202: The Kid That Just Won’t Series

(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 the Mastermind Parenting Podcast with Randi Rubenstein episode 2 0 2. Well, hi guys. Welcome to September. I am glad to be in September, August was it started off strong and ended rough. I got COVID for the first time and I’ll tell you, it took me down like full. It took me two weeks to fully recover from COVID and my husband too.

(46s):
So we had kind of a crazy August. I, I was in California for the summer. I am my daughter who is in college. She had an internship at this really cool animal sanctuary. She’s been an animal lover her whole life. It was a lions, tigers and bears. If you’re ever in San Diego, you should go to the tiger Kings tigers are there, but anyway, she absolutely loved it. She’s actually, so there, cause she hasn’t started going back to school yet, but we had to come back to Houston and I was out there with her all summer and, and so mostly, you know, everybody else kind of came and went, but I was mostly out there with her and it was kind of glorious.

(1m 28s):
We’re a little behind the curve. We just watched Downton Abbey. That was our summer series, which sorta started off slow. And then we loved it. So this month M doing a little series and the series is called The Kid. That just won’t because it just won’t the kid that just won’t follow simple requests, like getting their freaking shoes on and getting ready for school Or sitting down and eating their breakfast and, Or coming out of their room, having their teeth brushed, having their hair brushed, having their clothes on their body. The kid that just won T follow simple requests, the kid that won T stop space invading, you know, those kids that are just everywhere you are, they are, they’re just like next to you all the time, all the time, all the time, or right next to their sibling, Just constant space invasion or the kid that won’t stop destructive behavior.

(2m 27s):
So maybe it’s that they’re grabbing things away from their sibling or they’re just making a mess all the time or it just it’s like wherever they are. It’s just like a Tasmanian devil of chaos, right. Or the kid that won’t listen, you feel like you have to say something over and over and over and over and over again. And it’s like, When is the time going to come? Where I can just say something once? Like, like really? Is that like, that’s a huge goal, Tasha goals. I just want my kid to listen. I just want to have to say something once. Basically the kid that won’t allow anything to be easy.

(3m 11s):
So Do you have one of these kids? I was like the kid that won’t the kid that just won’t. So these are the kids that have overall resistance. They say no, like the answer is no, like no T is their automatic response to most requests or maybe they won’t take no for an answer. This is what I call badgering behavior. No matter how many times you’ve told them that it’s time to turn the TV off or it’s time to turn their game off or no, they can’t have cookies right before dinner or no, they can’t stay up later and no, they just, they won’t take no, they keep on begging and begging or doing the thing no matter what, but please, but please, but please.

(3m 60s):
Yes, I’m doing it. Yes. I’m doing it. I want to do this. I want this thing. I want this thing. I want this thing. I want this thing and they just Badger and Badger and Badger. And before you know it, you’re like losing your mind and losing your cool or you’re just like fine. Forget it just fine because you just don’t have, you’re just like, I can’t, I just, I I’m just I’m beaten down. So, I mean, I want to read a post from a mom who has one of these kids. We did a coach week free. I’m doing these coach week sort of, I don’t know, just like a little kind of pop up free week long program with me.

(4m 43s):
And I’m aiming to do them like three or four times a year. And really mostly when I planned these free experiences, I’m really thinking about you guys, those of you who listened to the podcast because I’m sick of this being one way of relationship. And when I meet some of you in real life, or sometimes we’re also doing these weekly warmup free coaching calls once a month. So when you guys pop onto the weekly warmup call or I meet you sometimes in real life, it’s so fun. Like it’s so like, and you guys like know me, like you, I can tell like you really know me. And I’m like, well, I want to know y’all too.

(5m 24s):
And when those of you who listened to the podcast, come and join our private groups. You’re like our dream people because it’s, it’s kind of like Lindsey and Lindsey who works with me. Well, we say it’s kind of like, we feel like we’re teaching the gifted and talented because y’all come in. You’ve been listening to the podcast for so long. You already speak the mastermind language. Like there’s no kind of getting to know you. It’s just like instant intimacy. And it’s just such a beautiful thing. So I’m doing these coach weeks periodically where I’m coaching, you guys live and I’m teaching some content and just giving you a kind of a taste of what we do in the, in the mastermind and what we do in our private groups.

(6m 6s):
And just, you know, a chance to get to know you and support you. So we’re doing another one of them it’s coming up and we’ll be talking more about this as the month goes on, but it’s coming up in October. I believe it’s the week of October 10th. So mark that down because you want, you don’t want to miss it and it’s totally free. And I, I come and give it all I’ve got. So anyway, here was a post from a mom in our last coach week. Cause we do like a, like a pop-up Facebook group. Like I really engage with you guys. So here was one of the moms. She says he, her son doesn’t listen to me most of the time. And I was walking people through an exercise and I said, I said, what was the, what’s the emotion that you mostly feel?

(6m 49s):
And she said, I mostly feel frustration and anger because he’s not listening to me. And so then she gave a scenario. She said, so here’s a typical scenario. I say, please come here. He won’t, he just won’t right. He won’t until he finishes what he’s doing, or you might just not just decide not to come to me. He just, he just won’t. He just won’t. If I ask him to pick up his toys, he just won’t he’ll cry. They’ll lay on the floor. If I tell him not to do something, he’ll get so frustrated and he’ll cry really loud. And then she said, and I get very frustrated.

(7m 32s):
Okay. So he won’t come until he’s finished. He won’t pick up his toys. When she tells him to stop doing something, he won’t stop noise polluting. And as I teach in the mastermind, all behaviors, communication. So knowing that, why won’t this kid come? What his mom asks or stop doing what he wants to do? Or why will we stop noise polluting? Why won’t he stop hijacking the household? Because mom is super tired and frustrated, all behaviors, communication what’s really going on.

(8m 12s):
Okay. So what’s really going on. Well, we’ve need to investigate because there’s a reason, right? He’s feeling frustrated. And then he behaves in ways. And lo and behold, how does mom feel frustrated? So when kids aren’t feeling like they’re getting their needs met, or they don’t know how to communicate the way they’re feeling inside. So they act on the outside the way they feel on the inside. So that we’ll know. Isn’t it interesting that they behave in ways that elicit the exact same feeling the child is having in his body. It’s like, it’s almost like if they could put this into words, they’d say, Hey mom, maybe if I can make you super frustrated, then you’ll know how I’m feeling.

(9m 3s):
And then you’ll be able to actually help me with my problem. So what is his problem? We don’t know. We got to investigate. So if I worked with this mom and took her deeper, I would say, Hmm, there’s something going on, all behaviors, communication. And really, if you think about it guys, like most of us just want our people to be happy. We just want to be happy. We just aim for having a happy life, happy family, happy, happy, happy. And this is sort of the wallet Wong. Like the buzzkill is we’ve been sold a bill of goods because guess what?

(9m 44s):
Half of life involves negative emotions solving problems. It was like me like this summer, I’m there. I’m in California. I’m with my daughter. I’m having an amazing time. And just when I’m like, okay, it’s a wrap, right? It’s a wrap. This has been a great summer. My son came out and visited and you know, he has a new special friend and she came out to and we had some friends come out and my husband was back and forth. Like just wanted to, I’ve got my dogs out there. And our landlords were amazing. Like kindest, people love this woman. They were super attentive.

(10m 24s):
There was love in the details of this house that we rented, like the sheets were soft. And, and so it was all great just when it’s about to be a rap, guess what? I go to see the sea lions and go kayaking me the hermit who barely leaves the house, except at sunset. When we go and take the dogs and go watch the sunset at the beach. That was our favorite thing. Every night, we go to kayak and see the sea lions. And I put on the disgusting helmet and life this, and here, here it is. I use the bathroom like rookie as if I haven’t been in a pandemic for however long, like just, that’s just a no, like, just know, but yet use it.

(11m 17s):
The next day, bam came down with COVID. So it’s the last week that we’re there. And when I came down with COVID one of my dogs, my two year old dog who has been, you know, in almost perfect health, one of the dogs that sometimes you guys might hear snoring on these episodes. Cheryl, Cheryl, our Frenchie, our Brindle one, all of a sudden Cheryl started shaking and it was the night right before I came down with COVID and she starts shaking the next day. We are for that for Cheryl turns out two days later, Cheryl, all of a sudden needs emergency back surgery for two year old dog.

(12m 5s):
She, I don’t know what happened to her emergency back surgery because to hell in a hand basket, like we now we’ve got a two year old dog. So they were like, she could very easily be paralyzed in 48 hours. If you don’t get this emergency cause zillion dollar back surgery. And so then, then a couple of days later, our lease is up and we have to drive back from California to Houston, the worst car ride ever two days, hot, hot, hot. And we drive back with a dog that just had back surgery. And now my husband has COVID two and two people with COVID like it went south quickly.

(12m 52s):
Isn’t that life though, like just when it’s smooth sailing, something happens. And all of a sudden there’s, there’s things to figure out there’s problems to solve. Life involves half the time. Hopefully there’s positive emotions. And half the time you’re going to experience friction, you’re going to experience negative emotion. You’re going to have problems. You have to solve. Hey, podcast listeners. I’m super excited to tell you about something new that I’m doing called the weekend warmup. It’s going to be on the third, Friday of every month. And I’m going to coach you live. I created this because I know a lot of you guys feel like you know me, but I want to know you too.

(13m 38s):
So you’re going to come. You’re going to get on zoom with me. I’m going to coach you and we’re going to get you warmed up for your weekend. What do I mean by that? We’re going to hunt gather parent our weekends together. If you don’t know what hung gathered, parent I’ve turned it into a verb, just so y’all know, hung out. Their parent is a book that came out not long ago. I’ve had the author on the podcast. I make it required reading for anyone that comes and works with me. And it’s just about the fact that many of us, especially those of us who come and listen to things like this. Our weekends are just filled with too many kid activities and there’s no adult time.

(14m 22s):
You know, maybe you’re going from birthday parties to just nonstop, nonstop, fun, nonstop memories. And you’re finding yourself depleted and exhausted. Maybe even more so on Sunday night than you were on Friday. And it’s just not supposed to be that way. So we’re going to hunt, gather parent our weekends together. I’m going to coach you live. I’m so excited to meet you guys. And I want you to sign up. It’s free. I’m offering it for free. So just go to Mastermind, Parenting dot com forward slash weekend Mastermind, Parenting dot com for slash weekend. Sign up, sign up So with this kid, guess what?

(15m 6s):
He’s behaving all behaviors, communication, or as Dr. Ross green says the author of the explosive child, which I know if anybody’s read it. And I know many of you have who have a strong willed kid. Yes. His whole, the way he teaches how to have a productive conversation. I agree with you that I think it’s super confusing. So just learn my method for having productive conversation, SAP, how to master empathy without being a SAP. And it’s basically the same thing. We teach you something very similar. And I think my way is much easier to remember, but Dr. Ross green says kids do well if they can. So if they’re not doing well, if they just won’t cooperate, if they just won’t stop space invading, if they just won’t stop badgering, they just won’t pick up their toys.

(15m 54s):
If they just won’t be easy, there’s something to figure out there’s a problem to solve. So what is this kids? Won’t behavior communicating my hunch is that the power balance is off. He senses that he has too much control in the household that mom doesn’t understand how to show up and pack leadership. Mom doesn’t understand yet. And, and it’s not mom’s fault back to my whole feminist soap box at the beginning about how women are doing too much.

(16m 36s):
Women are also receiving faulty conditioning where many women haven’t have received messages in their life, that it was their job to try and make everyone else happy that their voices didn’t matter their voices. And now all of a sudden mom is in a leadership position. And this little kid who it sounds like is very dysregulated, is feeling unbalanced in his nervous system. He’s needing a lot of structure and certainty, which takes a lot of leadership from mom. But if mom is constantly requesting that he do this thing requesting that he didn’t do that thing, but she doesn’t really have leadership language in her toolbox because she never received that conditioning.

(17m 21s):
Well, this kid is like, okay, mom’s kind of requesting these things of me, but it doesn’t really sound like I have to do it. I’m not totally trusting that she really is in charge here. Sort of seems like she’s constantly waiting for me to either cooperate or not. And it’s like, they sense that they have too much power in the family. And you know, for little kids, they don’t realize that this is what’s going on, but it’s almost like when we show up impact leadership. And when we show up letting them know, like when you’ve got a kid that just won’t okay, they’re not doing well.

(18m 5s):
And we start figuring out this problem and solving it and playing detective. I mean the place, you know, when we take people through our programs where we start with with everyone’s basic needs and 9.9 times out of 10, we’ve got a kid that isn’t getting the right amount of sleep and exhausted people suck all of us do. So if you have the kid that just won’t a lot of times that kid, if he’s not getting the right amount of sleep, he’s walking around chronically sleep deprived and yeah, he doesn’t feel good in his vice. So he’s constantly, he actually is doing the fight dance with mom when he just won’t, the mom repeats herself and repeats herself.

(18m 47s):
And before you know, it, it escalates. And then he, eventually he gets to the place of tears, at least with the tears, he has a release in his body. And so in that moment, I know it doesn’t seem like they feel better, but they actually do feel a little bit more regulated on a little bit better. And so patterns like this are created and things are just spinning off the rails, but it really doesn’t have to, it really doesn’t have to. And if we want to clean up his sleep hygiene, and first and foremost, get him the rest that he needs. And this may not be the case when we investigate this, mom could say, no, he’s sleeping like 11 hours a night.

(19m 30s):
Like he’s getting a lot of sleep. He wakes up happy. He’s, you know, no, this is just late afternoon stuff. After the day is caught up with them. It’s not asleep thing, but it’s not asleep thing. Then I would move on to the other basic needs. How’s he eating? What’s going on? And what time of the day I’d be asking questions, really playing detective is this when his reserves are low and he’s not recognizing the feelings of hunger, my kids will. I was like, at what age do you guys start to recognize when your stomach is freaking empty? Instead of just acting like complete assholes. But yeah, like I go into the other basic needs, you know, what’s going on with his food and hydration.

(20m 14s):
And if she’s like, no, that’s not it. He had just had a snack. Yeah. I’d say, okay, so the other basic need is connection. Is this how he gets your attention? Is this how he is? He used to fight dancing with you to get your attention. You know, I always say, mom is Taylor swift. And I always say that because my daughter has loved Taylor swift for so many years that like, it would be a dream to be in a Taylor swift concert. And she was on the front row of the Taylor swift concert. She would do anything she needed to do to get Taylor’s attention. And so if mom is Taylor swift and he’s used to, since he was three years old, getting lots of mom’s attention when he just won’t, when you just won’t do what mom wants him to do, at least he’s got Taylor’s attention, then that negative attention seeking pattern was created.

(21m 6s):
So it could be a way that he connects with mom. And now, if mom was like, no, we spent some great time together that day. We had a lot of fun. We cooked together. We did this together. We did that together. We talked in the car. No, we had a lot of really sweet moments. I mean like, okay, that’s not it. Okay. So now we’ve got to investigate a little bit deeper. So are we dealing with a kid that is going through what we call after-school restraint collapse, where he’s just exhausted from, you know, is he highly sensitive and he’s just exhausted from his day. And so maybe we need to change up the schedule a little bit and set them up for more success.

(21m 46s):
But see if we have a mom that has no clue how to step into pack leadership and give this kid more and structure and the power balance is off. And he’s really in charge of the household and mom doesn’t know how to be this kind of a leader. And now it’s going to be time to clean up his sleep and get him to that and earlier, and make sure that he gives his body, the rest that he needs. Mom’s like, well, he just won’t do any of the other things. How on earth am I going to get them to bed? How am I on earth? And, and I would say, you know, at some point back to the, you are worth investing in yourself for all the things that you do.

(22m 35s):
You know, getting somebody to come in and help you with some of the domestic pieces of the household. And also if you didn’t ever receive leadership conditioning, and if you don’t know how to show up this way in your life, then you may need to come and work with someone work with someone like us, probably reading a book is not going to be enough for you. You need some accountability. You need some hand-holding. Maybe you want to work with a therapist. I would say, you know, I always love when people work with therapists to dig into their childhood wounds. I think that’s great.

(23m 16s):
But when you want to work with a therapist to help you with your kid, I would say, what kind of program is the therapist going to have you going through? Because taking a parenting program and getting that one-on-one support, I think is really important for accountability. If you’re learning these sure, huge things, you know, to learn how to be an effective leader. I mean, think about it when people, you know, in their careers, if you have a, if you’re in a position of leadership in your company, or if you are the owner of your company, think about all of the different career type resources out there.

(23m 56s):
There are to train people on how to be more effective leaders. And then to think that the place where you need to be the most effective leader, which is at home raising the actual humans, if you don’t have support, like how are you going to learn these skills? And I understand it takes a lot of self-worth to invest in yourself. And if you’re not the person that is the primary breadwinner in your household, and you go to the person who happens to be male and doesn’t know what they don’t know. And they’re like, what are you talking about? You need help with what? Like, or no, we can’t afford that.

(24m 36s):
Or you have to educate people. You have to know that to get your family to a better place. Something’s going to have to shift and change. Okay. So where does this mom start? I want y’all to remember, like, these are big behavior changes and that’s why I would urge a mom like this to get some support and accountability. I think the first place to go is to take a parenting class, a good one. Right. You know, just so that you can learn two new language, new skills and have some support while you’re learning these new things.

(25m 18s):
But behavior change, it really happens with a series of baby steps. Okay. So when you’re figuring out what to do, if you try to do everything at once, it’s going to be overwhelming. It’s too much. So you really, it’s really just a series of teeny tiny baby steps. So I would say the first place we start everyone where we start, everyone is sleep. Okay. And if you, if you know that y’all are all exhausted, then I would say, you want to figure out whether it’s that you’re finding the right resource, reading the right book, following a certain, you know, if you can’t come up with the system or I’m not a systems person, like I had to learn these things.

(26m 9s):
I mean, now I teach lots of things that I’ve learned and have been impactful for me, but I didn’t come up with a lot of the cyst, the systems piece, no, not my zone of genius. I just teach people what I’ve learned and what’s worked for me. So you want to find your system and you want to attack the sleep problem with a series of baby steps, even like micro baby steps within that, and set a deadline, right. And set a deadline, get the people, the sleep that they need, the, a kid that just, won’t all behaviors, communication. There’s something to figure out. And I just took a stab at some of the stories that I most often hear, but it could be something totally different.

(26m 57s):
You know, we’re not robots, our kids aren’t robots. So you thinking there’s just a one size fits all approach, I think is not really fair or respectful to them. You’re going to have to put on your detective hat and, and dig a little bit. So I hope you found this helpful. And that’s what I got for you this week by 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.

(27m 39s):
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. 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.

(28m 24s):
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.