TRANSCRIPT
Parenting is often lived in the extremes. It's either great joy or chaotic, overwhelmed. In one moment, you're nailing it and the next you're losing your cool. I want to help you find your way to the messy middle, to a place of balance. You see balance is a verb, not a state of being. It is a thing you do. Not a thing you are. It is an action, a process, a series of micro corrections that you make each and every day to keep yourself feeling centered. We are never truly balanced. We are engaged in the process of balancing.
Hello, I'm Dr. Laura Froyen and this is The Balanced Parent Podcast where overwhelmed, stressed out and disconnected parents go to find tools, mindset shifts and practices to help them stop yelling at the people they love and start connecting on a deeper level. All delivered with heaping doses of grace and compassion. Join me in conversations that will help you get clear on your goals and values and start showing up in your parenting, your relationships, your life with openhearted authenticity and balance. Let's go!
Laura: Hello everybody. This is Dr. Laura Froyen on this episode of the Balanced Parent Podcast, we're having a live coaching session with some of my balancing You membership members. This is the benefit of being in balancing you you get to have free on air coaching on the podcast with me.
And so for this episode, I have a lovely couple coming in and we're gonna be talking about Their daughter who is five, and a particular issue that they're having, where this kiddo who's sweet and sensitive kind of reacts negatively to even the most sensitively kindly and respectfully delivered boundaries and limits. And they're kind of flummoxed about what to do. So I'm gonna have them discuss the issue more fully and then we'll dive right into the coaching. Nikki and Brian, welcome to the show. Why don't you tell me about what's going on with your five-year-old?
Nikki: So, Ellie is five going on six and we've noticed over probably the last year or so that even when we deliver a correction really gently, really kindly, the reaction that she has can sometimes not always, but sometimes feel panicked or like fearful and we're kind of totally shocked by that because it kind of came out of nowhere and sometimes it'll involve like running or hiding.
Sometimes it'll involve like starting to cry immediately erupting into tears. So it's become difficult to know what the best way to give any feedback is and also where it comes from, you know, it's, it doesn't seem like it's like her attempt to avoid receiving feedback at all. It seems much more genuine than anything like that. And I have had parent friends say like, oh, you know, like she's just trying to avoid, you know, getting corrected or told what to do or whatever and I just don't think that that's it, but it's kind of sort of becoming a big problem.
So a recent example is that we were doing like on Saturday or Sunday mornings we do this thing called the cuddle bed where like all the kids could kind of pile into the bed with us if they want to. Nobody is obligated to do the cuddle bed. But Ellie…
Laura: And you have a big blended family, which is beautiful.
Nikki: Yes. Yeah, so it's uh it's usually the two teenagers who are now 15 and 17 and Eleanor kind of all pile in for like a few morning snuggles and it's a lot of people in one king-size bed and usually, there's a dog or a cat involved too. But there's a moment where Ellie like is like awake and she's no longer interested in cuddling and she becomes like all knees and elbows and so we'll have to say things like Eleanor, like I noticed that that elbow might have bumped from me in the head, can you check on your friend?
And the reaction might be something like throwing yourself under the blankets starting to cry or we might just get like the staring with lip quivering and we really try to avoid like blame or you know, there's certainly never any like character accusations or things like that. It's just usually were saying things like, would you check on your buddy or things like we might need you to be careful with your limbs or you know, can you think of another way that we might say it or
Brian: A lot of it I think is can you check on your friend and like there's almost this immediate like but see the shift, the fear that that just kind of comes over her and tones are always really well monitored like language is very specifically chosen like Nikki is a rock star and she's taught us all, you know how to give great corrective, you know, nudges and feedback and
Nikki: I think can you check on your friend even came from like we would say, hey Eleanor, like I think you might have bonked Finley or like you know that elbow might have bonked your friend or something like that and then she would like panic and so we would say if you were worried about if a friend is mad, a great way to know is to check their face, you know, so we would say like just give a look over does finally have an angry face.
Laura: Yeah, it is obvious to me that you are all doing your very best to deliver corrections in a way that will be received. Well, you've really taken to heart the idea of a soft startup of not wanting to induce shame, blame or judgment. You're doing beautifully. And so this is one of the key things that is so important for us to remember as parents is that we're not parenting in isolation were parenting is inherently a relationship where there's someone else on the receiving end, an individual who we have no control over how they're going to receive our correction, that's something that's so important to keep in mind.
And I loved it. I just wanted to circle back to what you were saying before, that maybe other friends or family members have said like she's just trying to get out of getting being in trouble or avoid being in trouble. And I think that that's a really common narrative that we can slip into. I love that you're aware of that mindset that that mindset might be there and you are really kind of actively challenging that and choosing a more compassion and compassionate and kind of realistic what's actually going on for her, but it seems like you're wanting to know kind of what is actually going on for her in these moments, right?
So if she we don't really believe that she's trying to avoid getting in trouble, but something else is clearly happening and what is that? Right, okay, so there's a few developmental things that happen at five and six that are exciting and wonderful that you're bumping into here. So there's this piece of it that's really important to understand. So five and six is one where children's internal voices are really starting to develop where their inner critic starts talking to them, they're developing their sense of self.
So the 3 to 5 range is really when children's internal working models of themselves and others are starting to be developed and it's really firming up around five and six, they're really starting to have a lot of thoughts about themselves, about their place in the world, about their worthiness, their love ability, all of those things. And our interactions with our kids obviously influenced children's internal working models of themselves, but it's not everything. There are genetic influences that come into play, kind of how we think and interpret things.
There's temperament and personality influences that also come into play. And so it's really important to understand that we could deliver parenting perfectly to our kids and still have a kid who can kind of take what we say and interpret it and filter it through their own experiences, their own lens, their own brain and come out on the other side and think things that we've never said. And so there's this piece of it that like we have to give up a little bit of our power, we have to recognize that it's not all of us that there's another human there. I think that that's kind of what you're seeing here.
I think you're seeing her developing her inner voice oftentimes this inner voice starts talking to us and we develop our inner critic first and have to work to develop an inner coach and that's something that I would love to see you working on with Ellie teaching her actively about the voices that talk to her in her head, We all have them normalizing that I would be really curious to know what the first thought is that runs through her brain. So there's a really great book called anxiety relief for kids that teaches parents how to do. Do you have it?
Nikki: I got it in the middle of a semester of grad school so I haven't read it yet.
Laura: Well it's a good book and it's one that you can kind of flip through and find techniques that you're looking for. Basically, what this book does for our listeners is it teaches parents how to do cognitive behavioral therapy with their kids basically. I would be really curious for Ellie is to know what is the very first thought that goes through her mind when a correction is given.
So you would have this conversation with her outside of the moment during a calm connected time. One of my kids likes to have like a tea party or a pretend coffee date with me where we talk about some of those things and the other one likes to do it when we're playing together. So kids have different things that they like to do.
I've had conversations like this with kids while they're jumping on a trampoline or playing with play Doh there's lots of different ways you can kind of get a captive audience with a kid, it just depends on your individual child. Older kids like to do have this type of conversation in the car where direct eye contact can't be made and you've got again, a captive audience? But even just kind of circling back and thinking back to like, you know, the other morning, we were all in bed and an elbow accidentally, you know, your body was feeling kind of, it seems like it was kind of feeling done with snuggles and in all your wiggles, you accidentally, you know, elbowed your brother or sister or sibling.
And then, you know, we mentioned that that elbow looked like it hurt your friend. And then we mentioned that and I saw your face change and I kind of just wondered if the thought went through your head or if you were telling yourself something right then, because I saw that face change, I'm kind of curious about that. And so then you can get them thinking about like what the little thoughts tell them what, you know, I'm a bad kid, I'm a bad sister.
I hurt my friend and that makes me bad, you know, like kids come to get all sorts of conclusions that we don't even put in their head, they're very natural, you know, 5-6 age where she is figuring out what it means to be a person who has a body who gets a little wild and hurts a brother, you know, or a sister or a sibling. She's figuring that out. So she's making interpretations and she needs an opportunity to acknowledge that just because she thinks the thought doesn't make it true and that she can actually talk back to her thoughts. How is this sitting with you? Does this seem doable?
Nikki: Yeah, I definitely think so. I think she would be receptive to something like that. So if you were going to have a conversation like that, do you see that being something that like both parents kind of sat down for, or is that sort of one parent has the conversation reports back to the other parent? Like here's what I learned. Like it's so good.
Laura: Yeah. It depends on the kid. So, you know, I happen to be the person in my family who the kids like to talk to about like that because I mean it's my job. You know, I have certain skills to kind of pull out those things that my husband hasn't been trained on. They prefer me and they prefer to do it one on one and I get their consent to share the information with my husband.
And sometimes they're very specific about what level of information I can share with him when I have some of these conversations and I respect kids, privacy's on that end of things. And sometimes they do choose to have those conversations with their partner or with their other parent. I think that for some kids, when we come at it with two parents on a serious topic, a topic where they already feel like it's obviously she feels like she was in trouble.
You know, like it's she's obviously feeling some sort of way about it that we didn't intend because she wasn't in trouble. Always it's interesting to me for kids who don't who never really received punishments, how they get the concept of the idea that they're in trouble, but they do anyway. But she clearly felt like she was in trouble or had done something wrong.
And sometimes two parents coming at her can feel like they're she's about to be lectured, you know, two and so dropping into curiosity, doing way more listening and paraphrasing back than advice-giving or you know, talking can be helpful, but you can ask her to, you know, we want to talk about, you know, the elbow in bed on Saturday, would you want to talk about it with both of us or just mom or just dad, you know, which do you prefer? And go with what she says and then kind of go from there, but like the piece of this is that when she says things like, well, I I thought this so I thought that and you can say like, huh, did you know that kind of sounds like your inner critic did you know you have an inner critic, do you know what that is?
And then you can teach her what those voices are and practice responses and you know when you ever you have an inner critic, you always have an inner coach available to you who can help you and our coach is someone who you know, tells you, gives you confidence, who says positive things to you, who you know is always cheering you on. I bet she's aware of her inner coach in other places too. I have this video of my daughter when she was three where she was climbing a snow hill and she was just encouraging herself Like to the fullest, like, come on, you can do it, you did it before, you can do it again.
It was so beautiful. And at three those things are very out, kids are not thinking inside their head yet, but by five and 6 that dialogue that has moved inward and so I guarantee she will know what you mean by an inner coach and she'll know what you mean by an inner critic when you give her a definition and understanding that she has a bit of control over about when and her coach comes to her aid and how they can have a conversation, I can be really profound for kids and it's something that I wish I had known as a child, Right? Right.
Brian: Also, I think we could use some of this stuff to even as we're like offering each other loving feedback about, you know, leaving the toilet seat up or drink milk out of the carton.
Laura: These are such good things to model too. So if you're learning about your inner coach and your inner critic alongside your kids, right? Many of us are healing and growing up alongside our kids because we didn't get what we needed when we were actually growing up. So now we've got growing up to do you know now we've got there's no manual to the human brain or the human heart, we're figuring it out as we're raising our kids, our kids are showing us the work we have to do.
There's nothing wrong with modeling it for our kids. So just as an example, the other day I spilled a glass of water, I took a pause and I took a breath and I said my inner critic right now is calling me names, it's telling me that I that I'm messy and you know accident-prone and it's not being very nice to me, I'm going to call in my inner coach and it's gonna say you know what? Everybody makes mistakes, this is a chance to be kind to yourself all the things that I tried to say and I said this out loud, just kind of to myself, like what a three-year-old does, you know this dialogue that moves inside, I kind of just did it outside and my kids were just riveted watching me and I know for a fact that they are taking that on for themselves because after modeling this for years, a few weeks ago I had one of the biggest blunders in my life, Oh, my inner critic was really talking to me then and when this is all happening. And the kids came in there like, mom, it's just water, let's clean it up.
And they went and they got towels and they're like, mom, everybody makes mistakes, don't worry about it. You know, like, they just had all of this great narrative for me. So, the modeling piece of it is really good. So, if you're noticing your inner critic coming up, you know, you don't have to go into two bigger details, have good boundaries around those things too. You can just leave it at my inner critic as not being very nice to me. I'm going to call in my inner coach and say these things back to it, you know, because you don't want to give them.
Nikki: Yeah, more ideas about.
Laura: Right. Yeah, you don't want to give them like a new language to use. But modeling it is a really good thing to do.
Nikki: Are you noticing that like, even with her schoolwork or drawing, especially like she's got the classes are so small this year with COVID. So there's like 13 kids in her class and she's getting a lot of like, one on one time with each of them. But one of those kids is like this exceptional five-year-old artist, like she's really doing great with her fine motor and her imagination. And Ellie I think is struggling with her fine motor. And like we're seeing sometimes like letters and stuff will be backwards or you know, stuff like that.
So we're she's really struggling with like there are people who are better at me than things and people who are like, you know, less good at me than things. And what does that mean? You know, she'll bring home, they don't get like the same opportunities to run that they might end up pre covid world. So they make art for each other during some of their breaks and she'll bring home pictures that like other kids in our class have made and say like I made it and I'm like, You know, it's okay for you to bring home artwork that your friends made for you or it might be really fun to pretend or and she's like, no, I didn't. You know, it's me.
Laura: Ellie has discovered the pain of comparison.
Nikki: Yeah, it's tricky because I think her sister is her 15-year-old sister. It's quite the artist too. And she's like, well will you teach me to draw how you draw? And we talk a lot about like practice and sticking with things. And you know, Riley has been drawing for 10 more years and the most important thing to do is keep drawing. And I think it's been really tough to have a brother and a sister who are so much bigger and
Brian: and yeah creative and I think we've seen the kids do that though, like both kids have sat down and said, well this is how I draw and I or this is how and it's great to see how they can connect over, you know, skill-building at least genuinely curious about something that they can do. And they seem enamored that, you know, this great little person is asking them, right?
Nikki: Yeah, she's there's such a hero for her.
Laura: There is a developmental piece. So all the people who are listening who have a five-year-old will recognize this. So this is very common for five-year-olds. There's two things that are happening for in a five-year-old brain that makes this happen. Okay. The kind of the comparison and the dissatisfaction in the frustration that they're not able to do what they think they should be able to do. So, first of all, their cognitive planning and mapping and visualization skills have started to outstrip their fine motor skills and so they might visualize in their head this beautiful unicorn that they want to draw and they literally don't have the fine motor skills to execute it and that's really frustrating for them because in their mind they're be able to visualize what they can do and now they can visualization abilities are much more complex and advanced.
Yeah, and they just don't have the skills and I mean this is something that is frustrating for lots of people who are starting to do new things, you know, so a person who is playing baseball and can visualize themselves hitting home runs and then can't actually do it because they don't have the muscle memory and the practice built up to do it. I've experienced that problem when I play pool, I'm really good at geometry, I know the exact angles and forces that I need to play pool really well and I cannot execute it for the life of me, you know, I mean, so that's something that doesn't go away, but it's a beautiful piece of development that's happening for her right there. And then the other piece that's happening for her is so kids in the 6 to 8 range start being able to do a lot of perspective, taking a lot more, putting themselves in other people's shoes, and thinking about what another person can do or see their experience, but a five-year-old is not very skilled in that yet.
And so it is very difficult for them to consistently be able to put themselves in the shoes of another child who can do things and understand that that child has had other experiences, has other gifts, other talents, and is different, that they very much are still in the concrete a place of, well they're the same age as me, if they can do it, I should be able to do it and it's very hard for them to navigate the perspective-taking that it takes, you know, to be able to think, like, well this, you know, if we're talking about soccer, well, this kiddo who's playing soccer so well has been in soccer since they, you know, were three and their dad is also the coach, so they work, you know, probably in the evenings and it's really hard for them to maintain that perspective, taking just cognitively.
And so those two things can really impact a child's frustration levels. Like you're doing everything right, and this is a piece that they will just need to ride it out a little bit and slow down. I have found, personally for my kids when they've been in this stage, it's been really helpful for me to show them, like for my youngest, when she really entered the stage, was really frustrated that she couldn't draw, like, her older sister, I showed her x rays of a four-year-old's hand and a seven-year-old's hand and how different they are. Like there's still a lot of cartilage and a four and five-year-old hand.
They literally don't have the physical structures in their hands to be able to do the things that an eight-year-old or a 10-year-old or even a teenager can do. And that can be really helpful for a kid to be like, oh, that's my hand, this is my, the person I'm comparing to his hand, it makes sense that I can't do anything, Do you know what I mean? That can be helpful too.
And then it's also been really helpful for me to talk about other famous people that they know who had to work really hard. So like particularly with art, one of my kids who's the same age as your child just turned six has really struggled with not being able to do the art that she wants to be able to do. And so we've talked a lot about how I once visited museum that had an exhibit dedicated to all of the bad copies of Van Gogh's Starry nights. It had like 20 different starry nights in it. And it also had, you know, letter after letter after letter of him expressing his frustration that he couldn't get it just right that he had written to friends all over the world. It was a beautiful exhibit in grit and growth mindset and all of those things. And so describing that to her, the one of the most famous artists, one of my favorite artists. I spent years trying to get a painting just right and was frustrated by it too. You're not alone.
So holding space for those frustrations, allowing time to take a break explaining about their muscle structure and how they're building their muscles, needing to practice and draw something over and over again to get good at it, to be able to make it look the way you want as part of being an artist. Being an artist is not automatically just doing it immediately, but it's the time that you spend in it can be helpful and those things like all of this is of course couched in the not negating or dismissing a kid's feelings.
Yes, it is frustrating, it's super frustrating, and helping them with those pieces of it and you know, the same thing is likely happening in this other circumstance where you point out how their actions have affected another person. They are on the beginning of really tapping into true empathy to do true empathy. You have to consider consistently be able to put yourself into someone else's shoes and there at the beginning stages of that and with that comes things like guilt and shame that comes from within as you're recognizing how your actions affect others.
That's part of learning how to have a human brain and a human heart too that, you know how to feel guilt without feeling shame is a tricky thing that even grown-ups have to figure out how to do guilt isn't necessarily always a negative a bad thing. We can, guilt can be very motivating and changing our behaviors, you know? Okay and then I have one other thought, sorry, I feel like I'm talking a lot and I want to get your feedback.
Brian: But you know this has been really helpful, thank you.
Laura: So but one other thing too is that so the like these pieces were in the moment, she's not responding well to feedback if there are ones that are pretty kind of consistent that come up frequently. Those are ripe opportunities for preventative collaborative problem-solving.
So for example the morning snuggle isn't working the way that it is right now this is a great opportunity to sit down with her and say you know like I've just noticed that there's a point in morning snuggle where you seem to be done and I'm curious about like how we can navigate ending morning snuggle at a time that feels good to your body. So you can bring those things up, you can use ross Greens kind of Plan B collaborative and proactive solutions approach which is I don't know have you looked into those into that at all?
Nikki: No I'm hoping you could write it down.
Laura: Okay. Yeah, so Ross Greene has multiple books, books for teachers who are working in school settings, books for parents who have explosive kids who have big emotions, big reactions to corrections, big meltdowns, tantrums, aggression, and then he has another book for kind of just the average family who wants to learn how to have proactive and collaborative discussions with their kids. That's called Raising Human Beings. I would recommend the Raising Human Beings one but he teaches a very specific approach to collaborative problem-solving. Another approach that I love too is taught in the Parent Effectiveness Training world. Um so that book is also a great option on the book. It looks like PET.
But, they both teach great problem-solving skills. I also teach kind of a combination of those in my problem-solving workshop that I have available on my website that you can purchase if you want to. That teaches you how to pinpoint recurring problems that need kind of a proactive solution. So in this circumstance just sitting down and saying like I've been noticing that morning snuggles you know ending morning snuggles haven't been going so well what's up and just having a conversation about like you know what you've been noticing and what's going on for her.
So like in that moment where she starts getting elbow and knee you know where it seems like you even said she seems to wake up and then she's done with the snuggles like before she starts elbowing someone so little counterintuitive to solve the problem of like not taking correction well the not taking correction well she was already dis regulated is what I'm trying to say. So in that moment when she's all elbows and knees and she's done with the snuggling, she's already dis regulated right there.
And so when she's already dis regulated knees, her sibling or elbows, her sibling and then gets a correction for it, she's already heightened and not in a place to take correction well and so by solving the thing where she's dis regulated or even before she's dis regulated. So problem-solving. Like, let's figure out like when is the best time to end morning snuggles then she doesn't get dis regulated. Eat kneeing or elbowing doesn't happen and no correction needs to happen. Does that make sense?
Nikki: Yeah. So this kinda touches on like another issue that we're having with L. A. So what we've said like is like maybe if you're done cuddling you can go grab a book to look through or you grab some toys to play with. But I think it's tricky because then like her parents are still in bed cuddling her two siblings which you know because we're a blended family and because we've been, you know like together for about a year now in one house. I think there are some big feelings lately about like like being a blended family, you know like we had, I think like, I'm not sure it needs like a name. It was like the big processing like we were doing bedtime and Ellie was having big fields and she was like I need to just talk to mom about this.
So like you left the room very graciously and she was like, she just had like a list of grievances and they were like, it was like at dinnertime, the teenagers talk more than me and like at this time it feels like you pay more attention to pop to that's brian's nickname. So there was like a list of concerns like things that had happened at school things that had happened with friends and it felt like there was like all this whole thing that she was doing and then it was like you know so we did some brainstorming together and we said like you know you're right before we lived with a family with brian's family, you did get a lot more time with just mama. Like what are some things you loved doing together that we could still do?
You know I'm hearing you say that it's hard at the center table to feel like you're getting the attention that you want to get. So what are some times where that's the most frustrating, what are some things we could do? It's tough. I do think the teenagers take up a lot of airtime and it can be hard for Ellie who is so little to even just like fully process the last thing that happened and then you know because brian and his two kids have been with each other for you know their whole lives. They've got a lot of like inside jokes that Ellie and I aren't necessarily privy to and that can be I think a little bit tricky too.
So you know she had all of these big feelings to let out and we brainstorm that like what if there was a little bit of prep time with mom every day and so we've been working on that and having like a couple of like mama and Ellie dates so that she feels like she's getting enough like direct mom focus but then I feel like a moment like that a moment where I could see her feeling like well if I leave this bed I'm leaving my mom with these two people who sometimes feel like I'm competing with, you know, a lot about like how some feelings are mixed feelings. Like it's okay to really have fun with your older siblings and love them. But I also feel a little sad about missing when it was just you and mama which..
Laura: Beautiful.
Nikki: Gets to this like a whole big thing where it's like how do I say that like that was really lonely for me, you know.
Laura: You know, I don't even know that you need to like because you, it can also be really lonely for you and you can miss those times where it was just sweet and slow and just the two of you, you know.
Nikki: Different and it was like a lot of times too quiet for my personality and
Laura: Having a big busy house.
Nikki: Yeah. Yeah, I'm from a big family and like it's you know, so it felt like and it also felt like I enjoyed her differently like like the beautiful little things that she does or the silly things she says like there was nobody else I was like sharing it with to talk about it later and you know it just like I felt like I was so tired and I didn't have anybody to share it with and anyway there's a whole long thing there, but..
Laura: I mean like the good boundary here is that recognizing like when you're holding space for Ellie that it's her space and then you get your space elsewhere so you get to express those things to brian how grateful you are that you now have someone to share your joy with all of those things can happen other times let that space be completely hers. If you take this problem-solving workshop of mine, it's prerecorded, it's easy to watch. Would love it, I'm sure it would benefit your older kids too, but you would find out that you would do a lot of understanding of Ellie and that would come up.
A lot of her concerns would come up about what's going on there, you know that so if you've made the suggestion, you can get a book, you can you know go play while I stay here and she's not open to those things, she will bring those up or you can ask about them and get to those feelings and come up with a solution that feels good to all of you. So coming up with a solution, you always run a solution through a couple of filters, one is it mutually satisfactory, so you would never come up after a collaborative problem-solving session, you would never come up with something that didn't feel good to Ellie because Ali would have veto power over it and you wouldn't come up with something that felt good to you either.
Sometimes things like this that involve the whole family like have to like you have to do a small session where you get all of the little ones concerns or all of one child's concerns, the concerns of the child who's having the problem and then when it comes time to make the big solution, you maybe come up with your plan and then you have to run it by and check that it feels good to everybody else. So for example, like I'm just thinking of a possible solution here and again, I don't know all of these concerns.
One of the main points of this approach to collaborative problem solving is that you don't go in with preconceived ideas of what's going on for your kid, that you let them speak their mind to you, even just thinking about like what a possible solution would be would be that, you know, when Ellie is done, she lets mommy, no, I'm done and she and mommy get up and go start making breakfast together or have a little like morning craft time, if this is something that happens like on saturday mornings or whatever, but then like you could voice a concern, you know, okay, so then I know that your big siblings might be feeling like they're missing out on some snuggle times, so why don't we take this plan to them and see how they feel and what their concerns are and make sure it works for the whole family, you know, And this also actively teaches the perspective thing that we're taking things that we were talking about before of the that is hard for kids who are, you know, in five in the five and six range, it's still a skill that they're developing.
I think that those are valid concerns. I think you probably have a good sense of what's going on for her. But we want her to say those things and organically come up with a solution that works for both of you in those circumstances. Oftentimes when we come at a solution where it's just us coming up with the ideas of what to do, it misses the mark because we don't fully understand what's going on for the kid. The way that Ross Green talks about this in his explosive child book is he calls that Plan A where we like we think, okay, so here's the problem. Here's the solution. I'm going to tell the kids the solution.
And I think a lot of people who are listening who have read this book, I think that plan A is always punitive or negative, you know, so like you've been having trouble brushing your teeth lately. So I've decided that every night you don't brush your teeth, you lose your screen time the next day. We think that that's kind of what the top-down consequence model is, but plan A can also sound like this. I've been noticing you've been having a hard time brushing your teeth lately. So I've decided I'm going to stay in the bathroom with you and chat with you while you brush. There's nothing punitive about that.
That sounds like it could be a beautiful respectful solution, but it's still top-down, it's still uninformed. We didn't seek the kid's opinion. We didn't get their ideas or concerns or worries or we didn't find out anything about what's going on about, you know, what's making it hard to brush teeth. We just kind of came at them with a solution and that works fine for some kids. But for some kids, it doesn't and it also doesn't teach them any problem-solving skills that they can use in other circumstances.
So either the problem-solving workshop or one of Ross Greene's books like those would be good options for you or the parent effectiveness training, which is lovely for parents, folks who have teens and young kids because it is a very good wrap-around. So those are both recommendations that I would have for you on those fronts.
Brian: We talked in a previous session about, Aisling I think.
Laura: Oh yeah piling up because so one correction and then all the kids time in and all of those things
Brian: Happen where you know Elliot elbow, one of her siblings and then Nikki will say check with your friend and then I might say you know Finn doesn't look mad, Ellie and then Finn will say Ellie look at my face, I mean is that similar to piling? Should we avoid? Like everybody says.
Laura: Yeah, absolutely. I would even like you know in those circumstances if like in the moment and this example in the moment, you know, so ideally you know that this is a moment now that can cause some conflict. So hopefully you will preventatively try to work on problem-solving that.
But in the moment I would check with the older kiddos and see like you know, so when she starts getting all elbows and knees and you know, elbows you by accident if we could just kind of ignored that and got her out, you know out of the bed because it's clear that she's done, would that be okay with you? Kind of get their sense of things? Like would your feelings be hurt if we don't acknowledge that you just got elbowed in the face?
You know, just check with them, you know, the next time it happens in the moment, you know, or even preventatively before anybody gets hurt, being able to say, Ellie your body is telling me you're done with snuggles, are you done with snuggles, let's go and just get her out of the situation, somebody does get elbowed and nobody is upset about it like so it's like other kids’ faces like fine and no one's upset, like you can almost let them have some responsibility there to be able to say like, oh okay.
I just get elbow that it wasn't cool, you know, and set that boundary for themselves so that you're not piling on and if they don't, you can also still say like I'm seeing that there's some wiggles going on, it looks like snuggle time is over, you know, and have that conversation where you don't even necessarily have to bring up the elbowing if the other kid isn't bothered by it, you know.
Nikki: I think what happens typically it's usually Finn for some reason because she's climbing
Brian: So yeah, and I've learned to just, you know, kind of snuggle with.
Nikki: You know, does a pretty good job of gently saying, you know, like, ellie your elbow just got me or something like that.
Laura: How does she respond to that if you don't pile on there and you just let him set that, Let Finn set that boundary like that?
Brian: I love the concept of like teaching the older kids to advocate for themselves in those moments, because oftentimes one of us will sweep in, they should already, I'm guessing at this age be able to say like, hey, I didn't like that elbow in my face, I need to address that or I need to say something to
Laura: Yeah.
Brian: Yeah. I mean, I think it's great that it just kind of, you know, it empowers them to advocate for themselves.
Laura: Absolutely.
Nikki: Also wondering like if we feel like an impulse to be supportive of the kid that got elbowed and let them know that like we see that they got and so we kind of say like Haley, can you, you know.
Laura: You're describing a classic triangle that happens in families, right? So we have like the base relationship between all people is a dye, add two people a 1 to 1 relationship. So Ellie has a 1 to 1 relationship with each of you and with each of her siblings. And so, what's happening, like you saw the one get elbowed, you also have a 1-1 relationship with each of those other kids and so you kind of are triangulating yourself, in you're inserting yourself into their diabetic interaction and even if you're gonna do that, I would rather instead of focusing on Ellie there, I would focus on the one who got injured, you know, so say, oh I just saw that elbow, are you okay and just check on that and see what happened
Brian: That's one of the, you know, many brilliant things, I think Nikki's brought to us, is that like not focusing on the person who did the damage, but the person who was damaged. So like just power, the person who was damaged with the oh my gosh, that looked like it hurt, you know, are you okay?
Laura: And even like lower, like, you know, especially if you like they don't really, it doesn't faze them, you know, and you can also just slow down and wait and see to you can just even just not even instruct the other one to do anything.
You could just take a pause and see what they're gonna do. These are older kids too, you know, there's for folks who are listening, they often have younger kids, this is still relevant if you start seeing a tense sibling interaction coming in, getting close, being there for support, but just slowing down and waiting just a little bit to see what's going to happen and figure out where you need to offer support can be really helpful, but at the same time I totally like understand like you want to make sure that they know that that's not okay or you want to make sure that not even that, but they're even aware because it sounds to me like in this moment that they're not aware that they're flailing is having an impact on somebody else. You know that l is flailing.
Nikki: It's just kind of like a bunch of like climbing. Like it's like this moment where it goes from like ah nice snuggling. Like she isn't usually, she's between Brian and I. So she gets like both parents and then because the teenagers don't want to touch each other, they're on the event for the bed.
She does have to do like a bit of like inserting herself in but then there's this moment where she's like I'm done here and it's just like it's not like intending to be hurtful, but it's like it's maybe just not aware of like, you know, like where her body is going and sometimes it feels like worse when she's having growth spurts and that like body awareness is a little wonky but it's basically a part of our every day that there's a cuddle bed where like there's this visible shift in.
Brian: I mean it happens at bedtime too. Like when we're reading books, like there we go from books, we sing a song or tell a story and then but there's that transition phase where you know her feet or where her pillow is or you know she's sideways and spread out.
Laura: So that sounds like a just a little bit of dysregulation appropriate reception. Like awareness of your body and space. It just sounds you know, appropriate exception, which means awareness of your body and space is one of the things that can go when you're dis regulated and so then you're just kind of flailing and it's not abnormal for these things to happen. And so like there's a part of it too.
Like if we're noticing this like this sounds like once that switch happens like that seems to signal like Ellie's done and like okay out of bed everybody like, oh wait, we can, you know like it's so you know, it doesn't have to be something heavy or big. You know, it can just be like, and then there's also this piece of like helping them tune in like your body just got wiggly. Are you done? You know like there can be a check there too. We covered a lot. How are you feeling with like an implementation plan on some of these things?
Nikki: Yeah, I mean especially because like it's about to be Saturday so it's gonna be an issue. It feels good to kind of have like some, you know, like tomorrow's Friday. That might be a good time to like sit and talk about like, hey, I've noticed this happens every Saturday. Like what do you think about, you know, what are some things that we could do when your body says it's wiggle time. You know?
Laura: Or even just like when the, have you noticed that your body gets into a wiggle time? Like what's going through your mind when like what's going on for you when the wiggles start? You know, like when does that change? How do you know like how does your body know that it's time for the wiggles? What's going on right before the wiggle starts?
You know, just getting really, really curious about that moment that switch. And instead of like us applying our adult lens to like why we think that that switch is happening, let her say it, you know, like we don't know, you know, and her body might just, she might say like my body just says it's time to move, okay?
So when you're like let's figure out how we can listen to your body without anybody getting hurt. You know? Yeah. Yeah. I think a Friday dinner table conversation on that too that really centers her experience and that might feel really good to hear if the older kids were listening as well. Would you know, especially if that that dynamic is there a little bit too, would probably feel good to her? And I wanted to just give you three book recommendations. I don't know if you like children's books as much as I do but.
Nikki: You know, whatever I have anxiety about something with parents and I'm always like what are the kids’ books about? You know.
Brian: I think Nikki just had a bout of insomnia and you know at three in the morning, I woke up in the normal wake-up time to a text message saying I ordered all these books.
Laura: I'm about to give you more. Sorry? So there's kind of on the topics that we've been talking about today, there's three books that I just love. So one is called Sam and The Negative Voice and that one explicitly targets could have had to start talking back to yourself and using your inner coach. There's one called The Girl Who Never Made Mistakes and it's very growth mindset. And how kind of changing the way that mistakes that we see mistakes, how they can help us grow.
So I love those two and then there's this other one that is a little abstract but so beautiful and honestly just a gorgeous book for adults to read as well as they read them to the child. And so that one is called seeds and Trees. And basically, it teaches you that all the thoughts that you have are either dark seeds or green seeds, and what you plant and water grows. And so when you get a dark seed from someone else or when you get a dark seed from yourself and then you don't have to actually choose to plant it. You don't actually have to choose to believe in it and water it and nurture it that you can pluck those out and toss them out to sea and just nurture the green pieces. The green.
Brian: Familiar. I think we either have read a book where it's it's like a prince that does the same thing.
Laura: That's it. Yes.
Brian: I think Ellie and I might have read it on the Kindle. It wasn't like the Kindle Unlimited library. It was great though.
Laura: Yeah, it's beautiful. It's a beautiful concept. It's good for grownups who are growing up alongside their kids too. You know, we actually use that a lot with my kids when they come home from school after a hard day. You know we'll even say like did some people give you some dark seeds today? Do you need some help talking about those dark seeds and figuring out what to do with them, you know like it, I don't know, it's, I love that book. So, and for everybody listening, I'll put those links to those books in the show notes so we can get them.
Nikki: Part of my insomnia. Book ordering was like books about blended families because I'm hearing her say things like what do you love me the same? And like I explained that like a mama's heart has enough room for every kid and it grows more love for every kid that you don't have less love today. My heart got bigger to make room for your sister and brother. So like, and she was like, it doesn't feel like that, it feels like there's less love.
Laura: There is some scarcity there.
Nikki: Yeah, which I mean like I understand that there's like a little bit less air time and a little bit less, and some of it might be like mixing like pandemic changes with like the thought of the blended family because we all moved in together at the start of the pandemic. So like
Laura: Yeah, absolutely.
Nikki: So we, you know like we're going to some of her activities last because it's the pandemic, not because of the, you know, because of the fact that she has a new brother and sister, but the fact that they're associated, you know, kind of causes some anxiety. So I was wondering if you had any good blended family books.
Laura: Hmm off the top of my head. No, I can definitely get you some but one thing that I think is really important is to emphasize to kids that they are loved uniquely. So, kids are often interested in the amount of love and we know that the amount of love is infinite. We know that it doesn't end. But, so they can understand unique love that you love them in a way that you could never possibly ever love anybody else.
You love them in a way that is just completely I also talk about how like there is a place in my heart that is set aside for you, that is just yours that no one could ever take away. It's like your bedroom in my heart that has firm walls that no one can ever encroach on. You know, it never gets smaller. It can only get bigger. That's the nature of it. That as you grow, it grows too as I learn more about you and I learn new ways to love you. It grows, it can absolutely never get smaller. It's just not possible. And then there's also the concept of I love you.
The maximum amount right now. There's nothing you could do to make me love you anymore. And there's nothing you could do to make me love you any less. There's nothing anybody else could make me do to make me love you any more or less. That's really helpful in the comparison and the things too because you know, sometimes kids, we are, we are careful I think to say to our kids, there's nothing you could do to make me love you any less.
But for the high achievers in the crowd, we often get the message that there are things that we could do to make people love us more. And it's really important that kids know like even if you got straight A's, even if you never hit your brother again, even if you did all of these wonderful things, none of that would make me love you anymore. I'd be really happy for you. I'd be proud of you, I'd cheer you on. But my love for you wouldn't change no matter what you do.
Even if it's really good and even if it's not so great, we all make mistakes. We all have successes and none of those things have any impact on how I feel about you because I feel about you because you're you not because of what you do. I don't know there's that, I don't know.
Nikki: Those things also like they would be really helpful. I mean, I think we're like we're on the edge of those concepts, but I think it's yeah like you said there's some clarifying points you give that will really help us. I don't know, I almost said operationalize your strategic planning words.
Laura: But yes, that's, I mean that's what we're doing. And sometimes we have to make it really concrete for our kids too.
Nikki: Right, right, right. Thank you so much. This is especially the developmental stuff just helps me realize like sometimes I'm panicking about things that are maybe totally normal and sometimes like it's a little bit outside the spectrum of normal and needs a bit of reeling and it's just helpful to know.
Laura: Yeah, I also know that kids develop at different rates on these things to just like with the kid who can draw really well. Like there are kids who are advanced, it seems like to that like just because Ellie isn't advanced doesn't mean on like on those things, like doesn't mean that she's behind or struggling either typical or it could be her typical and she's at her rate, you know, that she's learning these things, bringing on these new skills, understanding things about herself at the rate. That's right for her, her body intuitively knows how to grow and develop at the pace. That's right for her.
Nikki: Thank you so much. This has been really helpful. We appreciate it.
Laura: Good. I'm so glad to get to support you in this way.
Brian: You're the best. Thank you.
Okay, so thanks for listening today. Remember to subscribe to the podcast and if it was helpful, leave me a review that really helps others find the podcast and join us in this really important work of creating a parenthood that we don't have to escape from and creating a childhood for our kids that they don't have to recover from.
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All right. That's it for me today. I hope that you keep taking really good care of your kids and your family and each other and most importantly of yourself. And just to remember, balance is a verb and you're already doing it. You've got this!
