It shouldn’t start this early, but when it does, it’s really up to that teacher and the child to make that work together. With all the responsibilities we have and the boundaries we have to make for children, this is way over the top to me. I know other people will disagree. So scratch that off your list.

And then it seems like this parent is noticing that all the negotiations, gentle ways to try to coax him to get up, with his stuffy, playing music, tickling. And then when those don’t work, he tells him, “We need to get up really quickly, otherwise we’ll be late and I’ll have no choice but to drive really fast,” which his child doesn’t like. Or he could sleep longer on the condition he eats his breakfast at daycare. So all of that is way too much for this child to try to process and understand and make choices around. Especially in these transitions of getting up, getting to school, brushing his teeth. Children can’t handle that amount of thought process and choice around these things. They just need us to help them do it, with love and honesty and partnership.

And as this parent sees, it’s not helping him either. He’s getting exhausted and completely frustrated because he’s trying to reason with his child at times when his child is totally incapable of doing that. And this huge transition that’s happening with the new baby, which frames so much of this issue of what this boy’s going through. So that’s a big reason why he’s struggling with all these other transitions and needs help. Not coaxing, not threatening, not demands and complications, but just simple help.

So if we have to get him up in the morning, anticipating, being ready for that. “Here we go, my boy. I’m going to help you up. Oh, you don’t want to get up now. I know. We’ve got to do this bathroom thing. I know you don’t like to do it. Brushing the teeth. Alright, we’ll make it quick. Is there a way we can do it that’s better for you?” Closing the gaps, moving it along. Confident momentum only works when we are totally willing to do it from a place of partnership, which means, Yeah, all your feelings of not wanting to do this, I totally get. You don’t want to do this, you don’t want to do that. Not just saying words, again, but really being willing to join our child in understanding that. And just working through it as best we can. Not trying to get him to do it. Putting our arms around him, holding his hand. If he needs to run away, let him run away. He’ll come back if you stay put and just say, “You know, I’m here for you, buddy. I can’t wait for you to come back.”

If we can be in that loving partnership place, children are drawn to us like a magnet. If we’re in that understanding, empathic, partnering, I’m with you buddy place. It’s a whole different vibe and it’s hard for me to get into all the specifics of how this looks in all these situations, but that’s why I’m hoping people listening will just try to embrace this as a whole different view. It’s a view of knowing and seeing and empathizing with, if we can, what’s going on with our child. It could still be frustrating, but when we feel ourselves get frustrated, instead of trying to push through it, let go. Take a moment. Breathe. Think to yourself, Does it really matter if he goes to daycare on time today? Maybe it does.

It certainly doesn’t matter if he does homework at this age, I can guarantee you. Children learn those types of skills not from doing worksheets or repetitive drawing of letters, but through their own play with materials, building the concepts for the letters and numbers, so that they want to be able to express themselves and they want to learn those symbols. To practice these kind of letter drills, it’s like doing the icing without doing the cake. That’s the easy stuff. When they’re ready, they do that. Or they ask for help, they want help to figure it out.

And then the eating. Again, it’s great that this parent has switched to not having him clean his plate because there’s another thing we don’t control that we do not want to take on. We don’t want to take on anything we don’t control, which includes him writing letters and the frustration of the crayon and the whole thing. I mean, as this dad says, it’s like a clown show. Yeah! Why are we signing up for this? It’s obviously something where we don’t control any of it and he doesn’t need it. So, letting that go.

What else? Brushing his teeth and peeing. Just carry him through, get him there, do your best with the toothbrush. Maybe he wants to rinse sometimes, rinse his mouth. If he hasn’t eaten anything in the morning, he might not need to brush his teeth at that age. But the more energy that we expend with the strategies and the tactics, the harder it’s going to be for us to partner with our child, the more distance that puts between us. We’re putting all this effort in, it’s not working, it’s not working. There’s no way we’re not going to get frustrated by that. I mean, we deserve to be frustrated by that.

This is a time when there’s a new baby in the house and we have a toddler or two toddlers. This is a time when we get ourselves through, all together, joining hands, joining hearts, letting our child in on this time. We’re just together as a family and there’s a lot of feelings and everybody’s tired and everybody’s frustrated and it’s hard. So we just do our best. That kind of bonding, I wouldn’t do it as a strategy, but it is a strategy in a way, because that’s how children are willing to do all these things. And they might put up a little, Oh no, I don’t want to. And if we can understand that, it’s short-lived. So I would back all of these attempts way back into just helping him get going and get through it.

It seems like the treats after dinner thing is not working so well right now if it’s becoming this negotiation. I wouldn’t let him get up in the middle of eating. There’s no need a child has to do that. I would say, really honestly, “This is time to eat. Just sit for as long as you want to eat. When you get up, that means you’re done. And maybe the treats aren’t working for us for a while.”

And then let him have those meltdowns, because those meltdowns are really what’s behind a lot of this resistance. It’s like this, I’m holding on, holding on, holding on because I need to explode and be unhappy about something. Which is really just my stress in this situation, my fear and this whole unraveling that I’m feeling about having this baby come into my life and take my parents’ attention away from me. Children do need to melt down around that. So the natural time for him to do that is when you’re being very reasonable about, This is how meals go. We sit. We eat. When you’re done, you’re done. And that’s okay, but we’re not going to hold out that you get a treat if you do this or you get that if you do that, or you get TV if you do this. So approaching those limits that you do have control over, offering them reasonably with love, but from a place of knowing he may need to share with us here. And then when he does, it’s not ridiculous that you’re having this overblown reaction to not getting your chocolate or not getting your TV. This is the venting that toddlers with babies need to do.

So instead of feeling disappointed or that we’ve done the wrong thing, frustrated because he’s not making sense, he could have done this other thing and avoided it and then he could have gotten his treat. Don’t go there. Just welcome that. Roll out the red carpet for him to feel that. Oh, you wanted that TV so much today and we didn’t have time. On his side, but still holding onto those reasonable boundaries.

I love that this dad said, “The strange thing is by then he’s like a completely different kid, often all smiley. It’s like the struggle just five minutes earlier never happened.” Yeah, it’s a symbolic struggle of, Everything’s not going great in my life right now. I’ve got this big crisis going on with this baby, and I just need to be in this mode. It’s not that he’s desperately incapable of doing these things. And that’s what I want to get back to because that’s how this parent finishes is, should he be worried by his child not seeming able to do these things and the parent doing them for him, that that’s going to somehow make him less capable? And it’s actually the opposite because when we realize the kind of emotional crisis that children go through with the addition of a sibling… Oftentimes, maybe not always, but oftentimes they do. And when we realize that, and it’s not, This is how I’m always going to be from here on out. Same with the other child in the first parent’s note. This is what’s going on right now, that I need a helping hand. I’m not at my best and maybe you’re not either as my parent who’s also dealing with it, but this is where I am. I need more help right now. And actually, if you can give it to me with love and staying on my side and my team, then it’s going to even set me up better to accomplish in those times that I can. Right now I’m showing you that I can’t.

It’s so easy as parents, I know, I remember this so much when my kids were little, that you just feel like this is going to be forever, whatever you’re going through. Or this is a bad sign. I remember during the winter season, it’s like, Oh, someone’s going to be sick forever. Children are constantly changing and growing and developing, and they always do show us when they’re struggling, when they need more help. And that’s what both of these children are showing in common ways, which is resisting, stalling. They’re waving little flags. Just help me! Just see me! Don’t do all this talking and trying and working around it. Just help me out here and see me as I am.

And I really hope some of this helps you or at least eases some of your worries about the direction your children are heading in. And thank you so much for listening. We can do this.

The post Resisting, Stalling, Dilly-Dallying appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Transcript of “Consequences vs Threats vs Punishments”

From Janet’s inbox: A parent wonders if reminding her 3-year-old of negative consequences to his uncooperative behavior is the same as using threats or manipulation. She writes that her goal is not only to help him move through transitions with less pushback, but to learn the concept of time, how to manage it, and to feel empowered to make choices and achieve his desires. Janet offers her thoughts on the differences between threats, consequences, and punishments, and suggests minor adjustments this family can make to better enable their goals. 

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.

Today I’m going to be talking about consequences, threats, punishments. How these apply to a respectful, effective discipline approach—if they do at all—and how can we be certain whether we’re doing one or another. For instance, most of us listening here I think know that punishments aren’t helpful, but is a consequence actually a punishment or is a consequence actually a threat? How do we navigate this?

I’m going to start by reading an email I received from a parent. For clarity, this is a two-mom family:

Hi, Janet-

First-time caller, longtime listener, so to speak. My question has to do with understanding the difference or nuance between using a threat and an explanation of natural consequences with a three-year-old. I understand generally why disconnected threats aren’t great to throw around when you’re trying to “get” your child to do something, like get out the door to go to school, get in the stroller to go home from the playground, etc. But how about explanations of natural, time-bound consequences used as a reminder and posited as a choice to your child when they aren’t being cooperative or participatory?

For example, “Mama has to leave the house by 7:15 tonight. If you’d like her to be able to put you to bed, you need to participate right now by,” and she gives examples, getting in the tub, getting out of the tub, helping put on PJs, etc. “Otherwise, I’m happy to do it myself.” Another example, “We have to get into the car for the birthday party in 10 minutes. I see you’re having trouble with this transition of putting on clothes, shoes, etc. If you don’t want to go, you can stay home with me, but Mama is going to be leaving soon because it’s important to her to go.”

This is obviously caught up in the concept of time, and we try to use a timer whenever we can to illustrate how much there is left, but at what age does this all make sense? Is it manipulative of me and my wife to explain things this way to our child even when it’s trying to help him get what he wants? Are these just threats in sheep’s clothing or are they a helpful way to explain that life around the child keeps moving and that they have a level of choice of how they participate within that? And also that other people (parents!) have choices and needs and responsibilities outside their children as well.

Any feedback would be great. Thanks so much for all you do.

And then this parent, she wrote back:

One thing, if it’s not too late, to clarify. Sure, a lot of this is about moving things along in his schedule to get him from point A to B to C when he needs some nudging, but plenty is also based in helping him accomplish what he wants to accomplish. For example, he wants to go to the park, he wants to have time to play after dinner, he wants to go see so-and-so, etc. It’s also about trying to help him understand that his participation and “time management,” if there can be such a thing for such small people, means we can get to the thing he wants sooner or have more time to do it. Thanks.

So yeah, I can see that this parent is kind of grappling with some sort of nuanced ideas. And one thing that can help us as a parent is to get some clarity by stopping and considering what we want out of this. What do we want for our child? What are our goals in the choices that we’re making? And this parent implies and brings up some very positive goals. She wants her and her wife’s son to have choices, know that he has that agency, and that he will learn time management. Also, that he’ll be cooperative so they don’t have to keep battling to help him through these kinds of transitions and situations. They want him to know that he has choice and also that other people, his parents, and therefore everybody else that he’ll come across in life, has their own personal needs and boundaries. The world does not revolve around him, and that’s a positive thing for children to learn. It’s also positive because we need to have our boundaries. That is what self-care is in a nutshell, boundaries. We need that to be good parents, we deserve that, and it’s really important for our child to learn as well. So, there are a lot of positive goals I’m picking up here.

How do we achieve those and what role do consequences or threats or punishments play into that? So this parent didn’t bring up punishments, but punishments are sometimes behind when we think we’re giving consequences or using consequences. And really the key here to not be punishing with a consequence is to approach it the way this parent seems to do. Which is, she says, “understanding the difference or nuance between using a threat and an explanation of natural consequences with a three-year-old.” Sometimes I’ll hear people say, using a consequence, should I use a consequence? And just that word “use” is what can sort of make a consequence into more of a punishment or threat. That’s when it becomes manipulative. We’re using something that ideally should be just an organic part of our child’s education. If I do this, this happens. If I make this choice, that happens. So it is, as this parent said, an explanation that we want. Consider this sharing honestly our personal needs and thoughts and what we know about the day and how it’s going to work. So we’re sharing honestly, it’s not about using or giving a consequence to have a certain effect, to make our child behave better, or make them be more cooperative.

Because the thing about using consequences or threats or punishments is that those aren’t going to help us achieve our goals. To have a more cooperative child, they need to feel consistently that we are on their team and not working against them to try to negotiate, manipulate in any way. When we’re helping them to do the things we need them to do and the things that are good for them and we’re on their side. We want them to get what they want. If what they want is to go to the park, we want to do all in our power to help that to happen. But we also don’t want to be doormats that just accept any kind of stalling or behavior or pushback to help a child get what they want, because that is not going to be helpful to them or to us. But our overall goal, besides these goals that this parent brings up, the overall positive goal for us to want our child to learn is that they can trust us. We’re on their team, we’re on their side. We’re not working against them or across the table from them. But we are still taking care of ourselves and being honest.

And when we use punishments or use consequences as punishments or use threats, it doesn’t feel as good to us. It’s going to wear us down and make it harder for us to be the kind of parents we want to be because it feels petty, it feels manipulative. And not that any of us are perfect or should even be striving towards that. There’s maybe a part of us in a lot of us that just wants to say, Well, then I’m not giving you any! and we get triggered to that level that our child is behaving at sometimes. And that’s normal, that’s okay, we need to forgive ourselves for that. But it’s not the aspects of our personality that we want our children to emulate or that will help us achieve our goals.

So across the board, there’s nothing this parent is sharing in her note that sounds like a threat or a punishment. It sounds like she is explaining sort of natural, logical consequences. What I think I could maybe help her with is that there are ways to do that that will be more effective than others. Because when we talk about threats, it’s not so much that that’s something separate from a consequence. It’s in our delivery. We can deliver the explanation of a consequence in a sort of threatening manner, which it doesn’t sound like this parent’s doing, but it’s a common thing to have that tone in our voice that is a little bit challenging.

And I’m wondering if with this parent, because children are very sensitive to this, the way that she’s explaining things is putting her child in this sort of challenged position where it’s even harder for him to make a positive choice. Because when children feel that kind of, Well, if you don’t do this, then that’s not going to happen. Even if we don’t have that threatening tone, even if we’re just, Well, if you don’t do this, this is going to happen and you won’t get to do this, that can be, believe it or not, too much of a challenge for a child. They get stuck there. It’s like, Hmm, I have to figure this out now.

And not only are a lot of these situations transitions, trying to get out the door, get out of the bath, get to bed. As I’ve said many times, transitions are just this sticky place for young children, a sticky, uncomfortable place that they really need extra help to get through. And then especially if we’re trying to be so respectful, like this parent is, letting you know the options and how much time and showing him the timer—it’s too much information, it’s too much choice. I did a podcast recently about the choices that children can handle and the choices that they really can’t. And in a transition, they very seldom can make a choice.

The other element to this is the parent preferences element. So I’ve written a lot about this. It’s a common thing that happens with two parents that the child either is more comfortable with that parent during certain activities or—and this is true when the preference situation kind of builds steam and gets more extreme with children—where they insist they have to only have this parent and not the other parent. What’s often happening there is that the parent that they’re craving is the parent who is having a harder time being clear and expressing their personal boundaries and allowing them to have their feelings around that. I don’t know if that’s happening in this case, but that’s another sticky place. So not only the explanations and all these options and choices that a child has to figure out—I know it doesn’t seem like a lot to us as adults, but to them it is because they’re in a constant transition emotionally, developmentally, and then these life transitions just are the last straw for them a lot of the time. But if I also have to decide, Okay, which parent am I going to please? Is this parent going to set the boundaries I need, unconsciously, that I’m asking for? They’re having a hard time with that, so do I try to get that again? What do I really want here? It’s a lot for a child to try to figure out at three years old or even at four years old or six years old, with other stressful circumstances that may be going on, or just the fact that it’s a transition.

So I don’t know when this parent is talking about Mama has to do this and that, I don’t know if she’s just doing that to explain to me what’s going on or if she’s actually saying to her child, “Mama has to do this and Mama has to do that.” Because it would be more helpful for the other parent, for Mama, to be the one to set the boundary. And then when I set the boundary or explain the boundary, or the consequence in this case, as that parent, frame it positively whenever possible. This parent said, “Mama has to leave the house by 7:15 tonight. If you’d like her to be able to help put you to bed, you need to participate right now by getting in the tub, getting out of the tub.” So if this parent—she says her child calls her Tata—if Tata is the one giving the bath and it’s time for their boy to get out of the bath, then she could be the one to say to him, “Hey, just so you know, Mama’s leaving and I know you love to have Mama put you to bed, or this is her turn, or I know you’ve been preferring that lately, so come on, let’s get out. I’m going to help you out so that Mama has time to put you to bed before she leaves.” Framing it positively instead of as a, If you don’t do this, just so you know, you’re not going to get to do that, which challenges them in a way that makes it much harder on them. So, helping him get what he wants.

And then Mama has to also be strong and clear about her boundaries. Let’s say that this parent couldn’t get him out of the bath or he wouldn’t get the PJs on, he wouldn’t comply. I would lead this as much as possible with confidence, saying, “I know you want to see Mama, so we’re going to do this. Come on. Ah, you don’t want to do it right now. It’s hard at the end of the day when you’re tired, right? I’m here to help you out.” That kind of attitude, confident momentum, that’s what I call this, helping him through as best you can. But if for some reason it still doesn’t work out, then Mama ideally will say, “Oh, I would love to, but I have to go now, darling. I would love to put you to bed. Sorry, that’s not going to work out. But yeah, you can be upset, you can be mad at me.” So in that way, we support our partner, we support the other parent instead of having all the onus be on them.

And in this situation with the birthday party, this parent says, “We have to get into the car for the birthday party in 10 minutes. I see you’re having trouble with this transition of putting on clothes. If you don’t want to go, you can stay home with me, but Mama’s going to be leaving soon because it’s important to her to go.” So, could be more helpful if Mama steps in here and doesn’t leave this all on the other parent. Again, I don’t know if that’s actually happening or if this is just the way the parent is able to express it to me. Maybe Mama could be the one to say, “We’re going to go to this party. I’m really looking forward to going with you, so let’s get you dressed. I know it’s hard to get going and get moving, right? But I know you really want to go, so Tata’s going to help you get dressed and then we’ll go. I’m looking forward to it.” And then Tata tries to move him through with confident momentum, acknowledging that it’s hard, because transitions are. So she doesn’t have to be the one to bring up the consequence again, just doing her best to get it going. And then if he can’t, if he’s really putting up a big fight, just say, “You know what? It seems like maybe you don’t want to go and that’s okay because I love staying with you. You can stay here with me.” And then maybe he’ll not be able to make up his mind or whatever, and then it’s up to the two of you parents to decide if mother can wait at all, if she can’t.

But just to be clear and to be comfortable with him being uncomfortable in a transition and maybe not able to decide. And maybe you discover later that day that, You know what? He was exhausted. Usually it’ll be clear to us why our child was not able to get it together, even with our confident momentum and help and coming from the most positive place that we can. The key to this is recognizing going in that transitions of any kind, choices of any kind like this, about activities that aren’t just, Oh, here you could play with your ball or play with your puzzle. It’s a bigger deal to go to the park than it is to just choose between your toys at home, which you can do easily. Children do need help in those kinds of choices and transitions, and if we go in knowing that, expecting it, then it’s going to be easier for us to embrace the situation and be that positive person.

And it really is about, also, that we set our limits early and we have reasonable expectations. So the expectation that transitions are going to be hard and where are my actual boundaries? I’m not willing to go to this party late. I’m not sure what the exact situation was with the parent. I would be very clear about that with myself, with my partner, if there’s a partner involved, and with my child. “I really want you to go, this is how much time we have,” and then you could look at the time. “We’re going to do everything we can to help you go, because you said you did want to go earlier. But if you don’t and it doesn’t work out, that’s okay too.” That clarity that we have going in is what will make this easier or harder and ease our frustration around our child’s lack of cooperation.

But again, that big picture in mind, it’s this trust, it’s this communication, it’s this we’re on your team approach to boundaries, discipline, transitions, everything, that actually makes for less of these issues. So we always want to keep that bigger goal in mind because that’s how our life is going to get easier with our child and we’re going to get what we want. Honesty, trust, clarity, and the willingness for him to have his disappointments and his frustrations and his sadness and anger and everything else. Knowing that that’s a healthy part of life for him.

So, just to speak to some of the details in this as well: This idea of the concept of time, children do learn this very gradually, but they have this wonderful living-in-the-moment outlook. And that’s why it can be challenging to say, “Well, this is how many more minutes you have until that.” There’s no comfort for them in that future decision-making, it’s not going to be easy for them. A positive way that you can help him understand time is maybe for Tata to say, “I have all these minutes that I get to spend helping you get out the door. That’s my job in this, so I’m really going to enjoy this with you. Here’s the time that we have.” Instead of this being a negative thing, if we can frame it as more of a positive, it takes the onus off of it for our child, takes the dun-da-dun-dun! out of it.

And then, through these clear boundaries that both parents have, yes, children do get that positive message that they don’t have the power to control all the grownups. In a way it’s like, Don’t worry. You don’t have to decide this. We’re going to decide it for you. And really that’s the way children receive it a lot of the time, especially in situations like these that are transitions. It’s, Don’t worry. We know you want to go to the park. We’re doing everything in our power to get you there. And if we still fail, if we can’t, we can’t. And then it’s okay for you to be whatever you feel about that. That’s a place of clarity and comfort we can rest in and be at our best in as parents.

So this parent asks, “Is it manipulative?” I don’t think anything they’re doing is manipulative. It’s just difficult for him when they explain it so much and are kind of warning him of that choice. “Are these just threats in sheep’s clothing?” No, but they could be said in a way that feels like a threat to a child. It’s in our delivery. “Or are they a helpful way to explain that life around the child keeps moving and that they have a level of choice?” Yes, absolutely. But we can still frame this as, Not everything’s up to you. Your team’s going to back you up and help you get what you want.

So what is the role that consequences play in respectful discipline? Consequences don’t work when they’re a euphemism for punishments. That’s when we’re using, we’re giving, rather than explaining honestly the consequence. And I know that punishments can sometimes succeed in deterring behavior, but more often than not, they lead to more and more punishments because they don’t teach or model for children the positive behavior that we want them to learn. And children tend to internalize shame and anger when they’re punished. It creates distance, isolation, mistrust. It’s the opposite of joining with our child, connecting with them as the helpful team leader. We have to be the team leaders.

Also, when they’re unrelated to the situation and they’re given long after the fact, Well, you didn’t do this, so we’re not going to allow you to have your dessert tonight because you didn’t help us clean up or you said something unkind. Children really have a sense of fairness, even from infancy. They’re able to sense right and wrong, good guys and bad guys. There’s been some fascinating studies on this. And they know when we’re using something when it’s a little bit manipulative versus really makes sense and fair. And they may still have a big reaction when something is fair, but they still sense underneath that that we’re being fair, we’re being kind, we’re on their team.

Another way that consequences don’t really work is when, with a bit of forethought, we could have avoided or prevented the situation by creating a boundary or helping our child with our confident momentum. So there’s that point I was trying to make earlier about helping your child get what they want, being on their team that way, setting them up to succeed whenever possible.

So now what do we want to know about consequences that are respectful and effective? They are logical, reasonable, age-appropriate choices, like, “Oh, I can’t let you throw those blocks toward the window. You’re having a hard time not throwing the blocks. You can throw those over there toward the rug or the basket, or I’m going to need to put them away.” And then, “Okay, looks like you need my help. I’m going to put the blocks away.” So we’re stating them kindly and confidently, without that threatening tone if possible, and then we let go and move on. We don’t hold on to the results. Again, for most of us, this means setting a limit early before we get annoyed or angry.

Another point that helps consequences work is when they’re coupled with acknowledgements of our child’s point of view and feelings, always, no matter how unreasonable they might seem. So our child is, let’s say, hitting people at the park, obviously showing they’re overwhelmed. We had to take them home and now they’re really upset. “You really wanted to stay at the park. But you were having a hard time, you were hitting your friends. So I said we had to go. But yeah, it sounds like you’re really mad about that.” Feelings are not reasonable. Feelings are just feelings. And the more we can have that across-the-board welcoming of them, the easier our job’s going to be, the more successful we’ll be in helping children with their behavior and feeling bonded with us.

Consequences help when they’re a consistent, predictable response. So they’re elements of a routine that our child recognizes. “Hmm, you’re standing up now, you’re done eating. Oh, and now you’re sitting back down for more. Okay, please wait until you’re all finished to get up. Okay, now you’re showing me you’re up again, so thanks for letting me know, I’m going to put the food away. Oh no, you’re upset that I put the food away, right? We’re going to be eating again very soon.”

Also, that consequences are a genuine expression of our personal limits, right? That’s what I was talking about with these parents. This is self-care, and I believe we need all the encouragement in the world, a lot of us, to take care of ourselves in these relationships. And do it calmly, honestly, confidently, so that we’re not going to explode with our children. I mean, we’re doing this for so many positive reasons, for ourselves, for our relationship with our child, and for our child to learn really important things about relationships and other people. And that their place in the world is not all-powerful. All-powerful is a lot of pressure to a young child, they don’t want that. They can’t tell us that, but they really don’t want that. That’s when they have to grow up too fast. That’s when they have to have all that pressure to try to control everybody. We want to relieve them of that. And we do that by sharing ourselves, being a person with our child in this relationship, a person with needs. So, we can let our child know, “I’m exhausted. I know you’d love to have two books, but I think we’re getting to one book because this is taking a long time. Can you move it a little faster? Or we’ll do one book.” Maybe that doesn’t sound like it’s framed that positively, but that’s honest, right? My needs matter. I’m exhausted. I can’t try to help you, help you, help you brush your teeth or get your pajamas on or stop jumping around. I don’t have the energy for that. And as much as I love to read to you, I’m not always going to be able to do it the way that you want. I’m not saying to say all those words, but that kind of attitude. Just being real, being ourselves, being fair and on their team.

And really that’s the biggest difference between consequences versus punishments and threats. It’s sincere, honest, open-hearted sharing. And reminding ourselves that we can’t be respectful parents or gentle parents without personal boundaries. Looking out for ourselves so that we don’t have anger and resentment towards our child, or just frustration, or we want to give up, we don’t think we can do this. It’s almost always rooted in that we’re not sticking up for ourselves.

So back to these parents, these two moms that reached out to me, I hope they’ll both feel confident in being honest about themselves. Maybe just try to take the edge off by not setting things up for him to have too much decision-making power in transitions or difficult situations. Children will show us when that’s not working by getting stuck there.

I really hope some of this helps, and thank you so much for listening. We can do this.

And please check out some of the other podcasts on my website, janetlansbury.com. They’re all indexed by subject and category, so you should be able to find whatever topic you might be interested in. And my books, No Bad Kids: Toddler Discipline Without Shame, and Elevating Child Care: A Guide to Respectful Parenting, you can get them in paperback at Amazon and in ebook at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and apple.com.

And now, at last, I have a online course! Learn more at: NoBadKidsCourse.com.

UPDATE: The parent who sent me the email kindly responded to this podcast:

Janet,

Thanks so much for all of your advice in response to my question. I appreciate what you said about the nuance in the tone and the shift in language and attitude. We’re both gonna work on that.

Also: You were so astute in your comment about our child’s parental preferences, which wasn’t even something I mentioned. My wife and I were cackling at that moment in the episode, because Noah does favor my wife and she does have a much harder time with boundaries than I do. (She was also his birth parent, which I imagine contributes some.) We’re gonna work on that too.

Tomorrow is another day and a new opportunity! 

Thanks so much for your time and wisdom.

She later added: “I’ll also share that we have a second on the way (due in May), and I’m going to see if I can start using all of your teachings much earlier with them than we were able to with the first.”

Yay! Thank you!

The post Consequences vs Threats vs Punishments (Includes an Update) appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Janet responds to a parent who wonders how to react to her daughter’s consistently stubborn behavior. “I feel like I have a set of tools to handle my 4-year-old daughter’s outbursts of emotions, but I am at a loss for what to do when she stoically disobeys or ignores me altogether.”

Transcript of How to Avoid a Stand-Off When Kids “Disobey”

The post How to Avoid a Stand-Off When Kids “Disobey” appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Transcript of “How to Stop Feeling Frustrated by Your Child’s Behavior – A Family Success Story”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled. Today, I’m excited to share a success story that a parent submitted to me. And honestly, it seems like a gold mine. I think a lot of people will relate to this and benefit from it. This mother discusses what she calls a very frustrating and triggering behavior by her three-and-a-half-year-old child that kept continuing, no matter what the parents did, they got very stern in their responses and it didn’t help. And then it got to the point where when they confronted their boy about it, he lied, which was even more concerning. This parent shares how they were finally able to understand and reframe the situation and turn it into a success for all concerned, including their son who was able to own and celebrate his own successful part in it. \

Okay. So, here is this letter that I’m looking forward to sharing with you:

Hi, Janet. I’m writing to share a recent success story that came out of your teaching and approach to working with small children. This was just one little win but it’s part of the bigger success that our family is having since we’ve started trying to model our parenting after the approach you teach.

My three-and-a-half-year-old son recently started a new, very frustrating, and triggering to us, behavior. He is fully potty trained but still uses a portable potty that is in a corner of the living room because the bathroom is on a different level of the home. After he uses the potty, he knows to go into the kitchen to wash his hands and we help him with this. About two weeks ago, he started a new thing where he will run as fast as he can to get into the kitchen ahead of us. And then he touches beverages, cans of seltzer, and protein shakes that are on a shelf a few feet away from the sink with his dirty hands. He especially does it if he has just pooped.

Both my husband and I reacted strongly to this the first couple of times he did it, out of instinct. It’s gross. And it seems to have inadvertently reinforced the behavior. Since then, my husband especially has gotten very stern with him about it, raising his voice at times and repeating, “Do not touch the drinks with dirty hands,” et cetera, many times. And the problem continued.

Dad tends to take the majority of the evening poops. So, I was kind of letting him handle it but was thinking perhaps it was time to move the drinks off the shelf to remove the temptation altogether. Not thinking I could necessarily stop or fix the behavior until it had run its course.

Then the other night, this drama played out again, while I listened from the living room with our five-month-old. This time, my son had already touched the drinks when my husband arrived. He asked, “Did you touch the drinks,” knowing full well that he had. And my son said, “No.”

My husband got sterner and angrier, “Why are you lying to me?” My son said, “I’m not,” et cetera, and it spiraled with both of them getting more and more upset.

We both had felt frustrated but unconcerned about the initial behavior. It seemed obviously something he was doing, almost compulsively because it pushed our buttons. But this was the first time our son had ever directly lied to one of us. And my husband seemed concerned and hurt.

After bedtime, I Googled, “Janet Lansbury Lying,” and immediately found a blog post and a podcast. The first paragraph of the blog post hit me like a ton of bricks: “As the leader in our parent-child relationship, I would take it upon myself to discern how I had made the truth feel unsafe or uncomfortable for my child.”

It was immediately so clear that our reactions and, in particular, my husband’s escalating sternness about the behavior was making my son feel unsafe and uncomfortable and probably increasing his compulsive urge to do the behavior again. When called out about it, he felt scared so he lied.

I shared this with my husband, reading him excerpts. He got it right away too. We had a really productive conversation.

The next day after my son used the potty, my husband completely changed tactics. He said, “Hey buddy, when we’re done here, it will be time to go wash your hands. I know you sometimes touch the cans with your dirty hands and maybe you don’t know why but I’m going to help you not to touch the cans.” And they went in together and then, amazingly, my son was suddenly incredibly proud of himself. “Mama. I washed my hands and I didn’t touch the cans.'”

The next day he, again, didn’t touch the cans and he brought it up spontaneously later that evening. And even the next day, “I didn’t touch the cans!”

We often talk about our favorite part of the day during dinner and one night his favorite part was, “I washed my hands and didn’t touch the cans!”

He and his dad also had a conversation about lying but I think we all feel clear now that lying was really not the issue here. My kid got caught in a loop that he did not want to be in. And when we reacted un-thoughtfully, we made it so much worse. By stepping back and hitting reset on our understanding of the behavior and approach to it, we got dramatic and immediate improvement in both the problem behavior and we’ve honestly had a little boost in our kiddos overall cooperativeness and mood over the subsequent days. While this was a small thing, it gives me confidence that we can figure things out in general.

Thanks also for the help you provided during this spring when my second son was born. My oldest had a very, very hard time. He never expressed anger or negativity toward the baby, just aloofness. And he seemed very, very sad and was very, very difficult to handle for about two months. Daily, enormous explosive tantrums, extreme defiance, and a generally sour mood all day and night.

Initially, we were tired and frustrated by him and I think I was distracted by worries that he was a sad kid. Daycare and some family members started viewing and describing him as having behavioral problems, tantrum problems, et cetera. Basically, being a troubled kid. And I honestly started to wonder also. But then thank goodness, I got back on the Unruffled wagon and it helped reset my approach. I reflected on all he’d been through over the past year.

Besides his new brother, he had lived with his grandparents for two months in spring 2020 during the pandemic because my husband and I were on the COVID front lines. Then those same grandparents had moved across the country and he didn’t see them for over a year. Then I got pregnant and didn’t feel well for several months.

When it hit me how hard his year had been, I literally wept for him. A bunch of times. We are so lucky to have been safe and secure and we have a lot of privilege and good things in our lives but I realized that from his tiny perspective, that didn’t mean life was easy. I couldn’t believe how blind to his burdens I’d been. Reflecting on his tiny grief, created so much compassion for him inside of me. Again, I shared and discussed it with my partner.

Instead of trying to minimize, avoid or shorten his tantrums, we started letting him rage and storm, letting the tantrums explode and last as long as they needed. And suddenly we found that often it would end with a huge squeezy hug initiated by him. It was definitely not as instantaneous as the other story I shared but we eventually got through it. And I think he learned that we’ll always be there for him.

Things aren’t perfect by any means but it was so, so, so hard for a while. And now, we’re all okay. And really, truly, it’s because of you and your podcast. I am one million times a better parent than I would be without this approach. So, thank you. Thank you.

Wow. So, these parents blow me away because of their openness and because of how quickly they were able to shift. That’s not typical. Everything they were going through I can relate to and I’m sure a lot of parents will — the way they were perceiving their son and his feelings and his behavior. It is par for the course for almost every parent I’ve worked with including myself.

And sometimes I feel like I am kind of a broken record with talking about this transition of becoming a sibling. But honestly, I think we can’t hear enough times how difficult that transition is for a child. I’ve heard of children that have to put their emotions underground for a while or feel they have to because they feel wrong for having them. So they suppress them. But I’ve never heard of a child who just went smoothly through this. And it doesn’t make sense that they would, right? Because they’re human and it’s a huge change and it’s a scary one. Somebody else taking my parents’ love, being adorable and sweet and vulnerable when I don’t always feel that way as a three-and-a-half-year-old. It’s very scary and throws a child off balance.

And so, there are two common ways that children express these feelings or show us they have these feelings. And this parent is describing both of those.

The first is these strong, overwhelming feelings that can seem to come out of nowhere. And the second is: I’m just a little out of myself and I’m doing these kooky things. I’m off balance. I can’t control my impulses. I’m thrown off.

And his parents say there have been other changes in his life too. So yeah, it makes sense. And I guess the reason I keep emphasizing that is that it’s so common. So many of the parents that reach out to me, this issue is behind it — some kind of major transition and often it is the transition to a new baby in the house.

This little toddler at three-and-a-half is still kind of a baby himself in terms of his ability to understand what’s going on with him and definitely to have that self-control and emotional self-regulation. It’s almost impossible in a time like this for a child this age to behave calmly and the way we want him to all the time.

So the first thing I want to talk about… Well, first, again, I laud these parents. They’re very insightful. They’re obviously open-minded, willing to self-reflect, consider. All of that flexibility and openness and really the self-compassion it takes to let ourselves go there is really important and can be challenging for a lot of us. So, all of that is what made it possible for the parents to make these changes so quickly or even in the time that they did.

And let’s talk first about the behavior with the dirty hands. So, yes, the parents were seeing this as most of us would as this annoying thing. Why does he keep doing this? But even then, she said that they realized that they were probably making it worse because they had these very normal instinctive reactions to what he was doing. Then their child is feeling that… what she calls “frustrating and triggering to us,” which is making him more uncomfortable and making it harder for him to control this impulse.

He doesn’t want to keep going there but he keeps going there, right?

So, it sounds like this little boy’s dad… Yeah, he’s doing normal things like getting more and more stern, right? What’s the matter with this guy? It’s not like we’re asking him to do something difficult.

But right now at this moment, it is difficult. It’s impossible, in fact. He’s showing that it’s almost impossible for him to stop this.

So, then the whole situation got amplified when the dad asked, “Did you touch the drinks,” knowing full well that he had. And she says, “My son said, ‘No.’ My husband got sterner and angrier. Now, our child is lying to us.”

That feels really scary and bad because we’re seeing it that way and we’re trying to approach the situation with reason. But behaviors in young children, those kinds of concerning behaviors very seldom have anything to do with our child being in a reasonable place. In a reasonable place, he wouldn’t do that. There’s no joy in it. There’s no fun in it. Children don’t want to annoy us and feel like we’re against them. That’s really scary. What they do want is to be seen and helped in their awkwardness and their impulsivity and their overwhelm. And that’s what these parents came to, ultimately.

Then this mother nails it here. She said, “Our reactions were making my son feel unsafe and uncomfortable and probably increasing his compulsive urge to do the behavior again. When called out about it, he felt scared. So, he lied.”

The fact that these parents are both working as a team here is also incredible that they are discussing and uniting in what they’re doing and not every parent has a partner like that, I realize. So, this is an incredibly positive gift that they do have that.

If a parent doesn’t, then they can still be that parent that does see the child, even if the other parent doesn’t. To have one parent that sees you and wants to help is enough.

And so, that was the big transition that these parents made. They went from seeing this as something reasonable: He was just defying them and needed to be talked to about it again and again. They’ve reframed this as Oh, he needs help. Behavior like this is a call for help.

So the parents realized: Oh, he’s not in control of this in any way. There’s too much energy around this. There’s too much discomfort around this behavior and he can’t stop. It’s like uncomfortable power in it that he needs to keep tapping into, but he doesn’t want to be that guy. No child does.

So when they reframe this as help, then the dad does this amazing, amazing thing. And it actually makes me want to cry.

“Hey buddy, when we’re done here, it will be time to go wash your hands. I know you sometimes touch the cans with your dirty hands and maybe you don’t know why but I’m going to help you not to touch the cans.”

So, right there, instead of being against me as a child, I feel this enormous sense of relief. Oh, my dad sees me. He’s on my side. He wants to help. We’re on the same team. The relief in that.

Sometimes you can see it in a child. In a way, they did see it in him with all his pride in himself and how he immediately was able to see this whole situation differently, because now he has the people he needs most on his side. He’s not being talked to as a bad kid.

I know these parents would never use that word, but it feels confusing and scary when you’re doing something you don’t want to be doing. I don’t know if any parents can relate… Even as adults sometimes when we find ourselves doing that thing that we said: I don’t want to do that anymore. And here I am doing it again. It’s a very scary feeling that we don’t have control of ourselves and that we’re pushing the people we need most away from us and turning them against us.

So in the description of what this dad says… I can feel myself as the child going Phew. Letting go of that fear is what helps a child to be in the part of their brain that can be reasonable because we feel that safety in the relationship with our parents, we feel that connection. And yeah, then being able to celebrate with them, “I didn’t touch the cans!” It’s like the team at the end of the game, celebrating that they won. That’s how it felt for him. We’re a team.

And then the mother, again, nails it when she says, “My kid got caught in a loop that he did not want to be in. And when we reacted un-thoughtfully, we made it so much worse. By stepping back and hitting reset on our understanding of the behavior and approach to it we got dramatic and immediate improvement in both the problem behavior” and their child’s overall cooperativeness and mood. Yep. There’s that relief.

Then this parent says, “While this was a small thing, it gives me confidence that we can figure things out in general.”

Yes. Put that on your refrigerator. Put that in your mind and your heart because I believe that too. These parents turned a big corner here. It wasn’t just about the dirty hands. Now they have the process for every behavior their children will have from here on out and what our children need from it: Help, safety, and connection. We’re on the same team.

So, just talking a bit about this other part that she shared about the emotions. Yeah. So, again, I totally relate to this parent feeling tired and frustrated by her son because he had this aloofness, he seemed so sad and that just cuts us up, right? We’ve had this other baby and now our older child is sad. I had that every time. And every parent I know feels that, because our child has feelings that are very valid, that all children have, as I was saying before. They have some version of this. But we want them to not have those feelings.

If we could reframe that for ourselves into: Here’s this challenging passage in our lives, as a family. Instead of feeling guilt or worry about my child’s process and his feelings here, I’m going to hold space for them because we’re in this passage and there are a lot of feelings in this passage. I’m going to see them as normal. Not just normal, actually as the healthiest thing that could happen and that my child expresses these. If it comes up through behavior, I’m going to help them with the behavior but at the same time, hope that I’m giving the message as much as possible that, yeah, this is what we feel. And giving it to myself too. Because when we’re feeling guilty or worried about our child’s feelings, then every time those feelings show up in some way, it is more triggering. It is scarier for us and harder for us to stay in that safe zone and that trusting letting-the-feelings-be zone.

So, we all have to approach it this way, ideally, as a time of ups and downs and everything in between. And then it gets better.

This parent said he was having behavioral problems at school. People were describing him that way and she started to wonder and worry and was feeling nervous about it, feeling upset about it. And then she reset. She turned that fear into empathy and compassion for her child. “Instead of trying to minimize, avoid or shorten his tantrums, we started letting him rage and storm.”

Yeah. He has a right and a need to express that. Children are better at expressing these things than we are, but we often feel them too.

And they saw that the tantrums would often end with a huge hug and that hug was relief, feeling better. And that gave this parent more confidence in trusting them.

So again, huge kudos to these parents. Thank you so much for letting me share your story. And I hope the story helps other parents in their process as well.

Please check out some of the other podcasts on my website, janetlansbury.com. There are many of them, and they’re all indexed by subject and category so you should be able to find whatever topic you might be interested in. Both of my books are available in paperback at Amazon: No Bad Kids, Toddler Discipline Without Shame and Elevating Child Care, A Guide To Respectful Parenting.  You can get them in eBook at Amazon, Apple, Google Play, or barnesandnoble.com, and in audio at Audible.com. Actually, you can get a free audio copy of either book at Audible by following the link in the liner notes of this podcast.

Thank you so much for listening and for all your kind support. We can do this.

The post How to Stop Feeling Frustrated by Your Child’s Behavior – A Family Success Story appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled. How’s everybody doing today?

I have a question here that I’ll be responding to. This parent is trying to set limits. She has two children. She, like all of us at the moment, is stuck at home and she’s struggling with setting limits and helping them control their behavior. And she finds she keeps repeating herself and then raising her voice when that doesn’t seem to work. She feels like she’s failing because she keeps going through the same thing several times a day every day, so her patience is wearing thin. On top of that, she’s feeling guilty. So I hope to help this parent sort through some of this and find a clear path and ease her struggles a bit, so her household can work a little bit better right now.

Okay, here’s the note that I received:

Hey Janet, as I write this, the whole world is basically in quarantine and my difficulties will seem very small compared to people affected with health issues. But I still decided to write because I know many families are going to be spending a lot of time together, routines will be broken and a lot of emotional and mental issues arise at a time like this. Though my concern is not entirely related to the quarantine, it will still be relatable for many. I have a three-year-old girl and an eight-month-old boy, so there’ve been a lot of changes in the last year. We haven’t really been able to get a steady footing since I gave birth last year, in large part because of my three-year-old showing testing behavior. I lose my cool way too often. I feel that my energy is depleted already as I approach her to correct her or ask her to do simple things.

I try for a minute to practice what I’ve read in your book and heard in your podcast. Like if she’s about to grab something that she’s not supposed to, I try to set a limit and grab her hand and put it away as I tell her that that is not for playing. Or when she is given her cup, but it’s not the one she feels like using and I’m just too tired to have to get up and wash the cup she wants to use, I tell her that I know she wants to use that cup, but it’s eating time right now and we use the cup that is available.

It seems that even when I try to follow your advice, I still end up having to repeat myself over and over and the exchange ends up with me raising my voice. “Stop touching things that aren’t yours!” “Don’t play with the toilet paper,” while she’s at the toilet. “Do not touch the couch after eating without washing hands.” The list goes on. And almost each time, I end up repeating myself and asking her why she still does it even when I said several times, no. And at that moment I feel like I’m failing.

We go through the same thing several times a day, every day. All this is heightened now that we’re locked in 24/7 and I find myself losing patience easier each time.

I feel so guilty that I can’t extend that patience, but I want to instill our house rules, because without that everything will revolve around her and what she wants. I don’t want to respond to her whining, but I also don’t want to shout at her.

Please help me. I know I lost my confidence as a parent somewhere and I need to get it together, but I don’t know where to begin. Your help will be much appreciated. I find so much confidence when I hear your podcast, but sometimes I feel I really need to take a step back and change my approach. Thanks for all the help.

Okay, so I feel like I can help this parent a lot because I think she’s misunderstood some things that I’ve shared, or the approach that I recommend, and she’s gone with a perception of what’s going on here in these instances when her daughter’s not doing what she wants her to do. All she really needs to do is get on a different track in the way that she’s perceiving her role and perceiving her children’s behavior.

So I want to begin with the way that she’s perceiving the behavior. It sounds like she’s approaching it as many of us do — perceiving children’s behavior as coming from a reasonable place, seeing this reasonably. Hey, what the heck? I told her no, that she’s not supposed to do that and she’s still doing it!  And that is infuriating for any of us. That is going to cause us to raise our voice and lose our temper because come on, this makes no sense. “Why are you doing this to me? I told you to stop. Just stop!”

It doesn’t work. And it doesn’t work because it’s not really what’s going on here when children do these things. Children do these behaviors out of impulse, out of emotions, out of stress, which of course we’re all feeling to the hilt right now, so that would be understandable even if there wasn’t an eight-month-old sibling that is now moving and cute and getting around and more of a threat to this older child. They would still be absorbing the stress that their parents might be feeling from this situation.

But it really doesn’t matter the reason in the moment. What matters is for us to understand that it’s not that they didn’t hear us saying no to it. It’s not that they need us to say it more times. For the most part, if they were in the reasonable part of their brain, children wouldn’t do them to begin with. Because the reasonable part of their brain already knew that she’s playing with things that she’s not supposed to be playing with, that she’s touching things she’s not supposed to be touching, that she’s supposed to have the cup that’s there and not ask for another one or play with the toilet paper. Children know very, very well from the first time that we stopped them from doing that. They know they’re not supposed to do these things.

So that’s the reasonable part of their brain. The reasonable part of their brain knows. But what happens is exhaustion — what Stuart Shanker calls a state of hyperarousal, which is a constant underlying stress that children can have that wears them out just as it does us. I don’t have a lot of outside stressors right now, but just from the environment I’m exhausted by late afternoon. I’m ready to go to bed.

So as adults we can self-regulate. We can manage that stress. Young children can’t. They can’t manage it. They can’t function in it. Mona Delahooke calls this “the yellow zone” when they’re veering towards “the red zone,” but maybe they’re not completely overwhelmed. Tina Payne Bryson calls this “the downstairs brain” that children are acting out of sometimes.

So, what does that mean and what is our job? If we see it as: Whoa, my child is losing it, they’re doing this thing I don’t want them to do… I would try, even that first time that you say something, to be taking a calm physical action. So you’re going over to your child, not as this parent describes grabbing something away, I would ideally see her reaching for it or now she has it and now I’m going to walk over and go, “Oh, I can’t let you use that”, or whatever, and then we’d take it away. We take it away firmly, but grabbing sounds like we’re already angry, which we don’t want to be.

Children need our help in these situations. They don’t need us to keep giving them verbal directions and raising our voice. They need us to help save them from being stuck.

And they can appear to be quite reasonable when they’re doing these things, but there is some underlying stress that’s causing it a lot of the time and they’re showing us that they need help. Stop me, stop me from doing this. Help me. I’m stuck. It can be, I’m getting stuck exploring my toddler will, that’s maybe a more minor form of impulsive behavior or you haven’t been clear about this so I’m checking. But regardless, they need us to see them as needing help.

Sometimes I understand parents can feel like: Well, if I have to go physically and take it away and do this, that’s going to take so much more of my energy. And actually it takes less because we’re not getting angry at our child, we’re not repeating ourselves, which is going to make us angry and annoyed no matter what. There’s no way we can be failing to get our point across with our child, without it creating stress for us.

It’s much better to realize that what’s going on now is like one big transition, and transitions are always the most difficult time for children, getting from point A to point B, getting dressed, getting into the car seat. That’s when they tend to get overwhelmed the easiest. And right now we’re all in this big transition, life is different. There’s a feeling something’s shifting and there’s an underlying stress going on. We’re not settled. So I would be very surprised if my child could follow a direction. They might if I say it very calmly. So I’m not already annoyed that you’re doing that. If I say it like, “Oh, it looks like you got that, could you please put it down?” in a very safe way. I’m your safe person. I am not going to add to your stress.

If we do it that way, a child may be able to follow the direction, but they also might not. So I would be ready even when I’m saying that to follow it up with, “Oh, it looks like that’s tough for you right now I’m going to come help”.

So when this parent talks about patience, that sounds more like I’m waiting for my child to finally get this and do what I want them to do, and as I’m saying, that isn’t going to work.

Instead of trying to be patient, try to be helpful. And know that, yes, we’re going to have to make it happen.

The way we want to start out is preventatively, so we can set ourselves and our child up for success, and so we don’t have things out and about that our child can get into and grab. We’re not letting them start to climb on us, let’s say. We’re stopping them in the beginning as early as possible. “Ooh, looks like you want to climb up. Yeah, I’m just not in the mood for that right now”, and meanwhile my hand is there making it impossible for you to do that. I’m on top of these things. I’m not waiting and expecting that you’re going to have great behavior right now and perfect manners.

And this is going to be especially true, of course, in the late afternoon or bedtime when my child is tired or hungry or has other reasons to be stressed.

The other reason not to repeat ourselves, besides the fact that it’s not going to help and it’s going to frustrate us, the other reason is that every time we do it, we’re actually stressing our child out more. Because our child feels our annoyance with them. Our child feels: Oh, they’re asking me to do something that I know I’m supposed to do, but I actually just can’t right now. I don’t know why I can’t, but I can’t (if they could express what’s going on with them). I just feel so stuck doing this thing and now this is wrong and I’m wrong and I make my parent upset and they’re not going to love me.

All of those things only heighten the stress that children feel. And a child can be quiet and seem to be okay, but they’re still in this arousal state inside, and that means they’re ready to go off at any minute.

This is the same with us as adults, but our threshold is higher because we do have self-control. We do have the ability to say: Oh okay, this is a different weird time. We have a context for what’s going on and we have mature self-control and self-regulation, hopefully.

But most of us can even relate ( I know I can), to feeling stuck doing some impulsive behavior that I know isn’t great for me — not doing the things I know I should be doing. And then if people are mad at me or they don’t understand me or I’m not living up to their expectations, I’m going to feel even worse, and it gets harder and harder for me to “behave well”. And it a little bit sounds like that might be where this parent is going to, because then she feels guilty that it’s not working. She’s impatient, so she’s making it hard for herself to self-regulate and to see clearly what’s going on.

This isn’t about that this parent isn’t saying it enough or saying it the right way or that she’s a bad person or that she doesn’t love her children. She is doing a normal thing that is so easy for us all to do because that’s the way we usually think. We think reasonably. Somebody says, “Oh, don’t do that. I don’t want you to do that”, we’re probably not going to keep doing it. So it’s hard for us to get out of our own perception of things as adults and remember how different it is to be a child.

And then things like when she says “Stop touching things that aren’t yours. Don’t play with the toilet paper.” So when she’s taking her daughter to the toilet, put your hand over the toilet paper and don’t let her touch it. And if she’s coming in with you to the bathroom when she doesn’t need to be there, I would consider having a lock on the door and taking your space so that you don’t have to worry about what she’s going to do when she’s in there.

She says, “Don’t touch the couch after eating without washing hands.” So one thing you could do is have a washcloth right there at the table that’s in a little bucket or something, or on a plate, and you have it already wet, and before you let your child leave the table, you stop them and you lovingly wash her hands.

These are things that we do when we understand that our child can’t control themselves right now very easily. At her age, with this situation, with the eight-month-old brother, it’s already going to be tough for her to feel settled in herself. So I would give her that extra help by being ready for her to do the impulsive things instead of being surprised, trying things again and again that aren’t going to work, and then beating yourself up for it or feeling guilty.

I don’t have that many rules of thumb that I share because every situation feels nuanced to me. I do believe in the rule of thumb: don’t repeat yourself to a child. Because if they’re not stopping the first time, there’s a very good chance that they are showing that they need help. They need us to come in physically and help, way before we get angry and frustrated with them, which is again, about our expectations, about the way we’re perceiving.

I realize that this is not by any means easy, but it gets much easier when you get in the groove of it and then you see how it works, how grateful your child is on some level. Not that they’re going to say, “Oh, thank you mommy for taking that toy away from me that I was abusing”, but they will settle into: Phew, I’ve got somebody that loves me, that’s not blaming me, that’s safe. They’re helping me when I need help. They’re seeing me. They’re seeing that I’m lost in these moments and I’m not a bad kid.

And then what happens? There’s less of this impulsive behavior because they feel less stressed, so it’s a win-win. And all it takes on our end is for us to visualize and practice a different way of seeing, a different understanding.

One thing that’s happening for all parents right now is that the challenges haven’t changed so much in terms of children and their behavior and our relationships with them and setting limits. But it’s all come under focus. And that can be a positive thing, because we can use this time as an opportunity to do things that will help us on any given day with our child — forever — to be able to understand this differently, understand our role as somebody that helps.

We expect them to be wobbly right now. And when the person can’t help themselves, we help them. We’re there.

So I really hope some of that helps ease this parent’s mind.

For more, please check out my books, both of which are available on audio, No Bad Kids, Toddler Discipline Without Shame and Elevating Child Care, A Guide To Respectful Parenting. You can find them through my website or on audible.com, and you can also get them in paperback at Amazon and in ebook at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Apple.com.

Thanks for listening. We can do this.

The post Repeating Yourself Won’t Help (What to Do Instead) appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Transcript of “How to Help Your Strong-Willed Child Listen (Without Wounding His Spirit)”

Hi. This is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled. Today I have a question from a parent. It’s about her son who is very strong-willed, high energy, independent. All positives. But the other side of that coin is she has a hard time getting him to listen. His behavior is unmanageable at times and she wonders how she can get him to listen without “killing his free spirit”.

Okay, here’s the email:

Hi, Janet. I’ve recently enjoyed listening to your podcast, Unruffled, and reading your book, No Bad Kids. It’s a really refreshing approach to parenting.

The issue I’m having is that my four-year-old is very strong-willed and independent, which of course can be a good thing. I don’t have to encourage him to do anything. He jumps right in.

I just find it difficult when I try to reign in all that energy and get them to listen to me. For example, we take a lot of nature walks with friends. He will run ahead and just keep going, not stopping when I tell him to stop. I find myself yelling because it’s a safety issue, leaving me with the only option to hold his hand, leave, or let him keep running.

He’s always done a lot of attention-seeking behavior as well even if he’s getting attention, such as yelling. I find myself telling him, “You’re not listening,” frequently and don’t want to be saying this. How do I help a strong-willed, independent child do just that? Listen.

I feel at a loss and so overwhelmed. He’s so much fun. He really is. I especially get overwhelmed when we are out with friends that have high expectations for behavior. They have more mellow kids. I should add that I have a one-year-old daughter who of course takes up a lot of my time. Please help me find a way for him to listen without killing his free spirit. I really want your methods to work and to have peace. I hope they’re not just for “easier kids”. He’s like three-in-one. Ha ha. If you were to ask who pulled the fire alarm, it would be my kid for sure.

Thank you so much.

Okay, so when I read these notes and questions from parents, certain statements they make or phrases they say tend to pop out like headlines. In this case, the first thing that popped out was when she said at the end, “I should add that I have a one-year-old daughter who of course takes up a lot of my time.”

Second, and even a bigger headline for me was, “Help me find a way for him to listen without killing his free spirit.”

Those are two important points that she makes that tell me a little about her child’s point of view versus hers.

One of the themes that I try to bring up in my writing and in my podcasts is understanding our child’s point of view, being able to see through their eyes. That matters because that is the way to help them with their behavior and go at it in a helpful way that joins with our child. That doesn’t mean we’re joining and running rampant at the outing, but it means that we want to be helpful rather than be the person that’s telling you, “Do this, do that,” and “I’m frustrated with you.” We want to be able to help our child feel that safety net of our presence.

Now a child who is very strong-willed and independent, it’s a personality type. In this case, her child is very high energy as well. Children who are strong-willed can also be very sensitive to the energy around them. Like all children in these early years, they are easily overwhelmed.

It’s interesting also because this mother says that she feels overwhelmed, which is understandable of course, but since she’s the one her child is looking to for leadership and to set the tone of how everything’s going in his life and how their relationship is going, if she’s overwhelmed, he’s going to be triply overwhelmed. Young children get overwhelmed very easily. Especially children that have this kind of intensity. They just tip over in a second.

The situation that she brings up about the one-year-old sister is huge. It’s always interesting, too, because parents tend to share that with me as almost an afterthought, although this parent does note that it’s taking up a lot of her time. Well, it’s not only taking up a lot of her time and affecting her energy, it’s super affecting her son. It’s a very overwhelmingly emotional situation for older children when another child is born. Now they have to accept that their whole life has changed. Here’s this cute baby person who is taking up a lot of their parents’ time.

When they express their stress through behavior as children do, their parents getting angry with them, getting frustrated, that’s can feel like the worst thing that could ever happen, that: my parents… not only did this other person come that takes a lot of their time and interest and love, but I’m acting like a jerk. I’m not being “good” because I’m acting out of my own stress and overwhelm.

Then around the time the baby turns one, there can be a whole new level of overwhelm because now this baby is not just a cute blob in the older child’s eyes, that he can feel: well, I can do all these things and she can’t and I can get my parents’ attention.

That’s another thing the mother brings that he’s attention-seeking. Well, he used to be able to get your attention pretty easily, but now even more attention is going to this little girl who’s maybe started to talk and walk and become a serious rival for him in his eyes. It would be understandable that he’s in an almost constant state of stress at this juncture.

Then he’s let loose on one of these outings and he can’t contain himself. He knows he’s not supposed to run far away and make his mother upset, but he literally can’t stop himself. This is what I hope I can help this parent understand. It’s not about I won’t listen and I’m making this very conscious choice deliberately doing what you don’t want. It’s: I can’t stop myself from going there. Also, maybe: I’m kind of getting stuck seeking this attention that I get from my parent that doesn’t really feel that good, but at least I’m getting that attention from her. That can be part of it, too.

When she says, “You’re not listening,” what she means is not that he doesn’t hear her, but he’s not following her directions. That’s what we usually mean as parents when we’re saying, “They’re not listening, they’re not listening.” Again, it’s not a choice to not listen. The child is in a state where they can’t for some reason. At least one of the reasons is this transition he’s in, this life transition that feels like the rug has been pulled out from under him. And it’s only getting scarier each time that he is that guy that’s being “bad” when he goes on the outings. He knows that that’s becoming the perception of him. He knows that his mother is exasperated and that other people are judging him. He’s getting stuck doing it anyway.

Now there’s this story that he’s kind of creating for himself, that he’s this out-of-control guy. That’s making him feel more distant from the people he needs to feel even closer to now that he’s going through the sibling transition of his sister turning one, all the new feelings that come up around that. He needs to feel his parents are that safety net, that they’re with him, that they either understand him or want to understand him, that they’re not blaming him for his behavior.

I realize that’s hard because it can look very, very deliberate when children do these things and it’s maddening. I get that. But that’s not what’s going on. What’s going on is his reason centers are being overwhelmed by his emotions and stress. When you’re shouting at him, “You’re not listening,” he’s not going to be able to stop, turn on a dime, and say, “Oh, you know what? You’re absolutely right, and I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me, but here I am listening to you now.” The not listening was already him being in this other state of consciousness where he can’t control himself. The tipping point for this is very, very low, especially for children that are very intense like him.

What it feels like inside his body when he’s doing these things is not comfortable. It’s not joy that: I’m running away and I’m making everyone upset. It’s that overwhelmed, overexcited, somewhat anxious, out of control feeling that we’ve all experienced. But for us as adults, we are mature in our ability to self-regulate and stay reasonable.

If we understand these elements, this boy’s behavior makes a lot of sense. The more sense it can make to us as parents, the easier it’s going to be for us to shift into really helping him and therefore changing that behavior, getting what we want, which is a child that doesn’t do these things as often.

He may always have that tendency to be the life of the party, pushing all the boundaries. It can be fun to be with those people. As his parents says, she enjoys him and the fact that he jumps right in. But it’s also getting away from him a lot of the time.

What I would advise to this parent is to start seeing what’s really going on here, how overwhelmed he is. Then set both of you up for success. That’s going to look like, again, rather than being at odds with him, you are a team, you want to help, especially when he’s on these outings.

Here are some details about how to do that. I would start by talking to him about it before you even go on these outings or out to any place that you’re going. Not in a warning tone. A lot of times parents will say to me, “Well, I warned them,” and I wonder how that sounds because a warning, “Well, if we go there, you can’t go running off,” that is already projecting to our child that: I don’t trust you, I don’t feel confident in these situations, I believe this story about you, you’re going to continue it, and I’m already annoyed with you. It’s not going to create the sense of safety that our child needs.

I would be careful not to do that. I actually like the term “a heads-up” more than a warning, giving somebody information. “Oh, by the way, it’s going to be time to go in a few minutes. Just letting you know.” That doesn’t push our child into an uncomfortable power struggle state. This is especially important again with a child with a very strong will. They are easily tipped into: Okay, I’m over here holding this ground and she’s over there.  We don’t want to allow that to take hold. We want to melt through that with our belief in our child, demonstrating with everything we say and do that: We’re on your side. I’m not mad at you. I believe in you. I know you can do this and if you can’t, I’m going to be there to have your back. I’m going to help you.

I would start by saying, “We’re going on this nature walk and I know you get so excited sometimes and you’re feeling that energy of everybody and it’s really, really fun to run as far as you can, but I’m not comfortable with that because it’s really not safe. So is there a way that I can give you a little signal or a sign so that you can know that it’s time to stop wherever you are and wait for us all to catch up to you?” Maybe it’s something like, “Okay, I’ll say, ‘Red light.’ Should we try that?” Maybe your child has an idea. “Then, by the way, my dear, if it doesn’t work, I know sometimes you get carried away, then that’s okay. I’ll just come up to you and then we’ll hold hands.”

When I was reading this note, I thought, I wonder if he really on some level wants to hold her hand, that he feels more comfortable and safe and connected that way. Instead of that being a punishment in this parent’s eyes, or a downer, maybe that’s what he’s demonstrating by running off… that he really needs her to hold his hand the way she holds the baby’s hand. This is his very awkward way of letting her know. I wouldn’t see holding hands as this bummer thing that’s going to hurt his spirit. Absolutely not. It’s going to help him be more comfortable.

When you’re first changing your attitude around his behavior, understanding him more, and how to be that safety net that he needs there, maybe you will decide at the outset, “We’re going to hold hands.” Then if he says no, “Yeah, I know you don’t want to do that, but I’ve got to keep you safe. That’s my job. And I love you too much to let you go running off like that.”

Reframing this for ourselves is so important. Boundaries are love.

To the point about killing his spirit, the reason that stood out for me was because it was very telling that that is getting in the way of this parent helping him as I know she wants to and needs to do. If I make them hold hands right in the beginning, it’s going to hurt his spirit.

Absolutely not. Setting him up for success so that he doesn’t have people judging him and his mother upset with him and so he’s not that kid that’s trouble, that’s freeing him to feel comfortable and good in his skin. When we allow those things to go on, and then we’re repeating ourselves and yelling at our kid, that has much more chance of hurting his spirit, because it makes him feel bad about himself.

I do understand that, because I had those feelings also with my oldest daughter, who is a very strong-willed girl. I had those thoughts. Ah, but she’s so amazing. She’s just so bright and on top of everything. Am I going to somehow hurt her spirit?

Well, luckily I had Magda Gerber and other wonderful advisors that helped me to see that, no, actually hurting her spirit is giving her too much power to do things that people don’t like, that don’t feel comfortable to her either.

My evolution, which I’ve talked about in at least one of my posts, “Confessions of a Pushover Parent,” was somewhat slow, but it was dramatic in the end because I started to see that repeating myself, trying to get her to want to cooperate to make me feel better was the opposite of positive for her and the opposite of love.

As this parent says, she says, “I find myself telling him, ‘You’re not listening,’ frequently and I don’t want to be saying this.” Right, don’t say it to him as if that’s going to change something. Maybe say to yourself: Oh, he’s not listening. Ah, he needs my help. He needs me to be on this. He needs my safety net so that he can be his free, wonderful spirit on these nature walks.

If he’s showing you that he can’t handle listening to you, he can’t stop himself, and you know that you aren’t pushing him into a power struggle through your attitude, then take his hand, maybe leave, maybe rethink how many of these he can do right now or what time of day it is.

I would put blinders on in terms of the other children and comparing. You’ve got a thoroughbred here. He’s wonderful and he’s also more sensitive to certain things. He’s going through a time in his life when most children have a type of emotional crisis.

Maybe doing less of those things where he can so easily go overboard and not be at his best, that’s part of setting yourself up for success. Understanding what you’re dealing with here. This is temporary. It’s not the rest of your life. Making choices that he can thrive in right now.

Then when she does what she says is a lot of attention-seeking behavior as well, such as yelling, I wouldn’t see that as this thought out, reasonable choice that he’s made. Oh, I’m going to yell now to get attention. It’s part of his: the rug has been pulled out from under me, and I don’t know what’s going on, and I’m scared, and I have all this energy, and I’m getting carried away, and I can’t contain myself. Part of that is yelling. I don’t know why I’m yelling but I’m yelling.

Then we add to it by saying, “Stop yelling,” as if he can just change what he’s doing without also feeling shame, and failure, and: she hates me, which obviously this parent doesn’t. But it can feel like that to children when we are at odds with them that way.

But when we become that safe presence, when our child is assured of that safety net… We’re not going to be perfect, but if most of the time he feels: she gets me and she’s on my team, then he doesn’t yell as much. He doesn’t show that lack of containment and overwhelm as much because he feels better. That’s how we change the behavior. We help our child to feel safer and more comfortable with us.

It’s complicated but simple at the same time, like pretty much everything that I share. It’s challenging to see differently, but that’s what we’re required to do to be able to proceed with the kind of relationship that makes us feel good about ourselves and brings our child as close as possible.

Also, I just want to say having a four-year-old and a one-year-old or a three-year-old and a one-year-old is a lot. This parent has a lot on her plate. Maybe those outings where things sometimes get hairy is too much. Say no, and let your child express these things at home to you. Show him there that you’re on his side and that you’re not irritated by his expressions of uncomfortable feelings. Absolutely don’t fear killing his free spirit by being stricter with the boundaries, the things that you can control. You can’t control yelling, but we can control holding hands. We can control letting him in the room with his sister who’s trying to take a nap. Holding those reins with confidence that we’re doing the right thing.

I really hope some of this helps.

At last! I’ve created the No Bad Kids Master Course to give you all the tools and perspective you need to not only understand  and respond effectively to your children’s behavior but also build positive, respectful, relationships with them for life! Check out all the details at nobadkidscourse.com.

Also, both of my books are available in paperback at Amazon, No Bad Kids, Toddler Discipline Without Shame and Elevating Child Care, A Guide To Respectful Parenting.  You can get them in ebook at Amazon, Apple, Google Play, or barnesandnoble.com, and in audio at audible.com. As a matter of fact, you can get a free audio copy of either book at Audible by following the link in the liner notes of this podcast.

Thank you so much for listening. We can do this.

The post How to Help Your Strong-Willed Child Listen (Without Wounding His Spirit) appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Transcript of “No Bad Kids: Questions about Tantrums, Mealtimes, and Cleaning Up”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled. Today, I’m doing something a little bit different. I have a note I received from a parent, a dad actually, who has read my book, No Bad Kids, and he has three different areas that he wants clarification on. So I’m going to do that and I’ll take the questions one by one.

Here’s the note I received:

“Hi, Janet. I just finished reading your book, No Bad Kids, and it was truly eye-opening. Coming from a disciplinarian family and not wanting to expose my children to the same feelings of shame and mistrust, this was exactly the guidance I was seeking. I do have a few practical questions as I felt the book dealt mostly with initial boundary setting and interactions, and there are inevitably slips and tantrums.

1. Question one: The book describes simply being present during a tantrum. Do most tantrums truly self-resolve and how long do you allow for them? While my wife and I don’t use distraction as a standard technique, we have certainly found that our daughter requires some level of ‘problem-solving’ or suggestions to help her wind down from a tantrum. Would you not recommend this?”

Okay, so there’s actually some interesting science on this, that it is not helpful to talk to a child during a tantrum, that that actually can increase the discomfort that they feel and make it harder for them to pass through these states. This matches up with what I’ve experienced over 25 years with my own children and in classrooms with parents and toddlers. I’ve witnessed many, many, many tantrums, and in my experience, they always self-resolve. And by self-resolve, I don’t mean the child doesn’t have our support. We are open, we are empathetic, we understand that this is a normal state of overwhelm that our child is in, that what’s going on here is healthy and important for them. So not only would I not distract and try to bring my child out of the tantrum, I wouldn’t do problem-solving at that time. When my child is in the eye of the storm, I would let it be.

It certainly requires a lot of trust as a parent to be able to let go of our feelings of wanting to put a timer on it and wanting to fix it. But letting that go and trusting that it will last as long as it needs to last…  And if this is going on and on, we may be playing into it by being an impatient presence.

We can see when our child comes out of that state that they get lost in, in the tantrum, that they’re starting to come back to a consciousness where we can then maybe problem-solve or say, “Come here. I want to hold you. That was really hard. That was really uncomfortable.”

I’m not sure what problem-solving this father’s been doing. I’m not sure what that looks like or the suggestions, but I would be careful because that can prolong the feelings, make our child feel unsafe going there into the tantrum, and feel our judgment or lack of acceptance of it.

I have a lot of podcasts around this topic, a lot of written posts as well, because it does take practice. It does take a perception of the feelings and the tantrums as positive for a child and even necessary.

They can be very positive for our relationship as well if we can handle them with patience and trust. It is important for us to get to that frame of mind where we can allow this. And then you’ll see your child, and maybe this dad is seeing this, you’ll see your child come out of the state where everything seemed wrong and our world seemed all wrong, and they just kind of turn on a dime and they’re fine. We see that they have cleared something that they need to clear, they’re back to themselves. Now they want to play and off they go.

So that can help us, too, seeing: Oh gosh, she’s fine. She just needed to go there. It’s safe. The more that happens, the easier it is for us to trust and not get into problem-solving or helping her come out of it. So really this is less work for us. It’s maybe more mental work in our perception, that challenge of letting go. But we can let go of it being our job to do something here, which takes pressure off of us, actually.

2. Okay, so here’s his second question: He says, “Food and meal time have always been a struggle for us. Our daughter fell off the weight curve at one point, so it’s a mental barrier to discontinue a meal and she’s proven fully capable of skipping them. Your book discusses ending meals upon repeated boundary testing. Do you have a recommendation on when it is appropriate to re-offer food?”

So I’m just going to skip to that first. There’s no specific timeframe, in an hour, maybe, in 45 minutes. The point of this meal time approach that I recommend (and others recommend) is that we are clearing away all the emotions and power struggles — the agendas that we have around something that really does belong to our child and our child needs to completely control, and that’s what she eats and how much she eats with the healthy options that we’re providing. But within those options, our child needs to be the boss.

If we think about it, what’s our goal? What’s our goal for our child’s eating habits? It’s really the same as our goal for ourselves: that we listen to our bodies, that we can clear away all the noise and hear when we’re full and feel what our body needs to eat.

Children have this ability. We all do, but it can get lost in the noise and the emotions. And this is especially important if our child is off the weight curve or there are other issues. It’s especially important and, of course, much more challenging for us to trust her, let our child do her job to eat what she needs to eat. And if we’ve created a little bit of power struggle around this, then it’s going to be a little harder to dial it back. But it’s crucial that we let her know that we’re giving her this trust, that it’s not about us and we’re not interested in coaxing her to eat more or less or different. It’s not about pleasing us, it’s about the feeling that she has within herself.

This dad says it’s a mental barrier to discontinue a meal. So my advice around discontinuing a meal is to be reading our child in those moments. And if we are concerned about our child eating, it’s going to be harder for us to have some basic rules around it that are very common sense and reasonable. Like, “If you’re throwing your food on the floor, if you’re playing with your food, if you’re dumping out your drink, you’re showing me that you’re done with food for now. You’re not interested in eating anymore.”

And in the beginning when children first do these things, it would be rare for them to do them if they were actually quite hungry. When they’re hungry, they eat. When they’re done, then they try out things as a toddler. Oh, what do they think about this? What happens here? But if we’re concerned right there and we want them to eat more, then we are going to let them keep eating, which tells them this is okay. It is okay for me to stand up and run around with the food or to throw it down or play with it.

And right there, we’re taking our child’s mind out of what they’re doing into exploring with us: Hmm, what do they allow and what do they not allow and how many times will they allow me to do this? I sense that they really want me to stay here and keep eating, but as a healthy toddler, I’m going to be exploring why they’re pushing this. And even if we’re not pushing it, if we’re coaxing or if we’re just hoping that they’ll keep eating, most children will feel that.

So allowing those things that might feel kinder to us: Oh, we’ll give our child another chance or maybe they didn’t mean it, actually gets in our child’s way and then makes our job harder, because our child isn’t just eating purely from their own need anymore, they’re playing these games with us. They’re exploring with us. So I would encourage this dad and any parent to look at that mental barrier that he has, it really requires being kind of strict about these meal time behaviors.

And all of these rules that I recommend: sitting while they eat, not playing around, staying focused on the food, these are actually all centered around creating the healthiest eating habits. We as adults, we can multitask. Studies show that we don’t really do anything very well when we do that, and we might eat too much or not enough because we’re thinking about other things or doing other things while we’re eating. But young children, we have this opportunity to foster their mindfulness in what they’re doing. That means staying focused. Now’s the time we eat and, yes, we talk and we socialize and you have my full attention. I don’t have my phone here at meal times. I’m here for you and we’re here to eat, and that’s it.

In those moments when we’re setting the limit, we might say, “Oops, are you done? Because that’s showing me that you’re done.” And ideally, we’ll be there with our hand able to stop the action while it’s happening. So then right there, we’re going to get a very clear answer. Our child will either stop what they’re doing (getting up or playing with the food) and keep eating, or they will continue to do those behaviors. So when it’s really clear, then we can say, “Okay, it looks like you’re playing. That shows me you’re done. All right, my love, we’re done. We’ll try again later.” I wouldn’t be mean. I would be tuned in.

So it’s interesting because both these questions this dad has are actually about one of the main challenges for us and important goals for us as parents: trust, trust in our child to do what they’re capable of doing, expressing emotions fully, eating what they need. Both of those are about trust.

3. And the third question he has is a little different. He says, “Finally, your book discusses boundary setting, which with toddlers probably covers most of the corrective actions a parent needs to take. But what are your suggestions as far as behaviors you would like your child to actively learn? Specifically, my daughter has refused cleaning up after her messes and she won’t apologize. And those are certainly the types of values, etiquette I’d like her to learn. Outside of a direct request, it often feels like our only options are to let her move on, which feels too passive, or coerce her, which we fear leads to shame or the wrong lesson learned. Thank you for your wonderful book.”

Okay, so what my mind’s going to with the way that he describes the cleaning up, it sounds a little different from cleaning up toys. I’m wondering if this is messes around meal time. I’m not sure what other kinds of messes she might be making, but generally I would set a child up for success so that they’re not making the kind of messes that are going to upset us. So if that is around meal time, again, I would be stopping my child with my hand when they’re starting to dump something, because I am being attentive, and then seeing that for what it is, which is my child saying: I’m done. I’m testing now. I’m not eating anymore. How are you going to handle that? That’s basically what’s going on there. And again, if I’m worried my child isn’t eating enough, so I’m not comfortable ending the meal, then I’m going to be accepting the mess.

This dad is absolutely right. He says, “the boundary setting mostly covers corrective actions a parent needs to take” where we’re actually physically stopping our child while we’re letting them know, “We can’t let you, this isn’t safe,” but cooperation is voluntary. We can’t make a child clean up. Yes, we could threaten and bribe and do a lot of things that I don’t sense this dad wants to do, but those things will actually make our child feel less genuinely cooperative and will distance us in our relationship. And our relationship is the best tool we have for our child’s success in life and behavior and everything. So we don’t want to threaten that.

Apologizing takes a lot. For us as adults, saying sorry is an uncomfortable place to go to. It’s vulnerable, and that’s a lot to ask of a young child. But she will do it if she sees it modeled a lot and if we trust her to do it when she genuinely feels it.

To help encourage our child to clean up or do any voluntary activity, we have to be willing to do it with them, keep it light, not make a big heavy deal out of it. Again, set ourselves up for success. So if this is with toys, we don’t give our children access to a zillion small pieces that we don’t want to have all over the floor. We might say, “Well, if you want to help put these away, then we can take those other things out.”

We also don’t leave cleaning up for when a child is going to be tired, and we all know this is hard for us too. Late in the afternoon, that time between their nap and dinner, it’s a rough time to ask somebody to clean up. And then at night when they’re going to bed, very tough. Nobody wants to clean up then. So setting ourselves up for success might mean cleaning up earlier in the day and then not having, again, a million things out for them. Maybe leaving a mess until the next morning.

But if this is more like an immediate mess that happened during mealtime, then I would consider what I’m doing that might be creating this kind of testing. I’m assuming that these aren’t just accidents. If a child has an accident, I would say, “Oops.” And again, I wouldn’t expect them, “Well, now clean that up.” If a child did it on purpose, I still wouldn’t expect that they’re going to be able to clean it up themselves. In fact, I’d probably expect it less, and I would make even less of it so as not to give that behavior a lot of power.

And then I would, instead of saying, “Okay, you’ve got to clean this up,” I would request help with the details and that means I’m already committed to be helping here. She isn’t just going to be able to do it all on her own. They might be physically capable, but they need that helping hand. And as this dad is spot on in saying, “Coercing her, we fear that leads to shame or the wrong lesson learned.” So I’d say, “Okay, I’m going to get the cloth. Can you rub that part and I’ll rub this part?” Very communal, light, voluntary. If it’s cleaning up toys, “Oh, where do you want these? Should we put these over here? Can you put some of those in that bin for me? Thank you so much.” And what that does is it helps our child to want to do these things, especially when we really need them to. They come through, because we’re not nitpicking, because we’re not making a power struggle out of everything.

And all the time we’re doing that, we’re teaching. That’s how children learn. They learn through us. They learn: Oh, so when there are messes, we help. Because that’s what my mom does, that’s what my dad does.

So this dad’s right that a direct request won’t often be the ticket. The ticket is a request, a joining, us demonstrating what cooperation looks like.

Lisa Sunbury Gerber has a wonderful piece on her website regarding baby.org, it’s called “Clean Up, Clean Up,” and I’ll link to it in the transcript of this podcast, but you can also Google it. I recommend it.

I want to congratulate this dad and any parent who is shifting cycles from the way they were raised to the way they want to raise their children. It is challenging. I love that this dad is asking for these clarifications. Because oftentimes, we want to do it differently, but we feel frozen and it’s hard to know what it looks and feels like to be a respectful parent with very clear boundaries. I’m glad this dad thought my book was a good start and, yes, I would keep reading, keep listening, keep practicing. It’s a process for all of us.

So I hope that perspective helps a little bit.

And by the way, if my podcasts are helpful to you, you can help the podcast continue by giving it a positive review on iTunes. So grateful to all of you for listening! And please check out some of the other podcasts on my website, JanetLansbury.com. They’re all indexed by subject and category, so you should be able to find whatever topic you might be interested in.

And both of my books are available on audio, please check them out. Elevating Child Care, A Guide To Respectful Parenting and No Bad Kids, Toddler Discipline Without Shame. You can even get them for free from Audible by following the link in the liner notes of this podcast, or you can go to the books section of my website and find them there. You can also get them in paperback at Amazon, and in ebook at Amazon, Barnes And Noble, and apple.com.

Thanks again for listening. We can do this.

The post No Bad Kids: Questions about Tantrums, Mealtimes, and Cleaning Up appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Transcript of “Faced with Troubling Behavior – Now What? (with Susan Stiffelman and Maggie Dent)”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled. Today, I have an embarrassment of riches before me. I have Susan Stiffelman, marriage and family counselor, and Maggie Dent, parenting author and educator. And we’re all here together, actually, live in person, which is a gift in itself. And we’re going to discuss some general guidelines that we can offer parents for all kinds of situations that your children of any age have, what to do when your child’s behavior seems problematic and they’re not flourishing as you would like. What to do when you’re concerned. What are the steps that we can take? Where do we start?

So here we are!

Susan Stiffelman: Yeah. What fun!

Maggie Dent:  This is going to be exciting. I’m excited!

Janet Lansbury:  You can tell who Maggie is because she’s the one that sounds a bit different.

Maggie Dent:  And yet, I don’t think I have an accent, but that’s beautiful. Thank you.

Janet Lansbury:  So where do we begin? Let’s say our child is having difficulty with friendships, socially they’re struggling… What are some of the steps that we can take to address and understand the behavior?

Susan Stiffelman:  Well, I always like to look for the root. I always like to encourage parents not to get distracted by the manifestation of the behavior, but to rather see it as a message or some important information from the child on some level saying, “all is not right in my world.” Whether that’s internal, something inside of me is unsettled or dysregulated, or whether it’s in terms of the relationship that child has with you, the attachment, the connection, or whether it’s academic issues.

There’s something that maybe he or she can’t articulate, but that is making life difficult in a classroom setting or schoolwork or with friendships. I’ll begin with that. I’ll break the ice here and then I’ll turn it to you, Maggie. But you know, just the idea that when we get distracted by the appearance, and we focus too much on that, we tend to lean toward: do this, do this. Let me script for you what you should do when your child is being rude to a friend or when they’re not starting in on their homework, but so often there’s a wealth of riches there that we can tap into to address something deeper and really get to the heart of the problem.

Janet Lansbury:  And oftentimes trying to fix that behavior exacerbates the behavior.

Susan Stiffelman: Yeah.

Janet Lansbury:  Because it’s addressing a symptom rather than the cause. It’s also telegraphing to our child that we are unaccepting, that we are pushing back on what they’re doing and we’re not having that open, curious mind that we need to have.

Maggie Dent:  I think also it’s that place that we often in our minds go, now this is bad behavior, this is inappropriate behavior, this is wrong behavior. Whereas in actual fact, the behavior is exactly what you said, Susan. It’s a message that I’m not coping in my world right now. So it’s about our stepping back and going, something’s not right in my child’s world. And I often say, you just need to turn into being a CSI detective to work out what is underneath that rather than try and fix the behavior with something. That can be helpful later, but not until you’ve got to the core of that.

And of course, you know I’m a boy champion and so often we’ll find boys are behaving in a way that is looking like it’s bad and it’s naughty because it’s often physical, and yet underneath that will be a hurt boy who’s feeling misunderstood or hasn’t got a friend and they haven’t got the words to say that. Quite often that’s our challenge, isn’t it? Particularly as mamas it is, how do I get to understand what that is when they aren’t using any words to help me? And yet one of the worst and most tricky things you could say to a boy, particularly around 4, 8, and 14 is, “what’s the matter with you?”

So let’s give them some clues on how do we have that conversation that can help us go underneath what that is.

Janet Lansbury:  I just want to insert, because I do work mostly with younger children, that sometimes our first step is actually containing the behavior, if it’s physical behavior, or removing our child from the situation for their safety and the safety of others.

Maggie Dent: Yeah.

Susan Stiffelman: Yeah.

Janet Lansbury: And while we’re doing that, the safety of our perception of this as something that’s not a judgment or a problem ,so that we can be that safe person that has a regulating effect instead of charging things up worse and making our child feel our anger. Containing that behavior as a safe presence.

Susan Stiffelman:  Yeah, yeah.

Maggie Dent:  They need grownups at times to help them do that because they are unable to do that. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad child and that’s a really powerful message again, that sometimes I need to help them.

Janet Lansbury:  Seeing it as a call for help.

Maggie Dent:  Yeah.

Susan Stiffelman:  One of the things you both know that I’ve built my work on this idea of parents being the captain of the ship. And I use that analogy of a ship that’s cruising the waters and everything’s lovely and it’s a sunny day and everyone’s doing the waltz at dinner, but then you hear the alarm and things aren’t going well. Maybe there’s a leak or maybe there’s rough waters or a storm and that’s where the passengers really look to the captain. Are you up for this? Are you sturdy enough to get us through this storm?

And when a child is showing behavior that’s difficult or challenging.. as you said, Janet, I love the idea that they may do even more of it if you try and talk them out of it, if you just try and address the symptom, because they’re pretty committed to getting their message across and they may just get louder or more robust about that.

But when we can show up in that space as that calm captain… Certainly we don’t like the behavior. We would rather things be lovely and sweet. But where we don’t make it, Oh my gosh, there’s something wrong with my child. Or Oh, I’m a failure as a parent, my neighbor doesn’t have a child who does this. Well, your neighbor well may have one, you just may not be seeing it.

A lot of what children are looking to us for is a sturdiness and I love the phrase “non-anxious presence” where we’re big enough to contain whatever it is, and that right there can start to settle the behavior down and help us access maybe the pain or sadness that’s underneath. They may not put it into words, but when we are steady and calm, there’s a relaxation and a letting down of the guard and then we can start to get to what is at the root of that.

Maggie Dent:  I think that’s absolutely fair because it reminds me of the parental pause that I kind of encourage parents to do, it’s to take that breath first and bring ourself into it, that exact state that you’re talking about. So I can be the captain of the ship, and as I’m doing that, I’m going to be wanting to, again, look at this through the eyes of my child. And so that does require us to pause a little.

And then I encourage parents to put their hand on their heart to remember: even though this child’s being a little revolting right now, I love this child and that reminds me that I have to come from the heart center, not just my head, which has lots of the ideas and that when I look down, I go, what are they needing right now from me? And they need a safe base. Let me be what my child needs right now.

It’s just that pausing again. Because I’m finding, and I know you do as well, that today’s parents are drowning with too much information and incredible accessibility to all sorts of things online quickly, which can not always be in alignment with their core values of their home and what they’ve been taught and also what has happened to them and their journey.

So I think the confusion adds to the stress in the moment that often makes them feel they have to stop it, to fix it, rather than see it as a teachable moment. That underneath this we’ve got an opportunity to look at what is triggering that behavior. And how can we later, when we’re all calm and centered, explore that for the child and see what it is that they are struggling with? Is there an unmet need? Is there a cluster of unmet needs? Are they hurting? Are they sad? So again, you’re not a lousy parent, this is your teachable moment. This is where we step up with all our swagger and become that part of the solution.

Janet Lansbury:  Yes. I’ve never really thought of it this way before, but you’re making me see this almost as the way that you would handle a friend who suddenly seemed to be behaving in an unmanageable way. Would you be angry at that friend or would your heart go out? Poor them! They don’t want to be doing this.

That’s not to say that we should be friends with our child and that’s our relationship. They need us to be the leader. They need us to be the captain of the ship. But being able to see all behavior that way so it’s not threatening to us, it…

Maggie Dent:  And it’s a part of normal development. They’re not adults in little bodies. They are children with an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex, which we know there are some grownups even with underdeveloped prefrontal cortexes today. So you’re absolutely right.

Interesting how we speak sometimes very differently to our children than we thought we would before we had them. And I’ve often said, would you speak to your best friend like that? Like if they had a bit of a boogie hanging out of their nose, what do you call it over here?

Susan Stiffelman:  A booger.

Maggie Dent: Good, booger. Pretty similar. You’re not going to go, “Oh my gosh, here!” and wipe it off. You’re going to be pointing at it going, “Hey, hey. On your nose. Here’s a tissue.” We do it in a much more gentle way.

Janet Lansbury:  And we’d even whisper it. We wouldn’t say it in front of other people.

Maggie Dent: Yes. We wouldn’t say it out loud. And we wouldn’t say it as though…

Janet Lansbury:  We would take them aside. Even if it was something that they were doing… Maybe they’re picking up that cigarette and they’ve asked us to help them stop and we’re not going to say in front of everyone, “What are you doing? Stop!”

Maggie Dent:  How weak are you?!

Janet Lansbury:  We’re going to say, “My love, come close.” Like, “You sure you want to do that?” You know? Or…

Susan Stiffelman:  It’s a boundary thing. And I think a lot of this has to do with the recognition that our children are separate from us. It’s very difficult to not take their behavior personally or to not use them in certain ways to present to the world this front that says, Hey, check me out. I’m the parent of that really well behaved child over there. And then the flip side of that is, Oh my gosh, I can’t tolerate that. If you’re not showing up in the world, or in the classroom, or with your friend, or you’re at your friend’s house, or in the playroom, as a child, that makes me look like I’ve got my act together, we have a problem and I’m going to quickly, as fast as possible, throw caution to the wind and not be discrete.

And as you were saying, not treat you like a friend with that kind of respect because it’s all about me. I mean in many respects, a lot of our work as parents is to differentiate from our children. We talk about them differentiating from us. But I think the flip side of that is it’s true that they are on their own path.

I’ve had some fantastic parents that I’ve done counseling with just doing everything that I would have suggested and their child is very, very difficult. And I think some kids come into the world kicking and screaming and they have a path to walk down. And we do our best to show up with compassion and love and care. And we certainly raise our hand for help when we need it, because sometimes it’s not just that we’re not doing it “right”, it’s that this child just needs some extra support and we may need some support as well.

Maggie Dent:  It’s difficult today, isn’t it? In the Insta world. There’s these perfect pictures of people, and often at different times beginning school when they’re all looking wonderful and dressed up and we don’t see what happened before they got to school. We don’t see the antics of, “Where’s my socks?” But I think that’s one of the challenges today that they do feel so judged if their child’s not well behaved and compliant and well dressed and I think as a mother of four sons, I had to let go of that quite early.

Janet Lansbury:  Yes. You’re reminding me too about the internet and the way people, including me, find information now.

Maggie Dent:  We’re part of the problem, all three of us.

Janet Lansbury:  Exactly. It’s this idea that there’s a fix…

Maggie Dent: Yes.

Janet Lansbury: There’s a quick fix for all this behavior. If I just could say the right thing or do the right action, as if that is going to be the answer and the quick fix is never the answer with children. Never. I can say that, never, because the quick fix will only maybe look like it’s solving something in the moment, but it actually perpetuates the issue more often than not.

I love that Stuart Shanker says, “Quiet does not mean calm.” We can get a child to be quiet…

Maggie Dent:  That’s usually a sign they’re up to something.

Janet Lansbury:  They might be still hyper- aroused inside and stirring up. And even on a practical level that’s going to be harder for us later.

So we’ve got to take in the whole picture. We’ve got to be curious. We’ve got to be open instead of those quick judgments on things, which is really a quick judgment on ourself that we have. As you said, Susan.

I want to hear more now that I think we’re addressing this beginning part. Where do we go from there? What do we look at if we’re sincerely puzzled about our child’s behavior?

Maggie Dent:  Well, I’m going to jump in as not only a resilience educator, but also the passionate person about why our children need less stress in their lives. And I really would love you to look around your home and have conversations with whoever you are co-parenting with… What are the things that are adding stressors into our family home that we might be able to push back a little? Because we know the more stressed we are, then the less able we are able to hold that space.

And sometimes we might identify that we have got far too many extracurricular activities at the moment because everyone else seems to be doing them. And that when we come home we are really stressed and tired. And then we are expected to deliver a delicious meal with broccoli and have a calm conversation around dinner. And then of course it’s bath time, and then reading, and a quiet bedtime ritual. Well the reality is it doesn’t happen like that. And then we go to bed feeling like a failed parent again.

Every now and then I say, do you know what? There are times we need to own that that is too much for us right now with the ages of our children and with how we’re working. And if you are a parent who can actually do a few less hours in the working place and actually get a little more in front sometimes at home, then that can take pressure off you as well.

And then I really want you to have a look at how often in our modern world am I looking at a screen, not at my children’s faces, because we are kind of creating a digital abandonment. Again, that’s our kid’s hunger, is connection. So that creates the stress. And then what you’re doing is often disconnected because you’re trying to do a million things to be the good parent.

So every now and then have the conversation, “What works for our family? Is there a different way we can do chores? How else can we do morning?” And have the children be the co-solution-finders. Rather than us always doing to our children, can we do with our children to help that environment be something that’s going to be more sustainable? But also helping them to become negotiators and problem solvers.

Janet Lansbury:  Yes, and generally it’s about just doing much less than we’re doing because, as you said, we are coming from a depleted place. If we think we have to jump through all these hoops every day to be the perfect parent or give our kids all the things we’re supposed to give them in that day, and then we’re coming into these situations where now this behavior is there and my fuse is really short. It’s understanding that children do not need very much stimulation. A little bit goes a long way.

It’s like opening up a new appliance and everything works so well and snappy. Children are that. They’re hearing, they’re feeling, they’re sensing things that are way out there that we’ve learned to tune out. Therefore, they need much less outside stimulation than we can imagine.

Susan Stiffelman:  I always go internal. I see parenting in so many ways as a transformational path for us, a way for us to grow up or even a spiritual path. I’ve written about that. And our children, when their behavior is really restless and agitated, it can so often be a gift to us. Kind of having the mirror in front of you saying, well, your live-in Zen master is suggesting that you re-examine your priorities or rearrange how you’re allocating your time and your energy and resources.

And we live in a time, all of us, myself included, I love my internet. I don’t do a lot of things that most people do, because I have my breaks on all the time, but I see the pull. I go to the park and I see the parent who’s looking at their phone in one hand and sort of absentmindedly pushing their child in the swing in the other. And I don’t judge it because I see that we are dealing with a force that’s so addictive and so powerful and so compelling. And we all, all of our brands just love that squirt of dopamine, you know?

And so part of what I think a child’s challenging behavior can do for us is remind us, Oh, wait a minute. What would happen for the next, let’s say 45 minutes or 20 minutes, if you went outside and sat with your child under a tree — and I know this may sound a little old school, but I am a child from the 60s – and you just relaxed with your child and you just listened to the birds, or you watched the butterfly and you didn’t have your phone out there with you just in case your boss calls or grandma calls. And you bring it all down a bit and you allow the child’s behavior to remind you that once upon a time there was a way of moving through the world that didn’t move quite so fast, that was more in sync and aligned with the natural world. And I am certainly not saying that most children’s challenging behaviors will go away from being in nature, by any stretch of the imagination. I’m in the business of guiding parents to deal with those challenges.

However, I have also seen that when we simply stop and we give all of ourselves, even for five minutes, and especially if we can do it out in the green of nature. And we breathe together for a few minutes and we reconnect. Maybe we put our hand on their back or we smile or we sing a song or tell a joke. And I’m not just talking about five-year-olds here, I’m talking about 15-year-olds.

You know, there is a coming back to ourselves that children invite us to do. And sometimes we go there kicking and screaming because we really want to check our email. We really want to see how many likes we got on Instagram for whatever it was. And so we have to be present even for the discomfort and the impatience that might arise in us. Just noticing it. Allowing it. A kindly acceptance of whatever it is, a nonjudgmental awareness. You know, because a lot of my work, I incorporate mindfulness practice. To be present with the discomfort of sitting through waiting through this. And then sometimes with enough of those experiences, we can start to create that kind of openness with our kids where they can say… “Well, it looks like life’s been kind of rough a bit. I’d love to hear more about that if you feel like sharing it with me.”

Now if your child says, “No, everything’s fine, which they very well may, you just allow that, okay, well I’m here if you want. Because initially they are often suspicious. Oh, you’re going to keep poking, aren’t you? You’re not going to be satisfied with everything’s fine.

Janet Lansbury:  There’s got to be an agenda here.

Susan Stiffelman:  Yeah. And when you are in that captain place where you actually are not needy, there’s no neediness, there’s no aroma or smell of, please, please, please tell me. I really want to know. I want to fix it. Where there’s a relaxation inside of you, then that’s where you see that they may gradually come to you with what their truth is and even discover it with your help.

Maggie Dent:  I love that. I just absolutely love that. But also I just want to touch on the notion of micro connections. I encourage parents to look at: where are the little micro connections that are quite tiny? You just said a smile. It’s about what ways am I giving little doses of loving connection even if I am a busy parent? Those rituals that we do every day, we start them early and they still want to kind of go back to them a bit later and it’s why I love bedtime rituals that are how much you love me? Obviously not every night of the week. Some nights we aren’t in the right space, are we? And saying, “I love you to the moon and back, now go to bed!” is not going to be the micro connection.

Susan Stiffelman:  And don’t get out of bed!

Janet Lansbury:  “I said the words, I said the words!”

Maggie Dent:  It doesn’t have to be every night, but what we’re looking at is significantly connected moments when we are present. And don’t beat yourself up that there aren’t as many as you may have had in your childhood. It’s about the little things that grow up to be a bigger thing.

Janet Lansbury:  I want to just veer over to a more specific situation that I hear from parents about a lot, particularly as children are getting beyond the years that I focus on. Children having difficulties with peers, friendships, struggling, being left out of things, all those kinds of issues. How do you gently explore those places with your child and help him in those kinds of situations, or her?

Susan Stiffelman:  Well, I think the first is to really, again, accept the child you have as the child you have. And some children are predisposed to more quiet. We can say “introverted,” but they like their own company. So sometimes we have an agenda for how social our child should be. That doesn’t give them room to be who they’re meant to be. So that may be our issues. Well, I wasn’t popular at school, so you better be, right? We lay our kind of thing onto the child.

And I have a thing that you probably know about called “snapshot child syndrome,” where there’s a mismatch between who we thought we were getting and who we actually have. That we’re holding this photo up of our ideal child. This is the one who is going to love sports and who’s going to have this kind of personality and who’s going to love taking out the trash because she knows how much it helps me and lightens my load. And then we’re holding the picture up and then there’s that child over there going, wait a minute, I just asked you to take out the trash and you completely ignored me four times, and we get hot and bothered by that.

Well, it’s not that the child didn’t take out the trash, it’s that we thought she should. We had the agenda and the story. And in the same way sometimes the child’s social issues, they’re our social issues.

Then there are kids who are immature. They don’t really know how to give and take. They need some sort of practice. I do a lot of stuff with kids with role playing and puppets and letting them practice what it’s like to initiate a conversation or to offer a compliment or to invite a puppet friend to play.

Maggie, what about you?

Maggie Dent:  Same sort of thing in that if a child gets rejected in a play situation, we need to know that can happen as grown-ups and adults as well. This isn’t just something that magically disappears once childhood’s gone. And that it is one of the biggest things that hurts us is rejection because we’re biologically wired to belong and be social beings. So having conversations at different times with our kids that sometimes this can happen. And role play’s another thing I recommend a lot. “Let’s pretend that I’m going to say to her, don’t want you to play with me. So let’s give you something you can say back and say ‘thanks, maybe another day, cheers.’ And we’ll go off and find somebody else.” And we might practice that strategy a few times again for the same reason.

So again, it’s having those conversations beforehand about: “What would you do if that happened? How does it feel?” And knowing again that it’s supposed to feel a bit yuck. And then what we do after that and what we say to ourself in our head after that, they are the things that can make it particularly problematic in early adolescence when that limbic brain… and we’re biologically wired to want to connect even more.

Janet Lansbury:  What you were saying also, Susan, about keeping our own anxiety in check. Sometimes children will come and just tell you something and maybe they’re not hurt by it. Maybe they’re not upset. They just found it interesting. And if we come into that with all this judgment: this terrible thing just happened and, you should feel terrible and then even the most innocent questions are not innocent when we say, “How did that make you feel?”

Susan Stiffelman:  “What else did she say? What did you do before that?”

Janet Lansbury:  “What did you do? What did you do about it?” Yeah. So it’s really how we can be brave as parents, brave enough to allow our children to go through life in an age appropriate way.

Susan Stifelman:  Yeah.

Janet Lansbury:  And having reasonable expectations about that. So even with a five-year-old, six-year-old child or older, sometimes an adult they don’t know will say, “Oh hi, how are you?” And what I love about young children is they’re not that into small talk. That’s an adult thing that we do that’s not very authentic, really, if we think about it. They’re much more authentic than that. And oftentimes they can’t even know what to tell you because so many things are going through their minds or their feelings.

Or other times they’re just feeling how anxious their parent is now because the spotlight is on them and this child is going to make me look good or not. Which is, again, so understandable, especially if we’ve been shamed for being shy or whatever. And then now there’s absolutely no oxygen left for that child to even come close to responding.

So understanding how powerful we are and how powerful our feelings are and how they’re going to seep into every situation and being able to be that person that children can bounce things off of, even the most shocking things. We can be an open explorer with our child.

Maggie Dent:  I love it. And I think also can we dive in into the big one that parents… is what’s happening with our siblings. Again, it is a little bit like the snapshot. I just thought we’d all play and get on really well. Well of course they do sometimes. Again, did we have a magical picture? And I remember working with a lot of moms early on, going, “I wanted a happy family.” And I said, “Well this is called a healthy family and conflict is a part of human relationships. So can you reframe that to see that and sometimes see if they can work that out themselves?”

And I remember when I could hear the voices, and we know that sometimes our kids can play together and one loses energy more than the other or the other gets too much. And then we have a difference and you’ll hear the voices get a bit… and that’s when we tune in and go, great, I’ll take a plate full of fruit up. Or I would just open the door and say, “Everybody out.” And they’ll go, “Wow, why?” “Five minutes outside and then we can come back.” I don’t blame anyone. I don’t want to become that judge and executioner cause that was my childhood experience.  And I’ll go and make a cup of tea and eat a yummy bickie and soothe myself and fill myself with serotonin. I come back to let them in, “okay guys come back in” and guess what? They’ve got a whole new game going on outside. So as that big swagger that says this could be going to end badly, I’m going to just kind of maybe give them an option to relocate or shift the energy a little. And then they just weren’t used to me coming up and growling and yelling at them when they had an altercation. It wouldn’t end that way because I wasn’t stepping in trying to sort it out. I was actually trusting innately that most times they would sort it out without blood.

Janet Lansbury: And you were the safe presence.

Maggie Dent:  And… Yeah.

Janet Lansbury:  You were not the judgy, uncomfortable, adding my own stress to your conflict.

Maggie Dent:  I might also run up and be ridiculous sometimes, turn into a growly bear or a dinosaur or run up and fart or something. I felt we can shift those emotional dynamics. I think we often feel we get too serious as a parent, and sometimes I go, let’s just lighten up, there’s too much tension here right now. Nervous systems are overloaded. Let’s go have some fun and lighten it up.

Janet Lansbury:  Yes. I think that’s wonderful, especially if it comes from a place of trust. I think if that comes from parents thinking, Oh my gosh, now it’s my job to be funny and do something. That’s where I kind of depart from playful ideas of parenting. When it’s…

Susan Stiffelman:  Forced.

Janet Lansbury:  I’ve got to make myself into an animal,

Maggie Dent:  Awkward.

Janet Lansbury:  And there’s people that just…  I’m silly, but there’s people that aren’t silly, and that’s okay. That’s not necessary.

Susan Stiffelman:  I think that the underlying thing is to come across as not needy or desperate for things to be different than they are. Even while you may be wanting to move them in a direction that’s better for everyone, that there’s a relaxation around that. There’s a trust around that.

And listen, it’s work. It’s beautiful work. It’s transformational work. Nobody tells you. I just saw some friends of ours who had a baby and they’re in their later thirties and they’d waited quite a while and they had the baby. And I said, “How are you doing?” They said, “Well, yeah, some of the time it’s really great.” I said, “Nobody told you did they?” And I said, “and even if they had… ” They were laughing. Even if they had, you wouldn’t have known because it’s impossible. I think raising a child is impossible, but you do it anyway. Like a lot of other things.

Maggie Dent:  And sometimes people do it again.

Susan Stiffelman:  Well you apparently did it four times.

Maggie Dent:  It’s interesting that we are having less children and there’s all sorts of reasons why that is, but isn’t it interesting the dynamics of when we had possibly more children and also neighborhood children played together, we had less problems socially and emotionally in our schools. We had less anxiety. So it’s kind of like maybe we’re going against the natural kind of way that we’re meant to be in those tribal situations where we all share our children and care about our children.

Susan Stiffelman:  Absolutely.

Maggie Dent:  It’s probably a bit too philosophical right now.

Janet Lansbury:  No, nothing’s too philosophical with you two here. Oh no, I’m going to take advantage of all your wonderful philosophical ideas. Anyway, thank you ladies so much. This is a real treat that I hope we can replicate some day, maybe in Australia.

Maggie Dent:  Wouldn’t that be lovely? I’m pretty sure we’d be happy with you in Australia.

Janet Lansbury:  Both of these women have some incredible resources that I will be definitely listing in the podcast transcripts and linking to for you all to take advantage of. These are people that I depend upon and agree with and…

Susan Stifelman:  Likewise.

Janet Lansbury:  You’re in very good hands with either of these very, very generous ladies, so… So thank you again.

Susan Stiffelman:  Oh Janet. We love you. We love your work.

Maggie Dent:  Thank you. Absolutely

Susan Stiffelman:  What a joy to have all three of us.

Maggie Dent:  Really special.

This was so much fun! I hope you’ll take full advantage of the resources these amazing women have to offer. They have books, articles, podcasts, workshops and more, all of which can be accessed through their websites:

Susan Stiffelman: susanstiffelman.com

Maggie Dent: maggiedent.com

Also, please check out some of the other podcasts on my website JanetLansbury.com. They’re all indexed by subject and category, so you should be able to find whatever topic you might be interested in. And both of my books are available on audio, No Bad Kids, Toddler Discipline Without Shame and Elevating Child Care, A Guide To Respectful Parenting. You can find them through my website or on audible.com, and you can also get them in paperback at Amazon and in ebook at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Apple.com.

Also my exclusive audio series, Sessions. These are six individual recordings of consultations with parents, discussing their specific parenting issues. These are available by going to sessionsaudio.com. That’s sessions, plural, audio dot com. You can read a description of each episode and order them individually or get them all about three hours of audio for just under $20. Sessionsaudio.com.

Thanks for listening. We can do this.

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