Transcript of “As Our Kids Get Older – 5 Ways to Continue Building Lasting Emotional Bonds”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.

Today I’m going to be responding to a question, a couple of questions, actually, that I’m often asked—and by the way, I love any kinds of questions that you send me, so please keep them coming! The questions are around, What does your approach—respectful parenting or the RIE approach—look like as children get older? Does RIE end at two years old? What do you do then? What approach do you go to after that? Sometimes they’ll ask me, Who does what you do, but for older kids? And by “older” they might mean kids beyond three or four or five years old. So I thought I would take this opportunity to clarify some things about this approach I teach and my background.

What I’ve called “respectful parenting” is my interpretation of Magda Gerber’s Educaring Approach, commonly known as the RIE approach. And RIE is R-I-E, that’s the acronym for the nonprofit organization that Magda founded with pediatric neurologist Tom Forrest in 1978 called Resources for Infant Educarers, RIE. RIE was created for the first two years of life, and all the specific guidelines that Magda offered pertain to those first two years of life. In that sense, it does end at age two. But the whole purpose of this approach, and the whole reason it’s focused on zero to two, is that this is a foundational approach. It’s a way of understanding our children as babies and our relationship with them, a nurturing healthy relationship, how to navigate that in the first two years and give our child the foundation that they need, and our relationship the foundation it needs, to flourish for all the rest of the years. So this isn’t now we stop doing this and now we’re going to start spanking our child or molding them like clay. This approach lasts throughout children’s adulthood, and I can verify that as a parent of three adults.

Another question I’m often asked is, Is there a RIE person for older years? And there is not a RIE person for older years, because there isn’t a RIE approach for older years. What I’ve done is interpreted and also used my experiences—not only as a parent of three very different children with unique needs and temperaments and talents, but also the many families that I’ve consulted with over these past almost 30 years now, who have children up to age 10 or so. And some of these have been in-person consultations, some have been telephone conversations. And I’ve mainly learned that this approach is still totally valid and works for children of all ages. This same approach that is focused on the first two years of life continues to work. Personally, I’ve never needed anything else as a parent with my own children. Maybe because I’ve put so many years into studying and training, and then practicing and teaching this approach, that it’s foundational in me, in the way that I perceive everything.

I find it so interesting, too, that all these studies show that in the first three years of life, children are learning more, developing more than in the rest of our lives put together. And yet these early years are the ones we don’t remember, right? Magda focused on the first two years because it’s the beginning, and if we can set ourselves up in the beginning, then we’re giving our child something, and ourselves something, that will last.

One of the reasons is because of what science shows, that this is the most important time for children in terms of their self-confidence, their sense of self, even basic character traits, many of them that we’re modeling and they’re learning them that way. This is a precious time. We could say the most precious time in terms of learning and brain development and our relational development. So that was one reason.

Another reason is that while most believe—I don’t know if this is still true because there have been so many studies showing what amazing learners babies are, but yet still I would say we tend to discount these early years. We tend to see babies in this very limited way. Maybe because they’re not talking yet, they don’t seem like full people we can interact with. We maybe don’t understand that they might not want to be in somebody else’s arms, so we don’t bother to let them know or ask them and get a vibe from them whether that’s welcome or not. We maybe talk down to them. We don’t treat them as whole people so much. And yet what Magda believed, and studies confirm, this is actually a time we should want to be extra-careful, because they can’t express themselves. They can’t share nuances about what they’re feeling or their needs. So this is a time, in Magda’s view, and I’ve come to agree with this, to be more careful in what we’re doing with babies. How we’re engaging with them, how we’re treating them, because they can’t express themselves verbally. That’s why she was especially interested in all the things that are going on with babies in the first two years.

So, because it’s foundational and because they can’t tell us, we want to give them extra respect instead of less respect. And that’s why she talks about welcoming a baby as an honored guest when they’re born, not just a cute little thing that’s maybe a little empty-headed in the way that we see them. I mean, I definitely did that. Some people are naturally able to see into a baby and see the person there right away, but I was not able to in the beginning. Now that I do, I can’t stop seeing that with every baby. It’s like once you open this door, you never want to leave and maybe you can’t leave, if you wanted to.

That’s why there’s often this confusion around why this approach is focused on the first two years and what we’re supposed to do later. But I do understand that, just as everything looks different as our children grow, the way that we’re engaging with them looks different. And that’s why in this podcast, I do love to answer questions about children that are up to eight or nine years old. I don’t often go beyond that, because my basis of experience for those years is personal. But what I thought I would do in this podcast is share how I’ve continued to interpret Magda Gerber’s approach and how it has served me beautifully as a parent. I mean, I am not always beautiful as a parent, but this approach has served me that way.

Let’s talk about some of the major points that continue as our children get older and how they look. I mean, all of this continues as children get older, but how it looks.

First: keeping faith in our kids’ competency. One of the amazing lessons in this approach is that babies are born, yes, very dependent on us, and that’s good. It should be that way, right? That’s how we’re going to begin our attachment with them. And there’s so much that they can’t do. But even at birth, they have competencies. And the interesting thing about perceiving our children as competent right from the very beginning is not only is seeing believing, but believing is seeing in this case. So if we believe that our baby can learn how to communicate with us, we will see that this actually is true, because we will act on that belief, meaning we’ll try to include our baby in communication with us.

We realize that babies also have thoughts and interests that aren’t just about us. I remember years ago someone commenting on one of my posts saying, “Well, if a baby is away from you, if they’re out of your arms, they are just waiting to be in your arms again.” Basically, they’re putting life on hold. And first of all, it implies such a limited view of babies, that they couldn’t possibly have an independent thought or interest. Those of us that observe babies know that that’s not true. But if we don’t believe it, we probably won’t see it. We won’t see that the baby is actually quite content, sometimes, in their playpen or safe crib or on the floor as they get older. And they’ve got a lot to do, they’ve got a lot to see, they’ve got a lot to take in. When we see this limited view, we become very self-centered in the way that we’re considering babies, right? It’s all about us, adding so much more pressure to an already challenging job.

When we do begin this—and none of these things I’m going to say can’t be picked up on later in life. That’s the whole point of this podcast episode, is to show you how you can pick this up later in life if you want to, it doesn’t have to be when they’re babies. But when we start it when they’re babies, it becomes so much easier for us because we’re already into the seeing is believing, believing is seeing. We’ve believed and we’ve seen, and that just builds on itself. Wow, my baby can do this. They learned to roll over to their tummy all by themselves. We saw them trying, we saw them working on it, we saw them using their body freely, doing all these interesting intermediate positions. They can do that. And then from there, they can scoot, they can crawl, they can walk. They’re communicating with us. They’re practicing cognitive skills. They’re building higher learning skills like focus, attention, and critical thinking. Wow. Why would we get in the way of that if we saw it, right?

So this is never about abandoning a child or forcing independence. I mean, forcing independence is not possible anyway, right? Because independence isn’t a specific action someone else can teach you. It’s a feeling that you have. It’s something you want to taste, even as a baby. You want to have moments where you get to decide what to look at, what to touch. And the sense of agency that this builds is very powerful for children and carries them through adulthood. What we can do is honor independence, make room for it, notice it, and know that that’s such a positive aspect of our children’s development.

Also, it’s not only that children develop self-confidence and a sense of agency, this I can do it feeling deep within them. But this is also such a healthy relationship dynamic, right? That I trust you in all these areas. You know better than I do what you’re working on. You know better than I do what interests you. So why would I get in the way of that? And when we start opening ourselves up to that, we realize that children of all ages, not just the older ones but the little ones as well, they know what they’re doing. If we could stay out of their way in these areas of development and just create the environment that allows them to practice whatever they’re practicing. Not indicate to them, either overtly or subtly, that Really what you’re doing isn’t important, you need to be doing this right now. Because this is what I’m worried about you not getting, or this is what I was told you need to learn at this age or whatever.

And this can carry through with walking, talking, the way toys work, climbing, toilet learning, reading, homework. Eventually applying to college, choosing partners, choosing jobs, and navigating workplaces and relationships. Through all these autonomous struggles and accomplishments, our trust in our children’s abilities keeps growing, along with their self-confidence.

Alternatively, if we don’t truly believe that our kids are capable of handling their developmentally-appropriate tasks without our assistance—we’re not talking about putting children in a situation that’s traumatic, these are developmentally-appropriate tasks—I mean, if they ask for our assistance, we’re going to find a way to give it to them, right? Assistance, which doesn’t mean doing it for them. If they’re not asking, let them explore it. That’s the best possible thing they could do. But if we’re worried that they’re going to be crushed if they get too frustrated or if they make a mistake or get disappointed or, God forbid, they fail, then we can perpetuate this cycle of dependency. That, again, puts so much pressure on us and creates less security in our child, less self-confidence. The feeling that they need us for all these things that they really don’t, but we both got caught up in it that way.

If you do find yourself caught up in a situation where your child seems to need you to do all these tasks for them, then just try backing off. Not all the way maybe, but a little bit. If your child thinks they need you to sit there right with them while they’re doing their homework and show them how to do it, then just back off a little at first. I’m going to stay here with you the whole time, but instead of giving you the answers—and I’m not saying to say all this out loud, but this is the way to maybe approach it—instead of me giving you the answers, I’m going to ask more questions to help you find the answer.

I remember when my son was I think 10, and he had to make a book report and he had to draw a picture for the cover of the book report of this dog that was a big part of the story. And he said, “I don’t know how to draw a dog. I can’t do it.” And I thought, Uh-oh, yeah, that is a lot. That is kind of intimidating, for sure. But instead of starting to draw it for him—which believe me, I have that impulse. I have all the impulses everybody else has, but I’ve learned to kind of let them go and trust. So instead of taking that on for him, I just asked him questions, like “Is there a part of the dog’s body that you could draw first? What do you feel like you can draw?” And he said, “The nose.” So I said, “Okay, why don’t you try drawing the nose?” He drew the nose and then I said, “Okay, what next? What else could you draw?” “The ears. The eyes.” And it went like that, and he drew this really cool dog. I mean, it wasn’t a perfect dog, but it was perfect for him, at that time, to be able to do that.

I’ve learned, starting at the beginning with my kids as babies, that we want to help. But true help really means doing less, so that our child not only does the task, but learns that they can do it themselves. We want both of those types of learning to happen at the same time, ideally, as much as possible. Not only did you draw a dog, but you can draw. And he wouldn’t have had that part if I’d drawn the dog. He wouldn’t have had either one of those, actually. So this dynamic, keeping faith in our kids’ competency, continues.

There’s a really common thing that we can get caught up in with teenagers, which is we have to nag kids to do homework. And we can put an end to that cycle by stepping back, letting go, and having faith in our child to cope with these age-appropriate situations. And in the case of homework, encouraging our child, if they’re struggling with that, to bring that to their teacher. Because teachers love that too, right? Staying out of parts of parenting that are not really our job, that need to be our child’s job. Developing these skills is one of them.

Along with that is the second point I want to make: encouraging that inner-directedness, that process orientation, and the sense of self that that builds—the communion with self. When children are drawn to enrichment—if we are privileged to be able to give our child enrichment beyond school, in terms of hobbies or sports, if we can make that happen—what I’ve learned through this approach is to let that belong to our child. To let it be totally our child’s idea, if possible. Maybe they were exposed to it, they went to go watch their friend play a soccer game and now they want to do it. Never starting to lead that ourselves. Because once we put ourselves in the position of leading that, we can create a dynamic where our child feels like now they’re doing it for us. Maybe they’re now realizing they’re more interested in something else, but now they’re stuck with this because we feel like they need to finish everything they’ve started.

I don’t agree with that. If we have a child that keeps stopping things they’ve started, I would actually look at who’s really starting those activities and if it really is our child. Because oftentimes we think we’re suggesting things to our child, like, “Why don’t you do gymnastics?” And our countenance is telling them, My parent thinks I should want to do this. Really trying to prioritize letting our child lead these activities, because this is this precious bell inside them of their calling, of their interests, of all the things they’re going to end up doing in life as they get older. And doing with full commitment, because they’re their choice, right? It’s not going to be full commitment if it’s our choice or our suggestion, even. Wanting them to feel that full commitment. And trusting that some children don’t want to do anything after school, it’s exhausting. That’s perfectly okay too, and maybe there are things that they’re doing that are just as valid as going to take a class somewhere.

This looks, as children are older, like they’re choosing their subjects in high school, their electives that they want to take. I remember doubting when one of my kids said they didn’t want to continue with French and they’d done so well in French. I might’ve raised an eyebrow, but I let that go and I trusted and it was the best thing and perfectly fine for my child to do that. He’s a college graduate now and successful at a job already. They know better than we do. And even if we think they don’t know better than we do, allowing them to know better than we do will teach them so many more important things than that they should take French. That belief in: I can do my life, with my parent’s unconditional relationship and support.

And children benefit so much from downtime, what’s known as downtime, which is just they don’t want to do all those lessons that their friends are doing or the other parents are telling us we should do. They actually learn better because they have more time to digest and integrate and assimilate what they’ve been exposed to. And that’s the real brain-building part of experiences.

The other week I talked about praise and being careful not to overpraise, so that children can continue to be self-rewarded as much as possible. Yes, our communities and societies do give rewards, and that’s okay. It’s more important that our relationship with them is unconditional and trusting. They can get all those glossy things other places, but it’s not what our relationship is based on.

The third thing: accepting children’s feelings without judging or rushing them. What I talk about here all the time, because it is so integral to their emotional health, to being able to set boundaries—which I’m also going to talk about today—and really for them to flourish in life: Letting them express all those intense feelings. If they’re expressing them through behavior that might be aggressive behavior or unsafe behavior or even just annoying behavior to us, then all the more we want to encourage them to share those feelings another way. Not by saying, “Don’t do that, do this,” but saying, “It seems like you’re feeling this,” or “Is this what’s going on with you? Because you keep yelling at me.” Or, “Are you worried about something?” In that open, intimate way that we want to talk to our children. Not judgmental. Noticing the feelings beyond the behaviors.

Now, there are lots of ways that we can discourage feelings or diminish them that are far more subtle and loving, even. So we might want to keep our antenna up for those as children get older. Because of course, we never want to see our children hurt or upset in the least. We might say, “Look at all the things you have to be grateful for. It’s going to be fine.” Or, “Ah, they didn’t deserve you anyway.” There were so many times I wanted to say that about a problem with a friend or other relationship. “Oh, they just don’t get you.” No. Just allow the feelings. For me, it’s been about practicing zipping it. I mean, that sounds terrible, but just wait and let them keep going.

Because my urge to say something is often an urge to try to make them feel better or stop, and that doesn’t make them feel better or stop. What makes them feel better is to express it all, the whole way. Because it’s not our power to make our children feel a certain way, unfortunately, or anyone else for that matter.

And I will say that one of the reasons I talk about this so much in my podcast is that resisting the urge to calm feelings never really gets easier, at all. And our kids are going to get their feelings hurt a lot in life. They’re going to get rejected by friends, they’re not going to make the A-team, they’re going to lose the debate, they’re going to do poorly on the test, get their hearts broken. And all of this is life. As Magda always said, If we can learn to struggle, we can learn to live. And that learning to struggle is lifelong learning. And just acknowledging, “Ah, that was hurtful,” or that was whatever our child said it was. So children receive this healthiest message that whatever their moods, their darkest moods, their harshest feelings, even towards us, are safe for them to feel. Will be heard, accepted, hopefully understood by us, if possible.

This is really the biggest secret I know of to fostering a close lifelong bond with our kids. Not just accepting them and believing in them with skill development, but accepting and believing in them when they are at their absolute lowest.

And four, just in case you thought this was about letting kids do whatever they want: remember that the basis for all the healthy freedom that I’m talking about giving children is: boundaries. This could have been the very first point that I made, because none of the rest of this will flourish if children don’t feel safe in our confident, empathic leadership. Making those hard choices sometimes that are going to upset them, but we love them too much to not put ourselves on the line like that. We love them and ourselves too much to not confront it. I mean, I don’t want to confront things unless I absolutely have to, but I learned that this is real love. Real love isn’t just saying, “Okay, whatever, I don’t care.” That’s saying I don’t care. And we don’t mean it that way. We just mean, I can’t deal with another boundary right now. And I understand that, I’ve felt that many times. And maybe we can’t right then. But knowing that even though our children won’t tell us they love us so much when we state boundaries or hold boundaries for them, that’s how they feel.

What I’ve seen over the years is that the children know that. And the children that don’t have that, that seem like they’re so free to do whatever they want and the parent just accepts them, they will seek boundaries somewhere else usually, not necessarily in safe ways. Because it’s not a comfortable feeling when you’re a child—or a teenager, going through all the changes teenagers go through—that you’re in charge of your whole life. Yes, you want to be in charge of your skills and your learning and your free time, as long as it’s safe and reasonable, but not in charge of how you treat people or in charge of how you act on your moods or hurt yourself or hurt people. If we feel in charge of those things, we do not feel the slightest bit safe or loved or able to blossom.

Our boundaries are very often the dynamic that children need between us to be able to share their moods and feelings. So we want to keep practicing reasonable boundaries, sticking up for ourselves, while welcoming our children to disagree in whatever way that they do, as long as it’s not hurting us. And that’s the hardest part, right? Meaning they have a right to feel however they feel about our boundaries. It’s not, “You get what you get and you don’t get upset.” A parent shared with me that a teacher was saying that to her child. And no, that’s called stuffing our feelings. It’s that you’ve got a right to how you feel, and we’re reminding ourselves constantly, maybe, that them putting it out there is healthy and good. Much better for our child, and our relationship with them, than for them to hold it in.

As Susan David wisely shares—you know I always quote her here, I’m a big fan of her work, it’s very much in line with everything I believe. She says, “Research on emotional expression shows that when emotions are pushed aside or ignored, they get stronger. Psychologists call this amplification.” She also says, “When we push aside normal emotions to embrace false positivity, we lose our capacity to develop skills to deal with the world as it is, not as we wish it to be.” And I believe she’s referring mostly to adults here, but all of this applies to children. Because we continue to have the same basic needs from birth until death: the need to have boundaries and know our place in the world, to express ourselves fully, the need to be in communion with ourselves, to be inner-directed, the need to feel capable that we can achieve things when we put the effort in, with lots of ups and downs in the process.

One more point, point five: connecting during caregiving. You hear me talk about that with babies and toddlers and maybe preschoolers, but this is a way to keep nurturing our connection with children throughout their life. And it does look a little different as children get older. Mealtimes is the obvious one, sitting down to a meal without having our devices out, having that time together. Sherry Turkle, who’s the author of Reclaiming Conversation and has done a lot of research on this topic of technology interfering with children’s development of empathy and our ability to connect with each other, she has some great ideas for helping us as a family to limit tech use at times like that. But she also said, I really love this, she said: you can have it be certain rooms, i.e., We’re never going to have tech devices in the kitchen or in the dining room. I didn’t do that with my family, but I thought it was a great idea.

So, mealtimes, bedtime rituals. One of my kids wanted me to lie there with them while they fell asleep, even up to the age of, I think it was 10. And you know what? I was available. We don’t have to do that, but I did it. Only one out of three wanted that. But I’m glad I did it, in retrospect. I’m not saying everyone should do that, but there are some things you can do. Read books, sing songs (until they begged me to stop), of course, we did that for years too. Have those goodnight rituals that are special between you.

Then so many things can be caregiving: Band-aids. Medicine. When kids ask for help with homework or studying for a test, I consider that caregiving, even though I know it’s also skill-building for them and everything. But when my children would ask for help studying for a test, I would leap on that, because I could. If I couldn’t, I wouldn’t. But as kids get older, there aren’t that many opportunities, like there are when they’re little, to connect in that way. And caregiving in all these realms is one of the main ways.

Seizing on those bedtime rituals, seizing on the mealtimes, help with studying for a test, and we used to laugh a lot. I’d be completely focused at those times, I would not have a tech device anywhere near me. Just with them. Shopping for clothes or whatever they need. You want me to go with you? I’m there. It’s an excuse to be with your child as you get older, as they get older and you get older. Helping them with combing and brushing their hair, hairstyles, detangling, make-up for the prom. Taking kids to the doctor or for a haircut. My kids are adults now and they want to go to the dentist with me. Yes! I’m there, I’m right there. And we’ll go get something to eat afterwards and mess our teeth up again. But it’s the best. It keeps that flame alive between us.

And then just simple things, like when my kids come into the house or I’m meeting them somewhere, I drop everything. I’m up, I’m going in for a hug, excited to see them. Those transitions, those transitional times, remain sensitive times for all of us. You’ve heard me talk a lot about how difficult transitional periods can be for young children or even just getting up and getting dressed and getting to school in the morning. Keep helping your child. Yes, they can dress themselves, but if they want a helping hand, they just want moral support while they’re doing it, we can try to be there. And if we can’t, not giving them a judgmental response, “You can do that yourself.” But just, “You wanted me there and I can’t. But next time.”

Because what children can do and what they want to do, what their real need is—which might be connection with us before they leave for the day—are two different things. So when we can, prioritize those activities. The same when I’m parting with my children, I try to jump up. And I mean, I always saw them off to school and everything, but my son’s living at home now, and I try to wake up and make sure I say goodbye to him before he goes off to work. And hello to him when he comes in the door. I stand up, I’m so excited. Basically, any excuse. That’s how it gets.

I know it feels overwhelming now, that you’re doing all this stuff and everybody needs you so much. And mommy, mommy or daddy, daddy, and you could barely take a free breath. Well, I’m not saying you should be happy because you’re not going to have that later and that you should feel bad about the times that you’ve missed. Absolutely not. However, just know that as you grow, you’re going to find these connection points still and find these areas to trust your child. And all of that is going to bring you so many surprises and delight, laughter and amazement, really, at how capable your children are.

And if you want to get on this track and you’re not quite there, you agree with some of it, you don’t agree with other parts of it—that’s okay. You can always step into trust, step into connection. Those are always available to us, and our children want those more than anything from us. So, it’s a win-win.

Now, for those of you who would still like to check out resources that are compatible with what I teach, but for older children, the first thing I usually ask people if I get a chance to respond to them is, what topics are you concerned about? Because that will help me to guide them. I do have a whole list of books that I recommend, that are in my books and recommendations section of my website, janetlansbury.com. There are books covering a variety of topics, and many of them pertain to older children. Also, many of these authors have been on this podcast. So, check out all my other podcasts, and I hope you find the help that you’re looking for.

And by the way, Mother’s Day is coming up, and I’ve got a great gift idea for you: my No Bad Kids Master Course. You can learn all about it at nobadkidscourse.com.

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

The post As Our Kids Get Older – 5 Ways to Continue Building Lasting Emotional Bonds appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

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

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And I wrote back:

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

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

This parent wrote back:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And then a different commenter wrote to her:

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

And she wrote back:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks so much for listening. We can do this.

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

Transcript of “Praise That Encourages Intrinsic Motivation”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.

Today I’m going to be talking about praise. It’s an interesting topic. It can be confusing because there’s a lot of different advice out there. A lot of it is these really strict do’s and don’ts: don’t say these certain words, don’t do it this certain way. And a lot of those don’ts are actually against our instincts, so that makes it doubly hard to navigate. One thing my mentor Magda Gerber always said is, children don’t need big hooplas. And she recommended that we acknowledge, rather than praise. One thing I loved about Magda was she was all about clarity and simplicity, she didn’t use complicated terms. But she was very exacting in the words she used to communicate; maybe that’s because her original degree was in linguistics.

If we think about it, acknowledge, that’s something that we do that’s really about noticing what our child is doing, noticing what they’re accomplishing. So they have ownership, and we’re just the ones noticing. With praise, we’re more subjective. It’s more about us imbuing what we see—our child’s accomplishment, their activity—with certain qualities. We are giving it a certain value. So it’s more about us than just acknowledging is. Which isn’t to say that we should only ever acknowledge and never, ever praise. Children need a little of both, I think. They want to know what we think sometimes. And one way to be able to discern that for ourselves is to wait for them to ask us what we think, look up at us for that acknowledgement.

But I can understand why Magda emphasized acknowledging over praising. Because she put such a high value—and so do I, I’ve learned the value of it and that it’s really possible for us to nurture it—on intrinsic motivation. And it’s kind of a delicate thing, intrinsic motivation. We can, without meaning to, sort of take that away from our child and make it more about them pleasing others, like us. So we just want to be a little more careful with praise, that’s all. That we’re encouraging our child to still have ownership and not subtly taking that away from them.

Hari Grebler, my friend and associate and my first RIE teacher, she was a recent guest on this podcast in an episode called Every Child, Even a Tiny Baby, Needs Time On Their Own. She has an Instagram page that I love, Hari’s RIE Studio. And she did a post recently, it was just a little video clip, and this was the message on it: It’s okay to be quiet while children are creating. Wow, that’s something kind of surprising to a lot of us. That frees us, right? We don’t have to say something to encourage them. We can just be quiet and honor what they’re doing.

And then she said: When they show you one of their creations, you could ask how they thought to do that. So when they’re asking for feedback, when they’re showing something to us and sharing it with us, then we’re interested in where that came from in them. What made you want to make that? We’re still encouraging the intrinsic desire to make that, instead of labeling it with some kind of praise or qualification of our own. And what that also does is encourages our child to stay in touch with that creative part of them. We’re showing that we value that by asking about it, we’re interested.

Hari also notes: They can get hooked on our oohs and ahs. And why do we ooh and ah sometimes? Because we feel like we’re supposed to, we’re supposed to say something! They’re going to feel discouraged if we don’t talk about what they’re doing, right? That’s a fear that a lot of us have, but it’s not the truth.

The next thing she says: Don’t interrupt them. When children are creating something, just the way that we create or focus on an activity, focus on a skill, we’re in it. And we want to encourage children to be in that flow of what they’re doing. So when we go, Ooh, ah, we’re interrupting that, which makes it a little harder for them to have that longer attention span. They can become accustomed to being interrupted. One of my most popular early posts I wrote is called Baby, Interrupted, and it’s all about that.

Then she says: Never (and I don’t hear a lot of “nevers” coming from her!) never ask them what it is. So, why wouldn’t we want to ask a child what it is? We do want to ask them what it is sometimes, right? Because we’re seeing from this product mentality that we tend to have as adults: You must have been trying to make a thing here. But children, they’re in the process and they’re interested in what it feels like to be painting on this piece of paper, what the brush is doing, what the colors are doing, or whatever they’re working on. They’re interested in what’s going on moment to moment and—especially very young children—they’re not trying to make a finished product. They’re not trying to make something, they’re just making. And they’re into the making of it, openly exploring. All qualities that we want to encourage, right? So it can be counterintuitive for us, but it’s so much more encouraging to not try to get them to zero in on, You have to make a thing here. You have to make something that looks like something, that you can call something, that represents something. You can’t just explore what’s inside you. Big difference, right?

Of course, this is specifically about creative projects, but it really holds true with all kinds of skill development that our children are doing. They’re figuring out a process, and they’re learning. As Magda Gerber said, they’re learning how to learn every time they get the opportunity to do this.

And then Hari says: You could ask them to tell you about their drawing, but that’s even over the top sometimes. Because that’s putting pressure on them. Maybe they don’t have words to describe their drawing, right? Adults that create things can’t always talk about what they’re doing, or they don’t want to.

Finally she says: When I did art with kids at preschool, I would just play with color, abstract, so as not to distract them from their own work. Mostly, let kids work. No need to put up all their work, wait until they think of it. Some children don’t care at all about the piece itself after they’re done. It’s truly the process for them. Hari shares all kinds of jewels like this on her Instagram page.

Most of us have heard that it’s not a great thing to say “good job” or to use terms that represent fixed traits, like, “You’re so smart,” “You’re so pretty,” or “You’re so great at this!” Carol Dweck did the famous study on this where children who were told that they were smart, they would perform far worse on the test afterwards than those who were praised for their effort, who were told, “You’re working so hard to get this.” But being told that they’re smart, it imposes pressure. It’s almost like, I can only go down from here. And they would fall apart and not be able to do their best. Fascinating study.

But before we start doubting ourselves too much, I recommend considering what really matters. And, as with everything to do with our relationships with children, what matters is authenticity between us. When we’re talking about what they’re doing, it’s coming from us truly paying attention, noticing and appreciating what our child does. In other words, it’s all about our intention. Because we could say the perfect words or the words that aren’t recommended. We could say, “Wow, you’re a stupendous artist!” or, “Look at all the colors you’re using!” And either way, if we’re doing this purely to try to encourage our kids, because we feel we need to say something, not because we really mean it, children will sense the difference. And this is how they can get hooked into needing that kind of empty validation. It’s empty because we’re doing it because we’re just trying to come up with something to say that’s going to make them feel good. 

That doesn’t work with other people, right? When we’re just trying to say something to make them feel good rather than really meaning it. When the people that are always authentic with us, when they acknowledge something, that feels amazing, right? Because we know that they really mean it. We want to be that person for our children if possible, and try to prevent them from falling into that trap of people-pleasing and being outer-directed.

Here’s some guidelines that I put together that have helped me in terms of praise:

First, don’t praise to deliberately encourage, acknowledge what you genuinely think, like I was just saying. And, as Hari Grebler said, it’s okay to be silent. Children can feel when we’re genuinely interested and attentive, they have a sixth sense for this. Try to trust your child.

Next, be careful about overdoing it. Big hooplas, as Magda called them, tend to make it more about us than about our child. Big hooplas for going on the potty or for eating that certain food. Those will reveal our agendas to our kids and very possibly get in the way of our child going on the potty and eating that certain food. Because now, instead of doing this for themselves because they wanted to and it felt good to make that autonomous choice, they now realize they’re doing it for us. And young children don’t like being told what to do, neither do teenagers, neither do most children. Yes, if this is truly something rare and extraordinary that you’ve seen them struggle with, they’ve worked so hard on it, you both know that—yes, make a big hoopla then, if that’s how you really feel. But save those for those momentous occasions.

Finally, don’t use praise with the intention of gaining cooperation. I see it as misusing praise. So instead of saying, “Oh, good job, good job, good job,” I would say, “Thank you.” “Thank you for helping me do that, that really helps.” Or, “You’re able to do that now with me, and that’s much more fun for me to do it with you. Thanks for your help.”

But even with good job, there are ways we can say that authentically. It’s when we’re looking into our child’s eyes with that twinkle, we’re sharing something we’re both excited about, and we’re saying, I see you and you did it. Good job. When it really means something. That feels so much better than this sort of automatic stamp of approval that “good job” can often be. Good job, good job, I want you to keep going, keep doing this for me. Children don’t need that, and it can get in the way and have the opposite result from what we’re hoping for.

And then getting back into that intention part of this again. This can be our north star: intention. It just sort of clears everything away. What is my intention and how can I achieve it? I think in most of these examples, it seems like mostly our intention is to encourage. We don’t have bad intentions here, it’s very positive. We want to encourage our kids, we want them to feel good about themselves, to have self-confidence, to know they can do things. That’s what we want, right? So here are some ways that are quite related to what I’ve been talking about, about praise, but these are surprising ways to encourage our kids.

First, don’t try; instead, trust. Encouraging kids is not this active process, as I once thought it was. It’s about facilitating rather than doing. Since, as I was saying before, children feel our presence and they sense our emotions and our intentions, trusting in them as capable, unique, evolving individuals is the most valuable support we can give them. And, as Hari Grebler said, it can be silent.

Second, don’t cheerlead. You can do it! Good job, good job, good girl, good boy! Or coax. Come on, just give it a try! Give it a try. Instead, calm yourself and reflect what you see. There’s that acknowledging. “You’re working hard on that. It’s really difficult. Ah, it’s frustrating at times, right? To try to figure that out.” Or, “You did it.” And now I just have to say, my impulse when I first became a parent was to cheerlead, for sure. It’s what I grew up with. The way my family did things is to go over the top, and I still kind of love that in a way. But I see how it interferes and how with me, it interfered with me being outer-directed, looking outside of myself for validation, not feeling self-confident. I don’t think that was the only reason, but that was part of it.

Kids don’t need as much reassurance as we think, especially if they’re not asking for it. I try not to assume that my kids need to be reassured and reassured that I’m in their corner, that I’m rooting them on. They feel if we are or we aren’t, because they’re so magnificently aware. So they feel more genuinely supported when we’re not trying to push it or sell it on them. I mean, then they can feel like they’re letting us down too, right? When they don’t achieve whatever it is.

I’ve also realized that my impulse to actively demonstrate support for my kids mostly stems from my own discomfort with the possibility that they might become frustrated or fail. In other words, it’s not my child needing this feedback as much as it’s my need to want to give it to her. And so that was a big aha! for me. Calming myself is the best way for me to keep the air clear of the pressure and the urgency that can make it seem way more important than it is to my child. And that’s going to create pressure.

Point three, don’t direct or fix. Instead, be patient, fully attentive (if we’re available to be), providing the most minimal direction needed for children to be able to accomplish self-chosen tasks themselves.

Four, don’t over-sympathize or attempt to actively comfort frustration. Instead, allow it, accept it, empathize, acknowledge feelings. Doing all those things normalizes the experience of frustration. Because it is a life experience, and if we can feel it, allow it to be, it passes, we get through it, and we become used to those walls that go up. It doesn’t feel good, but we know it’s going to pass. Or maybe we need to take a break and come back, or maybe we need to give up on it altogether that time and come to it another day or later when we’re more ready. If we offer too much sympathy and comfort, we can teach our children, without meaning to, that this is a really negative situation, a problematic situation that you need my help with, that you can’t handle, that I need you to feel better.

Five, don’t project your own agenda or your urge to get it done and done “right.” Instead, let go and enjoy the journey. Enjoy the surprises. If it doesn’t work, the child learns from that too. If we can be okay with it, they can be okay with it.

Just to continue on this idea that it’s really not about the words, it’s about our intention, and that that can be our north star in helping us to give children praise or acknowledgements in ways that are genuinely connected. I received a note. It’s not the first one I’ve received with this issue, so I thought it would be interesting to respond to regarding this topic of praise.

Hi, Janet-

I can’t thank you enough for your work. It’s been life-changing to our family, and I wish we would’ve found it sooner. We have two daughters, a four-year-old and a one-year-old. We regrettably didn’t start following your methods until our oldest was about three, but she has a great attention span and plays well by herself.

Lately, however, she’s been a constant look at me, look what I’m doing, watch this, Mom, you’re not looking!, Mom, say good job! (Which we haven’t said to her in years and do not say to her sister.) I know this has everything to do with her younger sister, who is now able to do so many things. But I find myself getting exhausted and not wanting to watch every little thing she does. I also don’t want her to feel ignored. I tell her “not right now,” but that doesn’t seem to stop the constant requests. I’ve tried, “Ah, I hear you want me to watch you, but I’m a bit busy,” but the constantly responding to her requests is just exhausting. I find myself more and more withdrawn and lost in my own mind and needing space the more she requests my attention. Other people in her life say things like, “Good job!” or, “Wow, look at you!” And I just don’t feel like it’s authentic. I cannot control how other people speak to her, but she seems more and more bothered that I don’t speak to her that way.

Any encouragement or recommendations would be so greatly appreciated.

This parent gets that certain kinds of common ways we praise children aren’t authentic. The thing is, though, they are still going to get that input. Either from us, before we started considering the way we use those words, or from someone else—relatives, teachers. And what children do when they hear or observe or otherwise experience things, the healthy thing they do is that they process these experiences out. And often they do that with us, their trusted leaders. They’re exploring it. Wow, people are getting all excited with this praise thing. They’re not articulating it this way in their mind, but, Whoa, there’s this energy around this and I’m going to explore that. What does my mother think about it?

Then, if children come up against some resistance with us around something that they’re processing, we’re either shocked or we’re angry or, in this case, we’re just kind of annoyed because we don’t want her to be hooked into that stuff. And then also, Ugh, she wants me to give her this validation that doesn’t seem authentic. And I don’t want to do it and I don’t have time. But it could have just been that very first time we could have just been like, Oh, uh-oh, she wants me to say good job. Or, She’s all into needing validation. What have I done wrong? Or, This isn’t a good sign. So there’s that little bit of hesitation on our part, that little bit of maybe disappointment or worry. They feel that resistance from us. They’re coming up against some resistance, and that can be curious. So they want to explore it further. What if I ask this every second? Why is she getting more and more annoyed? And that can become a stuck place for them.

I believe that could be what’s happening here. She’s getting this subtle pushback when she requests this kind of empty praise, so she’s getting stuck. That means she’s struggling to get that need to just process this out filled. So what I would do in this case, especially because she’s asking for it, I would give her what she’s asking for without hesitation or reservation. Which we can still do authentically, I’m going to try to demonstrate. And I’m also sure that this parent is spot on in that her child is craving that extra attention and validation because of the rivalry with her sibling. So she’s a little more vulnerable, and then now she’s getting this feeling from her mother that what she’s asking for is this kind of annoying big deal. So then she’s getting stuck there doing it again and again and again, not wanting to be this more annoying child, but that’s where it’s going.

I want to try to assure this parent that she can give that validation while still holding onto her personal boundaries. And the way to do that is we’re giving it with an attitude that’s open, welcoming, encouraging. Generous, if you will, instead of stingy. Like, Sigh, alright, I’ll say good job. “You want a good job? Sure! That’s a great job! You’re doing a great job, I’m sure of it! I didn’t see what that was, but great job!”

So just to go over this, the parent says, “Lately, however, she’s been a constant look at me, look what I’m doing, watch this.” “Look at you? You know what? I want to look at you! I have to do this for now, but I can’t wait to come look at what you’re doing. Can you hold onto that? Just let me do this first.” I didn’t stop everything I was doing to go look at her, but I had an open, welcoming attitude about it, while still having my boundary. Which helps free her from that stuck place. I’m not annoyed, I just can’t do it right now, but I’m excited to do it when I can. She says, “Watch this!” “I wish I could! I can’t wait to see you do it after I do this thing.” “Mom, you’re not looking!” “Oh, I know, I know, but I will be!”

And then, you know what? We don’t have to keep talking every time she talks. We can let it go too, but just not with that tension that I’m guessing this parent is feeling. I mean, I understand why she’s feeling that because what her child is asking for is a bothersome thing, and then she won’t let up. But she will let up, I believe, as soon as this parent lets down her guard about it and lets it be. And when she says, “Mom, say good job!” And the mom says, “Which we haven’t said to her in years and do not say to her sister.” “You want me to say good job? Good job! I’m sure you’re doing a great job.” Or if we do see it, let’s say: “Good job, that is a good job actually!” We’re still not using it the way that we don’t want to use it. We’re using it in response to her wanting us to say it. And there’s no harm in that for her.

This parent says, “I tell her, ‘not right now.’ Or I’ve tried, ‘Ah, I hear you want me to watch you, but I’m a bit busy.'” Even saying those things could be fine, but the way she’s saying them, if she’s saying them with, Oh, not right now, but I will! Can’t wait to! Or, You want me to watch you and I wish I could, and I’m sure you’re doing something amazing. I’m a bit busy now, but I’ll be with you. It’s just a different attitude. It’s an unruffled attitude, it’s a there’s nothing to fear here attitude. Me saying those words to her is not going to harm her. It’s only going to help her move through this and see that there’s no pushback coming her way, there’s no odd resistance here. Nothing is a big deal. And it’s that daily diet of the way that we respond that matters. It’s not the once-in-a-while and the aunts and uncles doing it or whoever else is doing it.

I wanted to share this because I feel like it’s a good example of us getting tripped up in words, with all our wonderful intentions, to say the right words. There’s so much focus on words in our environment around parenting. But we’ll find much more clarity and freedom when we let go of those words, so we’re able to see beyond them to what really matters. And I would love to encourage this parent and every parent listening to believe in themselves and know that, in this case, this parent, she could free herself to do both. She can respond lovingly and exuberantly and affectionately with that empty validation her daughter wants right now, while still holding her boundaries and believing in what she believes in: being authentic. I mean, that’s a great value right there, in my opinion. I’m all about authentic. That’s one of the most important things to me, and I feel like it’s underrated these days, but that’s another story.

Let’s not get ourselves hamstrung worrying about words. We can trust ourselves more if we can also trust our child. Trust their intrinsic motivation, that they don’t need us to babble on about what they’re doing. It’s not up to us to mold certain outcomes for them. We provide the environment and the relationship of authenticity and trust, and these qualities we want to mold for our child will bloom on their own. That’s what I’ve seen with my children, the families I’ve worked with. I believe in that 100%: that trying to mold the outcome will only get in our way. It’s not our role at all. Instead, when it comes to our child’s abilities, be an interested spectator. The most interested spectator. Not judgmental, just interested.

Overall, we can stay on track as parents by considering: What do we want? Not just for now, but for the years to come. What do we want? Most of us want honest, authentically and mutually appreciative relationships with our kids. And we hope that they’ll know from the inside out that they are capable, that they are valuable, that they are worthy. Not because we say so, but because we both know so.

I know that we can do this.

The post Praise That Encourages Intrinsic Motivation 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.

The post Our Strong-Willed Child Is Running the Show appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Transcript of “Consequences vs Threats vs Punishments”

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

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.

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

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

Hi, Janet-

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

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

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

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

And then this parent, she wrote back:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Janet,

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

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

Tomorrow is another day and a new opportunity! 

Thanks so much for your time and wisdom.

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

Yay! Thank you!

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

Transcript of “Encouraging Kids to Be More Assertive”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.

Today I’m going to be talking about a topic that parents bring up a lot, and always have, in the classes that I’ve taught. Interestingly, when there’ll be children who are maybe one-and-a-half that are taking toys from each other, it’s often the parent of the child who’s not the taker, but the takee, who gets the most concerned. Because their child isn’t standing up for themselves, they’re just letting these things happen. They’re not being assertive. And we all want our children to feel confident and assertive, right? That’s going to help them in their life. As somebody who hasn’t always felt very assertive in life and has slowly built that trait for myself, I really do understand the concern. And so I’m going to be giving feedback to two different parents who brought their concerns to me in emails about their children’s assertiveness.

First I want to talk a little about assertiveness. It’s, I guess, a character trait, and we’re all born with the potential for a variety of character traits, but some more than others, right? Some of us have natural assertiveness, we’re born very assertive. Others are not. But it’s something that we can all grow into with this essential aspect in us. And that aspect is self-confidence. And, interestingly, both of the parents in these notes bring up self-confidence along with assertiveness that they want for their children, that they’re not seeing right now, and it’s concerning them.

So what helps children to feel more assertive? There are people in life who are very assertive that aren’t necessarily as self-confident underneath it all, but I would say all people who have healthy self-confidence have the ability also to be assertive. Maybe it’s not this big, cocky assertiveness, but it’s a quiet ability to say no, have boundaries, stick up for ourselves. So oftentimes, and in both of these cases, the key to helping our children feel more assertive is to fuel their self-confidence. And the way to do that is this word you hear me bring up a lot: trust. Trust in them.

Here’s the first note:

Hi, Janet-

I hope you’re doing well, and thank you for your wonderful advice. It has been immensely helpful in my parenting journey so far. I have two children, an elder son who is five-and-a-half and a daughter who just turned 18 months. I have followed RIE principles since almost the beginning, with a lot of challenges, basically around setting boundaries and seeing the right perspective, what you call a different kind of lens. Anyway, I would say on a scale of one to 10, I have followed up to seven.

However, I have recently noticed that my son has been struggling asserting himself. I thought that having followed RIE, this should come naturally to him, but it hasn’t. He travels to school on the bus and has been facing some kind of bullying by other kids. Once by an older kid he was sitting next to who was hitting him and roughhousing in the name of play, and a second time by a child his age who was also hurting him and fighting him. Both times he did not come home and tell me immediately, he told me much later in the day when somehow the topic of the bus came about. I asked him why he didn’t tell the bus monitor and said, “Why don’t you push the kid off?” I know both times my response was not very attuned, but I did later try to acknowledge his feelings.

I was left wondering, Why is he not asserting himself and sharing things that happen with me immediately? What is it that I need to change? I want him to always assert his boundaries and be confident enough to do so. He’s in a traditional school that praises good behavior and kind of shames bad behavior, so that’s another disadvantage. How should I help my son in such environments in a way that he can be confident, assertive, and feel good about himself?

Many thanks.

I also forgot to mention before I started that in both cases with these notes, and with something like developing assertiveness, this isn’t a quick fix situation. We can’t say just the right words to our child that’s going to turn this around suddenly. It’s a slow evolution in our child’s development that we really can’t even rush, but we can fuel it. We can fuel it by fueling their self-confidence and not doing things that defuel their self-confidence. I know that people that listen here are probably used to this, that most of my suggestions are not going to bring a quick resolution to the issues that parents and children are facing, unfortunately. Sorry, I wish I could. But just like humans of other ages, children are not simplistic beings. They can’t just flip a switch and be something different. It takes time. And that makes it even harder for us to do what I’m suggesting, which is trust.

So in this case, with this boy, there could be two reasons that he’s not telling his parent right away about these incidents on the bus. One could be that this isn’t a huge deal to him. A lot of times when children are going through things socially, maybe it’s a little disturbing, but they’re also sort of interested in, Wow, I’m getting this attention, or What’s going on here? So this might not be as much of a crisis as this parent worries that it is.

And of course, if she has any doubts, and maybe I would just do this prophylactically, I would, instead of talking to your son about what he should do, I would suggest some other ways to handle giving him feedback and helping him process the situation. But what I would do is go to that bus service or the school or whoever’s in charge of this, and not make a big scene that this is bullying because we’re not sure if this is really bullying. It sounds like some out-of-control behavior, but I wouldn’t jump immediately to bullying. But I would let them know and say, “Really, it seems like there needs to be a little more supervision on the bus.” And if the bus driver can’t do it, because they’re obviously busy, maybe they can have some student volunteers assigned that are already on the bus to monitor the other children. To just keep everybody safe, and when there’s roughhousing, to stop it when it starts. Peer leaders are often the most effective. So I would consider that if you have a serious concern that your child may be getting hurt or getting bullied or that he’s upset about this, that he feels out of control, that he feels alone and he needs that support. I would absolutely do that on that level with whoever’s in charge of that situation.

But getting back to your son— So what we really want is our child to be able to stand up and say, “No, this is not okay!” And that’s such a hard thing for children to do with peers. It really is. We could have a very confident, assertive child who still struggles with that, because peers are so important to them. They’re trying to figure it out, they want to connect with each other, they want to be liked. And there’s nothing weak about that. It’s part of their learning, their goal is to connect with other children. So it makes sense that to tell another child no or to have a strong boundary with them is the hardest thing. And it doesn’t mean that he’s not an assertive person or a confident person.

So the fact that he’s not telling her right away could be that this isn’t a big deal for him, but it could also be that he’s concerned about her reaction. And it sounds like, without meaning to, this mom did the normal thing, which is react. Hey, why didn’t you do something? Don’t let them do that to you. What her son feels from that, and he may have anticipated that she might’ve responded this way, is that his response to whatever happened on the bus, she’s without meaning to, kind of judging it. He feels judged that he didn’t do the right thing. Why didn’t he push the guy off him? Why didn’t he tell somebody? Very hard things, again, for a child to do with peers. And then he feels that his mother feels he didn’t do the right thing either. So that does the opposite of fueling him with confidence.

And the fact that he has an 18-month-old sibling means it’s likely he’s been judged around his behavior with that child as well, possibly, because that’s a common thing that happens. It’s really hard not to judge as a parent when your older child is showing aggression or just dislike towards the baby or having other behavior that’s around that change. Oftentimes they feel a lot of judgment around those behaviors, understandably. But it’s hard for children because they already are coming from a vulnerable place. Which doesn’t mean that this is a problem that we can’t turn around, at all. It’s just to be aware of.

So, for whatever reason, he didn’t want to tell her because maybe he sensed he didn’t respond in the way she would’ve wanted or that he would’ve felt judged. And what we want to do for him—and what this parent wants to do—is the opposite: to help him feel trusted in his process of handling these situations. The way to do that is to take an interest in his point of view, instead of judging it. Being open to, Oh, you’re telling me this. How did this make you feel? What did that feel like?

Now, where this parent is now, she may have to try to dial back, because her child knows that she’s maybe already disappointed in him on some level with the way that he’s handling this. The way to dial it back is just to be a sounding board for a while. Before you give any kind of advice, I would only stick with—and really meaning it, so not kind of leading him with, “What did you think about that? You should have thought it was bad,” but really open to, Ah, what was that like? And since she has also said these words to him that he may have felt judged by, she might even dial it all the way back with an explanation and say, “I know that I told you you should do this or that before, and I was thinking about that and I don’t know the right thing to do. And I really trust you. You have a good sense of yourself and you have a good sense of what’s right or wrong. So I’m not going to give you more advice of what to do. I want you to be able to explore it with me.” Maybe not all those words, but that kind of attitude, so that we’ve put it all out there. Yes, I jumped to telling you you should have done it this way or that way, and I realize that and I’m taking it all back. Let’s start again at square one. I just want to know how you felt. And maybe this won’t even happen again for this child, but if it does, that’s where I would bring it up.

And in other situations, too. That trust in him, taking an interest in our child’s point of view instead of judging it, it helps them to feel safe to open up to us. Which judging them doesn’t, of course. And out of that, not deciding what he should feel, he might have a different perspective. Like I said, maybe that’s a good sign that he didn’t report this right away, maybe it wasn’t a big deal to him. How did this make you feel? And then when she’s dialing it back and saying those things about, “I know I gave you this advice and I told you what I thought you should do, but I actually trust you more on this,” she might add, “And if there’s something you can’t handle, please let me know right away and we can figure it out together.”

We want to try to trust and respect our child’s ways of managing conflict with their peers, rather than giving them ours. Because children have a better sense of this than we give them credit for, but they can feel so overrun by us, right? And our opinions about it. So, that openness. And then when it starts to feel right that he’s sharing more with you, giving open-ended feedback, like, “I wonder what would happen if you said this, or you just turned away and put your hand up, or you might want to try this.” Just offering, very gently, very openly, “I wonder . . .” Considering this as working together with him, trying to take his lead.

And again, not expecting quick results. These are long processes. The same with other kinds of character traits. It takes a lot of trust in them and the space and time for them to come to these situations with that vital aspect, which is self-confidence. My instincts, what I’m choosing to do, or what I’m choosing to not do yet, is where I’m at right now. And it’s okay. And maybe he will find his own way that isn’t our way of setting a boundary, even. Maybe he’ll find a way to break the ice with these children and be their friends. Some children use humor. Give him the space and time to find his way.

It’s very challenging as parents, I know. I’m talking like it’s easy and I know it’s not. And I love that this parent cares enough to say, “What is it that I need to change?” I would just say, let go of the judging, trust him more. He’ll get there, I promise. And maybe he’ll have ways of dealing that really surprise you. That’s happened to me.

Okay, so here’s another letter that’s around the same topic but a little bit different:

Hi, Janet-

On many occasions in your podcast and book, you’ve touched on how to work through tricky situations with sibling dynamics, establishing boundaries, connecting with my kids one-on-one. The list could go on forever. You’ve really helped me navigate this exciting and fulfilling parenting world.

However, I have a question for you, and this is regarding friend dynamics. My daughter, who is in second grade, has a good handful of friends that she enjoys playing with. She has some wonderful, healthy friendships, and I feel so happy for her. And I see the happiness she gets from her friends, too. However, there’s one friend in her class that she plays with who has been recently diagnosed with anxiety. This friend constantly makes our daughter unhappy at school, either by bragging, bossing her around, excluding her, tattling on her, little digs. Sometimes this leads to tears or my daughter saying she had a “thumbs down” day at school. They are in class together, have lunch and recess together. It even happened during summer at camp. These little interactions happen at varying times during the school day. And from what I understand from my daughter and other parents is that this particular kid does it to other girls as well.

My husband and I try our best to be mindful of her friend’s diagnosis and ask our daughter to be patient, give this girl grace, but also create her own boundaries. We’ve coached our daughter to stand up for herself and establish her boundaries. For instance, “We can’t be friends if you’re going to talk to me like this. Your words are hurtful. I don’t feel the same way as you do. We cannot play together if you are excluding so-and-so.” The friend responds with a burst of anger, stomps off, and our daughter feels like the situation is unresolved and feels sad. Occasionally the friend will apologize, but the next day something else will happen.

I’m doing my best to give my daughter the chance to work through this on her own, but something comes up at least once a week and she says she wants a friendship break. I don’t blame her. I recognize that she can somewhat create a boundary for herself, but it’s hard to avoid someone that you spend all day with. I’m at a loss on how to navigate this situation. I want my daughter to feel safe, free to play with friends, and feel confident that she can navigate tricky social situations and not be affected by this behavior. But I also recognize that, while she is a confident, smart, loving seven-year-old, she does not have all of the tools to respond to her friend or other similar social situations.

Thank you in advance for your time and consideration.

So yes, this girl does sound confident indeed to me. And how wonderful that she has some great friendships and knows how to have healthy friendships, and she knows what that feels like. And this friend with the anxiety isn’t her only example of what friends can be like. So that’s great, right?

It’s interesting to me that when this parent says, “The friend responds with a burst of anger, stomps off, and our daughter feels like the situation is unresolved and feels sad.” So I’m sensing—I could be totally wrong on this—that if her daughter was just trying to avoid this person and this was just a big pain for her, she could do that. She wouldn’t feel sad. I think she feels sad for a lovely reason, that she wants to try to have a friendship with this girl, she wants to try to connect with her. Maybe she does see beyond the bluster of the behavior, and that’s what’s making her sad, for this girl, that it’s unresolved. Because if she didn’t care, she wouldn’t care if it was unresolved. She could just work on ignoring the person, right? So I think she’s wanting to learn some really important things here. Maybe not consciously, but she’s staying engaged with this girl, that she wants to learn from this.

So going back to what will help fortify her, it sounds like she’s on her way. And even the fact that she says she wants a friendship break—yeah, she wants a friendship break because she considers this a friend, but it’s a friend that is very, very challenging and she wants a break from that. So when she says things like that, I would encourage, “Yeah, of course you do. You’re trying really hard with this girl and she’s difficult for you, right? She’s hurtful. It doesn’t feel good, but you’re kind of sticking in there with it. And I really admire that.” I would tell her that. And getting back to fueling her with the self-confidence she needs to keep moving in this sort of direction. I think she’s already well on her way, and this parent says she is self-confident. We want to trust in her. And that’s what I was speaking to, the idea of trusting that it’s not that she can’t say no or navigate this girl, even. It’s that she’s feeling the challenges of it, and that’s not a terrible thing. It could be seen as a very positive learning process. So I would try to trust in that, and taking an interest in her point of view instead of judging it.

That’s where we have to be careful though, because, just like with this other parent before, the parent of the boy on the bus, it can be a delicate thing to give our children direction in these situations. It works better usually when we’re more open as a sounding board to hearing what they think, and then maybe gently guiding them with, “I wonder what would happen if . . .”

And it sounds like this parent, with the best of intentions, she asked her “daughter to be patient, give this girl grace, but also create her own boundaries.” And they’ve coached her to stand up for herself and establish her boundaries, for instance, “We can’t be friends if you’re going to talk to me like that.” But even the way this starts out, they asked her to give this girl grace. That’s a beautiful sentiment and a message we want to give children about other children that have struggles or anyone that has struggles, is to try to understand and have compassion and give them grace.

But I wonder if this girl wouldn’t have done that anyway, and maybe it would feel more trusting and confidence-building for her if we didn’t give her that instruction. And I know this parent already did, but I’m just saying for the next time. Or even to dial it back and say, “We said that we want you to give her grace and that we want you to stand up for yourself and have boundaries. But I think you’ve got all these instincts already, I feel like. And so I don’t think we need to tell you that stuff. We’re just here for you to share. And if you want any thoughts from us about how to handle things, let’s talk about that. But we trust you, the way you’re navigating this. It feels like you know what you’re doing.” Or, “How does it feel?” Even better, maybe.

That’s what I mean by trusting, not judging. It’s not this heavy thing, like either of these parents are judging their children in some negative way, at all. But even assuming that our daughter needs our help to do things that she’s not actually requesting, that can feel a little like, Oh, my parents are trying to steer me in this direction, so that’s the direction they think I should go in. It’s this very, very subtle form of judging. Nobody should feel bad about it. It’s just a way of actually practicing that very challenging thing for us, that trust. And taking an interest in her point of view. What is that like? How is it to be with her when she does these things? What do you feel like doing? What do you feel like saying? But very openly, not steering, not with an edge of how we think she should feel. Hard to do. Kind of a fun challenge in a weird way, for me at least. But we’re not going to be perfect at this. And so it’s just awareness, just stuff to try.

So, not deciding what she should feel, not deciding that she needs to stand up for herself in the way that we think she should and have boundaries. Because children having boundaries or handling challenging situations, which is the way they build a lot of confidence, not by us telling them wonderful things about themselves, but the fact that they can face adversity. Which both of these children are doing, they’re facing adversity. That’s how you build confidence. But we don’t want to undermine that by saying, You need me to tell you how to do this, because they might handle adversity their own way.

I would dial this back with this girl too, and just be a sounding board from here on out. And maybe even say, “I know we said these different things you should say to her, but that doesn’t seem like it’s working. She’s just getting mad. What do you want to say to her? How do you feel?” And maybe instead of saying, “Your words are hurtful,” she might say, “I feel hurt” or “Ouch!” Or one thing you might offer is when she asks you to play, but she wants to exclude other children: “I wonder how it would be if you just said, ‘Thank you, but no, I’m not going to do that.'” Instead of commenting about what the girl’s doing, just talking about herself, using only “I statements.” And not expecting that she’s going to be able to change this girl, because I doubt very much it’s in her power or anyone’s power. So I don’t think bringing these realities to light for this other girl is really going to be effective. It sounds like it’s not effective, because the friend feels judged and responds with a burst of anger and stomps off. But the way the friend responds can’t be our child’s responsibility. That’s why I would suggest maybe she just says less and not to expect this girl to take things gracefully because it seems like she’s not going to. And that’s okay, not everybody will. But that’s what having boundaries is. It’s being okay with other people’s reactions to them.

So we want ideally to fuel her self-confidence, respecting her ways of managing conflicts with peers. “What do you feel like saying when she says that?” And then giving the most open-ended feedback, when it’s time for that. “I wonder what would happen if you . . .” And then, just as I was saying with the boy on the bus, if your child feels really brought down by the situation, or maybe she’s feeling stuck—to me, it sounds like she’s handling it really well. “I just need a break from this friend.” “Yeah! Yes, you do. You can say no thanks to her.”

Just to reiterate: It’s a slow process. We’re not going to see immediate changes. But it’s a practice for us as parents that really applies to so many things, so many areas of their development and their learning. Trusting them, so that they can have that self-trust, which is where all of these positive character traits spring from. Taking an interest in their point of view instead of judging it with ours. Not deciding what children should feel. They might have a different perspective, and that’s a good thing. Their perspective is where their self-confidence and assertiveness is going to come from. Dialing it back if we need to. Being a sounding board first and foremost, and most of the time respecting children’s own ways of managing conflict with peers. Being open to them, rather than assuming that ours are the best way or the only way. And when feedback is requested, or we’re really able to be in that open sounding board place, gently giving open-ended feedback. “I wonder . . .”

These are ways we can fuel our children, fuel their evolution, their development. This magical thing: self-confidence. We can’t give it to them, but we can help fuel it. I really hope some of this helps.

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

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

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

UPDATE: The parent who asked about her son on the bus kindly shared this update:

A big thank you for responding to my email below. I heard your podcast on it and as soon as it popped on my iPhone I was like this is what I was looking for. I did not know you were actually addressing my concern. I can’t thank you enough because I have to say this concern has been on my mind ever since.

As I was listening you I just couldn’t help but notice how on point you are regarding my son even though you haven’t met him. Yes, even I felt somewhere that it wasn’t a big deal for him and he was not negatively affected with the roughhousing and hitting. He is a highly sensitive and intelligent boy so I believe he understands the kids quite well. 

I also felt he was putting it before me to check how I would react. And my reaction was not the ideal. You are on point that he needs a sounding board, which I haven’t been, to be honest. 

I can’t thank you enough for the immensely great work that you are doing free of cost. I wish you all the good things in life. I will follow your advice and keep updating you with our progress.

The post Encouraging Kids To Be More Assertive (Includes an Update) appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Janet shares two recent interactions she’s had with friends who are concerned about disconcerting new tendencies they’ve noticed in their children. One parent says her daughter is portraying herself as a constant victim, blaming others for every mishap, even for her own errors and misdeeds. Another writes that when her son is in tantrum mode, she gently stops him from hitting and kicking, but afterwards, he complains that she is “pushing him.” He remains angry and shouts, “I don’t love you!”

Janet identifies the common thread that could be causing these parents to doubt themselves and describes several additional examples parents have shared with her that fit this pattern. She offers suggestions for understanding and approaching these situations in a manner that ultimately curtails them.

(Janet’s “No Bad Kids Master Course” is available at NoBadKidsCourse.com.)

Transcript of “Parent Traps”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.

Today I’d like to share issues two different friends who are parents asked me about and the thoughts that I shared with them in response. Both of these touch on a very common area that we can struggle with as parents. It’s a kind of trap that we can easily fall into, out of all the love and care we feel for our children. And it’s around one of my favorite topics, which is our children’s perceptiveness in regard to our thoughts and feelings. The way they’re always tuning into us, and particularly, of course, when they sense we’re sad or fearful or even just a little bit off-balance, concerned, or worried about them.

So, when two of my parent friends asked me questions that were very different in terms of the specifics, but actually along very similar lines, it felt like I was getting a sign from the universe that I should address this topic in my podcast this week. So here it goes.

The first one came in a message from a friend of mine. She said:

I had a really tough day with my son today. I ended up in tears. He woke up about ten minutes to five this morning and said he was hungry. He spent the day exhausted. He had a (understandable) tantrum this morning and finally took a nap around 10:20. Around 2pm I was too wiped out to do anything and decided to let him watch an episode of Mister Rogers while I rested. We usually only watch it when I braid his hair, but I needed something else, since he’d already had hours of independent play, stories, and music. I was too tired to take him outside. He’s at the playground with his dad now.

Anyway, I just wanted to ask your advice on how to stop him from hitting, kicking, and biting me. I’ve been successful at stopping it, but I’m wondering if I’m doing it correctly, because after the tantrum ends and we talk about it, he tells me that I was pushing him. Because he perceives it this way, I’m wondering if that is why he continues and seems to be getting angrier. Today he shouted at me several times, “I don’t love you!” This was in response to me saying he could watch another episode of Mister Rogers later in the week when I braid his hair after he’d asked to watch another one. I had to leave him because I started to cry.

I had a therapy session today where I was telling my counselor that I spent years feeling that my mom just did not love me. Even up until her deathbed, when she reached for my hand I thought she mistook me for my sister. So, perfect timing for him to be saying that to me over and over again. Of course, I know he didn’t mean it, but it still hurt me.

Yeesh, sorry for the short essay. Just wanted to share. Any advice you have would be greatly appreciated. I was thinking I should try to let him down a little easier. I think, although my words were kind and not an outright no, maybe I need to pause and bring him closer and empathize first, then lay out the plan.

Just to give you some context, her son is three-and-a-half, and I know this parent and boy well enough to know that it seems almost impossible to imagine that she would be behaving roughly with him, pushing him. And also that he doesn’t love her, that’s just unimaginable to me. And from what I know about children, it takes a lot for them to not love their parent, especially at his young age. And his parents are very lovable people. So there’s no doubt in my mind that these are things he’s saying and doesn’t mean.

But here’s what I wrote back to her:

I’m sorry you’re going through this. It sounds like he has intuited your vulnerable spots and is unconsciously kind of testing them out through these responses. Usually these are just ways that he expresses his feelings of not getting what he wants, also being tired, etc. They aren’t literal. So ideally you will work on just acknowledging and not get caught in these little webs. So you might say, “It felt like I was pushing you. You didn’t like that.” Acknowledging his right to feel that way, but knowing that you did not actually push him.

Same with the “I don’t love you.” You’re right, he does not mean that at all. Quite the opposite—he adores you. He wouldn’t say that if he hadn’t sensed before that that that was pushing your button and an effective way to express his anger about the show. We all get blindsided by certain things, but try to remember that whatever he says out of frustration, anger, other emotions, is not literal, nor does he mean it. Underneath it, all he wants is for you to be able to see through this and see him as a little boy immaturely expressing himself to you.

And she wrote back: “Oh my God, this made me cry. I needed to hear this.” And then later: “Today was a much better day for both of us. Sleep is a huge deal!”

Right, sleep is an absolute game changer for our children and for us, of course. Yes, it is a big deal. And this is so much what children do, this is what they’re supposed to do. Be learning about the most important people to them— us. When they sense that they’ve sort of ensnared us in these places it is curious for them at the very least, it’s probably a little disconcerting for them. And that’s why they tend to flare up again and again.

And the one about—well, both of these are very common ones that I hear a lot and I’m sure it’s happened to me, it’s been a long time. But, yeah, absolutely, “I don’t love you.” I mean, that’s one that cuts every parent to the heart. And then this idea that when we’re actually blocking their behavior, we do want to address the hitting right away and stop him. And so often when we’re doing that, children will come back with, “You’re hurting me. You’re pushing me.” And oh my gosh, that makes us doubt everything, right? And then children feel that. Whoa, that scared my parent. And so they can’t help but keep going there.

Now obviously there are instances where parents are really hurting their children, but the parents that have reached out to me with this issue, the way that they describe everything they’re doing, there’s no reason that they would be misrepresenting that to me. It would not help them at all, and I doubt very much that they’re doing something that’s actually hurting their child because they’re already being so thoughtful about it. But it is something that makes us naturally doubt ourselves and, Yikes, I better stop, and I’ve got to do this differently. And that’s when we start walking on eggshells, being so careful, which actually reads to our children as we’re not confident, we’re afraid. And they need us to be confident and strong and be able to take care of them, in all their moods. So that’s why I said what I said to this parent.

And then, it might’ve been the same day or the next day, I ran into a neighbor on the street. She was actually driving by and I was walking. So she stopped her car for a minute and was just saying hi, because we hadn’t seen each other for a while. And she said, “When you get a chance, I want to talk to you about my daughter’s victim mentality.” And I said, “What’s that about?” She said her daughter blames everybody else for everything. It’s as if the world’s out to get her. And the parent said, and I knew this already, she said her husband and her are recovering alcoholics. So this was kind of an alarm bell for them because that is a very common thing that alcoholics feel. They rationalize their substance abuse because they’re the victim.

So yikes, right? As a parent, Oh no, maybe we’ve passed this on. And we always worry about these things as parents, right? The issues that we’ve struggled with, we tend to worry that our child will have to face the same pain that we did. And we love them, so we don’t want that to happen. It’s, Uh-oh, what have I created?, right?

So what I said to this parent, and this little girl is four, four-and-a-half, and has a younger sibling. I said, she doesn’t have a syndrome, this isn’t a mentality. It’s very likely that she’s sensed your vulnerability. And probably what happened is that she’s absorbed a bit of judgment or shame coming from her parents or from somewhere. It’s hard not to feel that as an older sibling because more tends to be expected of you than your younger sibling. And maybe you’re not always loving that this little person’s around. Other times you do, you adore them, but sometimes, I don’t know, it just rubs you the wrong way and you kind of get blamed for things, possibly.

You know, we all go through moments where we feel like the world’s out to get us and we’re the victim. It’s kind of a feeling that a lot of us go through when we’re overwhelmed. It feels like we can’t get anything right and everybody else is against us. And it is a bit extreme and hyperbolic often, but I don’t know, I feel like that sometimes. So probably wasn’t a big deal at all when she first did it, but she just had this impulse to not have any fingers pointing at her and pass it off onto her brother or someone else, to her parents. I didn’t do that. And, They did it to me. And then she noticed that got a rise out of one or both of her parents, that’s a vulnerable area for them. So now she has this impulse to say it again and again about everything.

I know it’s so hard, though, as parents, that we get worried all these things are going to stick and like, Oh no, this is getting etched in here in stone, for life. So we have to push back. And this parent told me what they were doing was saying, “Oh, no, no, no, other people don’t do it and you did it. These people aren’t doing it to you.” And the normal thing that we do as parents, which is pushing back on the things we don’t want our child to be thinking or saying. And then she finds herself going there repeatedly, doing that same thing, because it’s kind of fascinating. Wow, I did this one immature thing and that caught their attention. They got uncomfortable.

So this was a very brief conversation I had with this parent, but she got it. And next time I see her, I’m going to find out what happened. Because I said, just reflect back, just acknowledge. “Wow. Yeah, it feels like you want to say that he did it and they did it. And sometimes it feels like everyone’s doing stuff to you. Or right now it feels everybody’s doing it, to you.” These are feelings, not facts. So we can help children if we get on that wavelength. They’re passing through these different thoughts and feelings and impulses. These aren’t serious bad signs of things to come. But I can understand seeing them that way, for sure.

Some of the other common areas where this comes up that parents share with me: sibling behaviors. Perhaps we were the older one who was criticized and shamed, so the fear and shame that we absorbed around that, we’re passing that on to our child. Or it could be the other way around, that we were the younger one who had to deal with our older sibling taking their frustration and fear out on us. So any kind of sibling conflict where it seems like the older one is instigating a conflict, it sets off our protective instincts for the younger child. So we overreact, we react in a way that feels like we have to put a stop to this.

Another one: children who seem to be copycats. They’re imitating another child or their baby sibling or a friend or a relative. And yikes, then we worry, Oh, our child can’t be their own person. Being your own person is a value that a lot of us have, being authentic as ourselves. But what children who are copying other children’s behavior are doing is actually pro-social behavior. It’s empathy. It’s exploring that other person, what makes them feel like doing these things and acting like this, what it feels like to be them. When that’s about a younger sibling, it can be, I want to get that kind of love that I used to get when I was a baby that I’m not getting now because I’m not as needy. But I miss that. I miss that attention of being babied. That can be part of it. But that’s not a regression or, Oh gosh, now my child can’t speak age-appropriate language. They’re only able to speak baby talk and they were just learning these more complicated sentences and now they’re reverting back and they’re going to lose what they had. Or, My child is going to be as annoying as I think that other child is that they’re imitating and I liked my child the way they were. Or just this idea of they don’t have their own identity. All these scary places we can go when this is actually positive behavior, interesting behavior in a way.

Another one: our child’s too shy or they’re too aggressive or they’re too much. And too much is almost always because our parents struggle with consistent behavior boundaries and maybe we have a healthy, strong will or an intense personality. And yes, then managing our behavior, it’s going to feel like too much if a parent isn’t confident about setting boundaries. Because as the child, we’re unconsciously persistently seeking those loving but firm boundaries that we sense that we need from our parents for survival. We need them to look out for us and help us with our behavior. Give us those guidelines from a place of being on our team and just wanting to help. The way the best teachers are. We learn from teachers who get us and want to see us do well and aren’t afraid of us or intimidated by our behavior, threatened by where we are in our learning process.

Another one: maybe we have a son who seems obsessed with aggressive play when we really hoped to have a boy who was in touch with his sensitive side and not wanting to do gunplay or swords or be superheroes. Or we have a girl that seems obsessed with being a girly girl and frilly and princesses when we really hope that they wouldn’t buy into that stuff. We wanted them to be stronger and be in touch with their power as strong people.

Or maybe we have a toddler that takes a toy from another child and we worry that, Oh no, they’re going to be a taker, they’re going to be a thief if we don’t sternly stop them. When these are actually often the most social children in that group. They’re just trying to engage in one of the very few ways that one- and two-year-olds can engage. But actually making contact with another child, they don’t know how to do it. So taking toys is often the way that they do. Which isn’t to say we let that go on and on if a child is stuck in that, but it’s a harmless, very typical thing that they do. And depending on the crowd that we’re in, we’ll stop them gently. Or maybe we’re in a playgroup where other people have agreed that we’re going to allow the children to explore and we’re only going to stop a child from taking toys if they seem stuck doing that again and again.

Or it could be that our child seems to be the “victim” of that kind of behavior, and then we worry they’re going to be a doormat if we don’t correct the situation for them. We can’t let that happen, right? But our child is usually just feeling curious in that moment, Oh, what just happened? Maybe they get upset. If they do, it’s usually because they’re kind of tired anyway. Or that we’ve, without meaning to, fueled these situations with a lot of judgment. In other words, projecting this idea that, Something really bad just happened to you. They took that toy and you wanted that and you needed that. And children, they just aren’t as invested in the stuff and the toys as we can be as adults, which is really refreshing, right? And positive and healthy. And often that child who we worry is a doormat is just thinking, Okay, you want that so much? Alright. That’s actually often the stronger child in the relationship, the one who isn’t needing to take stuff or control stuff.

This idea of projecting into the future is a common reason that some parents believe in physical punishment or intensely shame-based responses to behavior. The rationale is, Well, if our child does this as an adult, they’ll be fired from their job. They’ll go to jail, maybe. But the thing is, children, yes, they’re people and they deserve the same respect as adults, but they can’t be held to the same behavior standards with the same consequences. They’re just learning. Boy are they learning.

So anyway, the list of examples goes on and on and on. It’s almost as personal as each of us, what we’re going to get drawn into, where our traps are going to be.

So how can we avoid falling into one of these traps? Well, we can remind ourselves that children are the best learners and explorers on the planet. Science shows this. And they’re just trying out behaviors and attitudes and feelings, exploring. All the time. They’re just passing through. They’re developing so rapidly, and these behaviors almost never become an actual pattern or a syndrome or a mentality that sticks.

But the thing is, it takes longer for a child to move through them when we unintentionally kind of feed the behavior through our judgmental responses. When we fall into those traps, our child has to pursue that particular way of learning for a longer period. So it’s not in our best interest. It’s not that we’re bad parents for doing these very normal, typical things. It’s just not going to work in our favor. It’s not going to get us to where we want to be— helping our child, encouraging their incredible learning potential.

So it’s about trust. There’s that word again. Trusting children’s learning process. With trust, we can be curious rather than jumping to that judgmental place where we want to push back on the behaviors. For an example, let’s say the imitation one, the copycat. “You’re really into doing what your cousin does these days. You’re learning a lot about him, hey? Does that help you feel closer to him?” Genuine questions, not leading, not with the subtext of, I really hate that you’re doing this. I know that’s the hard part, is really believing the curiosity, really being there, not pretending, to actually try to get them to stop. If that’s our motive, then whatever we say is going to be clouded with that and our child will feel that pushback coming from us.

Let’s say we have this shy child that we’re worried is going to be passive like we were. Maybe we reflect to them, “Sometimes you just want to hang out with me at the playgroup and suss out the scene, right? Is that true? It takes time to figure out how to join in with other kids, doesn’t it? That was true for me when I was your age. But you know, it’s an honor to have you want to hang out with me, so thanks.” We stay on our kids’ side that way and they’re fueled in a positive direction to keep learning.

This is a challenging but fun topic, right? I would love to hear some of the particular traps that you’ve gotten into. We all have those vulnerable places. That’s what makes each of us unique. And one thing we all share is how much we want the best for our children, how much we adore them, how hard we’re working. If you listen to podcasts like this one, man, you are working hard to be a good parent. So please be good to yourselves. That’s what I say to parents when they’re leaving my toddler classes. I say goodbye to their child. I say to their child, “Be good to your dad or your mom.” And I say to the parents, “Take care of you. Be good to yourself.”

Please check out some of my other podcasts at janetlansbury.com. They’re all indexed by subject and category, so you should be able to find whatever topic you’re interested in. And I also 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 Parent Traps appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Transcript of “Our Fears as Parents – Real and Imagined (with Dr. Tina Payne Bryson)”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.

Today it’s my great pleasure to host psychotherapist and brain researcher Dr. Tina Payne Bryson. Tina has written a whole series of bestselling books with psychiatrist and educator Dr. Dan Siegel. I’m sure you’ll recognize some of these titles: The Whole-Brain Child, No-Drama Discipline, The Power of Showing Up, and The Yes Brain. All classics. Tina and Dan’s perspective has informed and inspired a whole generation of parents, and it appears more generations to come, as parent coaches these days frequently reflect Tina’s and Dan’s work in their advice. Unfortunately, not always crediting them as their sources and as the true groundbreakers, which is a disturbing trend I’m hoping will shift soon. But that’s another story.

Today, Tina and I will be discussing how to navigate our fears as parents. I’m excited for her to share some of her thoughts and wisdom with us.

Hi, Tina. Welcome back to the podcast.

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson: Thank you so much for having me. You’re one of my favorites, so I’m always so honored to come and chat with you. It’s like, I don’t even know if anyone’s going to listen, I’m just here to talk to you. I’m so excited!

Janet Lansbury: Aww, well I hope some people listen because I don’t want them to waste this opportunity to listen to you. There’s about a million different things that I would love to hear from you on and talk to you about. Your work has been life-changing for a lot of people, including me, so it’s really hard to narrow it down. But I heard you, actually it was on your Instagram, I saw a reel that you did where you described so amazingly —I’ve never heard it sort of broken down this way— you described a thought process that we can use as parents for something that almost every parent I know has, and that’s fear. Fear about our children taking steps towards independence in different ways. Fear about them taking risks.

I guess a few months ago there was an article in The Atlantic by Erika Christakis about sleepovers and how this is something that a lot of parents are avoiding these days and the reasons why, but also the reasons why there were benefits to allowing children to do this. So that’s kind of where you started off, and I think that’s probably one of the more complicated risks for parents to consider for a lot of reasons. But you offered this wonderful thought process to figure out what are the benefits, what are the drawbacks? So how do we navigate all these kinds of risks?

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson: I think the first thing to think about is why do we feel fear as parents? There are studies that show that when we become parents, our brain changes in many ways. And one of the ways that it changes is that it makes us more hyper-alert to danger. It makes us more sort of scanning the environment to watch for any potential threats. And so biologically we can become more sort of savvy or sensitive to fears. And this is really a good thing. This allows us to be protective of our young, to help them survive and do all of these things. So fear itself is an emotion and emotions are important. Emotions tell us things like, Pay attention to this. Something is relevant here or something is worth paying attention to.

But fears often can be irrational. I mean, any kind of emotion can be irrational. And so they definitely should have a voice. Our emotions, and particularly our fears, should have a voice. We don’t want to vilify them. They’re important. However, they should not be the decision-maker.

So when we think about our children taking risks and we feel fear about those risks, and obviously that changes so much over our child’s development. When they’re really little, you worry about bumps and bruises or choking or water safety, those kinds of things. And as they get older, we have fears about their social relationships and we worry about sexual abuse. As they get older, we worry about them driving or being in other people’s cars and we worry about alcohol. And I’ll tell you, my oldest is now 23 and he’s an adult, and I have another adult who’s 20, and still a 16-year-old. And the fears don’t stop, you know, even when they’re adults.

So I think what’s really important for us to think about is we want autonomy to be the end result, we want to raise our children to be able to leave us and to be able to navigate the world. But yet our fears often make us, as parents, fight against supporting our child’s autonomy. And it’s not that we do it intentionally. It’s like, Oh, I don’t know, I think that seems too risky. Or, I don’t know, I’m too anxious about that. Or, That just seems like a bad idea. And so we often stop them from taking steps towards autonomy. And sometimes that’s the right call, but other times it’s really our fear that’s in the driver’s seat. So that’s sort of the background around the role that fear is playing.

Now, how do we navigate it? Well, one other thing to keep in mind is that when we feel fearful, we’re worried about a risk our child is taking or that they’re being in a position where there’s something that’s outside of our control. It’s a really uncomfortable feeling as a parent to know that we can’t control a hundred percent of our child’s safety all the time, and that’s true for the rest of our lives, even when they’re parents themselves. But when we become fearful about something, it makes us, I think the word is myopic, I don’t know. But it really makes us focus in on that fear. And what happens is that we often lose sight of context, or in this case other things that we should be paying attention to. So our fears or our emotions make us really hyper-focus sometimes.

When we take away opportunities for our kids to take risks or to problem-solve or to experiment with failure or having to be uncomfortable in a situation, when we become so hyper-focused on preventing a risk or something dangerous or tricky or uncomfortable from happening, we lose sight of something else that’s a risk. And that is that they are not getting the opportunity to move toward autonomy and confidence. You know, I always say the resilience formula is a challenge plus support equals resilience. A challenge without any support leads to fragility. But that’s only for big-time challenges and adversities. What I would say is that the way we become resilient is by practicing dealing with difficult things.

For example, I remember the first time I sent my son off to sleepaway camp and I was terrified. I was worried about so many things. I mean, I was worried about everything from ticks to sexual abuse to homesickness to bullying. I mean, I was worried about everything. And I remember that moment and walking him through the airport and knowing that he was feeling uncomfortable, he was leaving us for a long period of time, like two weeks, the longest he’d ever been away from us. And then I remember going, You know what? I don’t know why I’m acting like my child being uncomfortable is a bad thing. Because I know that a little bit of feeling of anxiety, or What if I get homesick?, or What if something happens and I don’t have my parents there?, that sitting in that discomfort —knowing that there are people around him to take care of him and he’s in a safe-enough environment— that that discomfort is actually one of the best things for him.

Janet Lansbury: Right. And then how did you know, like in that instance, what gave you the confidence that he was even ready for that challenge in the first place?

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson: Yeah, I mean obviously every kid is different. So we need to really know our kids, tune into them. And I won’t get into all the fancy terminology and child development, but I think that the idea’s sort of the Goldilocks. You want experiences to be a challenge where it’s not so much that it’s going to be traumatic or overwhelm them where they go, Oh, that was such a huge step. That was so terrible, I’m not taking any chances. Right? Because that’s counterproductive. But if something’s easy, then they may not gain as much from it. So we really want the just-right challenge, where we trust that our kid is going to be able to navigate through it.

And for some kids they can go headfirst into something they’ve never done and they do great. Other kids, like my firstborn, he really needed scaffolding. When he was really little and he didn’t want to walk up to a group of kids at soccer practice, he did better getting there first and then greeting kids as they came. But over time, as he had practice sitting in uncomfortable situations, he had the ability to know, Oh, I can handle this. Right?

Janet Lansbury: Right. But I just want to point out, so what you didn’t do, you didn’t walk in with him and say, Oh, here’s all the kids, and Everybody, can you say hi to him? And you didn’t scaffold that way, that would’ve been too much, right?

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson: That’s right. And I think that the thing too is— let’s say it this way, the brain is an association machine. So when we have repeated experiences, or reps, that are positive, we want to do more of it. If it’s negative, we often want to stay away from it, we avoid it. And so what happens is we want to give our kids these experiences, say going to soccer practice, where it’s positive enough. So he felt really tentative walking into a group of kids. So I’m like, Okay, well let’s take a couple steps closer. Or we got there early enough that he wasn’t just having to walk into a whole crowd. And this is when he’s like five, he’s really little. And then he’s like, Oh, I kind of like these kids, or This is fun and I want to go back. And then he’s like, I could handle walking up to bigger and bigger groups. So we want to think about these repeated experiences we give our kids, knowing that the reps that they’re getting are really wiring their brains.

Janet Lansbury: Yeah, for sure. Just going back to the question I asked you about, how did you know he was ready? So I don’t know if this is naive on my part or I’ve just been lucky with my three kids. My oldest is 30 by the way, and then I have a 26-year-old and a 21-year-old. Because I had sort of trusted them all along to make choices, even as infants, I trusted if they expressed a desire to go to sleepaway camp —and they did, and my oldest one did way younger than I really thought she would— that was a sign to me that she’s ready, she wanted to do it. I didn’t have to talk her into it or try to make it sound fun for her or make it happen. She wanted to go. And I was able to listen to that and it was a sign to me that she was ready.

And I think your son being on that team, I’m sure he wanted to do it. That’s the biggest hurdle, that your child is sensing that they are ready. And then from there, you were able to have the presence of mind to realize you could get him there early and that would ease the social part of it and everything else. But yeah, I trust that it comes from them.

You know, when I was listening to your talk about navigating the fears, I was thinking, okay, dialing it all the way back, the population I work with often is babies. I do parent-infant classes and people bring their children and we just watch them play. And the floor is wood and the babies are moving and they’re rolling. And oftentimes, and I remember this myself as a parent, it’s scary when your baby’s rolling and they’re going to bonk their head on the wood floor. It’s hard for parents to let that happen. But what happens is, you know, you were talking about the autonomy and the autonomy comes from what they’re learning, right? So yeah, they do bump their head a little bit, but then you see the next time they do it, or maybe they decide to bump it one more time a little bit more softly. But then you see the next time, and we can point this out to parents in the classes, they’re lifting their head a little and they’ve already learned how to navigate that.

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson: Yeah.

Janet Lansbury: But if we never gave them the opportunity, they wouldn’t learn that. And then the first time they went down, maybe older, now they’re on their knees, they’d hit their head much harder because they didn’t have that opportunity to learn those things. We didn’t let them have that opportunity because we were too scared.

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson: And we know that children learn best —we have decades of research— by doing it themselves. Of course they learn from what’s modeled and what they observe. They’re incredibly perceptive, even our babies and toddlers are incredibly perceptive. But what’s so fascinating when you really tune in and do the kind of amazing work that you do and you watch it and you can really observe at a place of curiosity, and you see those micro-moments of learning unfolding in front of you. It’s not just the lifting of the head in your example that they’re learning, but there’s also so much implicit messaging that goes on in how we parent.

And one of the ways I talk about that is that we’re meaning-makers for our children. So let’s say the baby rolls over and bonks their head and the parent gasps, Aaah!, and runs over and is like, Are you okay? And brings all kinds of big anxiety emotions to that. The child has learned in that moment, Oh, that must have been terrible. That caused a huge reaction in my parent that is frightening. And so we create meaning around that. Whereas otherwise, if we say, Oh, you bumped your head, you know, you hit it there, and we are not overreacting and maybe we help them make sense of that moment. Or we don’t even narrate at all.

Janet Lansbury: If they’re fine, yeah, if they’re fine, we don’t have to. If they have a reaction, then yeah, I would for sure say something. Yeah.

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson: Yes. They really are genius, even in their early, early months, in how perceptive they are about their own bodies and about what’s happening in the world around them. That idea of allowing them to take risks is what allows them to learn.

You know, I’m thinking about, there’s this amazing book called Wildhood, it’s about adolescent animals in the wild, by Natterson and I think it’s Barnett. But they talk about how there’s shark-infested waters in northern California that all the animals know not to go in there, except some of the teenage seals and otters go into these shark-infested waters. And what happens is the ones that survive are actually far safer than the ones who never ventured into that, because now they’re more predator-savvy. So what that tells me is, as our kids have bumps and make mistakes and have moments of failure, and as they have trial and error, it makes them safer and allows them to be more savvy about everything in the world.

And so I think this takes us back to what we know is so important about what we are bringing in our own state, our own nervous systems, to these moments, right? We’re watching, Is my child ready? And sometimes kids have their own fears driving it and they’re not saying, I’m ready to go, or I want to go. And we really sometimes have to tune into, What is the right thing for my child in this moment? We want to be child-led as much as possible, but if you have a child who’s anxious and who may not want to take risks. In The Yes Brain, Dan Siegel and I talk about pushing and cushion, that sometimes we have to encourage our children to take a step toward or to try something or something like that. And then other times they need a little bit more nurture, although we want to be nurturing in all of it, but they might need a little bit more comfort or a connection in order to do those things.

Our own internal states are so influential in these moments. So here’s one of the things, Janet, that I try to hold onto as I’m trying to decide, Is my child ready for this? Or, Is this a risk that is worth taking, is this safe enough? Is this okay for me to have them do this? And the question I often have to ask myself, and it takes a lot of self-reflection, is to say, Am I wanting to say no to this risk for my child’s best interest, like truly for their safety? Or am I saying no to this risk or this decision because it makes me feel less anxious?

And if I’m honest with myself, oftentimes I’m saying no or I’m blocking a movement toward autonomy or letting them fail or take a risk or do things by trial and error instead of stepping in and just doing it “right” because I don’t want to sit in the discomfort of my own anxieties or fears. So sometimes we have to sit in discomfort for our child’s best interest. And what’s often in their best interest is to allow them to make mistakes, to try things on their own without our interference.

Janet Lansbury: Right, because our discomfort that we have to sit in often is the discomfort of their frustration, or their upset that they didn’t get the result they wanted. You know, that’s another discomfort that’s really, really hard for most of us when our child is expressing it.

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson: Yeah. I mean, I think about when I was a kid and we would ride our bikes around the neighborhood for hours and we didn’t have cell phones. My mom didn’t know where I was. I mean, I was supposed to stay in the neighborhood and probably most of the time I did. But by the time I had my driver’s license and could leave, she had practiced herself sitting in the discomfort of not having eyes on me every second and not knowing exactly where I was and trusting that I could handle what came up. And I think a lot of times as parents, we don’t have a lot of good practice sitting in the discomfort of allowing our children to move toward autonomy. And a lot of that is because we’re uncomfortable with our children’s discomfort. But we all have to get comfortable with the whole range of human emotions, which includes discomfort.

So, is this really for my child’s best interest or is this really more about me not feeling uncomfortable or my child not feeling uncomfortable? I think that’s such an important thing because, back to what I was saying a minute ago and I don’t think I actually fully made the point, is that there’s this implicit messaging behind everything we do as parents. So if I’m like, Hey honey, it’s chilly outside, grab a coat. And he’s like, No, I’m fine. I remember having this battle with my kid when he was like six, my oldest, and I’d be like, No, it really is cold. You’re going to really need a jacket. And he’d be like, Mom, I’m fine. And it took me a few times to finally realize, you know what, first of all, we live in Southern California. If he’s chilly, he’s not going to be harmed, right? He’s not going to have frostbite. And what I was saying in insisting that he take a coat was, first of all, because I get chilly and kids run a lot warmer and I wasn’t really honoring what his system needed. But I also didn’t want him to feel cold. And that would’ve been totally fine. And then that would’ve taught him the lesson far better than me constantly being on him.

But here’s what was really happening. He was getting the message from me that, I don’t trust that you know what you need. I don’t trust that you can handle when things aren’t perfectly bubble-wrapped for you. So I was sending all of these implicit messages, that he couldn’t trust his body, that he couldn’t trust that he could handle whatever challenge came from him not taking the jacket. Now obviously I’m being dramatic around this, but I think the babies are learning much more than, Oh, I’m going to turn my head a little bit so I don’t bump it. They’re also learning that, My grown-up trusts that I can handle my body.

Janet Lansbury: I can figure things out, I can learn myself, I’m able, I’m competent, I can problem solve.Dr. Tina Payne Bryson: Yeah. And I actually think it’s a huge contributor, that very point that you just made, it’s a huge contributor, in my opinion as a licensed mental health person, to some of the really very frightening statistics we’re seeing right now about anxiety in kids. And I think part of that is parents treating our children like they are fragile and basically bubble-wrapping them so much that they don’t develop a sense of competency or confidence that they can solve problems, that they can navigate whatever comes their way.

You know, the pandemic was very difficult for everyone, and part of that was because of the unpredictability of the way life was. And unpredictability our brain reads as potential threat. So we really love predictability. Which is one of the reasons I love your podcast title, Unruffled. Because to me that’s such a goal, to be that grounded, connected. You can have big emotions, you can fall apart, and I’ve got you. And it’s not going to ruffle me because I feel confident that you can navigate this challenging situation or these big feelings and I’m here to help you and be there with you and be present with you while you figure it out.

Janet Lansbury: Some people mistake it as, we just act that way. But the whole point is that it’s not pretending, it’s not acting. It’s that trust that we build step-by-step, from the baby rolling over to letting the baby crawl away from us in a safe play area without following them. Being the secure base, literally, and allowing them to come back and forth as the free explorer. Letting them go down the slide. We can spot them as they’re climbing up and we can spot them as they’re coming down. But all those little risks that we take and each time now we’re trusting our child a little bit more. That’s the model that has helped me, that I am trying to teach other parents or help other parents with. These little steps are important because they build on each other and they color the way that you see your child.

You start to perceive your child as capable, they start to feel capable. And then it’s a little bit easier to be unruffled. And also know that they’re going to… You’re such an expert in what happens with the brain when we’re dysregulated and all that— and definitely knowing that that’s a big reason. When children are not at their best, it’s because they can’t be. They’re literally doing the best that they can. So knowing that, too, helps us be unruffled. But anyway, it’s not something to wear, it’s something to feel from the inside out.

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson: It’s a way of being, really. You know, I mentioned my son going away to sleepaway camp. He was nine at the time when he did that. We did our due diligence, we checked out the camp, we listened to our fears, we mitigated risks, we prepared him. You know, those are the things I say in the video, Pay attention to your fear, listen to it, but don’t let it decide. Do your due diligence. Check out, make sure it’s a safe-enough environment. If it’s a play date, you might want to ask about the family’s rules around things or whatever you feel worried about. And then we want to empower our children so that they can know that they can solve problems and protect themselves in lots of ways.

And I just have to share that the first couple of letters that came from my son when he left were like —and he’s like this athletic kid who’s very private, not really gushy with emotions— but his letters were like Emily Bronte had written them, you know. It was like, I’ve never been more homesick in my life. I’m so sad. And he would, like, he circled a tear on his letter. He’s like, This is my tears, I’m falling asleep. It just destroyed me, right? I didn’t feel unruffled. But he came home after the two weeks and I said, Oh sweetie, your letters, you sounded like you were having such a hard time. And he said, Mom, that was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I really missed you guys. And then he just got this little smile on his face, this little, like, smirk. And I said, What? And he said, And I did it. And there was a confidence that came from him overcoming that and walking through that. And I’m feeling emotional even as I’m saying it, because it allowed me to see him in a different light. It’s like you were saying, that builds that trust and that movement toward autonomy.

Janet Lansbury: Oh, sorry. I just want to say, wow. The fact that he was able to express those vulnerable feelings to you, that’s what allowed him to move through them and manage being there. And if he wasn’t able to express to you, at least sitting in his own feelings at night, maybe, when he was alone, I’m so homesick. You know, I encouraged my children when they went to college, Let yourself cry. Of course this is hard. Of course you’re homesick. And the fact that your son did that is such a sign of how you raised him to feel safe, even though he wasn’t that type of guy, quote unquote, he felt safe to be that side of himself. I mean, that’s a risk too. But that balance was I’m sure what allowed him to thrive in the camp.

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson: And it’s a reminder to us, our children internalize the relationship we have with them. Even though he couldn’t see us, he had something felt inside of him of, I know that they’re there and I’m going to see them. This is some of the thing around separation anxiety is that, as development unfolds, they begin to internalize and remember that we’re still there and all of that.

You used the term “secure base” earlier and then what you said just a minute ago is more of a reflection of that. That comes from the attachment literature, I know you know. But the idea of a secure base, I think that secure base is misinterpreted as constantly providing your child with security. But what the attachment literature shows us, and this is 70-plus years of cross-cultural research, it shows us that a secure base where our child knows they can come to us and that we are going to be there for them is also a launching pad.

So when our kids are really little, they may crawl away from us and then look back and make sure we’re still sitting there. Or they may come over and put a hand on our leg and kind of have a little touchpoint, and then they go out and explore a little further and then a little further. And as they get older and more confident and all of that, they know that we are there. And so it’s not supposed to be smothering or holding them close to us to give them security. That’s actually intrusive. Because true security in a relationship between a parent and a child is definitely a launching pad that allows them to feel safe enough that they can go out and explore the world. And so we should not be getting in their way, right?

We want to be communicating to them, with our unruffledness, that, I trust that you can handle this. And when we’re talking about our kids being taken care of by other caregivers or in other families’ homes, that we want to give the sense of, I trust that other people will take care of you, too. It’s not all on us. And when we don’t do that and we get in the way of their autonomy or we freak out about risks or we don’t allow them to problem-solve, what we’re implicitly communicating is, People can’t be trusted. The world is a dangerous place. You know? And so we’re giving so many messages underneath our actions and the words that we say.

Janet Lansbury: Right, that are disempowering and actually get in the way of what we want to teach them, which is that they are safe, they are secure, that they can believe in themselves. One of the most fascinating things to me about parenting is how we’re teaching all the time and often not what we’re trying to teach.

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson: Yes. And you know what? That’s good too, right? Again, it’s back to the idea that sometimes the struggles are our best lessons. And as parents, we’re going to mess up at times. But we know that once we make the repair with our children, it’s actually better for the relationship that we’ve walked through the messiness of those moments.

When I’m trying to make a decision about whether or not I’m going to let my kid do something or I’m going to give them the space to wrestle with something or problem-solve or take a risk in some way. So what I walked through in that Instagram video, one is listen to your feelings, but don’t let them decide. Do your due diligence, make sure that you’ve checked out the actual dangers. And then prepare your child, and then feel confident that they are problem-solvers. So I guess another piece I would add that I didn’t say in the Instagram video is to trust your child and trust your child’s development.

But then even when I walk through those steps, sometimes I stay afraid. And so here’s one other thing that really helps me. Often the stuff that I worry about is like, my kid keeps messing up in this way, or they keep having this problem, or they keep having this behavior. And I feel like I’ve already taught them this, why does this keep happening? Will they never learn? And is there something wrong with them? If I will pause and reflect, and let’s say it’s my child is having difficulty being gentle with other kids or something like that, younger kids. That they’re being aggressive on play dates or things like that. If I will say, Okay, let me think back to three months ago or four months ago. And I think back to a good chunk of time, not a day ago, not a week ago, not a month ago, but maybe a few months ago. And I ask myself the question, Is my child having less of this struggle or this challenge or this behavior than they were a few months ago? And usually when I do that I go, Oh, okay, we’re moving in the right direction. I can trust development.

But that’s not an always. I have to say, you know, I think one of the biggest challenges for the work that we do —and I know that you have got to experience this, we might have even talked about this before— development is not linear. For example, when kids are in the four- to six-year-old range, particularly around age five, it’s really common for them to have another burst of separation anxiety. And it seems like a regression, it seems like, oh no, they were having separation anxiety, then they weren’t for a while, now they are again. And we start really worrying. Are they being bullied at school? Are they sick? We start worrying about all these things. But it’s actually not a regression, it’s a progression, because development’s not linear.

It’s not symmetrical either. Meaning they might have a big burst of cognitive development without the emotional development that goes with it quite yet, right? That piece may be lagging in terms of their development and maturity. So what happens for kids in the four- to six-year-old window is they have this amazing cognitive burst where they are now able to imagine scarier things. They have scarier monsters that they can imagine, or they might even be able to start comprehending things like, Well what happens if something happens to my mom or dad? or whatever. So they can start imagining, because of their cognitive burst, more difficult things, but they don’t yet have the emotional development to handle that kind of information or to navigate it well or to be regulated around it. So I think it’s really important to say we should trust development and we hope our kids are moving in the right direction. And usually that’s the case, but sometimes it looks different. So we sometimes have to have an even wider view because development is full of surprises and it’s not always what we expect.

Janet Lansbury: Right, and it makes sense that every step towards more knowledge and more autonomy is also scary, you know, for a child on some level. When a baby is learning how to crawl, then all of a sudden they’re waking up in the night again. Or learning how to walk suddenly, you know, they go through that classic separation anxiety period, Wow, I can get away. I am able to do all these things. I am a separate person. Yikes. That means that I might lose this other person and they might be separate from me. It’s that maturation that creates the fear and it’s par for the course. We don’t have to be afraid of that, but understand it and be sensitive to it of course. But not be ruled by it, like, Okay, I’m going to strap you to me every second because it’s hard for you to be away from me. Maybe I’ll just be away from you shorter periods or I’ll, you know, whatever it is. So yeah, I mean it does make sense. I think that the more they develop, the more there’s a part of them that wants to run back. I mean, I feel that myself as an adult.

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson: I mean, that’s an attachment need. It really is. When something is a big emotion, whether that’s positive or negative or something’s challenging or something ruffles us or we’re stuck on something, I need my attachment figures. You know, I want to go back to the secure base with my husband or my mom or my best friend or whatever. And that’s an attachment need. In the book The Power of Showing Up, Dan Siegel and I talk about the four S’s, helping kids feel safe and seen. Where they feel understood, soothed, like I’m here to comfort you. I’m going to show up for you. And then over time, when they feel enough safe, seen, and soothed, they develop a security in knowing that even at their worst we’re going to, and I’m going to use your terminology now, we’re going to be unruffled, we’re going to really be there. And that they can count on our presence.

And knowing too that when we’re ruffled or when we become the storm instead of the eye of the storm, those are again opportunities to go and reconnect. I really wanted to teach my boys that they’re responsible for their own behavior no matter what anybody else did, which meant that my apologies couldn’t blame them. And I noticed that I was doing that. I would get really mad and I would yell and then I would say, If you guys had listened and stopped fighting with each other, this wouldn’t have happened. And then I was like, Oh my gosh, I’m just totally blaming my behavior on them. And not only is that manipulative and damaging, but it’s also not what I want to model. So then I had to really be careful and pause before I would apologize. To say something like, I got really angry. I didn’t handle that very well and I didn’t handle that the way I wanted to. Will you forgive me? And I could even state the fact like, You guys were fighting. I felt really angry and I didn’t handle it well.

And even that moment is kind of a moment of sort of messy emotion, right? They have the experience of, Wow, that doesn’t feel really good right now. My mom’s angry or she’s reactive and that doesn’t feel great. Because over and over and over I’ve made repair, they also sit in the security of knowing, Oh, she’s going to come make it right with me. So it actually creates resilience. So anytime we allow them to do things on their own, walk through struggle in an appropriate way, what’s age-appropriate and developmentally appropriate, those are beneficial moments. But I know our instincts are like, Oh, I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.

Janet Lansbury: Right.

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson: My husband is so much better at stepping back and allowing, allowing them to find their way. And I really have to work against my nature to decide every day to choose to not be what is, honestly, intrusive, to step into their story. I’m part of their story, I’m foundational to the story that they’re building. But it’s their story. It’s hard. I mean, I really have to be intentional all the time.

Janet Lansbury: And finding that healthy separation between us where we’re not taking on responsibilities for feelings of theirs that don’t belong to us and then not asking them to do that on the other end. I was thinking, I recommend everybody follows, if you’re not already following, Tina Payne Bryson on Instagram, you absolutely should and watch this video and all of her videos. She does this wonderful, what is it, Monday Mistakes?

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson: Yes. Mistake Monday.

Janet Lansbury: Mistake Monday. She’s just a wealth of wisdom. I wanted to say though that in regard to the one about the sleepovers and fears, and we didn’t really talk about sleepovers in this podcast. You can listen to what she has to say there. And you got a lot of pushback, which I was expecting because people have had bad experiences or they’ve heard of horrific things happening on sleepovers and it’s just not worth it to them. And I just want to say, as devil’s advocate in a way, that the important thing is the awareness that you talk about: Is this my fear of my own discomfort? Or is this really a fear of the actual risks? Is this just too uncomfortable for me?

And I think sometimes, to be devil’s advocate, we might make the choice, You know what? This is about me and forget it, I’m too afraid, I’m not going to do this. I think that’s an okay choice to make as long as we know that it’s about us so that we can consider, Well maybe this other risk, this one I’m going to allow because I know that I had to do that other one for me and I’m going to allow this one to be my child’s, you know, my child’s education, to build their confidence. I think it’s just the knowing. It’s not that we won’t always give into our fear, but it’s what you said, which is the understanding, the awareness. I feel like a lot of the times as parents, that’s everything, that we’re aware.

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson: Totally agree with you. I mean, I couldn’t agree more. You know, sometimes we may look and go, You know what, I can’t tell if this is in my child’s best interest or not, but my instinct is telling me this isn’t a good idea. We should absolutely listen to that. Sometimes we’re going to decide it’s too big of a risk or it’s not safe enough or I don’t have enough information to know if it’s safe and I’m going to err on the side of caution.

Janet Lansbury: Right. Or, I don’t have the bandwidth to handle being this afraid right now for my child. I mean, that’s valid.

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson: Yeah. And to say, I’m too anxious. And we matter too. Every decision we make is not in a vacuum. If I make the decision to let my kid go, because I’m like, Oh, this is my fear, but I’m so afraid that I’m not sleeping all night and then I’m an angry, reactive parent for the next two days to all my other kids. We have to think about all these things. I think we absolutely can make decisions for ourselves, and you’re exactly right.

I think the key is to do it with intention. We’re making a decision as opposed to just letting our fears decide. And we can let our fears be the call, even, at times. But we have to be intentional. We have to really choose. And I think it’s so hard when so much of the time it feels like we’re just surviving because life is so full and we have such big mental loads. And I want to give all of us permission to not give an answer right away. And I often tell parents that in the discipline moments too, I want to give you permission to say to your child if they’re old enough, I want to think about how I want to handle this. Take a pause and to really go let yourself sit in it.

Janet Lansbury: That’s great modeling. But what about changing your mind? I mean, we kind of did that with our daughter going to parties in high school. The first one, we said no because we knew there was going to be alcohol there, we were afraid. But then as I thought about it, I realized, Okay, so this is high school, like we’re going to keep her home? I mean, what’s the option here? Is that really going to work? And we realized we had to educate her as much as we could and trust her. And it was tough.

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson: I love that you talked about changing your mind because you know, the sort of less-informed, kind of old ways of doing things was like, If you lay down the law, you can’t change your mind or they’re going to know you’re not in control. Well I have a problem with that whole sentence. Because if you’re going to use threat and power and control to control your child, you’re eventually going to lose.

There’s a huge difference between giving in and changing your mind. Lots of times my children have had great arguments and things that I hadn’t thought about. Well, did you know that the parents are going to be in the house and we’re just going to be in the backyard? Okay, well I didn’t know parents were going to be there, right? That’s more information, I can change my mind. And I’ve often said to my kids, You know what? I’m changing my mind. I’ve thought about it some more and I think this is something that you can handle.

I often would say to my boys too, I know you know what I’m about to ask you, so why don’t you do the mental legwork for me? Because they’d say, Can I go here? And I’d say, Well, who’s taking you and what time does it start? And so I stopped doing that and I started saying, I bet you can imagine all the information I’m going to need in order to make a decision. So why don’t you go do that thinking and then come back?

Or if I started to lecture about something they didn’t do the way that they were supposed to, instead of me lecturing, if I could say, I bet you know everything I’m about to say to you. So why don’t we reverse roles? Why don’t you tell me what you think I would say? And what was amazing about that is they almost always would say everything I was going to say anyway. And I felt a sense of peace inside because I was like, They’ve really been listening, they’ve really been internalizing. And as they say it, they’re internalizing it even more. And it gave me confidence that they really can handle a lot more than I think they can. You know? And they really do have wise minds. And they’re going to make mistakes and the mistakes can be valuable.

And so again, it’s back to that idea of trusting. Trusting ourselves to sit in discomfort as needed. Trusting our child to navigate the world even as it has its challenges. Trusting that other people will show up for our kids too. Trusting development. I guess in a way it’s kind of an optimism about development and about who our children are becoming. I often think about times where I was worried about something with one of my kids and when I think back about it now I’m like, that was a lot of misspent emotional energy. I really believe we can trust development. Regardless, even if we have kids who are neurodivergent. I really believe development is amazing. And if kids are given opportunities to learn and grow, try things and problem-solve, that their brain does so much amazing work and they become amazing people.

Janet Lansbury: I love that. I love that story about your son. That’s wonderful.

Well, thank you so much Tina, and once again, so much encouragement, so much wisdom. You’re very comforting to listen to. I want to agree that unruffled is flexible. It’s not rigid, it’s a model that’s very flexible. We can be free to be ourselves in this relationship, figuring it out with our child.

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson: Yeah. White-knuckling something isn’t really being unruffled, no. I think an underlying current to everything we talked about is ongoing reflection as a parent. The way we become unruffled or move toward unruffledness is to tune into ourselves, to reflect, to make sense of the times we’re not practicing to be the parent we want to be. To say, What was that about for me? And how can I be the parent I want to be in the next moment? I think it’s such an important part of that flexibility and that freedom to really enjoy our relationships with our kids, trusting them, trusting ourselves, and continuing to reflect and grow.

Janet Lansbury: 100%. Thank you so much, Tina.

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson: Thanks for having me.

Janet Lansbury: Thanks for all that you do for parents.

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson: You too, Janet. Thank you so much.

Learn more about the resources Dr. Tina Payne Bryson offers at TinaPayneBryson.com and on her Instagram page: TinaPayneBryson 

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

Thanks so much for listening. We can do this.

The post Our Fears as Parents – Real and Imagined (with Dr. Tina Payne Bryson) appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Transcript of “Words That Get In Our Way”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.

Today, I’m going to be doing something a little bit different. I’m actually countering my general advice to not focus on words that we say with children but more on our perception of the situation. Because what children sense is actually how we feel when we’re acknowledging their feelings, when we’re giving them boundaries, when we’re helping them with their behavior that’s gone off track. I still believe that the words we say, the scripts that we use, are the least important thing. What matters most is how we’re perceiving our child in these moments and our role with them and, therefore, the feelings that we have that come through.

However, there are some instances where our words can make a big difference in that they interfere with our goals to have an easier time as a parent, be effective, and help our child to flourish and meet their potential. So in this episode I’ll be talking about those instances, why they matter, and what we can do instead.

One of the big ways that our words can have a negative effect, the words that we say —the words that we think, even— these affect one of the most important aspects of parenting, which is our perceptions. For example, there are books, quite popular ones, and websites and statements people make, including parenting advisors, where children are referred to as brats and a-holes, and they’re bullies, they’re naughty, mean, they’re drunks, terrorists, beasts that need to be tamed. It’s become culturally acceptable.

And don’t get me wrong, I have a sense of humor. And while there’s no harm in once in a while saying to your partner or your friend, Oh gosh, they were such a brat today, Oh, they’re in a bratty phase, or It feels so mean, the way they’re acting. That’s something that almost everybody I know does. Those are thoughts and sharing that is actually, I would say, important just in relieving our stress, having a sense of humor about our child’s behavior, laughing a little bit at what’s going on.

But when we regularly think this way and talk this way, and maybe even say these things to our child, we’re cementing images in our mind that are not going to help us, because they create a divide. They create an “us against them.” Our child is sort of the enemy or the problem in the situation. So we create a hurdle for ourselves that makes it so much harder to connect, empathize, respond, and guide in the way that our children need, and that we need.

And these kinds of terms and words can also label and classify children in a fixed manner. Especially when we regularly say them in front of our children, but even if we’re consistently thinking of our child that way. And when we share these types of terms associated with children, we perpetuate these societal views that can be hard to shake. So I’m talking about naughty, mean, brats, bullies, even shy. These kinds of labels. I mean, I looked up “bully”, and one of the main definitions is “a person who habitually seeks to harm or intimidate those whom they perceive as vulnerable.” Now, maybe this is true of an older child, but a three-year-old is not seeking to intimidate those they perceive as vulnerable. Children aren’t intentional when they do these kinds of behaviors. They’re acting out of dysregulation or shame, their discomfort, their fear. So when we talk about a child this way, or think of our own child that way, it’s going to be so much harder to help that child to stop having that kind of behavior, to feel more safe and connected with us. And calling a child shy. I got that as a child, and it became this thing I had to overcome, this problem that I had, that made it harder for me to engage with people or connect. It made me want to even more withdraw into my shell.

So any time we’re using these fixed-mindset terms, we’re making it harder for our child to grow and develop, pass through these behaviors, and for ourselves to see that maybe these are actions, but they’re not nouns. And that’s the way I would try to use them, as maybe behavior that seems bullying, or sometimes we feel shy. But it’s not who our child is. It’s a momentary behavior. So these are descriptors of actions rather than of people. That’s how we continue to have the best mindset, which is a growth mindset. Our children are developing so quickly.

But again, before I start sounding like this humorless, prissy person, what matters is the daily diet. Parents often reach out to me concerned because they don’t use those terms, but maybe other people do around their child: a relative or friend. And that concerns the parent, naturally, that they’re not using these terms, but their child is hearing them from someone else. In my experience, in my view, I don’t believe we need to worry about that. It’s okay for our children to hear the perceptions that other people have, and if our child seems upset or puzzled by it, we can bring it up later. They called you naughty. That’s the way, sometimes, people see that kind of behavior. But I know that you were so tired and that’s why you were doing those things.

So let’s try not to take on too many responsibilities. Our jobs are hard enough as parents, we don’t have to try to control or be overly concerned about the way other people engage with our child. It’s that consistent daily diet, and it’s much more important how we perceive them and the terms we use.

But going back to the message that I usually share about how words are not as important as how we feel, that’s also true in these cases. So if we’re being playful with our child, we say something like, Ooh, that was very naughty of you. Or, Ah, I’m feeling shy. Are you feeling shy? You know, there are ways that we can use the words that don’t take on these negative, distancing, judgmental connotations.

So that’s the first instance where words can get in our way, the way they affect our perceptions, and therefore our child’s.

The second instance where our words can get in the way is when we use swear words or words that have oomph behind them, our child feels that power in those words. Or even if they don’t, if we use a lot of swear words with emphasis, like we usually do when we say those kinds of words, then children will naturally repeat those. Because that’s what they do. They are explorers and they explore the oomph and the power and the accentuation of those words. So, they will imitate those.

And parents might not see that as a problem. I would consider, though, that one of the goals most of us have is to set our children up for success socially. That other parents, teachers, other adults, respect and appreciate them, like having them around. And when we kind of normalize using words that some families will be a little alarmed by or bothered by, then we’re not maybe doing the best we can to set our child up to be successful in those homes or with those people. We used to have a neighbor, the children were maybe preteens, and there was a lot of yelling of swear words. We live in a quiet neighborhood, and it was off-putting. And these were actually very sweet, kind children, but there was this other impression that constantly came through that didn’t seem so sweet and kind, and was unpleasant. You know, even if we don’t mind those words, they’re not a big deal, to hear them shouted constantly is a lot.

I’ve also had a friend of one of my children that came over —again, a very sweet child— who would do this, and it just makes it so much harder to empathize with children like that. It does make it easy for us to want to see them in a negative light, and we can’t help but wonder, Oh gosh, now is my child going to be saying these things, picking up this language? But I just want to be clear: I’m not scolding anybody. I’m no one to judge. This is just something to be aware of, that maybe we could temper our language a little bit.

Then if our child does imitate our language, or they’re imitating the language of someone else that they heard— very common for them to do that, that’s part of the development of empathy and the way that they explore and learn about the power that certain words and behaviors have. So they’re right on track to be doing that. The best response we can give is, Wow, you feel strongly, or, Wow, you heard that word somewhere. But if we try to push back, get upset rather than curious. And we’re not always going to be able to do this. But curious is pretty much always the best attitude to have. Huh? Where’d you hear that? That’s a strong one. Uh-huh, that’s quite expressive. Those kinds of responses will give our child the answer that they need from us: Okay, they noticed, but it’s not a big deal. But if we try to say, Don’t do that! Never say that to me!, or we get alarmed because we hear our child saying that and maybe feel terrible because we said it and now they’re repeating it. All of those things will create more interest in those words that our child maybe needs to explore.

They really are just words in the end. But they’re words that do have a certain power and, ideally, we’re going to be people who don’t give it power when we hear it from our child. So if your child is saying these words to you that they heard somewhere, or even from you, try to just have a low-key Uh-huh, wow reaction. Not pretending it didn’t happen, because then our child might need to keep trying to get our attention around it. We give it a little bit of attention, but not emotional attention, just, Uh-huh, whew, yeah, that’s a word you might be careful about saying with certain audiences.

We can have that kind of response when we expect that it’s going to happen. Even if we never say swear words or negative words, our child will pick them up somewhere eventually and try them out, most likely. And again, that’s what they’re supposed to do. That’s actually a healthy sign. So we’ve got nothing to worry about there, right? And they won’t take hold if we don’t give them that magnetic energy that we can so easily give when we get taken aback or worried or angry ourselves.

Okay, now here’s the third way that words matter. The words we use, they can color our children’s feelings, and maybe even bring a sense of shame, around their bodies, their personal care, bodily functions. And that can interfere down the line with their self-image, their body-image, and even toilet learning. When we say things— and again, this is so natural to do and say, and parents have argued with me, Well, but it is. I need to say that it’s dirty, it’s stinky, it’s yuck, and make faces and wave our hands and do all that when we’re changing our child’s diaper. And it’s not that we don’t have a right, and maybe it feels really honest, but there are these repercussions.

Remember, children are so impressionable about everything, especially what we do and say. So I would always consider, Would I say this to an elderly person or a disabled person who needed personal care? And if the answer is no, then I wouldn’t say that to a far more impressionable human being, a child. I would consider giving them that same respect and politeness and kindness. Even when we’re with other people and we’re checking our child’s diaper. I would do that discreetly too, because these are human beings and they deserve their privacy as much as anybody. Even more so, actually, because they’re learning about themselves. They’re learning about respect, they’re learning about relationships, their value.

I actually received a note from a parent, I guess this is a sort of success story. She said:

Hi, I read your article a few months ago about using words like “dirty” to describe diapers. I started saying “fresh” instead. You need a fresh diaper, Let’s get you fresh, etc. Today, my 16-month-old came to me pointing at her diaper and said, “Have fresh.” I was so surprised. It was so beautifully dignified. Just wanted to share.

Dignified. That’s another good word for a respect that isn’t often given to children, let’s face it. And they deserve it, right? It elevates their humanity and personhood. It elevates our view of them, our relationship with them. So we can say fresh. We can say, This is wet. Let’s change you into something dry. Or, This is making kind of a mess. Let’s tidy this up. Imagine yourself with an older person who needed your care.

So just to connect this back again with my stance that I usually express about the words don’t matter as much as how we feel. Yes, there are a lot of words that maybe aren’t the first one advised by me and others, but are fine to say, and we don’t have to worry about them, if we’re feeling, I see you. I’m not intimidated by this. Ah, you’re doing that behavior, but these are impulses. I’m not blaming you for everything. Then we can even say things like, No. Of course, we don’t want to say, no, no, no, no, no to everything, because children will tune that out quite young. But we can say, That’s a no, No, my dear, or Ah, my answer’s going to be no this time. There are loving ways to say those kinds of things. And alternatively, we can say words that maybe seem more caring on the surface, like, Oh, let me help you stop this behavior, or Ah, you’re really upset, but we can say that out of annoyance. Let me help you stop this behavior. You’re upset.

So the way we feel is still far more important than the words, but there are a few instances where the words we use can make our job harder, and none of us wants a harder job. Please, please, please know that none of this is about judgment or scolding ourselves for doing natural things, automatic things a lot of the time. This is definitely not about being perfect in any way. Like everything I share, it’s about raising our awareness when we’re able to. Not worrying about it when we’re not, but striving to be a little more mindful.

And I have no more words to say about words except, thank you for listening and we can do this.

In case you haven’t heard, my No Bad Kids Master Course is live, and I can’t wait to hear what you think about it. Please go check it out and, if you decide to go for it, I would love your feedback. You can see what others have said here —> nobadkidscourse.com

And my books make great gifts! No Bad Kids:Toddler Discipline Without Shame, and Elevating Child Care, A Guide to Respectful Parenting are available on Amazon, in audio on Audible, and wherever eBooks are sold.

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Transcript of “It Works! Parents Report Powerful Benefits From Allowing Kids’ Feelings”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.

So, recently I shared a podcast that I called “What to Do (and Not Do) When Kids Have Meltdowns, Tantrums, Strong Emotions.” It seemed to resonate with a lot of people, it was popular. And it got me thinking that, while I talk a lot about this topic of letting feelings be, how to do it, I don’t talk as much about all the benefits. How this practice—and it is a practice, this is counterintuitive for most of us: to encourage our children to feel whatever they feel when it’s an uncomfortable, unpleasant feeling. Even just attempting this practice, it’s challenging, right? So I hope that this episode gives you even more encouragement and also gives you more examples of what it looks like, what it feels like. And I’m sharing this in my most favorite way, which is through you, through the stories that you’re sharing with me, the insights that you’ve had about your experiences that you’ve been so kind to share with me.

Okay, so I’m going to be highlighting three different categories of relationship benefits for us and our child from allowing and accepting their feelings. Empathy, trust, and intimacy. That’s one category. Emotional intelligence, that’s the second. And respectful boundaries, that’s the third.

So, first: empathy, trust, intimacy. When we encourage our children to feel as they feel in the moment, this is a natural process to them feeling more empathy, trust, and intimacy with us. And at the same time, we will learn to feel more empathy, trust, and intimacy with our children. It works both ways. So here’s one of the notes I’ve received:

Although we are still learning through practice each and every tantrum and new situation, we can both testify we are closer to the kind, loving humans, parents that we dream to be. To not get angry/high-tempered, but practice empathy, sincere, genuine care and understanding, and genuinely model it to our kids from the depths of our hearts. As Christians, it’s helping us fulfill even our faith practice.

There are days I feel like a hero. My son, who’s two years old, may be expressing and yelling, but I don’t react with emotion. I just let him get it out. And I’ve come to recognize it’s so healthy for him to express all of this to us because he trusts us. And we try to treat him with empathy and understanding, knowing he might be feeling a lot of emotions due to: a transition after grandparents moved out of his room; preschool might be overwhelming; he might be overwhelmed by the stress of potty learning; understanding he might feel jealousy that I hugged his little brother.

And when I treat him with understanding and compassion, he calms down much faster. It seems he’s feeling reassured that, Mom doesn’t love little brother more than me. Mom is on my side and loves me unconditionally. Mom still loves me, even though I can’t control my impulses and strong feelings. I feel all of this through my little son when he calms down and gives me a hug. It’s like all these feelings came from a place of fear of losing his valuable position in the family after his younger brother was born. So reassuring him that he is still mama’s beloved boy almost every day is so important to him.

Your work has allowed me not only to treat my children with empathy and compassion, but also heal my own heart of harsh, self-judgmental tendencies. And also treat my husband, friends, coworkers with greater understanding and compassion. I am closer to who I dream of becoming.

I wanted to also say, having compassion and understanding of our toddlers rather than judging the powerful or angry emotions they feel is so empowering as parents. I feel we keep the parental power intact because we didn’t lose our calm. Near the end of a big meltdown, all I need to do is tell my three-year-old son, It’s been a long day, hasn’t it? We’re all tired. I understand. And I can feel he’s so relieved to hear that. Like, Mom really gets me. He cools down so fast after that.

This understanding has brought our relationship so much closer, too. Your work helps me to genuinely love my toddlers and even still find them cute after ugly meltdowns.

And then she put a smile. Yes, so this empathy and intimacy that we’re feeling through these practices, the way that we’re seeing what’s actually going on with our child— which is that they’re hurting, they’re uncomfortable, they’re stuck in that uncomfortable cycle of impulse. That’s something we can empathize with, right? I mean, we won’t feel like this all the time, but when we can. I mean, I love that she even said “ugly meltdowns” because yeah, I mean, we’ve got to be honest, we’re seeing a really unpleasant side of our child. It could be kind of awful. They might even seem evil to us, or just mean. And the extent of that is a direct reflection of how scared or uncomfortable they’re feeling inside.

But yes, it takes practice and really belief in this, I guess, to be able to get to a place where we’re more consistently seeing our child as the vulnerable, struggling person that they are. And that awareness of what’s behind this ugliness that we see in our child, it’s everything. Far more important than how we intervene, what we say when we’re intervening, what we choose to do, how fast we get there. What’s most important is what we’re seeing, because that’s deciding what we’re feeling. And that’s going to decide what our child will feel in response, the messages that they’ll get from these experiences. And I love how this parent said it’s given her more empathy for herself to see this in her child. It’s healing her “own heart of harsh, self-judgmental tendencies.” I totally relate to that.

Okay, here’s another note from a parent. And obviously I’m editing these down just to what I believe is most helpful to share. This parent says:

During my toddler’s nap recently, I came across your episode, “Healing a Child’s Anger (a Powerful Success Story).” Just wow, my eyes swelled up as I listened to this mother’s note about her five-year-old son. Since the arrival of our twins, I’ve been struggling with my toddler telling me to “Go away!” or “I don’t like you!” and “I’m going to shoot you!” Both when we are alone or in the company of others. It is humiliating and I feel completely stripped down. Aren’t I, the mother, supposed to be loved most and always adored by her son? I say that with some tongue-in-cheek.

Okay, and now I, Janet, I’m going to stop there to talk a little about that podcast “Healing a Child’s Anger (a Powerful Success Story)” because I’m sure not everybody listened to it that’s listening here to this one. So this parent in that podcast said, “I had a conflict yesterday with my son that we didn’t quite resolve,” and she felt still disconnected from him the next morning. And she said, “After I had done some self-care, a workout and felt well-resourced, I saw that he was drawing by himself and I went over and sat next to him. My closeness started bringing up the feelings. ‘I want space. Go away.’ I felt the doubt slip in. He’s asking for space. Shouldn’t I just give him space?“

And that parent went on to say that that was one of the messages she’d given him generally, that whenever you want space, just ask for space. “But then I remembered that he was pushing me away when deep down he probably wanted to be close so I stayed there quietly and just looked at him with love. His feelings started escalating, which unexpectedly made me more confident.” And he said, “Leave me alone. You’re so mean.” He screamed for dad to come. She says she let him scream.

And she noted—which is very, very typical—she said he knows just the words to say to knock her confidence. So yes, in the middle of those strong emotions or meltdowns, children, it’s like they need to check out, Can you really be there for me? Can you really help me contain this in a loving way? Or are you going to get thrown and not be able to lead me when I say things that get to you, that I know are your vulnerable spots? Obviously this isn’t a conscious process on the child’s part.

And then he said, “I only love Dada and not you. I want to kill you. I’m going to tell Dada to chop your head off with an ax. I hate you.” So some huge rage coming out there, right? And the parent struggled. Tears came to her eyes, but she said, “I trusted all of it and just let it flow.” She said she hadn’t been saying much, but then she said, “I’m going to stay close to you. I’m going to keep our bodies safe. I’m right here. I love you.” And she added, “I know this is so uncomfortable. I’m so proud of you.”

And what happened in the end was that they did come together. He felt relieved that she stuck with him through this really, really hard, long process. A lot of doubt this parent felt the whole way, but she stuck with it and saw immediately that that was the right thing to do. That he was able to clear the feelings safely, to land them with her.

So anyway, now we have another parent who listened to that and she’s hearing her five-year-old son say, “Go away. I don’t like you. I’m going to shoot you.” And she said:

After the podcast ended, I couldn’t wait for him to wake up from his nap. I went upstairs completely anticipating a “go away!” moment. And sure enough, he turned from me and asked me to leave. And in response, I assured him how much I loved him and that I would stay close. Completely vulnerable. After several minutes of being told to leave and countering his wish, he turned toward me, pulled me close, and wrapped my arms around him. I will never forget that moment. So instead of writing a question, which I still may do one day, I just wanted to reach out with a success and say thank you.

And I just want to comment there that I know that this idea of staying when a child says go away is controversial, because many of you have questioned that and believe that is the wrong thing to do. And I hear you and I totally understand that view. And I’m not saying this is the only way or the only positive way. But I would consider what children or any of us say in the heat of passion, in the heat of fear and anger and rage and hurt, and if we would hope, even as adults, that people could see beyond that to not taking us so literally. If we might say things we don’t mean when we’re in an emotional storm, imagine how easy that would be for a child to do, to say all kinds of things that they don’t really mean.

I love that this parent said, “Aren’t I, the mother, supposed to be loved most and always adored by her son?” He’s telling her, “Go away!”, “I don’t like you,” and “I’m going to shoot you!”, even in front of other people. And she said she says that with some tongue-in-cheek. But you know, it’s so interesting that we naturally will take what a child says. It’s hard to see past that, to see that he’s actually saying this because of how much he deeply loves and adores his parent. That’s where these feelings come from. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have such strong and scary things to say about her. The amount we love someone is the amount that they can hurt us. So it’s not the truth, what a child is saying in those moments. It’s not something we need to take personally as constructive criticism or an actual, literal desire that our child has.

Children, when they prefer one parent, it doesn’t mean that they’re not deeply in love with that other parent. Sometimes it means that they are, and they feel betrayed by a situation of a new baby coming. And that’s why they lash out in this hurtful way that they’ve sensed the first time they tried it, really, really hurt their parent. It was effective when they said, No, I only want to be with my dad, not you, or the other way around. Children don’t feel passionately about these things unless they have strong feelings for both people involved. But yes, it certainly is confusing, right? When we see our child as so capable in a lot of ways and then we forget, Oh, they’re also really immature and young. And we can’t expect them to take responsibility for their actions and their statements. Instead, we can help them by understanding why they’re doing that or saying that, where that’s coming from. And allowing them to express it and, with our safe response, heal that hurt. And that healing is what’s going on in all of these examples.

And as children are healing they’re also learning, through our example, about their intimacy with us, that level of acceptance that we feel is the level to which our child can trust us to share. That’s intimacy. And at the same time, we’re also helping children learn about feelings through our safe responses in these interactions. They’re learning emotional fluency, emotional intelligence.

Another parent wrote to me a long note, but this is the part I want to share:

My daughter often catches me off-guard with the emotionally mature and aware things she says, often behaving in a more mature way than her parents. It’s just mind-blowing how powerful parenting techniques are. We are literally forming a whole human being and in those early years, we’re cementing that person’s entire character.

And I so much relate to this. All of my children —well definitely as adults now, they’re all young adults— they are much more emotionally mature and perceptive about their feelings and the feelings of others than I still am, I feel. And when they were children, same as what this parent’s saying, I’d be caught off-guard with how wise they were and the healthy way that they expressed, and still do, and therefore move through and beyond their feelings. Clearing them, rather than holding onto them or stuffing them. Because they’d had a different experience than I’d had as a child. They’d had an experience where emotions were safe, their parents were curious about them, not intimidated by them. We knew there was always a reason and we wanted to understand, not put that away or just judge it as wrong or be personally offended by it.

And believe me, I was and still am a work-in-progress. I was by no means perfect at this, at any stage, or even anything even close, but it matters that you’re trying. This is one area of life we can really get a lot of credit and make a lot of progress just by trying. And repairing and being vulnerable when it didn’t go the way that we hoped for us, sharing that with our child so that they understand every step in our process and therefore learn about their own. We get to be the models for all of this. We can see it as a big problem or a big responsibility or a big honor, maybe depending on our mood.

And then the next two stories I want to share are both on this theme of, what is respectful discipline? What does it feel like and look like to give a boundary respectfully, and how this goes hand-in-hand, it’s really tied to our ability to accept our child’s feelings. Because what makes giving a child a direction or stopping them from a behavior respectful is our ability to not only say it respectfully and politely if possible, but understand that they have a right to feel whatever they feel about that boundary. It’s not our right to judge how they should accept or not want to accept or complain about or be appalled by, seemingly, a boundary. They get to own those feelings. We’re going to help them not act on them in ways that are destructive or damaging or hurtful, but if we can actually welcome those feelings, go all the way in the opposite direction of the way that maybe most of us would naturally feel, which is: You get to be as mad at me as you need to be while I make these decisions as the person that was given the honor of being your leader. I don’t expect you to comply easily and obey me without a word, and I want to hear all of that. And I expect that as part of my job, because I know that this is the way that children do often end up expressing feelings, by pushing us to those limits so that we can hopefully hold the limits for them and they can vent. That’s the dynamic of respectful discipline. And it works, because it will end up healing the feelings that are causing the behaviors in the first place.

Alright, so here are a couple notes about that:

For someone who was never taught healthy boundary-setting and struggled early into adulthood with this skill, your encouragement and education has changed my life. My husband and I have found healing, enlightenment, and freedom through the way we are parenting our daughter.

Tonight we had such an amazing moment. I was cooking and my daughter saw me use the sink, so she wanted to wash her hands. She’s 21 months, by the way. I told her, “I hear that you would like me to wash your hands. I can’t do that right now because I’m cooking. I will wash your hands when I’m finished here.” She was upset at the boundary and I repeated, “I know you’re upset. I can’t wash your hands right now. As soon as I’m done here, we can do that.” She stood there for a moment and then came over to hug my leg, and then kissed me. My heart could have exploded.

Okay, so here’s another one:

Tonight was definitely about boundaries, and my daughter had so many feelings she was just looking to release. She was making kites at the table, which involved scissors, and typically this is fine, as she is almost five years old. I was just happily watching her create and she started cutting really close to her fingers, so I reminded her to leave some room and not get too close. A few moments later, she started cutting really fast and out of control and looked at me. I calmly took the scissors and said I was putting them away. She completely melted down, tried hitting me and screaming that I was mean. I got down on the floor with her and blocked her hands and just stayed as still and calm as possible. This continued for about 10 minutes of her crying and screaming at me, and she then stormed off to her room. I tried to go in, but she yelled for me to go away and said she needed space, which lately I’ve been trying to give her when she requests since she’s getting older. So I told her I would be right in my bedroom and still listening.

About 15 seconds later, she emerged and ran to me and crawled into my lap, crying a few minutes more. Then she stopped and noticed something in my room, at which point I knew the storm had passed. She turned around and said, “I love you, mommy,” and wrapped her arms around my neck. Then she said, “Can I help you make dinner now?” And we held hands as we walked to the kitchen. I have tears in my eyes as I write this because I just didn’t even know that this type of connection with anyone, let alone the most important person in my world, was even possible. It took me a lot of work to get here, but your articles and podcasts made it possible and was like this light that I kept just working toward. Today I embodied that light and I can’t express how grateful I am.

Thank you so much to these parents for sharing with me. I’ve always felt this is one of the most helpful, powerful tools, the stories that you all share, so please keep them coming. And congratulate yourselves. As this mother says, “it took me a lot of work to get here.” It takes a lot of work. These are generational cycles we’re changing around our attitude towards feelings and the way they’re expressed. And there are probably a lot of people listening saying, Oh, you shouldn’t let children do these kinds of things. I get that. Yes, this is an unusual path. It’s probably still the one less-traveled, but it’s definitely worth it for so many reasons that I think these stories I’ve expressed better than I could. So thank you again.

We can do this.

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