Transcript of “Dr. Gabor Maté on Why Parents Matter More Than Ever”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.

For most of you out there, I’m guessing that my guest today needs no introduction. Dr. Gabor Maté is a family physician, renowned speaker, with a special interest in childhood development, trauma, and addiction. He’s authored five books, including the classic he co-authored with early childhood icon psychologist Dr. Gordon Neufeld. The book is Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers. And Doctors Neufeld and Maté are reissuing it with a brand new chapter called In the Wake of the Pandemic: Peer Orientation and the Youth Mental Health Crisis. I’m seriously looking forward to discussing the invaluable messages in this book, and more, with Dr. Gabor Maté.

Hi, and welcome to you, Dr. Maté. I’m an enormous fan of yours and it’s really an honor to be able to spend this time with you. Thank you very much for being here.

Dr. Gabor Maté: Thanks for having me. I’m sorry that due to technical issues, the main author of the book Hold On to Your Kids, Dr. Gordon Neufeld, can’t be with us. But since I wrote the book with him and have worked with him for decades, I think I can channel his wisdom here, as best I can. But listeners should keep in mind that it’s his work mostly that we’re talking about here.

Janet Lansbury: I believe in you as a channel for his work, and you have amazing work you’ve done on your own as well. And this book, well now you’re reissuing it because you’ve added a new chapter all about the effects of the pandemic. Which I found surprising, your take on it, because it’s very different from the take that we’re hearing from many about it. So I really hope that you’ll speak to that today. But this whole book, it’s really a unique perspective, and remains a unique perspective, even though it was first written back in, what was it, 2008, something like that?

Dr. Gabor Maté: I think even before then. I think it’s probably 2005 or 2004, something like that.

Janet Lansbury: You’ve also added some chapters about the digital explosion that’s happened and how that affects this issue. I’m going to let you speak about the issues that this book covers and brings to light for people. It was something that I hadn’t considered before reading this. I’ve known the importance of having a relationship-centered approach to parenting, that that’s what it’s all about. That attachment is everything, that it’s key to the way that children learn, the way that they live and become who we want them to be or who they’re supposed to be. And that attachment nest needs to be present. But what your book with Dr. Neufeld talks about is that, actually, this is even more important than we thought because there’s competition. There’s this powerful draw of peer orientation. Can you talk a little about that?

Dr. Gabor Maté: First of all, we have to consider human evolution. And from the evolutionary perspective, mammals, hominids and hominins, humanoid creatures lived in small-band groups, where the children were around the adults all the time, 24/7, from birth to adulthood. And even with our own species, we’ve been on the earth for about 150,000 years, that’s the way we lived until the blink of an eye ago. So for 95% of our existence as human species, children lived around their parents all the time.

It’s like a duckling. A duckling is born, hatches from the egg, looks at the mother duck and imprints on the mother duck, and then follows the mother duck. Not because the mother duck asserts authority or threatens them or anything, just that nature causes us to be attached to our caregivers and to follow their guidance. And that’s the way it’s been for a long time.

Now, in more recent times, kids spend most of their time away from their parents from a very early age on. In the United States, 25% of women have to go back to work within two weeks of giving birth, which basically means that children are deprived of the natural presence of their nature-intended caregivers.

The duckling, if it hatches with the mother duck absent, will still imprint on anything that moves. And that could be a dog or horse or mechanical moving toy, but none of which are designed by nature to bring that duckling up to adulthood.

Our children, spending most of their time away from us, imprint on who they spend most of their time with. Their brain is programmed to imprint and to attach, but nothing in nature tells the brain who to attach to. That’s the job of the culture. So when you have a culture in which kids spend most of their time away from the nurturing adults, they imprint on whoever’s around, they can’t help it. They’re not doing it, their brains are doing it.

That means our kids are now imprinting and attaching to, and therefore getting their orientation from, immature peers. Attachment is like a magnet. It’s got two poles. One pole attracts, but the other pole repels. So when you’re attracted here, you’re pushing away from there. So when kids get attracted to and orienting by and attached to their peer group, they start pushing away from the adult. And now we think they have a problem, there’s something wrong with them, and we ratchet up the authoritarian parenting, all the punishments, the timeouts, all this stuff, which further drives them away from us.

And so what we’ve got here in our society, to make a long story short, is a culturally built-in, normalized, absolutely abnormal situation, where kids are getting most of their influence from their immature peers rather than the nurturing adults. And this results in behavior problems, learning difficulties, a lot of what we call pathologies (which are not pathologies at all, they’re manifestations of abnormalities in the environment), difficulties parenting, frustration on the part of parents, all kinds of other consequences which you can talk about. But in a nutshell, it has to do with the loss of primary attachments to the nourishing adults and the replacement—gradually, but insidiously—by the peer group.

Janet Lansbury: When does this begin? When children are three years old, four years old?

Dr. Gabor Maté: For those kids whose mothers have to go back to work at two weeks, that’s when it starts. Because then where do they go to? They go to poorly-funded, very often, and poorly-staffed daycare centers where there’s not enough adults to really connect with each child. Furthermore, we have this idea in this society that somehow we have to socialize kids. They spent the whole week in daycare and then, at let’s say age three or four, we arrange playdates for them on the weekend where they can be with each other even more.

And so I’m just telling you that so many of the problems that parents are having with their kids, there’s nothing because something’s wrong with the kids or particularly something wrong with the parents either. But because in this culture, the loss of parental attachment has been normalized and even encouraged. And there’s this invisible competition that we’re actually taught to court and to encourage.

Janet Lansbury: So what does healthy socialization look like? I mean, when you say that we’re supposed to socialize, I never consider it that way. I consider that children are naturally socialized. It’s not something that we have to try to make happen for them.

Dr. Gabor Maté: That’s the whole point. Your assumption is quite right. Socialization does happen naturally. But we can over-encourage it, because we forget or we don’t know that child development goes through phases. It’s like a pyramid. And the base and the broadest grounding for that pyramid is attachment to the nurturing adults. And that has to be maintained. These are not phases that we go through, this is a pyramid that we build. And attachment is the basis of it.

The second basis of it is not socialization. The second tier in the pyramid is actually individuation, which means the child develops a deep, entrusting sense of themselves. Now for that, attachment has to be secure. When children develop a sense of themselves, they can then respect the individuality of others and hold on to themselves without having to fit in, without having to mold themselves to the expectations of the group. But if they don’t have a strong sense of themselves, individuation, then they’ll try and fit in with the group rather than being themselves. Then we can see where that leads to. You know what the extreme of that is: gang behavior.

Then the third tier, as Gordon points out, is socialization. So socialization is like the peak of the pyramid. In a healthy sense, it’s based on strong attachments, proper individuation, and then socialization happens spontaneously. We don’t have to make it happen. But we do have to respect the pyramid. And so when we try and push kids into socialization too early, before they’ve individuated, then we’re actually asking for them to just meld in with the peer group.

Janet Lansbury: When parents have asked me, How do I do this? I need to socialize my child. And I point out—because my mentor, who happens to be Hungarian, Magda Gerber, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of her, but she used to say, you’re socializing your child with everything you do in your relationship. That’s how they’re learning social behaviors, through you. You don’t have to put them in a group setting. Group socialization is a whole different thing. They’re learning this through your relationship.

Dr. Gabor Maté: As a matter of fact, this is counterintuitive perhaps, and we’re not here advocating homeschooling, that’s not something everybody just can do, for all kinds of reasons. But if you look at the research, kids who are homeschooled, they socialize better later on. Why? Because they have a stronger, more independent sense of themselves. And now they can respect individuality of others and hold on to their own.

Janet Lansbury: If parents are in the position where they do need to have their child be in childcare, then ideally we want them to be able to attach—hopefully not as their primary attachment, hopefully that still remains the parent, right? That’s what we want. But they need to form a secondary attachment with those adults caring for them, so that they have somebody that’s an adult to be attached to instead of prioritizing the other children to be attached to.

Dr. Gabor Maté: Yeah, we’re not saying kids shouldn’t be in daycare. That would not be realistic. A lot of parents, for economic and other reasons, simply have to send their kids to daycare. The question is to recognize what we’ve lost and how to supplant it, okay? So if the kid goes to daycare, the first point is: what the child’s brain cannot handle is competing primary attachments. The child can handle many attachments, but not competing primary attachments. By the way, that’s true of the human brain in general. It’s very difficult even for adults, for example, to be in love with two people at the same time. Eventually the brain goes this way or that way, but it can’t hold on to both.

Now, the child’s brain, being very immature, is absolutely incapable of handling competing primary attachments. So when the child goes to daycare, the parent needs to encourage the child’s attachment to the daycare provider because that doesn’t compete with the parent, but the peer attachment does. So we have to have healthy adult attachments if the child is not going to be with the parent. It’s like Gordon says: in the morning, the parent hands the attachment baton to the teacher or the daycare worker, and in the evening, we take it back. That’s the first point. When kids go to daycare, parents should hang out in that daycare for a few weeks and make sure that their child sees them, the parent, forming relationships with the daycare provider. So that the child then sees, Oh, okay, I can be attached to both of these people. That’s the first thing.

The second thing is, we have to understand how children attach. And the more immature we are, the more primitive—and I don’t mean that in a negative sense—but the more basic our attachment styles are. So the first way that children attach is physically. To the senses, by seeing, hearing, touching, smelling the attachment figure. Smell, by the way, is huge. It’s one of the first things that develops. Babies can distinguish the smell of their own mother’s breast pad from that of other mothers within a few weeks of birth. So the senses are very important to children.

And other forms of attachment, such as being loyal or being important, holding somebody else in your heart, those develop later. You might have friends that you might not see for two years, but you still love them, you can hold on to them. Children can’t do that. Young children, they have to see you, hear you, touch you. Now, what does that mean? If they haven’t seen you the whole day, that attachment relationship has been attenuated. You have to regain it. So when your kid comes home from daycare at whatever age, hang out with them. Not for the purpose of telling them what to do or watching television together or anything, but just for the purpose of reestablishing the attachment relationship.

So in the first place, kids go to daycare: form attachment relationships with the nurturing adults. And most daycare workers need to be trained or understand the importance of attachment. They’re not just physical caregivers providing food and supervision. They need to be attachment figures, number one. Number two, at the end of the day, you have to reconnect, reattach with your kids. Especially the younger kids, but any kids, at any age. So we can deal with the daycare, not by going back to some ideal time when kids are with their parents the whole day, that’s no longer available to most of us. But we can understand attachment and then we’ll follow the guidelines of attachment to make sure that the kids being away from us the whole day doesn’t undermine our relationship with them.

Janet Lansbury: Yes, I love these points that you and Dr. Neufeld made in the book about the four ways to nurture attachment. The first one is when they’re infants, when children are very little, you call it “being in their face.” It’s having that face-to-face. And then that becomes “collecting.” I really like that word to describe it. I mean, I’ve seen all these memes and things saying, children want us to light up when they come into the room. Well, there is something to that. When we’re returning to each other, we want to drop everything. It’s so important that we’re not texting in the car or whatever. We’re present, we’re there. I collect you. You’re somebody big to me. You’re important.

Dr. Gabor Maté: You would do that with a lover, wouldn’t you? You do that automatically. We do it automatically with babies, too. I mean, even strangers. I’ve been on many airplanes where there might be a little baby there in somebody’s arms and the baby cries a little bit. Everybody goes, Aww. We just all naturally attune with the baby. That’s just natural. Babies evoke that attunement/connection instinct in us. The problem is that with the separation from our kids, that instinct inside ourselves is actually softened, weakened. So we actually get alienated from our own parenting instinct.

When some parenting “expert” comes along and tells you to practice timeout against a two-year-old, basically they’re saying to you, Use the attachment relationship to punish the child. The child’s biggest need is that you should be delighted and welcoming and unconditionally accepting. And when you use a timeout technique, you say to the child, I know what your biggest fear is: the loss of that relationship. And I’m going to deprive you of the relationship for a certain period of time. Now, to a two-year-old, five minutes is forever. And so that, not only does the culture normalize alienation of children from parents, it even teaches parents to use the child’s biggest need—for your delight in them and acceptance of them, an unconditional connection with them—against the child, to try and control the child. Which creates tremendous insecurity in children. It makes them conform to your desires perhaps, but what does it do to the child’s development?

We have to collect them, which means gather them in under our wing again. And Gordon says, collect them before you direct them.

Janet Lansbury: It does become less organic as children get older and we think, Oh, they’re fine, or They don’t care, or we’re busy or whatever. And how important that still is with a teenager, with a child at any age. I have three adult children, I still stand up—whatever I’m doing—if they walk in the door. It’s like a huge thing to me, run and hug and so excited. I naturally feel that way. But I think we can get caught up in our work and our lives and forget, especially when children maybe are already gone into more of that peer orientation space and then they don’t seem like they care. But they do, right? They really do.

And what can we look for, then, with our younger children? What are some of the warning signs that, Uh-oh, there could be something going on here? I mean, when you talk about the behaviors that children have when they do have that peer orientation, the behaviors that they have toward the parents, what do those look like with young children?

Dr. Gabor Maté: First of all, let me just say that even teenagers need this. Not just even, but especially. Because it’s such a difficult time. They need orientation. And in traditional cultures that orientation was provided by adults and elders.

One of my sons and I are writing a new book together. I mean, we’re just beginning to write it, so I’m not advertising anything here. But it’s going to be called Hello Again: A Fresh Start for Parents and Adult Children. It’s based on a workshop that we do. And all the adults that we speak to, adults in their thirties, forties who still want contact with their parents. They may not want the contact that they have, which is often very troubled, but they want genuine contacts. Never-mind infants, even adults are still looking for that.

So what are the signs when kids are getting alienated from us? Well, first of all, they want to be with each other all the time rather than with us, number one. Number two, with the technology that we’ve very unwisely put into their immature hands, they’re connecting with each other all the time. They will not be soothed by us when they’re upset. They will be more oppositional and resistant to our expectations.

Janet Lansbury: And that part could show up with a child as young as three or four. There’s part of that that naturally happens anyway, but then it can become more of a warning sign if a child is consistently having “behavior issues.” But it’s always a relationship issue when children are having concerning behaviors, it’s usually a relationship issue between us.

Dr. Gabor Maté: Yeah. In our society, more and more kids are being diagnosed with this, that, and the other. And many kids are being medicated to control their behaviors, which is a vast social experiment in the manipulation of the child’s biology and the indication is that it’s not particularly good for the child’s brain development. In fact, on the contrary, in many cases. What we’re actually looking at is we identify pathologies in a child, but actually there’s no pathology in a child. What there is is a response in the child to the environment, and particularly to the loss of attachment.

So there’s a so-called diagnosis called oppositional defiant disorder. I say “so-called” because not only does it not exist in reality, not even in theory can it exist. Now, it describes something. So in that sense, it refers to something real. But to say that ODD, that a child has it, is to imply that the child has some kind of a disorder. But let’s just look at it for a minute. Oppositionality by definition is relational. Can you oppose somebody if you’re not in relationship with them? When I talk about this, I say to my listeners, if you don’t understand what I’m saying, lock yourself in a room by yourself, make sure you’re alone, lock the door, and oppose somebody. And if you manage to do it, please put it on YouTube because we want to see what it looks like. So oppositionality by definition implies a relationship. In which case, why are we diagnosing the child rather than looking at the relationship, number one.

Number two, I mentioned individuation, the necessity for us to become individual beings in our own right. That’s nature’s agenda. Why? Because the parents are going to die. And nature’s agenda is that by the time the parents pass, the child has become their own adult person, individuated, knowing themselves. That’s just nature’s agenda for any species.

At age one-and-a-half, the child starts saying no. What do we call that? We call that the terrible twos. Why do we call it the terrible twos? Because we don’t understand there’s nothing terrible about it. What’s actually going on is the child is developing their own will, and in order to develop their own will, as Gordon points out, they have to put up a little fence against the overwhelming and overbearing will of the parent. And that’s that no that they start saying. If you don’t know how to say no, your yeses don’t mean anything at all. So there’s nothing inherently oppositional about it, it’s just that—Gordon calls it counterwill. Counterwill is just countering the will of another so that you can develop your own.

Now, we can manage that easy enough if the attachment relationship is strong. But if we mistake it for a problem, then what we do is when a child expresses their counterwill, their nature-built drive for independence, we push on them even harder. It’s in the nature of counterwill that the more you push on it, the stronger it becomes.

So who are these kids with the so-called oppositional defiant disorders? Number one, they’re kids who have lost the primary healthy attachment with adults. Now, if you’ve lost a relationship with somebody, you’re not going to heed them. You’re not going to listen to them or allow yourself to be guided by them, because orientation follows attachment. We follow, orient by, those people that we trust and are connected to. If, because of all the multiple pressures in our society, which is not the fault of individual parents, children’s relationships to parents have been attenuated, weakened, then their oppositionality increases naturally, number one. Number two, the more we push on it, the more confirmed and out-of-hand it becomes.

So who are these ODD kids? Kids who have lost their relationship with the parents and who’ve been pushed on too much. And then we say they’ve got some kind of pathology. No, they don’t. What we have to do is to go back to basics and rebuild that relationship with them. Trust me, that oppositionality will melt like snow on a warm day. We’ve seen this over and over again. But unfortunately the tendency in our society is to pathologize children’s behavior, rather than to see its sources and its remedies in the attachment relationship.

Janet Lansbury: Yes, that makes a lot of sense.

And then the second point that you make about maintaining that attachment is giving children something to hold on to. In the beginning, that’s a body part, that’s very physical, but it soon becomes emotional as well. And just that feeling of, There’s this person that sees me, knows me so well, is always in my corner, and somebody loves me. And I can go out in the world and deal with some of the challenges, knowing that I have this person to go back to, that sees me better than anyone else.

Dr. Gabor Maté: Even in adult relationships, on separation, don’t we give one another little objects, little mementos? Those are something to hold on to. Children need that. So if the kid goes to daycare, give them a picture of yourself. Give them some cherished, not expensive obviously, but some cherished shared object that they can hold on to. So that’s what we’re talking about, is let them take a piece of you to the daycare or to the school.

Janet Lansbury: And then inviting them. The third one is inviting them to depend on us.

Dr. Gabor Maté: Yeah. Again, in this society there’s this belief that we have to push kids towards independence, but we don’t. I mean, a mother bear doesn’t have to push the cubs towards independence. At a certain point, it just happens. And the more secure the child is, the more independent they can become. If you look at these attachment experiments with little babies or little toddlers and so on, those kids that are more securely attached are the ones more likely to be able to play independently and then to come back to the mom or the parent when necessary. As Gordon says, to promote independence, invite dependence.

Janet Lansbury: Right.

Dr. Gabor Maté: That drive for independence is inherent in the child. At a certain point, the child developing in a healthy way will say, “I’m going to do it myself.” So you’re going to tie their shoelaces: “I’m going to do it myself.” That drive for mastery is inherent in a human being. It has to be. So we don’t have to promote it, we just have to provide the security so that it can unfold naturally.

Janet Lansbury: Right. And be that person that says, I mean, unless we can’t possibly do it at that moment, and then we say, “Well, I wish I could but I can’t right now.” But that welcomes them. To say, Oh, you want help with your shoes? You know how to do it, but so what? I’m going to help you with your shoes. Of course, I’m always here for you.

And yeah, I mean, the only thing I was thinking when I was reading that that I would maybe add is just that sometimes we have to honor independence when children do show it. Even as an infant, I want to look over here and notice this right now. That we consider honoring that instead of, Come look at me! I’m the only one here! So when a child does choose it—it’s never pushing a child that way, never. But it’s noticing those expressions of independence and honoring them, not stepping on them. Because one thing I really wanted to ask you—

Dr. Gabor Maté: Let me just quickly comment on that.

Janet Lansbury: Okay, yes!

Dr. Gabor Maté: Yes to what you just said. That’s called attunement. Attunement means being aware of and respectful of the internal experience of the other. At a certain point, the infant may have too much of you looking at them. They wish to look away. You let them. You don’t get anxious, Oh, come back, hey! You don’t try to inveigle them back into relationship with you at that moment, because their need at that point is that it’s become too intense for them and they need to just detach for a minute. If you’re attuned with them, and if you’re not anxious, you’ll allow that to happen. If you’re not attuned or if you’re bringing your own needs to bear, your need to connect with the child to dominate, then you’re not going to honor their experience.

So yes, you have to be attuned with the child, which means sometimes you have to let them look away and do their own thing. Usually it won’t last very long, but you need to give them the space to do that. So it begins very early. And very often parents hover too much in that sense. They should be attentive to the child and be there for the child. But hovering means that you’re bringing your own needs.

Janet Lansbury: And fears often, right?

Dr. Gabor Maté: Your own needs and your anxieties, rather than getting your cues from the child’s experience.

Janet Lansbury: I’m sure you’ve been asked this, you and Dr. Neufeld probably both, but how does your advice in this book stand with all of this research that’s come out about the over-parenting and the stifling of children, and how that’s linked to children who are depressed, anxious, have no sense of themselves, no individuation, I guess.

Dr. Gabor Maté: So for sure. It’s like I just said, it’s—

Janet Lansbury: Lack of attunement, right?

Dr. Gabor Maté: It needs to arise from the child’s needs, not from the parents’ anxieties. So a lot of that stuff has to do with the parents’ fears. We’ve got to take them to this class and that class and make sure they get into the right school. And if we don’t push them academically, they’re going to… In other words, it actually comes from the anxieties of the parent. And it also comes from the sense of the parent that they’ve lost a relationship with the child and they need to overcompensate. So as long as the relationship is healthy and well-attached, you can’t over-hover.

Let me tell you about a study that was done quite some years ago now. They looked at mothers and young children, I don’t know, about a hundred or 200 mothers. I quote the study in one of my books, not in this one. And some mothers, very few, were kind of distant and unavailable emotionally for the children as they interacted. Most mothers were good, they interacted, they played with the child. Some mothers were called supermoms. These supermoms cuddled the kid, extra loving, extra connection, and so on. Attuned, but very warm. Thirty years or more later, the kids most emotionally stable or the adults most emotionally stable, were the children of these supermoms. And what the researcher said is, you can’t love children too much. Now, loving them is not the same as hovering all the time and controlling them.

So the research doesn’t have to do with attachment, it has to do with control and intrusion. And yeah, if you control kids and intrude on them, you’re going to get negative results. But that’s got nothing to do with attachment. In fact, it’s a substitute for genuine attachment.

Janet Lansbury: Right. And do you also think it threatens the attachment relationship and could cause this peer orientation? That if a child feels like, they’re too controlling or they’re trying to mold me. I mean, I think sometimes parents feel like they’re supposed to judge their child, they’re supposed to keep on them. That that is what love is. That they’re supposed to mold, they’re supposed to be on them for everything and make it all happen. And there’s no trust in the child’s nature. And so naturally children can grow up to not trust their own nature, because their parent that they look to never trusted theirs.

Dr. Gabor Maté: Returning, I mentioned this book I’m writing, we do these workshops, my son and I, for adults and their parents. This is what we hear so often from parents. I wish I had left them alone. I wish I hadn’t tried to control them so much. They just needed me to be there for them and be there with them, not to try and direct them all the time. And the residues into adulthood are so negative. So we’re not trusting the child, we’re not trusting ourselves, we’re not trusting nature.

See, children who are connected to adults naturally want to learn from adults. We use this word discipline, but what does the word discipline actually mean? We think it means punishment. No, it doesn’t. Who had disciples? Jesus, for example, had disciples. Not because he punished or threatened them, but because he loved them and they loved him. So then naturally they wanted to learn from him.

So that’s one of the ways we attach, I mentioned the attachment physically. The next way to attach is actually by wanting to be the same as. So when children are well-attached to parents, they’ll copy what the parent does. I mean, look at all the teaching that that saves. There’s a lot of things we don’t have to teach our kids, they just learn it by watching us. Kids who are well-attached to parents will naturally want to emulate the parent, to be the same as the parent. Kids who are peer-attached want to be the same as their peers and behave like their peers and talk like their peers and look like their peers and wear the same shoes.

Janet Lansbury: And as you point out, these aren’t unconditionally loving peers. They can’t be, towards that child. And so the child is not getting the kind of attachment that they need.

Dr. Gabor Maté: No, but they’re getting the only one available to them. And the point is, these parents who think we have to guide and judge and control our kids. No, you don’t. You have to provide the warm attachment relationship. And then you set the guidelines, for which you don’t need to use force because the child who’s connected to you will naturally want to follow your guidelines. So you can back off on the coercive aspect.

There are limits. You’re not going to let a kid run across the street in order to find out for themselves how dangerous it is. You will not allow that to happen. If you live in New York, you’re not going to let your kid crawl out into the winter snow naked. I mean, parenting is a hierarchy, but it’s a benign, beneficial hierarchy.

The problem with peer orientation is it actually flattens the hierarchy. So when kids start looking to each other for guidance and validation, they start resisting the parents’ natural authority. As long as we have that natural authority, we don’t have to keep pushing our kids or cajoling them or judging them or controlling them. They will naturally, literally, fall into line. And by the way, this book has been out now for what, almost 30 years? Published in close to 40 languages. We get messages from all over the world that it changed their whole family dynamics and how they relate to their kids. And things are so much easier now and so much warmer now and so much effortless now. The stronger the attachment relationship, the less the effort you have to make.

Janet Lansbury: Because you’re prioritizing what really works. You’re putting your energy into what actually does help children with their behavior and every other thing that you’re trying to do, if you’re thinking about trying to mold them.

Dr. Gabor Maté: The problem is that by now, we’re talking 2024, by now, we’ve had several generations of parents who themselves were brought up peer-oriented. So to them this looks totally natural. They can’t even see the alternative, even though historically it’s an aberration. Evolutionarily, as I said earlier, it’s simply a blink of an eye. Not even that. And even historically, it’s just a few generations old. But it’s become so entrenched and so endemic in our culture that we take it for granted.

My most recent book is called The Myth of Normal. What I’m saying in general in that book, and I mention the peer orientation dynamic as well, is that things have become normalized in this culture that, from the human point of view, are neither healthy nor natural. And so peer orientation has become so normalized that most researchers don’t even realize it’s there. They just think it’s the way it needs to be. It’s unseen. It’s like a hidden epidemic that’s striking almost every family without people recognizing it. And we’re dealing with the effects of it, rather than dealing with the causes of it.

Janet Lansbury: So you’ve added on chapters about the digital age and then now this recent one about the effects of the pandemic with children. Could you talk a little about how parents can navigate the technology and screens and all of that with a very young child? If you have guidelines for that?

Dr. Gabor Maté: First of all, as a physician, I can tell you that the parts of the brain that are excited by the technology are the same parts of the brain excited by addictive drugs. The dopamine circuits, primarily. As a matter of fact, there’s a technology company called Dopamine Lab. The technology companies hire neuroscientists. I’m not making this up. They hire neuroscientists to target children’s brains in the most addictive fashion so they get hooked on the technology. And if you look at the research on brain scans of children who watch a lot of digital media, that interferes with the circuits of thinking and emotional connection and insight and creativity. So this is serious stuff.

Furthermore, I used to work with a highly addicted population here in Vancouver. One of my medical interests has been addiction. You take a child who’s hooked on technology and try and separate them from technology. You know what you’ve got? You’ve got an addict in withdrawal. The same rage, the same disdain, the same oppositionality, the same outrage, and the same obstreperous holding on to that object. This stuff is addictive.

If I was parenting kids today, I wouldn’t let them look at the screen for years. Certainly I would not let them look at a screen on their own for years. I would not give them a cell phone. I would not give them an iPad. If I watched television with them, I’d be choosing what they’re watching. But mostly I’d stay away from it. And I would stay away from texting and emailing in their presence.

Janet Lansbury: I was just going to ask about that, yes.

Dr. Gabor Maté: I don’t know if you’ve seen this, but believe me, I see it all the time. A parent is pushing a kid in a tram, a buggy, and their parent is on a cell phone. What message are we giving the kid when we’re absent in their presence? So it’s not that I would do without my computer or my cell phone, but I would not be letting them interrupt my relationship and interaction with the child.

And so it’s like everything else. There’s age-appropriate behaviors that are okay for one age, but not okay at another. I mean, it’s okay to have a glass of wine every once in a while, but nobody wants to give a glass of wine to a two-week-old. It’s not age-appropriate. Developmentally, it’s harmful. But there’s no rush. Even if they don’t see technology until age 10, which seems like a sacrilege in this society, they’ll learn it overnight. It’s not that they’re missing anything.

The problem is that parents are so busy and so stressed. Parents are desperate for a respite, and one way to get respite is to plunk the kid down in front of a TV set or to give them a cell phone. Now they’re going to be okay for hours, but at what cost? So while I understand the desire for the parents for a break and respite, and therefore using the technology as the babysitter, it comes at a great cost.

Janet Lansbury: I like that you pointed out that even pushing the pram when you’re not maybe facing the child or if the child’s on your back or front or whatever, that they can sense, because they sense everything about us, that you’re doing something else. Even when they can’t see our face. You know, that “still face” experiment always comes to mind when I think of us being on the phone with the baby there and suddenly we’re down a rabbit hole of something else that has nothing to do with them and how strange that is. But even not seeing our face, they sense that I’m not being collected by this person. I’m not in relationship with this person right now, in that moment.

And this is going to sound extreme to a lot of parents I think out there who have a lot of reasons for wanting the phones, but I believe as you do. And I feel thankful that my children are older and I don’t have to deal with it right now because it is very challenging. And I really do hand it to parents that are able to, not get rid of their phones, but have boundaries for themselves. Especially in those times that are togetherness times, the collecting when we’re in the transitions, when we’re greeting each other, saying goodbye to each other, the meal times.

Dr. Gabor Maté: Not to mention what that constant engagement with technology does to the parent. This last summer, I took a two-week break from digital media. I tell you, I was an addict in withdrawal. I turned the cell phone off. But even having turned it off, I picked it up several times a day, and then I thought, What am I doing? It’s not even on.

Janet Lansbury: How many days did it take you to not be checking it anymore?

Dr. Gabor Maté: The impulse never quite went away, but I never did turn it on for two weeks and I got calmer and more present to life as time went on. So what I’m saying is, quite apart from the impact on our kids, our constant cell phone obsession, what does it do to us? We become more scattered and less present, which then has an impact on the child.

Janet Lansbury: Yes. I wonder if you’d like to talk a little about this additional chapter, and then I promise to let you go.

Dr. Gabor Maté: Thank you. So look, COVID, the pandemic was interesting because it imposed an isolation on a lot of people, a lot of families. And I know there’s a lot of controversy in retrospect about those policies, and I’m not going to get into that. I’m going to talk about actually what happened. Two interesting things happened. On the one hand, the incidents of child abuse went up. More children ended up in emergency wards throughout North America with injuries sustained in home violence. Home violence went up. In some families, drinking behavior went up. On the other hand, in some families it was a godsend. And some parents said, My God, I got to be at home to see my kids’ milestones and I got to interact with them. I learned how they played and I played with them.

So what actually happened was that in families where there was multi-generational, unresolved trauma and fewer resources, emotionally speaking, the pressure of isolation took away from some parents their usual lightning rods, their usual ways of dispersing their stress and their anxieties. They couldn’t go to football games or sports events, entertainment events or to the pub. So the unresolved frustrations and stresses and traumas became expressed in the family. And for those people and for those kids, COVID was a disaster. And furthermore, for the peer-oriented kids, it was a huge loss because all of a sudden they lost their attachments with the people that they were naturally—not naturally, but unnaturally oriented towards, and they were at a loss.

Those families where the attachment dynamics were functional, and those parents who were either economically or emotionally or both resourced enough, this is an opportunity to deepen and warm up and build the attachment relationship with the kids.

So some people think that the COVID experience showed the importance of peer relationships, because look how kids suffered in their absence. Actually what it showed was how unnaturally important peer relationships became, so that in their absence, kids suffered. That’s what it actually proved. Rather than countering our thesis, it proved it. But again, because people took that for granted that it’s the way it should be, they didn’t notice that. They thought it was the loss of the peer relationships that created the problem. No, it was the already-absent relationship with the adults that created the problem. In the absence of the peer relationships, the kids just got more unbalanced, which just shows that the peer relationships had been overemphasized in the first place. So that’s how we understand it. And for us, it just meant we have just doubled down on that relationship.

Janet Lansbury: Wow, fascinating. Really eye-opening, and it makes a lot of sense. It really does.

I just want to say for everybody out there that this book, it will help you at every stage. It will help you to form secure attachments. And it will also help you notice when things might be not going the way that we hope and there’s some weaknesses in our attachment. And it also helps at any age to know how to get it back. As you said earlier, there’s nothing our child at any age wants more—or that we want more—but there’s nothing they want more than to reconnect. They just don’t know how. And we have to be the ones to lead that way back. But it will work, because it’s what children want more than anything. Whether it’s the two-year-old that we yelled at that just wants to feel safe with us again, or the adult child that feels estranged and doesn’t want to go through the rest of their life feeling that loss.

Dr. Gabor Maté: The two major responses we get to the book, some people say, Thanks, this saved our family because now I understand things. But the second interesting response we get is, Thank you, this book validated my instincts. So much of the parenting advice people get actually separates them from their instincts. So that when parents say to us, Thank you, your book validated my instincts. And now I can tell my friends who are telling me to use separation and timeout, “You know what? Here are these experts telling me that my instincts are right.” Now, you shouldn’t need experts to tell you that your instincts are right. As a matter of fact, I’d say in any contest between experts and instincts, listen to your instincts and forget the experts.

Janet Lansbury: Because your instincts know how to attach, that’s a primal thing that we all have. Your instincts know how to attach to your child. Your reasonable advice doesn’t necessarily.

Dr. Gabor Maté: That’s right. But again, instincts have to be evoked by the environment. So anyway, the two responses we get are Thank you, now we see it differently. But the other response we get is Thank you, this validated my instincts.

Janet Lansbury: Yeah, I mean this book is so informative and it’s alarming, though. And I could see where you might also get people saying, Oh, come on, that’s hogwash. It’s good to be with peers and it’s the best thing that could happen. But as you two point out, it’s when you come to that peer relationship from a place of you’re still holding on to your parent as a primary attachment, that that’s when it is healthy and works well.

Dr. Gabor Maté: We’re not saying kids shouldn’t play with each other. Children always have, since creation. But what was the context? The context of kids playing with each other was under the watchful eyes of caring adults. I remember growing up in Budapest, Hungary, in the 1950s. We played out in the street with other kids, but there were always parents on the balconies looking at us. And every neighborhood home was a home to all the kids so that we would go to each others’ homes and other mothers would give us lunch or look after us and so on. So that there was a community, a community of caring adults. So it’s not that children shouldn’t play with each other, it’s that that should not be the primary relationship, number one.

And number two, it needs to be in the context of adults being present. So if you’re going to have playdates on the weekend, for God’s sake, be there in the same room with the kids. Don’t have the adults chatting away here and the kids on their own. And adults should always be present with them. So maintain that primary relationship with the adults. Yes, kids should play with each other. No, that should not be the primary relationship.

Janet Lansbury: Because it’s about influence, right? Who’s influencing your child the most? We want that to be us.

Dr. Gabor Maté: That’s right.

Janet Lansbury: It’s such a hopeful book. And that last chapter was just such a beautiful ending, really hopeful and will leave parents feeling not afraid, but that this is normal. I mean, it isn’t normal like you said, but it is the new unfortunate normal and that there’s a lot that they can do to counteract some of the draws and influences. That that really is in our power and that children want it to be and need it to be.

Dr. Gabor Maté: That’s right.

Janet Lansbury: Thank you so much for sharing with us and for this book. Your work is really profound in so many ways.

Dr. Gabor Maté: Thanks for having me.

Janet Lansbury: It’s an honor. Thank you so much. Take care, and we’ll hopefully engage again at some point in the future.

Dr. Gabor Maté: Take care.

***

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

The post Dr. Gabor Maté on Why Parents Matter More Than Ever 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.

Transcript of “Tantrums, Meltdowns, and Other Intense Outbursts: My #1 Secret for Staying Calm”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.

This podcast is called Unruffled, and you’ve heard me share many different perspectives on how to be an unruffled parent, how to stay calm in all different situations. But I haven’t really zeroed in and talked just about my own personal favorite mindset. The secret I’ve used for myself to be able to manage the incredibly uncomfortable, challenging task of facing my children’s intense emotions.

Before I ended up sharing this little secret, back in 2010 I think it was, on my website, and it’s also in my No Bad Kids book, I was worried it was too silly. It felt embarrassing, and that maybe I’d be laughed at. But I was wrong. I think! I mean, maybe people are still laughing behind my back about this, there’s a good chance of that. But I’ve also heard how this advice has encouraged people. I guess there’s a lesson in that, that if something helps you, no matter how personal and silly it might seem, it might yet help someone else.

And that’s also why I love sharing your success stories, and I have one of those to share today. Sure, it’s validating for my efforts when my perspective helps somebody, but I don’t share success stories to toot my horn. I share them to encourage you that if a certain way of addressing or seeing behavior, a certain way of responding to it, helped that family, helped that parent, maybe I could brave that too and it would help me. It gives us more permission, it gives us more inspiration. Oh, people are really doing some of these things that seem scary and hard and it’s working for them.

I’m a fan of Dr. Susan David’s work in her book Emotional Agility. And this is one of my favorite quotes from her: “Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is fear walking. Walk directly into your fears, with your values as your guide, toward what matters to you.” And that relates to the little secret I’m going to share about.

Alright, so cough it up already! My silly secret is imagery. And again, if you’ve read or listened to my book, you’ve heard me speak of this. It’s my superhero suit. I imagine myself putting on a superhero suit, with a cape, the whole business. And it has a shield that covers my chest and it allows for all the intensity, the frustration, the anger, rage, or dysregulation that my child has to kind of bounce off of me. It deflects it, so all of that emotion doesn’t get into my heart. I’m safe. I can be in hero mode.

Slipping into this suit also reminds me, and this is from my book, that this is a V.I.P.M., a Very Important Parenting Moment. Releasing these feelings is so good for my child. This explosion will clear the air and lift my child’s spirits. Staying present and calm, sticking with whatever limits I’ve set and being a safe channel for these emotions is the very best thing I could ever do.

Here are some of the superhuman parenting powers my suit provides. You could see these kind of as affirmations. They have been for me.

• I understand that difficult behavior is a request for help — the best my child can do in that particular moment.

• I remember to acknowledge my child’s feelings and point of view. The importance of this can’t be overemphasized.

• I have the confidence to set and hold limits early, before I get annoyed or resentful. And I do so calmly, directly, honestly, non-punitively.

• I know that my words are often not enough. I’ll likely need to follow through by intervening to help my child stop the behavior.

• I’m not afraid of what others think when I need to pick up and carry my crying, screaming child out of a problematic situation, because my child comes first.

• I have the courage to allow feelings to run their course without trying to calm or rush or fix, shush, or talk my child out of them. I might say, “You have some very strong feelings about that,” rather than yelling, “Enough!”

• I move on without resentment once my child’s storm has passed. Rather than feeling angry, guilty, or dejected for the rest of the day, I hold my head high and congratulate myself for being an awesome, heroic parent.

And just to touch on that point about “I’m not afraid of what others think when I need to pick up and carry my crying, screaming child out of a problematic situation”—it did take a couple of times of this happening before I could really proceed with confidence. With those blinders on that are so helpful to us sometimes as parents when we’ve got a lot of input from disagreeing sources or the public or we’re embarrassed, all of that getting in our way. These blinders can help. And we can get those when we practice this, it takes practice. But after a few times or even the first time to a great extent, I did feel that. I started to feel like instead of, Oh gosh, I’m so ashamed I have to do this and my child and what’s the matter with them? Because I knew it wasn’t that my child was being a bad person there. I knew, and I would soon realize, what had caused this. Often it was tiredness, hunger, but mostly tiredness actually, in most of my cases. And kids just can’t show us that so easily, when they’re very young especially.

I began to feel like, I’m actually a model right here. I’m a model for all these people watching, whoever they are, of being a brave parent. Of, as Susan David says, fear walking. I’m walking through it. And it was like I would open up this channel for myself to be in it and to own my benevolent power at that point. And people may have snickered or thought terrible things about me and my children, I don’t know. But I know that it felt right, and that’s all I needed and that’s all my child needed, was to feel the positiveness of this. I mean, I wasn’t smiling and laughing and enjoying it, but I was okay and I was centered and I was doing the right thing. And that always proved true.

So when parents talk to me about what everyone else is thinking on the playground or wherever they are, the relatives, I encourage them to believe in themselves as the hero in those moments. Because they really are. And the more we believe it, the more others will tend to see that kind of glow around us, Wow. That’s not being permissive, it’s not letting our child unravel and continue the behavior with people or hurt someone else or make a scene. Instead, we’re rescuing them from that.

One of the toughest aspects of the job of superhero is that our kids are usually showing us that they don’t want us to be doing what we’re doing. And it’s easy to take this as that they’re mad at us and they’re even madder that we’re intervening. It’s like we’re trying to save someone who really doesn’t want to be saved and that makes it so much harder, right? To have conviction. Many months ago I did an episode around that. I called it When Our Kids Reject Us (A Step-by-Step Response). And I offered the steps and how they applied to the issues that parents shared with me in three different letters. So here are those steps again, but I’m just going to be paraphrasing them.

1. Be prepared, do the homework. Working on our perspective, that’s the homework. How are we perceiving our child’s behavior? Because that’s going to direct our actions and decide our feelings. If we see a hurting child, it brings up totally different feelings in us than when we see what really is a mask on the outside, that seems really mean and ugly and hurtful. And then another part of being prepared and doing the homework is that if this is repeated behavior, we know that something’s up. We know maybe not exactly what’s happening, but that our child is expressing something that needs to be expressed, that they need to express. And they’re not quite getting what they need around that, not quite getting the response that they’re looking for, unconsciously. So that’s all part of the first point, being prepared, doing the homework.
2. In the moment, block the physical behavior as best and as confidently as you can. And confidently means we’re not overdoing it, we’re just blocking as needed. We’re kind of trying to make it look easy if we can. And that comes from being ready for it, because we’ve done the homework. And blocking early. I mean sometimes it’s going to happen anyway, but we’re not waiting until after something happens and then it happens again. We’re ready that next time or ideally, we’re ready before the first time, because we see it coming.
3. If there’s a chance to have eye contact during these explosions, try to be open, soft-eyed, as empathetic as possible. Breathe. Maybe nodding your head ever so slightly. I know this is hard, but it comes from seeing the hurt behind the mean behavior and connecting with that.
4. If there’s a break in their shouting or their screaming, just reflect back what your child is saying. We’re just staying in the moment, acknowledging it right there as it comes. “It feels to you like I’m the meanest person ever.” “You didn’t want me to be the one to pick you up, you wanted daddy.” Or, “You hate me so much right now,” if that’s what they’re saying. “Those are angry words.”
5. Show more than tell. Not talking a lot about, “I can’t let you do this behavior,” especially if it’s repeated behavior. That part goes without saying. We just want to show, without tell, that we’re going to stop them, we’re going to block them, that we can’t let them do the behavior. And for the most part, children already know that this is unwanted, wrong behavior.
6. Let it go. After it’s done, don’t rehash, unless it’s to make some kind of helpful, non-judgmental plan together about how we could do this differently. And the non-judgmental part of that is key. So it’s not, “Well, what are you going to do next time?” It’s really, “This keeps happening. Is there anything I can do? What can we do to make this easier?” That kind of openness makes our child feel safe. And sometimes even just that interaction, that we’re open, we’re not judging them, and we want to help. Sometimes that’s enough that we don’t actually have to have a plan, but just the fact that we’re open to that can be enough for them to feel better and not do that behavior, whatever it is.

Here’s one of the particular notes that I responded to, which I’ve edited. This is the parent that just this week gave me an update. She says:

Dear Janet,

I feel my daughter is a well-adjusted, wonderfully expressive kid who’s securely attached to her parents. However, five weeks ago, my mother, whom my daughter adores, was in the hospital with emergency surgery. Although my mom had cancer, this surgery came out of left field and for three weeks I was at the hospital every day. I still made sure to spend at least three hours with my daughter daily in a present, attuned way. Still, she knew something was wrong with grandma. She kept saying, “Mommy, hospital, care, grandma.” And I told her where I was going. Plus, she felt her schedule change when I wasn’t there as much.

Then my husband took her away to see her other grandparents for three nights. She’s never been away before and her sleep completely unraveled. She could only fall asleep by falling asleep right on daddy. She’d also never been away from mommy that long.

Then the very next day they returned, my mother died. That was two weeks ago. This came out of left field for my daughter. I never even got to the part where I planned to slowly tell her grandma was really ill. So it’s a shock for all.

Since then, our daughter’s refused to let me put her down to sleep at night. She frequently pushes me away, says, “Go away, Mommy.” This has blossomed into not even letting me pick her up when she’s finished napping or sleeping, demanding daddy all the time and shrieking and tantruming whenever daddy isn’t there. Whereas we used to cuddle every afternoon after her nap, now she sobs hysterically and asks me to leave her alone. I do. I do my very, very best to be nonchalant, but in a loving way, letting her know I’m here for her. Eventually she gets up and wants to play, but seems only to feel truly okay when daddy returns.

She’s never had tantrums before, she’s never preferred daddy before or pushed me away or said, “Go away!” I’ve put her down almost every night of her life. It seems that in some way she blames me for losing her grandma or associates me with the bad feeling she has about it.

She talks about grandma a lot, is very upset about this weird death thing. I’ve been straightforward about explaining that grandma died and her body stopped working and I’m so sorry and we will miss her and be sad and mad, but also still feel her love in our hearts and all of that. We talk about it every day, but only when she brings it up. I follow her lead. I allow her to see me cry or be sad about grandma, but I do shield her from seeing me sob hysterically, things I think would be burdensome to a child. I have tried to really role model a healthy approach to grieving.

And although it’s very painful to be constantly pushed away from my daughter at the exact moment I lost my mother, I do my absolute best to be nonchalant in the sweet way you always role model. Like, Sure, go with daddy. I admit she has probably picked up on my hurt here or there, but I really try not to burden her with that or manipulate her in any way. I understand she’s going through something and I don’t blame her for any of this, obviously. But I really don’t know what to do to make it better for her or to be included in her sphere of affection and safety again.

I responded: First of all, I want to say I’m so sorry for this parent’s loss. As children are, her daughter seems she’s especially tuned in to how her mother is feeling. That can be almost stronger for a child than the feelings they have about the relationship because though they feel the loss, they don’t really yet understand the implications. They don’t have that frame of reference. And so the more that we can be plain and simple and truthful, the easier it is for kids to process it. This parent is showing wonderful empathy and instinct for how she’s caring for her daughter.

A couple of things stood out to me. First is that this parent concludes: “It seems in some way she blames me for losing her grandma or associates me with the bad feeling she has about it.” That part doesn’t ring true to me. To me it feels like this is more about that she senses there’s a lot going on inside her mother, but her mother isn’t quite expressing that to her in the moment. And children, they pick up on this, this whole devastation that’s going on inside this mother. And that can be what’s making them uncomfortable around that person. It’s that the mother’s sitting on a lot of feelings that she’s not sharing and that’s disconcerting.

When she is with her mother, she’s doing this really, really healthy thing that children do so beautifully, which is that they reflect back to us our insides. They’ll put the feelings they’re picking up from us on the outside. So when she’s saying, no, no, no! and has these tantrums and refuses to be with her mother, I would stand tall and face that if you can. I mean, this mother’s going through her own thing. And number one, she obviously needs to take care of herself. She’s being so gracious about her daughter and trying to protect her from these feelings. But maybe the simmering inside of such strong feelings in the mother is uncomfortable for the child.

The way to help her through that is to actually stand by her when she’s pushing you away. And doing those steps that I mentioned. Blocking the physical behavior. If there’s eye contact, being open, soft-eyed, empathetic. If there’s a break in the shouting or the tantrum, just reflect back what she’s saying, just what you know for sure. “You want me to go, you just want daddy, you’re not comfortable with me.” Letting it be okay for her to share that and not shying away from it. I was flattered that this parent said that I role model nonchalant. The way I see it, though, is not so much nonchalant, like I’m pretending I don’t care when I actually do, but as something that I can believe, which is that I’m unthreatened. And then we could say, Ouch, you don’t want to be with me. But you know what? I can hear that. You can tell me that. I’m still going to be there for you.

And then I said, now if it gets too much for this parent, yes of course, let daddy do it. But remember: every time we do that, we’re accommodating. We’re agreeing with our child that, Yeah, you need to be with daddy now and not me. And she’s still going to be expressing these feelings to you in this seemingly mean, awful, rejecting way. That’s going to happen for a little while until she processes it through.

I love how this parent said she’s trying to show her daughter a healthy grieving process, but wow, she’s putting a lot of responsibility on herself. Because a truly healthy grieving process is exactly your unique human grieving process. In other words, there isn’t a perfectly healthy grieving process, so we don’t need to try to make it smooth or right or hit all the right notes. Because each person has a different grieving process with each type of grief that they’re experiencing. And so the healthiest grieving process is just to allow that, to express it, to share it. And I said, hopefully this parent is sharing it with people besides her daughter.

But even with her daughter, the key here is just to say in the moment when it comes up, “I miss my mom so much right now, this makes me want my mommy.” Opening that up a little bit more, because I don’t believe this parent will let herself lose control and get hysterical and scare her daughter that way. And it’s safe for her to open up some space to show her pain so it’s not this mysterious, uncomfortable thing for her daughter. So we’re letting her in, in the moment, just when the feelings come up. “Ugh, I just got a pang of how much I miss my mom” while I’m doing this random thing. That’s how our grief often comes. Some random thing happens that triggers us. So it’s safe to share that. In fact, it’ll bring you much closer to each other, as being honest about feelings does. Always.

Just this week, this parent got back to me, many months later:

Hi, Janet-

I’ve wanted to write you back since you responded to my letter in your show so long ago. I think I kept waiting for a time I could report feeling like a healthy, happy human again. In fact, eight months after losing my mom, the grief is still very intense and I still feel I’m on an alien planet. Losing my mom was more life-changing to me than becoming one. Thankfully, it does not stop me from enjoying my daughter, it only adds a sadness that my mom is missing this incredible kid. Or maybe she isn’t, who knows?

All that said, I never got a chance to tell you that your advice to me, while terrifying, completely worked. You told me to stay the course when my daughter screamed in my arms demanding her father and to show her that I was not going anywhere. I was genuinely scared to try this out, but I did so, the very night I heard your podcast.

The first night she cried for 15 minutes straight, constantly tried to wiggle out of my arms. It was absolutely awful. And then she stopped and we went back to our old ritual. When she fell asleep, I felt like Marlon Brando at the end of On The Waterfront, completely brutalized but triumphant. The next night she cried for about five minutes and then just stopped and we were fine. The third night she started to cry for one second, seemed to remember all was good now, and gave me no pushback whatsoever, ever again. It was actually amazing to see something work so incredibly well so fast. So thank you so, so much, forever.

Lately, my daughter, who is now two years and seven months, is definitely sliding into frequent meltdown mode, being defiant at every turn, and saying no to everything, usually quite cheerfully. “No, I think I will not put on a new diapie!” and instantly going apoplectic when she doesn’t get her way. I feel like I’ve spent almost three years preparing for this moment by listening to your podcast. I set the boundary while remaining totally sympathetic to her feelings. There are some things I can’t physically force, such as making her blow her nose, so I let those go. And sometimes I do just let things go because I’m tired, like I’ll let her run around naked for too long and then she pees on the floor. But on the whole, I feel like your counsel has given me such a concrete goal to constantly practice.

In your message to me in the podcast, you made the distinction between being nonchalant versus unthreatened. This difference is really powerful. Deep down, I admit I am kind of threatened by the intensity of toddler emotion. My first thought is always, Well gosh, if it means this much to you, I relent. Or I fear I don’t truly have the authority. But it is downright palpable the way my daughter ultimately relaxes against a boundary. As an anxious type, it really helps to remind myself that this is a way of protecting her from the anxiety of always getting her way.

Thank you for everything.

And I wrote back to this mom:

I’m thrilled to hear that you are walking through the terror (It’s real, I know!) of facing your daughter’s intense emotions. Laud yourself for showing such courage. I hope you’ll savor these moments when you succeed and savor the experiences of your daughter, as you say, “ultimately relaxing against a boundary.” Replay those moments to bolster yourself whenever you need to be in hero mode for her and know, without question, you can do this.

I’m sorry to hear you’re still suffering in regard to your mom. I believe that somewhere, somehow she’s proudly witnessing the developments in her incredible granddaughter and in you.

And here’s what I wrote at the end of my chapter on being a superhero:

Occasionally (though it’s pretty rare) my superhero perspective even allows me to recognize the romance in these moments. I’m able to time travel at hyper-speed into the future, look back and realize that this was prime time together. It didn’t look pretty, but we were close. I’ll remember how hard it was to love my child when she was at her very worst and feel super proud that I did it anyway.

Thanks so much for listening. We can do this.

And by the way, you may have noticed that my audiobooks are not available at the moment and the paperbacks of both books, No Bad Kids and Elevating Child Care, are going to be re-released at the end of April. I believe you can get them in Kindle still and you can buy some used copies that Amazon is selling. But the reason for this is a positive one. For years, those have been self-published books and Random House is now taking over the publishing of them. And they’re also publishing my upcoming book, which you’re going to hear a lot more about as it gets closer! So, this is obviously thrilling for me and I’m sorry for the inconvenience of not being able to get the paperbacks right now, but the audiobooks should be back on any day now. I just wanted to give you that update, and thank you again for all your kind support.

The post Tantrums, Meltdowns, and Other Intense Outbursts: My #1 Secret for Staying Calm appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

(Learn more about Janet’s “No Bad Kids Master Course” at: NoBadKidsCourse.com)

Transcript of “Our Strong-Willed Child Is Running the Show”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.

A parent reached out to me via email with concern about her child, who’s seven years old. And apparently it feels like he’s running the show, according to this parent. She describes him as strong-willed and she says that she and her husband are utterly frustrated and exhausted. Children with this type of temperament—and there’s a range, it’s not like you’re either strong-willed or you’re not—I have to say, I have a special fondness for these types of children. I have one, I’ve worked with many. So what do we do when our child seems to be taking over? Their behavior’s rude, disrespectful, out of control, and nothing we’re trying, no kind of response that we’re giving, seems to be making a difference. That’s what I’m going to be going over in this podcast.

Here’s the note from this parent:

Hello, Janet-

Thank you for your rich resources. I do cherish them and listen often, although we continue to struggle daily with our seven-year-old son.

He is extremely strong-willed. He has been difficult most waking hours on a daily basis since age three-and-a-half. He doesn’t listen, rebuttals everything we say or ask of him, talks back. Is extremely rude and disrespectful. He knows it all. He rarely takes care of himself—showering, eating, dressing, brushing teeth—and we have to give him constant, repeated reminders to do these things. He acts helpless. He rarely self-plays. He has no personal space awareness. He’s always around us and it’s difficult to get things done or have alone time when he’s awake. He’s constantly pushing our buttons and we have to repeat ourselves on boundaries. For example, making loud, weird noises when his sister is sleeping.

We value respectful parenting, but find ourselves going from one extreme to another on the parenting spectrum because we are so frustrated. Nothing works, nothing gets to him, nothing changes his behavior. Our house is total chaos every day. He is running the show.

On top of that, he’s starting to affect our two-and-a-half-year-old daughter’s behavior. She’s not listening and manipulates us. My son is always engaging her in play, controlling what she can and can’t do, telling her to say and do things that he knows we shouldn’t.

I should also mention he’s good for others. There are rare complaints from school.

We are utterly frustrated and exhausted. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you.

So, where to begin here? I want to say something that I really, really hope doesn’t get taken the wrong way because these are obviously very caring parents and they’re trying their hardest to be respectful. When our child is running the show, when they seem to have more power than anyone else in the house, that is something that can only happen if we allow it to. And please don’t take this as a criticism of anybody, because I’ve been there. It happens and it happens to the best of us. But I think it’s important to recognize that this is in our control. We can stop allowing this to be the case in our home. We can change this.

And there’s good reasons to do that. Not only, as this parent says, is she utterly frustrated, exhausted, she sees it happening with their younger child now. But for our child, this boy does not want to be lord of the house. It’s not a comfortable way for any child to be, no child wants this. But unfortunately he can’t be the one to shift this dynamic that’s gone on, it sounds like since he was at least three-and-a-half years old. He can’t do it. We have to do it.

I hope that doesn’t feel like criticism and instead feels like good news: that we do have the power to change this and get out from under this spell that our child has seemed to put our whole house under. And it’s actually simpler, although I know not easy, but it’s simpler to do than we might imagine. So I’m going to be talking all about that.

Let’s start with going over some of the reasons that we fall into this dynamic. It’s like we’re in this stuck place with our child. We’re stuck and our child’s stuck, and it keeps going back and forth like a feedback loop. It’s not working. Like I said, we can change this. We absolutely can.

One reason that it happens, and that may be part of this parent’s challenge, is that we do not have enough models around us of what a respectful approach to discipline or, I don’t know what people call it, conscious parenting, gentle parenting, I’m not sure how people define those things. But oftentimes what happens is that we were not raised that way. We were raised with more of an old-school, authoritarian, harsh, punitive upbringing. And we’re drawn to respectful parenting because we don’t like the result of that upbringing. We don’t like the way it made us feel about ourselves, the relationship that it’s made between us and our parents, maybe the relationship that we still have with them.

So we’re drawn to this different way. And with this different way, we’re learning that we want to try to understand behavior and not just scare children or punish children into behaving a certain way. We want to understand why they’re behaving that way and resolve that behavior through our response, resolving the cause of the behavior.

But it’s a process, it’s a big learning process for us. So maybe we’re kind of in the middle, like a lot of people are, like most people are, I would say, that are interested in this. And maybe it’s always a process, we’re never at the end. But we’re not quite able to picture yet, and therefore embrace inside ourselves, how a more respectful approach to boundaries looks and feels. It sounds good, but we’re not quite there yet.

And again, that’s so understandable because there are just not enough viable models of this for us to learn from. There’s a lot of people these days sharing tips and scripts and perspectives, but that’s not the same as seeing it in action. That’s not enough to be able to make this enormous shift, cycle-breaking a lot of the times. It’s a huge deal that we’re trying to accomplish here, and we’re not going to be able to snap our fingers and do it. And especially because we can’t see it in action, we kind of have to find our way there without that. Shifting from what we’ve known all our childhood, all our life, about the way that parents respond to your behavior. And the things that you would never, ever do because you wouldn’t dream of doing them because your parent would punish you or yell at you or reject you in some way. How does it look in all these situations to own our positive power as leaders for our children? How does that look in all these specifics that happen every day when our child is saying no or being bossy or telling everybody what to do, being rude, disrespectful? We would’ve never gotten away with that. We would never have dreamed of doing it.

So that’s a lot that we’re up against, right? And I wish I could show you right now—and maybe there will be a way in the future that I can do that, besides through my podcast and my writing and recently my online course. Maybe there will be a way that I can demonstrate this, but in lieu of that, I’ll just keep sharing and offering verbal examples to try to help you picture this for yourself.

So this son of theirs, he’s very strong, which is so very positive. And what he’s showing through his behavior in this family is that he really needs to know 100% that he’s not able to run the show. That his parents are even more powerful than him. That they can be the leaders that he needs, so that he can be the child in the relationship, so that he can be freer.

How do we do that? These are the things that are getting in their way. One thing they’re doing is they’re getting caught up with the surface, which is the behaviors that are in their face. Why is he doing this? This is disrespectful. We’ve got to make that stop. Instead of that broader perspective, that deeper perspective, seeing beyond to why he’s acting like this. We can get so easily caught up in this, especially if we had an authoritarian upbringing. How dare my child act like this? I’ve got to make that stop. I’ve got to make sure they do this and I’ve got to make sure they eat and make sure they bathe and not let him talk to me that way. And push back on all these behaviors.

So I’m trying to fix it on a surface, behavioral level instead of seeing this bigger picture that he’s calling for help underneath all this. Not even consciously, he doesn’t know he’s doing it. But he’s checking out again and again and again, and it’s been years now, so he’s kind of stuck there, as they are. Now, as this child, I’m kind of assuming this role in the family of this child who behaves like this. How did this happen? I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be doing this. I just want them to look at me and see the small person and say, “I’m not going to let you talk to me like that.” Instead of reacting to it and trying to push back on it. Or just letting it go, because we don’t want to push back at it, we don’t want to yell at him, but now we feel like we’re not sticking up for ourselves and it feels terrible. There is a way that’s not either of those things that I’m going to talk about.

So what I would like to help this parent and other parents see is what’s really going on. It’s not that he thinks it’s okay to do these things. And the most wonderful part of this note is that she says at the end, “I should mention he’s good for others. There are rare complaints from school.” Wow. So what can we take from that? He knows how to behave. He understands other people’s boundaries. He’s learned all the lessons that they want him to learn because he’s doing them with other adults and peers. He knows how to do it. So these parents are getting their messages across to him. However, in his relationship with them, they’re all still floundering because his parents aren’t quite giving him what he needs with them.

Now sometimes with children, they will be doing these kinds of behaviors away from the home too. That’s a sign that they are feeling overwhelmed with the amount of power that they have with other people. And sometimes you’ll see children like this and maybe they have a teacher that punishes, uses timeout, or friends that reject them. And while those things are hurtful and make them feel very alone, you can also get the sense sometimes that they’re almost grateful for the rest that they get there. Being in timeout, it doesn’t feel good, but it’s a rest from having to be this power player all the time. A little break from it. And sometimes you’ll see children that seem to even want that kind of punishment in a way because it feels like a little escape from that uncomfortable feeling of overpowering everybody.

But this boy does not have that issue at all, so that should give these parents even more confidence. We can help with this. We can change this by owning our power, by assuming our role in the family. Which is to not get wound up by what a seven-year-old or a six-year-old or a three-and-a-half-year-old is doing. Really seeing them as small children. Yes, they’re very capable, they’re very strong, they could be very articulate and bossy and powerful-seeming. But they’re little tiny people with just a few years or less than a dozen years on this planet. Whereas we have decades, right? Why would we let them push our buttons? So, getting caught up with the surface and just those behaviors that are in our face, that drains us, that drains our power. Our buttons get pushed because our upbringing is getting touched off, those experiences that we had with our parents.

Another thing that can get in our way is that we might be afraid our child isn’t going to be a nice child, that they’re messing up, that they’re a rude person, that they’re all these things. In this case, the child is showing that they’re not when they’re out in the world. But even if they were, that’s a stuck place that a child is in. It’s not who they are, it’s not a sign that they’re that kind of person. And we have the absolute power to shift this.

Another way they’re draining themselves in the moment is repeating themselves. Repeating ourselves, let’s consider why we’re doing that. Do we think that saying it another time, when our child clearly isn’t going to jump to what we said the first time, do we think that just saying it and saying it, that’s going to help? It very seldom does. And sometimes even the way we say it the first time, if we kind of look at it, it can be from a place of powerlessness. A way to own our power, positive power, when he doesn’t listen, he rebuts everything they say or ask of him. So if he’s not listening, saying it again is not going to help him listen, not going to help him do it. And a lot of times the first time we say it, we’re kind of saying it with that tone in our voice that’s either challenging, like, You’ve got to do this, come on, or already feeling like we’re mad at him and this isn’t going to work. When we own our power, we can be polite. We’re rising above, feeling that feeling of rising tall into our power and, “Oh, it’s time to do this. Would you please help?” Very open like that, not in a kind of already defensive or challenging manner.

Because a child that has a strong will like this—it’s a wonderful thing, they tend to be charismatic and colorful people and power players in the world—but they especially, and really all children, it’s not going to work with them when we’re challenging them. That’s going to create a chasm between us. What does help is for us to reach across, be our politest, most loving selves, and help them to save face so that they’re not in this adversarial position with us. We can put them into that place by the way that we ask them things. And again, it’s hard not to, if our child never does this and is getting on our nerves already and now we’re asking them to do something, it’s probably going to come off in a manner that’s not going to help us. And then what do we do? We get drained, we say it again, and then we feel smaller and smaller and smaller and less powerful.

So I would consider—and I’ve done a whole podcast about this—I’m not going to repeat myself, I’m going to say, “You know what? I’m going to give you a helping hand, here we go,” or, “Let me help turn the water on for you, darling.” Not sarcastically, it’s got to be genuine, but we’re not going to allow that gap between us. We’re going to reach our arms out through it and carry our child through as best that we can. And then if they’re still digging their heels in, we can let go of a lot of those things. “You don’t want to take a bath right now? Okay, let’s skip it.” Letting go of those not-crucial things for the win, so that in the bigger picture we’re not putting ourselves in that position of feeling powerless and our child is not getting stuck in that position of feeling nagged and pushed, which just makes them want to hold their ground even more.

Another way these parents are making it harder on themselves is inconsistency. So I hear this from parents a lot when they’re reaching out to me, they’ll say, We’re trying all these different things. This parent says, “We value respectful parenting, but find ourselves going from one extreme to another on the parenting spectrum because we’re so frustrated.” That’s understandable, but we’re creating more eventual frustration for ourselves by not being consistent. Because what happens on our child’s end, our perceptive child gets this message, and it can happen very young too, our child gets stuck wondering, and then they behave out of that wondering. What are they going to do this time? Even though they know, of course, that will make us angry and it’s not what they know they should do. But it becomes almost intriguing. What are they going to do this time? I feel that they’re almost exploding, so I’ve got to keep pushing that button to see if that’s going to come through. Leaving our child wondering like that is not going to be as helpful. It’s going to cause them to get stuck in those kinds of behaviors, those resistant behaviors. I know it can be difficult if maybe one of the parents is trying to go for a more respectful approach, but the other parent isn’t there yet, and that’s okay. The parents don’t have to be the same, but if each one of them could be consistent in the way they respond, that would help our child from this need to, I think of it as testing.

But it’s interesting, recently I’ve been hearing a lot of negative comments, not directed at me so much yet, I’m sure they will. But comments about that word testing, people don’t like the word toddlers testing. And that’s understandable to me, I appreciate this. This is very much constructive criticism that has got me thinking that the connotation of testing, it’s this adversarial thing. They’re trying to get me to perform in a certain way, that that’s how we think of testing. And that doesn’t help us to see our child in a positive, loving light and to see the help that they’re asking for here. When I use testing, I’m using it to mean they’re checking it out, like the way children will test toys and objects. What happens if I do this with it? What happens when I put these two together? So that’s what I mean by testing, I mean they’re checking it out. They’re very drawn to learning, children are expert learners in the early years especially. And most of all, they want to learn about us and their relationships with us and where their power is in our relationship, how much they have and how much we have. And they hope in their heart of hearts that we have a lot more than them because they can’t be free, young children without that and get to have a full childhood where they don’t have to worry about us, we’ve got it covered.

So, inconsistency, it’s totally understandable when we’re trying to find our way in this. And maybe we’re not in that role enough that we’re just feeling like, Now we’re just letting him be awful to us. It’s very hard not to get our buttons pushed and blow up.

So now I want to talk a little about all of these things that this parent brought up that her child is doing and how to respond to them from a positive power/leadership role. She says he doesn’t listen. I try to demonstrate a little about how to be when a child isn’t listening. It can be taking their hand, helping them physically. Also just approaching them with politeness and positive energy so we’re not already foreshadowing that it’s all going to go wrong. And really, how can a child push back when we’re being so polite? They’ll find a way, but when we’re welcoming their feelings, when we’re seeing their point of view, “Oh, it’s so hard to stop playing, I know, and take a bath now.” And we can state positive consequences of what’s going to happen next, like “Let’s help you get your bath, and if you want I can wash your hair. I love doing that. And then when you’re done with your bath, it’ll be time for dinner.” Using that positive, polite attitude rather than dreading and I’m already annoyed, or You better not I’m-challenging-you attitude. That’s when we own our power. We’ve got nothing to lose, right? If he doesn’t do it, it’s not the end of the world. If it’s something that we can physically stop, we stop it. We’re not afraid that he doesn’t know how to behave properly, and then every time that he does this, that’s feeding our fear. We understand this as a dynamic that he’s gotten caught up in with us.

So, “rebuts everything we say or ask of him.” Right there, one way to diffuse that or just own your positive power there is to say, “Hmm, okay, that’s an interesting point of view. You know what? We’re still going to do this.” But not to get into, “Yes it is. No it’s not. No it’s not, young man.” You know, have a light attitude about that. But again, that can trigger into our we could never do this with our parents, we would’ve gotten yelled at feelings. So that’s something that will help if you really explore it, if you haven’t already. Come into communion with the experiences that you had and how that made you feel and how hard it is every time your child does this, that it just feels wrong, right? Because it was considered so wrong for us to act like this. That’s going to get in our way, so explore that, make peace with it. Ideally put it aside, so that it doesn’t get in the way of the power that you own in this relationship and that your child desperately wants you to own.

Let him rebut everything, let him talk back. Just don’t get into a snapping back thing with him and talking back and talking back at him. Rise above it. “Oh, you don’t want to do that. Okay, hmm, that’s interesting.” Allow him to argue and don’t take the bait, don’t buy into it. Because he’s testing or checking out, Can I throw them off-balance? And if we decide we’re not going off-balance for this guy, if we practice that, then we won’t. And then he’ll stop because he’s getting what he unconsciously is asking for and needs: parents that can rise above and see him for what he is, a small child.

I just want to mention, too, that if these parents can make the shift—yes, the fact that it’s been going on for a few years now, it may take a little while for it to shift. But probably not as long as we think, because this is what our child wants in his heart of hearts more than anything. And when our child is getting what they want, then the shift can happen pretty quickly. But I would be prepared for there to be, in the transition, way more rebuttals, everything to be harder, way more resistance. He’s going to check this out to the hilt, hoping to find that relief, which you can give him. So he talks back, let him talk back. Rise taller, which means you don’t talk back at him talking back.

“Extremely rude and disrespectful.” So he can try those things, but the way to rise above those is to let it pass by, knowing he’s just trying out all the words and all the things that have bothered you before. But hold your ground, don’t go get him the thing he wants when he’s being rude or disrespectful. Stick up for yourself that way, that’s where the boundaries are here. “I don’t really appreciate that. Is there another way you can say that to me? Because that doesn’t make me feel like helping you right now.” That honest response, but not an offended response, If we can help it. Which means we have to do all this work in our perceptions of him, what he’s doing, what’s really going on here. Not just seeing that surface behavior, but seeing beyond to the red flag that he’s raising. Help, help, help, guys! Don’t let me do this anymore. See that, so that we don’t get offended. We see, Oh gosh, he’s got to try everything in the world now. He’s got to check it out to see, for us to prove to him that we can be this.

And I think the reason that I love this work so much is because what it brought out of me with my child, who was maybe three when I started to open my eyes to what was going on and that I needed to adjust my approach, what it brought out of me, it allowed me to grow a side of myself that I never knew I had. A powerful side that can love when someone isn’t being that loving, that can still love, but not be a pushover, not give into. But still love them and come back at them with love. It seems like a big thing to ask of ourselves, but it feels so good when you find that place, and everybody has it in them.

So, “extremely rude and disrespectful.” This has gone on because we’ve gotten triggered by it, because we’ve reacted to it, understandably. Rise above. See it as this little tiny person railing at your ankles, saying all these things and names and trying so hard to pull us down. And we’re not going to let it happen.

She says “he rarely takes care of himself—showering, eating, dressing, brushing teeth.” And she said, “we have to give him constant, repeated reminders to do these things.” So, those repeated reminders are getting in the way of him doing these things and making us feel drained of power. They’re not helping him, they’re making him hold onto his uncomfortable power that he doesn’t want to have. Don’t remind him, just say, “After you shower, we’re going to eat.” If he doesn’t want to eat, don’t make him eat. “The food’s going to be out. Here’s what we’re offering. We’d love you to sit and eat with us, but if you can’t, you can’t. Okay, we understand.” Let go of what you don’t control. If he really doesn’t want to shower, “Okay, you don’t have to shower today. Do you want to take a bath instead? Let’s have a smell and see if you need cleaning.” But anyway, have a lighthearted attitude about this.

Dressing, I would consider helping him dress instead of telling him to do it. Brushing his teeth, I mean all of these things, these are caregiving activities, except for the eating he really needs to do on his own. But I would offer to help him with the showering and the dressing, the brushing his teeth. So we’re not nagging, we’re not repeating ourselves. We’re just saying, “Can I help you do that? I know it’s hard. It’s a bummer to do, right? You don’t want to get dressed right now. Let me help you. I love dressing you.” Even though he’s seven years old and of course he knows how to do it himself, sometimes children just want a little TLC there. And yes, he’ll resist. “Oh no, no, I don’t want help.” “Oh come on, let me do it. I love doing it.” If we come at him with love, it’s going to melt away some of that resistance.

And then, “he acts helpless. He rarely self-plays.” That I would leave alone. I wouldn’t direct him to play on his own or do anything. That requires him to be able to let go on his own of being the power player in the house. And that’s going to be a process that he’ll come to.

“No personal space awareness, always around us.” So instead of letting that bother you, just kindly but firmly push him back. “You know what? I need a little more room here. I’m going to move you over.” But don’t let it bother you that he wants to be all over you. If you don’t let that bother you, and you just take your space when you need it. “You know what? I am going to close the door to the bathroom, and I’m actually going to lock it.” Calmly, confidently own your space. Don’t let it bother you that he’s shadowing you. Just push him back when it’s too close. “You know what? I don’t want you grabbing me.” And while you’re doing that, you’re going to take his hand off of you very comfortably, very confidently. “You’re feeling really touchy. Yeah, I don’t want the touch right now. Thanks though.” So taking the power out of that behavior.

And then she said, “repeat ourselves on boundaries.” So instead of talking the boundaries, and definitely instead of repeating them, help him stop with the behavior.

“Making loud, weird noises when his sister is sleeping.” So we really can’t control that directly. What I would do is welcome him to make the loud noises with you. “You know what? I know that’s really fun to do, isn’t it? And get us wound up that way. Come on, I want to hear those noises over here. Let’s go over to the living room and hear those noises. They’re very funny, huh?” The less you feed into that, the sooner it will go away. I mean, sometimes I would just let it go, honestly, altogether, and just say, “Hmm, you’re really having fun there. Making those noises, huh? Wow, that’s very loud, isn’t it?” He will stop when you stop getting bothered by it. And really, that’s true across the board with all these behaviors, and that’s what owning your power is. He’s going to wake her up this one time, and he won’t do it again if you let it go. And do the opposite of what he’s expecting, which is he’s expecting you to keep getting mad at him, getting your buttons pushed. We can deactivate these buttons, we really can.

She says, “we value respectful parenting, but find ourselves going from one extreme to another because we’re frustrated. Nothing works, nothing gets to him, nothing changes his behavior.” Right, because they’re trying too hard and responding to all these little things instead of rising taller, doing less, not trying to change his behavior that way. It’s like that story about how the wind was trying to make this man take off his jacket, and it wasn’t working. And then out comes the sun. The sun just shines. And sure enough, the man takes off his jacket. The sun doesn’t have to try so hard. Be the sun and save your power for positive power.

And then she says her daughter started doing it too, “not listening and manipulates us.” Yeah, so she’s started exploring the same thing. What is this power this behavior has with my parents? And now I need to check it out, too. And I don’t want to have more power than them either. As far as the two children together, when her “son is always engaging her in play, controlling what she can do.” Let them do that. Let him do that with her. She’ll stand up for herself with him, she’ll learn to. And let that go. I mean, he’s playing with her. That’s amazing for a seven-year-old to want to play with a two-and-a-half-year-old, right? They are going to be dominating in that play. As long as he’s not hurting her, I would let it go. And “telling her to say and do things that he knows that she shouldn’t.” I would try to be, honestly, amused by that. “Oh now you’re trying that too. Yeah, you learned that from your brother, huh? Very clever. Yeah, that doesn’t really work with us, but sure, go for it.”

Deactivate the buttons. Save your energy. Be the sun.

I really hope some of this helps, and thanks so much to these parents for reaching out to me. I feel you and I believe in you 100%.

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.

Thanks so much for listening. We can do this.

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Transcript of “Our Child Won’t Listen”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.

Today I’m going to be responding to a parent who wrote to me. He has three children, but he’s mostly concerned about his oldest, who doesn’t seem to follow instructions and has been acting out. The parents are both using positive parenting, but it doesn’t seem to be effective for them. They’re looking for what they might be missing, and hopefully I’ll be able to give them some ideas about that.

Okay, here’s the letter I received:

Dear Janet,

I listen to your podcast regularly and I’ve heard multiple letters that you’ve read from parents with questions I have as well. And now I have a question of my own.

My partner and I have three children, ages four, two, and almost a month old. My son who is four is normally a very sweet and caring child, and we’ve done the best we can to follow the principles of positive parenting. One of the issues we struggle with is what to do when our son refuses to follow instructions and begins to act out. We don’t approve of timeouts and we don’t spank, but there are times when I feel that calmly talking to him and using the phrase, “I see that you want to do that,” and similar phrases seems to have no effect.

The issue we struggle with often is him not listening at all and ignoring us and continuing the behavior we say we can’t allow, such as pulling his younger sister around, climbing on our back and shoulders while we’re trying to care for the newborn.

What is the positive parenting method of dealing with a child where removing them from the situation, talking to them about the behavior, explaining our expectations, trying to understand their perspective, etc. does nothing, and the attitude and actions continue? Thank you for any assistance you can provide.

First of all, I can’t help but notice that there’s a new baby here. So right away, this oldest child’s behavior, and the second child, if they’re having any behavior like this, makes a lot of sense. And this could have been going on since nine months before the baby came, or close to that, when children get a sense that there’s a big change happening. So even if there weren’t any other stressors in this child’s life at all that he’d be responding to —and obviously there are a lot of normal difficulties that all children go through, changing to a new school, a new caregiver— even if none of those were happening, he has a big reason to be feeling a little kerfuffley in his behavior.

He’s showing that he isn’t able to stop himself even when his dad is very kindly and respectfully speaking to him about it. He’s not able to control when he is jumping on his parents or being rough with his younger sister with words alone. I love this note because it reflects a common type of misunderstanding that positive parenting, or what I call respectful parenting, means that if we say something to a child politely and respectfully, they’re going to stop what they’re doing or they’re going to do what we want them to do. That that will be enough on its own to set a limit or elicit cooperation. And often it isn’t in these early years because children are very sensitive and emotional, and that means they’re impulsive and they don’t have the self-control that, most of the time, we have as adults. Their feelings get the better of them. They feel threatened and they get stuck. Here I am climbing on my parent again. I know I’m not supposed to do this, but I can’t help myself. They get stuck and they need us to do more than talk to them in those times.

I definitely wouldn’t try to reason with a child who is, as children often are, showing us that they’re beyond reason, that they’re kind of gone. They’re not acting out of thoughtfulness and using their minds. This boy, he sounds like he’s very unsettled in these moments. That doesn’t mean he’s like this all the time, I’m sure he’s normally very sweet and caring and all those wonderful things. But it still comes up for children, especially in these situations where his whole place in the family seems to have shifted again. And maybe he hasn’t completely even resolved with the first transition to his sister. And now here we go again, all this attention is going to this baby. And yikes, what have I lost here?

So with these two understandings: First of all, that this boy does have a lot of good reason to be in a bit of an emotional crisis, at times, at least. And two, that our words are not going to be enough and appealing to our children’s minds when they’re kind of out of their minds is not going to work. What can we do? What I recommend is what I sometimes think of as being a papa or a mama bear. Using that part of ourselves that’s ready to give our child that physical help, picking them up, stopping them, putting the object away, helping them move off their sister, from a place of confidence in ourselves. And not being surprised by the behavior, being ready. Because we’ve normalized this for ourself, we expect it.

This is a huge adjustment for the whole family when another baby’s born. I’m sure I don’t have to tell this parent that, or any parent that. And this is especially challenging for the children because they feel this massive change in their relationship with their parents. It’s scary, it’s threatening. And then in the way that they’re viewed by their parents, if we get into a cycle where they know they’re disappointing us, they hear us losing our temper, getting annoyed, and it’s hard not to, right? With the behavior that we see. But that amplifies the discomfort and fear that they have. And yet this commonly, commonly happens. No matter how conscious we are as parents and how committed we are to gentleness, we’re human also, and it’s going to be upsetting if our child is suddenly doing these upsetting things and we can’t seem to reach them. So be prepared and, whenever you can, reach him right away physically, but from a place of being confident about what you’re doing.

What this dad is doing is wonderful. He’s acknowledging, he’s saying things like, “I see that you want to do that.” And talking to him about the behavior, explaining his expectations, trying to understand his child’s perspective. Those are all part of connecting with our child, but they can’t replace setting physical limits. Our children need more. And sometimes with the explanations, it can be a little too much. What’s even more respectful, and these parents are obviously respectful towards their children, is just to briefly explain, “Oops, that’s not safe. I see, yeah, you want to pull your sister around the house. No, I’m going to stop you right there. Mmm, I can’t let you grab her that tightly. And it sounds like she’s saying no, so I’m going to stop you.” And as we’re saying this, we’re gently preventing him from doing those things. We’re putting our hand in between them, we’re taking his hands off of her. We’re helping him when we see that he’s gone over the edge.

If we get into too much explaining in those times, it becomes us trying to reason with him. We start to feel that, and he feels that. And there we’re actually not going to be connecting with our child because our child has just gone to this unreasonable place, and now we’re trying to connect with them in a way that they are unable to, they just can’t get it. At another time, our child can get this, but when he’s in the middle of these moments, he can’t. So briefly noticing and acknowledging the, “I can see you want to do that” part that this dad mentions— wonderful. While you’re doing that, I would already be stopping him. Maybe even stop him before that and then say, “Oh, yeah, I see you want to do that. That’s not safe.” Or “I can’t let you.” Or “I’m going to help you stop.” And each time a child repeats these same actions, say even less. So maybe it becomes, “Oops, nope,” as we’re moving his hand or we’re putting a hand in between the two children.

This dad mentions that one of the options that they’ve tried is removing him from the situation. He says, “What’s the positive parenting method of dealing with a child where removing them from the situation does nothing?” The problem with removing him all the way from the situation is that it’s a little bit of overkill. It comes off as, Ugh, this is just overwhelming. We can’t handle you right now. And that’s quite appropriate when a child has really gone overboard and you can see that they’re just completely gone and they’re wreaking havoc everywhere, then yeah, sometimes we do have to take that extreme approach of, Okay, you’re just not safe here right now. You’re showing me. I see you. I’m going to help you here because I’ve got to go do this and I need you to be safe. But if we use that for these smaller, everyday incidents, then we’re not going to be giving our child the helpful, calming message that we want to give them, and that will help make a change in their behavior, help calm these impulses. Because we’re saying, Hey, we’ve got a handle on this. You’re not throwing anything at us that we don’t, at some level, expect and understand. And, even, we want to see you asking us for help, and we’re going to be there.

Ideally both parents would do this. Children can be very clear in that if maybe one parent is doing it but the other one isn’t, then they kind of keep going to get help from that other parent, almost like they’re training us, right? I mean, on some level, obviously it’s not conscious. They need both their leaders to be solid and comfortable in their role and understanding of the child as much as possible, so that the child can feel safe and feel a little more settled. And then when children are more settled, there’s less of the behavior. So that’s our goal in everything we do. Our goal is a safe, settled child who feels understood and that they can count on us to help whenever they need us, as much as possible.

So climbing on his parents’ back and shoulders. Now, that’s obviously going to be a difficult one to handle in the moment, gracefully and confidently. It does, again, make a lot of sense though. Look at me here. I see you busy with that baby. I’m not comfortable with what’s going on. How are you going to handle me? Those questions are coming up for him, and it’s going to be very hard for us, with a newborn, to receive that with empathy in a way that’s helpful to him. It’s going to be very hard. So we just do our best. But all of these things happen less when we’re taking care of the bigger picture of being the kind of leaders that help him feel safer and more settled. In that actual moment I think I would, with your body, as best you can while still holding the baby, get him off. But if he keeps doing it and there’s somebody else there that can move him away, that would be good. “Oops, I see you can’t handle this right now. So dad will help.”

Another thing I would do, if we need to be privately with the baby, say we’re putting the baby to bed or changing a diaper, and our older children are showing us that they can’t handle that safely, or quietly, in the case of putting a baby to bed, then we close the door. Not from a punitive place, but from a place of, You’re showing me you really can’t be safe with me right now, and I need to do this. It’s a place of confidence that it’s okay to give them that physical barrier when you need to. And I know a lot of parents are reticent about this, but it’s really about the way that we handle it. And then what children often do is they yell outside the door or they bang on the door, and right there, he’s actually having a really healthy release of his feelings about what’s going on, letting some of that fear out. And if we’re doing this from a place of love, not anger and punishment, then the feelings our child has in response, even if they seem terrible to us, are very positive. That’s the release that will, again, help him to feel more settled. But we’ve got to do it with acceptance of him and, maybe not necessarily tons of empathy in that moment if we’re not feeling it, but an overall attitude of empathy towards him and his situation.

Another way to help with this is to, at a calmer time, or before you have to do this activity with the baby, make a plan with him. “I know it’s hard for you sometimes to see me caring for the baby. You want my attention then too, right? That’s what big brothers often feel. Is there some way that we can help you feel better at these times? Is there something special you’d like to do while I’m feeding the baby?”

With my oldest daughter, who was four when her sister was born, this became playing with her dollhouse. She came to that on her own after one or two sessions of yelling outside the door where I was putting her sister to bed. And I just had to move through that as best I could, knowing that if she could share these feelings —or hoping, I should say— hoping that if she could share these feelings, if I’m accepting of them and I’m not mad at her, she’ll feel better. Letting them out will be helpful. And that was how it worked. She decided to go play with her dollhouse. And I know she did a lot of venting with those dolls, I could hear it sometimes because she would play with them almost every day after her preschool, emotionally processing the events of the day.

A plan might also be to say, which I also did with my children, “As soon as I’m done with the baby, it’ll be your time for me to read a book or play something, whatever you want. And I’m looking forward to that. So as soon as I finish with the baby, the sooner we’ll have our time.”

Another suggestion: empower him with a task that he can do to help you with whatever you’re doing with the baby. And even better maybe, ask him as a favor to help with his sister, help occupy her while you’re doing whatever it is with the baby. And right after that, you’ll be there to give him your attention.

But the main message I want to get across to these parents is: don’t be afraid to step in physically. Children need a lot of physical care from us, even when they’re well past infancy. On some level, they can crave it. And it’s not just when we’re hugging and cuddling and doing those things that feel clearer to us as being loving. It’s also in these other moments when we’re using a gentle but firm hand to help him when he needs help. Perceiving it that way and responding with that perception that we have.

I often used to say to myself, and I still do this with the children I’m working with, sometimes I say to myself, Don’t worry, I will stop you. I won’t let you do those things like hurt the baby, hurt or bother me. And that don’t worry attitude, that voice inside my head, don’t worry, help to give me confidence and stay in mama bear-hero mode when my child was showing they needed me.

So I hope some of that helps and clarifies. Also, please checkout some of my other podcasts at janetlansbury.com. website. They’re all indexed by subject and category so you should be able to find whatever topic you’re interested in. And I have books on audio at Audible.com, No Bad Kids, Toddler Discipline Without Shame and Elevating Child Care, A Guide To Respectful Parenting. You can also get them in paperback at Amazon and an ebook at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Apple.com.

Thanks so much for listening. We can do this.

The post Our Child Won’t Listen appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

It can be confounding when our children behave in negative ways after we’ve told them umpteen times it’s wrong. Surely they’re aware that we don’t approve! And yet, they repeat the behavior no matter how frustrated, annoyed, or angry we get. Janet offers her perspective on this dynamic while answering a question from the mom of a short-tempered 6-year-old. This boy’s father believes certain behaviors are simply unacceptable because their son is “old enough to know better,” but this mom isn’t as sure and wonders if Janet can clarify what they should realistically expect for a child their son’s age.

Transcript of “Shouldn’t They Know Better By Now?”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.

Today I’m going to address a concern that parents often share with me, and usually it’s in the form of questions like, At what age will my child stop doing these [fill-in-the-blank] impulsive behaviors? Or, When can I expect my child to be able to self-regulate? For instance, stop having tantrums, stop flying off the handle, stop losing self-control. When can we expect more consistent kindness or manners, or at least that our child stops lashing out at their sibling or yelling rude things when they’re upset? Shouldn’t they know better by now? The short answer to that one is yes, but as I’m sure you guessed, I also have a longer answer.

So yes, our children not only should know better, they actually do know better. From the time they’re born, children are already sensing our feelings and doing their best to try to adapt to them. This is basic human survival instinct. Children need us to feel okay and be accepting towards them. They sense they need to be in our good graces so we’ll fill their needs. Still, though, they can’t manage their discomforts and emotions enough to be those perfect babies for us. But we could say that even they “know better.” The very first time our baby flaps their hand at us or pulls our hair, they learn that this bothers us and it isn’t acceptable behavior. Which doesn’t mean they stop doing it, but if we can try to calmly block or just disallow the behavior without giving it a big, interesting reaction that children might tend to have the impulse to explore, they usually do stop.

So this isn’t about “knowing better.” It’s about how much control their thoughtful, reasonable center of their brain has over their behavior in any given moment. Certainly by the toddler years, but even infants, demonstrate self-regulation when all life’s elements are in their favor. They can do that. But in the early years especially, children are easily overwhelmed by internal developments, there’s so much rapid growth in these early years, along with stressors in their environment, threat detection, and other discomforts. And then, bye-bye, knowing better! And there they go, seeming to overreact, doing these annoying or destructive behaviors again. Reason leaves the building.

Now, does anybody besides me relate to this happening to us, even as adults? It happens to me all the time. And I love the way that my brilliant, generous, charismatic friend Mr. Chazz makes children’s behavior relatable to us as adults through his videos. He’ll remind us of things like, Hey, did you get that speeding ticket because you didn’t know better? Did you shout obscenities at people driving too slowly? Or what about that extra glass of wine that you know wakes you up at night, right? But you did it anyway. Or those chips or the chocolate that always makes you want more. Did we know better? What about yelling at your spouse, your kids, your friends, or in the office? What about that meltdown over something teensy that happens after we’ve had this long day and we just can’t take it anymore? We can find ourselves making these kinds of “choices,” but how thoughtful and conscious are they?

So what’s the answer to, When will children stop doing such and such? or, Why are they still doing this? It’s true that there’s a gradual maturation in the prefrontal cortex that finally matures around age 25 or so, and that helps us to regulate better. But still, for us and for children, it’s always relative. Our ability to act from our knowing place will always be relative to our comfort level, our inborn sensitivities, our temperaments, our moods, and our internal comforts, combined with the stressors we’re managing in our environment. And there isn’t an age cutoff for this, unfortunately, or we’d all be perfect angels by now. Which might even make life kind of boring, but that’s a whole other topic.

And why is this understanding important for us to grasp and make peace with? Because here’s a universal truth about caring for children: Our responses to children’s behaviors will stem from our perceptions and expectations. So if we’re finding ourselves and/or our children stuck in challenging patterns, in other words, our child keeps repeating those behaviors or the behaviors seem to worsen, chances are that our perceptions and expectations are at least a little bit inaccurate. And these misperceptions are causing us to feel and react in a manner that’s continuing or worsening the behavior. Because out of those misperceptions, we’re not giving our child the helpful response that they unconsciously seek. And instead our mis-response can make our child feel more distanced and alone, afraid maybe, uncomfortable. Which means more struggles with self-control and behavior.

Now maybe that sounds really complicated, but to offer a simple example: In my work with parents, often the most helpful feedback I can give them is assurance that their child’s behavior is typical, within normal range, for their developmental stage and for their current life situation and stressors that are going on—when I tell them that from my years of experience and training and research this behavior makes sense to me. And honestly, that’s just about every time with every kind of behavior. At least eventually, with enough information, it makes sense to me. And just that realization, and I totally get this, I’ve felt it myself about my own children, that Phew, okay, I’m not doing anything terribly wrong. There’s nothing I need to fear about my child here. This is just the way they’re reacting, reflecting, processing, and maybe adapting to everything that’s going on right now. That increases our comfort and makes it possible for us to be less fearful and more helpful as our children’s leaders.

So now here’s a question I received on Instagram:

I would love to hear about how to approach boundary-pushing in older children, six or so. My husband is convinced that since they have greater understanding of the world than babies and toddlers, that they should know better and that your principles don’t apply. I have yet to find an eloquent or even literate way of describing how it would still apply greatly.

So then I asked her if she could please be specific, and she replied:

He’s been very disrespectful in the way that he reacts to any scenario. He dislikes bedtime, chores, non-screen activity. There’s lots of talking back, tuning out, coming out of nowhere to reprimand us. Just generally very sensitive and reactive, which my husband sees as being too much for his age. I’m not sure exactly what our realistic expectations are for this age.

Okay, so generally I’d say when we have this mindset that there should be certain cutoffs for when our children should be doing this or doing that, or they should stop getting upset about small things, that they should be behaving a certain way at a certain age. The answer is, as I said, there’s really no set timetable for children to react a certain way. They always react out of what they’re feeling. And this general idea that I recommend absorbing is that our children’s behavior is a reflection of their comfort level. So when children are uncomfortable for different reasons, then they’re going to have more defiant-type behavior (if children have those tendencies). They’re probably going to have more emotional behavior and, as this parent says, they’ll be more sensitive and reactive to things. So I don’t know why this boy is reacting as he is, with this information that she’s given me, but one reason could be that he’s feeling his dad’s disapproval of him. And maybe this is anger or maybe fear. Dad may be afraid that his son isn’t going in the right direction, and the son is picking up on that. So that’s one thing that I could say for sure from this information, there could be other things.

But the behaviors that this mom is describing, they all sound like they’re within the normal realm of the way a six-year-old or a five-year-old, maybe even a four-year-old or an eight-year-old, has a tantrum, has a reaction to a limit, has a disagreement with a limit or a with a direction that we give them. And really, children ideally need to have a right to have their reaction throughout the years. So we’ll want to be able to confidently set a limit, but then accept that our child needs to be able to say, I don’t like that limit. And that basic dynamic continues. What this parent is describing can be what it looks like with a six-year-old child. He’s snarling back and saying, I don’t like you guys! Talking back, tuning out, I’m not going to pay attention to you! This is similar to the toddler that’s “not listening.” They are listening, but they’re just getting stuck in this impulse to resist. Making that choice, not a very conscious choice, to not jump up when their parent wants them to do something or to stop doing something.

And at six years old, they’re still young human beings, they’re still easily overwhelmed. And when they’re uncomfortable, they’re going to have messy, unpleasant behaviors. So believing as this husband does, and it’s very understandable, Hey, he’s six years old, he should shape up and cut this out. Certainly makes sense. But the problem is that this lack of acceptance of the stage his child is at right here is what’s continuing the problematic behavior. And this is why it’s the most helpful for us if we can try to remember to come from a place of curiosity: I wonder what’s going on with my child? Rather than having this expectation that our child should be whatever, and by doing so, preventing ourselves from being able to see what’s going on.

When we follow this natural inclination that most of us have as adults to understand things by labeling them, whether we’re doing it positively or negatively, but especially when it’s negative, we’re going to miss out on understanding. It’s like we’re closing doors that we really want to keep open, perceiving something as fixed. They’re a bully, or they’re shy, or they’re too aggressive or they’re too passive. We close off our ability to understand and to be able to see how to help make things better. So we want to try not to impose labels, that judgment that our child will then feel. They’ll sense that, they’ll pick up on that, and it has a chance of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy for them.

Now for this situation, with the little information I have, it’s kind of hard. But it may be that the mother or both the parents aren’t being as confident in their limit-setting. Because when we talk about things like bedtime, first of all, that’s a transition. Always hard. It’s the hardest one of all, because it’s the end-of-the-day transition, when everybody’s tired, especially our child. It’s not a time when we want to give options that there’s something else they could do at that time besides be in their bedroom. We can’t force a six-year-old or any child to fall asleep, but we can say, You’re not having screens now. There won’t be screens in your bedroom. We’re not going to let you have more drinks or give you more attention when we’ve done our bedtime routine and we’re done. This is your bedtime. Our job is done for the day. Instead of getting sucked into trying to convince our child of our point of view, trying to get their agreement. All those things that keep our child holding on because we’re still holding on.

I know that’s very oversimplified, but I wonder if the parents feel positive about setting limits to free their child to fall asleep, in this case. That finality that we feel with that limit is really important. And a big part of that certainty and that finality that children need is when we’re also fine with him saying, No, no, but I don’t want to do this and I want my screens! Then we can even acknowledge, Oh wow, you don’t want to do that. You really don’t want to go to bed now, or you don’t want to stop using your screens. Whatever it is, that’s okay with us. We accept how you feel. We really do. And we don’t mind when you say that. We’re confident enough in our position, we can handle that pushback. In fact, we expect it.

Not giving power to these things that he’s doing, like talking back. Instead seeing this as, That’s your reaction. That’s okay with us. You know, it doesn’t hurt us in any way that you say no. We’re still, as the parents that love you and that you need to help take care of you, we’re the ones deciding here. I know that talking back can feel very threatening, especially if we feel like we’re seeking that agreement from our child, which I would honestly give up on and let go of, even with a child this age. And so maybe we end up repeating ourselves. We’ve got to make it so clear, No, this is what you’re supposed to do. Don’t you get that? Appealing to what he knows.

But that’s not the part that’s getting expressed here because he does “know better.” He knows that it’s bedtime. He knows that he’s not supposed to do this, that, or the other. He knows the parents don’t want him to talk back, but he’s doing it anyway. So that becomes wasted energy on our part, leading very quickly, if we didn’t already start that way, to frustration, anger, and annoyance. Ah, this child, they should know better. Why are they acting like this? We’re getting caught up in it. Instead of seeing it for what it is, an immature person that we love that does know better, but they’re just not doing it right now. They can’t. Accepting that.

This child sounds like a very strong child, an alpha child, which is all to the good, ultimately. With those children especially, they need us to be even more certain and to expect, of course, we’re going to get pushback. If we can shrug our shoulders, accept, not let it matter to us, not let it shake us: That’s where he is. This is where we are. We’re not going to pull ourselves down into bickering about this because it’s wasted effort. He’s not going to happily accept everything that we decide. It’s not our job to change that. And it’s better for him to share these feelings that he needs to share because, just as with a younger child, their reactions are not really even related to screens or bedtime or anything in particular, so much as those are tipping points. And what they’re expressing are themes, feelings, and relational dynamics that they’re processing. So their reaction is magnified by, Oh, I know my parents get angry at me here and I’m absorbing those scary feelings from them. Or, I don’t like some things that happened today. Or, I’m exhausted. I’m just over the edge and I’m just venting to the people I’m closest to, the people I trust the most. So let him blast and whatever he says, you can allow and acknowledge. You’re still going to stick with your limit.

So with the screens, children need a lot of clarity around that because just like for all of us, screens are kind of addictive, right? There’s a lot of temptation there. So I would be clear, certain, comfortable, and expect a lot of pushback. Be ready for it. It’s not going to be quiet acceptance most of the time. I think that’s a fantasy that we can have, but we’re not going to get that. We’re not going to get, Sure, okay, you’re the parents and of course I’m going to do what you say. You’re right! And really it wouldn’t be healthy for a child, especially a child like this, with this kind of temperament, to just give it up. Instead, we’re going to get a lot of pushback. That’s what they’re supposed to do. So instead of seeing this as a red flag or a problem or a sign that he’s not where he should be, I would see it as nothing that can threaten you at all as parents if you don’t let it, and really healthy.

And I would let him tune you out all he wants as well, but you’re still going to stick to those limits. So one of the examples she gave was chores. Now with chores, we do have to remember to be polite. Which we often forget with children, especially if we start out a little annoyed with them because we’re expecting, Oh, they’re not going to do this and I’ve got to nag and I don’t like nagging. Which is why I didn’t insist on too many chores with my children, that’s just me. But they need that politeness and just a reminder with a very light touch. And I believe it will help us to have low expectations. I wouldn’t expect any help at all at the end of a school day, for example, because children get drained. It’s a lot for them.

And it definitely won’t help our cause to make these voluntary activities into power struggles. We are going to lose those struggles, because doing chores is voluntary and we want to be able to see this bigger picture that we’re going to have a much better chance of gaining our child’s cooperation if we aren’t getting into a fight with them about it every day. If we’re saying something like, Oh, just a reminder my love, could you please help us empty the dishwasher? and maybe want to add, As soon as you’re done, we’ll have our dinner. So making it a part of the routine like that, very light and polite. Matter of fact. And we’re open to doing it with them, ideally. So we’re not trying to force an issue that we really don’t have the power to control. Instead, we’re nurturing that relationship where children want to be helpful to us because they’re part of a family unit where they’re unconditionally accepted.

That doesn’t mean we accept all their behavior, but we accept their stage of life. We accept that they’re human and easily overwhelmed and won’t want to do everything that we ask them to do. Just like we don’t. I mean, I don’t like brushing my teeth at the end of the day when I’m tired. I do it, but I’m a grown-up. So it’s that bigger picture, that relationship of acceptance and not getting threatened and not getting our back up about this little stuff. Seeing it for what it is, that’s what’s going to help make children agreeable in the long term, and that’s what we want.

This parent says their child seems to come out of nowhere to reprimand his parents. Again, that sounds like maybe he’s trying to see if the parents are going to give this little guy power there to upset them. He’s checking it out, and maybe they’ve given these kinds of behaviors power and some negative attention and things like that. But I really wouldn’t. I wouldn’t give that behavior any kind of power over you. Maybe hear the feelings behind what he is saying, but not make a big deal out of this. That’s what makes it go away. You know, when a six-year-old is trying to boss us around, we could have a sense of humor about that: No, I’m not going to do that, but thanks for asking.

So at the end of her comment, she says she’s not sure exactly what are the realistic expectations. And the realistic expectations are, Is he capable of doing chores? Is he capable of following directions? Yes, he’s capable of all those things, but being capable and wanting to do them in the moment, or even being able to do them in that moment, for children are two different things. That second part is the part that requires really confident empathic leaders who aren’t intimidated by what comes out of a six-year-old’s mouth.

And I think it will help to take a deeper look, coming from this very open-minded place. Nothing to fear here, looking at what’s going on in the dynamics with both of these parents and their son. Are they being clear enough? Are they being confident in their limits? Are they okay with him disagreeing? Are they still seeing him as a little person that adores them and has only been around for six years and really needs leaders that are above this, that can rise above all this petty stuff and not be insulted the way we would be with a peer or someone that was on our level of maturity? So a reasonable expectation is that when he is feeling really comfortable, he’ll accomplish a lot and he’ll be much more cooperative. And when he’s not as comfortable, with his leaders or in himself or something else in his environment, it’s going to be harder for him. It’s going to be rough, there will be grumbling and messiness. Accepting all of that is what he needs at all ages.

Children thrive when we accept them, meeting them right where they are and trusting that there’s always a reason. And none of them are fatal flaws in our children, or something we’re doing wrong. It’s a process. Our relationship with our children is a process and their development is a process. And we can always switch gears. We can always apologize for reactions that we’ve had and keep reminding ourselves that he’s not mature. Yes, he can be very capable, so can a one-year-old, so can a two-year-old. But he can also be snarly, reprimanding, reactive, a side that most of us still have as adults in some form.

So I hope that answers the question. And I’m not sure if that’s going to be what this dad wants to hear or if it’s going to make any difference with him, but this is what I’ve learned and I really hope it helps.

And there’s more help on the way—my new No Bad Kids Master Course!  This immersive course gives 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.

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

The post Shouldn’t They Know Better By Now? appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Transcript of “Worn Down by a Toddler’s Screams, Tests, and Demands”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.

This week I’m responding to a parent who reacted to an article of mine that I reposted recently called Set Limits Without Yelling. She has a two-and-a-half-year-old, and the child seems to be constantly testing her, and this parent’s struggling to keep a cool head.

So just to give you a sense of this article, if you haven’t read it, I discussed what I call some common discipline missteps. And by missteps I don’t mean that we’re terrible parents or we’re doing these terribly wrong things. It simply means that these are things we do because we think they’re going to help, but they actually get in our own way because they tend to exacerbate and maybe intensify our children’s concerning behavior. Now, these are normal things that we all do, so there’s no judgment here. But it will help us to notice that these can set us up for more problems, so it’s good to get a handle on them. One is yelling. Two is not setting limits early enough, which often leads to us yelling or feeling like yelling. Three, we’re not following through, which can also lead us to yelling.

And here’s the comment I received:

Oh, Janet, this comes right in the moment when I’m feeling so sad because I feel like a failure. I’m struggling with my two-and-a-half-year-old, who’s testing me dozens of times a day. Reading this makes me think that I too wait much longer than I should before taking action, until I feel worn out with no patience left at all, and I end up yelling. It doesn’t help that she’s always looking for me, doing things with me, being on my lap, or even nursing. As soon as I sit down, she comes looking for nursies. When she plays, she wants me there eight times out of ten. And since beginning playschool (not sure what it’s called in English), anyway, it’s the school I work at as well. So she sees me there with other kids. It’s obviously gotten worse. She wants mommy for every single thing, even feeding sometimes. She doesn’t want to be left home with anybody else but me when I try to go out once a week, the only two hours I keep for myself all week to exercise. I try to have quality time with her every day, but I obviously have a house to run besides work, so I can’t spend all the time playing with her.

The icing on the cake is the screaming. She’s done that for ages. First, screaming for no reason, and she has a voice so loud, it’s unbelievable. Now, both for no reason and when she can’t have something the way she’d like. We tried ignoring first, then telling her that’s not the right way to ask or say things, and replying only when she would say things in a normal voice. That worked sometimes, but not every time. Possibly because we lost it a few times, me and my partner. Maybe she knows that’s a switch for us. When she yells right in your ear and you go deaf for a moment, it’s really hard to keep cool. So sometimes we actually yell back: Stop screaming! Do you like this? I know, a very low point.

I never thought it would get like this, that I would end up this tired, frustrated, and miserable for knowing I’m not doing her any favor by being this weak. But that is where we are right now. I have to admit, I’m relieved those days when she naps in the afternoon. Happens rarely, and I know it shouldn’t be this way. I portrayed her like a bad kid. Obviously she’s not. It’s just as if there was a communication breakdown many times. Sorry for venting this out. This article made me think I need to try again in a different manner. Hopefully, we’re still in time. I will try to make some time for reading as many older posts as I can and read again your book. I have it and loved it, but it seems I need a lot of repetition to get things to stick in my brain.

Okay, so let’s see what we can do to help this little one and help this family. It sounds like this parent is having a hard time taking that leadership role in the house with her child. And this is a very young child, just two and a half. So she really needs to know that she’s not the one with all the power in the house and that, ideally, even her loudest scream isn’t going to jar her parents too much.

Now, I know that’s asking a lot of this parent or anybody, and maybe it seems impossible, but it’s just a mentality to work toward. Of course, sometimes, the scream, it’s going to catch us by surprise and it’ll be right in our ear and we’re going to jump a little. And this child sounds like the kind of child that really does have a lot of intense emotions to share at this age. That doesn’t mean she’s going to grow up to be a screamer or a person that just loses it at the drop of a hat. So if that’s a concern for you, you can cross it off your list. She has very low impulse control and emotional self-control at this age, as all children do. And this sounds like an intense character. She’s probably going to be a very powerful person in a lot of ways, strong-willed. And so I would meditate on the truth that she’s a dynamic person that needs to vent loudly. In these cases, scream.

And she actually has reasons to scream. She’s in group care for a good part of the day. And there’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s a lot of stimulation and there’s stress that’s created in these situations, along with all the positive learning and socializing. And then on top of that, her parent is in the vicinity there. Yet, she doesn’t have her parent’s attention like she does at home. She has to share this most precious, important person to her with all these other children. And that becomes a big distraction for her and makes it even more challenging to be in that group environment, which is already a challenge for most children. Yes, it’s also a plus for her to have her parent there, but it brings up mixed feelings because she’s sharing her, and sharing her parent is hard.

And the reason to understand all of this is to know that, particularly at the end of the day, I would expect that she’s going to have some blasts and some venting to share with her loved ones. It can help us so much to try to accept this as part of the situation that we’re in. It doesn’t mean we need to change this situation, but just to understand the whole picture and how it’s likely affecting our child, and normalizing that for ourselves.

And then the big key to navigating this is to know the difference between what she wants and what she really needs. For example, she doesn’t need to be sitting on your lap all the time. She doesn’t need to be nursing whenever she wants. She doesn’t need to have her parent playing with her and have her attention all of the time. She really does not need those things. She’s wanting them right now, on the surface at least. But what she actually needs is to be able to share the feelings from her day, and how so much of it was out of her control and yet she managed.

And this theme of control, it’s also a big one for this developmental age that this girl is in. She’s a toddler. This is a time when children are feeling this separation from their parent into being more of their own person. Which is positive and exciting, right? That autonomy. But along with that comes, Yikes, if I’m more separate, that means my parent is also separate from me and I don’t control them. How dare they? So this girl pushes for control. She demands of her parents, she screams. And then that tips over into her becoming completely unraveled, crying, more screaming, dysregulated, tantrums. She’s letting go. She’s releasing the feelings she’s been holding onto. And on some level hoping, I believe, that her parent could accept these feelings and not be intimidated by them. Which we do when we can remain that safe leader with our own strong personal boundaries around our bodies and our comfort. So, we’re deciding when it’s okay for her to sit on our lap and when it’s comfortable for us and when it’s okay to nurse. The clearer we can be about that, the better, because the clearer we are, the less distracted and caught up in all of this pushing and seeking boundaries our child is going to be. The freer our child will be to vent what she needs to vent. The more comfortable she’ll be, knowing she is not in charge, knowing that, at two and a half, she doesn’t control and have all this power to upset these giant grown-up people in her life that she needs to be rock solid.

So, I know it’s easy for me to say you’ve got to be more of a leader and you can do this. The hard part for all of us is the part where our children don’t agree with our decisions and they say they really want something or they show us that they really do seem to need something. And our heart, especially if we’ve been working all day and maybe we don’t have tons of time with our child, our heart sinks and we think, Oh dear, maybe I’ve been neglecting her, or maybe she does need this, and oh gosh, she only asked for a hug, or she just asked to sit with me. Yes, I was just sitting with her before and hugging her, but it’s all she’s asking. Or, she just wants somebody to play with her. What’s wrong with that? We question ourselves. I can go there very easily with children. I’m a big softie myself with all of that, so I understand those thoughts that can go through our minds and those worries and how hard it is.

Children, I mean, especially children like this, they can be very persuasive. They know what gets to us. And this child has sensed that this perfect scream, that’s going to rattle you and demand your attention, even if she’s gotten a negative reaction to this, she’s compelled to keep going there until this is somehow normalized for her. Meaning you can find a perspective shift in yourself to help this stop getting such a big rise out of you. She doesn’t do this because she’s an evil child, as you know, but it’s as if she’s got to see if her parents are really on top of this. If they’re really seeing how tiny and in need of leadership she is. She may seem so powerful and huge in those moments, but she doesn’t want to be. She wants to be the child, nested by her loving parents. So this girl’s going to have to go all the way to all of the usual things that get to her parents. Which she knows quite well, children are expert learners this way. So she’s going to check, Is this going to get to them? Is that going to get to them? How do they feel about their leadership and their decisions in this area? How do they feel about it there? Ooh, how does my mom feel about saying no to nursing? And of course, this isn’t a conscious strategy or manipulation on her part. It’s this healthy instinct to find where the boundaries are, and to find the strong leaders that she knows she needs to keep her safe.

And it all stems from this positive connection that she’s had with her parents since she was a baby. So, to be able to help her find those safe boundaries, we’ll need to get clarity on the difference between her needs and her wants. Yes, she needs attention from her parent every day. It could be just a few minutes here and a few minutes there, a full attention. Sometimes we’ll have longer to give her. But the goal is to give her undivided attention periodically, when we can. Especially I would prioritize when she’s eating, when she’s nursing, the times that you do decide that you’re going to nurse.

And I would decide that ahead of time with her and have a routine around that that you stick to. Because, yes, babies do need nursing on demand. But with a toddler, part of their job is to demand. To see if there are reasonable boundaries, that in this case will ideally stem from that parent being authentic with the child about their wishes, rather than as an aim to please. And will also stem from our ability to see the bigger picture, which is that demanding nursing, demanding anything, especially when children sense we’re unsure about it, it’s a stuck place for toddlers, preschoolers, and beyond. It’s a big distraction for them when they have an unclear, ambivalent parent. So I recommend deciding when are the good times for you to do this that would work for you and your child, and then really sticking to that. That releases a child from having to ask all the time. She may still ask, but at least she’s getting that consistent response that, This is when we do it. And then she can accept that more.

But, if we feel a little bit guilty when we say no, or if we’re unsure, or even just a little sad about it, or we’re wavering in any way, then our child’s going to have to keep asking and asking. And that’s true with all of these limits: sitting on your lap, having you play with her. With play, I recommend sitting with her while she plays when you do have the time. Really giving her your full attention, not having your phone, not having any distractions there. So that you feel clean and clear about it, and she gets what she actually needs there, which is some quality attention.

And then also clearly deciding when you need to do your own thing. So when she comes and wants to hang out right next to you, it’s okay for her to hang out right next to you. You’re not going to get rattled by it. You’re going to expect it, because this is what she’s shown you she does. And she’s still asking those questions: Is my parent sure? Is my parent going to be comfortable with setting her boundaries? So, you’re not going to stop what you’re doing. And, by not stopping, you’re going to actually take the power out of that activity for her, of following you around. Because you don’t mind whether she wants to follow you around or not. And even if she wants to ask 50,000 times to play with her, that’s okay. You’re still going to do what you’re doing.

And then every once in a while, not every time she says it, but every once in a while you’re going to say, Ah, I hear you, you still want to play with me. You don’t have to repeat the part about, I’m going to play with you after I do this or that. I would say that the first time. I’d be very clear and say, You really want me to play with you now, and, ah, it’s hard because I have to do this. I can play with you after dinner for a little while. I’ll sit with you then and I’m looking forward to it. So I would say that the first time. But from there, I would only periodically acknowledge her side of things, her feelings, from that place of assuredness in yourself, and not keep pleading our case with her. Because if we think about it, the reason that we get caught up in pleading our case and repeating our side is that we really just want our child to stop objecting and just agree to it. They usually can’t. Because they need that feeling of disagreement with us so that they can let go and be mad and release these tensions of the day.

But we’ll need to remind ourselves a lot that this needs to happen. It would be so nice if the feelings looked like, at the end of the day she says, Oh, it was so stressful today. All these children were there and it was so much fun and we did this or that. But, you know, I’m exhausted and I just need to scream! I need to run around! I need to yell! I need to cry! If children could just say it like that, wouldn’t it be easier for us to make peace with this for ourselves? I mean, I would love that if children were that clear. But they’re not, because they don’t know themselves what’s causing these things and what’s going on with them, exactly. So instead, it looks like what this child is doing: Play with me. Play with me. I need to nurse. Nursies! All these things that they know are going to get to us.

Yes, they need our attention and connection in these situations, but it’s a very different kind of attention. It’s our willingness to see, hear, and still lead them. That kind of attention. They need to have us be able to say, Ah, you’re saying this, that you’re not happy with my choice, but this is my choice. And for us to know in our heart, in every soul of our body actually, that we’re being a great parent here. That we’re being a respectful, empathic leader, accepting that our children aren’t happy with our choices. That’s parenting right there in a nutshell. Tell me more about how mad you are that I’m not playing with you right now. Like, really going all the way to that extent, where we can even start to feel like this is a positive exchange for us to be in. Instead of the usual thing: Oh, yikes. Maybe I’m doing it wrong. I’m not giving her enough. She’s not happy. And that means I’m a failure and I’m a terrible parent. That’s where most of us go. And, by the way, every parent I’ve known, myself included, is relieved when their child goes down for a nap. So please, this parent, don’t beat yourself up for that or anything else.

And again, I realize it’s so easy for me to say this girl needs more leadership from her parent, but what that actually looks like is challenging. I know. It’s our job, though. I mean, this is the job that we take when we become parents. We have to be the leaders for our children. They can’t be the ones that are leading in the house and charging everybody up with their two-and-a-half-year-old shenanigans.

So, to this parent, you’ve got a great girl here. You’ve got a blustery, strong girl. She’s going to be very persuasive in whatever she does. But she may also need to scream, at least a little, or cry every day. And the more fluid this dynamic can become for both of you, the better. You’re not abandoning her to do that. You’re just accepting. And accepting means that we don’t try to fix it, that we trust it, and we go about the things that we need to do. And if we can’t stop to be there for her when she’s upset, then we’ll say, Ah, you just want to scream when I say no to you about that. I’m going to go in here right now and I’ll be back to check on you. And then if she follows you, just carry on and trust that it’s a really okay dynamic to be in.

In fact, I honestly believe this is quality time. Especially for us when we’re working or we don’t have a lot of time with our children. This is what quality time will end up looking like: hearing the feelings as we hold our boundaries. And then later, if we’re lucky, we’ll continue to get to hear these disappointments that children have. Their first love and maybe the feelings aren’t returned, or they didn’t make the team. This is the same thing. Creating that safety and accepting these disagreeable exchanges and strong feelings. This is where it starts, and ends up being all those things that most of us want to be as parents, that safe person that accepts our child in all their states.

So this mother says she needs a lot of reminders and repetition. Well, we all do, I think. I still do with my much older children. I still need to remember, Oh, that’s right. This is healthy for them to not be happy, either with me or with their life right now. And thank goodness they can express it. Thank goodness they’ve bestowed me with this gift of being able to trust me with their feelings, and that I’m not going to try to take them away, or I’m not going to try to shift them and give into something, just to make them feel better. So I really hope some of that helps.

And, by the way, I want to tell you about my No Bad Kids Master Course. This course delves deeply into the topics I shared in this podcast and many, many more, so that I can finally give you, all in one place, the whole picture on my respectful, empathic discipline approach. You can check out all the details at nobadkidscourse.com or via my website, janetlansbury.com. I can’t wait to share this with you.

And thank you so much for listening. We can do this.

The post Worn Down by a Toddler’s Screams, Tests, and Demands appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Transcript of “When We’re Too Late to Stop the Behavior (Now What?)”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury, and welcome to Unruffled. Today, I’m going to be responding to a Facebook message I received from a parent who’s wondering how to react after the fact when her 3-year-old has done something mischievous or destructive.

This is how this parent describes her current situation:

Dear Janet, I’m struggling with many things with my three-year-old. But one I can’t find the answer to is what to do when I find something bad that she’s done. i.e., things like finding that she’s drawn on the walls, that she’s poured water all over the floor, cut up some of her books. I don’t know how to react. I don’t know where to start. I also have a 10-month-old, so I can’t watch her all the time. And I don’t see some of the things until after the act.

Okay, so I feel for this parent, this doesn’t sound fun. First I’m going to jump to the short answer: What to do when we find something “bad” a child has done. Well, we’re going to have an organic reaction, very likely. Then as soon as possible we’ll want to take a breath and recenter, and realize that this not as a bratty child or a sign we’re a terrible parent, but it’s actually a message, I would even say a helpful message, that we can learn from.

In a practical sense, we’ll want do damage control to make sure something doesn’t worse. We’re going to put those books out of reach that she’s cutting up, take the scissors, make sure she can’t use more water, whatever that is. If it’s a child hurting another child, then we want to be sure that we’re there now to stop the behavior from happening again.

And from there, maybe we’ll want to acknowledge this, in a non-berating manner if possible. So not out of our anger. Hopefully we’ve taken that breath first if we could, and then something like, “Oh gosh, you know, you’re not supposed to do that. What’s up with that?” We might ask, “Can you please give me a hand clearing this up, putting these things away?”

If our child won’t do that, then I would say this message our child is sending us might be even a little more urgent. So we want to be asking ourselves, Hmm, why did this happen? What is my child showing me through this behavior?

Now I realize that some of you might be thinking, Are you kidding me? Now you’re saying this is my problem to fix. This sounds way too permissive. What? I should let my child get away with this behavior? Shouldn’t my child be punished for their behavior? How will they learn this is wrong?

Understandable questions, right? But the key is to understand what’s really going on here so that we can heal the behavior rather than just trying to force our child or shame our child to stop.

The post When We’re Too Late to Stop the Behavior (Now What?) 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 “Choose Not to Battle with Your Child (Here’s How)”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled. Today I’m responding to an email I received from a parent who feels like she’s constantly battling her almost three-year-old. What I’m going to be talking about, which I think will help this parent and hopefully, other parents as well is navigating where children need us to lead them and put boundaries in place, and where they need us to follow. And understanding these differences is key to making our lives easier as parents, having fewer power struggles or battles, our child is more comfortable and we’re more comfortable.

And another issue in this parent’s note that comes up as an underlying theme is her child’s sensitivity towards separation. So I’ll be talking a little about that as well.

Before I read this email, I want to preface it with a couple of thoughts. First, I want to say that this parent is very obviously like the majority of the parents that reach out to me: a wonderful caring person and parent. The feedback I want to give is not at all in criticism of her, but only to help.

Another thing I want to mention is just to share a little about my process. I receive a lot of notes. I’m very privileged to be in that position with parents needing help. I wish I could help all of them, of course, but that just isn’t possible. What stands out for me, what makes me want to do a podcast around a particular note is if I almost want to have a dialogue with the parent as I’m reading and say, “Oh, if you just try this, it’s going to be so much easier. Oh, I think I can help you here.” If I feel that coming up for me, then that tells me that maybe I have something to say about this issue that could be helpful to this parent or other parents. And that happened to me a lot in this note.

So all of that said, here’s the letter:

Hi, Janet. Help! I feel like I’m constantly fighting my almost-three-year-old. We never went through the terrible twos, but in the last six weeks, I’ve learned what they mean by three-nager. I’m stubborn. So when I say no, which isn’t often, I mean no and, unlike my parents, I’m not going to eventually give in. And he constantly challenges that. When I say it’s time to go, it’s time to go and he constantly challenges that. When I say it’s time to get dressed, it’s time to get dressed and he constantly challenges that. I’m at my wit’s end.

I’m an avid reader. I’ve read so many books on discipline and your methods make the most sense to me. I try to incorporate them into our daily lives, but we’re still butting heads.

We wake up early, 6:00 AM, so he gets breakfast and gets 20 minutes of tablet time while I shower and get dressed. Then he plays for another 20 minutes and I give it another 20 minutes to get out the door by 7:00, but it’s never 7:00. It’s usually 7:15 or later, which is ridiculous given the time we start.

I’ve started giving just the FYI notice, “the train is leaving for school in 10 minutes” and he’ll negotiate.

“Mama say ‘Alexa, four more minutes.'”

So I’ll give him four more minutes and then I’ll ask him if he wants to walk to the changing table or be carried and he’ll run and hide. And then I have to chase him around the house every single day.

Then we finally get him dressed and it’s “do you want to go climb into your car seat or do you want me to help you in?” And he’ll run into the garage and hide. I don’t even open the garage door until he’s buckled in anymore because he’d be halfway down the street if I did.

In the rare instance he does get in the car without being forced, he’ll bypass his car seat and run around the car, running from door to door as I get more and more frustrated every single day.

Before we leave the house, I’ll give him hugs and kisses and then another round or two, and I tell him to have a good day and I’ll see him after school. We have to do this before we leave, as they pick him up directly out of the car at school. But in the last couple of weeks, he started fighting the hugs and kisses. So I’ll go get in the car and then he’ll cry that he didn’t get them, and then when I go to give them, he’ll fight them again. This could happen three or four or more times and put us really behind schedule, but I don’t ever not go back for those hugs kisses because I don’t want him to think I don’t want them.

Needless to say, by the time I drop him off at school by 7:15, 7:30, I’m exhausted and in a terrible mood.

We have a few struggles at night, but not near as many and I have to wonder if it’s because he knows we’re going to be separated while he is at school. He’ll even say things like, “Mama, you came back,” most days when I pick him up like he’s surprised I came back. Yesterday I heard him having a conversation with his stuffed monkey and he told him, “See, I came back.” How can I make him feel secure in that?

Another issue we have is around potty learning. He’s shown interest since right before his second birthday, but he’s had so many adjustments to make since then that we’ve struggled with consistency. He turned two in March. In April he went back to school part-time after being with his nanny full time for eight months. In December, our nanny moved away, and in January, he went back to school full time.

Now that I’m writing this, I have to wonder if some of the behavior issues are because we don’t have our nanny anymore even part-time.

With potty learning, he won’t even try anymore. I ask him if he wants the diaper or the underwear, and he’ll say underwear, and then proceed to go hide and poop in his underwear. He knows he is doing it. He could just as easily go to the potty. What gives? He does the same thing at school though, he has fewer accidents because they put him on the potty on a schedule with the rest of his friends.

I adopted my son as an infant, as a single mom. I know very little about his family history, but I did meet his dad briefly. He had such a great spirit and a great dimpled smile that my son inherited, but it seems he also had a troubled childhood. And from the few minutes we spoke, I picked up that he constantly fought authority because he was strictly disciplined and never challenged mentally.

My son is smart. He has been since he was little and it’s not just me. The social worker who did our home studies picked up on it when he was an infant and his teachers tell me now. And he’s also got a lot of spunk and a ton of spirit and oh so much energy. I try to give him everything I can to foster his intelligence. We read books together every night. We tell stories. We draw pictures and practice writing letters. If he shows interest in anything, I probably go overboard and provide it all. It’s important to me that I help him achieve his potential, especially as an adoptive mom.

Oh, and also somewhere in the back of my mind, I’m thinking if I can help bring out his full potential, give him opportunities, then maybe he won’t fight me/authority when he is older.

We spend a lot of time together. It’s just me and him after all, and we have our little routine. I pick him up from school, he’ll play in the playroom or with our kitties while I fix our dinner, then bath. Then we play for a little while and read books and then off to bed. He’ll often ask me to sleep in his bed for a while, or he’ll ask to sleep in my bed and I often let him. But generally, our evening routine is fairly uneventful.

All this to say, I don’t know what else to do to reassure him and make things a little less challenging. Help. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this novel.

Okay. So there are a lot of great details here — so many universal ideas that parents share with me that they have problems with. So I’m excited to go over this.

The first thing I want to say is going to sound so nitpicky, I know, or fuddy-duddy or something else negative, but I have to say it. I don’t think this parent or any parent helps themself by using words like “terrible twos.” Although she said she never went through terrible twos, she said she’s learned what they mean by “three-nager.” And these are terms that, while harmless in themselves, put images in our mind that are going to mislead us and make us feel more in a power struggle with our child than we need to be. Because we’re seeing young children as this other.

We hear people talk about taming tantrums and taming toddlers as if they’re animals and these wild beasts, and three-nager is seeing a tiny little guy who’s not even three as a teenager with that maturity, with that attitude. I mean, even teenagers underneath the swagger are just sweet, vulnerable kids underneath it all.

But this guy is just an innocent tiny little boy doing exactly what he’s supposed to do at this age and exactly what every parent should on some level welcome children to do, because it’s a great sign.

Reading later in this note that he’s adopted, he’s so comfortable with this mother that he’s pushing back, being more his own person, showing his autonomy and his will, and that what he wants is different than what his mother wants. This is exactly what toddlers need to do to individuate and develop more of their independence and autonomy. But of course, they always want it on their terms, not when we want to separate. They want to be the ones to push us away and that’s how it’s supposed to be.

So seeing that for what it is will help our heart to go out to this child and to want to help him in the areas where he gets stuck and is struggling. But not see him as this scarier older person than he is. He’s very immature emotionally, as he should be at this age.

So getting off that soapbox, then she talks about how he’s constantly challenging her when she says no. When she says it’s time to go he challenges that. When it’s time to get dressed, he challenges that. And what he’s showing in “time to go” and “time to get dressed” is that he is also a very typical child for his age, struggling with transitions.

I talk a lot about that on my podcast because it will help us so much as parents if we can know that transitions are a big, big challenge for young children. Even if they weren’t going through any other kinds of transitions in their life like losing their nanny, starting a new school, moving houses, they are in this ginormous developmental transition and it’s really hard for them to keep their balance and not go off the edge a lot. Every inclination in a child this age, again, the healthy inclination is to say no. Even if they want to say yes, even if they prefer to eat the ice cream cone, they kind of have to say no first. It’s who they are. It’s this very harmless healthy aspect of development.

So she’s getting stuck, as parents do, with trying to get his cooperation at a time when she’s probably least like likely to get it — during a transition. Because this small transition of getting out the door to school can be the tipping point for a child for all the other transitions that they’re feeling. And then she’s absolutely right when she later realizes that separation may be part of this as well.

So why are other transitions that he has not as hard? Well, this one for him is about separation, and what this all means is that he needs a lot of help. What I want to help this parent see is how she can help more getting through the transition and not get caught up in wanting him to lead this, because transitions are an area that children almost always need us to lead. Especially in these toddler years. They need that extra helping hand to get the momentum going and get from point A to point B.

So that’s why he’s challenging her. Not because he wants to be a teenager or even that he doesn’t want to go to school. I think he does, but this is so hard to get from point A to point B. It’s really hard to get going.

One of the things she says here is that she gives him 20 minutes of tablet time… and this is just a small thing, but it stuck out for me because it is a little bit harder for children when what they’re doing is so engaging, like any kind of tech use or screen time. They get pulled in more deeply and it’s harder to stop than playing with toys would be. So it’s just something to look at that she may want to change. She says, while she’s showering and getting dressed, he has the tablet time, and then he plays for another 20 minutes. So at least he’s playing without the tablet after that. So that’s good. Anyway, just for us to understand that that’s something more challenging for him to come out of than just playing with toys. Just for our own information.

Then she says she gives him the notice “train is leaving for school in 10 minutes” and he’ll negotiate.

So if we know that this is a challenging situation, that children need a lot of help with,… the momentum, what I call the confident momentum, they need that from us to get them through the transition, then we won’t open up space for negotiation. Because negotiation is us giving up our leadership to the child.

Now sometimes there’s room for that and maybe there’s room for that even in this if they did it the night before saying, “Let’s work out a plan for tomorrow. We have to get out the door, this is what I’ve got to help you do. What would make it better for you? What would make it easier for you?” That’s the time to negotiate, but not in the moment in the middle of a transition. It will put the brakes on everything because our child is telling us, or showing us, through their behavior in this case pretty clearly, that he can’t handle it. So he can’t be in charge of this.

And then she asks him if he wants to walk to the changing table or be carried. So that’s a great thing to offer him, but maybe not in a transition like this when he’s showing that it’s a struggle. This parent is realizing that because of her own frustration and exhaustion at the end.

And if she’s human, which I imagine she is, she’s not really liking him very much at the end of that. We don’t want to put ourselves in that position if possible, and the way to do that is to see transitions for what they are: big challenges. And to not be afraid on her end to be the bad guy who’s not going to negotiate. We do that with love and a smile, and we’re not angry, but we’re not going to let him negotiate.

Maybe ask him if he wants to climb in the car. But if we see the slightest pause, we’re already ready to be on that, to just give him a little helping hand. “You know what? I’m going to do it this time.” And then maybe we don’t give him the choice sometimes because he really doesn’t need it there when you are in a hurry, trying to get him out the door to a separation situation that he’s showing he’s kind of sensitive to, as a lot of children are.

So if he tries to negotiate saying, “Mama say Alexa four more minutes,” I would say, “Aha, that’s an interesting idea, but no, we’re not going to do that this time. We’ve got to go.”

I’m not getting mad at him for saying that. I’m allowing him to try to negotiate, but I’m not going to come to the table with him, because I understand that he can’t handle that.

Then she says when she asks about the changing table, he runs and hides. So we don’t want to give opportunity for that. If that’s his M.O. or a possibility, don’t give him that option and allow him to be in charge of that. Have your hand behind his back, say, “Okay, now we’re going to change your diaper.” Very confidently. “Here we go.”

And then he tries to run and we already have our hands around him, on his arms, on his shoulders and we’re not going to let him run. “You want to run? Nope. I’ve got to hold onto you.” Not letting him follow his impulse there.

Then she says he finally gets him dressed and she’s asking if he wants to climb in the car or does he want her to help him in. And he runs into the garage and hides again.

Don’t signal that you’re giving him a choice. Don’t offer him a choice, open the door, say, “Okay, now it’s time. We’re going in.”

Parents sometimes say to me, “Well, I can’t do this. My child’s too strong. Or my child’s too…” It’s not about that we have to use brute force. It’s about our confidence going in knowing that we’re being heroic here helping him do this and saying no to his request for choices or more time and all of that stuff. It’s not as loving to just let him anger us, and frustrate us, and do all these pauses that he really doesn’t want to do either. He’s getting stuck there and we want to help him get unstuck.

We want to help her avoid getting frustrated with him because that doesn’t feel good to her or to him.

So all of these machinations with the diaper changing, and the four more minutes and the I can’t get in the car, I’m going to run around the garage. All of that is like he’s waving a flag saying: I need help. I need leadership here. I can’t do this.

If she could see it that way, that will help her to be the hero.

Then she says before they leave the house, the hugs and kisses, and wow, I could feel how it would be so hard for her to say no to the hugs and kisses. But if she takes a little step back out of that fear that he’s going to feel somehow that she would reject him, or doesn’t love him or want to be affectionate with him. If she could take a step back, she could see that this is quite unreasonable what he’s asking of her.

He’s saying: I don’t want it. I don’t want it. I’m going to fight you. But now when you carry on, now I want it. And then I don’t.

And this is really torture for both of them. It’s not helpful for her to keep that going. It would be more helpful for him and her to say, “Okay, now’s the time for the hugs and kisses.”  And he says, “No,” and say, “Okay, my love, I can’t wait to give them to you when I pick you up.” Then let him be angry about that. Let him vent these feelings that are maybe below the surface here with the separation and just the challenge, the emotional challenge of a transition.

I really hear her that she’s so afraid of giving him those feelings, but I can promise her he will feel relieved that he can vent and that his mother adores him and is being the leader that he needs right here.

Then when she drops him off, I think she’ll be there on time and she will not be exhausted and in a terrible mood. If she can image this as what it is: somebody that needs help, her coming in as the hero, so many little pitfalls he’s opening up for her to fall into and she’s not going to, she’s going to keep moving ahead with confidence.

This idea about the separation is another place that sounds like it’s making it so much harder for her be this confident leader, because it’s like there’s a little uh-oh in her head saying: Oh gosh, he doesn’t feel secure about separation. He’s not sure I’m coming back.

And I don’t believe that’s what’s going on here at all.

It sounds like he is sensitive to separation and that is common with children that are adopted. Even if they’re adopted at birth, they have experienced a separation. What helps them to heal it is not for us to tippy-toe around separations or avoid them or feel sorry for our child whenever we have to have one with him. But it’s actually to face the separations with confidence in yourself, confidence in him, and holding that space for him to share the feelings, whatever they are. And children, as I’ve said many times in this podcast are very, very adept at this. They do it naturally. It will come up in every situation where there’s separation. There’ll be a little more healing.

He’s also had this separation with his nanny. That was a huge realization this parent had as she’s writing the note. Yes, the loss of that nanny, that’s a big deal. This is somebody with whom he’s been intimately connected. So yes, separation, but how does he heal this and feel better? By experiencing it and feeling the feelings around it, which may be her saying no to his request for hugs and kisses after he’s pushed her away all those times. That is his moment that he’s sort of arranged for, unconsciously, where he gets to feel that, and that’s how he’ll get better.

And the fact that he’s playing it out with his toy, that’s what children do as well. And it’s so beautiful when we can see it that clearly. They use play for therapy in a lot of situations, but it’s not often this clear. He’s playing with his monkey the separation and that he will come back. And he’s saying it to his mother. “You came back, you came back.” So it’s not from insecurity that that is coming from. It’s self-therapy.

Then she talks about potty learning. So this is an area we cannot control how he’s moving his bowels or urinating. We can’t control that in any way and we can’t lead that. That’s a place that children need to lead. But children still need boundaries, even in these areas that they need to lead. And the boundary he needs is for his mother to see him, see where he is right now and not give him that option of underwear, because she’s the adult able to see that he’s not ready for that right now. Too many transitions happening. He’s processing a lot of stuff. He can’t do this right now. He will soon, but I wouldn’t make that another area of frustration for both of you, because that will only make it harder for him and for her.

So “he won’t even try anymore.” Right. Just trust that. You could still ask him sometimes if he wants to go and then if he says no, let it go. Accept his answer, let it be. This will pass. He’s in a bit of a grieving mode here with the nanny, maybe, and the other changes: going back to school full time. As this parent notices, he’s thriving in school, but he’s got a lot of feelings about it. And that’s okay. It’s healthy that he’s sharing them and sharing them with his mother who he totally trusts and is obviously very bonded with.

And actually, toilet training is sort of about separation as well. Someone pointed out to me after my podcast, well actually somebody was writing… They thought they were writing to their friend, I guess, because there was a name on there that they were writing to, but they actually wrote it back to me about my toilet learning post that I did last time with the podcast. She kind of criticized me that I was a bit wishy-washy, and I was, in terms of describing the three aspects of development that need to be in place for children to achieve toilet learning. She said it better. So I really appreciated her feedback and I’m going to share it here.

She said, “One, knowing physically the flow of the bladder. Two, emotional, knowing that she is going to feel separation from her insides go down the toilet! And then, three, cognitive understanding of how they are all interwoven.”

So she said it better, those three aspects of development that are needed. But interestingly, the emotional part is separation. So again, this separation theme… he’s really working on this it sounds like, and that’s just so healthy. And all these pieces will fall into place when he’s allowed to process the feelings.

I love what this mom shared about meeting her adopted son’s birth father, and I just want to help her see the part about him constantly fighting authority. She even says it was because he was strictly disciplined and never challenged mentally. So these issues were the result of his upbringing, not the innate traits that he has. So I don’t think she needs to worry the slightest bit that her son will have that and that somehow she has to compensate to help him to succeed and reach his potential, as she says.

I believe that she can trust that he’s got all he needs in her: a nurturing relationship, and that she can trust him to let her know what he wants to work on in terms of books, drawing, and eventually writing letters or reading that he can lead those aspects. And she really can trust that he, like all children, knows what he’s doing better than anybody in terms of his learning and that the best we can do is believe in him, enrich him in the ways that he requests, not push him into things that maybe we think he should be doing or want him to be doing. Really following him there with all the trust in the world that he’s got everything he needs with his relationship with his mother.

Then her last question is: “I don’t know what else to do to reassure him and make things a little less challenging. Help.”

I hope some of these ideas that I’ve shared will reassure her that he doesn’t need reassuring. He just needs her honesty, her leadership when he can’t be the one to do it in these transitions, and her love, which sounds like she has in abundance for him. And when she takes on the leadership role, it will be a lot less challenging. I want her to believe in herself and allow him to share and experience the feelings that he needs to feel.

I really hope some of this helps and thank you again to this parent for trusting me and sending me her note, her novel. And please check some of my other podcasts on my website janetlansbury.com. There are 200-and-something of them at this point and they’re all indexed by subject and category so you should be able to find whatever topic you might be interested in. And I have two books, they’re available 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.

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