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49: Pacifiers and Pattern Disruption

By February 5, 2019November 9th, 2023Mastermind Parenting Podcast
49: Pacifiers and Pattern Disruption
In this episode, I included audio about the way a mom in my private Mastermind Parenting community handled getting rid of pacifiers. I think this is an interesting listen not just for moms of toddlers, but for anyone that wants to know how to lead a difficult conversation with your kids and disrupt a pattern or break a habit. Whether it’s too much sugar and french fries or screen time, breaking a pattern can feel overwhelming and daunting. This episode has some powerful pointers to help you show up with “pack leadership” assertiveness to lead the conversation and follow through with disrupting a pattern that is no longer serving your family. Enjoy!
Topics Covered:
  • Pack Leadership
  • Assertiveness
  • Leading the conversation
  • Disrupting a pattern and how to do it
  • How to finally say goodbye to pacifiers
  • Empathy

As always, thanks for listening, and be sure and head over to Facebook and you can join my free group Mastermind Parenting Community, where we post tips and tools and do pop up Live conversations where I do extra teaching and coaching to support you in helping your strong-willed children so that they can FEEL better and DO better. If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it!

About Randi Rubenstein

Randi Rubenstein helps parents with a strong-willed kiddo become a happier family and enjoy the simple things again like bike rides and beach vacays.

She’s the founder of Mastermind Parenting, host of the Mastermind Parenting podcast, and author of The Parent Gap. Randi works with parents across the U.S.

At Mastermind Parenting, we believe every human deserves to have a family that gets along.

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Transcription

0 (1s):
You’re listening to the Mastermind Parenting Podcast with Randi Rubenstein episode 49. Hey, podcast listeners. If you happened to have a strong-willed kid who is kind of pushing every one of your buttons lightly, I have a resource for you. I made you guys a free guide where you’re going to get some tools and tips and strategies to quickly get on the road to creating a happier household. I know you’re pulling your hair out. I wanted to make you something, so you could start getting some quick wins and building some momentum. So if you want to grab your copy, just go to Mastermind Parenting dot com forward slash Free Guide and I hope you enjoy it.

1 (44s):
My name’s Randi Rubenstein and welcome to the Mastermind Parenting Podcast where we believe when your thoughts grow the conversations in your home flow.

0 (58s):
Well, hi podcast listeners. I have a special treat for you today. I am calling the name of this episode Pacifiers and Pattern Disruption. So recently I was checking in with one of my Mastermind moms who I had had an issue. I know over the years where her kids were using Pacifiers way past infancy. And she has kind of expressed that even though they used it to soothe themselves, and it was kind of this habitual thing, it was just not a battle she wanted to take on. And she had a, a, a new born and she was pregnant and she had a hard pregnancy and it, she had a newborn and she just wasn’t willing to take it on.

0 (1m 41s):
And so, so she had two older boys that were, I dunno, when she first started coming to me, I think like almost just turning three in almost just turning four. And so they are literally one year apart. And so it was just kind of this thing that, you know, she was just like, it works. It’s not that big of a deal. Anyway, I knew she had gotten rid of the Pacifiers, but I never kind of got the lowdown. So I checked back in with her and I said, I want, like, I want an update on how that went down for you. And she’s kind of at the graduate level of my parenting programs, like she came in, she was in chaos and then she has like taken major action, made the tools her own and, and has really transformed her household.

0 (2m 33s):
So I’m constantly kind of picking my I’m air, quoting my graduate level. Parenting students are picking their brains to just kind of find out what’s working in their home, what feedback they have and how I can kind of use their stories to help other people. So I thought it would be helpful for you guys to hear her update about Pacifiers and how she went about Disrupting this pattern. And even if you are way past the stage of, of Pacifiers, what I want you to listen for here is, you know, we get into patterns and then all of a sudden, whether your child is two or three or 12 or 15 or 25, we all of a sudden expect our kids to do it differently.

0 (3m 23s):
But the truth of the matter is, is that we, we, they were following our lead were the Pack leaders of the family. And so if we haven’t disrupted the Pattern or know how to do it, like they, don’t very rarely as the kid, I’m going to be proactive. And all of a sudden, you know, disrupt a pattern. I mean, I have her parents say, Oh, they just gave it up on their own or are they just give up their thumb or their Pacifiers or they just started sleeping through the night. There’s no big deal, but I wanted to tell you, you guys, it’s the rare child that does that. So what I’m constantly encouraging guides to do is to lean into these difficult conversations. Like no conversation is off limits. We can talk about anything and everything.

0 (4m 4s):
We can disrupt a pattern, no one needs to be perfect. So what she mean, this mom has said it. She was like, you know what? Yeah, in a perfect world, my child, my kids at a two and three and four years old, wouldn’t be soothing themselves with a pacifier. But in the big scheme of things, it’s not that big of a deal. I’m not tackling that battle yet. And then when she was ready, she had the tools and the skills to be able to do it, to lean into the hard conversations to Pattern disrupt. And so I want you all to listen to this and just kind of have all of that in mind, and to think what’s not working for you, whether it’s food or technology or kids not being responsible for their homework or, or, or not keeping their rooms clean on a regular basis in somewhat regular basis.

0 (4m 51s):
What Pattern is, is, is needing to be disrupted in your household. I hope this episode encourages you to do so. So Enjoy

2 (5m 2s):
Hey, so Jack was for and a half when he finally gave it up and max was about three-and-a-half. And obviously with the way they did a very long time, but it just wasn’t a battle like, you know, in terms of like what I was willing to fight at that time or with Sonny being born. And so the way that it ultimately happened was we have been talking about it. My friend, Sarah came in to town and her M her little girl’s to me, it was about six months older than Jack. And so Sarah told this story about how she gave up her pasties. And she gave them too, the new baby elephants and the baby giraffes that were born at the zoo.

2 (5m 43s):
And they mailed them in and they got to go shopping for a little cuddly, like a stuffed animal. And so Jeff kept telling me the story back. And of course, max would just kind of listen in, they were sharing a room at the, and one day Jack said to me, or actually along the way he had said, I, I’m ready to throw away my badass. I’m ready to throw them away. And I would say, okay, I’m here to support your insurer. And then he would say, no, I’m not ready yet. And sometimes already you can leave out the, are you sure? I’m like, okay, let’s do it. Let’s pick a time and do it. You want to do it right now? Or do you want to do it later? And then he would get cold feet and he would say, no, no, no, I’m not ready.

2 (6m 24s):
I, I will tomorrow. Or I will when I’m five or whatever. And so I would say, okay, I know that you’ll know when you’re ready. So one day he said it, he said, I’m ready. And I said, okay. And I said, well, we need to mail them in to the zoo. So we need to go get something to put them in. And I said, do you want to go downstairs and get a Tupperware? And he said, yes. So he went downstairs and he came back up and max was like, I’m ready too. I’m doing it too. You know, is like, Oh my gosh. I’m like, yeah. Right. So anyways, they put them all on the top of where, and they, I said, okay. And it was the end of the day. Crazy enough. It was like right before bed. So it was like, yeah, right.

2 (7m 4s):
This is not going to happen. And then they put them all in and I took them. I walked away. And I said that in a few days that we are going to go shopping for our cuddly, Oh, no, I’m sorry. I didn’t. I said, okay guys, tomorrow, we’re going to go. And we’re going to drop this Tupperware off at imagination toupees, because they actually have a mailbox there, or the mailman, you can pick them up and then we can go get your credit light. So the next morning that happened, they totally did it. And like, I just didn’t even hear Pete that night. So we went to the imagination. We gave them are a Bonobos.

2 (7m 47s):
I would definitely recommend calling me didn’t and she was very confused. But when along with it, and then they’ve been shopping for a little cuddly, probably got something else to do, but I was totally willing to let that happen and came back. And it wasn’t the end of it because max kind of would be like an NDIS. My Baba, you know, it would be like, Oh, you miss it, you miss it. And then Jack never said a word again. It was like, literally he was so ready. And that it took about two weeks of him saying every night that he missed it. So I don’t know if it was too, too premature or if he just needed to go through that, but it worked

1 (8m 27s):
The podcast listeners. If you’re ready to take this, learning to the next level and get some accountability and some handholding, I encourage you to schedule a call with me and hop on my calendar and to do that. All you need to do is go to Randi Rubenstein dot com forward slash discovery. That’s Randi Rubenstein dot com forward slash discovery. Can’t wait to connect with you.

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