Transcript of “What To Do About Embarrassing, Troubling, or Crazy-Making Things Our Kids Say”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.

Today I have, as I often do, three questions I received from parents, and I see a running theme here. Maybe nobody else will, but hopefully by the end of this podcast episode you’ll see it. And hopefully my responses to these notes are helpful to you. All three of these notes refer to a child expressing thoughts or opinions, a point of view that is uncomfortable for the parent to hear. In the first case, it’s because the child’s thoughts are embarrassing the parent in front of other people. In the second case, they bring up a concern about their child and the child’s perceptions about themselves. And in the third, the child is sticking to a point of view that seems silly to the parent and it’s really annoying that they won’t let go of it. I’m looking forward to getting into this.

Let’s start with the first note. This one says:

Hi Janet,

My three-and-a-half-year-old son is bright, articulate, and outgoing, and I love spending time with him. But one issue has been giving me anxiety about taking him out and about. He comments on people’s appearances, often right in front of them, sometimes accompanied by pointing. He asks, Why does her hair look like that? Why is his face red? Is that a man or a woman? And so on and so forth. If I don’t respond immediately, he repeats the question until I answer. I usually try to guide my son away and say something like, We’re all different. Look, you and I have different [fill-in-the-blank]. I also say that talking about how other people look can hurt their feelings, but if he has questions he can ask me or his dad at home.

He usually says okay and stops in the moment, but it’s continued happening. I understand this is developmentally normal and maybe I should get over my own embarrassment, but I’d be grateful for any advice. How do I teach him to save such questions for later? And what do I do in the moment when the people he’s talking about, both adults and kids, clearly heard him, and acknowledge that his words may have been hurtful? I want to model good behavior and show respect to the other person without shaming my son.

Thanks so much and I look forward to your thoughts.

Okay, so this is a not-fun situation. I’ve been in this situation. I really only remember it with my oldest, but I don’t know, it may have happened with the younger ones too. Obviously this is awkward, embarrassing. We don’t want other people to feel judged or hurt, of course, by us or by the things our child says. But the truth is, once our child says it—especially at this age, he’s three-and-a-half, he’s just a little guy. He doesn’t have a ton of impulse control yet. And he’s saying what’s on his mind.

And I think we have to remember two things. First of all, this parent is absolutely right and it’s great that she understands. She says, “this is developmentally normal and maybe I should get over my own embarrassment.” Yes, it’s developmentally normal and natural for an inquisitive child who’s curious and wants to learn everything about their world, right? But once they’ve said it, they’ve said it. This parent says, “If I don’t respond immediately, he repeats the question.” So when we’re not responding immediately, it might be that we’re kind of hoping he just stops and we don’t have to deal with it, or maybe we just don’t know what to say. And then our child is picking up on that discomfort from us. It’s natural, it’s normal to have that in that situation, right? It’s totally embarrassing. But it kind of throws our child a little off-balance and actually makes it more likely that they’re going to fall into making those kinds of statements again.

So, if we realize what’s done is done, he’s already said it, we can’t take it back and there’s really nothing I can do to erase that for the other person who’s heard it. Maybe we can exhale on that and know that where we do have power is to respond in a way that takes the onus off of this. And by doing so, make it less likely that he will repeat this.

I would also do, as this parent says, but I would do this a moment later and very comfortably, I would say, Hmm, you know what? Sometimes when people hear that it can hurt their feelings. So I would say it just as a, By the way, here’s some good info for you to know in your journey, my love. People can take this the wrong way. But if we’re not uncomfortable about it and we communicate that way, without judgment or alarm, then we prevent this from happening again or make it less likely.

And in the moment, let’s take the examples she gave. “Why does her hair look like that?” I would right away say something like, Hmm, I don’t know. Maybe that’s a style that she enjoys, I guess. Almost shrugging our shoulders as we say this, being that comfortable. “Why is his face red?” Hmm, I don’t know. Maybe he’s had a lot of sun? Not sure. “Is that a man or a woman?” I don’t really know. Could be either, maybe. Or, I believe that’s a man, but one never knows how somebody might identify their gender.

That very nonchalant response will help. It’s just like with everything with children: when we’re not making a big deal out of it, it’s not a magnet for them that they need to keep going there, they need to keep checking that out and exploring that with us.

So if this parent does normal things like not respond immediately, because she’s like, Oh gosh, let’s just pretend that didn’t happen. I don’t want to answer, that doesn’t work, because then he repeats the question as if to ask, What’s going on with you? Like, Why can’t you just answer a simple question, parent? Just give an answer. Doesn’t have to be a perfect answer. That’s going to be our best response.

When she says, “I usually try to guide my son away and say something like, We’re all different. Look, you and I have different” whatever, it probably comes off to him a little bit defensive and, Hey, don’t ask those kind of things, instead of just answering it like it’s no big deal.

And then she says, “I also say that talking about how other people look can hurt their feelings, but if he has questions he can ask me or his dad at home.” So yes, I would absolutely do that, but not from an activated place, not from an uncomfortable place if possible. If I do have those feelings, just waiting for a moment to add that part in. Maybe even saving it for later, like, Oh, by the way, just so you know, this can do that. But you’re saying it to somebody who’s on your team, who is doing normal things, and you just want to give them some information, give them some knowledge around socializing with other people.

She says, “How do I teach him to save such questions for later?” Just by doing that, giving him that little tip. Because children want to be socially correct, they don’t want to embarrass people.

But if they’re embarrassing us, then that is something that they get drawn to trying to understand. And when they’re drawn to doing that, that means they’re repeating it, usually. That’s true with all different kinds of behaviors. The way we react to things matters. We can react in a way that shows that we’re confident leaders or we can be thrown off balance. And we’re all going to have both of these, but the more that we can err on the side of taking it in stride, the easier it’s going to be for us.

So she says, “I want to model good behavior and show respect to the other person without shaming my son.” And I think that is exactly how you can do that: just by answering. They already heard him say it. So just give an answer that is neutral, genuine, that’s not judgmental on your part. That’s how to model our best behavior and show respect. And again, what all these notes have in common is this natural response that we have as parents to kind of push back on it, meaning the thought or the point of view our child expresses. Avoid it. Correct. Rather than just allowing it and welcoming it. Letting it be, letting it have a life, rather than correcting it, avoiding it, pushing back on it.

Okay, so here’s another one:

My three-year-old daughter is obsessed with being pretty or beautiful. I’m sure I have contributed to this. I catch myself telling both of my kids —three-year-old girl and five-year-old boy— how cute they are, not infrequently. They are adorable. But I think I balance this decently with observations about how hard they work, their creativity, thoughtfulness, etc. And while I like to look nice sometimes, I’m usually in sweatpants and I rarely wear makeup, so I don’t think it’s all coming from me. I think the limited television they watch and other media they consume have relatively healthy messaging.

Still, my daughter wakes up every day and says she wants to be pretty, which invariably means she wants to wear a pink sparkly dress or similar. If I tell her she is pretty, no matter what she wears, she flatly denies it. Lately I’ve been asking her, “What makes you feel pretty today?” Trying to bring it to the internal, but I don’t know that it’s registering.

I don’t really mind pink and sparkly if that’s how she wants to express herself. (Although there are lots of fun pants and t-shirts that aren’t getting much or any use!) But other things she said have me a little worried. Once she saw me putting on makeup and, when I wouldn’t let her wear mascara, she started crying because she thought people were going to say her eyes weren’t pretty. When we play with her mermaid toys in the bathtub, she wants one to be the beautiful girl and another to be yucky or not beautiful.

Is this normal? I kind of love that she knows what she likes and loves to dress up, but I also of course really don’t want her to grow up believing her value is in her looks. My family was very focused on looks and that didn’t do me any favors in the confidence department. I’m not sure how to walk this line and would love some advice on how to raise a confident little fashionista. Thanks very much.

Okay, so this type of question I receive often. Children exploring these whole realms of life, like being the “pretty,” princessy, glittery, ultra-feminine person. And I think they do see it in media and also it’s maybe just an exploration of a side of themselves. Boys can experience it too. So I would try to see this as an exploration. I don’t know that she’s going to be a fashionista, maybe just a phase that she’s passing through. And a positive goal we can have as parents is to encourage it to pass through. Just like we would, in a way, encourage that boy in the first example to share what he’s thinking and feeling, while also letting him know comfortably that his words can have an effect on others.

With the dressing up, the more that our child feels us pushing back on this, the more likely they are to get stuck in these phases. Again, to explore the power that they have with us when they’re experimenting or exploring certain behaviors. And we don’t need to know how this girl got these ideas that something’s yucky and something’s beautiful and that that’s an important thing to be and that maybe her eyes wouldn’t be beautiful without the mascara. I mean, maybe she asked her parent once, Why do you wear mascara? And the mom said, Oh because it makes my eyes look prettier. That would be a typical thing to say, right? But again, it doesn’t really matter where they heard it. The point is she’s doing what she’s supposed to do, which is exploring, processing all the things that she’s taken in or heard once or become interested in. She’s learning about it.

And when children learn about it, they go all in a lot of the time, which I kind of love about them. So when this girl wakes up every day and says she wants to be pretty, we don’t need to push back on that.

This parent says, “If I tell her she’s pretty no matter what she wears, she flatly denies it.” Right, so we’re gently, lovingly wanting to counter our child. Oh, but hey, you’re always pretty. And they want to be whatever they think “pretty” means to them, which maybe is a sparkly dress or mascara or the mermaid in the bathtub and not the other one. It’s a concept that she has that’s not necessarily what other people’s definition of pretty would be. It’s her definition, because she’s the one learning about it, exploring it.

So this approach, it’s so much easier than feeling responsible for molding and shaping and pushing back on and correcting the things our child does and says. That takes a lot of energy and it doesn’t help. It can be a really frustrating experience as parents when we’re working to do what we believe is our job, and it’s actually making our job harder.

And this is where trust comes into play. Trust is relieving ourselves of that burden of trying to fix what’s in our child’s mind, what’s on their learning agenda for right now. That’s not our job and it will likely exhaust us if we try to make it our job.

So this parent is doing a lot of work. She’s been asking her, “What makes you feel pretty today?” Trying to bring it to the internal. She says, “But I don’t know that it’s registering.” Yeah, we don’t have to teach lessons. The lessons get taught through our child’s experience and the trust that we have in them that they will pass through it. The real lesson we want to teach her is, We welcome you to explore and learn and try out everything that interests you in life. Within reason, of course. If it’s not safe or if it’s really harmful to someone, we’re not going to let them do that.

But this stuff, yeah, there’s a reason they’re working through this. They want to understand it better and then they come out the other side of it. So let’s let that process flow as much as possible instead of trying to put the brakes on it, making our job so much harder.

I can understand why this parent got worried about the makeup. “She started crying because she thought people were going to say her eyes weren’t pretty.” Well, that could be a real opening to connect with our child. Instead of saying, Oh, your eyes are so pretty you don’t need this, or whatever might be the normal thing to say, right? We might say, Wow, you think you need black around your eyelashes to feel prettier? What is pretty about that? What does pretty mean to you? It gives them the message, I’m just interested in where your head’s at and what you think about things. I want to know your point of view, actually. I want to know what pretty is to you and why that’s important.

So much of what we feel like we should do as parents —I get this, because I feel the same way, I have those same impulses— but so much of it is actually shutting our children down from sharing with us. Sharing their interests with us, these nuances, these details, and how they see things. We can enjoy parenting more when we’re curious, accepting of wherever they are and then curious about it, wanting to know more.

I understand this parent’s vulnerability and that’s coming into play here, too. And maybe something her daughter’s picking up on in some way. That she said, “My family was very focused on looks and that didn’t do me any favors in the confidence department.” So now I’m coming in with this natural projection that I’m going to put on the situation and my child is wondering why this is such a big deal. That’s what I would look at.

Once again, I want to know what you have to say. I want to know what you’re thinking. Yes, I’m going to give you pointers when it’s hurting somebody, when it’s maybe making someone uncomfortable or maybe it comes off as rude. I’m going to help you with that, but really I want to know what’s going on in your mind.

Okay, here’s one more:

Hi Janet,

Thank you for normalizing toddler behavior and giving parents a safe space to learn about this fascinating stage of life.

(Me here— I agree with that! It’s a fascinating stage of life!)

I have read through and listened to the pieces you have already on the site about arguing, but I wanted to ask you a specific question about arguing.

My three-and-a-half-year-old gets into something I’ll call circular arguing, because I don’t know what else to call it, which is when he cannot let go of a topic and won’t accept any answer other than the one he demands is true. An example:

My son: Look at that shiny black car with letters on it.

Me: Cool! That says “police.”

Son: No, that does not say police! Police cars are blue, not black, mama.

Me: Actually, police cars can be black or white or all sorts of different colors.

Son: No, not true! All police cars are blue.

And on and on and on. He’ll repeat himself until he gets distracted or until I manage to change the subject. I just don’t know what to say back to him in these moments because, “Okay, you’re right,” does not feel like the right thing. But also engaging or arguing back with him is not a power struggle I want to get into with him. Sometimes I’ll say, “You feel very strongly about this,” but what I’m really looking for is strategies for helping him let things go and move on.

Any thoughts you have about this would be so welcome. Thank you so much.

I love her title of circular arguing. That really describes this. I feel like this parent is very wise in that she knows that saying, “Okay, you’re right,” isn’t the right thing, but also doesn’t want to argue back with him. And she says, “Sometimes I’ll say, ‘You feel very strongly about this.'” So that’s more on the right track.

A few things. First, like these other examples, it’s very common and we could see this so positively, how assertive he’s being. He’s being sure of himself, he’s seeing patterns. All police cars are this, all are that. Children can be very all or nothing at this toddler stage. And, they want to be separate from us. They want to be more autonomous. And often that means saying the opposite of what we say, even if they actually know that’s not true. They want to hold onto, But this is what I think and I’m separate from you. So it’s a dynamic that’s actually very healthy and not as specific as it may come off, that he’s specifically confused about this.

What she can do, and what I would recommend, is to not argue, not agree with his side when you know it’s not true. Just rise above and welcome him to share. Wow, you have a strong opinion. This is what you think. Thanks for sharing with me. I always want to know how you see things. Very comfortable. And that’s how he will let go, because he’s got nowhere to go with us when we welcome him to share his view. We welcome it so much we actually say, I always want to know what you think. It’s really interesting to me. And we don’t have to change our view to his and we don’t have to change his view to match ours. We welcome his individuality. And you could even say, It seems like every police car you’ve seen must have been blue. Yeah, interesting.

Sometimes the answer in these issues is so much simpler than we make it. But I know it’s so easy to get hooked in. Wait, he’s saying something wrong, and This is crazy, and Ah, it’s so annoying, I’ve got to fix this. Or, Why is this child saying this in front of people? Or, Why does my daughter have this kind of icky obsession with appearances? We get hooked in. And I think it comes from actually respecting our children so much and thinking they’re so cool that we forget how small and just how they’re in constant motion in their development, and constant exploration.

And it’s really harmless. It’s all to the good. They’re figuring it out and they’re sharing their process with us. And that’s a gift.

Nothing they say can intimidate us unless we let it. And as this parent says, when we normalize toddler behavior, we can dig into this a little as a fascinating stage of life. Yes, it’s also an aggravating stage of life for sure. But I mean, we’re learning more and more about them every minute. They’re able to express more to us. They’re opening up to us. So if we can reframe this as harmless, interesting, exploratory, really positive developmental behavior, we can take a big breath, even have maybe a sense of humor about it and not let it get to us. That’s what I’m hoping for all of you. And again, I really hope some of this helps.

Both of my books are available in paperback at Amazon. That’s No Bad Kids, Toddler Discipline Without Shame and Elevating Child Care, A Guide To Respectful Parenting . You can get them in ebook at Amazon or Apple, Google Play, or barnes and noble.com and in audio@audible.com. And you can get a free audio copy of either book at Audible by following the link in the liner notes of this podcast. Or you can go to the books section of my website. 

Thank you for listening. We can do this.

The post What To Do About Embarrassing, Troubling, or Crazy-Making Things Our Kids Say 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.

The post Words That Get in Our Way appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Our children’s impatience and low tolerance for frustration can… well, test our patience! In this week’s episode, Janet responds to a question from a listener about how to teach a toddler to be more patient. Janet considers what patience really means to a child, how it develops, and how our expectations as parents and caregivers may get in the way. Her recommendations (as is often the case) may be surprising and counterintuitive.

Transcript of “Teaching Our Kids Patience”

The post Teaching Our Kids Patience appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Transcript of “Helping Children Thrive in Preschool – What Parents and Teachers Can Do (with Mr. Chazz)”

Hi. This is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled. Today, I have the great pleasure of speaking with Mr. Chazz. He is an educational specialist currently overseeing nine preschools. He coaches teachers. He’s branched out into coaching parents as well. He’s been a supervisor, and a trainer, and a problem solver, and he refers to himself as CEO of teachers changing the world. He’s able to translate a child’s language in a way that adults can understand. He’s committed to helping parents and teachers assist children’s development in a way that is more enjoyable and effective for everyone.

Hi, Mr. Chazz.

Mr. Chazz:  Hello, Janet. How you doing?

Janet Lansbury:  I’m doing well. I’m so excited that you wanted to come on here and share with us. I had heard about you through the grapevine, the work that you’re doing, but you and I actually connected recently, and it was exciting to see how much we have in common. There’s a lot we don’t have in common, like I’m old enough be your mother, and you’re black and I’m white, we’re different genders, and you probably have a little more facial hair than me at this point.

Otherwise, we have so much in common: the way that you got into your work that you’re doing now so organically and with a passion and also with a steep learning curve, which I also had, with children’s behavior, figuring that out. Then you found that you actually have a gift for this and that you’ve been able to help other teachers, and parents and children to understand their behavior and develop relationships that are respectful, and positive and affirming.

Yeah, so I love that. Although we are very different in some ways, we have so much in common. As I said to you, you’re in this for the right reasons.

Mr. Chazz:  Yeah.

Janet Lansbury:  It’s just very refreshing. You are genuinely, humbly into this work and learning all that you can.

Mr. Chazz:  Yeah. I really do feel like this is my life’s purpose to help people enjoy the process of growth, really. That also includes myself, and so it was really important for me to do work that I enjoy doing but also to help other people enjoy what they’re doing, whether it’s teaching, whether it’s parenting. It is finding what their passion is. Yeah, this just very organically happened. When you know your why, no matter what happens.

Situations can change.  What changed for me and for everyone was the pandemic and the quarantine. Everyone went home. The teachers went home. The children went home, and the parents became the primary teachers with their children 24/7, and they really struggled and really didn’t know what to do. As I saw it, especially through social media because we were all home, I really saw an opportunity to help. It’s been really exciting, fulfilling and validating of my life’s purpose is to get messages every day, comments and messages saying that I have changed people’s lives and their relationships with their children. That’s what it’s all about. I really feel like that’s what I’m meant to do.

Janet Lansbury:  I’m so glad you’re out there doing this. You’re very much needed.

Well, I think, right now, some people have children that are in care centers and in preschool, and some people don’t, so there’s both out there, right? You said that your centers are open, have been open for a while.

Mr. Chazz:  Yes. All of the centers in my district, nine schools, are open and have been open. There was one school that closed for a couple of weeks, but all the other schools have been open.

Janet Lansbury:  What I want to ask you about is a question that I receive often from parents: what do we do… what do you do and what can parents do when a child is having difficulty in these situations? Maybe they’re disruptive or they are not following directions, they’re not, quote, “listening,” they are having difficulty making friends and thriving socially in the classroom. What do you look at? What do you consider?  I get a lot of questions about this. Honestly, it’s probably every parent’s worst, or one of their worst, nightmares to hear feedback from the teachers or the people caring for your children that your child is having problems and they’re hitting or they’re being disruptive or they’re not following directions, they’re a problem in the group. What do you do when you come across this with a child? What do you look at?

Mr. Chazz:  The very first thing is observe to really understand why the behavior is happening. A lot of people focus on just the behavior. You mentioned hitting. A lot of people will approach the situation like hitting is the problem. I’m here to tell you, and it’s going to shock a lot of people, that hitting is generally not the problem. There is an underlying lack of skill or a underlying social-emotional challenge, and the result of that is the hitting.

We have to, as the caregivers at home, at school, really observe, especially when these behaviors are happening, and take a lot of data: is there a certain time of the day that the behavior is happening? What are the patterns? What’s happening before, what’s happening during, what’s happening after? to really identify what that underlying problem or underlying challenge is that the child is having in these situations.

For hitting, a lot of times, the problem is lack of ability to express themselves or they don’t have the language to solve the problem. Maybe it’s over a toy. The child might be hitting because they want a toy, and the way that they know how to get things is through a physical means. It’s not their fault. A lot of times, we get so frustrated.

Like you say, none of our emotions, even as the adult, are wrong. Now, as adults, we have to, in these situations, manage our emotions during this time and respond thoughtfully so that we can be in a place where we can really help them, as opposed to making the situation worse. Because if we’re not able to manage our emotions, then how do we expect to teach the child to not just react emotionally when they have a problem that they can’t solve?

Most of the talking is going to happen not in the heat of the moment. Most of the learning is going to happen when you’re talking about it later. That’s something that parents and teachers can do: to tell the story of what happened prior and talk about different ways to handle the problem that they were having.

Now, the other thing, too, is developmentally-appropriate expectations. A lot of times, we’re expecting a two-year-old to share when they physiologically cannot do that. We’re expecting them to wait for long periods of time without getting antsy and moving around. Sometimes we don’t have developmentally-appropriate expectations.

It could also be the emotional climate in the room. Energy really does affect the emotions, which then affects the behavior. If a teacher is constantly saying, “No, no, no, no, no,” and is yelling at the children, that’s going to create a lot of stress in the room. Then, more likely, there’s going to be biting. There’s going to be hitting.

Now, a lot of what I’ve talked about, up to this point, has been things in the classroom. I know there’s parents out there like, “Okay. Well, what can I do about it?”

Janet Lansbury:  Well, this sounds like it’s the same situation for parents. Everything that you’re talking about applies to parents observing: when is this coming up for my child?  Being curious about what the symptom is connected to.

One blanket thing we can say is: my child’s uncomfortable. This child is uncomfortable, in some way, to some level. I think everything you’re talking about applies to parents: our own emotional regulation, having our own emotions involved when a child is acting in these ways that are challenging or disruptive. That usually comes from our fear that we’re losing control or that our child is going to be like this other person in our family who’s having a terrible time or all of those things.

Mr. Chazz:  Right. I always like to try to break things down for the adults, how children feel through adult situations. Us, as adults, we are not always the same in every environment. Our behavior isn’t the same when we’re around our family members, our immediate family, maybe not our family at Thanksgiving as opposed to when we’re at the mall, as opposed to when we’re just with our friends, as opposed to a work environment. No one even has to tell us to act different, but we just do. The environment impacts the way that we behave.

It’s the same thing in the classroom. Some teachers get frustrated by that response. Some teachers are like, “Well, there’s no way that they are not showing this behavior at home when we see it all of the time here.”

I’m like, “Well, if they’re hitting because of a toy and they’re an only child, all the toys in the house are theirs, so they don’t have that situation where they want a toy but they don’t know how to get it or they don’t know how to ask for it because, in their environment at home, they automatically have the toys.” A lot of times, it’s the environment that’s different that is triggering different behaviors.

Another thing about the environment, too, it could also be the dynamics in the classroom with different personalities. Some children very much value their own personal space, and then some children value other people’s personal space, meaning they want to be in it. Maybe, at home, personal space and boundaries isn’t really much of a conversation because mom and dad are okay if the two-year-old or three-year-old is climbing on them or playing with them, but the other two-year-old or three year old is not okay with you climbing all over them and might hit or push just to say, “Hey. Back up. Get off me. You’re in my space.” Then that might elicit another response from the other child. Because the environments are different, it’s likely to bring out different behaviors.

Janet Lansbury:  Sometimes it can be just the amount of bodies, the noise level. The energy level in a room can set children off.

Mr. Chazz:  There are definitely classrooms that have varying energy levels. It’s different personalities depending on what’s happening. It’s not even always negative energy. Maybe a child’s super excited, so they run and they bump into someone. The child didn’t intend to knock another child over, but they were just excited, and so they just went to the physical way to express their energy because that’s the part of their brain that is developed, and that’s what their body’s telling them to do.

It can be very challenging in a classroom. Being attuned to the children in the room can be very challenging for teachers. Realistically, there might be some times where the teacher is on eye level, really engaged with one child, and so, on the other side of the room, there are two other children who are playing, and they start to get frustrated because they both want the same toy. The teacher may not be aware of that in the moment. It’s a constant almost balancing act to be attuned and to know who needs the attention, the time, what needs to happen in the room for all these different little humans with their individual needs, wants, desires, personalities, dynamics.

One child might just had a rough morning or a rough period because maybe dad’s gone away for a couple of weeks for work, and so now he’s bringing the stress of not being able to see dad and this inconsistency in his life into the classroom. That can affect another child too. Like I said, the energy does spread.

There are a lot of people who do… You mentioned observation, actually doing it. There are a lot of people who come in with degrees in early childhood and they have knowledge, but it’s different to actually acquire the skills to be in tune and know what children need and to really feel the energy in the room. That takes time. That takes experience.

From talking to parents, I know that it’s the same thing with parenthood and trying new strategies. Maybe you used to spank your child and you’ve decided that you no longer want to spank your child and you want to use other more positive ways to teach your child. It takes practice to learn something new to communicate with your child, to communicate how your child receives it.

Janet Lansbury:  Absolutely.

Well, let’s continue on with the example so we can give parents some specifics and teachers that are listening as well. Let’s say the child is hitting. You said you observe to find out why that’s happening. Then what would be the next step that you would take?

Mr. Chazz:  It would be dependent upon the reason that we identified that it’s happening. Let’s say that the child tends to get frustrated, overwhelmed in their emotions, and their response is hitting, sometimes biting. It’s more common in the toddler, two-year-old age group, but sometimes in threes too. Let’s say that’s the reason. Instead of just focusing on the hitting, we want to teach this child how to communicate and solve these problems when they’re in these situations.

That may be a little bit specific to the child and based off of the skills that the child already has, because if the child can’t talk, if the child isn’t using words yet, then what a lot of parents and teachers have a tendency to say is, “Use your words. Use your words,” but the child doesn’t know what words to use. Also, your child has an even harder time using their words when they’re overwhelmed in emotion, as us adults do as well. Right?

Janet Lansbury:  Right. That can feel very pressurizing, “Use your words. Use your words.” Yeah, I put myself in the shoes of young children very easily all the time. I hear someone saying that to me, and it’s like I might’ve had a word before that, but now I have absolutely none because there’s that, “Use your words. Use your words.”

Mr. Chazz:  Right. Let’s say child A is a child who we identified is hitting. They respond to problems by hitting. We observe that another child tends to try to take something from this child or they’re getting in their space. They’re doing something that they don’t like, even trying to play with the child when child A, who’s hitting, doesn’t want to play. I will teach that child if they have a little bit of language. I’ll teach them to say the word “stop.” It does two things. One, it lets the other child know, “Hey, you’re in my space.” It’s kind of like the warning shot, “Get away from me. I need my space.” It’s the communication. I also teach the other children in the room, when someone says, “Stop,” stop. That gets into this whole other conversation about consent.

I’ll teach a child to say, “Stop,” and teach the other children, “When someone says, ‘Stop,’ that means stop.” Now, that also lets me know, as the teacher or a parent in the room, when I hear the child say, “Stop,” even if I’m busy, I’m doing something else, maybe I’m talking to another child, maybe we’re doing an art project, whatever it is, I hear the word stop, my ears immediately perk up. I’m observing, I’m watching. I don’t necessarily just jump in and rescue the child from the situation. I kind of watch.

Me, hopefully being a teacher who is consistent in the classroom, I know both children and their personalities. I know the cues if child A or B is about to hit or not, but I’ll look. If the child walks away, I will reinforce it and putting words to what happened to develop the language. Because my overall goal is to give the child the language to solve problems, because that is the underlying issue here. I’ll reinforce that and say, “Wow, the other child tried to take the toy away from you, and you said, ‘Stop,’ and they stopped, and they found another toy to play.” That will help them process what happened. It’ll make it more likely, later when another child is doing something or similar, for them to use those words.

Now, what parents can do is-

Janet Lansbury:  I just want to say I love that you acknowledged and you kept the child focused on, “You did this,” instead of… Sometimes, if we say like, “Good job! You did it!”… we make a big deal out of it, then now it’s about: Oh, I pleased Mr. Chazz, and he likes me when I do this, instead of: Yeah, I did that, and that worked. So they can actually own it. I know sometimes people think we’re supposed to do these big praise things. You just demonstrated beautifully how that simple acknowledgement actually is what empowers the child to own it and keep owning what they’re doing.

Mr. Chazz:  Yeah.

Now, what parents can do is they can ask some of these questions about what’s happening. What’s happening before? What’s happening after? Is there a pattern? Is there a time of day? Is it happening right before lunch? Is the child just hungry, and do I need to just maybe give breakfast a little bit later and make sure that I am giving them a good breakfast? Just really partnering.

I can’t stress that enough. Parent-teacher partnership is so important when solving, especially, the big problems in the classroom. Sometimes people don’t feel comfortable letting the parent know, “Hey, this is what happened.” Part of it is because the teacher or the person who’s communicating it is communicating it in a way that’s, “Hey, your child did this. This is a bad thing your child did. You need to fix it.” That’s not helpful.

The way it should be communicated is like, “Hey, this is what we’re observing what’s happening. These are the things that we’re doing. Are you observing the same behavior at home? What are some things that you guys are doing? We just want to be on the same page so that we can work together and that we can do strategies together so that the child is getting consistency at home and at school.”

Then, once you have a plan — you identify what the actual underlying issue is — then it’s working on that. It’s working together, doing things together. The more consistent we are with any strategy, the more it’s going to be effective, the more it’s going to take and the more helpful it’s going to be for the child.

So I would build those relationships. It’s super hard during these COVID times because now, because of COVID, most parents aren’t even seeing the teacher, not even having that end-of-the-day or beginning-of-the-day short conversation that we used to have. Something that I’ve been doing is just trying to call in the middle of the day when it’s not so busy.

Janet Lansbury:  It seems, to me, when I hear from parents that they’re getting reports from a care situation that aren’t happening at home, there are two categories or a blend between these two categories. One is that the group situation… The child is sensitive to that. It may be too stimulating. They may not have the skills to deal with all the things that are coming up with all the children there and all the people there and the bodies. It could be that, that like you said, that the child isn’t experiencing at home.

It can also be that, for some reason, the child is having difficulty getting certain needs met at home around their feelings, feeling safe to share, maybe, angry feelings or feelings that are hard for us, as parents, to receive or to allow for. Therefore, there’s a buildup, and then it’s kind of exploding out of the child at their care situation.

It seems like those are the two categories. One, there’s a lot more that the parent can do. The other might be more about things that the school could do to help the child. I mean, there’s a blend between both of these, obviously.

Mr. Chazz:  Yeah. It’s important for us to recognize that children, like adults, they have bad days too. They have things that stress them out as well. Anyone who leads a team in the workplace knows that emotions and stressors at home can very much affect our performance at work and, for them, at school because there are a lot of expectations at school. Sometimes their capacity to handle those expectations is decreased when they’re stressed. That’s the same thing for us.

Imagine, at work, you may have a really big thing that is happening that requires more attention than usual. When you’re at your best, when you have a good night’s sleep, when your home life and your relationship with your spouse and everything’s going well, then you’re able to show up. Maybe it’s tough, but you can excel. When there are things going on at home and there are inconsistencies and stress at home, then when you’re going into work, like when children going to school, you’re not going to be at your best. That transition for that child, he might be more easily triggered because of the stress at home too.

Janet Lansbury:  Right.

Mr. Chazz:  Now, there’s something else that I want to mention. I feel like, if I didn’t say it, I wouldn’t be doing the people listening out there justice. When you’re looking for child care centers, I would ask about the philosophy of the center because, in a lot of traditional preschool settings, schools will put a lot of focus on what they think parents want to see more than what children need. That is, a lot of times, a really big disconnect for what happens in the classroom.

Sometimes parents do want what we call product work, which is work that is more focused on the product than the process. They want that little ducky to look like a ducky. But what children really need is to be given the materials, and to explore the materials, and to put now the eyes where they want to put the eyes, to put the glue where they want to put the glue. It’s okay if the eyeball is on the butt. It’s okay if the fishy doesn’t really look like a fishy. Really, I get a little concerned when I walk into a classroom and all the artwork looks the same, especially for younger children, because it tells me that –

Janet Lansbury:  It’s teacher art.

Mr. Chazz:  Yeah, that the teacher did it and they said, “Okay. I’m going to put the paint on your hand. I’m going to hold your wrist. I’m going to put it on like that. Oh, no, no, no, no. Don’t put the eye there. It goes there.” And that becomes… What could have been enjoyable-

Janet Lansbury:  Therapeutic.

Mr. Chazz:  Yeah, an expression of themselves that they can appreciate because it’s something that they did. That can be stressful and-

Janet Lansbury:  Teaches the child that you can’t do things, and you need other people to do them and-

Mr. Chazz:  And that their work is not valuable.

Janet Lansbury:  Right.

Mr. Chazz:  I say all that to say, when you’re putting your child in a facility, I would ask about the philosophy. While many children do well in traditional preschool settings that may focus more on product as opposed to process and they are expected to all sit down for long periods of time and all do the same thing together the same way, well, some do okay with that, I would just be very mindful.

Janet Lansbury:  Absolutely, yes. I would say, even if your child is thriving in those kinds of structured, more academic, product environments, just make sure there’s a balance at home, that you are not then giving them other lessons or taking them to classes, that you are letting them have that autonomy and creative exploration at home to balance that out, but yeah.

And I also recommend, if the school or care center will let you come actually observe, for me, that’s even better. Because, as a parent, I would hear about great philosophies that sounded really good coming from the director, but then when I went there and saw how it was implemented, the way they handled behavior and certain things was not what I was expecting. Most schools will let you observe. I’m not sure about care centers, if they do that, but most schools will let you come and sit for a couple hours and be a fly on the wall watching what’s going on. I recommend that because that’s where you learn everything about what it really is like.

I wanted to ask, because this will apply to so many parents at home as well, what kind of flow works for your day in the group care that could also translate to parents that have their children at home now? When you were talking about children needing that autonomous time where they can explore and feel free and not be constricted into product, there is a balance between the structure that children need us to provide with their behavior and then the big spaces for those freer times for children. They need that balance. I mean, really, they need the structure to be in place so that they can feel free. Can you give me an example of a schedule for the day that works in your centers?

Mr. Chazz:  Yes. The schedule varies depending on the classroom, but the academic day typically starts at nine o’clock, and that’s when our circle time is. That’s sometimes another conversation, and teachers will sometimes be frustrated because the child won’t sit for circle time. My suggestion is make your circle time engaging. Sometimes in our circle times, we’re expecting a two-year-old sit and watch us point to letters on the wall for 10, 15 minutes so that they learn letters, and that’s something that’s not developmentally appropriate. I think a lot of parents, when quarantine started, they tried to do similar style, and they learned, very quickly, that’s not effective or even helpful. So —

Janet Lansbury:  And the participatory part is what attracts them too, often, that they feel a part of it. They’re involved.

Mr. Chazz:  Right, and songs. Man, songs are so powerful. That should be a majority of your circle time, and there are other things you can do of just exploring. I love to bring things. I’d have a gathering song that they knew, when I sang this song, they knew it was time for circle time, so I’m not having a bark orders that everyone, “Hey, sit for circle time.” I sing the song. They know. They’re excited. They’re ready. They want to see the special thing that I brought today. They’re excited to sing the songs that we sing, get up, move. Sometimes I make up songs.

Janet Lansbury: Parents don’t have to do this, by the way.

Mr. Chazz:  Right, correct, correct, but it never hurts to sing. I know a lot of parents are doing some homeschooling. If there is something that you do want to teach your child about, finding a song that goes along with it is a great way to get your child excited about something that you want to introduce to them that they don’t know much about.

In the beginning of the day, we do our circle time. We sing songs. Then, a lot of times, it’ll be art or it’ll be free play. A lot of times, we do free play because that circle time was a structured time, something I’m expecting everyone to do, but then it’s followed by an unstructured time where it’s free. It’s less constructing. You want to go up, down, up, down, something active then something not as active, something structured then something free that they can kind of do their own thing and they can make their free choice.

Now, after we do the art, there’s free time, free exploration. Then it gets into the outside time. After outside, it’s lunchtime. We do the whole bathrooming, and cleaning-up process, and all that jazz, nap, wake up, snack. Then it is either outside time, maybe something structured, maybe free play. The afternoon tends to vary a lot more because, after their snack, outside time, free play or maybe a structured activity, it’s pick-up time and children are going home. At the end of the day, it tends to be more unstructured.

Janet Lansbury: I think that’s true at home as well. Going outside after naps is the best. Spending those difficult hours between a nap and dinnertime outdoors, if possible, is a gift.

Mr. Chazz:  Yeah.

Janet Lansbury:  For the adults too, to be able to be outside.

Well, this has been a joy. Thank you so much, Mr. Chazz, again, for your time and all your wisdom that you’re sharing with us. I know that you’re on TikTok. You’re on Instagram. You have a Patreon. Where should we focus on finding you?

Mr. Chazz:  Find me www.patreon.com/mrchazz. Get one-on-one coaching with me, and you get so many other resources with that. Now, you can also find me on TikTok. MrChazz MrChazz is going to be my TikTok. You can find me on Instagram as @mrchazz and on Facebook as MrChazz MrChazz. That’s Chazz with two Zs, M-R-C-H-A-Z-Z.

I can’t wait to see you guys there. I have lots of content there to help you.

Janet Lansbury:  I recommend it. You’re just a breath of fresh air, so…

Mr. Chazz:  Same.

Janet Lansbury:  Thank you.

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

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

The post Helping Children Thrive in Preschool – What Parents and Teachers Can Do (with Mr. Chazz) appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Transcript of “Don’t Miss the Secrets Your Children Need to Share”

Hi. This is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.

Today I’m going to be responding to a question that I received in an email about how to respond to a toddler’s verbalizations about hurting her baby sister. But I want to flesh out this topic a little to discuss all the overtures of children communicating to us and how important it is to respond and encourage children to communicate, beginning with the sounds and cries that a baby makes. These can be opportunities, and we don’t want to miss these.

I’m going to start with the note that I received:

Hello, Janet. I have a toddler and a newborn. My toddler is two-and-a-half years old, and she’s having a pretty normal time adjusting. She swings between affection for her sister and aggressive behavior. Your advice on siblings has been so helpful to me and my husband. I think we’re doing a decent job supporting them both, keeping our babies safe while acknowledging our toddler’s feelings. I’m hoping you can help with something I haven’t seen addressed in any articles or podcasts.

My daughter, a few times a week, says to me some version of this: “I hit Hannah. I bite Hannah. When Hannah gets bigger, I’m going to knock her down.” She’s often smiling and nonchalant, like she tells lots of other stories. Her sister’s never around during these times. Sometimes she adds at the end, “I say, ‘Sorry, Hannah.’ I kiss Hannah and snuggle her,” but not always. I’m not sure what to say.

When she’s with her sister and acting aggressively, we are diligent about being present and calm, and physically stopping the behaviors without judgment or fanfare. We will say something like, “You want to hit your sister right now. I won’t let you.” When she tells the story, I just say something similar. Sometimes I will add something like, “Being a big sister can be hard sometimes,” or “Ouch, that hurts,” but said without much emotion. Does that make sense?

I often wonder why she’s telling me these stories and if she’s asking me for some help that I am not giving her. Perhaps there’s an opportunity since she’s calm to convey something more, though I’m not sure exactly what.

I know you are busy. I hope you can help. Thank you for reading.

Okay, so one of the reasons I love this note is that these parents sound like they are 98%, at least, in the direction I would recommend. It’s so wonderful that they are normalizing for themselves their two-and-a-half-year-old’s aggression towards the baby, because it is so normal and expected for these impulses to get the better of a child that age, when her life has been turned upside down. As this parent so lovingly acknowledges, being a big sister is hard sometimes. It’s scary and it’s hard to contain. Sometimes children will go up and they’re so excited. “I want to touch the baby,” but you can see in them that they’re kind of vibrating with this energy that’s out of their control. That’s often when they will do these aggressive things. Not that they’re mean children or that they want to hurt people or want to hurt the baby even, but it can be a very scary time when your parents’ focus has shifted from you to this other important new person. It’s just that feeling of fear that makes them lash out.

The parents are handling this valiantly it sounds like to me, and prioritizing the relationship with their older daughter, which is the key to her passing through this period of transition without internalizing a lot of shame and uncomfortable distance from her parents. She says they’re being present and calm, and physically stopping the behaviors without judgment or fanfare. Yes. We don’t want to make a big deal out of these things. She says, “We say something like, ‘You want to hit your sister right now. I won’t let you.'” Yes, that’s exactly what I would recommend.

But then what this little girl is doing in these moments that the parent’s asking about is so, so incredible. Two-and-a-half years old and she is articulating that she has these feelings about her sister, and she feels safe to share them with her parents. This is a golden opportunity and it sounds like this parent is almost there to being able to help both her daughter and herself benefit from this sharing that her daughter’s doing.

I’m going to talk specifically how I would recommend handling the, “I hit Hannah, I bite Hannah” comments. But first I just want to talk a little about this challenge that we have to engage with our child as a person from the beginning, ideally, to realize that children are communicating from day one, and they’re very candid. This is one of the many reasons I love working with children in these early years. They put it all out there. They do share what’s on their mind.

When children do this beginning as infants, as parents, it might be hard for us to see and receive that this is communication. For example, with an infant, our priority, ideally, isn’t to make the crying stop, but to explore and try to understand it as best we can. We won’t always understand it, but making that effort so that it encourages our child to keep sharing with us.

From the beginning, we want to encourage any and all communication, because we want our child to be a confident communicator, to continue to be throughout life, of course, and using language and connecting that way. It’s such an important human thing to do. We want to give them those messages right away that we hear them and that we want to understand what they’re experiencing, what they’re sharing with us.

This can be especially challenging with infants for a few reasons.

One, if you’re like I was before I learned this approach, I would’ve thought if somebody asked me, that I saw my baby as a person. But honestly, I didn’t. I saw my baby as kind of this extension of me that was maybe the beginnings of a person, but not actually a person.

Also, as parents, crying and any kind of sound that doesn’t sound happy that comes from our child, triggers us and rattles us. That’s what it’s supposed to do, because that’s how babies are going to get their needs met. The tendency can be to intervene too much, too soon, and not see this as nuanced communication, that it isn’t just this one note thing that we’ve got to put out. I know that this is an issue for other people besides me in the beginning, because I get asked, “How long should I let my baby cry before I pick them up?” Or “Is it okay for me to let my baby cry? What’s the right response?”

When we actually see a person and know that this person is communicating all kinds of feelings and thoughts, then we want to engage. We want to, as my friend Lisa Sunbury says, enter into a conversation with our child.

Our baby makes a sound that sounds unpleasant, and we want to respond immediately or as soon as we can. But that doesn’t mean we swoop them up, or move them, or put something in their mouth. It means breathing through our discomfort that we might want to fix immediately and receiving. “Wow, I hear you. What are you saying? What are you telling me? I’m not sure. Oh, I think you’re really hungry. Are you telling me that?”

With a baby I was recently working with, he was nine months old, he’d gotten up from his nap and he was crying and crying and he wasn’t hungry, his mother didn’t think. But he was touching his tummy area where the top of his diaper was. We weren’t immediately picking him up, giving him food, or trying to do something to make him stop. I was asking him, “What’s going on? I hear you.” One thing I noticed is he put his finger in his mouth a little. I said, “Do your teeth hurt? I wonder if that’s bothering you.” His mother said that indeed he was teething, but he kept touching this area of his tummy. When I touched it as well, I noticed that his diaper was quite tight at the top. So, I said, “Is this really tight for you? Maybe that’s uncomfortable.” The mother loosened the diaper and sure enough, that’s what was going on. We were able to find out, is what I’m saying. Person to person, as if this communication is something that we want to figure out and be as accurate on as possible, and that means not rushing to do something.

That means also this freedom that we have. I don’t have to have the right answer, which I know as a new parent… I was so overwhelmed and I just wanted to be doing something right and I felt like I was doing everything wrong. But if we’re okay with not having the right answer and engaging with this baby as a person that’s communicating something, then we have a better chance of figuring it out, and we have a much better chance of encouraging the communication, because the child is feeling like their efforts matter and their efforts might actually get the true need filled.

So the importance of this continues, and then maybe starting around eight months, children might do this wonderful thing, which is point as they’re babbling or saying the beginnings of words. They point. This has been shown to be a very important development. It’s paving the way for expressive language. Of course, children have other ways of doing this, too. There’ll be a sound outside and they’ll look at you. It’s saying, “Do you hear that, too?” But then they actually point. Then they’re giving you even more information about what’s going on in their mind, what they’re thinking, what they’re feeling, what they might want or find interesting or need.

And this is all, right from the beginning, nuanced communication that deserves an open, thoughtful, nuanced response. But again, I realize that can be hard to do, especially when children aren’t saying words yet. It can feel somehow easier to simplify things for ourselves. Oh, well, he’s pointing at this. I’m going to get it for him, or whatever it is, instead of engaging in this back and forth communication. Sometimes it just means waiting longer, but I’m staying engaged and I’m letting you know that I hear you and I want to figure out what you’re saying.

So when children look at you and they babble or they point, or even they just look at you and there’s something going on, responding back, trying to figure out what they’re saying, “Oh, are you telling me about that sound? I hear that, too. That bird is really close, isn’t it? It’s very loud.” For children to feel understood and connected with this way is so encouraging and confidence-building.

And it can be fun for us, too. It takes bravery to be more open and not have the snap answer and fix things. It really does. It can feel good to be that kind of parent, to practice it.

By no means am I saying: Oh gosh, every little thing my child does, I’m supposed to respond. Absolutely not. This isn’t what that’s about. But oftentimes this is right in front of us. We’re there. We’re playing with our child, or we’re watching them play, or we’re hanging out with them. We’re doing a task together. It’s right there for us. Those are the opportunities I’m talking about. I’m not talking about every whine or every sound our child makes that we need to respond.

So now in this case, this little girl is sharing her feelings quite beautifully, and her mother really wants to know how to respond to this. The answer is: just be in it with her, detail by detail, with what she’s sharing.

For me, my default response is, “Wow.” That may not work for everybody, but what that does for me is it helps me to stay open and curious. It gives me time to slow myself down and not try to jump in with the “right response”. It helps me to receive.

So when this girl says, “I hit Hannah, I bite Hannah,” I would say, “Wow, you’re telling me that you are thinking about hitting Hannah or biting Hannah. Is that how you feel sometimes, that you want to do that? I know you’ve done that in the past. Sometimes you feel like doing it and you do it. How does that feel? It’s kind of uncomfortable, right? To want to hurt somebody.”

Right there, I’m not expecting, just as I’m not expecting with an infant who’s crying, I’m not expecting that I’m going to get, boom, this clear answer back. But I’m demonstrating to my child that I am open and I really do want to know, and that there’s nothing they can’t share with me. I’m interested in every thought that they have and every feeling that they have. I want to know more about that. I want to know them intimately. So that’s what that is about, more than I’m going to get the answer. But sometimes we do get more of the answer that way. We have a better chance of it if we’re able to go there with them.

She says, “When Hannah gets bigger, I’m going to knock her down.” Wow. Where is she getting this interesting idea she’s already envisioning? I don’t know if a parent said something about that to her, or if knows an older baby who’s standing up and she’s aware that could be coming, but that’s very, very interesting to me that she’s already thinking ahead. Wow, that’s wonderful imagination.

So she’s articulating her feelings. She feels safe to share her feelings. She’s using her imagination about what’s to come. To that, I would say, “Wow, you’re thinking about when Hannah gets bigger and you’re going to knock her down. Would she be standing then or walking, and you would feel like knocking her down, you would want to hurt her that way? Thank you so much for sharing that with me. I want to know what you’re thinking.”

I wouldn’t feel the need to keep saying, “I won’t let you do that,” or “Don’t do that,” or shutting that down, because usually, children, they know that part. That’s why they’re sharing these “naughty” things with us. They know we’re not going to let them do those things. But if you want to, I would do it in a way that reassures her. “If you feel like doing those things, if you want to hit your sister, you can always tell us that. We’re going to be there to help you stop.”

If we can encourage our child to share their feelings in the moment when it’s happening, then we can stop them.

Again, they don’t need us to keep replaying that message: what you’re doing is wrong and I’m not going to let you do it when they already know that. What they need is: You need help with this and you’re sharing. Thank you. Don’t worry. I’m going to help you. I’ll be there. This parent already has a great connection with her daughter clearly, but this would even take it that one step further.

This parent says, “She says it smiling and nonchalant, like she tells lots of other stories.” Yeah. It’s smiling, nonchalant, but it’s still: I’m admitting something to you. What do you think about this? She wants to know. Again, it’s so beautiful of her to share.

“Sometimes, she adds at the end, ‘I say, ‘Sorry, Hannah. I kiss Hannah and snuggle her.'”

Sometimes she does that. So That’s beautiful as well. I wouldn’t jump to, “Oh yes, that’s the right thing to do, and you’re always going to do that.” I would still receive that delicately. I mean, that’s another thing. If we come in with a big opinion, whether it’s positive or negative about what a child is sharing, it does shut it down. It does make it harder. What matters is that she’s sharing it.

To that, I would say, “That would be so kind of you to apologize. Sometimes we all do things that we wish we hadn’t done and we want to make it better.” She’s saying she feels all these different things for her sister, which is how it is with relationships, especially sibling relationships. Children feel a whole variety of things about their sibling. They love them. They’re annoyed by them. If that all can be okay with us, but we’re there to let our child know that we’re going to help them with the physical stuff or things that get away from them, then there’s much less of that, interestingly.

The more we welcome all aspects, every feeling — the darkest ones as well as the brightest ones — the less scared children feel; the more confident they feel, and secure, safe, and closer to us.

So the right response is the hearing, wanting to understand, staying on our child’s side, and most of all, welcoming; welcoming those secrets to be told, welcoming children to share their insides with us. It’s precious. We all hope our children keep doing this. There’ll be phases in life when they don’t as much, but we can maintain this kind of relationship with our child where they do tell us all the hard things and where we can assure them that those things are normal to feel.

I hope some of this helps. Thank you so much to this parent for her kind words and for sharing with me.

By the way, if my podcasts are helpful to you, you can help the podcast continue by giving it a positive review on iTunes. So grateful to all of you for listening.

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

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

The post Don’t Miss the Secrets Your Children Need to Share appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Transcript of “When Kids Say Shocking or Rude Things – What’s a Parent To Do?”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled. I have a question today from a parent who reached out to me on Facebook and is very concerned that his son is saying shocking and rude things in regard to Black people. And what I would like to talk about in this podcast is understanding why children repeat, and then sometimes start to say publicly, disturbing, dismaying and rude things. Why does this happen? How does this happen? And what can we do about it?

Okay. Here’s the note that I received on Facebook:

Hi, Janet. I hope you can offer advice here.

Set up for this question is: My wife and I are both white and our son is white. We live in a small Southern city that is still pretty segregated and most of the people our son sees in our daily life and our personal life are white. My son will be five next month and has largely been home with one of us since birth, with the exception of a very rocky attempt at starting preschool that was ended by the pandemic. He’s very bright, has great language and critical thinking skills, and is inconveniently insightful about how to find exactly the right framing to turn a situation in his favor.

He’s extremely attached to my wife and sometimes seems to see me as the “not mama” and project a lot of his frustrations onto me, which I largely just acknowledge, “You would really rather mama were here to do this with you, et cetera.”

Anyway, this is the context for which he has started saying he doesn’t like or is afraid of Black people. A sentiment that is abhorrent to us. Worst of all, sometimes he will say this when he sees Black neighbors. Needless to say, he’s learned that these statements get a response. Recently, he has told me that he learned to not like Black people from me because I have told him it’s not okay to not like Black people and he wants to be the opposite of me.

If this were literally anything else, I could just minimize my response to it and acknowledge the feeling, but saying you don’t really like Black people doesn’t seem like an acceptable or appropriate response. We work to include books and movies that have Black leads, acknowledge the wide diversity of human bodies, affirm the dignity of all people, but can’t really broaden his social experiences right now nor do we want to expose Black children to anti-Black statements from our son. This is absolutely the biggest parenting challenge I have faced and I’m really at a loss. I hope you will have some thoughts.

Right. Wow. So, I feel how upsetting this situation is. And it sounds like this parent is handling their life with a lot of care and thoughtfulness, doing everything right. And then this happens and it is so dismaying and, as this parent says, abhorrent that his child would be saying these things.

So many of the answers for this parent, I feel like, the parent already knows on one level. Also the child actually explains what’s going on, very honestly says: I’m doing this because you’ve shown me that it bothers you and that’s something I’m exploring. That’s what children do. They want to explore why these people who are so powerful and important to them, that they look up to, that they need to depend on, they want to understand everything about us and everything about their power with us.

So, when they happen to say something that triggers us, they get kind of stuck, pressing it and pressing it, to explore those vulnerabilities that the parent has. As I say a lot, this isn’t an evil tendency. It shows this child’s amazing insight and perception and it shows the innate drive children have to explore and learn and go deeper and deeper into understanding their world. And especially these powerful figures: us.

I hear from parents about issues similar to this, not in regard to race, but I’ve heard it in regard to, “I don’t like Grandma.” Or, “Go away!” to people on the street or, “Go away” to neighbors that are being kind. And I’ve heard it happen with other things that parents care about. For example, if it’s important for a parent to raise children who are gender neutral and they have, let’s say, a daughter who only wants to wear pink, frilly, princess dresses, that can become a thing that starts as an in-the-moment behavior or exploration and then, because it hits a chord with the parent, it takes hold and becomes a thing.

In this case, I don’t think the child believes in their heart that Black people are scary. I don’t think this child actually believes that. And yet it’s continuing because the child wants to learn about their power with this parent.

Another thing about young children is that they’re not expressing these philosophical viewpoints about things. They’re expressing something very in-the-moment. So, my guess is what happened here is that in that moment, for whatever reason, I don’t like this person that looks different than us that we don’t socialize with and I don’t like. Or, I’m a little afraid. But even “afraid” to me sounds like something that this child caught wind of, that maybe a parent responded, “Oh, are you afraid?” It doesn’t sound like something that a child would naturally feel, unless they were scolded by a Black person or they heard people arguing or there was something disturbing that actually happened that scared them.

I think it’s probably with this child… who this dad says is inconveniently insightful about how to find exactly the right framing to turn a situation in his favor. I mean, this guy reads these parents like a book and it’s a gift. Most children, young children, are just naturally so aware and perceptive about their parents. That’s why we have to be on our game as much as we can. We’re not going to be perfect.

And in this case, I can empathize with this parent. This sounds like a very disturbing, horrifying situation. The last thing… As this parent says: if it was anything else, I feel I could handle this, but this is so deeply important to me and that’s exactly why this has happened.

So again, backing it up… Something happened that this child had that momentary feeling that, I don’t like that, I don’t like this person, I don’t like these people. Then they felt instantly that they hit on a big nerve and now it’s become a place they have to continue exploring.

So, what do we do as a parent? What do we do especially in this case, when the ship has sailed?

First, I’m going to talk about how we can handle it the first time. And then I’ll talk about how to right this ship, which is very, very possible. It’s really going to come from understanding a child’s process, the way children view the world, which is just much more innocently and usually specific to one situation at one moment. So even when they say something like, “I don’t like…” What does that mean to them? It doesn’t mean what it might mean to us where we’re just painting all this as, “I don’t like any of these people.” It could mean that I’m not used to these people, it could be a lot of things.

So, the first thing as a parent, I would want to try to do, if I could calm myself enough, is be curious. And I would want to understand. “Oh … What happened? What don’t you like?” And again, we know that children are born with a tendency to be biased, that even babies prefer people that are familiar and look like their parents. So, it’s a natural thing to have that bias. But if we can use this magic word for ourselves as parents: curiosity, we will be in the mode that we want to be in. Openness, curiosity, trusting our child, trusting that our child is a good person and that we are good parents and that whatever they’re saying, there’s a reason in that moment that they’re feeling that way.

We want them to be able to explore with us. We want those feelings or those thoughts to be able to land with us safely. Not pushed back on with fear, if possible. As soon as we’re judging, as soon as we’re pushing back, “Don’t say those things about people. You can’t feel that way.” We’re closing the door to understanding and connecting with our child and to being that person that we all want to be for our children — somebody they can confide in, somebody that there are no taboo topics with. You can say anything to me. This is gold as our children are getting older, that they feel safe saying anything to us. They don’t have to hide and feel wrong for what they’re doing or saying.

So, first I would be curious and I would want to understand. We’re not going to be perfect and I totally understand where this parent is coming from and the trauma this parent is going through around this. But that’s what we want to aim for as much as possible. And I think this parent knows this, because the parents says, “If it was anything else, I would just minimize my response to it.”

But we don’t even have to think about minimizing our response because, there, we’re trying to control something. What I would do is embrace a clearer understanding of the way children think and explore and how driven they are to learn, especially about us.

So, maybe we’re caught for a second, like, “Whoa, huh?” And then we settle into, “I want to know more about this.” And most of us do want to know more, but our judgments and our fears will get in the way. So, trust in your child, trust in their process, be open. In this case, I would say, “What don’t you like? Did something happen or where did you get that feeling? What makes you feel that way?”

And then I’m going to breathe and just remain this open place. And that can be easier, because we don’t have to come up with a response. Sometimes parents put pressure on themselves that: Oh my gosh, I got to steer this child immediately. I got to fix this right away. And that can get in our way, because then we’re coming back with, “No, no, no, you don’t feel like that. That’s not okay.”

What’s going on in your heart? That’s what children need and that’s the parent that I think we all want to be, with the realization that it is a learning process and that the feelings are momentary. This isn’t my worldview now for the rest of my life.

I did a podcast with Jennifer Eberhardt who is a bias specialist and she’s amazing. She’s a Black woman and she noticed her son saying some very biased things that were pretty shocking to her. I recommend listening to that (HERE) because she gives examples of responding to her son. Asking why in an open way, in a trusting way, in a genuinely curious way.

If we could all embody curiosity with our children, parenting would be a lot easier because we’d understand a lot more and we wouldn’t create these patterns that we don’t want to create. But it takes courage, especially on these certain topics that are so, so important to us.

If we don’t get triggered, if we can respond in that curious open way, then a child is much less likely to take it out and have it be a thing that they do in public. Our openness at home can prevent a lot.

But if you’re where this parent is and it’s already coming out in public and being repeated, I would say:

“You’ve noticed, I’m sure, that when you say these things about Black people, you can see that I get upset. I get angry because this is really important to me that we love and respect all people. So, I think what happened when you first started saying this is that I started worrying that you don’t love and respect all people. And so I told you you shouldn’t say that and I got upset. But now I realize, and you even told me yourself, that you’re doing this because I told you it’s not okay and I’m sorry, because I want you to feel safe to tell me anything that you’re feeling. I would love to be that person for you. And I’ve decided I’m going to be that person for you. It’s really, really important to me. So, I’m not going to say that anymore, but I really can’t let you say that to other people when we’re out in public or in front of people. But if you want to say it to me, I’m not mad at you for saying that. I would like to know where that’s coming from. I’m interested in everything that you think and say.”

Obviously we don’t have to say all these words, but that’s the content that I would want to share with my child to back this up. And that means being very honest and straightforward, which I think is important with every child, but this type of child, especially, because he will know the difference. He will know. And it will feel so good to you to share vulnerably in a way that isn’t judgmental of him, in fact the opposite, saying, “You know what? I was wrong to push those thoughts away. I’m sure you had a reason to feel like that in that moment. I’m sorry.” And then follow through. Believe in your child as a good person with a process.

And children, it’s part of their healthy development to be the opposite of us, like this child says. He wants to be the opposite of me. This boy’s so insightful and that’s healthy development. If you all like this, I’ve got to say this, even though I actually really do want that, but I’ve got to be different. Especially if you’re making a strong stance, I’ve got to be my own person.

So, while I wouldn’t let him turn situations in his favor in terms of limits that we have or boundaries or make decisions that we feel are a, “No” and that he tries to turn it into a, “Yes.” I would not let that happen, so that he does get the safety and boundaries that he needs. The attitude I would have is, “Wow, that’s a very interesting argument you’ve made. This is what we’re doing though.” Something like that, where you welcome him to try to turn it in his favor, but you’re still going to make the decision. If it’s a decision that you don’t care about either way, then you might say, “Huh, you know what? I can see your point. All right. I think we will do that.” But I would still come at it as a leader and being decisive, because children like this need more from us actually. They can’t tell us that, but they need more leadership from us. Not the judgmental kind, but the assured kind that still welcomes their perspective.

And so if he says something like this again, then after explaining the path that you’ve been on to him, I would say: “Hmm, there you go. You’re saying that. What is it now? Do you still want to be different than me? Or what is this that you don’t like? Because you told me before that it’s not about you not liking Black people, it’s about you wanting to be opposite to me.”

Just call out all those elephants in the room in a friendly, loving way.

And then if something happens in public, I would try to calm yourself, know that, okay, this is still getting tested a little bit. I would say, “Oh, come here. I can’t let you.” And then I would take him aside, like, “No, buddy. That’s not okay. You can share anything you want with me, but no, I can’t let you do that. That’s harmful.” So, you’re going to bring him into you to coach him in this, to have his back, ideally not being threatened yourself.

Then with everything else, also, that I learned from Jennifer Eberhardt, it’s great that you’re doing the books and the movies and that you’ve embodied these beliefs yourself. But if there was any way to bridge into just one actual relationship, maybe this parent does have this but, especially with a child, for him to befriend a Black child, for you to have a family or families that you socialize with if you join a group or something. I realize that’s difficult right now with the pandemic. But if you can find activities, even online, where you can have a teacher or some personal connection. When we have relationships with people and enjoy them, that can disrupt bias. So, I would consider if there might be a way, even online, to do that. Somebody that tells stories or something that he likes to do. That can make a real change. It’s important and it is possible.

I hope some of that helps.

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

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

The post When Kids Say Shocking or Rude Things – What’s a Parent To Do? appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Transcript of “Abuse Prevention Strategies to Keep Our Kids Safe (with Rosalia Rivera)”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled. Today, I’m so excited, I have a very special guest with me. Her name is Rosalia Rivera. She’s a passionate consent educator. She’s an abuse prevention specialist, a sexual literacy advocate, and a survivor turned thriver. That’s how she describes herself. She’s the host of the podcast About Consent. She’s also the founder of Consent Parenting, which is an online platform where she offers courses, workshops, and membership for adult CSA survivor parents, so that they can learn how to protect their families from abuse.

So welcome, Rosalia. Thank you so much for being here.

Rosalia Rivera: Thank you so much for inviting me. I love all of your work, so I’m super excited to be here.

Janet Lansbury: Thank you.

Well, I think it will help the parents listening if we can focus in to start out with at least on this very scary issue of child sexual abuse. As you know, and I only know a little bit about this, the statistics are daunting.

Rosalia Rivera: Very, and it’s the scary thing too is these are just the numbers that are reported. So the numbers are likely higher than what is being put out there. And parents are surprisingly still unaware of how prevalent and what the potential is for their families. And it’s been increased by the access through online predators. So it’s now a twofold situation.

Janet Lansbury: So what are some of the basics that we can do as parents to arm our children, or to help them to develop that healthy sense of their boundaries, and asserting them, making it less likely that they’re going to be victims?

Rosalia Rivera: So I always recommend to parents to start as early as possible. You can teach about consent from birth. A lot of it is more about the way that we speak to our children and our intention, and how we communicate to let them know that we are willing to communicate about our physical exchanges — everything from changing a diaper to bathing them. Usually it’s around the time when parents are starting to potty train that this starts to come up because they’re realizing that other people may start to need to help them with this process. And the concept of “private parts” starts to come into play. So usually, that’s when parents will start to think about it.

But you can start from as early as possible by teaching children some of the basics of body safety, which is teaching them the correct anatomical names for their private parts — that’s part of body safety. Also in the fact that you’re teaching body positivity.

I was raised with not using the correct terms because there was a lot of shame in the household around bodies and sexuality. And my mom’s also a survivor, and she just didn’t know how to approach it.

So if we can start with some of those basics of body safety — of teaching the right names and then talking about safe and unsafe touch.

There’s three, really, that you can start with, which is the private parts, correct anatomical names, teaching about safe and unsafe touch, and privacy, right?  Around those parts.

And then the third piece is about secrets, and explaining the difference between secrets and surprises, that sort of distinction, right? To help a child understand. Because there are a lot of well-meaning adults who… a lot of times it could be grandparents who want to gift a child something, and they think it’s just an innocent thing to tell the child: “Don’t tell your parents, because they’re probably not going to approve of me giving you candy.” Or whatever it is, right? And again, a well-meaning person. But it sets up the wrong precedent for being able to keep secrets.

So if we can make the distinction for kids about secrets and surprises, and encourage the adults in our children’s lives not to ever ask our children to keep even well-meaning secrets — educating the people in our child’s lives who are caregivers about the fact that we’re going to be embarking on abuse prevention education. You’re sort of putting up a red flag to potential predators to say: “We’re going to be on top of this. We’re going to be aware.”

And then, as the child develops, to layer the different aspects that are a little bit more complex, while still making it accessible for them.

Janet Lansbury: I love that you brought up talking to the adults, because I think that’s so important when we consider the imbalance of power between young children and adults. Especially if it’s Grandmother, or Uncle, or somebody that’s part of their family. How hard is it for a child to still overrule, in a way, something that this adult is doing with them?

Rosalia Rivera: Yeah. And that’s one of the things that I teach is how to communicate with those adults. Because we tend to have this fear, like we don’t want to insult anyone or make them feel uncomfortable. Because it’s a different way of seeing and approaching children, I think, than a lot of our own parents had, right? Grandparents, or even relatives. Sometimes it’s cultural. They’re just used to being able to go in and give a hug and a kiss. And I think that that is starting to shift. There’s a lot more talk about giving kids the right to choose how they want to show affection and how they want to greet someone. But there’s still a lot of pushback from those adults. And sometimes they may try to guilt a child and make them feel bad for not giving affection. And if we don’t communicate with those adults and say that’s actually against what we’re teaching… There are diplomatic ways of saying it and having these conservations. All of it always comes down to communication.

But if we can be that frontline for our kids, particularly when they’re so young that they’re still learning this… We’re teaching through modeling. Because when we vocalize that on behalf of our kids and they hear us talking about it, they’re learning that language and they’re learning that they have the right. We’re encouraging them and backing them up. It’s being vocalized. And it gives them that reassurance that they can assert their rights to their boundaries.

When we do that, we create consent culture within our homes, within our families, and then ultimately within our communities. Because those adults will think twice about doing that to other kids. Again, it’s all well-intentioned, but ultimately it sets up the potential for abuse and for grooming.

The statistics are that 90% of abuse happens to kids by people that they know. And more specifically, it’s not just by people that they know, but people that they trust, that they love, and that they’ve developed a bond with. So when abuse happens, it can be really confusing for a child because this is someone that they learned to trust and care for who’s now eroded a boundary or crossed a line, or violated a boundary. And if we don’t reassure children that it’s okay to talk about it, to disclose it, and to do it in a way that is honoring their intuition, their physiological response to an event like that… If we don’t teach those things, we are really kind of setting them up for not reporting. For feeling guilty about this is somebody that I love and I care for, I guess it’s okay. Or I don’t know what to do.

And if that person has threatened or bribed them, that’s another layer that they have to figure out how to navigate. Because they may still love that person, but they just want the abuse to end. And they don’t know what would happen if they told someone. So us helping set them up for being able to uphold their boundaries. And then if they get crossed, that they can go to someone to get help really goes a long way between prevention and then at least reporting so it doesn’t become a repeat situation.

Janet Lansbury: Yeah. That makes sense. And also you’re reminding me of a very powerful way that can be kind of organic for us to intervene, and model, and have the boundary with the adults that we’re teaching — the adult and the child at the same time. And this could be true with a tiny newborn as well to kind of interpret for the child. So let’s say somebody wants to hold my baby. And I look at my baby and I say, “Grandma would like to hold you now. Is that okay with you?” And then I will get a sense right there of whether my child is pulling back. Maybe not with a newborn, but with a very young infant. You can tell when they’re kind of hesitant or if they’re open to it. So we can say to the adult, “It seems like she’s saying no, for now.”

So right there, you’ve taught so many lessons. You’ve taught this adult this is a person with a point of view, actually. What they think matters. And we’re teaching our child: You have a point of view that matters, and I’m going to stick up for you and make sure that you know that and other people know that.

So those opportunities where we are there I think are really, really important as teaching times.

Rosalia Rivera: Yeah.

And one of the things you had mentioned before, and I want to just kind of circle back to for a second is that we tend to think of abuse prevention education as something scary. And I think that’s why a lot of people have apprehension about where to start or how to teach it. And the way that I approach it, particularly because I’m a survivor and I know how almost debilitating the triggers can be when you start to talk about certain things that were part of your own experience, is that we want to start by empowering our children with information that makes them feel good about the rights that they do have and how we are going to honor them and help them uphold them. Versus talking about dangers that are potential things that they’re going to come across.

So with the framework that I teach, I always start from this place of empowerment. And it starts with teaching kids about their autonomy. And we can support that concept with them by the way that we interact with them, besides just how we teach them how they can interact with others.

So a lot of times when I’m going through this education process, we start with simple little things that may seem like not a big deal, but they’re really big. And when you start to put them all together, you start to notice how many times we inadvertently just manage our children instead of giving them the autonomy to learn how to manage themselves.

A simple example would be when we tell a child to go brush their teeth and we’re commanding them to do something with their body. Versus asking them if they can go brush their teeth. That may seem like a very minute shift. But when we start to apply that to all the ways that we talk to our kids, it really makes you understand how we cross boundary lines all the time or we remove their autonomy on a regular basis.

I always talk about that this is going to require you to make a big shift in your parenting. Going from telling your child what to do to asking your child, as long as it doesn’t interfere with health and safety. And we have to even think about these little caveats of if my child doesn’t eat, is that a health and safety issue, knowing that they had really nutritious lunch? And they’re saying that they’re full now, do I push that I think that they should be eating more? Or is it that I was conditioned by my own parents to finish everything on my plate?

There are a lot of shifts that happen just from this one piece. But it’s the biggest foundation for consent because you’re teaching a child about their body rights. And when we are not congruent, we’re not matching our words with our actions to say: Your body belongs to you, but I’m still going to tell you how to run your life as it relates to your body. We’re giving them mixed messages. So it has to start with this foundation, which is really empowering for kids. But it’s a little bit of a struggle for parents.

But if you start with that solid foundation of educating them about their rights and layering it from there to boundaries, and consent, and all those pieces, it really sets them up for this feeling of empowerment. And from there, the scary stuff isn’t as scary because they know that they have resources and tools, and rights that they are entitled to. And it takes a lot of that fear out of it.

At the end of the process that I teach, we talk about exit strategies. So by the time they get to that piece, that learning piece of exit strategies, they’re not fearful. They feel like: Okay, I have some ways to get out of potentially dangerous situations that are empowering.

Janet Lansbury: That makes a lot of sense. And you’re speaking to something really important, I guess it’s kind of obvious, but we tend to forget that what we do matters much more than what we say. It will always be the most powerful thing and always overrule in terms of what children are learning. We can read books to our children or talk about consent, and “this is your body” and all that. But the way that we approach our child as early as possible, and with the approach I teach we’re, from birth, laying the foundation, it’s giving our child a message about where they fit in the world, where they are in a relationship with us, if their point of view matters, if they’re in partnership with us, or if they are passive and we do things to them.

So that’s why with the RIE approach that I teach, we talk to them right away about, “I’m going to pick you up now. Are you ready?” But I think people misunderstand that you’re waiting for an infant to tell you it’s okay to pick them up or change their diaper or something. And it’s not so much that we’re waiting for them to say yes, but we’re teaching them from the beginning that they’re a part of this and that we’re open to their ideas about things and their feelings about things. And we’re not going to just be the ones that do things to them. That they’re a part of a relationship and that they’re respected.

So before this term ‘consent’ became a popular term, we just talked about respect — that you develop this relationship of respect with your child. And that means so many things, like what you were saying about brushing your teeth. We forget as parents sometimes this voice can come out of us that might be our own parents… It’s this kind of authoritarian voice maybe that’s more like, “Do this, do that.” And that’s how we think we’re supposed to be with our child instead of being really polite, and warm, and caring. “I know you don’t love to do this, but we got to do it. Can you do it yourself? Or should we do it together?” Just those pleases and kind words about doing things can make a big difference to show a child that they’re respected, and that you’re there to kind of guide them. Because they can’t make every decision themselves of course. They do need us.

Rosalia Rivera: Yeah, exactly. And also that teaches them that their voice can be heard, right? And a lot of times, if we did grow up with authoritarian parents, which I did, I just thought that my opinion about whatever it was that I didn’t want to do just didn’t count. So I had to comply. And I think a lot of parents kind of go into that default, like you said, where they think the child has to listen. And the child essentially is being taught that their voice doesn’t matter or their voice is not going to be heard. You do that often enough, and it shuts that down a lot of times for a child.

So we want them to always know that their voice does matter and that they can use it, and they should use it especially if they find themselves in unsafe situations. So practicing that and giving them that ability, it really does need to be practiced. Consent has to be embodied. That means knowing what it sounds like, feels like, looks like when somebody is saying no and that no is being respected. Getting kids used to that being the standard.

All of that is about that two way communication that you develop with your child. So instead of it being a one way where you’re telling them what to do and they don’t have a say.

Janet Lansbury: Right. But then there are times that we do have to insist physically if you don’t want to hold my hand when we’re on the sidewalk. But my child has shown me that they tend to run off sometimes during this time of life, for whatever reason. So there, you can still respect by encouraging them to share how mad they are that you’re doing that. “I know I have to do this thing that makes you really mad, but I’ve got to do it. You’re too important.” So we still need to be the adult that’s guiding them.

Rosalia Rivera: For sure. That’s what I was saying when it comes to health and safety, and those are conversations you can also have ahead of time.

When you’re making this parenting shift, I always tell parents you need to have this conversation with them to say, “I’ve been doing things this way, but this is some new education that I wasn’t raised with. So we’re going to transition to doing things this way. And that means you get more autonomy. And this is what that means. However, my job is to keep you safe and keep you healthy. So there are times when you won’t be able to say yes or no to certain things, because it’s a safety type situation.”

I say talk to your kids and get them to figure out what could be some health and safety situations where I will have to step in. So they may say, “Crossing the street.” Or, “if we are in the mall, we have to hold hands because you don’t want to get lost.” So things like that. Right? And you can set them up ahead of time. Or if you know you’re going somewhere to remind them, “Okay, so we’re going to the doctors and we’re going to be doing this vaccination.” So talking ahead to say that these are the exceptions that we have to make sure we’re keeping you safe with.

It’s just always a communication, you know?

And I always encourage parents to leave some white space to be able to implement those things without it being a dramatic event. Sometimes it’s inevitable and it will be. But the more we can communicate and let them know what’s going on instead of just assuming that they know or that we’re just going to do things the way that we intend to do them and not include them in that conversation or that process, the more we can give them room to assert, but also to understand that there’s situations that require safety. Then it makes it a lot easier to navigate that relationship.

Janet Lansbury: That’s a great point to prepare them for that and allow them to partner in that, even thinking of the ideas themselves. And then it’s like these stories that come true that children love, even if it’s something somewhat unpleasant like: You’re making me hold your hand. We talked about this, and I knew this was going to happen. There’s a real acceptance and kind of confidence building that happens there when children are a part of it.

I just want to say one more time, because so many people that I talk to, there’s this misconception that the first year or first two years for some people is this part that doesn’t matter. But if we can start this early (and this doesn’t mean if you didn’t, it’s too late — you can make changes at any time), but the beginning of life is the most impressionable time. This is when the foundation is getting built. So I just can’t encourage parents enough to start engaging with your baby as a full human being, from the beginning, that’s a part of a relationship with you, and preparing them for the things that are going to kind of happen. It’s so important.

Rosalia Rivera: Yeah.

Janet Lansbury: I’m wondering what you think about, I guess these are sort of hot button topics: tickling, rough housing. How do these activities fit with empowering our children?

Rosalia Rivera: So do you mean between adults and kids or kids and kids?

Janet Lansbury: Adults and kids.

Rosalia Rivera: Okay. The tickling thing is actually one of the more common questions that I get, because there’s this whole idea that tickling is just fun. And if you’re tickling a child and they’re laughing, then that means that that’s consent.

When they’re really young, we can still make it fun and ask them, “Do you want to play a tickling game?” With my kids for example, they love me pretending to be the tickle monster. And we’ve actually turned it into a consent game. So I will pretend to be the tickle monster chasing them around. And they’ve learned that if they don’t want to be tickled for whatever reason, it’s almost kind of part of the game that they’ll say, “No consent.” And then I have to stop right away.

So I think that we just have to shift the way that we approach it. We can still engage in these fun activities, but we want to make sure that they know they can always say stop. And we stop immediately instead of pushing that boundary, which is tempting to do when kids are really tiny and they’re so cute, and you just want to tickle them. We are teaching them that we honor that vocalized no.

And even adults who may not know our kids all that well, maybe a family member who wants to go in for a tickle, we can on behalf of our kids let them know: “this is something that we’re exploring because we’re doing consent education.” So tickling is only if that permission has been granted.

So a lot of times, it’s just communicating with all the adults in our kids’ lives and then letting our kids know, “All of these activities are fun as long as you feel that they’re fun. And you always have the right to say stop because consent can always be withdrawn.” And I think that that part about consent and learning that consent can be withdrawn is also really powerful because predators could take advantage of that. And if a child thinks, “Well, I consented to being tickled, but now it’s turned into something else.” And the adult is telling me, “Well, you said it was okay.” They can really mess with a child’s mind about that.

So teaching a child that consent can always be withdrawn in any situation, it can be taught as part of that play. Part of learning about physical interaction is through play and through exploring communication styles.

A lot of times we’re also teaching kids that communication is nonverbal as well, right? So if my nonverbal communication is that I’m suddenly closing up, or my face isn’t happy, then those are also signals that should be paid attention to.

So we want to give kids as many communication tools as possible, and then honor that, and teach other people in their lives to honor that.

I have something called “consent letters.” These consent letters, they’re a communication tool for the adults in my child’s life. So there’s a medical consent letter which explains that when they are in a doctor’s appointment, my child’s expectations are that they are asked for informed consent. So that means that the doctor needs to inform the child of what they need to do, why they need to do it, and how they need to do it, and then actually ask for the consent to do it. And then the child has to say yes or no.

So we went to this new doctor and we gave him the letter. It’s someone that my husband actually has known for all of his life. So we know that this is a good doctor, safe doctor, to my knowledge. So we gave him the letter, and he’s like, “This is really cool. I think this is really an awesome thing. And I’m actually glad that you gave it to me because I have a tendency of just wanting to tickle kids. It’s obviously a well intentioned thing, but I always kind of go in for this tickle.” And he’s like, “But you’re absolutely right. I shouldn’t just be doing that just because it’s my patient and it’s a cute little kid.”

So this really shifted the way that he’s now going to approach his patients that are little.

I mean, would you do that to an adult? We tend to think just because they’re little, we get to have these interactions. But if they were adults, we certainly would not go in and pinch someone’s cheeks, or pet them on the head, or go in for a tickle, right? So why are we okay with doing it to kids?

We can certainly always be playful and all of that, as long as we reinforce to our kids that when they say no or they verbalize a no, or have body language that says no, that we honor it, and keep confirming that so that that becomes their expectation.

Janet Lansbury: Also it helps the parent not to have to be so confrontational. It’s much better to give the doctor the advance notice that’s respectful. And it’s helpful to your child to know that it matters that much that you’re doing that when your child is old enough to know those things.

Rosalia Rivera: Right. And it helps them also when they’re older to know that they have rights over their physical health and how to interact with the practitioners in their lives, right? So anyone who has a uterus, when they get to that stage of reproductive health, that they feel empowered by those interactions as well.

Janet Lansbury: Right. And this again, begins with the infant. We’re changing their diaper, and it’s common to distract and say: Look over here and don’t pay any attention to what I’m doing. What is that teaching our child?

What you’re talking about with the doctor, it seems like there’s two issues that are getting in the way. One is that we’re not seeing the young child as a person. We’re seeing them as an object for us to do things to or whatever, which is understandable and, again, the way I used to probably think about children.

And then the other part is not really recognizing the power imbalance. You said something on your Instagram page that I love. Something to the effect of, “It’s not consent if your child is afraid to say no.” And that can happen even with Mom or Dad that are getting so excited about tickling you or roughhousing with you. Sometimes we can get, especially with the roughhousing, we can kind of lose control a little. Like we get so involved in it that we’re kind of out of ourselves.

We need to realize that our child is geared towards pleasing us. Our child is inclined to want to have fun when we’re having fun. So it’s not just that they’re afraid of us. It could be just that they so want to join with us there, that they’re not listening to their own discomfort. They’re just not able to separate it out that way and speak for themselves, especially if they’re an infant. So just keeping those two things in mind, I think is really important: the imbalance of power and that this is a thoughtful person who is very aware and impressionable.

Rosalia Rivera: Yeah. And I think one of the other aspects of that, too… I kind of mentioned this a little bit before, where you may get an adult like an aunt, for example, who goes in and wants a hug, and the child just wants to give a high five. And they may make a face of sadness because they didn’t get the hug. A lot of people don’t realize that it’s not ill intended in that way. But a lot of that can ultimately lead to a form of coercion, which trying to explain this without making people go, “What, what do you mean?” Emotional manipulation almost, but…

Janet Lansbury: Yeah. Like, “You’re going to make me sad.”

Rosalia Rivera: Exactly. I know that that’s not the intent of the aunt to manipulate the child, but a lot of times that’s just how we’ve grown up in this culture where if we’re not shown affection, then we have different ways of showing our disappointment for that. And I think with adults, they have so much power and influence over children. And children ultimately are so empathetic. They don’t want to make someone sad. Right?

And we have to remember as adults that it’s really our job to manage our own emotions and feelings about something. So if we’re disappointed with Johnny’s not giving us a hug, that’s something that we need to sort out on our own and manage ourselves. Because otherwise we’re sending this message that they owe other people affection. And we don’t want to hurt people’s feelings. I guess I have to give them a hug, right?

Janet Lansbury: It’s codependency is what it is, right? I’m responsible for everyone else’s emotions.

Rosalia Rivera: Exactly. And we need to be more aware of how that is internalized by kids. I always say this to parents too. We tend to be afraid of, “I don’t want to hurt my mom’s feelings if my child doesn’t want to hug them. And then they’re going to feel really sad or disappointed.” I always say, “When you have these conversations, remind them ‘my child loves you.’ And, ‘We’re giving them these options because just like you, they may have an off day and they don’t really feel like doing a hug right now or doing a kiss.’ For whatever reason, we should never have these forced expectations. And ultimately: ‘Do you really want my child hugging you when they don’t really want to hug somebody?’ That’s just really forced affection anyway.”

So it’s just little things like that, they make a big difference, and having those conversations with those adults. Because it’s not just our children’s responsibility to communicate these things. As parents, we are their first line of defense. So if we utilize our voice on their behalf and they see that, again, you’re helping to model what that sounds like when someone is establishing a boundary in a kind and gentle way. It doesn’t have to come off as defensive or my guard is up. For me, respecting boundaries is the way that we show love. So when we are doing that, we are being respectful. And that’s the culture that I’m trying to create is that consent culture of implementing and upholding those boundaries. And then respecting that of others.

When we’re teaching abuse prevention in the early stage, we are also creating consent culture for the future by teaching those children how to respect the rights of others as well, and not coerce another person into owing them affection either, right? So when we’re teaching that to the adults in our lives to not do that to our kids, those kids are now going to grow up to not do that to other people.

Janet Lansbury: Right. And that holds true with us as well. That’s why it’s so important for us to have boundaries with our children that we express respectfully. If we don’t want them to be all over us in that moment, that we’re able to get a little distance with love, that we do that, that we’re not victims to our own children. Because then we’re modeling that they don’t have to respect other people’s boundaries.

Rosalia Rivera: Exactly. People think that abuse prevention is this set of rules. You do this, this, this, and this. But it’s really a whole shift in thinking when we’re talking about creating consent culture. Because we currently live in a culture that is constantly crossing boundaries. Our lines are blurred. And there’s this sense of I don’t know what’s right and what’s appropriate. And there’s this whole sort of pushback even with the #MeToo movement of, “Now everybody’s so sensitive. And now I can’t even talk to women because I’m afraid of what they’re going to say.” And it’s because this hasn’t been part of our lexicon of thinking. A lot of this is very new, both to this generation and the prior generation.

We are talking about rights and liberation, and through that is how we protect kids. It’s not just about the set, this checklist of reading certain books and teaching about private parts. That’s all part of it. But the bigger picture is how we are teaching through that daily interaction with our children and how we empower them with their rights. And that’s a big parenting shift for most people.

Janet Lansbury: Absolutely.

Can you just talk a little about a couple of the details? When we should have our antenna up, what kind of behaviors from people we should take notice of?

Rosalia Rivera: Yeah. So essentially, what that’s called are grooming signs. I think that that’s a terrible term. When I first learned about it, it’s like, “What do you mean grooming? Like when you brush your hair?” It should be really called manipulation or luring, because predators have almost a set of strategies or tactics that they use in order to gain that child’s trust and develop a bond with them, a relationship. And this is something that isn’t just done to the child, but also to the family, to the parents of that child, to get them to also trust, right? To gain their trust.

What these signs are, these grooming signs, when you put them together and you start to see that there’s more than two or three combined from a certain person, that’s when your antenna should go up.

But I always recommend if your spider senses, if your intuition or your gut is telling you something’s off, then pay more attention, limit the amount of one-on-one interaction with that person and your child. There’s a reason that you are sensing that.

And the signs that you should be looking for are, typically: you will have a person who is requesting one-on-one time with your child. So they may offer it in ways like, “I can do some babysitting, or I can take them off your hands for a couple of hours.” That may be fine because it’s a grandparent or a family member. But if you start to notice that they’re requesting it more often than what has seemed normal in the past, that’s something that you should pay attention to.

If they are gifting your child with things that could be expensive or not expensive, but it’s not at an appropriate time, like a birthday or Christmas, or some other kind of special event, that’s another potential sign of grooming.

If they are asking your child to keep secrets, even if they are considered good secrets, that’s another possible sign. Because predators sort of test or vet their possible victims through innocent things like keeping a secret about something that seems benign. So if it’s: I gave this child candy, or I treated them to ice cream and I asked them not to say anything, I want to see if they are actually going to keep that secret. And then if they do, that’s something that I can use against them later to say, “Well, you kept that secret. And if your parents find out,” or whatever threat or bribe they use. So that’s sort of proof to them that the child is willing to keep a secret and they can continue to erode a boundary. So if the child does say, “So-and-so gave me this, but they said not to say anything.” That’s a potential red flag.

Again, this is in combination. So like you may say: Well, my mom gave him some ice cream and I’m pretty sure that that should be fine. It likely is if it’s that one thing. But if it’s in combination with a bunch of other things, then it’s something to pay attention to.

I’ve even had a parent who said, “My mom was doing all these grooming things, and I know she’s not an abuser, but she is a narcissist. And she was kind of using my child in a manipulative way because she was trying to access this other thing or this information about the family.” So it’s like, well, you can have grooming that happens for a specific reason. It doesn’t always have to be abuse. But these are still the typical signs that a predator will use.

So those are three.

Another one is if they’re trying to get more of that one-on-one time, but they’re asking the child to ask the parents.

And suddenly then the child is trying to not hang out with that person if they have abused them already. And suddenly when the child originally was always wanting to hang out with that person and now they’re suddenly not wanting to hang out with that person, that’s another definite red flag that you should be paying attention to. And particularly if that person keeps insisting on getting more one-on-one time with them.

Janet Lansbury: And then I’m sure there are ways that you can broach these subjects with your child in terms of finding out more, asking them the right questions and —

Rosalia Rivera: Yeah. With the child, if you can have the communication of letting them know that they can always come to you, that there’s nothing that they could ever do that would make them unlovable. I think this is one of the biggest ones that parents don’t realize is the thing that would prevent a child from actually reporting —  that if they feel that they would be unloved because of what happened. And one of the best ways to preempt that, and I talk about this a lot when it comes to telling your child you did something bad or you did something good, and we do this with Christmas, right? You’re on the naughty list or you’re on the good list, right? Are you going to get coal or gifts? That whole concept gets really ingrained into kids’ minds. They think if they did something bad, that that makes them bad. And so if we reinforce to our children that they are always good, that there’s nothing that they can do that would make them unlovable, that your love is unconditional.

And for a lot of parents they’re like, “Well my kid knows that.” Well, do they know it because it’s in your mind and you’re expressing it through your actions, or do they know it because you have taken the time to reiterate this?

And this actually was something that I recently learned about with my youngest. They had drawn on the wall or something with crayons. And they could see that I wasn’t very happy about the fact that they did that. But I’ve learned at this point it’s removable. I don’t need to freak out or anything. So that had happened and we were, I think he was going to the bathroom and I have to go with him because it’s through this dark hallway, so I’m always having to walk with him there. And I don’t know why, I just looking at how adorable he is. And I said, “I love you so much.”

And he’s like, “You do?”

And I said, “Yeah, of course I do.”

He says, “Even though I drew on the wall with the crayons?”

I said, “Yeah, of course I love you even though you did that.”

And you could see the wheels turning in his head because he knew that I was not happy about it, right? But at the same time, I had not realized how he had internalized that maybe this somehow made him less lovable.

And he’s like, “I thought I was bad.”

And I said, “You’re not bad.” I said, “What you did was not good, but that doesn’t mean that you’re not good.” You know?

That’s a really big part of how kids will determine whether they tell us something based on what a predator would say to them. “Your parents aren’t going to love you.” Or, “After they know what you did, they’re going to be ashamed of you.” There are a lot of manipulative strategies that predators use.

We have to continuously reinforce this idea with our kids through not just our actions but through our words to let them know on a regular basis that no matter what anybody ever tells them, no matter what they do, that they are always unconditionally loved by us.

Janet Lansbury: Absolutely.

Rosalia Rivera: And the older they get, we may tend to think that they don’t need those reminders, but it’s actually when they need them even more. Because we aren’t as physically affectionate with our children as they get older. And they kind of have more of that independence, especially as they’re going into the teenage years. This is when they need to hear it. They need to be reassured a bit.

Janet Lansbury: And that they’re going to make mistakes and that we all do.

I always told my kids, “I’ve done worse than whatever you’re going to do. So you can always tell me, don’t worry. I’m not going to judge you. I’m not going to shame you,” in keeping those lines open. So important. Because, yeah, as kids get older, we expect more of them. It’s harder not to be judgmental, instead of just judging the behavior and helping them with the behavior.

Rosalia Rivera: Yeah. And when I think of what are the most important things that we should teach about abuse prevention, that’s one of the top three, I would say. Because that will always let them know that they have a safe place to land. And no matter what, we’ll always believe them. And no matter what, we’ll always love them. And there isn’t anything that they can do that would make them less lovable.

Unfortunately for a lot of survivors, that is one of the reasons why they never disclosed. So we know that based on that, it’s really important for kids to know that they’ll continue to be worthy of love regardless of what happens to them or how they may have been manipulated to believe that somehow they were complicit.

Janet Lansbury: Wow. Well this is heavy, heavy stuff. This is a really good note to end on. I hate to end because you’re such a wealth of information. I really meant it — I could talk with you for hours and hours, and maybe we will do another. I would like that — to explore some of these other topics that you specialize in. But in the meantime, thank you so much for your work. I love that it is passion driven. I’ve listened to your story about how you got into this. And it was fascinating, all the different careers that you had and different interests you had, and how you kept coming back to this important healing that you needed to do yourself. And now you’re offering it to others. So kudos to you and have a great rest of your day.

Rosalia Rivera: Thank you.

Janet Lansbury: Along with all of Rosalia’s other resources at Consent Parenting (HERE) that I’ve linked in the transcript of this podcast, she’s also reopening her membership group for adult child sexual abuse survivors. And I’ll have the link for that (HERE).

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

Thanks again for listening. We can do this.

The post Abuse Prevention Strategies to Keep Our Kids Safe (with Rosalia Rivera) appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Transcript of “Engaging in Your Child’s Play Without Interrupting”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury, welcome to Unruffled. Today I have an email I received from a parent who has some questions about encouraging her 21-month-old’s independent play, her self-directed play, and how the parent can participate in that without interrupting. And how the parents should handle the child’s requests to play with, help, do something for the child during play. This is one of my favorite topics and I could talk for days about it, but I won’t.

Okay, here’s the note I received:

Hi Janet, I found Magda Gerber‘s approach and you, when my daughter was just a couple of months old. It has been wonderful as a parent to read your blog and listen to your podcast. I also loved your book, No Bad Kids. I believe your approaches have helped me to be able to thoughtfully approach parenting. My daughter is now 21 months old, and I have a question about self-directed play. As often as possible, I try to make time to just be with her in her playroom and let her direct her play. I sit with her and I’m ready to respond if she engages with me. Sometimes she asks me to help her with something that I know she can do, and I typically say something like, “Oh, I would like to help by watching you do it.” I believe she often just wants to make sure I’m paying attention and engaged, which I try to be.

Lately, she has taken to directing my husband and, or I in play. For example, she will say, “Mommy, play with train.” She doesn’t appear to want to play with the train herself, instead she wants us to play and she will watch. Or, “Mommy cut food,” when she wants me to cut the pretend food we have in her play kitchen. I struggle with how to respond to this. On one hand, I want her to be in charge of play and do what she requests, however, it also seems that by doing this, she isn’t actually playing, but just watching or directing us. And sometimes what she wants us to do, like sit in her small playhouse, ends up not being comfortable for us because we’re sitting in a tiny house not made for grownups. How would you handle these scenarios to encourage her to direct her play, but also let her know we are present and engaged? Thanks again for all of your wonderful advice. It has been life changing for me.

Okay, so as I said, I love this subject and I’m going to zoom right to the end and answer her question, “How would you handle these scenarios to encourage her to direct her play, but also let her know we are present and engaged?”

So, this is sort of a simple answer and that’s why I wanted to get to at first, to kind of frame the other things I’m going to talk about. Letting our child know that we’re present and engaged requires one thing: that we are present and engaged. So we don’t have to prove this to children, we just have to be really present, which of course isn’t easy for any of us. But that’s why Magda Gerber recommended we practice this mindful exercise of taking an imaginary basket, putting all your concerns, your phone, ideas of how your child’s play should look, all of your adult thoughts about this, put those away. Put those aside and just be there with your child for however long you can or wish to.

And then when you’re not going to be paying attention, let your child know, “I’m going to be reading this book while you play,” or, “I’m going to be going to the kitchen,” or whatever it is.

So that clarity of “I’m with you” or “I’m not with you” mentally, or maybe “I’m part with you,” like “I’m reading a book,” but you’re there, being clear with ourselves and clear with our child. And interestingly, I’m so glad all these studies are proving this now, even an infant, even a newborn can sense our emotions, can sense if we are comfortable, and can sense if they have our attention. So we don’t need to make a big show out of this, we just have to be genuinely attentive.

And then the beginning of that sentence, she says, “How would you handle these scenarios to encourage her to direct her play?”

So, our child’s ability to direct play is actually something else that we can trust. Every child is born with the ability to create and initiate their play. But they do need a couple of things from us for their self-directed play to flourish. They need opportunities and they need us to not distract them or otherwise get in the way, which we may do with the best of intentions.

So opportunities mean that while babies need a lot of holding, if we are constantly holding or carrying our baby, they don’t have opportunities to be initiators, to have a moment of agency in deciding where they want to look, what they want to do. They are passengers to what we’re doing. And I’m not saying this is a terrible thing, but it gets in the way with self-directed play if that is taking a majority of the day.

Sometimes we’ll see an infant “playing” on a diaper changing table or in the bathtub or during some other activity, even when they’re feeding or breastfeeding. We’ll see them maybe look over at something and seem to be engaging in it, and right there, we can show our attention, we can say, “You seem to be looking at something over there. I wonder what you’re seeing. Is it that shadow? Are you hearing that bird outside?” Giving space for our child to take in our words, which of course they don’t understand completely as an infant, but they begin to, because we’re putting words to things that they are choosing and they are experiencing.

So another question I often receive is about, “Well, if you’re letting your child play and you’re not interrupting, how are you going to do this serve and return that we’re supposed to do?” And that’s of course a newer expression, studies show that children need that back and forth for language development. And of course, that’s something that Magda Gerber recommended for over 50 years, that we start engaging with babies as people from the moment they’re born, especially when it’s about something that’s going on with them directly.

There are so many moments in the day for this, “I’m going to pick you up. We’re going to take off this diaper. Can you put your arm through the sleeve a little bit? Here’s the warm water. Oh, you feel that on your back, right? I see you’re making an expression.” It can happen naturally if we embrace this approach.

It also happens in play in a way that does not interrupt our children. It sounds like this parent already understands this, which is great. She waits for her child to initiate or show that they are engaging us and then she responds, “Wow, I see you. You lined all of those up in a row.” Whatever it is. It can be natural. We don’t have to worry about performing for our child in this way.

So back to the two things our children need: they need opportunities. With older children that gets to where there are so many scheduled activities sometimes that their child never has this downtime, this opportunity to think their own thoughts and figure out what they want to do, to self-direct play.

And the other part is, are we interrupting?

And what’s interesting about this parent’s questions is that one of the big ways that we can interrupt, without meaning to of course, is by not being completely comfortable having limits with our child around play. And that distracts, because one of the things that young children do amazingly is they seek to understand, they learn. And at this age, this child is primed for wanting to learn about her leaders.

And now I’m sensing that my leader is kind of uncomfortable when I ask her to help with something that she knows I can already do, and I feel I can already do. But I asked her to help and she got a little uncomfortable about responding to that. Then I asked my dad to do this play activity, and they got a little uncomfortable.  And then maybe they did it or they didn’t. But now instead of directing my play, I’m seeing where my power is with these adults. I’m seeing if these leaders are confident with their limits and where their limits are. I’m trying to find where my power fits with theirs.

So that actually distracts children from the play they might normally be doing at that time to learning about us. Now that’s not a terrible thing, but it obviously isn’t something we want them to be focused on all the time. Especially if we want their self directed play to flourish and become independent from us, which again, they can do very early on as babies. They can have time where they don’t need us to be right next to them. They don’t need us to be interacting or paying attention even. They can take off on their own knowing that their relationship with us is stable. They’ve gotten that nourishment from us during their attentive feeding that we give them or the attentive diaper change we’ve given them and now they’re able to take this time.

If we want children to be able to do that, which of course, especially in times like these with children being home and parents having difficulty finding care for children or other things for them to do, this is a godsend, right? That our child is able to direct their own play and not need us there. But if a child gets used to that presence from us, it can become an expectation for them, it can become a habit that: I can’t develop my own ideas, I need my parent. I need to be working with them all the time.

So, back to this parent’s note, she has all the understandings and right ideas here to be able to help her child’s play to flourish, but where she’s getting stuck is her comfort level with these questions. This often actually happens during the transition from infant to toddler. Infants’ needs are pretty straightforward. They will let us know and it’s clear. Then it gets a little more interesting and a little more complicated because toddlers are, again, exploring us as leaders and exploring their power in the world much more.

So, backing up, this parent says, “I sit with her and I’m ready to respond if she engages with me. Sometimes she asks me to help her with something I know she can do and I typically say something like, ‘Oh, I would like to help by watching you do it.'”

So that to me comes off uncomfortable, and this parent says she’s struggling with this, so I know that too reading this. But if I was really comfortable with my child kind of testing me this way, I would say something more like, “You want me to help? Sure, what would you like me to do?” I’d have my child get into the specifics, so then maybe she shows me some task. Since this parent brought up trains, let’s say that the child is saying to help her to push the train. “Oh, sure. What would you like me to do? How would you like me to help?” And then let’s say my daughter points that she wants me to do something with the train, “So are you saying you want me to touch the train? What are you saying there?”

She nods her head, and so, “Okay, sure. I’ll put my hand on the train.” If the train is right there, I’m not going to get up and walk over, I would stay seated and stay comfortable in your role with your child.

So let’s say the train is within arm’s reach, “Sure. I’d be happy to hold that.” And then I’m getting the idea she wants me to push it, and I would say, “Here, you can could push it. I’m going to keep my hand here, but I don’t want to be the one to push it.”

So I’m not being rigid, I’m being flexible. Let’s say now that the train is over across the room and I don’t want to get up, “You know what? I’m going to stay here, but thanks for asking.” So I feel not worried that I’m letting my child down, that she now needs me to do something with her there, that she needs my help to make sure she’s self-directing her play.

I’m comfortable with the situation because I understand what’s going on. I’m realizing I haven’t been clear about this and I’ve been getting kind of bowled over by her, or what I see a lot and I felt with my own child, is kind of, you get under their spell. They’re so amazing, especially your first one. You kind of fall under their spell and then you don’t trust that if you say no to helping, if you have your limits there, that somehow they’re going to feel you still love them and it’s okay.

So I do understand all the doubts that can come in, and I don’t know which ones exactly this parent has, but as she said, she’s struggling. The main thing is to make peace with that struggle, and that’s true with so many things we do, pretty much everything we do as parents to make peace with the decisions and the struggle. And to trust our child, to see them as capable of play and of not getting everything they ask for from us. They’re capable of both of those things.

Obviously, people have to do this in their own words and it just depends on the moment a little, but I wouldn’t decide that I’m not going to touch it at all and I’m not going to help her or that: Oh, I need to help her, because if I’m not helping her then I’m not being helpful and I’m not being kind. There aren’t hard and fast rigid rules about this. If we come from a place of comfort in ourselves and trust in our child, then we can even change our mind.

And let’s say we start to push the train and then we say, “Okay, I’m going to stop now.” And she says, “No, no,” like she wants me to keep going. Then I let her get upset about that, because you know what? I’m done. But I’m not going to say, “I’m going to watch you do it,” because now I’m trying to get her to do something and that’s not my job. My job is just to let her know what I’m doing and where my limits are.

And the other interesting thing behind this, this other layer is that as adults we tend to think in terms of doing it, of having it done. We tend to jump ahead is what I’m saying, and children aren’t like that. They will naturally be more in the process of things. So when she says, “Help,” let’s say she wants me to open some kind of a plastic canister or something like that. And I try to leave things in her play area in a way that is possible for her to do things, so I’m not going to put something on really tightly. I’m going to leave it on loosely so that I know she can take it off and put it on or whatever.

But let’s say she says, “Help,” and she brings me the jar. So most people, and I actually have a post about this called, A Jar Not Opened, most people feel that: Oh gosh, I’ve got to open this jar. She’s saying, ‘Help,’ and I’ve got to complete the thing. Instead of, “Oh, you gave me the jar. What do you want me to help with?” And then she points to the top, “Hmm, are you trying to get that open?” And then she she’s trying and trying, “Oh, it’s really hard for you to do that, isn’t it?”

So I’m showing her that I’m helping by being in it with her, giving her emotional support, but staying behind her, not pushing ahead to: Oh, now she’s got to get it open. A lot of times children will put it down and they’ll move on to something else and they don’t need to finish it. So understanding that too, that we tend to see differently. I guess that’s part of putting our thoughts into the basket — that we become this open beginner’s mind person as best we can. It’s a fun challenge.

But then let’s say our child persists and persists in asking us to finish this. I think I would, well, I’ve done this in classes, I just loosen it a little bit so that they can do it and then I still wait. I don’t say, “Well, I want you to do it,” or, “I’m going to wait for you to do it.” I just say, “Hmm. Okay, I think it’s a little looser now, if you want to give it a try.” So no pressure. I’m not trying to make it happen and put the ball in their court in a way that puts pressure on them and also indicates that I’m really not that comfortable being in the struggle, or maybe you not getting what you want from me (or what you say you want from me in the moment).

So all of this can be very freeing when we get comfortable nailing the trust, nailing the attitude, being able to own that role as flexible leaders. The strongest leaders are the flexible ones. We can be ourselves in this role.

And then let’s say I did decide to open the jar, that’s okay too. But now I’m going to remember that I’ve just shown my child that they need me to do this, so I may get exploration again with my child. And maybe next time, I’ll try to give more room for her to do it without putting pressure on.

And this parent says, “I believe she often just wants to make sure I’m paying attention and engaged, which I try to be.” That is absolutely right. She’s spot on. When we’re not really present, like our phones near us or we’re thinking about other things, that we’re not really paying attention, that is a reason that children will commonly try to draw us in, “Help me do this.” And that’s pretty smart of them, right? Look, let me get your attention. You’re not paying attention, is what they’re feeling.

So that’s another reason we want to be clear with ourselves and with our child, whether we’re there or we’re not there. And we’ll get more of a child that can let go of us and do her play thing, do her work, and we can be a witness to it. It’s always much more interesting when we get to see where a child goes with something. The self-directed play is a gift in so many ways — that’s why I write so much about it and talk so much about it. And that’s what we demonstrate in parent-infant classes and parent-toddler classes: how to observe and how to allow children to be explorers and not get in their way.

So now she says that, “Lately she’s taken to directing my husband or I in play. She’ll say, ‘Mommy, play with train.'”

Okay, I sort of talked about that. But if she says, “Mommy, play with train,” well, first of all, that’s not definitive, “Mommy play with train.” So I could do two things there, I could say, “I’m not going to play with the train right now, I’m going to be here. If you want to play with the train, you can.” Very open-ended, not, “I want to watch you play with the train,” just so comfortable setting my boundaries.

I could also say, “Oh, what do you want me to do with the train?” If I feel like being a little more engaged there. I mean, it’s not even more engaged, it’s more active. “What do you want me to do with the train?”

She says, “Move it over here.”

“Oh, which way?” I’m always going to keep bouncing it back to get her to do as much as possible, and me to do as little as possible.

“You want me to, oh, move it over there? Which way? Can you show me?”

And then she says, “No, you do it.”

“Hmm, no. I’m not going to be the one to do it.” Comfortable.

If she gets mad at me there, then I’m going to realize she needs to get mad at me, she needs to share some feelings about what she doesn’t control in her world. It’s really okay. It’s not about me moving a train and doing her job for her.

If she says, “Cut the food,” and she wants to hand me a knife and hand me the food:

“Okay, like this? Which way? Down the middle, like that, or which way do you want me to turn it?” I might do that. I might just cut the food. I might say, “I’m not in a cutting food mood, but I’m here. I love being with you. Thanks for asking.” Something like that.

And then the key is that this parent says, “I struggle with how to respond to this.” That is exactly what her child is sensing and why her child is continuing in this manner. As a very capable self-learner, her child wants to understand this struggle that she’s sensing. It’s brilliant, the way children do this. So she’s focusing her learning on that instead of other things. But when we clear that up for her, when we stop struggling and we’re decisive and comfortable, she will stop with that, depending on how long we’ve gone on. If we’ve gone on for a while then it’s going to take a little longer for her to check it out in different times of day and different moods of ours, but she will let go of it.

She says, “On one hand, I want her to be in charge of play and do what she requests.” Right, but being in charge of play in an atmosphere where she has leaders that don’t always do what she requests. And that’s where freedom is, within those boundaries, within the comfortable leader’s presence. That’s real freedom. And that’s what I want to clarify here for this parent. Doing what she requests isn’t part of what she needs to be in charge of her play, it’s actually distracting her from creating and developing her play.

So I hope some of that helps.

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

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

The post Engaging in Your Child’s Play Without Interrupting appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

The post Raising Anti-Racist Children – A Holistic Approach (with Kristen Coggins) appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Transcript of “Helping Parent-Child Relationships Thrive During Long Separations and Transitions (Live Consultation)”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled. How’s everybody doing? I’m thinking of all of you at this difficult time.

Today, I’m doing something brand new for the podcast. I’m going to be consulting with the parent of a three-year-old. This parent emailed me with concerns about an impending separation, potentially a long one, and certain life transitions that her family is facing. Separating from our children, even for short periods, can be heart wrenching, whether it’s for their first days at preschool, or a weekend trip with our partner, or a friend or, as in the case with this family, an extensive period of work-related travel. I thought this might be a good opportunity to cover some of the common emotions that children express, and our own feelings when faced with separation.

Janet:   Hi there.

Parent:  Hi Janet.

Janet:   How are you doing?

Parent:  Well, I think these are crazy times for all of us.

Janet:  Absolutely.

What I usually like to do is… I mean, this is your time and your call, first of all, to talk about what you think is important, but I recommend starting with what feels like the biggest concern right now. And if we start from there then we can kind of work our way through other concerns and see how I can help, hopefully.

Parent:  Sure. So one of the things that I’ve learned from your work and have internalized is the importance of our relationships with our children in terms of providing them with stability as the foundation for the rest of their growth. And so my concern is, as I mentioned in my email that both my husband and I are active duty military officers, and we each have a deployment on the horizon. So I’m just looking for your advice on how to best prepare her for those situations ahead of time. And then also reintegration.

The first thing that we’ll have is my husband, who, he already travels quite a bit for work as it is. So she’s used to him coming and going. But she is almost three now and she’s become more curious about when he leaves, where he is, what he’s doing. And she’ll say things like… that she is frustrated or she’s disappointed that he’s not there when she wakes up.

But we’re typically able to move on from those things pretty quickly because they’re a matter of course. But my husband is deploying this Summer for three months and this will be the longest period of time that he’s been away from her since she was six weeks old and he deployed then. How do I prepare her for that? When do I start preparing her for that?

And then is there any way that we can actually maintain or grow their relationship while he’s gone? And then any tips that you have for their re-integration. So that’s kind of the first thing that’s coming up.

Janet:   When is he leaving?

Parent:  We’re expecting July.

Janet:  Okay. So I would wait until three weeks to a month before, unless there’s talk about it from you or friends or other members of your family. If there is, I would definitely bring it out into the open. You know, children are very sensitive and aware. They have radar for what’s going on, especially with their parents. It’s better to put it out there for her, so it’s not this mystery, which is more disconcerting than the reality for children.

Like you said, the relationship is so important and that we have a relationship that’s steeped in trust, which means that we’re honest with you. We don’t try to whitewash things and pretend everything’s fine and you shouldn’t have any feelings about it. We put it out there honestly with what this is going to look like. So we don’t have to tell her what she’s going to feel or what anyone’s going to feel, but the more concrete things that will affect her life, the fact that he’ll be leaving for an extended time.

One thing that I would recommend is what we used to use in the olden days: a real calendar, a big wall calendar, so she can see the days. Something visual for her to get some sense of what that passage of time is really like, and have some autonomy in it, maybe choosing the type of calendar she likes and then being the one to make checks or put in things for the different days — when you’re going to FaceTime. Or it could be about everything in her life.

So yeah, I would say, “Dad usually goes for shorter trips. This is going to be a longer trip and it may be hard to have him so far away for such a long time.” And I would even say, “It’s going to be hard for me because I’m going to miss him.” Just very open, direct talk about this.

How is she with FaceTime? Does she like it? Because some children don’t like those things so much. It’s tough for them to be patient about it.

Parent:  So because we are military, we live away from most of our immediate family and so she does spend a good amount of time Face-Timing with grandparents and extended family, but she’s a toddler, so she only is going to be attentive for a certain period of time. And so when I’m away, which is much more rare than my husband, I just like to watch her. I don’t have an expectation that she and I are going to have a conversation or that she’s going to sit still. I’ll just say to whoever’s holding the phone, “Just point it in her general direction and she’ll come back around and tell me something or show me something as she goes. ” Is much for me as it is for her when I’m away.

Janet:  Probably even more for us than for them. I love the way that you’re handling that. That sounds perfect, that you’re not having expectation that she’s going to be able to sit and find that very engaging. Young children don’t tend to do that. In the old days, again, we had the telephone. If we were away, we would want to hear our child’s voice. But for a child, that was just not very satisfying, to have somebody that’s there but not there.

I wanted to ask you how she brings up things like, “I’m frustrated,” or “I miss daddy.” Or whatever. How does that come about? Because one thing we want to do is be careful not to read too much into her mentions of daddy and take it to a deeper place than it might be. So I’m just curious how that comes up when she says, “I’m frustrated.”

Parent:  Part of our morning routine that she goes around the house and says a very sprightly good morning to everyone. She wakes up and her dad isn’t there, she’ll say, “Where’s daddy?” And I’ll say, “Oh, he’s in Florida.” And she’ll say, “Oh, I’m upset.” Or, ” I’m disappointed.” And remember, like I said, we pretty quickly move on from those things. Like I’ll just say, “Oh, you’re upset he’s not here. You’re feeling, you’re feeling disappointed.” And then we move on.

Janet:  Does she show that she’s upset or does she just say the words?

Parent:  I mean it’s really more verbal. She does not linger on it. She will continue on about her way. We’ve never seen a big emotional response or a tantrum and I know that sometimes those feelings can come out in other ways.

Janet:  Right. That comes out in other ways and that’s where the feelings actually come. So her saying those things… I just find it interesting because sometimes we’re the ones that suggest those words. We might say, “Is that upsetting for you?” Or, “Are you feeling frustrated?” And then she’s, in a sense, repeating back what the parent has suggested about feelings.

Parent:  I mean that is entirely possible. I am definitely guilty. Well, in a positive way, I’ve always tried to articulate her feelings in line with your guidance from the time that she was an infant and she would express something. I would say, “Oh, it seems like you are… (insert the emotion that I think she’s feeling). So we have always done that and then it’s entirely possible that at some earlier time I said, “Oh, I bet you’re disappointed your dad’s not here.” And so she may well be regurgitating that.

Janet:  Yeah. So don’t feel guilty about it. This is just information to know for ourselves — that maybe she’s not really that upset. Maybe she’s just kind of weighing in.

It doesn’t sound like you’re doing this, but what can happen is a child will say, “Where’s daddy.” And the parent a little bit in their emotions lurches forward to, uh-oh she’s upset about daddy, instead of just staying behind our child in that sense, and just reflecting back what we know for sure, which is, “Oh, you’re thinking about daddy right now, or where he is. Let me see. I think he might be here and this is what he might be doing right now because it’s lunchtime where daddy is so he may be having lunch now.”

Children are very curious and they just want to know the information. When children are used to things like daddy’s not here, they do adapt to those ideas and they aren’t stressed about them every day. Especially when we’ve put it out there so honestly, as you are doing and will do. So there’s really nothing to fear.

Parent:  That’s incredibly reassuring.

Janet:  Good. Well, it’s the truth, I believe.

And I had an idea that it would be nice to do the old fashioned thing of letters. Do you ever do that?

Parent:  Oh yeah.

Janet:   I think that’s just so much-

Parent:  Sorry, I don’t. My daughter sends letters to our extended family or pictures. I haven’t written a letter to my husband in probably 10 years.

Janet:  It’s just much more tangible for a child to have that thing they can hold in their hand. And of course there’s other great aspects to this like learning about letters and writing and not that you’re going to be ‘teaching her’ in overt way, but just the fact that you would sit down together and maybe you have that on your calendar that, “Here’s the day that we write a letter.” Something that you do together and then asking her like, “Should we take a picture or is there a picture of something that you did this week that you want to share?” And you could even bring something. “Here’s a bit of sand from the beach we went to.” Or, I don’t know… “Here’s a leaf that I found.” You could really have fun with that.

So giving her that sense of participation and ownership in what’s going on and that autonomy of being able to decide things. It’s a fun, educational and emotionally rewarding experience to have all those elements come together. And then daddy sends letters back and you get to read those and imagine what he’s doing and it’s just a richer way than a FaceTime to feel connected and to feel like you’re sharing your life with somebody.

Parent:   I used to send care packages, and part of the reason I don’t do it anymore, it’s because Amazon delivers everywhere so he can really get whatever he needs where he’s going. But perhaps that’s something that my daughter and I can do where we pick out things that we think… I could ask her, “What do you think the daddy would like to eat?” Or, “What do you think that daddy would like to read?” And we can pick some of those things out together and put it in a little box and send with her pictures and her letters.

Janet:  That’s a brilliant idea.

Parent:   Yeah.

Janet:   So what else?

Parent:  So what about as he prepares to come home? I imagine that preparing her for that will be much the same as when he’s getting ready to leave, we’ll maybe have the calendar going and we can do a countdown. Maybe pick a special outfit and do things like that to get her excited about his return. But I also think that she grows so much every day. She might be a slightly different child by the time that he comes home. So any suggestions for how we can use the transition and re-integrating him into the routine that she and I have established and even helping him become acquainted with the little girl who’s maybe a little bit more grown in different than he remembers?

Janet:  Yeah. So I would be careful not to put any big expectation… Now I’m thinking of her end of things and how she’s going to feel… When you said, “Pick out the dress.” That sounds really, really sweet on one hand. But on the other hand, I wonder if it’s making a little bit of a pressure situation for something that might be anticlimactic at that point in the way that they actually meet again. For children, it can take a little while to get comfortable when they haven’t seen somebody for a while. So we don’t want to rush that. We want to give her the time and not put all this expectation.

So I think I would address that with this honest, open, concrete way of speaking with her about it. Also, inviting her participation again, “Where would you like to be when he comes?” “What would you like to wear?” Maybe. Without putting any charge on it, if you can.

You can say, “I’m really excited for daddy.” But I wouldn’t assume that she’s going to be excited. Hopefully he doesn’t assume that either, because it’s a lot of things when you haven’t seen someone for a long time and you’re that little and your emotions are all out on your chest. Your whole body’s feeling your emotions. It can be embarrassing. It can make you feel shy. It can be scary. It can be uncomfortable in a lot of ways. So I would be open to it being whatever it is.

Parent:  Yeah, that’s a really great point. The only time he’s deployed since we’ve had our daughter was when she was very, very little. I mean, she was still an infant. So in the past it’s been like the prom for me, right? Getting ready and being excited. And so that’s a good perspective to have that that might not be how she feels. I think both of us are probably going to have to actively work toward anticipating that and being accepting of that.

Janet:   I think that’s great. And you know how children sometimes cry when people sing Happy Birthday to them on their birthday, or they run away? All that buildup, excitement and then they feel on the spot… And, I don’t know, I can relate to it as an introverted person myself, I can relate to the awkwardness of it and the whole range of emotion.

So the best thing you could do, and I’m sure you will do, is to approach this in a way that is very accepting of however she feels about it and not taking it personally and not taking it as any sign that she doesn’t love her dad or isn’t excited to see her dad. Excitement is one of the emotions, I’m sure, but there are a lot of others as well. And those might be the ones that come forth first.

You use the word “anticipation” and that for children is very uncomfortable in a lot of ways. Anticipation… Like have you ever had the experience where you said, “Oh, this afternoon we’re going to have these friends over, you’re going to see grandma.” Or something, and then she can’t take a nap?

Parent:  Yeah.

Janet:  Yeah. So these things that we can kind of compartmentalize as like: I’m really excited about this. But I can still go on with my life, for children it takes over their whole body.

So for you and her dad, I would be looking forward. And I would go into this with confidence knowing that, yes, she loves her dad and there’s nothing that he can do to change that at this point. She loves him. She may not feel as at ease with him when she hasn’t seen him for a while, but she loves him. Knowing that, we can just be open to whatever this sweet girl does and how she takes it. But not, “Come here and give me a big hug.” I would be like, “Oh, I’m so happy to see you.” And, have your arms open for a hug if she wants to, but then accept whatever it is.

Parent:  Yeah, those are really great reminders. I can’t say that I would have… I can’t say it would have occurred to me to throttle back. You see the movies, you expect a big open arm hug and things like that, but you’re right, that might not be a realistic expectation. So I’m glad that you mentioned that.

Janet:  I think for an older child it might be more of a realistic expectation. But for somebody that’s so in the moment — they’re very self centered at that age. They’re supposed to be. All this development is happening and they need to be self centered and have their world kind of be around them.

I think those movies are more about older kids. But yeah, for you two to have your expectations realistic is going to help. So that you’re not let down and you’re not discouraged, and that her dad doesn’t feel less confident about proceeding with her.

And then, I would just take it slow with him not pushing the physicality, and knowing that it might take a little time to get back into being so demonstrative and everything.

What I’ve learned through all the work with Magda Gerber is that, those caregiving times are the golden times for connecting. And caregiving times with a child her age is the meals. Just being there, not having distractions, not having a cell phone. I would have him start putting that all away for these periods of time throughout the day, when he’s available to her, that is.  If he’s working, or you’re working, you can’t do that if you need to make business phone calls. But as much as possible, prioritizing those times so that, you’re using those naturally intimate connecting times to build the trust back.

Parent:  I love that. And I think like most children, our daughter really thrived off of routine and knowing what is going to happen. I mean, as you mentioned, she asks 1,000,001 question a day and wants to know where everyone is and what they’re doing and why. And so especially with her having those set routines… We do eat dinner together as a family every night, we read two books, we do the bath, we pick out clothes for the next day. I mean these are things that she knows are going to happen and she’s excited about them and it certainly makes me feel bonded with her to begin every day in that special way and then also end every night by putting her to bed in that way.

Janet:  That’s great. And then when her dad is home, does he do any of those things with her?

Parent:  I mentioned in my email, I think this may change as she gets older and they have more shared interests and they spend more time together. I think right now I am definitely the preferred parent and I perform most of those caregiving rituals. He does, but it’s not on a set basis. The expectation is that I’ll give her her bath and I’ll do her bedtime routine. And so the time that they spend together is impromptu. Right? So playing a game together on the floor or taking the dog for a walk and things like that, less caregiving and more play focused.

Janet:   That routine is wonderful. You’re absolutely right. It empowers her. It helps her feel on top of her world — more confident — and children thrive in those situations. So absolutely.

But when you say preferred… Ideally, that doesn’t mean that you see it as a need, but as a choice that she’s making in that moment. Taking the dog for a walk and playing together is great too.  But for him to have the opportunity to do some of those even more bonding experiences would be helpful for their developing bond and for building more trust with him too.

And the way that would look is I would let her know in advance, not in a warning way, but just, “Oh by the way, dad is going to be the one to give you your bath tonight.” And then she says, “No, I want mommy.” And you would say, “Ah yeah, I know you want me to do it. We usually do it. We’re the ones that do that together. But daddy wants a turn and we’re going to give him a turn to do that.” Then allowing for the protest. And him, if he can, meeting that situation with confidence. Even if it’s rocky, allowing that to be and not be intimidated by it.

Because it can be that she just wants it her way and in this case it’s really okay for her to not get her first choice. Almost especially if she cries, actually, it will open up their relationship to much more trust and a deeper connection.

When you can share that somebody’s not your first choice and they’re willing to hear that and they still stick with you… That’s such a beautiful moment to have with somebody as a child. They feel like they can share so many feelings with you as they grow. They can share that they didn’t like what you did, it embarrassed them. They can share that they’re mad at you for being away so long and not being there when there was Daddy’s Day at school or something.

They can be kind of pushing you away, but you stay there. And that that is the way children share that I missed you and you weren’t there and it’s uncomfortable getting to know you again. That’s exactly how they share it — through yelling at you or being upset that they wanted mommy and they got daddy.

So it takes us going into this really high place in ourselves to be able to do that as a dad. Even as the preferred parent, it’s hard to trust that that’s okay. But the other parent really needs us to do that and not come in if there’s crying and go, “Okay, I’ll do it. I’ll do it.” Undermining that other parent. So it takes both of you being heroes. Heroes that see the bigger picture.

Children are always in the moment. “This is what I want right now.” As adults, as their parents, we get to be the ones that see the bigger picture. We see beyond that she just wants ice cream right now, but we know that’s not healthy for her.

So being that parent in those situations will help him to get back in sync with her, believe it or not, even though it’s going to feel messy and hard in those moments maybe.

Parent:  That’s great advice.

And then the other thing that I want to talk about, as we mentioned, my husband’s deployment is the one coming up most quickly, but next Spring I’m also supposed to deploy for six months. This certainly would be the longest period of time with she and has spent a part. And the beauty of this particular assignment is that it is stateside and there’s potential that I might actually be able to bring her with me, so long as I can make sure that I have childcare, like a live-in nanny or a grandparent who is able to be there. I need to be responsive to work and I essentially needed to be available at all time.

So it sounds like a dream come true, but I wanted to get your thoughts because I am also concerned about the disruption of moving her to a new location. Again, in the absence of her father because he would not be able to come with us, introducing her to a new caregiver and then moving her home in six months.

Janet:   Right. I think those adaptations are well worth her being able to be with her primary caregiver, which is you. So you’re the primary attachment figure and it’s going to be harder for her to be away from you than her dad right now.

Parent:  Okay. That was what I thought initially. That was what I felt in my gut. My husband and I are very grateful for every opportunity the military has given us, including this one. But we’ve also, since we had her, maintained that we will take every assignment and every opportunity one by one and determine what is in the best interest of her. And I am at this point eligible to separate from the military if I wanted to. So this is just something that we’ve been weighing on — whether or not to continue my career of military service even though it will cause perhaps disruption and discomfort to her because military service is not a choice that she made.

Janet:   Right. Well, you’re very unselfish in the way you’re thinking about this, considering her in this way. But yes, for a child there’ll be some stress involved in it, but not nearly the amount that being away from you would be. Not that she couldn’t handle that either, but weighing it, yeah, it will be much easier for her. She’ll be much more comfortable if she could still be with you.

Parent:  Yeah. So I think that either I will bring her with me or I will step away from my military career for the time being and just focus on her and focus on our family and not take that next assignment or that deployment. Because I… Again, this sometimes it was about me as a parent and less about her as a child, or at least equally about me. I can’t imagine spending that length of time away from her.

Janet:  Right. And she’s still very young. So if she was seven or eight it might be easier because, again, children can compartmentalize things in their mind: My mother does still love me and I can’t be with her now, but I’ll be with her.  It’s a little bit easier as they get older. It’s never easy, but she’s still at a very early time and development, and if you can make this work to not be away from her, I absolutely would. I would prioritize that.

And then I would address it the same way we were talking about her dad leaving and these other things that you’ll be very concrete about it. “This is what we’re doing and this is who’s going to be there. This is what our day’s going to look like.” And some people do make a book of all the things that she’s going to get to do so she can enjoy reading that story with you.

And now she knows that this and that is going to happen. And so she comes into it with this confidence of knowing and then she gets to see: Yes. Oh, there’s what that ends up feeling like and that. So it’s again, a very confidence building experience.

So yeah, I would do that and not say, “This is going to be great and you’re really going to like this new caregiver.” And all those things that we want to do because we really want it to be okay for them. Most parents, we just want them to be fine and to be okay. But they’ve got a right to be however they are about it. Just like with her dad returning, they’ve got a right to be themselves. And that’s what we want anyway. We want to meet her as herself, not some person that she thinks she has to pretend to be. So yeah, you can do that.

Parent:   Okay. I love that.

Janet:  And is there anything else?

Parent:   These are the things that have been weighing on my shoulders. Like you said, having a parent gone for any length of time is probably not comfortable, but doing what I can to help her understand what’s going on with her father being gone… And then just really contemplating how we handle my deployment and whether or not she comes with me, and making that as comfortable for her as we can. And you’ve given me a lot of reassurance in my gut, which is that she needs to be with her mom.

Janet:   Oh good. Yes. So this thing about comfort… Children do learn when there’s some stress, a certain amount of stress. So this whole situation with her dad, she can learn a lot from that. And I don’t even know that she would be stressed, again, if she’s used to that: this is my relationship with my dad — he’s gone a lot and then he comes back. Children normalize that for themselves. But if there was some stress, there’s learning that happens through writing those letters and through the uncomfortable feelings and all that. But then there’s a point where the stress gets more overwhelming, then there’s less learning. And less ability to function and that’s the difference in your family right now between your husband being gone and you being away from her.

Parent:  You know, sometimes I can forget that there are hundreds of thousands of military families that have endured these challenges before we have, and many, many of the children who come from military families are incredibly well adjusted and very resilient and very adaptable as a result of having had those experiences at a young age.

Janet:   Yes, and then the other part of that is… because now you’re making me feel like I really want to add this… If you did leave her, she would be okay. What you would want to happen… If her dad’s not there either, you would want to, as much as possible, foster the development of a secondary attachment figure, which would be whoever her primary caregiver ends up being — her grandparent, if that was the caregiver or another relative. Sometimes, understandably, the parent might get threatened by the relationship that child has with this other person. And I don’t think you would, because you’re so generous in your thoughts about your daughter and what’s best for her. But that happens on all different levels. Even with people that work full time and just aren’t home day to day. But that’s what you want: somebody that they feel deep trust and love for. That’s going to help your child to thrive.

It’s very healthy for children to develop more attachment figures than just their parents. It’s a gift to be able to bond with other people as well.

So just putting it out there that you want your child to bond with that person that’s going to care for them. That’s the best thing that could happen. And if you come home and they seem to be more comfortable with that person, it’s really okay for all the reasons that you and I talked about in regard to her dad coming home. It’s really okay. You will find your way back to each other.

Anyway, just wanted to add that because you brought to mind that other people may not have this ability that you do to make a choice.

Parent:  Right. Yeah, absolutely. Well, Janet, I could not be more appreciative of your time. I’m just such a fan of your work. It has so influenced my relationship with my daughter and the way that I see her and I think my happiness as a parent, there is truly no one else that I could feel comfortable receiving this advice from than you.

Janet:  Thank you so much. And thank you again for sharing your journey with other parents. It’s brave of you and generous of you, so thank you so much. I have no doubts about you handling all of this. I think even before we talked. Because you already get it. So just keep up the wonderful work with your dear girl.

Parent:  Thank you, Janet.

If you liked the format of these recorded consultations there are 6 more at sessionsaudio.com. There’s a description of each recording and you can download them individually or as a set for under $20. That’s sessionsaudio.com.

Also, both of my books are available in paperback at Amazon, No Bad Kids, Toddler Discipline Without Shame and Elevating Child Care, A Guide To Respectful Parenting.  You can get them in ebook at Amazon, Apple, Google Play, or barnesandnoble.com, and in audio, where they’re particularly popular, at Audible.com.

Take care now. We can do this.

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