157: Do you have the disease to please?

0 (1s):
My name is Randi Rubenstein, and welcome to the Mastermind Parenting Podcast at Mastermind Parenting, we’re on a mission to support strong-willed kids and the families that love them. You’re listening to Mastermind Parenting Podcast with Randi Rubenstein episode 1 57. Well, hi thighs. I have a treat this week. Maybe I always say that maybe how I always feel like it’s a treat I was interviewed and had a conversation on a podcast recently with Brooke Wise and her podcast is called No Approval Needed. And she’s passionate about the need for human connection, authenticity, following your purpose and letting go of fear.

0 (48s):
Her sweet spot, where my sweet spot is helping families who have at least one strong-willed child, which I really, I really define that as a kid who is acting on the outside the way they feel on the inside. So there’s something to figure out they’re in pain, they’re struggling. They need their grownups to not take their behavior personally and help get to the root of what’s really going on for them because they’re just a little human and they depend on the big humans to help them with things like that, that they don’t understand yet. And Brooke sweet spot is helping women with the disease to please people who have been, which I think is most of us in our culture who received conditioning when we were little girls, that it was our job to take care of all the people around us and to put them before ourselves, not to check in with our bodies, you know, it’s, I was recently at a bat mitzvah and the parents, you know, they were giving their parent prayer to their daughter and, and it was, you know, everybody was, it was just like the normal messages that, that I think are just so prevalent in our culture.

0 (2m 8s):
Like never stop making people smile. You came out dancing and performing, and it’s like these, these benign messages that are really well-intentioned like, I just want you to always feel the joy and spread the joy and take care of people. And I was sitting there thinking she’s 13, like at the most critical stage of development in her life, which is confusing and hard and coming into, and this is this ritualistic ceremony of you are a woman. Now you are entering into the, you know, which you’re not a woman yet.

0 (2m 50s):
You’re an adolescent. And you’re going through this critical stage of human development, which is going from childhood to it’s this long period of transition, where you’re supposed to figure out who you are. You’re supposed to during adolescents, prune away, all the information that’s been, you know, imprinted on you and decide for yourself like which pieces you want to keep them, which pieces you want to prune away. There’s actually a science behind that. There’s a really good book by Dr. Dan Siegel all about the teenage brain and how it is. So it’s a normal stage of human development for teenagers to challenge us because it’s this pruning away period.

0 (3m 36s):
And so they were just like, you know, giving their sweet parents speech. And I was sitting there and I felt a little fire in me. And I think it’s because I, I work with moms all the time who are now in a position of leadership with their kids. And they aren’t understanding why kids aren’t listening to them. You know, like they, they don’t, they, they don’t even realize that they were conditioned to have the opposite of leadership energy. They were conditioned to dance like a circus monkey and never stopped dancing and bringing joy and making all the people around you smile. And now all of a sudden you’re in this position of leadership.

0 (4m 18s):
And if you imagine like a CEO of a company, like they’re going to have to make hard decisions, and sometimes they might have to let people go. They might have budget, you know, cut backs or whatever it’s called. And, and there’s going to be hard decisions that not everyone’s going to be happy about. And, you know, leadership is difficult. And, and so when we have this conditioning, this disease to please conditioning, it can be very hard to be an effect, almost impossible to be an effective leader. And, and so there’s something to figure out. And the cool thing that we’ve learned from neuroscience is that we have the ability, the human brain has the ability to recondition itself, but we can’t recondition what we don’t see.

0 (5m 8s):
So we have to see it first. So Brooke, you know, she asked to interview me and we had this really great conversation and she’s a mom herself. She has a seven year old daughter and a five-year-old son. And I wanted to include this conversation here because number one, I, you know, almost every mom I work with seems to have this internal struggle of people pleasing and not listening to their own bodies. And quite often, not even knowing what the whispers in your body are telling you, because we think that we’re just supposed to make all the people around us happy.

0 (5m 54s):
I wouldn’t have ever identified with the disease to please because I wore a lot of armor and I was kind of a tough chick. And my, I was just like an action taker, but my issue was, I’m a fixer and this is another common theme that I see with many of my moms is, you know, my disease to please was really my disease to fix. You know, I’m going to make all the people happy around me and if they’re not happy, then I’m not going to look within, am I really happy? Have I fixed myself? I’m going to just go and deflect from fixing myself. Cause that’s the hard work and I’m going to fix all the people around me.

0 (6m 36s):
So when my kid came home from school in a foul mood, you know, I was, you know, just, just I wanted to fix him. I wanted to make him happy. I wanted to grill him about his day. I wanted to find out, you know, what exactly what I was trying so hard to fix him and to, and when he was about seven or eight, he said, there’s nothing wrong with me. Like in a fit of rage, he said, he looked at me and I was just like, I think I’d come and I’d sit and sat down on his bed. Like, what’s going on? Tell me what’s going on. And he like looked at me like he was so frustrated. He was like, there’s nothing wrong with me. And that was a very pivotal moment for me because I realized in that moment, like, shit, I think I have to look at myself what the hell is wrong with me that I want to fix him constantly.

0 (7m 28s):
Instead of getting to the root of what was really going on with him, he was trying to tell me, you know, there was a reason he was in a foul mood. He was, he has a highly sensitive, nervous system. He was overstimulated. And, and me asking him all the questions literally was just adding more input to an already do. Y’all hear the snoring from Cheryl, Cheryl, the Frenchie she’s sleeping on the floor. She’s snoring. So ignore the snoring. Anyway, I, you know, I was adding extra input to an already overtaxed nervous system.

0 (8m 8s):
So I was stressing them out more. You know, it was well intentioned, just like the parents giving the speech to their, you know, daughter having the bat mitzvah. They were well-intentioned. But what, you know, good intentions don’t always and in positive results. And so my kid was basically saying like, like I you’re you’re stressing me out here. Like that’s what he was saying. Like, there’s nothing wrong with me. You’re stressing me out. Stop, stop adding to my stress by asking me questions and saying things when really I just need to decompress and figure out how to get my, my body and my nervous system back in sync.

0 (8m 55s):
So our conversation’s pretty meaty. And, and my conversation with Brooke and some of the things that we talked about was we covered topics like our own unfinished finished business around girl, world, and middle school, social issues. We talked about consent culture conditioning, right? Like to begin teaching healthy sexual identity. We talked about after school, what, what is called after-school restraint collapse, which is when your kid just is like, you know, a mess after school.

0 (9m 35s):
We talked about that. We talked about after-school structures. I think you guys will get some good tips and tools from that and boundaries. There’s a lot about boundaries. I really loved the second part of our conversation, where we incorporated boundaries. And of course I, you know, we’re, we’re discussing it and I’m weaving my three step SAP process. See their perspective Actively listen, Problem solve together, which is your it’s a tangible way for you to have a productive conversation. And, and it’s really all about Mastering empathy without seeming like a SAP S a P. And I know it’s corny and y’all might be rolling your eyes.

0 (10m 16s):
And I’m totally fine with that because it helps people to remember, like, how do we have these productive conversations? The thing I want to also say to you guys is if you listen to this podcast and you think I’m doing it wrong, I’ve done it all wrong. The, the best thing about SAP, the SAP process is that it’s your recovery method. It literally applies to every situation that you can go back into and use this model, seeing your child’s perspective, actively listening, and problem solving together to end up even closer and more connected than if you had handled it perfectly from the get-go.

0 (11m 0s):
That’s the coolest thing. I love that about SAP. Like you don’t have to do things perfectly. It sometimes even turns out better when you’ve screwed it up and you get to go back and model to your kids. Like I’m learning too. I’m imperfect. You know, this is growth mindset. This is sending your kids, the message. You don’t, there’s no pressure on you to be perfect. I’m imperfect. We’re co-creating together here. And what if we could imprint all of our kids with this belief that, that they don’t have to strive for perfection. They get to show up as, you know, a full, a full human who learns and makes mistakes and strives for excellence.

0 (11m 45s):
And there’s no pressure to be perfect. So enjoy this episode today.

1 (11m 50s):
I have a wonderful guest. I have parenting coach Randi, Rubenstein, welcome to the podcast. Randi.

0 (11m 57s):
I’m glad to be here.

1 (11m 58s):
And so happy to have you. I met Randy about, I guess it’s been like a month and a half ago, and we had coffee together and we talked for like probably three hours. Is that right? We could have talked all day. It was a great conversation. I loved getting to know you and hearing a little bit about what you do, but I would love to share that with my listeners. So would you tell us a little bit about yourself?

0 (12m 23s):
So my company is Mastermind Parenting, and in a nutshell, I help parents have difficult conversations. Like we all, you know, or it’s like, but how do I talk about this? And I had a woman recently who was going through her father passing away. She knew he was about to pass away and she is a seasoned mom. She’s got one that’s in high school, one that’s in middle school. And then she has an elementary school child and she knows her elementary school. Child’s, it’s highly sensitive. So she just, you know, she’s, she, she knows what to expect. And she said, how do I have a conversation about my father dying?

0 (13m 3s):
Like here, she was dealing with her father dying. But really the thing that was just kind of taking up a lot of mental space for her was how do I talk with my highly sensitive child about my father dying? And so that’s really what I do is I help parents have these conversations and it’s more than just me teaching do this and then do this and do this because you really have to, you really have to be in the right mental space to be able to have a PRODUCTIVE what I call productive conversation and realize that, like, it’s not scary. Like we can talk about anything and everything, but unfortunately, when it comes to whether it’s technology, addiction, you know, being responsible for your schoolwork, listening to your body and getting enough sleep and not just loading up on junk food all the time and eating decently, when they start to go through like that dating, you know, I have a crush on someone, you know, sex and social issues being left out, you know, social media, all these things we can so often get into fear because a lot of, a lot of the things we didn’t talk about with an adult when we were a kid, so we don’t have that kind of skillset and we don’t have even like the muscle memory for it.

0 (14m 30s):
And a lot of the issues didn’t even exist when many of us were growing up. And so, you know, of course we’re all going to be nervous about how to talk about things that we don’t have the toolbox to talk about. So, you know, so there’s, so I teach a process, I teach a three-step process to kind of, you know, just be your guidepost to go through these hard conversations. And I also teach a bunch of other tools to help you kind of just realize, what are you worried about? Like what’s really coming up for you. And so I like to say, I T you know, I’m a parenting coach and I have parenting programs, but really I teach personal development and communication tools under the Parenting umbrella.

0 (15m 15s):
And that’s

1 (15m 16s):
The most important thing we need to have these tools in order to be able to parent our children and teach them to have their own set of tools as they grow older a hundred percent.

0 (15m 27s):
Yeah. And you know what, it’s the ultimate self-help, it’s, it is the self-help journey. Like the, it is your own personal self-help program because you can’t give what you don’t have. And so I like to say, you know, my sweet spot is kids that are strong-willed because I think those are the kids that need us the most. And I think they act on the outside the way they feel on the inside and they’re in pain. And, you know, I, I will, I would never would have gotten on this journey myself, if I hadn’t been given one of these children myself. And so, because, you know, look, we all are, humans are adaptive and we figure out our own adaptive strategies to make it out in the world.

0 (16m 13s):
And it’s hard to say, like, I don’t ever have anyone that’s like, Ooh, I should take a parenting class, because that would be a really good thing to do. No people come to me when, you know, the train is coming off the tracks and they’re in overwhelm and things are not going well. And I help them. And I, and I say, you know, for me too, like, we do not typically, you know, and I think in our society, it’s like, you’re just supposed to know this stuff. You’re just supposed to know how to be a good parent, but yet you have to like, take all these tests and study to drive a vehicle, but you don’t have to do anything or learn anything to raise a human.

0 (16m 55s):
And so, you know, I think we’re all, you know, the people that I, that I work with and that I help come to me because they realize they need to learn some new tools. And if they don’t, their child’s going to suffer. So it’s like, I’m, I figured this out, but I want more for my kid. So fine. I’ll dig in to learning some new things, because like, I need to, if I want everything for them, I’ve got to do this work first and, and learn some new tactics.

1 (17m 26s):
What you said right there that you have to do the work first to be able to help your children, I think is such an important lesson. You know, when I had my children, I didn’t know what to do either. You know, I read all the, I read all the books, but no one taught me how to be a parent. I learned along the way, I watched my friends that have been learning along the way. And it’s been the most eyeopening, most self-reflective experience of my life, because you get to know a lot about yourself through raising your children. But it also taught me the things that I needed to improve upon and do the work on which I’ve been doing for several years now. But I would love to hear, like, what was your experience with your children? Because you have a 23 year old son, a 20 year old son, and then he said, I’m sorry, a 20 year old, 23 year old son, 20 year old son and a 17 year old daughter.

0 (18m 16s):
My daughter is the 20 year old. And my, and then my youngest is 15. So I have almost eight years between my oldest and my youngest. I like to say, evidently we wanted to drag out the little kid years forever, but not really. It just kind of worked out that way. And what has my experience been? My experience has been that I never knew that this would involve me changing so much and growing really growing right along with them. Yeah. It’s, you know, we all like, like, we all love our kids the same.

0 (18m 57s):
We all love them so much. It hurts. And, and so that’s one thing that I’ve really started, you know, it’s like, you just never knew that you were gonna love anyone this intensely, right? Like it just, it’s like, it’s hard, it’s hard to even wrap your arms around. And it’s been, it’s been humbling. You know, it’s been humbling because there were a lot, there has been a lot of things over the years where I was like, damn, I didn’t realize I still had stuff to work on. You know, it’s like every time you get that triggered sensation in your body where you’re either angry or you’re worried, and your brain is spinning out and you can’t sleep, or you just find yourself, you just find yourself in a state of kind of like constant anxiety.

0 (19m 57s):
That’s always a sign my whole life when I would get any kind of sensation like that. I wasn’t even aware that it was a sensation. I was a number, you know? So I used to be a big closet smoker. I sort of come from a lot of functional addiction. I like to say over behaviors, you know, like, and, and, and I went through, I mean, I’m just, I I’m just lucky. It was never heroin. Thank God. I’m lucky. It was it because I have a very addictive personality because I’m a number. And so, and now I know why I’m a number, cause I’ve traced back sort of the puzzle pieces of my life. But I think so many of us, it’s like, it’s hard to feel discomfort in our bodies.

0 (20m 41s):
And so we learn when we’re little tiny kids, you know, little tiny kids are super resilient. So when we’re a little tiny kids, we learn adaptive strategies to feel better in a moment. And so I was really good at that. And I wore a lot of armor and I was one of those people that I was kind of the tough chick, you know, like I, you know, I don’t know, do you curse on this podcast for it? I was like, fuck them. You know, like I don’t care what they think. I mean, whatever, but the truth is is that that was just armor. And that was a PR that was my way of protecting myself. And so a lot of this process has been a softening. You know, like when my daughter started middle school and sixth grade, I had already been teaching conscious parenting classes at that time.

0 (21m 29s):
And I was, I was, I was, it was, I was a little cocky. Like I teach other people how to do these things. My household’s running smoothly. And then all of a sudden, my daughter’s in sixth grade and she comes out of a volleyball practice and I’m picking her up. And her head is, you know, I’m used to my daughter who like held her shoulders back and was the fastest kid in all of fifth grade. She didn’t just beat the girls. She beat the boys and she was a little warrior. And all of a sudden she comes out of this volleyball practice and her head is slumped and her shoulders are slumped. And she just looks like she’s just been deflated of all of her energy.

0 (22m 9s):
And she gets in the car and I’m like, what’s going on? And she’s like, tells me about a situation where, you know, some girl on the court, you know, just made her feel like crap about herself will next, you know, you may want to actually hit the ball when it comes to you. And you know, this is my daughter has always been athletic and, and, and she, you know, she’s never, she’d never experienced this in this girl just as like chopping her off at the knees. And I was so triggered in that moment and I’m like, well, you know what, the next time she says something, you know, I go to my tough girl programming the next time she says something, why don’t you say?

0 (22m 51s):
And I’m like doing the finger and the whole thing. And she like looked at me almost like, like, like a confused puppy. And she’s like, so you want me to be rude and sarcastic? Like, like basically she was like, that’s the advice you’re giving me lady, like, who are you? And where’s my mom, you know? And, and I went the next, the next day I was talking with a friend who’s a psychologist. And I was like, oh my gosh, I was so triggered by this volleyball thing that happened to Avery. And I unpacked it with my friend. And what I realized was, was I had unfinished girl, world business. I didn’t even know I did, but, but when that happened, I was like, all right, there’s something to revisit here.

0 (23m 36s):
Right. And for me to kind of realize like, what is coming up for me and where was I hurt? And, and, and I don’t want, you know, I went back my daughter the next day. And I was like, so I talked to my name, my friend. And she was like, yeah, that’s not good advice. And, and this is what she said to do. And Avery was like, yeah, I wasn’t going to do anything. But you told me, I knew that it was,

1 (24m 1s):
But you know what, that’s also probably because she has a mom like you, and you have modeled the right way to do it. And you have taught others to do the right way, but it wasn’t your daughter then. Right. So it wasn’t as triggering, but she knew that from you, she knew that wasn’t the right way to approach it. And I think that was due in part to a lot of your teaching. Now I think about middle school a lot. I worry. I mean, my daughter is only in second grade, but thankfully I actually had a really nice middle school experience, but I’ve talked to so many women who still have triggers from middle school, particularly like puberty coming of age, figuring out who you are, figuring out your emotions. And I asked, you know, my Instagram followers to send in some questions.

1 (24m 44s):
I asked around friends. Most of them were around elementary school age. But since we’re talking about middle school, how do you advise people before there’s even issues? If they come to you or even a friend with girls entering middle school or boys entering middle school? Like, what is your advice? Because it is known to be typically like a difficult time and there’s going to be challenges. There are going to be bullying. There’s going to be girl stuff. And hopefully that’s not your experience, but that happens. So how do you advise people to handle that?

0 (25m 21s):
Well, I think it’s a trigger for everyone. Like even when you have, cause I would say I had a positive experience, always because I, I was resourceful and resilient and you know, I was the tough girl. So I was never going to, you know, like victim’s story was never my deal. And, and so it it’s triggering for everyone because at some point in all of our lives, you walked up to that table and the talking stopped or there wasn’t, you were, you were not thought of there wasn’t a seat left for you. And you thought that these people were your people. And all of a sudden it was like, oh, all the seats are taken or everybody had a partner when you went on that field trip and you didn’t have the partner, like we all have in there.

0 (26m 7s):
There’s these little, teeny, tiny moments, but for a kid it’s impactful and it’s painful. Right? And so we all have gone through those, those moments or saw the kid who didn’t ever have the friend and you know, you worry, you don’t want your kid to be that kid. And so I think it is a very triggering time for most of us. What I can say is it’s just like with everything you start way before middle school, it’s kind of like starting to talk about sex and without necessarily talking about sex much younger. And you know, you teach consent culture 2, 3, 4, and five-year-olds through when you’re, you know, if you want to hold someone’s hand or give them a hug, or if anyone wants to hold your hand or give you a hug, you have to ask permission.

0 (26m 58s):
Like it’s okay with you. Or if it’s not okay with you, it’s your body, it’s your business. So if somebody is holding your hand or somebody wants to give you a hug, or grandma wants a kiss and the little child doesn’t want to give grandma kiss, we teach consent culture by not forcing them to do those things. Right. So then when they’re actually at the age where that’s a thing it’s been, they’ve been programmed with it, they’ve been conditioned with it. So it’s the same thing as this it’s like in the world, you’re going to come across people that aren’t always going to be kind. And aren’t always going to be nice to you. But if you have a strong sense of self, right? If you have a strong sense of self, then you’re going to go into it with the resourcefulness to be able to handle those shitty moments.

0 (27m 44s):
And so I would say, you know, one of the messages, always with your kids when they’re little, which is going to sound unrelated, like in elementary school, when you pick your kids up at the end of the day, we want to instill a sense of worthiness. So when you can pick your kids up at the end of the day, I think the first words out of your mouth are I missed you so much today. It’s just so good to lay eyes on you. Yeah. Right. I missed you so much today. I it’s just so good to be able to see you tell me everything. And if they’re like nothing, mom, then go, okay. That means they just need a minute, but they heard the message that you are so worthy of being missed.

0 (28m 28s):
Right? You are so worthy of being missed. And, and, and the other message I like to instill in kids is, you know, you’re a spectacular little human and you’re a good friend and you’re a great person and you’re so much fun and you’re smart and you’re always thinking, and you’re creating and you’re doing all the things, right? So we’re putting all this, this worthiness on the front end and anyone that gets that first spot next to you, that’s a lucky person because you know how to be a good friend. And then that sets them up to go into middle school. So then when they go into middle school and the girl on the volleyball court senses that this is a girl that has leadership energy, you know, I think that’s what that was.

0 (29m 13s):
It really turned out to be the queen bee of the grade for a little bit. And she sensed, Avery had some leadership energy, and Avery was, you know, every was pretty carefree and fun and, and, and, and rough and tumble. And she didn’t like all that confidence. You know, it was challenging to her, to this little girl. And so there was a lot of conversations over the next year or so, where I, the conversation between me and my daughter, when she was going through this was, you know, I, this, this little girl at some point she was an innocent baby, just like you were.

0 (29m 53s):
And her mom brought her home from the hospital and she smelled all yummy. And she was just delicious, just like you, excuse me. And, and somewhere along the way, right, she received the message that you are powerful in the world when you reduce other people to not feel good about themselves somewhere, she received that messaging. So she started off as an instant, maybe as you like you, but instead of just like playing and having fun and being a kid, there was something that she learned probably because the adults in her life were also going through hard times.

0 (30m 35s):
And maybe there was, you know, I mean, we knew that this girl had got, her parents had had a vicious divorce, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I said, she didn’t get to be as carefree kid as you, she had to deal with a lot of adult issues. And so therefore she’s doing what kids do. She’s, she’s now behaving in the ways that she’s seen modeled. And you know, and I know it’s hard to have compassion for that when you’re the target of, of, of that. It’s really hard to have compassion, but any time you can find it within you to take a deep breath. And remember she used to be a little teeny, tiny baby, just like me, what happened?

1 (31m 18s):
I love that messaging. And when, when my daughter comes to me with a situation, oftentimes it’s in a group of three and she’s feeling left out or she’s with somebody. And someone says something on the playground. I always try to say, well, do you think maybe, maybe they’re having a hard day or maybe they woke up grumpy on the wrong side of the bed because you know, that’s not their heart. I try to always have compassion and teach her to have that too. Like you said, because I think that if you go at co go towards conflict like that, with the mindset of compassion, then you can kind of let go of it and not take it so personally, or be so sensitive to it, but to consider the other person that is being unkind.

1 (32m 1s):
So what else?

0 (32m 1s):
Okay. So I want to say that. So like, you know, I said, I teach people how to have difficult conversations. So my three-step productive conversation process, which really is infused in every situation, even like that, that compassion piece is huge. And before you get to the compassion piece, we have to do, what’s called holding space and seeing the child’s perspective. So, because if we, if we bypass it and we’ll go to compassion too quickly, then it feels invalidating. And it, you know, and I know like this podcast is about approval seeking, right?

0 (32m 43s):
And it, it accidentally conditions ignore your own feelings and your own hurt and your own upset and quickly go to thinking about the other person. So it’s like this balance of first and foremost, I’m going to see your perspective, which is literally just like, so you were all three of you were playing and you, you thought y’all were having a good time. And next thing you know, this one, you know, so-and-so, she like turns her back to you and like just starts talking to the other girl. And you’re like, hello, I’m I’m right here. I’m still here.

0 (33m 24s):
And so you just totally felt invisible and ignored in that moment. Am I, is that my getting that? Right? See, so you put words to her perspective. So am I getting that right? Yes, exactly. And you feel seen and heard. Yes. Yes, yes. See her, you see there’s perspective. Cause it’s like, yeah, that sucked. You know, I felt, and, and the main message is I hear you, I’m validating you and me too. Ha you know what? I felt like that too, before I did that. Yes. It helps. I feel it helps a lot. Right. So that first message is me too. You’re not alone. You’re not the only one.

0 (34m 5s):
Me too. Me too. Me too. And we hold space and we, we let the childhood. Yes. And then she did. Oh, so she did such. Wow. Okay. Yeah. And then you were just sitting there and yeah, that was hard, huh? Yeah. It was hard. And a lot of it is my daughter calls it empathy. She calls it soft eyes. So there’s a lot, the holding space is, it’s almost like you, there’s not a ton of words. You’re just sort of listening and you’re, you know, like doing the thing that we do sort of naturally as women, like you’re feeling it you’re with her. You’re your tone, your mannerisms.

0 (34m 45s):
You’re giving her the soft eyes. Like, oh, I not sympathy. Like, oh, poor baby. That was so, no, we don’t like, I don’t know about you, but when I go through something hard and somebody is like, oh, I’m so sorry that happened. I’m like, fuck right off. Like, no. So I don’t want that. That doesn’t make me feel strong. But when you’re like, oh, I felt like that too. I wish I had the answers, but I have totally felt like that too. And, and so it’s me too. And then you, listen, you hold space. You are worthy of being listened to. I’m just going to be here with you without trying to fix or solve or happy up. And I’m not going to invalidate you.

0 (35m 26s):
And then you move into that compassion piece. But first you want to, you want to prompt her to solve her own problem. And especially if she’s already received these messages a lot about compassion and considering the other person you’re like, so what do you think was going on for her? So like, how do you, you know, what, what do you think is the best way to handle it? How do you think, you know, you can help her realize she was accidentally turning her back to you. Like w w what are your thoughts on this? And you have to wait because they usually have their own answers and you, and you wait and whatever they say, you’re like, Hmm, interesting.

0 (36m 10s):
I wouldn’t have thought about it that way. I like where your brain’s going. Nice. Okay. You know, all I can say is, is I’ve been there too, and it’s so hard when you’re in the moment to like, want to think about what happened in her day, or she had a fight with her mom in the morning or anything like that. It’s really hard when somebody does something hurtful and usually that’s, what’s going on. Like, she’s just taking out whatever happened to her. She’s like, and then your kid was like, well, yeah, the teacher actually did yell at her because she forgot that. Yeah. So she was probably embarrassed. She just, yeah. So she wasn’t, she wasn’t being her best self today.

0 (36m 51s):
And that, that was hard for you. Yeah.

1 (36m 55s):
And if we’re teaching this at, you know, ages 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, what an amazing lesson in tool in the toolbox to carry on into adulthood. Because I don’t think I had that at that. I didn’t, I didn’t, I think that’s been something that I through reading and listening and learning I have developed, but it wasn’t just innate, innately in me to be able to see the other person’s perspective right away. Right. So I think getting that tool early is incredible. Like they will be set up to go through middle school and high school with these tools, which I think what you’re doing is so important because people can come to you with children at a young age and be able to get those tools to work their way, their way up through their parenting side of it and giving the tools to their children.

1 (37m 46s):
And I think that’s amazing because I think we all struggle in Parenting from day one. We don’t know exactly what we’re doing first. We’re exhausted and tired. Cause our baby’s up all night. We don’t know if they have colic. We don’t know if they’re hungry. Then they turn into little toddlers that are frustrated because they can’t communicate with us and we’re running around after them because they’ve just started walking and we don’t want them to get hurt. And then they start school and we start to get a little bit of freedom back, but then we worry, right. We worry all day. And then they get to, I don’t know, five and six they’re in pre-K kindergarten and something that I got an overwhelming response about questions for you was about afterschool dysregulation.

1 (38m 32s):
And not only did I get those questions over texts and Instagram, I’m experiencing it very much myself with my almost six year old. And I’ve been having conversations about it. But the last, I guess, two weeks since school started and kind of unpacked the situation a little bit and I kind of understand it, but I think you could speak to it even better. And I know a lot of people would like to hear your perspective on how to handle that.

0 (38m 57s):
Okay. So there’s, it’s actually, there’s actually a term for it. It’s called after-school restraint collapsed, which sounds like a fancy term. But when I read an article on it, I was like, oh my gosh, this is exactly what I experienced with my son, Alec. You know, he was my strong-willed one, he’s my 23 year old when he was little. But really he just was a person that had a highly sensitive nervous system. So sounds were louder. Smells were smellier. He takes the world in at a heightened degree. Always has. And when you’re a little kid and you’re, and my husband’s the same way. I didn’t know it at the time, but my husband’s the same way.

0 (39m 39s):
And, and when you’re a little kid who is wired in that way, the school day is super, over-stimulating like there’s so much, you’re navigating beyond reading, writing and arithmetic, you know, like there’s so much. And so after school, he was just in a foul mood. And I, you know, I, I didn’t know what to make of it. And my daughter, who’s also highly sensitive, but not, she, she wasn’t, she wasn’t like pissed off and angry. She would just go retreat into her bed. And she was a bookworm. And so after school, I say she plays an extrovert on TV.

0 (40m 22s):
Like at school, she was doing all the things and then she’d come home and she needed to like recharge alone. And I just needed to let her do that. Alec would take his mood out on everyone a little bit more. And, and so what I had to, I had to tighten up and have some boundaries in place and some structures in place. I’m not a naturally structured person. I’m if anybody’s familiar with the four tendencies, I am a rebel tendency. So like, I don’t like to be told I have to do anything the way somebody else says that, that you have to do things. So, so, so I wasn’t one to love structures, but what I learned, especially with my highly sensitive kid who was, was acting super strong-willed and pissed off a lot of the time when he’d taken the world in, at such a heightened degree, I had have structures in place.

0 (41m 19s):
So we had to have a schedule like where he, you know, I got him from school and literally it was like pretty much every day looked the same for an hour after school. It was just like a structure he could really count on. And, and that took some of, I think the overwhelm out of the equation. Cause he wasn’t wondering, are we going to do this? Are we going to do that? Or, you know, can I maybe get her to let me watch TV? Can I, you know, it w it was just like, this is the deal. This is the way we’re doing things. And so I was pretty structured about it and I would have him do his homework in his room. So I would give him a snack.

0 (41m 59s):
Sometimes I even kind of picked him up with already like a bar or something, just because I knew he didn’t even recognize that sensation of hunger in his body. And so I gave him a quick snack, just nothing, you know, nothing major. And then we got home. He would always like go to the bathroom, go to his room, you know, get his homework done. And I had to even end up having some structures. Like I know in second grade he was like taking an hour and a half to do this homework and super frustrated. And I had to talk to his teacher. How long is the homework actually supposed to take? But it was like, he was so overwhelmed from the day that he wasn’t able to be in his thinking brain.

0 (42m 40s):
So he was taking way longer to do something simple. And so she was like 30 minutes. So I had to even put structures in place of like, give it, putting a little egg timer at his desk and saying, here’s the deal. You’re in second grade, 30 minutes for homework. And we’re going to set this timer. And if you don’t get the homework done, it’s all right. You’re just, your teacher needs to know that there’s some disconnect. You know, it was taking you longer than she anticipated. And she needs to know that because teachers want to be good teachers. And so if it’s not, if it’s taking you longer than she thinks, she, she, you know, we need to let her know that. And it might just be that you do it for 30 minutes and then you need to go and be what, you know, be a kid you need to play like school has you for enough hours of the day.

0 (43m 28s):
I’m not giving you any more of, I’m not giving any more of your home time than 30 minutes. And then you go and you play and you’re a kid and you have fun. And you may find that, you know what, I’ll take another crack at the homework a little bit later, once your brain has been able to relax and you might just knock it out quickly. So I had to put like structures in place like that to help set him up for success and, and teach him how to listen to his body. You know? And so one of the mistakes we make is that we have, if you have a kid that experiences after school restraint collapsed, know that any extra input from you just stresses their nervous system, more so less questions.

0 (44m 17s):
You may find that driving home and having a little bar or something for them and just turning on the radio, but not asking them anything. You know, it’s hard to not ask your kid about their day, but if you’re like, what did you for lunch? And if they’re like, you know, w blah, blah, blah, if they just are shut down, just realize they just need some decompression time. So I would say less is more in terms of, you know, asking them about their day.

1 (44m 47s):
So there’s been kind of two situations, one of which is my own and similar to some of my friends and then others that I’ve heard. So one thing is, is that child gets in the car and refuses to answer any questions. So you already kind of spoke to that, just like, let them get in, let them decompress. They’re probably hungry. Need a snack. Maybe they’ll start talking to you on their own. Or maybe you could do it maybe at bedtime to find out about their day. Now, the other thing is with me, for example, either the minute I pick my son up who is about to turn six and he’s in kindergarten, or he’s brought home in carpool, it’s like he has this huge burst of energy. He is just a very, he’s also a highly sensitive child.

1 (45m 28s):
I believe he has so much energy. I mean, we can try and burn it out all day and he’s still flying high at the afternoon. The evening. Like he is just so full of energy. So everyday he’s like, can I play with this person? Can I play with that person? And he’s starting to like, shoot out demands to me. And he starts a tantrum. If I say no. And then it’s like, are you hungry? And he says, no. And then five minutes later, I’m starving. And I said, well, I just offered you a bar. I just offered you some Pirate’s booty. Let’s sit down, let’s eat something, but it’s this, this discontent to just come home and chill. It’s just, and I get it. Like, it is a long day for a five and a half, six year old to sit in a desk and get one 30 minute recess.

1 (46m 8s):
And one 30 minute PE it’s a lot to ask of them. And we’re just coming off of summer. We’re at this huge transition phase right now. And it’s, COVID, you know, it’s just, it’s a strange world. We’re living in with that on top of it all. But I know that myself and some friends are trying to figure out ways to help their kids sort through their big feelings and emotions afterschool, because it’s like they hold it an all day and they’re on their a game. And then they just like take everything out on us.

0 (46m 41s):
Okay. So it’s actually the same thing. You know, hyperactivity is quite often over exhaustion and, and it’s a long day and it’s been a lot of stimulation. And so his body just, you know, gets all jacked up. But the fact that he can quickly go to a tantrum, it means that he’s just unregulated. He’s just dysregulated in his nervous system. And so it’s just been a lot. And so this is where that all that, you know, the structure that we hate is it helps them to feel safe in the world because they know what to expect. And so, you know, they don’t have to be constantly testing and seeing, but can I have a play date?

0 (47m 24s):
But you know, it it’s like the uncertainty of, but maybe she’ll say yes, maybe if I asked like this, or maybe if I badgered enough, you know, because it’s like, there’s a lot of ambiguity there. And so he’s just going to test it and he’s going to test it. So the more you kind of have structure built in like, you know, we set play dates for, you know, this day, a week, you know, or whatever, you know, you can have a play. You know, we have play dates two days a week or whatever we have activities, these many, like he, and this is where I think can be helpful to have a visual schedule and calendar.

0 (48m 6s):
Right? I love offering two positive choices. It’s one of the tools that lots of different, you know, Parenting professionals teach when th when kids are three and you know, everything, they have resistance to everything. They’re challenging. Everything’s you offer two positive choices. You want the red ball, you want the green ball. You want to sack. You wanted this. When you have a kid that is dysregulated, any choice is extra input to their nervous system. And, and let me tell you something, cause I had three kids like this, where I was like, at what age do they start recognizing the sensation of hunger?

0 (48m 46s):
Right? So like, I call it like you have, you there’s like eat to live people and live to eat people. And so if you have eat to live children, you know, they quite often don’t recognize the sensation of hunger until they’re all of a sudden famished and starving and it just creeps up on them and they can’t ignore it because they’d rather be doing lots of other things than eating. And so they just kind of push it away and push it away and push it away. So the structure of like a snack just shows up, you know, or, you know, if they’re not, if they’re not thinking about it, you know, you want to help them to learn that sensation.

0 (49m 28s):
You could also, you know, one thing from the fridge, one thing from this bowl in the pantry where they’re able to have some choice, but if you know that he does this regularly, I would just have it where there’s a snack, it shows up. He’s like, and he’s like, I didn’t want that. So, okay. Well, you know, you can get something from the bowl and something from the fridge, help yourself. If you’re not like it’s not a big deal. Okay. And we have a day for play dates and we have a day for activities. And so then when he asks you, you know, you’ve had this conversation ahead of time and productive conversation where you see his perspective. So look, you just started, the school is everything you just said, which was seeing his perspective.

0 (50m 9s):
We just started this school year and last year was wonky because of COVID. And it’s still a little wonky when we had this, you know, summer was so fun and we didn’t have to be sitting in a desk for so many hours. And there’s a lot that you’re adjusting to. And you’re just a little kid and you want to run and play and you know, and so after school, you know, things haven’t been running so smoothly and it totally makes sense because you’re dealing with a lot here. Do you feel like that? You know? And so you see his perspective and then do you feel like that, is this making sense? Is it something different? I want to know what your thoughts are on this.

0 (50m 49s):
And then he talks and you listen. Oh, so yeah. Yeah. You want to run and play. You don’t, you only get 30 minutes for recess and stuff enough. Like how I don’t understand, how, how are they thinking that 30 minutes of playing all day is enough for you? Yeah. Okay. And then you problem solve with him and you ask the what and how questions, and, and once you ask, why don’t you kind of allow him to problem solve, then you’re like, okay, I’ll tell you what we’re going to be doing. We’re going to make a schedule. So you know exactly what to expect on school days. We’re going to talk about how much screen time is. Okay. And what, when you’re allowed to have this, what about homework?

0 (51m 32s):
You come home, like, what’s the schedule. So, you know, when you come home, what to expect and you don’t have to, you know, you don’t have to try and figure it out. We’ll have certain days for play dates. We’ll have certain days for you. We’ll have certain times for screen time, you’ll have a snack, you’ll have a homework time and then you need to be a kid and get we’ll get outside and we’ll go have some fun. And then when I make dinner or when I’m doing this, that’s when you know, I like to say you, if you’re using screen time, if you’re a screen time family, then just put some parameters around it, but also use it at the time where it’s convenient for you. So he’s on his little iPad or whatever on his game, while you’re throwing the dinner together.

0 (52m 16s):
Like that works for you. You know? And, and I mean, one of the best things I think I did when my kids in the afternoon was we went outside. You know, we went outside, we like chocolate. I mean, old school, like talking in the driveway, going for a bike ride. I would tie the, when they were really little, I would tie the, a long old school jump rope to the basketball net and did the report card report card. And they jumped rope. My son, you know, my son, I got him. He was into the Pogo stick, which burned a ton of energy out. You know, he liked was going to make, you know, break the Guinness book of world records for pogoing or something.

0 (52m 59s):
And I’d go out there. He’d just be dripping, sweat, you know, just like you’re together. But you’re also given them a chance to like, be outside and feel alive and get some fresh air. But that structure, I think is important.

1 (53m 13s):
Yeah. See, and I love that. Like, the structure is so important and I love that you said to put it out, like on a chart so he can see it. And we’ve done that before. I think we need to be more consistent with it. Cause I do, I do believe it helps. So you talked a little bit about structure, but let’s talk a little bit about boundaries when I talked a little bit about boundaries, but I think that boundaries in all aspects of our life with our children, with our friends, with our family, with coworkers is really important.

0 (53m 41s):
So boundaries really are, you know, if you think about a physical boundary, I like to teach, I have a program within my programs called that’s called boundaries. Okay. And, and the way I start describing it to people is if you think about the boundary of your property, like if you’re a homeowner, you know, and you know where your property ends and your neighbor’s property begins, like that’s a tangible boundary, right? You don’t want your neighbor building their fence on your property, that’s yours. And so having some structure helps people just to understand what the boundaries even are.

0 (54m 25s):
If we didn’t have fences, which some people don’t have fences between their neighbors. You’re like, I think my property ends here, but I’m not really sure. You know? And so I think it just helps everyone to, to be on the same page more when you know where the boundary is. So when you have structures in place, and for those of us who are structure resistant like me, you know, it, it it’s, it’s actually, it’s actually generous. And because it, it helps other people just to know where you stand on things so that they don’t have to constantly test. So if you have the structure in place of like on Monday, you know this on Tuesday, this and y’all, I don’t want to, like, I am not into putting a bunch of extra things on busy mom’s plates.

0 (55m 21s):
Like I have to be the perfect mom and have like the perfect color, coded, preaching, laminated chart, whatever. It doesn’t need to be like that. You can get just like a calendar, you know, that you buy at Michael’s or wherever and, and use that. Like, it doesn’t need to be super cute. And you could have, I mean, a lot of times it could be like a piece of printer paper where you sit down with your kid and you, Hey, look incorporating them. Then you’re going to get more buy-in we were like, okay, I’m going to draw the line. You write Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. We’re going to, okay, we got this now what’s happening on Monday. Okay. Draw a little picture and I’ll write the words in, you know, incorporate them into it.

0 (56m 4s):
And then they have ownership. So, so when you start to manage expectations, because we’ve had, we’ve taken the time on the front end to have this conversation about what the boundaries are around this family running smoothly, okay. This is the way the afternoon is going to go. And this is going to help us to know what to expect. So you don’t have to always be saying, but cannot have a play date. Like, you know, Tuesdays and Fridays are playdate days. Like you don’t even have to ask me that question. And when you ask me that question, this is the boundary, right? When you asked me that question, I’m just going to point to this beautiful thing we just made.

0 (56m 46s):
I’m not even gonna say anything. I’m just going to point because your brain just forgot for a second and it’s okay. And I’ll just point, and then you’ll be reminded. It’s not a big deal. And see, so now it’s like, when you’ve, you’ve prepared for the moment when the boundary’s going to get tested, because when we start to, you know, as a person who struggled with the disease to please as many, many, many people have, you know, just because you got it in, you just set some boundaries and tell people where you stand on things and what you’ll put up with and what you won’t put up with. It’s their job to test those boundaries because that’s what humans do.

0 (57m 26s):
Right. Humans always go back to the way it was before, because that’s what they’re used to. And so then they test you and then he’s going to be like on Monday, he’s going to be like, can I start over? We had so much fun today. We didn’t get enough time. It’s only 30 minutes of recess and I really want to play with him. And he’s my brand new friend. And you’re like, you’ve, you’re going to point to the chart. Okay. And he’s going to, and he’s going to Badger and Badger and Badger Badger, and it’s, if he’s used to badgering and ultimately, you know, getting his way, somebody, his way, he’s going to do what has worked before, because he’s a human and that’s what humans do. And then it’s going to be your job to put your money where your mouth is and not take the bait.

0 (58m 10s):
So you’re you already established the boundary was if he has a memory, you know, a memory lapse, you’re just going to point to the chart. You’re not going to engage in conversation. And then he’s going to continue pushing, pushing, pushing, and you’re just going to be like, and then you’re going to disengage and walk away and walked into the other room. And then he’s going to follow you maybe. And he’s going to Badger some more because that’s worked in the past. Of course he’s going to do that. But of course, and then you’re not going to engage in conversation. And then he’s going to go into a full blown meltdown. And then you’re not going to engage even some more. It’s going to be hard as all get out. Like it’s so hard.

0 (58m 50s):
And then when he finally comes out of that temper tantrum, you’re going to say not, we talked about this, you knew blah, blah, blah. You’re not going to do that. Nobody wants to hear that when they’re just coming out of a temper tantrum, you’re going to say, wow, you calmed your body down. That’s really hard to do. You did it. I liked that. And then you’re going to, and then you’re going to be able to have a conversation. It’s hard to remember these new things. And you had a new friend and you you’re gonna empathize. You’re gonna see his perspective and you’re going to actively listen, and then you’re going to problem solve together. So what what’s, what do you think is the best way to do, you know, the best way to handle it next time you really want that play date that no, it’s not Tuesday or Friday.

0 (59m 39s):
What do you think you can do about that? Cause the answer is going to be what it was today. I’m going to point to the chart and I’m not going to give in. How do you think you can handle all those big feelings? What are you going to do when that happens? And then you get to put your energy on the skill building. You know, it’s hard to control your body. Can you take some deep breaths? Can you go, you know, jump on the mini trampoline and get some energy out. Can you say to yourself, I can do hard things tomorrow. I’m going to have an amazing play date with so-and-so and I’m going to tell mom that I really want her to arrange it tonight.

0 (1h 0m 22s):
Like, how are you going to handle it when this moment happens next time? Okay. So now we’re putting all of our energy on the front end and that’s what helps us to follow through on the boundaries. Like even better and even better, and even better to the point that eventually we are conditioned with having boundaries and our, and so see, this is where I say Parenting is the ultimate self-help journey because it’s, it’s, you know, there’s no way to master a new skill unless you practice it right. And they give us an kids, give us an opportunity to put our money where our mouth is to practice and practice and practice and practice.

0 (1h 1m 8s):
And then you find yourself in life with, in all your relationships work, extended family, like you’ve just now been conditioned with this new language of having boundaries because your kids helped you to master the skill.

1 (1h 1m 25s):
I like that. Another question that I got a lot of was sibling rivalry, siblings fighting, and over and over again, we tell them to stop. We explain all we explain you can’t hit your sister, blah, blah, blah. But it just happens over and over and over again. You know, when some of these are, you know, four and six year olds are six and eight year olds are six and 10 year olds, but it’s just, it seems to be an ongoing thing. And a lot of

0 (1h 1m 51s):
It is an ongoing thing. Just like boundaries are an ongoing thing as well. I have a program called sibling fighting. So, you know, so sibling fighting is the most advanced program I teach because it is really as a conflict resolution program and a big part of the sibling fighting program. That program is boundaries. Right? And so, and so what I can say is it’s a very difficult when the two people you love more than anyone in the entire world are fighting with each other because it’s like, whose side do I take?

0 (1h 2m 32s):
Oh, I’m going to take, I’m going to take the side of the bigger one or the one who is, you know, typically the herder, not the Hurdy, but it takes two to tango. And so, you know, the kid who showed up, I call it wronger, you know, the kid who smacked a sister on the back hard, you know, maybe the sister had been, you know, grab the remote and turn the TV, turn the channel. You know, when he was in the middle of his show, you know, and, or, or was, or was bugging him for however long going, what are you doing?

0 (1h 3m 12s):
What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? You know? So, so it’s like really well, if you’re going to play judge and jury, like, you’re just going to be going back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. It’s not helpful. And it ultimately doesn’t give your kid, the kids, the, the skill set to be able to manage their own conflicts. And it actually turns them against each other. Right. Because when you play judge and jury, jury, and one of them gets in trouble, then ultimately the one in trouble is gonna, is going to retaliate later. Because either like, they’re not like I got myself in trouble, I really made some mistakes.

0 (1h 3m 53s):
I shouldn’t have done that. They’re like, you got mom mad at me. You got me in trouble. And so then they’re going to get back at them. So, so what I want to say is, so I teach a four week program on sibling fighting. So it’s, you know, it’s involved. But the best thing that I think I can offer in a place, the best place to start is I teach it different than how I’ve ever heard it taught by anyone else. We typically do exactly what you said. And it’s, it’s natural to go, you know, to admonish the aggressor, right? The one who we think seems like the most wrong in that moment and what we focus on grows.

0 (1h 4m 37s):
So, right. So if you focus on the hurting, you’re going to get more hurting. Doesn’t mean the, the one who’s been wronger is going to be off the hook there, it doesn’t, you know, I think that’s what people get worried about. We’re just gonna address them later, who we address first is the more injured party. Okay? So the child who has just gotten hit or is crying or had there was called a name, you focus your energy on the injured party. You take that child and you go to that child, you get down on their level, you give them the soft, dies, the empathy.

0 (1h 5m 21s):
You let them know, you know, you know, tell you, you just got hurt. You got Scott smacked. You didn’t like that. Huh? Was it okay with you? Was that okay with you? And if you’ve been giving, like most of us, your, most of your attention to the aggressor, the aggressor may actually be doing it in an intention seeking way. So they’re not going to be happy with you giving your attention to the injured party. They’re probably going to start badgering you, but mom, she was backing me and mom. And you’re going to literally like have to lay a hand on them and say, just a minute, I’m talking to your sister and you’re not addressing them just a minute.

0 (1h 6m 6s):
Just a minute. You may have to lay a hand on them and just gently stroke them, which lets them know, you’ll have your day in court. I’m going to let you talk to me. But not yet. And you’re 100% focused on the injured party. Was that, was that okay with you? And you asked that question, which sounds so stupid because of course, no, kid’s going to be like, yes, it’s okay with me that somebody hit me or call me a name. You want to ask that question to the injured party because you want to empower them and for them to own no, that wasn’t okay with me. No, no it wasn’t okay with you. Like, like it’s not okay with you for people to call you names. Not okay with you, for people to hit you. That’s right.

0 (1h 6m 46s):
Absolutely. Right. I don’t care if it’s at home. I don’t care if it’s at school. Nowhere, is it okay for someone to lay hands on your body? See, so now all of a sudden we’re focusing our energy where we typically focus it on the aggressor. And then we accidentally sort of reinforce a victim narrative for the other child. Instead we’re focusing our energy on the healing, not the hurting from the get-go and we are empowering that injured child. It’s not okay with you for anyone to lay hands on you. So what do you say?

0 (1h 7m 27s):
What do you say when that happens? Now we’ve just taught our child boundaries. Self-worth we’ve we’ve again, put our energy on the front end and the skill-building. What if every, I mean, not to be, not to make this a male female thing, but what if every female was conditioned with that, with that, you know, language, it would be a different world. You have to be in a very different world. So what about the consequence for the aggressor? See, so we all want to go to the consequence first, but what happens is, you know, in productive conversations, what we’re really doing is solving problems, resolving conflict.

0 (1h 8m 11s):
And quite often, you know, look, you know, we, we, we have to have rules in our house. And so those rules have been established ahead of time. We want to establish those rules ahead of time. Like we are a family that, you know, uses kind words and gentle hands that you know, offers to take someone else’s plate to the sink. When I play, take my plate to the sink, we work as a team. We like to have fun and eat ice cream, at least one time a week. You know, like we like you have your, your manifesto, who are we? What it’s, it’s almost like if it was a company, this is your mission statement.

0 (1h 8m 51s):
Like these are your core values. So you have that and it’s established and it’s been established. We are a family that uses cardboards and gentle hands. We support each other home is our safe place. There is no bullying period. End of story. So when you have a child that, that has an oops moment and gets caught up because, cause it’s hard to live with people. We’ve all had a roommate that we were like, oh my gosh, love you as a friend, can’t wait to not live with you anymore. Like, you know, I mean, we have to just be honest, like it is hard to live with people. And especially if all the people are living for the most part in their emotional brains, as little kids are, it’s going to get volatile at times.

0 (1h 9m 34s):
So we have to manage our expectations. And, and so we take them through this productive conversation format where we’re seeing people’s perspectives. We’re actively listening. We’re problem solving together. We’re coming back together where the injured party is speaking up and the aggressor is hearing their words. I’m here with your sister so that you can hear her words. But before we’ve done that, we also have to, there’s a way to go to the aggressor. You know, we put a gentle hand on them, we’ve stroked them. We basically let them know like, like, okay, I still love you. Unconditional love is coming from me in a nonverbal way.

0 (1h 10m 16s):
And when we go to the aggressor, after we’ve empowered, you know, the injured party, we have to use something called positive intent, which is a pretty advanced skill. And it’s basically saying you screwed up, but you’re not a screw up. It’s it’s, it’s similar to growth mindset. Like we learn through mistakes kind of thing. So you know you, so what I’m getting is is you were just here watching a show. Next thing you know, your sister was making a bunch of noises. It was interrupting your show. You were feeling frustrated. Then she grabbed the remote, turn the TV off, ran away with it. And you just were so frustrated. You forgot the words to say, Hey, give me that back. That was, that was rude.

0 (1h 10m 58s):
I was watching that show. That’s not okay. You forgot the words because you had a, you had a human moment. And so you smacked her, you know, you’re like, you’ve been in my house, cause this is what happens. Like obviously this happens in a lot of homes because I feel like you haven’t seen this go down in my house. And so, you know, what that’s the thing is that is that, you know, we use the term consequence, but we really actually mean punishment. Like what’s the consequence. That’s how they’ll learn. They need to have the con yes, I believe in consequences. I believe in establishing boundaries. And I believe in consequences, but consequences are not punishments. Consequences are like, it’s a natural way that somebody is going to learn that I did this thing.

0 (1h 11m 43s):
It actually helps kids with self-regulation. I did this thing when I was super upset or, or, or, or too impulsive. And now I’m experiencing something that is uncomfortable because of that. So like when we have rules in place for when you have days where you have those oops days, we had the Oop state rules of you forgot, you had a human moment. You, you, you use, you know, hurtful hands and, and hurt for words or something happened. And you had an oops moment. We all have them. What that tells us is that your body needs more rest. And what we’re going to do on those days is we’re going to give your brain more rest.

0 (1h 12m 26s):
There’s going to be no screen time on those days on a new day. And you’re going to have a 30 minute earlier bedtime to help your butt. So see, there’s the consequences it’s been established ahead of time. And then we have to follow through on the Oop state rules. And so it’s just hand in it. It’s like it, it goes into it’s like, instead of constantly feeling like we’re putting out this fire and that fire, it’s like, we just have this, this it’s like a, a set of values that we’re constantly going back to. And you know, your kids just start to learn what the expectations are. And when they’re having a moment where they’re feeling frustrated or annoyed, they’re like, I just need to go to my room for a little bit, because I’m annoyed with everyone right now.

0 (1h 13m 10s):
And I don’t want to be bothered. Okay, we’ll be outside regulating by doing that. Right. We’ll be outside playing because they learned that when they accidentally gave into those impulses and smack someone or said something nasty, they had to go to bed 30 minutes earlier and they didn’t get that screen time that they were looking forward to when you were making dinner. And so that little bit of discomfort of having to do without the things that they like staying up later, or staying up till a normal time like that helps their brain to remember. And you actually use those words, you know? So you know what, you know, after the whole thing is said and done, then you’re like, and remember now we got to stay rules, but mom, this is what helps your brain to remember.

0 (1h 13m 56s):
So you can do better next time. It’s not a big deal, but this is important. I love you too much not to do this. And then you just follow through, follow through, right? Like with my kids, I’ll say, if the answer is noticed certain things, I’ll say, what is my job? And I know that they

1 (1h 14m 12s):
Say to keep me healthy and safe. So that’s like I get, is that a boundary? I mean, I guess that is some somewhat of a boundary when it’s something that I know that is not right for them, whether it’s, you know, going to a birthday party and they want to stay til nine or 10 and I’ll say, no, that’s not healthy choice for you because you need your sleep. One thing we haven’t even talked about is technology, as far as I-pads and TV and social media for the older ones, I feel like that’s a huge topic to cover. There might have to be a part two for that one, but there’s a lot of questions around that. There’s a lot of questions around how much time they should have, what apps they should be on, what they shouldn’t be on.

1 (1h 14m 58s):
And then going into the middle school, high school is, you know, having the phone and what apps they have on the phone. And if they’re on Instagram and monitoring the messaging on Instagram, there’s just so much to dive into there. So maybe we’ll have to have a part two on that. Cause I know that a lot of people want to know a lot of things about all of those

0 (1h 15m 18s):
Well, and, you know, look, I, we, I think I sent you the link for, we have, like, I wrote basically like a technology ebook, cause I’d get so many of these questions just to give people a guidepost. But really what I like to say is, is, you know, I don’t ever like to say, you know, it’s like if your kid is on technology longer than this amount, then you know, I think people beat themselves up enough. Like you’re doing it wrong. You know, you’re ultimately the expert of your own family and your own home. So, you know, people really have an inner knowing of what’s too much and what’s not.

0 (1h 15m 59s):
But sometimes I think we just don’t know how to have these conversations where we establish the boundaries and then we establish what the consequences are. If those boundaries are crossed. The problem is, is that when we are coming from a place of fear, it, we’re not in our thinking brain. And so it’s hard to remember, or to tap into your inner knowing of what to do. So I have this technology ebook that I wrote that just sort of like helps people to kind of understand, all right, okay. I’m getting them. I need to have some parameters. Okay. Here’s some suggestions for, you know, when might be an okay time to let a kid have access to social media or, you know, rules around the phone.

0 (1h 16m 44s):
And it just that I don’t say it’s like black and white. It’s like, here’s my suggestions. And you take it and do with it what you want. But I think it just helps to take some of the uncertainty and ambiguity out of it. And, and also some of the fear out of it because it’s like, it’s like, no, when you’re in a fear, you’re not going to be able to know what to do. But if we just like take a breath, realize, yes, the world is changing more rapidly than it ever has before. We’re all pioneers here. Nobody knows how to really navigate this stuff. We’re all co-creating and figuring this out together and, you know, guess what grounded grownups who show up from that place of feeling grounded, keep things in perspective.

0 (1h 17m 31s):
You know, we solve problems. That’s what we do. Calm people solve problems. So like it’s going to be okay, okay. My kid like rotted on the couch and they weren’t just watching TV. They were on their iPad for freaking four hours this Saturday or during the summer or whatever. And now I feel like the worst parent ever. And like, we talk ourselves off alleged, like it’s gonna be fine. You know, you needed a mental health day and everybody got a vacation day and we all sort of need to ride on the couch every once in a while and it’s going to be okay. So true. Okay.

1 (1h 18m 6s):
Yeah. Well, I downloaded it and I will definitely share it with our listeners. One thing that I kind of struggled with that is kind of related to technology as well is my children will say to me, mom, I want this, can you order on Amazon mom? I want this, can you put it in your cart at target? We can go pick it up later. And I think that kind of speaks to this world of instant gratification. It’s, you know, you ask for it and you get it right away. And I feel like I’m guilty because sometimes I will do that for them. And it’s like setting this really bad example for them that you asked for and you get it and you get it right away because of the Amazon package doesn’t come the next day. They can’t even believe it’s not there yet.

1 (1h 18m 46s):
Right.

0 (1h 18m 47s):
Well, and then if you do it, like, let’s say you do it 60% of the time, the other 40% of the time, how does it go down?

1 (1h 18m 58s):
Yeah. I mean, there’s a temper tantrum when it doesn’t get there or I say, no, so I have to follow through with whatever choice I decided to make, whether it’s, yes, I’ll order it for you and I’ll give it to you when I’m ready, but I just don’t want them to grow up thinking that anything you want just as at your fingertips all of the time.

0 (1h 19m 15s):
Right. So it’s the same thing with the boundaries, you know, it’s like, it’s like, we want them to, you know, it’s hard, it’s hard when you, this is, it’s almost like the curse of the privilege kid, you know? And I mean, I think the blog posts that I wrote years ago that the most people shared was something about raising entitled kids.

1 (1h 19m 37s):
Yes. Yes. That’s the, that’s the worry. And that’s the fear. And I think that, I think that you can have children that, you know, are privileged, whether it’s for the school, they go to the home they live in, but you can raise children that are not entitled. Just

0 (1h 19m 55s):
Yeah, no, it’s, it is. It’s like, it’s such a, it’s a first world world problem for sure. You know, I think most of us are aware of that. My son, my 15 year old son, cause I I’ve used the word a lot and he goes, I know you’re obsessed with that word right now because you’ve used it so much over the last four days. Like I get it mom, you know, I’m like, Hey, okay. But yeah, you know, it’s like, okay, we want them to have a work ethic. We want them to know that, you know, we don’t want them to be spoiled rotten people when they grow up, we want them to work hard and appreciate things and have gratitude and you know, and just to be wholehearted people like so many of us, you know, want that.

0 (1h 20m 41s):
And then all of a sudden it, but it’s like, but in the moment when they want the thing on Amazon and we can order it, like it’s not, there’s not, you know, budget wise, it’s like 20 bucks. It’s fine. And so

1 (1h 20m 55s):
Got pay for it myself. Right. So they say I’ll pay that myself. So that’s like the newest thing. And I do make them pay for the things with their own money and you know, but it’s just, it can’t always be, they can’t always be, it’ll be

0 (1h 21m 9s):
I’m here tomorrow. Right. Right. I mean, I think as far as the instant gratification look, it’s something we’re all struggling with and we’re all navigating. I mean, even in terms of like, you know, bingeing shows on Netflix, I mean, you remember. Yes, totally. You know, remember the day we had to wait a whole week, like it was, you know, I thought it was interesting the way apple dropped Ted lasso. Right. And I was like, this is it’s so old school. And it’s so, and I wasn’t happy about it. Like I felt a feeling about it. Right. Yeah. That was like, but I want to watch the next episode now. And then at the end of the season, when we watch, you know, the first season in real time at the end of the season, I was like, that was so fun waiting every week.

0 (1h 21m 56s):
But in the actual moment, I didn’t want to wait. I was annoyed with apple, you know, like what are they trying to teach us all a lesson? Like, come on, we’re past this having to wait a whole week. And afterwards I was grateful. So I think it’s the same thing with our kids with this is like they are going to have enough. Like they’re going to get lots of opportunities to binge a whole Netflix show, you know, metaphorically speaking. And so any time we can have sort of these Ted lasso moments, I think it’s important just to balance that out.

0 (1h 22m 37s):
And I think it’s like, you know, if they’re paying for their own things, like that’s their choice to pay for the old thing if for their own things. And it is an instant, granted it is awesome. I ordered, we’ve ordered some, some products for our shower the other day. And literally we ordered them in the morning. They were delivered by dinner time. I mean,

1 (1h 22m 60s):
It’s always wild world.

0 (1h 23m 2s):
It was like, my husband is like, wait, didn’t we just order these this morning. I’m like, yeah, it’s crazy. So one of the things that I teach is I like to do a birthday or a holiday list, you know? So whatever you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, whatever. And, and that way, when your kids, where you’re at target, when you’re at wherever they’re looking, they want the thing, they saw their friend and you’re like, oh, you want that thing? Okay. We’ll put it on your birthday list or put on your hock on your Hanukkah list. And you know, and I’m not saying you’re going to get all the things on your list, but that way before your birthday or Hanukkah, we’ll kind of go through and see if you want those things still.

0 (1h 23m 42s):
And then you’ll get, but it’s so far away. I know it can be hard to wait then I’m just going to buy it myself. It’s your choice. It’s your money. And

1 (1h 23m 48s):
It’s just literally what goes down like I’m laughing because you’ve just nailed like so many things that go on in my house. We have a birthday list, Hanukkah lists and it’s, oh, that’s too long. And Dylan’s like constantly, well, how many days my birthday? And I’m like, well, it’s two months away. That’s so long tears.

0 (1h 24m 8s):
That’s a long tears. And you’re like, yeah, I know. And when you’re a little kid, again, I’m such a one trick pony, See their perspective Actively listen, Problem solve together. So that’s the productive conversation that I’ve been weaving all in here is it’s super corny acronym. If I call it SAP S a P See their perspective Actively listen, Problem solve together. And it really is all about Mastering empathy without seeming like a SAP. Okay. Which corny is can be, but it helps people to remember it. So whatever, and yeah, you he’s crying. It’s the tears. And you’re like, you’re a kid.

0 (1h 24m 48s):
And you know what? One day is like a million in adult years. It’s like dog years and human years, but that’s yes. And it’s so hard to wait and you want it right now. And it just, but why can’t you? And there’s been lots of times where we did just get all the things. And so it’s hard that it’s changing and you can’t get it all right away. I get it. You can handle this. It is hard. And you walk away that disengagement and walking away, it is the best thing possible to teach a child self-regulation skills. Because if we sit there and argue back then, there’s, there’s something that happens biochemically in the body.

0 (1h 25m 35s):
You get a little bit of an adrenaline rush, but mom, why can’t I it’s too loud. I’m so upset. And he’s getting a little bit of an adrenaline rush. And then you’re throwing in. Well, I told you, because I don’t want you to grow up, look and say, you can’t just always have things one day, you’re going to be making the money. And then, you know, it’s, so it’s going back and forth, back and forth. And, and that actually that adrenaline rush actually helps to balance his nervous system a little bit. So you’re being his pacifier when you throw the ball back, okay. You’re being as pacifier because it helps to calm him down. If you disengage and walk away, he’s left to have to manage that by himself.

0 (1h 26m 17s):
And he has to develop that impulse control to calm his body down.

1 (1h 26m 22s):
Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, it’s, it all makes so much sense. I love this app thing because it’s validating them and making them feel seen, and then seeing the other perspective and then working through it and that, like you said, the tools in the tool box, there you go. And it’s so good for us as adults to, to use that in our own lives, separate from our,

0 (1h 26m 44s):
No, let me tell you something. My, we use it to negotiate everything in our lives. Cars are managing situations with employees. This is me and my husband. Like we literally, it’s like, you practice it at home and you master it at home and then you take it out and use it everywhere in your life. And, and this is really why it is high level communication tools. So, you know, our home just becomes our training ground. And we’re instilling this in our kids because when you, when you follow the SAP process, you’re sending the message of me too.

0 (1h 27m 24s):
I see your perspective. Me too. I really get it. You are not alone. Active listening sends this message of you are worthy of being heard. Like you are enough. You know, what do so many people struggle with feeling unworthy, feeling, receiving messages in your life that you didn’t feel like you were enough. So me too, you’re not alone. You are enough. And then the problem solving together is this empowering, amazing thing where it’s like, just because you’re a little kid, you’ve got all these ideas and you have the capacity to solve lots of problems, and I’m here to help you. You don’t have to do it all by yourself, but I’m not going to take over and make you codependent and make you only rely on me to solve the problems.

0 (1h 28m 10s):
I’m going to first empower you to solve the problems and get that self-confidence. And then I I’m here to help you and support you. So it’s like really powerful, foundational message that your messages that you’re instilling in your kids,

1 (1h 28m 26s):
It is thank you so much. This is wonderful information. And there’s so much more information to gain from you. So how do people find you if they’re interested in getting involved and taking your course, and also you’re an author. I didn’t even mention that you’ve written about.

0 (1h 28m 42s):
Yes. I, I wrote a book. I’m actually writing another one right now. Yeah. And I have a podcast Mastermind Parenting Podcast, the best way to see what I’m up to and how you can work with me and learn from, you know, take my programs is to go to Mastermind, Parenting dot com. And it’s my website super simple. And there’s, it’ll say like, this is how you work with us. And there’s three different programs and it lays it out on all the different ways that you can work and work with us. And, and also check out my podcast, Mastermind, Parenting Podcast. So I’ve been podcasting for three and a half years, and I like your podcasts, like meaty conversations.

0 (1h 29m 25s):
I’m not like, you know, bait and switch, but if you want to really know what to do, come and join my programs. Like most people who join my programs have been podcasts listeners for a long time. So, and that’s actually my favorite because then they come in already speaking the language and already having the foundation and they’re just ready to get to work.

1 (1h 29m 44s):
Yeah. I was listening to your podcast before Allie ever introduced us. And, and then when I realized, when she said, oh, you need to meet Randi. I think you would love her. I’m like, I listened to her podcast and it’s, I mean, I can remember days sitting in the carpool line being like, okay, they’re about to get in my car. And I would think to go to your podcast to listen, to get some tips to just like gear up for the afternoon. So thank you for that. Thanks for that.

0 (1h 30m 6s):
You’re welcome. And I really, you know, I think what comes across in the podcast when I started the podcast, I was working privately with a lot of, with people and I, there was something in me that I was like, this is not information just for like people that are wealthy enough to be able to hire a one-on-one parenting coach. Like this is information I want every parent to have. I want every child to be raised with. And so I started the podcast really from a place of service of, I want to give people the information and if somebody is going to take the time to listen to things, cause that’s what I did for many years is I like, like something like what I’m doing in my community didn’t exist.

0 (1h 30m 52s):
So I had to piecemeal it and find all the information or read tons of books and find the things to listen to. So I was like, if somebody is going to be that person that is just hungry for information, like I want to provide that. And it’s my pleasure that it’s, you know, that there’s no, that there’s no fee involved. That’s fine. Just take the time to learn it and go do it. And so, so I really did start the podcast from that place. And, and I feel like that’s, what’s always kind of shined through

1 (1h 31m 24s):
And I think you can feel your passion for sharing the information and truly, truly caring and coming from a place of experience. You know, you you’ve done this, you’ve raised children. And I think that’s also comforting to know that you’re somebody who has actually been in the trenches and you have had that type of experience. So thank you so much for joining us today and doing this with me and I will share your Podcast, your Instagram and your website, all on my show. Notes. Love. Anyone can reach out to you.

0 (1h 31m 55s):
Thank you. This was so fun.

1 (1h 31m 57s):
This was great. I’ll talk to you soon. Sounds good. Okay.

0 (1h 31m 60s):
Bye Randi. All right. Thanks for listening today, guys. I hope you picked up some tips tools, maybe some baby steps for creating more balance and boundaries in your life. And I just wanted to let you know if you want to continue moving the needle forward in creating this for yourself, having a happier household. I want you to go to my website and check out Mastermind, Parenting dot com. We have three beginning programs, and if you need some accountability and more support, then please look for the one that would be a good fit for you. And as always, we’re on all the social channels under Mastermind Parenting on Instagram, it’s mastermind, underscore Parenting, and you know, periodically I do pop up on different Instagram lives, Facebook lives, where I give you teaching and coaching.

0 (1h 32m 54s):
And I love engaging with you live to help you help your strong-willed kids so that they can feel better because when they feel better, they do better. And I love, love, love, getting to know you guys. So thanks for listening. If you liked this podcast, please don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review super, super appreciative.