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

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Transcript of “What Science Says About Respectful Parenting (with Anya Dunham, PhD)”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.

Today I’m joined by Anya Dunham. Anya is a parent of three, a PhD in biology who works as a scientist studying ecology. And she has done extensive research into the concepts recommended by Magda Gerber and me, respectful parenting. We’ll be describing these concepts in detail and speaking to some of the evidence-based theories on what babies need most from their environment and from us to thrive. Anya shares her findings in her book, Baby Ecology: Using Science and Intuition to Create the Best Feeding, Sleep, and Play Environment for Your Unique Baby. And I’m really looking forward to hearing more about Anya’s research and experience.

Hi, Anya. Thank you so much for being here.

Anya Dunham: Hi, Janet. I’m so glad to be here today. Thank you.

Janet Lansbury: So you’ve been doing extensive research on different aspects of parenting, particularly, or at least quite considerably, the type of parenting that I teach, which is Magda Gerber’s RIE approach, or I call it respectful parenting. And I thought it would be great to hear a little about what made you want to do all this research and write a book about it. And of course then I would love to hear more about your findings and how they’ve helped you and can help others with the parenting decisions that we’re all making, which is way too many. In the beginning it feels like a constant flow of decisions, right? So can you tell us a little about how you got into this and what you found?

Anya Dunham: Yes, of course. So I found your work when I was pregnant with my first baby, so just over 12 years ago. And then through your work, I discovered and learned about the work of Magda Gerber and Emmi Pikler. And the thing is that even though I always turn to research, I think of myself as a science-minded person, I actually embraced what I feel is at the very core of RIE without needing to see any science behind it. I felt that respect for children and delight in who they are, believing in that and accepting that as one of my core parenting beliefs, came very naturally to me. It was almost the same as believing that our children need our love and they need safety. And I felt that in the same way, they also need to be respected and to be delighted in.

And so that was how everything started for me. But what I thought that science can help us see and understand is the mechanisms and sort of the “why” between some of the challenging parenting questions. And sometimes it can give us a little window, a little glimpse into the babies’ minds, which is one of my favorite things. Because of that, I wanted to find out all about it, everything I could. And so what I did is, I started an almost 10-year-long journey into reading the science about baby’s first year. And I looked at the research through the lens of my research field, ecology, because I wanted to find out what do our babies need most from their physical and emotional environment. So from their surroundings and the experiences they have and from people in their lives. And then the process, as I read over many hundreds of papers, I came across many findings that support the core principles of RIE and respectful parenting. And so I thought that maybe I could share a few of the highlights today.

Janet Lansbury: Yes, I’d love to hear about that.

Anya Dunham: One of the first things that came to mind when I was thinking about it is just this large body of research, that so many studies have found just how sensitive, but also how capable and ready to learn and connect our babies are when they come into this world. And I think most people know that in the first trimester of pregnancy, babies are able to hear our voices, and especially the mom’s voice if she’s the one who carries the pregnancy. But I think what I find quite interesting, and what not everybody knows about, is how if a mom reads a familiar story to the baby, even in that first trimester, the baby can already recognize that story. And then after the baby’s born, within hours of birth, if they can see their mom’s face and hear her voice, they learn to recognize their mom right away. So what it shows is that babies not only hear and see enough to connect with us and interact with us, but also that they can pay attention, they can learn and memorize things, and they connect the voice that they’ve been hearing with the face that they’re now able to see. And I think that just really underscores and supports the principle of basic trust, that we can fully trust our babies to be initiators, explorers, and self-learners.

Janet Lansbury: Yes. For some people that don’t know, that’s the first of Magda’s RIE principles.

Anya Dunham: Yeah. And so just how ready they come into this world to learn, that we absolutely can trust in the process.

And then another principle that of course comes to mind is that babies can be active participants in care routines. For example, a study recently looked at how two-month-old babies respond to being picked up. And what was really interesting is that when adults approached babies in a way that was slow and visible, and when the adult’s intentions to pick the baby up were clear, the baby would respond and help with the smoothness of pickup. They would look at the adult’s face and they would sort of tense their body a little bit to help the adults. So it shows that they really can, from this very young age and probably earlier, as Magda Gerber said, from the very start, they can join us in meaningful ways.

Janet Lansbury: Absolutely. And those of us that have tried this and practiced it, get to see that with our own eyes. And what Magda added there was to actually verbalize it as well, “I’m going to pick you up now.” So that becomes connected to not only our body language and the child anticipating what we’re going to do physically, but also hearing the words connected with that. So absorbing the language at the same time.

Anya Dunham: Yes. And that was something that I found initially difficult to do when I first became a parent myself. Being an introvert, I found it somewhat challenging to speak to my baby from the very beginning. But once I did, it certainly became second nature. And what was very sweet is that when my daughter was about two, I caught her talking to her stuffed animals in the same way that I talked to her. And then eventually when her sister was born, she would speak to her in the same way that I would speak to her as a baby. And I thought that that was just such a lovely thing to see. For her, it just became second nature right away.

Janet Lansbury: I just have to say, I guess I’m an introvert as well, but everybody has a hard time talking to babies and believing that it matters, because they don’t talk back. Well, they do, but they do it in these very subtle ways that are hard for us to discern, especially at first. And they’re learning how to communicate. So they’re learning how to show us different signs with different sounds that they make that may all sound like crying, but there’s a very different tone to them or a different pattern to them. And they don’t know how to do that in the beginning either. So we’re trying to learn from them and they’re trying to learn how to teach us. But it does take this leap of faith. And it sounds like you sort of took the leap of faith before you did the research. That’s what it takes, because we’re not going to see the proof of our baby’s awareness until we try these things. Not just once, but regularly, predictably, so our baby learns them. It’s an interesting process.

It definitely takes more than just studies, even. Because I feel like all of these studies in the past decades that have validated the work that Magda and Pikler did through lots and lots of hours of observation of babies behaving naturally. But even with all of this research that’s been done that supports this, it’s like we’re not getting the implications of it yet, as a society. We may have heard about these studies, Oh, babies are learning language. They’re really aware. They’re really capable. But what does that mean? We still want to toss ’em around and pass ’em around and not speak to them. It’s really hard, it’s hard when they’re not proving it. But they can’t prove it until we take the leap of faith.

Anya Dunham: Yes, I absolutely agree. I think most people now have heard about the idea of attachment and how our sensitive responses help us bond with our babies. But there is one aspect of attachment, and something that really helps secure attachment, that is I would say a little bit less well known. And it’s this idea of “mind-mindedness.” In the scientific literature, it’s described as a way of seeing babies as people with minds of their own. So not just as bundles of joy and cute little things, but as people with their minds open to the world. And so parents who are mind-minded, even though they may not call themselves that, but they might be practicing this intuitively, they tend to be more insightful and they want to learn about what might their baby be thinking or feeling in the moment.

And of course, we never know for sure because the only person who really knows is the baby. But we can try to see the world from the baby’s perspective and that allows us to adjust how we are with them based on what they are doing, what they’re working on, and what they might be thinking about, as opposed to what we want or some preconceived notions we have or some general ideas of what a baby of that age should be doing.

Janet Lansbury: And that’s very hard to discern, by the way. Again, because the baby’s not speaking clearly to us about what they are thinking or need or want. The inclination to project, I’ve never met a parent that didn’t have it. I mean, I certainly do. So this idea of opening up to, Oh, but this person is totally separate and they have their own point of view that’s totally different from mine. And what is that about? It’s this constant question that we have to keep asking so that we stay open to it. But yeah, I mean that sounds great when you’re saying it, but I just wanted to add how hard that is.

Anya Dunham: Yeah, I certainly found it challenging myself. And it even comes down to simple things like, if I’m cold, does that mean the baby’s cold? Or if I’m enjoying a gathering but the baby might be getting overwhelmed, and things like that. And so it’s not relying on how I feel in the situation and thinking about, Well, how is my child experiencing this?, being their own little person, like you said. And so I think this really underscores the value of seeing babies right from the start as unique human beings. And also the value of sensitive observation, as Magda taught us and as you have been teaching us, which really allows us to get to know and understand our babies.

Janet Lansbury: And that’s her sixth RIE principle, by the way: sensitive observation of the child in order to understand his or her needs.

So where did this term first come from, mind-mindedness? I had never heard it until I read your book.

Anya Dunham: I believe it was Elizabeth Meins who coined this term. She has a number of papers looking at how mind-minded parents are with their babies and what impacts that this approach has on attachment security. Some of her work, for example, found that babies whose parents are mind-minded or who grow up in mind-minded environments, they tend to have a stronger physiological capacity to regulate their emotions. So it’s a little bit easier for them to stay calm or to return to a calm state. And they also tend to develop stronger bonds with their parents. And then it’s a little easier for them to recognize and understand emotions and needs of others around them as they grow.

Janet Lansbury: Which is the theory of mind. That was one of Alison Gopnik’s terms that she used, theory of mind, the way that babies can be like little psychologists sensing our moods and our thoughts and our feelings right from the start as well.

I think what you’re speaking to seems like the power of that —to help a child be more able to self-regulate and to thrive in the relationship and how it promotes attachment and bonding— I feel like that really speaks to the power of feeling seen, which is something that we all need. We want that in the world, in life, that there’s at least one person that really gets us. And definitely in our relationships, closeness is all about feeling listened to and seen as a separate person.

Anya Dunham: Yes, absolutely, I agree. What I found interesting from this research but also from my own experience and from reading your wonderful work, is how we can become more in tune and develop that mind-mindedness and mind-minded mindset through sensitive observation and through slowing down. That is something that I have found so incredibly helpful on my own parenting journey, is that permission to just observe my babies without the need to jump in. Seeing the incredible value that there is in just being with them. I believe Magda called it the “wants nothing” time. That was something that I found very freeing and very helpful, personally.

And something that I also learned through reading the research is that mind-mindedness and sensitive observation also helps us nurture our intuition. Sometimes intuitive knowledge, that gut feeling we might get in thinking that something is wrong or something is right, is sort of the opposite of science. And we start thinking, should I trust my gut or should I trust expert knowledge and advice? But what science shows is that we actually do best when we do both, because our intuition is a form of knowledge. It’s sort of our brain’s way of immediately, within split seconds, really, accessing the memories that we store within us and using those in that I just know kind of way. But even though it’s subconscious and automatic and it doesn’t require this sort of analytic reasoning or comparing options, it’s still a very real form of knowledge.

Janet Lansbury: Because it’s based on something that no research can give us, which is our experience and what we sense coming from this unique individual, our baby.

Anya Dunham: Exactly. So when it comes to our babies, the best source that our intuition can draw from is our observations of our unique child that we accumulate day by day by being with them and getting to know them better and better. That’s something that we cannot ever read in a book or learn from scientific papers. It’s something that we learn by being with them and nurturing our intuition. That’s a very powerful thing.

But sometimes what we think of as intuitive knowledge could be coming from another place. The intuition could also draw from maybe fears that we’ve been storing in our memories, maybe some biases we might have. And so what is really interesting and helpful, I think, is that science has found that deliberately considering evidence-based knowledge and accessing our intuition at the same time is possible, and that our brains can combine both even when we are not fully aware of the source of intuition. And so considering the science, the evidence-based knowledge, can help us filter out the irrelevant pieces, that are maybe our fears, maybe some old disproven psychology, maybe some memories that no longer serve us, and then use our observations of our unique babies wisely and hear our truly intuitive and unique knowledge that we have.

Janet Lansbury: I love that. That’s cool. I want to, though, ask you as the parent of three children, and I have three children as well— I’m just imagining myself listening to this podcast and saying to myself, Well, I have a busy life with three kids, or two other children, now I have this baby. How am I going to sit around blissfully observing and connecting with my intuition and doing all these things that sound very slow and lovely? I mean, how do you do it?

Anya Dunham: Oh, I know. I think that’s such a good question and it’s so hard. And I would say it’s hard to have that slow, kind of “wants nothing” time even with our first because it’s just something that we may be not as used to. With my first, I wanted to do the best I could. There was always some sort of worries running through my mind and, Well, how can I do best? and things like that. So eventually I learned to let go of some of that and just have slow playtime, just watching my baby play. And then, when my second and then third babies came along, it’s certainly so much busier, so much more challenging. And my third baby was born early in the pandemic, so that everybody was home. And it was certainly much harder to carve out that slow time and giving him the space.

And I think one of the gifts was understanding how important that space and free movement and uninterrupted play was to his development, and sort of setting aside the space where he could do that. And then also seeing the value of the family being together. And also we don’t necessarily have to spend large amounts of time specifically thinking like, Well, this will be the time when I will nurture my intuition. I think it comes organically through the day when we spend time with our babies changing diapers, feeding. It comes in these little tiny glimpses, sometimes, tiny snippets, but they accumulate over time into this very unique knowledge.

Janet Lansbury: Yes, I feel like in my experience, I was just realizing— well, I was all over the place with my first baby anyway, I didn’t know any of this stuff. But then with the second and third, realizing that your baby’s getting this whole different experience growing up as a sibling. That’s so valuable and incredible, right? And you just take your moment when you can, no pressure. You take those moments.

And you also take advantage of the caregiving routines, because there’ll be plenty of days where that was the only time that you connected one-on-one with your baby, when you have other obligations and children or anything. You take advantage of that. And there are moments there where you’re observing, you’re trying to slow down to be present in that moment. Maybe you’re breastfeeding or bottle feeding and your baby’s stopping to look around and you’re noticing how they’re enjoying a view of something that’s in the room. You’re giving them that time. And maybe those times are the only observation times and that’s beneficial as well for you. Any time that you have is going to add up. And it’s really about our openness to the idea that our baby has a perspective that’s totally unique and we’re just generally trying to be aware of that because we realize our baby’s a person and all these things that science has shown for a long time, but it’s just not quite gotten into the culture yet. It’s so interesting to me.

Also, when I was asking you that question and you were answering it beautifully, I was thinking about just this moment when your baby is maybe waking up from a nap or in the morning and you sort of come close because you’ve heard them make a sound, maybe. You come closer, but instead of just coming right in, Let me pick you up, you wait until they look towards you. Because they’re sensing that you’re close, they’re so aware and sensitive. And maybe they’re involved in something. Just not rushing that. And there’s often moments there where you catch a glimpse of what your baby could be thinking or interested in.

Anya Dunham: Oh, that was such a lovely description and it just brings me right back into those stages. I can remember that so well, when they wake up and then if I enter the room and then maybe they don’t see me for a moment. And so it gives me that sense of, Okay, maybe they’re looking at their hands or looking at the ceiling. And then when they see you, right, then they just light up. It’s a really wonderful memory.

Janet Lansbury: Yes, for me too. So what were some of the other surprising things that you discovered in your research?

Anya Dunham: One of the surprising things was just how connected everything is in the baby’s life. For example, the connection between sleep and learning is something that I think not everybody knows. We all do know that sleep brings physical rest for adults and babies alike. But for babies in particular, sleep is also important for learning because when they sleep they sort and consolidate the memories of events and people and experiences that they’ve had when they were awake. So the well-rested baby is more likely to notice new things and then when they go to sleep, they remember, they remember that experience better. And I quite like the analogy of a baby’s brain being like a librarian who only gets a chance to carefully sort and organize the books and the materials in his care after all the patrons go home and the library closes for the day and that’s their time to really get organized.

Janet Lansbury: Yes, but how do we get a well-rested baby? That’s the thing parents are going to worry about listening to this, because I know everybody worries that my child’s not getting enough sleep. And then of course our worry makes it harder for people next to us, that are absorbing our moods and feelings, to feel calm and like going to sleep. So it’s a tough one. And that could be a whole other conversation that you and I have, I know.

But Magda always said you can’t make another person fall asleep. And, what can we do? We can create the environment. Which of course is what your book is all about, creating the right environment or creating an ideal environment, let’s say, for nurturing our babies. But what does that mean in regard to sleep?

Anya Dunham: Yeah, so exactly. So the way I’ve looked at things in my book, and I explored the question of how can we create those most nurturing environments, physical and emotional environments, for sleep and also for feeding and for care and play. For sleep, in particular, it was exactly that. What I found is that, similar to responsive feeding, our best role as parents and caregivers would be to create the most sleep-conducive environments for our children. So that would be the physical spaces for sleep, but also a balanced daily rhythm that helps their bodies relax and develop the circadian rhythm and then kind of relax into sleep when the time is right. So we can think about our role in sleep as working on the environment. Because of course we cannot make our babies sleep, but we can provide the best conditions that we can, again, based on the science of sleep, but also based on observing our own unique babies and their unique needs for sleep and rest.

Janet Lansbury: There are even details, right? Yeah, there is science, because I remember reading it a long time ago when I was writing a post on this, how the free-movement aspects of Magda’s approach that she recommends, especially outdoors whenever possible, that the baby is in a position, usually on their backs, to be as free as possible to move their limbs, move their trunks, move their heads, and that that, just like with us when we get exercise, that helps a baby to sleep rather than being in a container the whole day.

Anya Dunham: Absolutely. So they get to that place where they’re physically tired in a good way. And also they’ve had experiences exploring and experimenting with what they can and cannot do when they’ve been able to move freely. And that helps them get to that place where they’re tired, just the right amount, not perhaps too tired, but full of experiences that then they’re ready to physically rest and then integrate those experiences into memory. And certainly free movement and being outdoors in the natural light, those are very, very helpful things for sleep.

Janet Lansbury: And did you look up any research on certain methods for instantly calming a baby? There’s an expert that talks about it, there’s this calming reflex and you have to do all this type of stimulation to put your baby into that. Is that healthy sleep or is that a baby kind of cocooning or shutting down to escape the stimulation?

Anya Dunham: Yeah, several papers that I’ve read talk about how sometimes young babies and even older babies might use sleep as an escape because that might be their only way to escape a really overstimulating environment. The only other way for them to voice their discomfort with environment would be to cry, but sleep sometimes might be their way of sort of escaping from this environment where they go like, I just can’t take this anymore. And so what sometimes happens is with very young babies, especially if it’s our first, sometimes we want to maintain that sort of on-the-go lifestyle because it feels good, it feels like, Okay, we have an easy baby. So maybe we can just be out and about just as we were before. And it might seem like the baby is sleeping great in their car seat or maybe in the stroller. And it might work for some babies or for some babies for a certain amount of time. But if it happens too much, for some babies it could lead to them being overstimulated and tired because they really couldn’t quite meet their sleep needs, especially if they’re moved from one device to another throughout the day.

Janet Lansbury: So is there actually science on that, that the quality of sleep that they’re getting is not as good or not as restorative or is there not science and we’re kind of guessing or wondering?

Anya Dunham: I tried to find studies that look at the quality of sleep in motion sleep environment versus stationary sleep environment, like in the crib versus maybe in the stroller or on the parent. And I actually couldn’t find any studies that empirically measured sleep quality, but there were studies that noted that aspect, that a baby might escape into sleep and sleep for a shorter period of time because perhaps the sleep rhythms were not quite aligned at the time. So it wasn’t maybe the right time for them to have that rest. And so they might have a little cat nap just to calm themselves down, but it wouldn’t be as restful and restorative.

Janet Lansbury: That makes sense. So overall, it seems that you mostly found science that supports a lot of the things that Magda taught and Pikler taught. Were there things you found that didn’t really jive with it or that were counter to those practices?

Anya Dunham: You know, I find that all or most parenting philosophies or approaches, they often are thought of as an approach plus a set of techniques. Sort of very specific ways of doing something. And then when I looked into science, there usually is more than one good way of doing things. There’s a range of good —and quite often a wide range of good— options. And so sometimes I see RIE misunderstood and misrepresented as just a set of techniques. And sometimes very specific don’ts and maybe nevers. Like, never carry baby in the carrier or never use the high chair or never breastfeed for comfort, things like that. And so I haven’t found scientific support for the very strict don’ts and the nevers.

Janet Lansbury: But that isn’t what it’s about at all.

Anya Dunham: Exactly, because there is strong research to support the benefits of free movement and sensitive caregiving and free exploration. And there are many ways to create those environments. And RIE, to me, if I understand it correctly, it’s not at all about the techniques or the don’ts, it’s the way to think about children and to see them. And that’s what’s really beautiful about it.

Janet Lansbury: And even in the principles, the seven principles, it’s not about, Do this! It’s presented as make time for this, you know, time for uninterrupted play. Because at the time that Pikler started observing babies behaving naturally, free to move, and saw how they developed their motor skills naturally the way that animals do, without being positioned or propped and all of these things, the whole point was that wasn’t happening in that time. And I think still being in containers is a fact of life for a lot of babies for most of their day. And they get used to that, you know, they like what they know, right? So what Magda said, and Pikler before her said, was, Make time for this, too. Make time for trusting your baby. Make time for an environment that’s physically safe, cognitively challenging, and emotionally nurturing. Make time for uninterrupted play. Make time to involve the child in a person-to-person relationship with you when they’re being cared for. So it’s with them, not to them. Make time for sensitive observation whenever you can. Make time for consistency. So it’s just an opening up to see ways that weren’t normally thought of in those days and still probably aren’t typically considered as part of baby care.

Anya Dunham: I love that. I love the “make time.” This is a beautiful way of saying it and I think it goes back to what we talked about a little earlier, about how sometimes it’s challenging with a bigger family and our busy lives and working parents, but not putting it onto ourselves as this immense pressure, but thinking about it like, this is what we can do to create that environment and make time for all those good things that really help babies be who they are and learn and grow.

Janet Lansbury: Yes. And by doing so, opening ourselves up to this gift that babies have to offer us: This gift of rediscovering what we had when we were babies or when we were children. Which is, what matters is I saw a leaf that was blowing in that breeze and what matters is the clouds had an amazing formation or the smell of my mother’s shampoo is incredible. You know, slowing down ourselves, our own life, to enjoy life more, enjoy our baby more.

Anya Dunham: Absolutely. It’s like we grow and relearn right alongside them, in a sense.

Janet Lansbury: Yes. And I think especially today with all the— you know, I’m on my phone all the time, looking. And you know, not just standing in line, I’m always doing something. It’s even more challenging but maybe even more of a gift to take those moments, it’s just moments, where all I’m going to do is be with my baby in this diapering experience right now. Even if it doesn’t work well and they’re crying and they don’t like this or that, I’m just going to have an honest time together and just do this. It does nurture us. It nurtures the real joy that we have in us, I think.

Anya Dunham: Yeah, I agree. It does.

Janet Lansbury: Well, you’re wonderful. Thank you so much for all this information and I feel like we could probably have a new discussion on each of these topics. There’s so many juicy ones here. But thank you so much Anya. And what are you working on these days?

Anya Dunham: So, I guess in the year or so since my book Baby Ecology has been published, I’ve had opportunities to dive a little bit deeper into some of the topics. Because putting the book together felt a little bit like putting together a big puzzle, connecting all these pieces of knowledge from different studies and seeing that puzzle put together, it just made me see the wide range of good options for sleep, care, feeding, and play. And so I call that the optimal nurturing environment, or “the ONE” for short. Which is not at all prescriptive, but it’s a range of these good options from which parents can choose what works best for their babies and their families. And they can choose what reflects their cultural backgrounds and then honors their specific family situation.

So over the past year I’ve spent some time diving deeper into what I call the 10 elements of the ONE, the optimal nurturing environment. For example, I looked into small pieces, but important pieces, like choosing and transitioning into daycare and then into applying that whole concept of the ONE, of the nurturing environment, to daycare settings.

And then I’m also always working on spreading the word about all the research that went into Baby Ecology through my website, kidecology.com. And I love hearing from readers, answering questions or just when people share their thoughts on any of the research that went into the book.

Janet Lansbury: Sounds great. Well thank you again and enjoy those three children. How old are they now?

Anya Dunham: I’ve got a 12-year-old, an eight-year-old, and a just-turned three-year-old, so life’s been busy.

Janet Lansbury: And it stays busy, but it’s sure fun and surprising to discover what new things you’re going to learn about your child as they grow and all the surprises. I love it. Alright, talk to you again, I hope. And thank you again.

Anya Dunham: And thank you for all your work and for the honor of being your guest today. It’s been wonderful. Thank you.

Janet Lansbury: You can connect with Anya and learn more on her website, kidecology.com. And be sure to check out her book, Baby Ecology.

Also, please check out some of my other podcasts on my website, janetlansbury.com. They’re all indexed by subject and category, so you should be able to find whatever topic you might be interested in.

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 e-book at Amazon, Apple, Google Play, or barnesandnoble.com and in audio at audible.com. And you can even get a free audio copy of either book at Audible by following the LINK in the liner notes of this podcast.

Thanks so much for listening. We can do this.

The post What Science Says About Respectful Parenting (with Anya Dunham, PhD) 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.

Transcript of “Preparing Our Children to Be Emotionally Healthy Teens (With Phinnah Chichi)”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.

Today I’m welcoming a special guest to Unruffled, Phinnah Chichi. Phinnah is a parenting teens consultant and coach, and a life coach for teens and young adults. Her organization, Parenting Teens Solutions Limited, is dedicated to educating, empowering, encouraging, and equipping parents with the right tools to help themselves and their teens as they navigate through the changes and challenges of the adolescent journey. She’s also the host of the Parenting Teens Solutions Podcast and an Amazon bestselling author. Her most recent book is The Parenting Teens Navigation System.

I wanted to bring Phinnah to the podcast so that she could share all her wisdom for us as parents of younger children, to prepare us for the changes that happen in the teen years. And I think you’ll find that much of the work that you’re already doing is leading you in a positive direction.

Welcome, Phinnah. Thank you so much for being here.

Phinnah Chichi: I’m so pleased to be here. I’m excited.

Janet Lansbury: Me too. I just finished your book. You have this very comforting, encouraging voice that comes through your work. I know it’s in your podcast as well and in your courses, but I really felt it in your book. I felt the way that you talk to teens and children through the way that you were talking to us as parents in the book. And, you know, it’s respectful, it’s really honest, with a lot of empathy and care. And clearly you’re passionate about your work.

Phinnah Chichi: Thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah.

Janet Lansbury: I thought we could start by maybe bringing up the elephant in the room, which is this recent survey that came out, and it actually reflects a lot of recent studies that I’ve seen. That there’s this sharp rise in sadness and hopelessness, depression, and even suicide rates with, I guess it’s mostly girls and also lesbian, gay, and bisexual children and teens. What is your take on all this? Why do you think this is happening and what can we do to help our children in the early years so that they can manage the ups and downs of the teen years?

Phinnah Chichi: I think what’s happened over the years, you know, we’ve been hearing a lot, because I do a lot of coaching with young people, we’ve been hearing a lot about anxiety, depression. That’s all kind of been floating around. But I think something happened after Covid or something happened during Covid that then just made it worse. And there was an interruption in the social development of young people, their interaction with their friends. That is a very essential part of their growth. And what Covid did was just interrupt it. There was uncertainty. They’re not feeling safe. Parents as well, we didn’t even know what to do in the midst of all of that. So that was another contributing factor to it.

More than that, or just even away from that, we have issues with faulty thinking amongst young people, especially with teenagers, especially with girls. You know, teenagers are very quick to judge themselves, criticize themselves, and to speak very negatively about themselves. I have situations where I introduce affirmations to teenagers and I say, “Okay, you know what? Let’s start with saying, ‘I’m amazing.’” They go, “No, Phinnah, I can’t say that because I’m lying. I’m not amazing.” So there’s a lot of faulty thinking that’s happening within teenagers. They’ll be comparing themselves. Social media is not doing them a favor as well in that aspect. So they compare themselves. They think of themselves as, you know, worse than they actually are. And there’s no counteracting. Parents are not aware of it, so parents are not there to then give them the actual positive words to then use. So a lot of teenagers are thinking very badly about themselves.

I’ll give you an example. They might call a friend and a friend is busy, the friend doesn’t call them back in that second. Immediately, many teenagers will think, Oh, that friend does not like me anymore. Oh, there must be something I’ve done wrong. So they think of the worst-case scenario in those kind of situations. And you can just imagine that just building up, as time just goes on, it keeps building up. More and more negative thoughts coming through, coming through. And then it gets to a point where it’s uncontrollable. If you look at depression, if you look at suicidal thoughts, if you look at all that, a lot of it is based from faulty thinking. And this faulty thinking and these things that are not caught on time.

And then sometimes as parents as well, if we’re being quite strict on our children, like really, you know, down on the rules, down on the boundaries, you know, just being over-strict, it’s reaffirming those negative thoughts that our children have. And again, unfortunately we don’t even get to know that because they don’t tell us that in the moment.

Janet Lansbury: Right.

Phinnah Chichi: Unless we are really actively listening to them, unless we are paying so much attention. Can we find those loopholes? And sometimes what happens is that when parents then find those loopholes, the first thing parents will do is, “Oh, stop thinking that way.” That’s not going to help a teenager to stop thinking, that’s not the solution. We’re going to need to give our teenagers backup. Give them words to use, start to affirm them. You look for their strengths so that you keep on affirming them. The more they can hear the good things that they do, rather than the wrong things they’re doing, the better they can start to feel about themselves.

Janet Lansbury: Exactly.

Phinnah Chichi: A lot of times teenagers think, Well, there’s no point. I’m bad at this. I’m not good at this. I’m not this, I’m not that. And it’s almost as if the world is affirming those negative thoughts that they already have on the inside.

Janet Lansbury: Right. So they’re getting hooked into these stories about themselves.

Phinnah Chichi: Exactly. And it just goes on and on. They make up these stories based on the experiences they have around them. A friend disappoints them, a friend doesn’t call them, something happens, or a friend is hanging out with another friend. They start to make up all these stories about themselves.

Janet Lansbury: I think also, before we even validate, we’ve got to understand what’s giving them that impression, right? Is it because your friend didn’t call you back right away? Or, you know, I love how you always focus in your work on that active listening and how important that is. I work with parents on this in the early years, too. It takes us having to calm the reactive part of ourselves, calm that part that wants to fix it, that’s really uncomfortable that our child is feeling that way. Because by doing that, we’re shutting down the conversation instead of hearing what’s really going on. And having that openness and kind of saying less at first really helps. You also talk in your book about, it may not be the time in that moment to offer advice. I call it braving the silence, where we just reflect back, This is how you feel, ah. And not putting that fix on it that we all want to put on there. Or I do at least.

Phinnah Chichi: No, we all do. We always want to fix, because we’ve been helping them since they were young. It happens even with my 16-year-old. You know, during the Covid, she was really depressed. She just shut down. And as she would share with me –you know, sometimes– when she would share with me in tears, I’m tempted to fix the solution. Don’t think that way! But in my mind, I would tell myself, Okay, Phinnah, just shh shh, just be quiet. Just kind of listen, just listen. Just let her say everything. Even if what she’s saying does not make sense and you’re thinking, Wait, why is she thinking like this? Just let her say it all out and keep saying, I hear you. Thank you for sharing that with me. Thank you. Very uncomfortable because I want to help. I’m desperate to help.

Janet Lansbury: It’s a practice, it’s a constant practice that we have. And yeah, as I said, I believe in trying to start this as early as possible with young children too. And most of the parents listening here have younger children. And I so much wanted you on the podcast to help them stay on the track that I think I’m trying to help them be on. And to also see where maybe they need to even shift more as their children get older, and what to expect. And I remember when I had little ones– I have three that are all adults, young adults, now. How many do you have? You have four?

Phinnah Chichi: I have three.

Janet Lansbury: And your youngest is 16?

Phinnah Chichi: Yes, she’s 16.

Janet Lansbury: You’re a veteran of the teen years also.

Phinnah Chichi: Yes.

Janet Lansbury: When my kids were really young, I even thought a 10-year-old seemed really together and, you know, almost tough on the outside. But especially teenagers, I just had these images of them that they are kind of scary, these selfish people that won’t want to talk to you or won’t want to be open, that don’t need you anymore, maybe. And then when your child gets to that age, you realize, Whoa, they’re so vulnerable. I mean, it’s always the people with the harder shell on the outside, right, that are the most vulnerable. And that’s sort of what a teen is to me. You have to practice that seeing beyond to the person.

Phinnah Chichi: Mm-hmm.

Janet Lansbury: And that can be a challenge in the beginning because we can tend to, like you say in your book, see them as irresponsible, selfish, dependent on tech, disrespectful, always moody, lazy, badly behaved, don’t listen. And you suggest, divorce ourselves from these negative reports and claim better for your own teens.

Phinnah Chichi: Totally. It’s so important because if we don’t, then we actually talk to them like the labels that we call them. Just very unconsciously. And they know the labels that the world has on them. They know that adults think that they’re this way. And so they’re having every day to actually be defensive, fight off those labels. So they’re going through a lot as well.

Janet Lansbury: Yeah. And what that does is, as you said, it makes this divide between us. It’s harder to connect, right? It’s harder to empathize because we’ve decided this is this whole other kind of person now. It’s not the same little baby that we had or the same little toddler that we had. It’s this other thing. And we have to combat it and you know, keep it in line.

Phinnah Chichi: Exactly. I always tell parents, think back to when we were teenagers and you’ll get a bit of more understanding to your teen when you can reflect on how you were as a teenager.

Janet Lansbury: I noticed just today that you have a course, I guess it’s for the children, you have a webinar about transitioning from primary to secondary school. And I was thinking, Would I have loved that! We call it middle school out here, but how painful and just so self-conscious and awful everything was, and everything felt such a big deal. And you know, This is me forever.

Phinnah Chichi: It’s a tough period for young people. That stage is very tough, very tough.

Janet Lansbury: Yes. I think there are a lot of similarities to the toddler years, which is more my specialty. And it’s even harsher because they kind of need to be so outer-directed in a lot of ways. You know, it’s healing for them to have those social interactions that are beyond us. That’s so important, but that could also be a source of their anxiety too. But they need that so much.

What do you think about this idea that teens need to keep secrets from us, you know, not share certain things, have more privacy and things like that. Do you feel like that’s valid?

Phinnah Chichi: Yeah, in a way. What I feel is I’m very aware and I’m very open to the fact that I may not know everything about my teenagers. And that’s fine with me. When I was growing up, I didn’t tell my mom everything. So I will think that yes, they have some things that they won’t tell me. But my belief is that the important things, I will get to know. And it’s okay for them to share, you know, little things with their own friends. My desire for them is to have the right people that they can talk to and it’s to help them to build that healthy friendship.

So one of the things that I do, and I always share this with my daughter is, A good friend, what are the qualities that you want in a good friend? And so we talk through that because for me, once I know that she’s surrounded with good friends, then whatever she shares with these friends, there will definitely be a healthy conversation going on. It won’t lead her astray. And she knows that I’m there if she needs to talk to me about main things. And we’re quite close because I’m very big on the relationship. I focus a lot on our relationship over the rules that we have in the home. Actually, I never call them rules, I just call them agreements that we have.

Janet Lansbury: I love that about you. It goes beyond connect before you correct. The whole thing is about connecting. Even when you’re giving advice or having boundaries or you want to help your child do something differently, it’s got to all be couched in this connection. And it’s great that you value that and your book definitely values that because that’s everything, right? That’s what we leave teenage years with, is a relationship.

Phinnah Chichi: Yes, exactly. I speak to a lot of young adults as well who are not in great relationships with their parents because their parents focused more on the rules, Go and study, Go and do this, rather than the actual relationship. So now you hear a lot of estrangements, parents and their children. The kids have moved away not really communicating with their parents or thinking back to what their parents said when they were younger. So all these things are things that now, for parents of younger children, we are always encouraging them to stay focused on the relationship. This is the time to build this relationship, before they become young adults. So that in the young adult stage you enjoy the relationship.

And I was talking about friendship because there’s lots of changes of friendship groups in the teenage years. And so knowing for themselves who is a good friend and then attracting themselves to people who have those qualities. Of course, they need to share those qualities with their friends as well. I tell teenagers that the qualities you love about a friend are the qualities you should be giving as well as a friend. And so teenagers being equipped with knowing the right kind of friends to have, it really is a game-changer for them. Because they go through the middle school years and the high school years with that healthy sense of belonging. A lot of times when you see teenagers who are going through depression, anxiety, if you really break it down, they’ve had some friendship issues. They’ve had some friends that have disappointed them. And you know, that sense of belonging has kind of been interrupted for them. And so they internalize it and they start to think more negatively about themselves. So friendships is another big key for parents of young children to start to talk about to their children before even their children become teenagers, because that’s one area that really puts them down a lot.

My daughter as well, she struggled with friendships in the first year, we call it here, year seven. She had a bit of issues with friends and that really, you know, put her in a state of mind that she didn’t really want. And we had to keep talking about that. And actually the key, as a parent, you hear about the things that maybe the friends are doing, is not to speak against the friends. Because a lot of times when we talk against their friends, they’re very defensive. Even if their friends are saying wrong things to them, they’re quite defensive and protective of their friends.

Janet Lansbury: Oh, that was one of the big lessons my oldest daughter gave me. I knew, because I had been practicing this since they were little, not to judge my child. Because that’s going to put this wedge between you and then they’re not going to share, they’re not going to open up to you. Even if we say, Oh, don’t cry, don’t cry, it’s okay, in a way that’s saying, You can’t share that with me, and You shouldn’t feel that way, and so there’s something wrong with you for feeling that way. So even those tiny things. So I’m very aware of that. But then, yeah, when she was navigating an issue with a friend and she was complaining to me about the friend and how the friend had done this really hurtful thing and I did say something against the friend and my daughter said, “Don’t judge my friends, ever.”

I learned from that and I’ve mostly been able to follow that now. But yeah, that’s a big one. Not only can we not judge them, but we can’t even judge the people that they’re sort of complaining about. And I remember reading about this a long time ago, that it’s that safety in numbers that they feel, and it is a balm for them, for all their kind of open sores that they walk around with as teens and this vulnerability and all the fears and everything: Well, I’ve got my friends. And that is a lot of validation for them and in a positive way, usually.

Phinnah Chichi: In a positive way, yes. And a sense of belonging.

So one of the things that I will encourage parents, especially, you know, your audience of parents of younger children, is to introduce affirmations. Having our children to start speaking positively about themselves. It actually prepares them for those years ahead where, as the teenage brain is thinking, Oh, I’m not good in this, I’m not good in that. Having, I call it a tank full of positive affirmations, which will then increase their positive emotions, will help them in those times when those negative thinking and thoughts come through. So building that habit. Sometimes when we leave it until their teenage years, teenagers are like, Oh no, do I really need to say that? Oh, is that really true? But I don’t feel that way. But starting at a younger age to just increase the positive things that they think about themselves, how they know themselves, positive affirmations, building up things that increase their positive emotions will help them in those 10 years.

Janet Lansbury: Yes, that makes sense. And then coming from us too, when we notice things, trying to remember to say, Wow, that was so patient of you to wait for me while I had to take care of your sibling or whatever, and, Thank you. Or, You figured that out all by yourself! Noticing all those things.

Phinnah Chichi: Yeah, the listening part is a big part as well. We talked about that earlier. But yeah, that’s a key part because, you know, I’ll hear young people tell me, “Oh, you know, my mom doesn’t love me or my dad doesn’t care about me.” And I’ll be like, “But did they say that?” “No, but just the fact that they didn’t listen to me the way they reacted when I said something, it just makes sense. Very obvious that they don’t love me.” So there are a lot of conclusions that our children make.

Janet Lansbury: Right. And we know the parent wasn’t intending that message at all.

Phinnah Chichi: Totally not, the parent wasn’t intending that. The parent didn’t even know that they’d made such a conclusion. We’ve got to listen to them very actively.

Janet Lansbury: I love in your book, and I wish I would’ve done this as a parent of teens, I love how you offered this “new teen conversation” to have. It’s this beautiful kind of rite of passage, a connecting, acknowledging speech or communication that you would give. And you gave an explicit example. Wow. I would’ve loved to have that as a teen and I wish I would’ve given that to my teens, although they did all right. They navigated it all pretty well because I think I had prepared them for emotional intelligence and our relationship has always been solid and I feel really grateful for that. But boy, just all that acknowledging of what a difficult time this is. Difficult, but also positive. But you mentioned all the challenges. Can you talk a little about that?

Phinnah Chichi: Yeah, that was a game changer. With my daughter, I just remember that the night before her birthday, she was a little bit down. I was thinking, It’s your birthday, we’re going to do lovely things tomorrow. Why was she down? So I just kind of offered her like, you know, “What’s going on? It’s your birthday tomorrow.” And she goes, “I’m worried.” And she opened up to me, she said, “I’m worried. I don’t know what kind of a teenager I’m going to be. I heard so many things about teenagers.” And so I came in, sat down, and I just kind of heard her, listened to her. And then I started, I said, “Do you mind if I share some things with you?” And she said, “Yeah, go for it.” And then I started to talk her through this. And it was the feedback she gave me that made me realize, she said, “Mom, thank you. I needed that.” So teenagers are worried about their teen years. She said, “I needed that and that’s really, really helped me.”

And I could see through the years, there’s some things, when she goes through some challenges, she will note it down that, Yeah, Mom did talk about that. So then what do I do about these challenges? Sometimes I tell her, “Okay, go think through it.” Because sometimes I want her to have the solutions rather than me solving it for her. But that made me realize that this is something that is so vital. And so I started sharing that as well with my sisters who then shared it with their own kids that were turning 13 and we found out that this was something, it really just opened their eyes and prepared them for the teen years. So yes, it worked because there’s validation in it.

I always tell teenagers to go out there and look for at least three to five values that you want to hold onto. And actually go Google about the values, you know, what are the kind of things that you need to do to actually showcase that you are practicing those values? So if you choose commitments, what are the kind of things you do in a day to show that you are committed? Just to get them also used to choosing the things for themselves. It’s not about parents choosing the values for them now that they’re teens. It’s about them taking the responsibility and choosing it and saying, You know what, this year I want to be more courageous, or This year I want to be more determined, or This year I want to be more hardworking. They get to choose it and they get to be accountable for it. So it’s definitely been something that has helped lots of teenagers. So yeah, I’m so happy that I got that.

Janet Lansbury: And were you already working with parents and teens professionally?

Phinnah Chichi: Oh yes, yes, yes. I was already doing that. Yeah.

Janet Lansbury: So you were basing it on everything you knew about teens?

Phinnah Chichi: Everything I knew and everything I was practicing at the time. And the thing is, when I get these ideas and it works, I then share it with parents. Like, Okay, you know what, why don’t you try this? Why don’t you try that? But one thing I noticed about parents of new teenagers is that we come in with, I won’t call it more threatening, it’s more like, Now that you’re a teenager, don’t do this. Now that you’re a teenager, don’t do this, don’t do this, don’t do this. So there’s a lot of, don’t, don’t, don’t!

Janet Lansbury: All the things that we did, right?

Phinnah Chichi: Exactly. In the book I wrote about disempowering conversations and empowering conversations. So every time when we’re talking to teenagers about the things they shouldn’t do, don’t do this, don’t do this, don’t do this. It’s like, Okay, then what should they do? They don’t have the skills that they need. We need to actually empower them with the skills, rather than all the don’t dos, don’t dos.

Janet Lansbury: Exactly. And it reminded me of, one thing I work with parents is to prepare them, even with your toddler or your one-year-old, to just tell them in simple language what’s going to happen when they go to the doctor or go to a new situation of some kind and without putting any value judgements or this is going to be great or anything like that. Just saying, Oh, so this is what you can expect and this may happen and this part may hurt. You know, all the things. And how empowering that is for them because then they can come into the situation sort of knowing, which is a great feeling to have when you’re going into this scary new situation, right? Like the teen years. To know and to know, Oh, all these feelings that I’m having or that I might have are to be expected.

Phinnah Chichi: Exactly.

Janet Lansbury: What a gift that is.

Phinnah Chichi: Beautiful gift, beautiful gift. And it also helps them deal with uncertainty. They’re able to manage any kind of uncertainty because we’re being open. I love what you shared there because sometimes parents will think, Oh, but do they need to know all that? But it’s important for them to know. It actually increases their vocabulary, it increases their sense of self and their confidence about what they know. You know, they’re going to the doctors, they kind of know what to expect. Those are all the things that actually help to build a confident child. So that’s great. I love what you shared there. That’s great.

Janet Lansbury: And then they can actually even almost, maybe not look forward to all of the hurtful parts, but they can look forward to, Okay, how am I going to handle that? Because I know that might happen, but I can handle that. Underneath it all it’s like, I can, because this is par for the course. This is what everyone goes through. Gosh, I really wish I would’ve thought of that about the teen conversation. I mean, your book alone for that is worth it.

And also the teen success tips. I was so moved by these, I thought, I need these for myself. Like, for example, I wrote a couple of these down, so this is number three: “Do not base your expectations for today on what happened yesterday. Today is a totally new day and it can only be totally different if you expect it to be. Play your part today. Expect the best from yourself and do your very best. Remember that you’re amazing.” And, I love number five, too: “The key to failure is trying to please everyone. The key to success is doing the right thing, no matter what else others are doing. Today, choose success because you deserve it.” Yeah. I kind of get teared up reading some of these. Because I need them for myself. What a gift. Really.

Phinnah Chichi: Thank you. It was teenagers I used to work with first, years and years ago, and then I realized that I’ve got to talk to parents as well, through talking to teenagers. So yeah, I’ve got a big passion for them. I’m very passionate about teenagers.

Janet Lansbury: Yeah, it’s a beautiful time. I mean, I feel that way about the toddler years and I feel like there’s a part of me emotionally that relates so much to that. But checking out your work and reading this book, it’s made me feel that in myself about the teen years. That I have those same yearnings, I have some of those same insecurities and needs and yeah, I feel like I’m still navigating some of this. And maybe it is just a life journey that just sort of comes on very harshly in those certain years. But it’s beautiful too.

Phinnah Chichi: It’s a beautiful time for them. Yeah.

Janet Lansbury: I also love in your book how you break everything down, your advice down, into what you call “codes” for relating to our children, giving them the boundaries they need. You call boundaries “agreements.” And these are parenting navigation codes: the helpful codes, the unhelpful codes, and then the mental health and wellbeing codes, which are for us, right? As parents. Because you’re not leaving us out here, and what we should do with teens. You remind us we cannot give what we don’t have. Yeah. So that’s obviously a really important part of this, that we can’t just be the parent that we want to be unless we fuel ourselves.

Phinnah Chichi: Totally. And those are practices that I do. These are things that I do myself. Because we can’t pour out from an empty cup, as they say. The priority so much amounts to take care of ourselves first. And then we have what to give to our children. We have the compassion, the empathy, the calmness, you know. So sometimes things can happen. And if you are not in a state of calm, if you’re not in a place where you’ve practiced self-control, then you won’t have the right tools to actually pass on to your children.

And children watch us. There’s a quote that says, “A lot of things are caught more than they’re taught.” You know, so they catch things from us. That positive energy that we have, that calmness and gentleness, that compassion that we have. But we have to take care of ourselves to be able to give that, that doesn’t just come out automatically. With all the things that are going on in the world today, self-care is so vital for every parent. It’s actually number one. And from that, you can then give yourself.

Janet Lansbury: Can you talk a little specifically about your recommendations for self-care?

Phinnah Chichi: Yes. One of my first things is gratitude. I fill out a gratitude journal. The main thing for me is in the mornings, I spend time meditating. If I spend time with myself, just get myself to a place of, Okay, what have I done? What do I need to do better? What do I need to do for today? Also, my expectations about my children, as well. I bring in, you know, in my thoughts, my expectation of my kids. Just wishing them well and also just staying positive about them, whatever it is that they’re doing. Just being positive about that. And so that’s how I start my mornings. I make sure that I do that. I take care of myself. I do my exercises, I’m trying to be more consistent with it. But those kind of things, they keep my mind very settled.

I’m very intentional about how I am when I go out there. Making sure that I’m kind, I’m compassionate, that I’m positive. I told someone this the other day, I said, I’m very allergic to negativity. I can’t deal with negativity, I’ll just walk away. So that positive energy that I intentionally equip myself with every day is what I take out when I go out, is what I take out when I talk to parents and talk to teenagers. Then in the evenings, I write in my journal, you know, what was good about today, what I could have done better. But I always end it with, I’m grateful for today. I’m just grateful. Pick one or two or three things that I’ve done today. I’m grateful. Like this podcast is going to be part of my things in my journal this evening.

Janet Lansbury: Aw, well, I hope it’s on the good list.

Phinnah Chichi: Oh yeah, totally on the good list.

Janet Lansbury: I’ve loved connecting with you. This has been really fun. And you know, I’m a new fan of yours, but I’m a definite fan.

I just want to share one more thing from your book, which is where you give this list about parenting teen quotes that will help guide you on your journey, A to Z. So B is “Believe in your teens.” This again, to me, starts from birth. Believing in your child as a basically capable person who’s very different from you. It’s not going to be a mini-you, it’s somebody else that we’re going to see unfold in all these different ways. And in the teen years, wow, you really see them branching out and it’s so, so fascinating. If you could see it that way and not be threatened, you know, be interested and be open to it. But I especially love Y, which is, “Remember your great example is not by being perfect. Your teens prefer You. The imperfect you, the growing you, the you who makes mistakes and apologizes. The you who listens to them. The you who is joyful and forgiving. The you who speaks to them with respect, they’re learning respect from you. The you who will never give up on them, no matter the mistakes they make.”

It’s a good letter.

Phinnah Chichi: I remember when I wrote that, I remember it was first thing in the morning. It just came up in my head and I just wrote it down so quickly. It’s a big one for me, yeah, it’s a big one. Because it puts us in that situation where we have to be so conscious about what we are doing as parents. We have to be very conscious because we are their great example. And that’s how we stay connected with them. That’s how our relationship with them, you know, blossoms and evolves. Just remembering that we are that good example to them. So it’s vital. It’s everything.

Janet Lansbury: Talking about your morning routine, what can parents do if they’re so busy? They have to go to work. They’ve got all these other maybe children or challenges going on. And what if they have hardly any time or energy for any of this? What should they focus on?

Phinnah Chichi: I would say they should make the time because it’s priority. And it doesn’t have to take long. It can even just be waking up about 10 minutes earlier than normal and just having that time for themselves. Even if it’s two or three words that they repeat to themselves every morning for five, 10 minutes or even five minutes, even probably over a cup of coffee. Just say something to yourself. It’s about what you tell yourself, because we want to keep on building those positive emotions. So prioritize that, create it, even if it’s five minutes to yourself. It could even be when you’re brushing, just say some things. I have some little affirmations on my mirror in the bathroom, so when I’m brushing I can just look at those words, you know, and just say some things to myself.

Again, what we’re trying to do is just build up those positive emotions. Because we’re going to need it throughout the day. Rather than give so much time to all the stresses out there in the world, let’s create some time. It’s priority. Create some time to look after you. It doesn’t have to be an hour. It can be a few minutes. You’ll find out that if you’re spending five minutes on it, because you then see the results of what’s going on. You’ll want to spend more time, just to really, really enjoy that space for yourself. Really good. And it helps you with how you then interact with people out there in the world, once you get up in the morning. Your relationships, your spouses, your friends, your work colleagues, you’re kind of in a better frame of mind because you’ve looked after you first. So it’s really key.

Janet Lansbury: I love it. I want to call you first thing in the morning.

I wanted to also mention to everyone that on March 24th, Phinnah’s going to be releasing her new online workshop. It’s a self-paced workshop called Parenting A New Teen. And that sounds wonderful. I’ve been talking a lot about Phinnah’s book, The Parenting Teens Navigation System. So you’ll definitely want to check that one out. And yeah, thank you so much again for sharing with us today and hanging out with me. I really appreciate it.

Phinnah Chichi: I appreciate it too. Thank you so much. I’ve enjoyed our conversation. As you said, we can go on and on.

Janet Lansbury: We could.

Phinnah Chichi: It’s been beautiful. Thank you so much. And thank you for what you do as well because it’s so important. Just toddler years, those early years, is actually key. So yeah, thank you so much for what you do and for the lives that you are transforming and changing as well. We appreciate you. Thank you.

Janet Lansbury: Thank you.

You can learn more about Phinnah and her work through her website, parentingteenssolutions.com. And I’ll also be linking to her book The Parenting Teens Navigation System in the show notes.

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

I have good news! Finally, all in one place, you can get the whole picture on my respectful, empathic discipline approach. It’s right here at nobadkidscourse.com. The feedback from parents and professionals has been incredible and I’m so excited to share this with you!

The post Preparing Our Children to Be Emotionally Healthy Teens (With Phinnah Chichi) appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

No matter how we approach raising our children, there are times we’ll feel physically, mentally, or emotionally exhausted. Maybe all of the above. We’re only human, of course, but it may also be that we’re taking on more than we need to — depleting our energy with roles and tasks that are better left to our child. In this episode, Janet offers ideas for lightening our workload by recognizing and trusting our children’s intrinsic abilities. Janet’s job description reframe can help save our energy, nurture self-confidence, and at the same time foster a flourishing parent-child relationship.

Transcript of “Is Parenting Too Hard? You May Be Doing To Much”

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Transcript of “How Sportscasting Helps Kids Develop Social Intelligence”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled. Today I’m going to be answering a question from a parent who really has her hands full. She’s got three kids – 4 ½, 2 and 3 months. She describes the two year old as nonverbal and she’s wondering how to sportscast disagreements between him and his older brother without making false assumptions about what he’s thinking.

Here’s the email that I received:

Hi Janet! Thank you, your podcast has helped me to stay calm in some situations I know I wouldn’t have before.

I’ve noticed that my two boys usually solve their problems faster and better without my intervention. It’s awesome! What I’m hoping you’ll do a podcast on sometime is conflict resolution for nonverbal children.

Out of my three kids, ages four-and-a-half, two, and three months, only one is really verbal and he didn’t even start until he was over two-and-a-half years old. I try to sportscast disagreements between the older two, but it’s hard when I don’t really know what the two-year-old is thinking. I’m hoping you can give some tips, because I’m sure I’ll experience similar struggles with the baby once she starts interacting more with her brothers. Thanks!

Okay, I’m really happy to hear this podcast has helped this parent to stay calm, and also that she’s noticing how her two boys can solve their problems without her intervention. Yes, that is awesome. That’s wonderful. Actually, children do this better without our intervention most of the time because they feel freer to problem solve when they don’t sense we are bringing in our own judgments or agendas. This is also helpful to them in the bigger picture with building confidence in themselves in regard to social engagement and conflict resolution,  because our interventions can train them to believe that they are dependent on us, that they can’t do it themselves. Because we as their influential leaders are unwittingly showing them that we don’t quite believe they can. 

While we think we’re helping, and this is true with a lot of different kinds of helping that we do with children, helping sounds so wonderful but helping sometimes gives the child a message, or often gives the child a message, You can’t do this. You need me to do this for you or to make it work for you. Children build confidence in themselves and their abilities to resolve social conflicts when they are able to experience and feel from us that we believe they can do it.

So whether these are siblings or peers, to foster a feeling in children of being more capable and also allowing them to learn more though their practice, practice, practice, we’ll want to try to intervene in the most minimal way so that they can do the maximum they can do safely. This parent also makes a comment about her child being nonverbal. What she means, I believe, is that he does not have expressive language yet. He almost certainly does have receptive language because children begin learning receptive language from birth, possibly even in the wombs. By hearing us speak words to them and to others, they start to comprehend and internalize language. So, this child likely does have a lot of language, he’s just not speaking yet

With that in mind, what is sportscasting and how do we do this with children that are actually not speaking words? Sportscasting is actually just supporting children in their struggles of any kind. This can be with one child on their own with an object or a project that they’re working on, and all it really is is acknowledging. Acknowledging what we see because we sense that our child would appreciate the clarification or interpretation or a show of our attention and support in that moment. 

Sportscasting was Magda Gerber’s term and I realize it’s maybe not quite as accurate a term as it could be, because “sportscasting” sounds like we’re giving a running dialogue of what’s happening, as sportscasters do during games. And that is not the intention at all. It’s not “now so-and-so is doing this and now they’re doing that,” because that would be interruptive for children, and way too tiring and unnatural feeling for us.

Sportscasting is only recommended when we sense that acknowledging the situation would help a child.

And then it really is just about the facts. It’s actually not about us trying to decide what someone’s intention is, what they’re feeling, what they’re thinking. It’s only what we know for sure that we reflect back to the children. That means, even with the child who is speaking or otherwise communicating, we wouldn’t decide what they’re thinking or what they want. We really don’t know. All we know is that you both seem to want this toy.

So I wouldn’t even make comments like, “He’s still using this” or “He wanted to use this longer.” We actually don’t really know that for sure. Why does it matter that we’re so precise on this? It matters because the whole point of sportscasting is actually not just to give children language and a better understanding of the situation and to help them feel heard and understood, but it is for us to remind ourselves not to project, to really be observant, and try to see from the children’s perspective rather than with our adult lens.

Projection is something that we all do, especially with children, and most especially with children who do not have expressive language yet. It’s wonderful that this parent wants to be careful about that. I would be careful about it with any child because it’s really hard not to do. It’s such an inclination that we all have, to see, “He took that from you” and “You’re sad” instead of, “It seems like you’re saying ‘No, I don’t like that.’”

A lot of times, because we as parents care so much and can tend to worry, our projections will often tend to be our worst fear, or the worst case scenario… which causes us to take it up a notch. “He’s really sad and he needed that and you got that.” 

Innately for children, these kinds of struggles are often more interesting than negative and to be avoided, actually very interesting. “What happens when I do this? Wow, hey, he got that. I think I want that, too.” They’re very in-the-moment. While they often go through developmental stages where they want to hold on to control their environment and react more strongly to “loss” of that control, i.e.,from the latter part of the first year to 15 months or so when they commonly experience separation anxiety and react strongly to surprises of any kind, they don’t have these preconceived ideas of what’s right and what’s fair.

And their open-mindedness – their beginner’s mind – is why they are so able to learn about their world and conflict resolution. They don’t have these ideas that we might have, that can narrow our perceptions of situations. We make quicker judgments about them. It’s marvelous, this openness children have. They can see all the possibilities and they’re coming from a place of not deciding that this other person is being mean or a bad guy or stingy or grabby or anything like that. They’re fluid learners with each other. 

So with this approach, much of our role is restraint, sportscasting responsively with just the facts, and minimally. We don’t need to talk as much as we might think. We can wait until a child looks puzzled or looks at us or appears as if they need some support in what’s happening. If those things didn’t happen, I would just be there and be present. “You two both want this. It’s hard when you’re both holding onto this at the same time.”

Allowing them to have the struggle. Allowing it to be a loud, scary-looking struggle where no one is getting hurt. When we’re able to be there, we’re able to  stop hands from grabbing each other and block hitting or pushing or touching each other’s bodies. They can both hold onto the object, if that’s what it’s about, but not touch each other’s bodies. Then if this is an object that we don’t feel safe about, maybe it’s something heavy, a truck or something that we’re not sure if someone’s gonna get hurt, we could say, “You know, I can’t let you struggle over this. This doesn’t seem safe. I’m gonna need to take this for now.”

That’s okay to do, as well. We’ll need to make those kinds of judgment calls. But beyond safety, I would aim to give them free rein to struggle. That’s what allows them to experience and learn and master conflict resolution. Now, in terms of being preverbal regarding expressive language, I would understand that another positive to sportscasting is reinforcing those words for children and modeling speaking those words.

Maybe encouraging a little bit – again, it has to be from a neutral place, but encouraging the expressive language in the situation. When we see something physical, let’s say the older child has something, the younger child wants it, he’s grabbing it, the older child’s getting angry, the younger child now wants to bite. With siblings especially, these things are also going to happen when we’re not there. After the fact, the challenge is even greater to let it go (block it from happening again) and not overreact to the victim, confirming to that child that we perceive them as a victim and to the other child that they are a villain in our eyes.  

Children will read that from us if we’re fawning over or pitying the “victim” who very likely played a part in the conflict that we didn’t see. Children do. Siblings, they master each other. They know that other person very, very well. Maybe even better than we know our children. So, I would try not to take sides, even after the fact because of that messaging that gives to both the children. (But hey, it will happen that we’ll fall into that. Perfectly normal! So if you’re aiming for a neutral coaching vs. refereeing approach, give yourself a break – this is a big challenge!) But in that moment, stopping that child from biting, we can acknowledge/sportscast, “That makes you want to bite.” and then reiterate in just a brief few words: “I can’t let you bite.” 

Meanwhile, your hand is there. You’re holding his shoulder back from his brother so that he can’t bite. You’re making that impossible. 

There you can say, “Looks like you’re telling him, ‘No, I want that.’” Even there, where we are maybe a little bit trying to read what’s going on and maybe we’re not going to be totally accurate, I would say, “Looks like you’re” or “Seems like you’re saying” or “Do you want to tell him?” not expecting that my child’s going to say it right there or do it right there, but just reinforcing that language to remind them and model for them that there is language for what they’re feeling and doing.

That’s it. The hardest part is letting children engage in the conflicts, because it’s going to look gnarly sometimes, particularly for those of us (like me) who tend to shy away from conflicts and others who maybe get emotionally triggered by them. That older child’s going to seem really mean. Maybe for some people it’s the younger child that seems really, really aggressive and at fault. It may be that one child has a more dominant personality. Still, both children flourish and learn best when they feel like we’re on their side. That we are both of their coaches, not their referees. We love them both and both of them have a valid point of view in any situation. That’s basically what sportscasting is. It’s coming from that challenging but hugely respectful, trusting, affirming and unconditionally loving place in ourselves.

I think this parent will continue to see these wonderful results that she’s getting. I really hope this extra bit of feedback helps.

Thanks so much for listening. We can do this.

Please check out some of the other podcasts on my website, janetlandsbury.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: 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, 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.

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A parent who’s always been her toddler’s playmate helps her child over the hump to flourish in independent play. Another parent learns to set boundaries, shift her perspective, and accept her child’s meltdowns. Janet shares a special milestone and much more in this latest episode of Unruffled.

Transcript of “Independent Play, Meltdowns, Boundaries — Success Stories from My Inbox”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury, welcome to Unruffled. Today, I’m going to be sharing some very revealing stories that I received from parents. These are success stories. I find them also to be instructive and I think you will too. They demonstrate how respectful care really does work. I’ll also be sharing an announcement about a special milestone.

I am blessed to receive so much wonderful correspondence. And of course, I especially love the stories parents share with me about how they’re using this approach I teach, how it’s helping them, and how they’ve faced the challenges that we’re getting in their way. So I’ve curated a few here that I want to share with you today.

Here’s the first one. It’s about encouraging independent play:

I just wanted to say, thanks for all your help and support. I have two children, a boy who is four and a girl who is one. I first became aware of you when my son was around two-and-a-half. I have really appreciated your insight around self-directed play. I must confess I played with my son around the clock, taught him rather than let him work things out for himself, and prompted him with play. I thought I was doing the right thing and nurturing him.

He’s fiercely intelligent. He’s also very cautious. I’ve been really honest with him recently that I love him dearly, but that I don’t feel like playing or that I have things I need to do. We had a few months of upset around this, him becoming angry and saying he can’t play on his own. We’ve validated this. We treated his responses with kindness but remained calm and boundaries when we are not able or don’t want to play.

He’s now loving the independent play. I’ve seen such development these past few weeks, he’s had a hair salon, a shop, and he’s been using the sofa cushion as rocks and rescuing things. It’s a delight to listen to him talk in his made-up world. It’s also a great relief, understandably. Playing all the time was becoming tedious for me. And this was feeding into feelings of guilt. He played independently for hours yesterday.

So what did this parent do? She did the hard thing that really is what gets in the way with so many parents that I’ve worked with. They don’t want to say no to play. And there are all kinds of guilt-inducing quotes around out there on social media about how we should always say yes to playing with a child and how they need this time with us. So it’s hard to be honest.

The truth is that’s not our job to entertain our children. And our play does tend to, without us even realizing it, take over theirs, because we’re very powerful in this relationship. It’s not an even dynamic in terms of power. So with our best intentions, we can interfere with play both by the way that we naturally play with our child and kind of end up directing the play and also by not being comfortable freeing our child. And freeing our child often comes with boundaries. It feels mean, right? So getting over that hump to how positive it is, how freeing it is for a child to develop all these incredible things in their self-directed play, how therapeutic this is for them, how educational it is, how creative. We could never devise a curriculum for our children with play that would be as constructive for them as the one that they create for themselves.

I love that this parent took the plunge and allowed for those weeks of the feelings that her child shared, which could not have been comfortable for her. So kudos!

Okay, here’s another note I received about setting boundaries and allowing for a child’s feelings in response:

My wife and I have a foster daughter who is four, almost five. She’s been part of our family for just over a year.

I’ve been in childcare for quite some time and expected to be a bit more prepared for parenting. While there are certainly helpful things I’ve pulled from nannying and preschool work. I was nowhere as prepared as I thought I was to be a mom. She has quite a bit of trauma. The meltdowns are frequent and long. She has a hard time with boundaries. And while I can hold boundaries with my nanny kids, it’s been much harder to hold them with my daughter. I break at the first sign of her crying or being upset, particularly because of her trauma history. And I was giving in far too easily. Even when I knew better.

I started listening to Unruffled on the recommendation of a good and trusted friend. I wanted a better way of parenting, especially for her. I wanted to give her respect, love, and safety. I started with an episode surrounding “no,” and went back to start listening to them all.

All of my perspectives started shifting almost immediately. I could see she was venting her emotions and the trust that indicated.

I could see I wasn’t helping any of us by not holding boundaries. I started seeing where she was struggling and that it wasn’t “coddling” her to stop and help when it was too hard for her. That in and of itself was huge for us.

As the way I saw her behavior shifted, I saw everything actually getting easier.

Her meltdowns had receded for quite some time but recently resurfaced due to some big changes and some triggers. We were at a loss for what to do until I remembered that these were her venting her emotions.

So one night I held a boundary I wasn’t sure I could hold, but I could see her pushing it and I knew she needed the meltdown. I knew she was asking me to give her what she needed. So I held it and the meltdown started. I took her gently to her room where I knew she’d be safe if I had to step out and sat with her. I didn’t say much, just took breaths and sat, occasionally telling her that I heard her and I was here for her.

The meltdown ended so much sooner than any previous ones. And that’s continued to hold true, even when I’m not sure I should hold a boundary I do, gently and respectfully. My wife and I sit with her while she vents, giving space for her to have that and trying our hardest to sit in acceptance.

I used to get so frustrated when she’d have these big screaming meltdowns. And now I recognize that she’s just done venting and it’s okay to let her move on and be done.

I used to wanna rush her through meltdowns and just calm her down. Now I can see when it’s just too hard for her and I help her move through it. I don’t get frustrated and annoyed when she won’t listen. It’s easier for me to see that she just can’t. I pay more attention to her early cues and see where it’s going to be too hard. I walk her through things more. “Ah, this is too much for you tonight. I’m going to help you with brushing your teeth and putting on your pajamas,” et cetera. Instead of thinking, well, she knows how to do it herself. I see where she’s asking for connection instead of just seeking a negative “attention seeking” behavior.

Wow. So yeah, this parent is stepping up to hold the boundaries, realizing that letting her daughter release feelings with her is really the deepest and most bonding kind of connection that there is. We’re saying: I accept you as you are — your bright and your dark sides — and I help you when you can’t at that moment do it yourself for whatever reason. No questions asked.

It’s not that she won’t listen. It’s that she just can’t in that moment. Once we start seeing that way, we don’t go back. We’re uncovering another layer, and life with a child can be a little bit easier.

I also thought it was interesting and understandable that she said when she was a nanny it was a lot easier. Yes. It’s almost always easier for a nanny or a teacher to set those boundaries with children. Why? Because they don’t resist in the same way. They don’t have the same trust level where they’re going to push harder and share those feelings and maybe have those meltdowns. They’re not nearly as likely to do that with someone who they have a more professional relationship with and who’s not their parent or their primary caregiver.

And when a child does have trauma or any uncomfortable feelings inside, there’s going to be even more of that pushing to get the limits so that they can vent their feelings. So that’s where we can see the limit-pushing and the meltdowns as a high compliment that we’re trusted. We are their person. We’re the close ones to them. And with that understanding, the whole picture becomes clearer and easier. We’re still going to maybe get triggered by certain behaviors or certain feelings our child shares, but we have a place to go back to — a perception that this is all right, this is how it’s supposed to be. This is actually a positive thing that my child is pushing and pushing. And that I have to say no, and be the quote “bad guy” and allow them to get mad at me or frustrated in response or sad.

So, well done to this parent.

Okay. Here’s one that’s a little bit lighter and it’s about modeling respectful boundaries and the power of our modeling. This one came to me on Instagram in a message:

My husband and I listened to your podcast and really appreciate all of your work. So first and foremost, thank you. We had a laugh this morning when I was detangling my three year old daughter’s curls. And she very calmly looked at me and said, mama, I can’t let you do this. It is not safe. She then proceeded to show me safe ways to touch her hair.

So there you go. They’re listening. They’re watching and we’re teaching all the time just through caring for our children. It’s an organic process.

And they’ll show us the things that we’re not proud of that we do as well. That’s okay. Maybe that’s hard to take, but if we can see that as the kind of mutual training that’s going on there — they have this ability to reflect back to us where we need to grow and the things that we’re doing well that we can be proud of.

Okay, now I have a little milestone to announce. Unruffled has been going on for seven years. Seven years. Wow. It’s unreal to me. The time sort of flew by. I still have a million ideas for things I want to share about, and then I get new ideas from parents’ notes and messages every day. So I appreciate that.

And I want to take this opportunity to say, thank you for listening. Some of you’ve been listening for a long time. It’s an honor, and really a joy to be able to share with you this way.

Unruffled started on a whim. I was wondering at one point if audio might be easier than writing to answer readers questions and especially to demonstrate perspective and tone, which I found much more challenging to do with written words. And it matters a lot. Much more important than what we say is what we’re feeling when we say it — therefore, our tone, our manner, our attitude. That’s a little easier for me to convey through audio. So I thought, Hmm, all right, I’ll give this a shot. And then my husband, Mike, he agreed to try doing the engineering. And the editing was all new for him.

We were both really quite stunned that Unruffled caught on the way it has. And that I’ve had this added privilege of getting to have fascinating conversations with many, many eloquent, brilliant guests. So thank you to all of them as well!

I thought I should share, in honor of the seven years, the seven most listened to, most downloaded podcast episodes. And in the transcript of this podcast, I’ll be linking to all of these:

#1) “Finding Our Best Response to Children’s Turbulent Emotions.”

In that podcast, I respond to issues shared with me by four different parents. One writes that her two year old rejects her comfort when he has a meltdown, she says, “It breaks my heart. And I feel like I must be doing something wrong.”

Another writes that their seven-year-old says he doesn’t feel loved. Another email describes how a three-year-old’s tantrums last all afternoon and into the evening disrupting the rest of this family’s routine, and they all feel trapped by their three-year-old. And another one is a therapist who observes that their child holds in emotions in front of their family and peers.

I noticed that there was a common thread in all of these family situations, and I offer some specifics for how my overall recommendation to trust feelings and let them be applies in each of these cases.

#2) “A Holistic Approach to Baby and Toddler Sleep (with Grace Koinange).“

So, an incredible guest, a hot button topic. This was controversial as everything on sleep tends to be. What I found really interesting though maybe not that surprising is that Grace got hundreds of people reaching out to her for help. What that tells me is something I already knew, which is that there’s so much shame and judgment around this topic for parents, with their peers, with people online, even with experts who maybe have extreme one-sided views. These parents need help and they’re afraid to openly say that in a comment online. But what did they do? They reached out to Grace because what she said resonated with them and was hopeful for them that maybe some of the issues they’re having could be resolved and they didn’t just have to wait it out. There were changes that they could respectfully make.

#3) “Parental Burnout and a Reasonable Approach to Screens (with Dr. Meghan Owenz).”

You might be interested in Dr. Owenz’s book, it’s called: Spoiled Right: Delaying Screens and Giving Children What They Really Need. And in the podcast, Meghan offers some of the latest research on the effects of screens on young children, along with this whole host of practical alternatives. And we acknowledge that the many months of homeschooling and severely limited socializing and close quarters of the pandemic and exhausted parents have understandably caused most of us to rely more on screens to get those break times that we need just to survive. This podcast answers the question that many weary parents ask, which is how to manage all of this and what can they do instead of using screens.

#4) “How to Stop Feeling Frustrated by Your Child’s Behavior — A Family Success Story.”

This was wonderful. A family wrote to me a story where they shared their step by step process in dealing with their child’s very annoying, frustrating behavior. And as is often the case, it was their perceptions of the behavior which then dictated their attitude towards it that was getting in their way. So when they realized that and they shifted it, it not only made all the difference in ending this behavior, but brought them closer together as a family.

#5) “When Your Child Keeps Ignoring Boundaries and Breaking Rules, Try This.”

In that podcast there were three different families who had very different issues, but there was one common element that was missing. It’s a common one for us all to miss, actually. And similar to that #1 podcast on responding to turbulent emotions, I was able to offer specifics for how the families can apply this missing element to each of their situations.

#6) “It Will Get Easier — The Intense Struggles of a Parent with Childhood Trauma.”

This podcast is with Alwynn Hynes. She is a parent who actually wrote to me about how much she’s struggling to use a respectful approach to caring for her children with her own history of intense trauma. She is an amazing, courageous person. She has a very supportive Facebook group that she started after this podcast called: “Let Me Be Free: The Wounded Inner Child.” I’m a member of it, and I highly recommend her group. And she’s also coaching parents to help them with the struggles that she has faced and is facing.

#7) “Can We Be Angry or Sad and Still Unruffled?”

I hope you can guess that the answer to that is yes. A parent had written to me asking:

“I’m hoping you can clarify something for me that I’m struggling to understand. I know as parents, we should appear unruffled and be the calm, confident leaders for our children. As you’ve stated many times, I understand that this leads to them feeling stable and secure. I’ve also understood that it’s beneficial to let children see when we’re dealing with strong emotions rather than to try to hide them and pretend that we’re okay — that it’s helpful to know when we’re sad, disappointed, or frustrated, for example, as a way to model that everyone has these feelings, and to show how we handle them. What I’m confused about is what to do when those emotions are caused by our children.”

So that’s the question that I speak to in this seventh most popular podcast.

Those were the most popular of all.

Again, thank you so much for supporting this podcast. And I want to finish this episode with one more success story, which is about helping a child feel seen beyond the words that they say, beyond the way that they’re acting. Seen to what they really need and to feel that message: I see you, your words and actions don’t frighten me. I don’t take them personally. I don’t take them as facts or reasonable statements.

This parent says:

I just wanted to share a little proud moment. My son is three years old and I’ve been following you since he was about 18 months. We’ve had our fair share of challenges and always you give me peace and confidence with a respectful approach. Most recently, I spent a few hours away from my son, which is not significantly unusual, especially when his dad is in charge.

I did what I usually do and told him what to expect: Dad would give him lunch and pop him down for his nap. He happily accepted and was a charmer the whole time I was out.

I arrived back just in time for him to wake up and went in to rouse him. He was slightly grumbly, but that’s not out of the ordinary.

Slowly, slowly. He got more and more upset, telling me to go away, all the while trying to hit me. I did not go away as requested. I stayed and prevented the hitting, allowing him to express himself despite my husband saying, “Maybe you should leave him.”

As he let it all out, he slowly became more and more cuddly. After some time he went and took a book, sat on my lap and said, “Mum, Mum, you came back.” It was so beautiful.

Thank you to all these parents for sharing your stories and allowing me to share them on my podcast.

We can do this.

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

Thank you so much for listening and all your kind support.

The post Independent Play, Meltdowns, Boundaries — Success Stories from My Inbox appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Transcript of “Validating Feelings Isn’t Working”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled. Well, today I’m going to be talking about this idea of validating, or I actually prefer the term “acknowledging” a child’s feelings, and some of the benefits of that. And mostly also I want to focus on the common challenges because I hear from many parents that this isn’t working for them. And so I would like to try to speak to that and talk about some of the common reasons that this practice isn’t as successful as we might want it to be.

Okay. So first, I just want to mention why I prefer the term “acknowledge” to “validate.” Validating feelings, that’s of course something that’s helpful to do with children, but we’re not going to really be able to get to that point a lot of the time. So it’s asking a lot of us, I think, to validate feelings that maybe seem totally unreasonable and not very valid to us in the moment. Like when our child is saying, “I don’t want you to put those peas right next to my mashed potatoes!” or something like that. It will often not make sense to us when children have the reactions that they do, especially when they have behaviors that go along with those reactions like lashing out, hitting or hurting, or other things that are really hard for us as a parent to be able to validate.

So dialing it all the way back, as my mentor Magda Gerber did, to this word “acknowledge” can make this more doable for us. I’m just acknowledging that you feel a certain way about something or that you’re upset about a certain thing, but I’m not necessarily jumping all the way to how valid you are for feeling that way.

And from there, I want to talk a little about why I even share this practice — why it matters. I think a lot of times as parents, we can feel like: Oh, someone’s telling me that I have to do this to be a good parent. Or even: If I do this thing, I’m going to be a better parent. And I would say neither one of those are reasons why I share this practice. I share it for one reason: it will make our lives easier as parents. It will make challenging behavior less frequent. It will help our child to thrive and feel calmer. And therefore, we’re going to enjoy them more, we’re going to like them more. So it’s for very practical reasons, not some ideal that we have to live up to. Please take any pressure off of yourselves to do this because somebody’s telling you that you need to do it. This is only a helpful tool to make your lives easier.

The number one thing to know about this practice as with just about everything that we do as parents or professionals with children: it’s our intention that matters. Our intention is what children are sensing. It’s not about the words.

So are we doing this acknowledging thing because we feel we should? Are we doing it because maybe if I say this, it will make my child stop doing the behavior? Understandable to want it for that reason, right? But it won’t really work that way. At least not in a sustainable way.

Are we following a script? I like to offer some scripts because I find them useful or I hope they’re useful to help illustrate a perspective. But scripts are not what I’m teaching and I think they can do us a disservice. They’re so prevalent now on Instagram and places like that where if you just say these things, then your child’s going to feel better, you’re going to end the behavior. I think that’s a setup for a defeatist feeling for parents because it doesn’t work that way. It’s not unfortunately quite that easy.

It’s ultimately a lot easier, instead of trying to think up scripts, to start speaking naturally and organically in our own voice out of this perspective that we’re practicing. So everything that I’m trying to teach is about our perceptions of our children, their behavior, and perceptions of our role as parents or caregivers, or teachers. It’s about what we’re seeing because our perceptions of any situation will then dictate how we feel about it. That’s the only way to change our feelings: to practice seeing differently. And the way we feel about it, of course, affects our tone, and our actions.

I guess we can fake things, but it is not going to work the way we want it to. Because just as with all human beings, it’s those nuances, it’s those subtexts that children are hearing and reacting to.

So we genuinely want to have our goal with acknowledging as not to shut the feelings down, although acknowledging does sometimes help children to pass through the feelings and the behavior. But rather, to welcome them to be vented all the way. And to give our child these really important messages that will ease their challenging behavior. Maybe not in that moment, but eventually there will be less of it because we’re giving children these messages: I accept you, even though I’m not going to accept the way that you’re acting on those feelings. But I accept that you want to do those things like lash out at me. And I’m here to help you stop those behaviors. But I’m not judging you as bad for feeling as you do.

Because as we all know, and I think I’ve said a lot here, we can’t change our feelings. Our feeling’s just are. We can work on shifting our perception and our perspective so that we actually do feel differently, but in the moment we can’t change any feelings that we have. Neither can our child. The difference between us and our children is that we have a much more mature level of self-regulation abilities. So we still feel the feelings, we still might feel the anger or the frustration, but we can control the way that we express those things and the way that we act on them.

Well, children have a very minimal and uneven ability to control their behaviors. That’s what they need help with. And what also helps is for them to feel: It’s okay that I feel this way. It’s okay that this feeling that I don’t control is washing over me. It’s just not okay for me to hurt somebody because of that.

So when we acknowledge, we want to try to keep it specific, only what we know for sure, which is: “You didn’t want those peas next to that mashed potato.” We don’t want to decide emotions. So if we do bring up an emotion like about the peas and the potatoes, we could say, “Oh, that’s disappointing,” but not, “You’re disappointed.” So there’s a difference there. Or we could say it as a question, “Are you really disappointed that that happened?”

I think we can all relate to someone telling us how we’re feeling. We’re going to push back on that. We’re not going to feel understood. We’re going to feel maybe angrier at that person for trying to tell us how we feel. Children are no different in that way.

Another thing is that we want to be careful about talking during a tantrum because children go off into their own little world when they’re in the middle of these, they can’t really hear what we’re saying. There are studies even that measure tantrums that show when we talk during a tantrum that can actually escalate a child’s stress response. So we want to be careful about that.

As you get more comfortable with tantrums and with acknowledging and with really allowing feelings to be, encouraging feelings to be, then if there’s a gap in what a child is expressing, you may be able to acknowledge what happened as a part of helping them to feel safe, empathizing if possible, showing them that it’s really okay with us for them to feel what they feel — all messages that alleviate behavior. Practical messages to try to give our children.

Okay. So I have a couple of examples here from parents where we can talk about some of the common ways that we can get caught up and therefore acknowledging feelings isn’t working.

Here’s one of the most common ones: we’re not believing in what we’re saying.

Children sense that. So this is actually an example from one of the many articles that I discussed in another recent podcast where they’re complaining that gentle parenting isn’t working for them. This writer says:

“Lansbury and other gentle parenting experts advise sitting next to a child during a tantrum, narrating the feelings they are experiencing. ‘You feel mad because I won’t let you stay at the playground. You are really upset.’ The theory goes that a child who hears their emotions reflected back feels seen and understood, and ideally less ornery. When I tried it, the scripts came off as forced. My daughter just wailed louder.”

Okay. So a couple of things here. I wouldn’t narrate the feelings during a tantrum, or I would do it very, very sparingly. Although I would acknowledge after the fact: “You didn’t like that I wouldn’t let you stay at the playground. That was really upsetting for you.” I wouldn’t say, “You feel mad” because that’s telling a child how they feel. And I wouldn’t try to talk to a child in the eye of the storm because all they hear is that we’re talking to them and it can feel like we’re not accepting what’s happening with them. I think that’s why these studies show that their stress response can escalate.

Again, this is the problem with seeing advice that parenting advisors give as scripts and then focusing on those scripts instead of focusing on the perception that’s implied by that script. That’s the focus that’s going to actually help us to understand what we’re doing and for it to even start to feel natural, a little bit natural. It’s never going to feel totally natural for our child to be upset and for us to just allow that.

But this writer is accurate about the theory because yes when a child hears their experience reflected back, they feel seen and understood. And she says “ideally less ornery.” Well, yeah, they feel safer, and that calms them down. They don’t feel that friction coming from us or that lack of acceptance. Or that underneath what we’re saying with this script that we are really annoyed or we’re angry, or just, Ugh, disgusted, or over it with our child. All of those are normal feelings to have, but using a script with those kinds of subtexts is not going to have the effect that we want to have, which is to help calm that child.

Alternatively, if we genuinely acknowledge our child’s feelings or their struggles, or just their point of view, what we know for sure, that is the best way to help them move through and beyond those feelings. And that’s really all we can do to help them move through. The feelings have a beginning, middle, and end. The more we can encourage them to be shared, the sooner the end will come.

Another common reason that we can get caught up with acknowledging feelings in a manner that isn’t as helpful: we’re kind of washing over the situation rather than really connecting with the specifics.

So a parent shared an example of that. They said:

“My ultrasensitive seven-year-old will get more upset if I try to label her emotions. For example, if she said, ‘I want a cookie’ in a demanding tone, and I said, ‘It sounds like you are upset right now. I’m here with you.’ She’d start yelling, ‘I’m not upset! Stop saying that I’m upset! And it might tip her over into a full meltdown. How can we show these kids that we see and hear them during these sassy, demanding moments without aggravating the situation further?”

This is a great question. Let me think of an adult example of this. Let’s say that my partner threw away something that I wanted to keep and I found what they threw away in the trash and I was upset. I said, “Hey, don’t throw that away. You threw that away.” And they said, “Oh, you’re really upset about that.” That feels like they’re just trying to wash over what’s going on instead of saying, “Oh, you didn’t want me to throw that away.” So I can see why just saying a child is upset instead of saying, “You really want more cookies” is not going to be satisfying to that child. It’s not going to be a comfortable reaction for that child to receive.

So again, this is about just going to the facts and not trying to label an emotion.

This parent’s question, they say that when they told their child that she was upset, they said it might tip her over into a full meltdown. Well, tipping her over into a full meltdown maybe needs to happen there. I would trust that if that’s happening, that that’s actually what’s behind the cookie comment that it wasn’t so much about the cookie, but about this meltdown that was brewing. That’s hard I know, but I would trust that that needs to happen. But I would still speak only to specifics and not say too much, because as children get older, and this is another thing that can get in our way, sometimes we forget to evolve with them.

A parent was just talking to me about this the other day. She said, “Wow, someone came and talked to my child with all these words that I don’t use with them. And they really seem like they understood, but I still see my child as this little baby.”

We have these snapshots in our mind as parents, but our child is constantly evolving. We want to be able to evolve with them. And what that means in terms of acknowledging is that we want to say less and less as our children get older, because it also becomes kind of shorthand. We know certain things bother our child. We don’t have to spell it out to them. They already understand language. (Whereas a one or two-year-old is still developing language.) They don’t as much need those language models, which is by the way another benefit to acknowledging with younger children. We’re giving them the language to express themselves.

An older child might feel like we’re talking down to them if we’re still saying, “You didn’t like that I said it was time to leave the park.” We would say much less to an older child like, “Oh yeah, I know. You hate to leave sometimes.”

Something that reflects the intimacy that I have with that child. Again, that’s another benefit to not trying to follow a script because there won’t be a script for that. This is between us and our child, all these nuances that have happened in our dynamic, the shorthand we have with each other, and how well we know each other.

Another benefit to acknowledging in the manner that I’m suggesting here with specifics, saying only what we know, not saying too much, not deciding emotions, not trying to talk a child down through an emotional storm, another benefit is that we have a little moment to recenter. So we’re not trying to go all the way to validating our child’s feelings. We’re just reflecting back for our own clarity. “Ah, you want me to keep playing this game with you and I’m too tired.”

So I don’t have to empathize with my child’s point of view right there, but just by stating those facts, that gives me a moment. And maybe with that moment to kind of center myself, then I can.

We don’t want to expect too much of ourselves. And we only want to do this for the right reasons — to help ourselves. Not by anybody else’s standard, not by anyone else’s expectation, just because it actually does work. Not always magically in the moment, but overall it just brings us closer and closer and helps our child feel safer and safer in all the ups and downs that they’re going to have. Every child has them.

So please be good to yourselves. Baby steps. Just be, as my friend Mr. Chazz says, an “improvenist” instead of a perfectionist. And some days we’re not even going to be an improvenist, we’re just going to be blah, or we’re going to take two steps backward or 50 steps backward. Let yourselves be in a process because, with that kind of overall intention and expectation, we really can do this.

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

Thanks so much for listening. We can do this.

The post Validating Feelings Isn’t Working appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Transcript of “Is ‘Gentle Parenting’ Too Extreme and Impossible?”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled. Okay, I admit I’m a little more nervous than usual about this podcast because I feel it’s going to be maybe more personal and revealing than what I normally share.

The impetus for this episode came in a recent Facebook exchange that I had with a parent, and the parent concluded “this ideal of gentle parenting is feeling more and more toxic and gaslighty to me.” In response to her comment, I finally had the chance to ask a question that I’ve been wishing to ask for a while now in light of this recent flurry of complaints in the press about gentle parenting. Maybe you’ve noticed some of them. And then I really, really appreciated this Facebook parent’s candid response to my question — my question that was in response to her comment.

I’m going to be sharing these exchanges and some of the thoughts that they’ve brought up for me. I really hope you’ll find this clarifying and encouraging.

The Facebook exchange happened in response to a post of mine from several years ago actually that I reposted called “This May Be Why You’re Yelling.” It describes some of the things that as parents might lead us to yell. Number one is: “you aren’t taking care of yourself.” It talks about self-care, not just the wonderful bubble bath or getting away with friends or a spouse type of self-care, but something more basic and crucial, which is knowing our limits and our personal needs and setting boundaries early, starting even with speaking directly and honestly to an infant.

I give examples like: “if you’re a sensitive person who can’t sleep deeply with a baby or a toddler near you but you’re co-sleeping because you think you should, maybe you’re not taking care of yourself.” Or, “if you want to wean your child or limit their nursing, but you feel guilty about that, then you’re not taking care of yourself. If you need to go to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee, but you’re afraid to leave your fussy baby or screeching toddler, you’re not taking care of yourself. In fact, if you feel guilty about any self-care moment, you’re probably not taking care of yourself.”

I conclude: “we all give up much of our lives for our children, but it’s unhealthy for us and even less healthy for our kids to become an egoless parent, neglecting our needs and virtually erasing ourselves from the relationship. We need personal boundaries and our children need us to model them. This is what it means to have an honest, authentic, respectful relationship that will make limit setting in the toddler through teenage years clear and simple. Notice I didn’t say easy because it’s hardly ever easy.”

Oh, and one of the things I share first in that post is I say: “My sense is that we often end up yelling because we’ve actually made the very positive decision to give our children boundaries with respect rather than using punishments and manipulation. We’re working really hard to remain gentle and kind, and yet our children’s testing behaviors continue. Maybe we become increasingly frustrated, even fearful, feeling like we’ve lost all control without any way to rein our children in.”

Anyway, it’s a pretty long post, and I’ll be linking to it in the transcript, or you can look it up. Here’s the comment that I got on Facebook. She said:

This all sounds good on paper but doesn’t really apply in the real world. In the real world, taking a break to the sound of a screaming toddler is anything but a break and will leave you more frazzled. In the real world, tantrums are horrible to be around on a visceral level no matter how many books you read about childhood development. In the real world, many parents have little to no support and no amount of telling ourselves we are capable leaders can curb the sheer exhaustion we are feeling. This ideal of gentle parenting is feeling more and more toxic and gaslighty to me.

Before I share the question that I asked her, I want to talk a little about the press articles that have come out recently. They’re in pretty major publications. Assuming that they’re all written sincerely and not as a pile-on to a trend, I took them quite seriously, like I take everything. They all mention me as part of the problem, and they’re basically bashing the idea of gentle or respectful parenting, that it’s impossible. One of them even implies that there’s this harsh dark side to it all. A couple of the authors who are also parents, it sounds like they’re trying it, but they don’t feel like it’s working for them and they’re saying, “This is too extreme.”

Now, when I read these pieces, the first feeling that I had besides feeling a little attacked, the first feeling I had was I relate to what these people are saying. I totally relate to them. I remember feeling some of the feelings that they’re describing: that I just couldn’t possibly do this, that it was unrealistic, that somehow there was this expectation on me that I couldn’t live up to and it just made me frustrated and want to throw in the towel. I wanted to throw it away. I’m going to talk about the couple of those instances where I felt that way, but I felt like what I’m relating to, and I could be wrong, is this pressure that we put on ourselves as parents.

Some of us are more inclined towards self-judgment, and perfectionism, and it can get in our way when we’re learning challenging things. Learning a different way of parenting than the way that we were raised, breaking those generational cycles even in small ways is very, very challenging. It’s so courageous to even be trying, in my view. And it sounds like this commenter on Facebook was coming from that place too. This is just impossible. You’re expecting unrealistic things.

In these articles in the press, if I was to take a very unnuanced extreme take on those, I could feel this implies that they were maybe suggesting that it’s better to physically punish your children, and lash out at them when you’re frustrated. I don’t think that’s what they were saying, but I wasn’t sure what kind of alternative they were suggesting.

And so, that’s why I was happy for the opportunity to ask this parent on Facebook this question, “What would be helpful?”

Because believe it or not, and I didn’t say this on Facebook, believe it or not, all I’m trying to do is help. I’m sharing an approach to parenting that inspired me and helped me beyond measure. That’s what I’ve been doing since 2009, sharing what I’ve learned from all the classes I’ve taught with parents and children. When I get a little lost in what am I doing? Why am I doing this? What’s my purpose here? I often ask myself that question to focus me and give me the perspective that I need to know what to do next: How can I help? What can I share that might be helpful?

There’s no implication in what I’m sharing that if you’re not doing it this way, there’s something wrong with you or that I expect you to do it this particular way. It’s a very specific way that I’m sharing. I started calling it “respectful parenting” because I didn’t think people would know or understand or want to understand what RIE parenting meant. And also because I was using a lot of my own experience to interpret Magda Gerber’s RIE approach, even more for toddlers than she did and for older children, and all these details that I learned through working with parents.

So, I thought: well, if I say respectful parenting, which is about treating even a newborn with respect, maybe if I use this term, then it will make more sense to people. That’s why I started using that term. I’ve never actually used the term “gentle parenting” to describe what I do, but I noticed that I seem to be part of a catchall of gentle parenting. That’s how people are seeing this, that I’m one of the many people sharing about gentle parenting. I’m assuming that just means this non-punitive, not harsh, not lashing out type of parenting.

Anyway, I asked this parent, “What would be helpful?” And I said, “I’m also interested in the concept of,” quote, ‘gentle parenting,’ which is not a term I use. What does this mean to you?”

I thought she gave brilliant responses that were very enlightening to me.

First, she said:

Gentle parenting to me is the ethos of teaching and disciplining in an empathic way that is never punitive or emotionally reactive on the parent’s part. It sounds so lovely. It’s a beautiful idea to aim for. It’s also crushing to never be able to live up to despite having all the tools and knowledge because we are human and we are wired to be uncomfortable around screaming. We all want to do better, and we even know exactly what to do thanks to the many sources of information out there for parents and yet so many of us are stuck. I’m thinking about your question, what would be helpful? Maybe it’s just permission to be gentle-ish, capable-ish.

Wow. She really says it all there, and it helps me understand that I’m coming across as this voice of authority that’s telling you you should do it this way, and if you’re not, there’s something wrong with you.

Well, I’m a very imperfect messenger, no doubt, and I also have the problem of… Well, it’s not a problem. It’s a positive thing, but I forget that I’m not still this underground voice sharing for the couple hundred people that would follow me in the beginning where I could really speak my mind and be a little bold and share unique ideas without it being taken as that I’m any kind of voice of authority.

Well, to my surprise, a lot of these ideas that I’ve shared that were very weird to people, in the beginning, are now almost mainstream, almost conventional. Not because I did it all, but I think I had a part in it and it’s just happened that way. That is amazing to me, that ideas like you talk to a baby like a person, that you allow children to have all their feelings, that you don’t try to fix or squelch them, that a child can have ideas about what they should be doing in regard to play or exploring or spending their time even as an infant… Not all of these ideas, but a lot of them are now accepted and that’s fantastic. With it comes a responsibility that I don’t always take, which is, oh, so I actually have the power for someone to feel like they’re not living up to something that’s just supposed to be this way.

I also want to say though that everything this parent said in her comment and a lot of the things in these articles as well, I personally have felt in my early days in learning this approach.

This is one of the benefits of getting older. Between just aging and the work that we do on ourselves or even work that naturally evolves on ourselves, we become much more self-forgiving. I do, and these really strong judgmental voices that were always in my head when I was younger have very much weakened. They still have their say, but it’s not overwhelming, and other voices will usually win out.

I started taking RIE classes with my daughter when she was an infant. When I was first learning this, everything I was being taught was different than what I’d been doing pretty much. I took all of that as oh, I’m wrong. I’m wrong. I’m wrong.

Here I was putting everything into trying to be a new mom, and now this must mean I’m failing, failing, failing because I’m learning all these things that I could have done that I wasn’t doing. There was that to get over. At the same time though, I was so compelled and inspired to stick with it, and luckily that won out.

And then later on when my daughter became a toddler, I remember… Okay, this is 28 years ago, so we know that this had a big effect on me because I can totally remember the moment. I said to my teacher who wasn’t Magda, but another teacher who will go nameless, I said, “What do you do when you just find yourself yelling?” And my teacher said, “You’re yelling?”

And the way she said it, I believe she was probably just surprised. She didn’t have children at that time, so maybe it didn’t make sense to her, but the way it felt was so mortifying. I felt so ashamed. I broke into a million pieces, and I was never going to bring that up again. But what it did was help me to get a perspective: yes, I have a very precocious, strong, powerful toddler. She wasn’t even two yet, but still, why would I yell at this tiny person? What is threatening to me? What is overwhelming to me? How am I not taking care of myself with my boundaries with her that I’m getting to this point?

Once I got over the shame and brokenness I felt, or at least start to get over that, I was able to look at where I needed to grow because I didn’t want to be a person yelling at a not-even-two-year-old. I knew it wasn’t the parent that I wanted to be. It didn’t feel good to me.

So, that happened. But all the voices came to me in that brokenness, in that shame: You can’t do this. There’s something deeply wrong with you. This is impossible. I wanted to throw in the towel, and I feel like throwing in the towel still a lot when some kind of situation feels too challenging. I don’t like feeling uncomfortable or inept less than other people or that I’m not living up to some kind of expectation.

But the expectations weren’t coming from my teacher. They weren’t coming from Magda Gerber. They weren’t coming from anyone but me.

I’m not saying that’s what’s going on with all these people that are complaining about gentle parenting, but that’s my experience. I’m so grateful that there was a stronger voice in me that said: Don’t let those voices win. This matters too much to you. Don’t give up on yourself. Maybe you can do this.

Now in terms of everybody else though, maybe what I’m teaching isn’t what inspires you or feels supportive to you. This is just one style of parenting. It’s not the only one that works. It’s not maybe even the best one for you. These are only suggestions, not rules or meant to be taken rigidly. We have to look out for ourselves in this tough journey, find sources that feed us, nurture us, that make our lives easier and more joyful as parents. We deserve that.

I understand feeling stuck and I understand feeling crushed that I’m supposed to live up to something. At least when I was learning this stuff, it was very unique. It wasn’t so popular. So, it was clear to me that I was wanting to live up to my own goals.

Now I realize that might be less clear and that’s harder, and it’s something that I want to take responsibility for as much as I can.

Yes, tantrums are horrible to be around. It’s really hard to let another person have their feelings. That’s why I’ve written and podcasted about that topic so many times and noted that it will always be challenging. It will never be reflexive for most of us. It just won’t.

But only we can give ourselves permission to be in a process and not perfect at every aspect. In fact, not even close to that.

Here’s the response that I shared with this parent after her comment, which I really, really appreciated. I said:

I hear you. I really do. As I was reading your comment, I was thinking exactly what you said at the end. I was thinking, where is she getting the idea that respectful parenting means never punitive or emotionally reactive? Where is this never coming from? People like me also talk a lot about repair and self-compassion and imperfection. I share what I know helps build relationships and lessen challenging behavior, and I try to share a perspective that can help us feel less reactive. But there’s no implication coming from me that if we don’t live up to this every moment or go through periods where we just can’t at all or don’t want to, we’re failures or doing something wrong. Gentle-ish, capable-ish is exactly where most of us are most of the time. The good news is that gentle-ish, capable-ish is enough to be a great human parent. I understand perfectionism and bagging on ourselves. I can go there myself, but those feelings don’t come from parenting advisors or other messengers out there. Mine come from me.

I want to talk a little about the ideals that she’s talking about living up to. I appreciated Magda Gerber‘s approach and its idealism because I started to see those ideals as signposts. They weren’t a destination even. They were just helping me go in a direction, baby step by baby step. If I didn’t have those signposts, I couldn’t be assured of the direction that I was taking.

But it wasn’t about achieving those signposts or not. It was about the journey, the process.

Yes, there are going to be frustrations and feelings of giving up along the way. Absolutely. But if we keep following these sign posts, maybe there’ll be less of that. There was for me.

It’s not that there’s anything wrong with being frustrated. It’s that it doesn’t feel good and it’s not the way most of us want to be with our children. It doesn’t feel good to us, but there’s no judgment on the feelings that we have in a process. They’re all just right, because they’re all our feelings, just like children’s feelings are just right. That’s what they feel.

This is definitely not about being robotic or stifled or I’m just fine all the time. No. Our children want a relationship with us. With all of our sides.

Speaking about frustration, maybe it could be helpful to let out frustration at children sometimes. My mother, I don’t remember her really yelling at us, but she would get very judgmental and angry about certain things, and there were two things. One was if we tried to tickle her… Whew! Or if we’d walk in on her in the bathroom, she made it very clear with emotion that those were boundaries that she was not going to allow us to cross, and we didn’t because that was scary.

So this isn’t to say that letting out our emotions on children is not productive. It can be in the short term, I think, but for me, it was helpful to know that we don’t need to do that. We can set the boundary without creating fear.

If gentle parenting is what this parent beautifully describes, which I would like to think, I love that, then it will only work if we have very strong boundaries. Very strong boundaries. I think maybe that’s missing in some of the conversations about gentle parenting, I don’t know, but maybe that is a problem out there that people should rightfully complain about because it’s just not going to work and it’s not going to help those children. Children need boundaries.

I also want to share one more story from my learning days. I’m still learning for sure. But in the early days when I was training with Magda, there was a conference coming up and this other parent and I were going to present a workshop at the conference from a parenting perspective. Most of these RIE conferences, they’re mostly attended by early childhood professionals rather than parents. But we wanted to do one for the few parents that might be there.

When we were talking about this with Magda, I said, “Well, what should we call it?” And she said, “Parenting Made Easier.” Immediately that came right off the top of her head. I’ve got to admit I was taken aback because that wasn’t the first thing that would come to mind for me about this approach that I was learning from her. To me, it was very thoughtful and careful, deep and challenging in many, many ways. But when I thought about it, I could see what she was saying.

And then a few years later when I had a three-year-old and then two other children after that, oh yeah, it totally made everything easier. When I would compare myself to the struggles other parents were having, all this care and thoughtfulness and mental challenge and emotional challenge that I’d faced learning this really paid off. This doesn’t mean it’ll pay off for everyone, or that this is your way, but it did for me.

When I hear people saying, “Oh, this is this impossible thing, and we can’t do it. It’s somehow judgemental of people that aren’t doing it,” I think of that. I think of how much easier this makes everything and therefore more enjoyable. Because if we’re struggling, we’re not enjoying being a parent. But it’s like moving that rock to the top of the mountain so that it can roll down the other side. It does get so much easier. It does.

Whether you follow some of the advice I give, follow advice other people are giving, whether you decide you want to do this non-punitive parenting thing or you want to find your own way that’s different, take a little from this, a little from that, this is your journey. My feelings about parents are all about trust. Just like my feelings about children. Trusting their process, trusting that you will find your way.

Am I the right person to help you? Maybe or maybe not. I trust you to know what works for you.

I think I would love to change the name of this podcast to Respectful-ish Parenting, Unruffled-ish. I’m going to consider that because that’s what I have learned to expect of myself and the best that we can hope for. It’s always an ish. It’s always a journey. Some days we feel it, some days we don’t.

So, I really, really hope that you’ll be good to yourselves and kind to yourselves and trust yourselves and definitely not give up on being the parent that you want to be because we really can do this.

Please check out some of the other podcasts on my website, JanetLansbury.com. There are many of them and they’re all indexed by subject and category, so you should be able to find whatever topic you might be interested in.

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

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

The post Is ‘Gentle Parenting’ Too Extreme and Impossible? appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Transcript of “Balancing the Needs of More Than One Child (with Erica Orosco Cruz)”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury, welcome to Unruffled. Today, I’m very excited to share a guest with you, Erica Orosco Cruz. I’ve known and admired Erica for many years. We both studied with Magda Gerber. She’s also a RIE certified educator. She’s been in early childhood since she was a teenager and she, 20 years ago, founded Homeschool Garden, which is a childcare center, preschool/kindergarten for children ages one to six years old. Erica’s also a mother and she’s used Magda Gerber‘s approach with her children. I’m really looking forward to hearing Erica share her experiences and wisdom for parents or professionals who want to care for more than one child with respect.

Hi, Erica. Welcome and thank you so much for being here.

Erica Orosco Cruz:  Hi Janet. I’m so happy to be here. It’s great to hear your voice .

Janet Lansbury:  And yours, and by the way, congratulations on your 20-year anniversary of the founding of Homeschool Garden. That’s amazing.

Erica Orosco Cruz:  I know, it crept up on us.

Janet Lansbury:  What an accomplishment and I love your mission statement, “To provide a safe environment where parents and children can learn and grow together. We believe that when children are truly seen and heard and parents learn to see with new eyes and listen for what is unsaid, families flourish.”

With new eyes is the way Magda Gerber asked us to see infants. It’s so true, isn’t it?

Erica Orosco Cruz:  It is. I learned so much from Magda. She’s right up there with my grandma as far as mentors and women in my life that really guided me. And yeah, I couldn’t rephrase it in a different way. It’s so clear and it gives people a great perspective.

Janet Lansbury:  So you said your grandmother, does this mean you were raised with this kind of respectful approach?

Erica Orosco Cruz:  I want to say she was the one that truly saw me and she was so attentive to all her grandchildren. Unfortunately, I only had her for the first four years of my life. She ended up passing from breast cancer. But I am proof of how they always say the first five years are so important. She left such a lasting mark in my life that I am the person I am today because of her.

Janet Lansbury:  Was she a primary caregiver for you?

Erica Orosco Cruz:  She was when my mother returned to work when I was one. And she was the matriarch of our family.

Janet Lansbury:  Wow. And then how did you end up starting a preschool and being a consultant for parents and doing these courses that you teach? How did this all come about?

Erica Orosco Cruz:  Yeah, I don’t think that was ever my intention. I joyfully worked with children since I was 15. I was volunteering in daycare centers and I was a camp counselor and a teacher assistant, various avenues of work in early childhood and I really enjoyed it.

I actually came across the RIE Philosophy, the RIE Manual, in an early childhood course for infants and toddlers. And I was fascinated by it. I had never read anything like it, it was so different from what I experienced, even working in the field already. It was so different from what I experienced and I loved it. As an 18-year-old learning this for the first time, I said: This is great, but you can’t really do this with children.

Janet Lansbury:  What do you mean?

Erica Orosco Cruz:  Well, you couldn’t talk to children where they would understand. You couldn’t not teach them. You would have to teach them how to do things, teach them to sit up. It was so different.

Janet Lansbury:  Yeah, this idea that they are coming into the world as people with their own abilities and can be treated like an aware person. I know it was shocking for me too when I first learned this.

Erica Orosco Cruz:  Yeah. And so I had that experience in school. And then a couple of years later, as I finished up my education, I was looking for employment and I came across a center that actually had sought out Magda Gerber for some consulting: Glendale Adventist Medical Center. They have childcare onsite for their employees. And I went there for an interview and the director, who was a very tall woman, over six feet, was giving me a tour of the location.

“Here’s our pre-K room. Here’s our preschool room. Here’s where the two-year-old toddlers are. Here we’re going to go into the toddler and infant space.” And it was very reminiscent of Magda Gerber’s space. They had an outdoor deck, there was a door that was propped open that the children could go in and out of.

When we walked in, we both saw an infant about 8 to 10 months old. She was sitting up on her own, and we saw her pick up a leaf and she put it in her mouth. And then what came next is what was so different. The director walked over to her, she squatted down in a kneeling position, and she even tilted her head so that her eyes were at eye level with the infant. And she said, “I saw you put a leaf in your mouth,” and she waited. And then she put her hand out and she said, “I’d like it now.” And the young infant opened up her mouth, stuck out her tongue and the director plucked the leaf off of her tongue.

Janet Lansbury:  Wow.

Erica Orosco Cruz:  Yeah. What was that? And it was so different. I expected her to run over to the infant, scoop up the infant in her arms and then stick her finger in the infant’s mouth to get the leaf. And that was not what happened at all.

I even asked the director, “What is that? What did you do?” And that’s when she talked about the RIE Philosophy again. And so seeing it in action, I was like, “I want to learn more, whatever that is. I want to learn more of that.”

Janet Lansbury:  Right, it totally stands out as just so different from the way our society treats children and the way that most of us instinctively would treat a baby.

So you studied with Magda and some of the other wonderful mentors at Resources for Infant Educators, and then you started teaching, right? You started teaching parent-infant classes and parent-toddler classes. And then at some point 20 years ago, you decided to start Homeschool Garden and care for groups of children.

Erica Orosco Cruz:  Yes. I had a then five-year-old and two-year-old and had been teaching classes and was looking for a school for them. I didn’t find one that where I was seeing that they were respected, seeing that they were taken care of in a way that I wanted them to be cared for and so Homeschool Garden was born.

Janet Lansbury:  So you decided I’m just going to do it myself.

Erica Orosco Cruz:  I was determined that there was a space for that and that other families are also looking for that as well, and 20 years later, here we are.

Janet Lansbury:  Wow. And this is actually one of the reasons I especially wanted you on the podcast. There are a lot of reasons because you have so much wisdom that you’ve gathered through all this work with children that you’ve done over the years, your own children, how many do you have now?

Erica Orosco Cruz:  I have 4: 25, 23, 14, he just turned 14 and then a two-year-old as well.

Janet Lansbury:  Quite a spread. That must be such an education in itself. And then your Homeschool Garden is a mixed age group, right?

Erica Orosco Cruz:  Yes. Our youngest right now is actually my granddaughter who is nine months old.

Janet Lansbury:  Oh my gosh.

Erica Orosco Cruz:  Yeah. And then we go up all the way to six years.

Janet Lansbury:  How wonderful. Well, so many parents and professionals ask me, “How can this approach work, how can you respect a baby or respect any age child (the way you talked about respecting that baby with the leaf), when you’ve got twins, triplets siblings, or groups of children? How do you give them that respect? How do you handle their behaviors?”

And what I often don’t get the chance to explain, in fact, I rarely get the chance to explain is that this approach is actually geared for caring for groups of children, because much of it was developed as you know, by Pediatrician Emmi Pikler in an orphanage setting where the ratio was one caregiver to nine babies or toddlers. And most of us, at least as parents, are dealing with a better ratio than that.

Through those respectful care practices that Pikler developed and then Magda Gerber developed further, they had remarkably positive outcomes for institutional care, unheard of outcomes where these people grew up to be typical in wanting to have relationships, wanting to have children, things that just don’t usually happen in an institutional setting. So it works. And you have had all this practical experience putting that into action and developing your own ways of giving attention to all the children and giving them what they need, taking care of their needs so that they can flourish. That’s what I want to hear more about.

Erica Orosco Cruz:  Even when we have licensing people come out or physical therapists or people that have a variety of the experience of childcare and different locations, they come here and they sense right away this is different. We are not trying to micromanage the children’s time or what they’re doing. We are really giving the opportunity for them to play freely. And when we have routines like snack or a transition into the program, or a transition of getting picked up, or even a transition to go wash hands, we’re doing that with individual time and respect. And so those visitors, even when we have parents observing, are in awe of how it all flows. And I, 100% attribute that to the RIE Philosophy. The idea of children being an active participant in their care, the safe environment that we create, the consistency of our routines.

I often will tell parents who have twins or more than one child that you have to be even more RIE so that you can create that kind of environment and that flow and ease of being with your children.

Janet Lansbury:  Right, that’s what I feel too. And finding that time for self-care in all of that as well. It’s even more important that you put that oxygen mask on first when you’ve got the challenge of multiple children to take care of.

Erica Orosco Cruz:  And I think something that was very different for me going through the RIE Program as a parent was that I was a single mom, a single mom of two young children. So I got to apply this practice every day. And when I had my second son and my three-year-old was demanding of my time and my attention, okay, how can I be here for both of them? How can I be present? What would that look like?

For me, it’s really about having one-on-one time with each child, even if in a group care setting. If that means that’s the potty break that’s happening. If that means it’s the diaper change. If that means it’s a child who wakes up late and everyone else has finished snack. And so this child has one-on-one time with the caregiver having snack, then that’s how it happens.

Janet Lansbury:  Well, somebody actually asked a question about that on a comment on one of my Facebook posts recently, it’s actually a podcast post “Damage Control When We Feel Like We’re Failing,” and it’s talking about multiple children. So I had brought up the study by Sherry Turkle about the way that children feel when the phone or the tech device takes the parents’ attention at any time, they get a text message and they go or whatever. I had shared a study about that in the podcast. And this parent said:

“What if that something is not your phone, but your other children, because I feel like this happens constantly? I’ve read your words on being present for the “wants something time,” and being there during caregiving moments. And I try, but I’m with one, and there are two other children in a similar state needing help. I’m doing someone’s hair and from across the house, someone else is screaming for me to help them on the toilet. I’m just sitting down to color with one and another has spilled their drink all over the floor. There seem to be so many interruptions that I feel this is the sense that I give to my kids: that I can always be taken away. And on the other side, I try to give “needs nothing time,” (I think she’s referring to “Wants nothing quality time,” Magda’s term)… and make time to be present and play. But what ends up happening is they all try to play with me individually at the same time. It normally ends with frustration because no one is getting what they want.”

Erica Orosco Cruz:  Yes, I can relate to all of that.

Sportscasting. Sportscasting is huge. “I’m coloring with your sister right now. I hear you’re asking for help on the potty. You may have to wait until I’m done using my red color.”

I always want to be sportscasting so that each child knows where my attention is. I had a three-year-old and a three-month-old and I was spending all my time focused on both of them at the same time, where I didn’t have any individual time with them. And so instead of bathing them both at the same time, I had decided that I would have my one-on-one time with them each by bathing them separately.

So I started with my three-year-old and would bathe him. And at that moment, sometimes my three-and-a-half-month-old would cry and would want attention. And I would remain with my three-year-old as I was sportscasting to my three-and-a-half-month-old, “I hear you, Jacob. I’m bathing Andrew right now. And when I’m done, then I can be with you.”

As my three-year-old started to hear that over and over — that I was choosing to stay with him as his brother was calling for my attention, it then became the three-year-old that said, “I’m okay, mom, you can go check on Jacob right now.” The baby was just outside the bathroom door, laying down on the rug, and the three-year-old was within arm’s reach of the bathtub. But it was the understanding and the empathy that he was developing by me being present and staying with one child at a time.

Janet Lansbury:  Right. They both get a positive message from that. They get the message that even if he’s getting the attention now, I’m going to get my own version of full attention at some point, too, instead of nobody’s ever getting it all the way.

Erica Orosco Cruz:  Yes. And trying to meet everybody’s need at the exact same time.

Janet Lansbury:  Right.

Erica Orosco Cruz:  We have a new child that’s transitioning in. And before I get up and leave the space, I let him know I’m going to be going to the kitchen and getting some dishes and I’ll be back. And he may toddle behind me and follow me in that direction.

When I come back, I let him know: “I’m going to be serving lunch right now. You can come sit down.”

The other children are like, “I want agua,” because we’re a bilingual school, asking for more water. And I’ll say, “I’m helping this child right now. And when I’m done helping this child, then I can start serving water,” sportscasting whose attention I have right now.

Janet Lansbury:  Yes. But what if that other child doesn’t accept this gracefully at all and has the impulse to go and do something destructive with another child or with something in the room or scream really, really loudly? How do you handle it when it’s not easy like that?

Erica Orosco Cruz:  So one of the things I recommend not only to my staff but to caregivers and parents is to have an environment that supports you. So when I am going to the kitchen, I am bringing actually a basket full of every single thing that I’m going to need. We’ve got extra plates, we’ve got the extra napkins, we’ve got extra silverware, extra glasses. Everything is in one space. And so when I put it down near the children that are sitting at child-sized tables and stools, it is again within arms reach. So I can put my hand over it. If a child is like, “I don’t want to wait. I’m just going to grab a glass,” or, “I’m going to reach for the water pitcher,” everything’s within arms reach of me so that I can put my hand over it and say, “I’m not offering that right now.”

And I would repeat, “I’m still helping so-and-so sit down, and then I can serve you water.” And I even point to my ear, “I hear you, I hear you asking for water. I want to remind you that I’m going to help this friend to the table first.”

And I’m pausing. I’m not reacting. There’s not a big reaction from me so I get to set the tone. I’m not going to amplify it. I don’t need to yell. I don’t need to move quickly because I’ve created an environment that supports me right along with Magda Gerber’s example of a safe environment.

Janet Lansbury:  Also I’ve got to believe that the fact you’re not getting triggered, well, it’s a lot of practice, but the way that you’re perceiving that it’s normal for children to do those things…  it’s normal for them to object when they’re not getting what they want. It’s not a bad sign that you’re doing something wrong and that you’ve got to fix something and everybody’s unhappy and that’s going to rock you. It’s a mentality of normalizing a lot of things, our perceptions, our expectations.

Erica Orosco Cruz:  Yes. So as soon as the children arrive, they get either sun hats or beanies, depending on the weather, and a child who’s been here for five years and their routine is the same (we’ve always gotten a hat), I still will remind them, I’ll be touching my head: “It’s time for you to get a hat now.” Just as if it was a child who’s only been here for three months.

So it’s not the expectation of, well, they should know, they’ve been here for five years or we’ve been doing this for three months. It’s with the understanding of, there are a lot of stimuli. And I don’t know if they got the breakfast that they wanted or if the parent that they wanted to see in the morning is the parent that woke up. I don’t know how their day is and I just want to be supportive in any way that I can.

Janet Lansbury:  That reminds me… It’s almost like a literal version of a touchpoint, that you’re giving the children just those little moments. Even that’s a moment of attention that you’re giving solely to that child. It just lasts for one second, but it matters because you’re connecting right there and saying: I see you and I’m here to help you. I’m here to remind you and help you. Not be angry with you for not getting it, but to show you that I’m here caring for you as well.

So it doesn’t take as much energy as I think we sometimes believe it might, to give a child that feeling of being seen and being cared about in a small way.

One of the common issues parents have and I remember this being an issue for me, is that they need to put their baby to sleep, and their toddler, or in my case, it was a four-year-old, is not able to be quiet in the area because they can’t control their impulses at that time. So, therefore, they’re disrupting and they’re making it pretty much impossible for that baby to fall asleep and for you to have a little bedtime moment nursing or whatever it is at bedtime. And then you ask the child to leave the room and then they’re screaming outside the door, crying, and you feel terrible as a parent that you’re abandoning them and neglecting them. How would you handle a situation like that?

Erica Orosco Cruz:  Janet, I think it goes back to being able to give the children grace. That’s normal, they’re tired, they’re wanting your full attention. They don’t want you to be separated from them. But I wouldn’t be able to give that grace to the child unless I was giving that grace to myself too.

Janet Lansbury:  Giving yourself that grace of…

Erica Orosco Cruz:  It may not be perfect. I might unravel just as quickly as the other child or it might feel rushed. I might have both of the babies in my arms at that time. So knowing that it doesn’t have to be perfect every day and being able to give myself that grace.

But I want to be able to meet both of the child’s needs. Okay, how can I do that, if I’m thinking about it? Okay, the youngest one I would like to put to bed early so that I can spend the time with my four-year-old or older child. How can I do that? Oh, okay, does that mean that I move up one child’s bedtime an hour earlier, instead of just 30 minutes earlier? Maybe I don’t need to put the child completely asleep. Maybe I just need to feed the child, burp the child, put the younger child in the crib while I go and sing songs, have a cuddle, have a story time with the older child, and then come back to the other child, the younger child if he’s not asleep.

I’m always trying to think of possibilities. What are other possibilities? So that it’s not just, I need to do this, because that rigidity, the rigidity of it has to be done this way or they’re calling me, so I need to go over there, even though I’m being here in this moment.

I remember being that parent: it has to be this way and not giving myself that grace of, I can take a breath and then I can go attend to that child that needs me.

Janet Lansbury:  Right. Or we can have a very messy moment here, it’s not going to be smooth. Which is most of the time, especially if you have more than one child, it’s hardly ever everybody’s just perfectly content. Those moments happen and then you’re wondering, Oh gosh, I’ve got to pinch myself here. I must be dreaming.

I think getting used to that it’s going to be… And also for that older child, that’s the moment where maybe all that envy and jealousy and feeling about having this new child in their life, this new child in the family is coming to the fore right there and it’s spilling over and it’s getting expressed and in a way that’s such a positive, healthy thing.

And we can acknowledge and help someone feel heard, even outside of a door. You can help someone to feel that you care about them and love them, even if they’re not right there with you.

I think that’s another thing with caring for children in groups or caring for multiple children in a family. Yes, it’s nice when a child is having a feeling and we can just drop everything and be just with that feeling. But oftentimes, when there’s more than one child, it doesn’t happen that way, and we have to find ways to accept feelings and encourage children to share feelings with us, without us stopping everything for that to happen.

Erica Orosco Cruz:  Yeah. Even if they’re on the other side of the door. If you’re going to the bathroom and there’s a two-year-old demanding your attention and the door is closed, you can still, even then, “I hear you, you’re wanting me to be present with you and I’m taking care of myself right now.” Whatever that might be.

Janet Lansbury:  Right and unplugging that thing in us that’s like, I can’t relax. This again comes from expectations and perceptions of what it means when children behave like this. It’s not a bad thing that’s going on. It’s not a negative thing. It’s very healthy for children to feel: sometimes I don’t get what I want. My life is a flow of feelings and it’s not this static — I always feel a certain way. I always feel calm and happy or just calm and settled. It can be ALL those things. And that’s healthy for children to experience. It happens naturally when we, as you said, kind of prioritize one child or even ourselves sometimes.

Erica Orosco Cruz:  And when they’re receiving the focused attention at some other part during the day, I can even bring that: “I remember when you were pounding on the door when I was in the bathroom and here I am, I’m all yours now. We can go and read your story. Now my time is with you.”

Janet Lansbury:  Yeah. “And that was so hard for you. I could hear how hard that was. You didn’t like that.”

Another practical example people need help with is let’s say… Well, actually I did a post recently, just a little post on Instagram, about transitions and helping a child to leave something, like the park. It could be also leaving daycare or leaving childcare or school or some other situation or a play date with a friend. The child is having difficulty in that transition as children often do. They’re getting overwhelmed and they’re getting dysregulated. And how can we respectfully help them to get from point A to point B? They’re not usually able to be given a lot of choices then or whatever. They’re not in a reasonable frame of mind and they really need help. So I had a post about this and somebody said, “Well, what if there are two children and they’re both running in different directions when you try to help them. What do you do if everybody’s running away?”

Erica Orosco Cruz:  Again, creating that safe environment for yourself, a supportive environment.

So if I have two children and there is a possibility that they might run in different directions, I maybe bring a wagon to the park so that I can corral them into a space, so that I don’t have to carry two children out of the park.

I also like to talk about routines and consistency. So one of the things that we used to do with my children when we would go to the park is that: “Before we leave the park, we will go on the swings. And when we are done with the swings, then we’re going to go to the car.” So they may ask for the swing earlier in the park visit. And I would remind them, “We do that before we leave.” And so they would go off and play again.

And then when I was getting ready to or it was time for us to leave, “Okay, we’re going to be getting ready to leave so I can offer the swing now.” So they got into the routine of Oh when we go in the swings, that means we’re going to leave, and it would be pretty much smooth sailing.

So again, when we take a group of children to the park or another visit: What kind of cues can I give them? What can I let them know? So when we start to put our shoes back on, that’s going to be time for us to leave, and we’re reminding them of that as we arrive at the location. “When we get our shoes back on, we’re going to be leaving.” And shortly before we’re leaving, “Okay it’s almost time for us to get our shoes on. And then we will be leaving right after that.”

So lots of physical cues. If I’m at a friend’s house and my children have come along, “When I go get our jackets from the other room, it’ll be time for us to leave.” “When I put my dishes on the counter, it’s going to be time for us to leave.” So I’m trying to give them physical, not only visual cues, which is super helpful.

And then there are times where they’re tired and they’ve had tons of fun and they don’t want to leave. Now you’re dealing with a tired child who might be throwing a fit. You can give them all the cues and they’re still not participating. So it’s, “You may walk to the car or I may pick you up and take you to the car,” pausing and waiting, giving them every opportunity that you can, that they will participate. And then it’s, “I see that you’re not walking, so I’m going to pick you up and carry you to the car.”

Janet Lansbury:  I love that idea of the transitional activities, sort of like a bedtime routine, where once the child is in that activity, they’re already feeling themselves getting ready to leave, or they’re feeling themselves getting ready to go to sleep because they’ve associated that activity with the next activity or the next situation that’s going to happen. That’s brilliant. I actually haven’t heard of that before and I love it.

Erica Orosco Cruz: There have also been times where we’ve had an “after RIE class.” So a class for children that are over two years. And I remember we were wrapping up class, the volume was going louder and the parents are in the class going, “Oh no. How is this going to unfold?” The children were running around in the indoor space. And I got out a box of silks and I just slowly folded them. And the energy slowly shifted into much calmer. Some of the children started joining me. But it’s so much about being the calm in the eye of the storm of just being present and slowing down. I don’t need to raise my volume. I don’t need to stand up and lift my arms. I don’t need to react to what’s going on in front of me. I just need to know where I want to go. “Do I want to bring the energy down? Okay, I can do that. How can I do that? What are the tools that I can have? Is it sweeping? Is it raking? Is it something that I can do, repetitive and calming as well?”

Janet Lansbury:  Do you ever get wound up and you feel like: Okay, I’m getting wound up. What am I going to do? I’m going to breathe, or whatever it is. Do you have a self-dialogue that you do at all or imagery?

Erica Orosco Cruz:  I even talk it out loud with the children. Say they’re moving their bodies precariously on something. I might go, “I’m watching. I’m not sure about that. I may come closer.”

So it’s not even in my head, it’s just something oral. And I’m saying it out loud and they’re like: Oh, what does that mean? She’s watching, what are we doing that’s bringing her attention to it?

Or I might say, “I’m coming closer,” when I’m getting behavior that’s out of the norm and screaming and amplified and they’re having a good time, but I’m not sure about it. So I’ll go, “I’m not sure. I’m going to come closer.” And so I’m checking in with them, but I’m also checking in with myself. Is this something I’m okay with? This is something I’m not okay with. Well, let me get closer. Maybe I can be closer and feel more comfortable with what they’re climbing on.

We had a parent that came in and was volunteering, but was very fluent with the language that we use: “I’m not sure, I’m coming closer.” And I remember at the end of the day, one of the staff members says, “She’s not sure about a lot of things.” And I thought that was so great because at least she was vocalizing it for uncertainty with the children and with the staff. So I was happy. That made me laugh.

Janet Lansbury:  Yeah. It’s always better to put it out there because children are feeling that, they’re feeling that trepidation or that discomfort a little bit in the person. And then it’s kind of scary if they don’t hear somebody put words to what’s going on with them. So, it really helps to calm children even just to be that honest about what’s going on with us, cluing them in. It also helps model a process for them, for themselves: I’m not sure about standing on that rock. So let me think about it. Okay, I’m going to try putting one foot up. Not that they would verbalize that, but they might internalize that kind of dialogue.

Erica Orosco Cruz:  Yes. And its familiar language. So even the other children might say, “I’m not sure about that,” when they’re referring to another child.

Janet Lansbury:  Yeah. I love that. That’s so great.

What else do I want to ask you about… What about the conflicts between children? What about when they’re using unkind words or being unkind or they’re being physically unsafe or maybe they’re fighting over toys? What kind of responses do you have to those things?

Erica Orosco Cruz:  I feel like it’s the same responses when we’re in a RIE class and it’s infants exploring each other’s bodies and things like that. And the same thing with the preschool or a child who has a whole lot more language. One of the words that we use often is “ouch,” if we see something that’s rough or hear something that’s rough, or if it’s unkind words. So we come closer, we sportscast, “I saw that you were both holding onto it. Ouch, that’s rough when you’re pulling on someone’s hair,” or “Ouch, that was rough how you said, give it to me.”

So we are still sportscasting, even with children who have a full round of language because they still are centering on themself and what they desire instead of really looking at the other child who may have that same desire. And so that’s where the sportscasting still comes into play. And it’s so helpful, especially with siblings who have varying degrees of language and comprehension of what’s going on.

Janet Lansbury:  But you stop some of the behaviors, right?

Erica Orosco Cruz:  Yes. We are definitely putting our hand in there to make sure everybody’s safe. We intervene if there are children that are being rough with each other, or if they’re being rough with an object, like a toy, or even — we have some chickens here — if they’re being rough with themselves even. We’re intervening, putting our hands in the path where they could do harm, and still continuing the sportscasting. “I may hold onto that car, I see that you’re both pushing. I’m going to make sure that you’re both safe.”

Janet Lansbury:  But you’re allowing them to resolve the conflict if possible by themselves. And at what point would you decide that they can’t be in this conflict or they’re not able to be here right now, or I need to pull them aside, how would you do that?

Erica Orosco Cruz:  Sometimes we will stop the harm from happening. And then it may be, we can be in that space with them and see how it unfolds. “Okay, I’m going to have you stay close to me, but you’re still going after that person. Okay, I’m going to have us move into a different space.” So that there’s a clear boundary of what’s okay and what’s not okay. Yes, it’s okay to struggle over a toy or want to be sitting on the same stool or to have conflict is natural, but to be forceful with someone’s body, that’s a hard boundary.

Janet Lansbury:  Absolutely. But you’re still not judging the child as a bad child or shameful or anything. Yeah-

Erica Orosco Cruz:  Definitely not.

Janet Lansbury:  That’s the key to so much. Our reactions are what make certain behaviors repeat or make things a “thing.” Like children running away from us when they’re supposed to do something, it’s often because of the way that we’ve reacted to that in the past or the way that we’ve been judgmental.

Erica Orosco Cruz:  Here on site with the staff, it’s like okay, what is that behavior desiring? Is that child wanting to play with those children? We see them knocking down a structure that the other children built with blocks, but does that need mean that they want to be playing? Okay, how can we facilitate that? What is behind the behavior? What is the need that’s trying to be met?

Janet Lansbury:  Right. And sometimes it’s the opposite. This child is trying to get some space if it’s too stimulating for this child to be this close to these children. So they’re pushing, hitting them.

Erica Orosco Cruz:  You can’t discover that unless you’re observing. Because if you’re in it and you’re like oh, I’m constantly having to stop this child from pushing friends away from them. And you’re not observing… Okay, what happened before? Okay, what was happening earlier in the day? If you’re not trying to figure out through observation what’s unfolding, then you’re not going to be able to see it. And then I would say, then you would move towards the labels or you would get frustrated or you would say: Oh, not again.

Janet: Lansbury. Yes, and that’s such a cornerstone of Magda Gerber’s approach: sensitive observation of children and it really makes a difference. I’ve noticed when I’ve been able to go into a preschool because a parent maybe asked me to assess their child for something. I’ll be the one that gets to observe because the other teachers are sometimes busy and I’ll see everything — how things went down and what really happened. And you learn a lot about each child just in a short amount of time. It’s really, really powerful.

But how do you do that if you’re the parent with a bunch of children? How do you carve out that observation time? You learn to not get involved in their play for one thing, so that becomes observation time.

Erica Orosco Cruz:  And then you get curious. Okay. I was putting the groceries away and a child said something to me, but I continued to put the groceries away, and then all of a sudden there was spilled milk on the floor. Oh, did I miss that opportunity where they were asking for help pouring the milk? What could I have done? Could I have set the groceries aside and maybe the child could’ve helped with the groceries away and then I could have served milk?

It really goes to the curiosity that children instinctively have, that we often lose because we’re just trying to find the answer.

Janet Lansbury:  Right. So it’s not really observation in the sense of the way we do in the classes, which is where we’re actually sitting and observing. We’re reflecting more on what just happened, so that’s another way of learning the way observation teaches us.

We can also learn by actually being open to… which always has to start with self-compassion and non-self-judgment, I think. But reflecting on: Oh, there’s a reason this happened with my child and the reason is not my fault, I’m bad or that they’re terrible, that I’ve done a terrible job with them, that they’re not a good person. None of those are ever the reason. The reason is something else. So to let go of all those other things so that we can love ourselves and have peace with ourselves enough to be open to what it really is, I guess, is what you’re saying.

Erica Orosco Cruz:  That’s what I call grace, to give yourself some grace.

Janet Lansbury:  I love that. Wow. What a gift you are.

So you consult with parents, you coach parents, all of that information’s on your website and you have online classes as well?

Erica Orosco Cruz:  We do. We have online classes for parents, we weekly come together. And what we receive, Janet, is like when we were in class with Magda, the decompression of: Now I get to reflect.  Or, where can I fit in this observation time? Or as Magda used to say, “What are your three wishes?” And by asking that question, it really opens you up to: What is the possibility? How could this be different?

Being a mother is no easy feat. Being a caregiver of multiple children is no easy feat, but when we have a love and a curiosity for it, it gives us a lot of opportunities to be able to shift, to try different things.

Janet Lansbury:  Right. What do I need? I feel like you’re saying. That’s what Magda was saying. She was saying, “If the good fairy could come and give you a wish or three wishes, what would they be?” And what she was saying was: Think about what you need.

Erica Orosco Cruz:  Yes, because we teach ourselves first. So if we’re frustrated or tired or not taking care of ourselves, that’s what we’re modeling for our children.

Janet Lansbury:   This is wonderful. Thank you so much, Erica. I’ll be linking to all your information in the notes of this podcast. And then in the transcript, which will be posted on my website. I wish you had been my preschool teacher and I may have wished you were my mother too, at some point. You exude that grace that you’re talking about, you really do.

Oh, there’s this video of you, if it’s still on YouTube of you helping your son brush his teeth, and goodness, that alone, is worth a million words. Is that still available?

Erica Orosco Cruz:  It is.

Janet Lansbury:  Okay, great. I’ll include that in the transcript as well. Wonderful. Thank you so much. And you have a beautiful day. I’m thrilled you’re out there helping so many people, so many parents, so many children to give themselves grace.

Erica Orosco Cruz:  Thank you. This went by so fast. I’m so grateful that we got to do it.

Janet Lansbury: Me too. All right, take care, my friend.

Erica Orosco Cruz:  Bye.

Please check out the wonderful resources Erica offers at http://homeschoolgardensite.com

And HERE’s Erica’s toothbrushing video on YouTube, it’s worth watching!

Also, please check some of my other podcasts on my website janetlansbury.com. There are 200-and-something of them at this point and they’re all indexed by subject and category so you should be able to find whatever topic you might be interested in. And I have two books, they’re available at Amazon: No Bad Kids, Toddler Discipline Without Shame and Elevating Child Care, A Guide To Respectful Parenting.  You can get them in eBook at Amazon, Apple, Google Play, or barnesandnoble.com, and in audio at Audible.com. Actually, you can get a free audio copy of either book at Audible by following the link in the liner notes of this podcast.

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

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