continuously shame somebody
eventually they're going to become immune to shame
which is actually
a much worse problem than whatever it is
that you think you're solving
by shaming people
so that's another observation that I think is true
well I think I
I'll just say that I think shame as a tool is horrible
yeah shame is not a parenting tool
that's probably
a principle that is probably well established I agree
it is probably well established I agree
hello and welcome to raising men
I'm Shawn Dawson and today
we're tackling one of the hardest parts
about raising boys in my opinion
which is aggression when our sons
they hit or they kick or scream
at least my gut reaction is often fear
I'm afraid about his future
I I draw this line into the future that
oh my gosh
this is the way he's gonna be when he's an adult
I feel I fear that I'm failing and
and often I I react or my
gut reaction is to react with harshness or shaming
but our guest today Tasha Shore
points out that aggression
it's not a sign of a bad kid
so to speak but a signal of a frightened one
Tasha is the founder of Parenting Boys Peacefully
and the out with aggression program
and she's the author of listen
5 Simple Tools
to meet your Everyday Parenting challenges
she's here to show us how we can cultivate peace
in and out of the home with our sons
Tasha
thank you so much for joining us on raising
thank you so much for inviting me on
I'm excited for this conversation
me too
so you talk about something that I
it just absolutely struck me when I encountered it
and that is the bad guy myth
and the way that I would describe that
and please correct me if I'm wrong
is that the I we
it's this idea that we mislabel boys as troublemakers
when actually they're just struggling
they're trying to make it work
and so for example
data from the center for Social Justice
shows that boys are twice as likely to get in trouble
at school as girls
and I think this is a symptom of that how much of that
lost boy trajectory
starts with misinterpreting their reactivity
as a character flaw rather than an emotional signal
I think a lot of it starts with that
and I think you touched on something which is equally
important which is the fear that we feel as a result
because our fear is then driving our response
so we're in a fear cycle they're scared and acting out
and then we're scared and acting out
and then we spiral down together
and so in order to get us out of this um
sort of world world pool
somebody's got to change
and if there's one thing we know
is that we can't change anybody else
so we gotta start with ourselves
yeah and we're the ones with the
the fully developed prefrontal cortex
we're the ones who you know
can control what we're doing
and by the way
we're the ones who are supposed to be training our sons
to to be effective in the world right
absolutely and
and it's possible I think people feel like
you know I've got so much baggage
I'm I'm 30
I'm 40 I'm 50
I've I've
you know my parents parented me in a certain way
yeah I want to stop yelling
I want to do things differently
but I just can't and I
I wanna say that you absolutely can it
I see people change all the time
but just before we got on this recording
I was working with a couple
uh from Ireland
I have been working with this couple
on and off for the last few years
and she got on and told me like
I just want to tell you like
I scheduled this not because
there's a crisis everything is going really
really well but I just wanted to have you in my world
and be able to bounce ideas
and I asked how her husband was doing
and she said one of the biggest things that's shifted
in their family
and that has helped to stop the aggression
is that they used to have this cycle where
and they also have three boys like I did or do
and they're now men that's why I said did right and and
and
one of the boys would get aggressive about something
or the two you know
two of them would go at each other
and dad would just get all fired up and get scared
do that you know
forward fear thinking that you were just talking about
oh my God
what is gonna happen they're gonna kill each other
they're gonna hate each other
blah blah
blah and he would start yelling and and and
and being harsh and shaming and all of those things
and they would spiral
and she said he doesn't lose it anymore
and
that has completely shifted the dynamics in the family
what a powerful statement
I mean
just think about what that's like from his experience
and I I
I feel this because I was kind of that way early on
I found that my son could push buttons in me
that I didn't know I have
ordinarily
my whole life I've been this real level headed guy
I don't I'm not quick to anger anything like that
but then I found that my son could trigger rage in me
in a way that no one has ever been able to do
yeah surprise surprise yeah
this is what our kids do to us yeah
it it's
it's it's absolutely amazing
and um
it was a real unlock for me
when I finally realized that
I was screaming at him to calm down
I was like wait a minute
that's insane like
he's not gonna calm down because I'm screaming at him
it's gonna it's only gonna make things worse
and I realized we were in the toilet bowl
absolutely and
and the thing is we feel so badly when we do that
we don't want to do that you didn't want to do that
that's right it's just
it's just the fallback when our toolboxes are empty
when we're running on empty
it's just what comes out automatically
it's what was done to us it's what we see in the movies
we we have to retrain our brains
we have to retrain ourselves
in order to respond differently
and like you said earlier
like one of the things that's really gonna help
is to reframe aggression as not the sign of
oh my God
this kid is totally screwed up and he's a psychopath
and he's a horrible person
but this is some form of communication
like he is struggling he is hurting inside
he is likely scared his
his his radar right
his limbic system in his brain
is sensing a lack of safety
even if you don't see that
and he's responding accordingly
so if we can get curious there's lots that we can do
yeah I
I I love that term about getting curious or
or reacting with compassion
instead of as a way I have to tamp down this activity
this this reactivity that he's having
otherwise
he's going to grow up into be a man and beat people up
right right
so what
once we have that recognition
and once we sort of
have this intellectual understanding
okay this is a fear response from him
now what do we do
well I think we always start with ourselves
so I always when I'm working with a family
that's struggling with aggression
the first place we're gonna start well
the first place we're gonna start is like safety
but part of that is how we respond
so I like to start off with parents and talk about
how do we get you into good enough parenting shape
notice not perfect parenting shape
not I'm never gonna make a mistake
not I'm never gonna wish I said
or did something differently
but good enough
that's all all I gotta do is good enough
yeah and so
that could be different things for different people
it might be getting uh
support in in terms of like
having the physical presence of another person
it might be
having somebody on the other end of a phone line
in case you need to call them for support
it it could look a lot of different ways
it might be simply telling your partner
or whoever is living with you in your house
that you're gonna do some experiments um
in terms of responding to aggression
differently than you have in the past and
and communicating with them what their role could be
or what you want them or don't want them to do
how they can be involved or how could they
they can be helpful
or maybe the helpful is that they just stay
stay back and let you do this for a while
and you assure them that you'll let them know
if you need help but there's a piece about
how do we get ourselves into good enough parenting
shape and I just want to be clear
like as we talk about the different aspects
of dealing with aggression
it's not linear right it's not like okay
you're gonna do this
and then you're gonna check that off
I mean we're all working on ourselves
for the rest of our lives yeah
we're not gonna you know we're just
we just want to be moving in the right direction
so everything that we talk about is like
it's it's a puzzle all the pieces fit together
but I would start there
and then we're gonna move into really strengthening
our connection with our sweet boys
because is the is the difference
is the difference in
is there a difference in the appropriate response
when the aggression is two boys getting at it
versus when it's a boy and a girl
I think so I think for me
I mean for okay
it depends on the context and what's going on obviously
I think for me the reason that I focus on boys is not
it is not about sort of physiological differences
it's more about how we
as adults respond differently to a boy's behavior
versus a girl's behavior and that
I think if if we can't admit that
I think we're lying to ourselves
because teachers like you said right
teachers respond differently
administrators respond differently
coaches respond differently
um we respond differently
there are studies that show that we respond differently
to even a young baby boy's cry
than we do to a baby girl's cry
from a very early age in our child's life
the world is treating them differently
simply because they've been labeled a boy right
that's a tremendous insight
and it really affects it
it I
I I
I once had my
my boy got sent home from school a couple of weeks ago
and it was because he got into a fight with a girl
a friend of his that I mean
they're great friends and they got in a fight
and he ended up holding her physically
up against a fence
and I you know I
got called into the principal's office
he got called in in
into the principal's office and it was this huge thing
and yet if he had done that to a boy
and he has done that to boys before
and boys have done that to him
it didn't turn into this enormous thing
but because it was a girl
it really did right
well so can I say
so that's what I meant by like
I do think there's context
and so I think we can if
you know if we're honest
we can understand that yeah
because there's yeah
I'm not saying it's in it's inappropriate necessarily
but it's definitely different right
so there's there's a power differential
differential in in genders
and so um
I think we as adults and all of this and
you know
I don't want you to fill in this information publicly
but you know
depending on the age
and the history of the relationship and
and what not
like it would make sense to respond in different ways
um but I think there's always in the background
this knowledge that we have to carry of
of of men and boys using their power over girls
so in this case
there could have been something like that
or there could not have been something like that
and I think the default is like
oh my God he's doing this to her right um
and and
and what I would say is that we need
to put safety first okay
for sure so we want to make sure everybody's safe
but then the part that we lose it at
and I think this is true of schools
it's true of us as parents
is that
we don't take the time to mend the relationship
right people will go to this place of oh
but it's you know
it's it's
it's trauma inducing to you know
retraumatizing for you know
the the child who was pushed up against the fence
for example to to relive it
but that's how we build resilience
is by expressing ourselves
what did it feel like what
you know what
what happened what LED up to it
what could we do differently
what do we expect do we need an apology
um you know
what sort of mentoring does he need
to be able to show up differently next time
like otherwise
we're just kind of writing him off as a bad kid
and we're basically throwing her into sort of a victim
bucket right
and neither one of those things is helpful right
it would be so amazing and revolutionary
if we could help them repair
and that doesn't mean that
they're gonna be great friends forever and
and sometimes
there might be a rift that destroys a relationship
that happens it happens in adult relationships as well
sure but most often
especially when kids are young
if we take the time to help kids repair
then they can go back to being friends yeah
in this in this particular case
um
I ended up reaching out to the father of the girl who
who is you know
an acquaintance of mine you know
our friends are our our
our kids are friends and so he's
we have we
you know we have a texting relationship
and asking him what her experience was and all of that
and it and it turned out that she was
she felt she was really really upset about the incident
but not because she was held up against the fence
but because my boy got in trouble
and she felt like it was her
fault that he got in trouble right
I mean and those are the nuances
and again
that doesn't mean that what your boy did was okay
nobody's saying that yeah
but it's nuance there's more to it
like what happens to that relationship
what happens to her okay
she feels in this case
she says she she feels bad
well that's
that's not useful to their relationship either like
like they could we
we could facilitate a conversation about that
or a repair around that as well
so anyway yes
everything is is quite nuanced
but yeah it
it's sure does play a role
but if if two people
if two kids are boy girl or boy boy yes
there's some differences but ultimately
first of all we gotta keep everybody safe
and then can we please focus in on
that relationship I always say to my kids
relationship first relationships first yeah
you know social
emotional peace first
everything else you can learn later and make up later
but like we have to nurture relationships
yeah we do
that's a really fundamental thing
isn't it we're herd animals
and if you don't have a way of establishing
and maintaining relationships
with other humans
you're broken in
in a way that the culture is gonna push you to the edge
right and real relationships are
relationships where you can mess up yeah
and then repair yeah
and then grow from that and move forward
yeah so the
the bringing it back to the steps
the first step is about healing yourself
and by fixing yourself so to speak
um what happens after that
so then
I have parents really focus in on
reconnecting with their sweet boys so
you know some parents will come and they'll feel really
they'll say you know
oh we're really connected
like we have we have good times together
other parents come and they're feeling like
I hate this kid I can't stand him
other parents are feeling like
I'm terrified of him I don't wanna be alone with him
I'm afraid he's gonna hurt me
I mean
there are all sorts of feelings that we're coming
to this work with yeah
but we have to take the time regardless to spend um
some one on one time
to really nurture those relationships
so that not
just so that the child
has some reserves of love to go on
as he's moving through his world
but also
so that we can remember that we actually like the kid
and we can feel inspired to want to help him do better
and help things go better
oftentimes when we
I teach a practice called special time
and oftentimes
there's sort of resistance on the part of the parents
knowing ah
don't feel like doing this
it takes time um
and then they'll come back to me and say like
you know I thought this was for my kid
but actually I'm really liking it
yeah because there's amazing side effects
like for example
so many parents come to me
and they're complaining
that their boy never talks to them
you know he doesn't tell me anything
especially moms because a lot of moms are much more
sort of verbal in their processing
and we wanna talk to our friends about our feelings
and how things are going
and we want our boys to do the same with us
and some do and some don't
and so they're wanting to get their kid to talk to them
and he's just not and often times
when they start this practice of special time
one of the beautiful side effects is he starts sharing
yeah so tell me more about special time
what what is special time and and
and how do we practice it
yeah special time is
just a simple
one on one time that you spend with your child
where they get to lead so it's
it's um
it turns upside down
kind of their daily experience as young children
of adults running their lives right
cause if you think about it
if you have a young child
if you have a young boy it's like
you know brush your teeth
get your clothes on go to school
did you do your homework time for practice
it's it's just
we're constantly kind of pulling and tugging
and pulling and pushing and and
and dictating what to do and then also what not to do
you know stop yelling at your sister
don't push your brother all
all the things
so so
what special hand does is it gives him this timed
little um
bubble where he gets to be in charge
and it's quite empowering
and it's also enlightening for us
because we get insights into his world
I often call it a window into his world
yeah that's
where he might share something
that he wouldn't otherwise share
because maybe when he usually comes home and he wants
he has something on his mind
and we start drilling him like a drill sergeant
he kind of clams up and shuts down sure
but if we're quiet
and we're just following his lead in special time
he gets to share what he wants
when he wants on his own terms
so it's it's nice
and you also get to see like what he's interested in
yeah
when you're not sort of dictating what's coming next
yeah so special time is a great way to do
it's not the only way to build connection
but it's one
1 tool that I love parents to have in their toolbox
and it has to be with no other kids around
so it's really like showing them
I am putting everything else aside
my email my work
my partner if I have one
your siblings if those exist right
I am all in just for you and that's an amazing feeling
and it's just one kid at a time
right and even the other sibling is gone
we're just doing this one kid
one kid this
this tool is one a one kid tool
yeah I love this
and how often would you recommend people do this
you know it's
there's there's no one size fits all
I'll say to parent you know
if you if you're coming to me for coaching and
and you've got a kid who is
you know aggressive
very aggressive on
on the daily and multiple times a day
and there's sibling stuff
or he's hurting you as a parent
um you know
we gotta we gotta do more
if things are copacetic everybody's
you know kind of
moving along in life and everything's
or most things are are going well
and there's little blips here and there
it's like whenever you can fit it
in if you can do special time on the weekend for 10
15 minutes every weekend that would be great yeah
but if it's every day you know
I'm gonna say like we we're gonna do this every day
every day yeah
cause he's screaming for help if he's acting like that
yeah and we need to answer that call yeah
one of the big unlocks for me in
in in a way to that I
that allowed me to keep in
what I call my Sherlock brain
as opposed to my Conan the barbarian brain right
one of the big unlocks for me was to realize that
there's a tension and
and both of my kids and all kids
I think have
live in this tension of
they want connection and they want independence
and sometimes they're feeling not independent enough
and so
they're trying to assert their independence by saying
no all the time for example
and sometimes they
they're not getting enough connection
and so
they're spending more time trying to get connection
and often times the way that
their reflex to get connection is to act in ways
that make it harder to connect
to scream and yell
or throw tantrums and those sorts of things
and when I was able to take a step back
and look at the 50,000 foot view
and realize oh okay
they're often seeking one of those two things
then now all I need are tools to to enhance the
connection or the independence
in a way that's consistent with our values
so I'm not going to respond
in a favorable way to throwing the tantrum
but I am still going to go
try and establish additional connection
right well
one one of the things that's really cool
another side effect of of special time
which is really cool
is that our kids begin to ask for it
and that's always how I know with clients that they're
they're doing what they need to be doing
and things are shifting because you're right
like
kids will ask for attention and call for attention and
because they need it yeah
I'll say um but often
in ways that are really hard for us to respond to
calmly or positively as parents
but when you start the practice of special time
and they start to realize on a subconscious level wow
when we're doing this like I feel better
uh huh
yeah and they're not like cognitively going over wow
I feel more connected to my dad or you know
anything like that
but like it's a somatic experience that they're having
yeah they and
and you call it something
and it doesn't have to be special time
but you call it something
they then have a vocabulary word that they can use
and they will start asking for it
like I'll just say when one of my kids was really young
he used to have such a hard time when I
would go out for the evening
like if it wasn't friends work whatever yeah um
and he would do that thing where he'd cling to my leg
right the thing you can't get him off
and crying and screaming and hitting
and all the things and
and it was like
by the time I peeled him off and got myself
you know out the door
I felt horrible I mean
how much fun was I gonna have
how great was that evening gonna go
I was just thinking about him
and then
I had this idea that I could start doing special time
before I left and give him that sort of extra
um sort of uh
you know inject a shot of connection yeah
of connection before I left
and things started to go better
and then I don't know
wasn't maybe a couple weeks later and I said hey
you know I'm going out tonight and he said well
can we do special time before you leave
wow right
and so he then had the vocabulary to ask for
the thing that he knew helped him with that transition
yeah
that is such a powerful skill or a powerful tool
I love that okay
so we've cared for ourselves
we've connected deeply now
so then if we're going through like aggression steps
and and mind you
I just wanna say everybody's different
absolutely
but if I were gonna go sort of a step by step
the next thing that I would probably have you do
is pay attention to when the aggression happens because
99% of the parents who come to me will say things like
it happens out of the blue or it's all the time
and I've been doing this for a long time
couple decades
I've never found that to be the case
not ever yeah
it's just not out of the blue
there are always signs
and when we can identify those patterns
we empower ourselves
to be able to take leadership roles
and make plans for how we're gonna respond differently
yeah I
I love that
yeah and then
so OK
so now I'm identifying the patterns and I realized that
you know this happens
I I
I I experienced this very thing
um if my boy's been spending too much time on his iPad
watching YouTube videos um
he'll start to get aggressive
yeah and so now what do I do
yeah I mean
I think that
that's a big can of worms you just tossed out there
yeah um
I just wrote an email to my uh
you know a newsletter to my
to my uh
followers this this last week about this
I cannot tell you how many
clients are coming to me in the last few months
with their kids playing Roblox
and are so addicted
that when the parents are asking them to get off
they're getting punched in the stomach yeah
they're getting like physically hurt things
are getting broken
like that's what this addiction is doing
so I mean depending on where you're at with that
like where parents are at
I mean
there's a lot of different things that we're gonna do
yeah um
but the big picture whether it be for tech or other
you know other triggers for
for the um aggression
we're basically gonna be looking at
how do we set loving limits yeah
for this child
so and by a loving limit I
I just mean the tone that we use is gonna be loving
we're gonna give it to them as my mentor taught me
like we're giving them a gift
it's not a punishment a limit isn't a
a punishment
it's not like a consequence like if you do this
then I'm gonna do that kind of a thing not that tone
not that attitude at all it's more of the
the the tone of hey
you know I noticed that when you play Roblox
for an hour after school um
when I ask you to turn it off
we thought and you thought
and I thought that it would just be an easy transition
but what's happening is
I'm actually getting hurt or things are getting broken
so I thought this was gonna work and that was okay
but it's not
and so I'm gonna start holding limits around this
and you can tell them ahead of time
but then you're actually gonna learn how to bring a
limit like not just yell at
but actually make the thing happen
so a lot of limit setting with aggression a lot
a lot and you
to what extent do you should
we give them input into what those limits ought to be
um you know
that depends on their maturity level
it also depends on your values and your relationship
yeah I would also say
a litmus test that I like to use with parents is
are you confused about your limits
or are you questioning this limit
because you're afraid of how he's going to react to it
or how he's gonna respond
because if that's the case
we need to revisit that yeah
if you're just thinking to yourself well
you know
he likes to have a say in in in what happens and I'm
I'm okay with sort of co
creating this next plan with him
and seeing how it goes as long as it
you know X doesn't happen or why doesn't happen
or it's within certain boundaries
then you could absolutely start there
like I just worked with a couple um
and and we had this exact conversation and they decided
um because of who their boy is
and what they know about him
he tends to be sort of a PDA kind of a profile and he
he pushes back and
and he does better when he gets to say
and so there was a red line right
they can't have the aggression
after the test goes off but
there are a few ways that we could go about doing that
we could do we could go cold Turkey and do like
a tech fast for two weeks
or we could go back to um
kind of a a time limit
strategy that we had been doing a few months ago when
and the aggression wasn't
you know wasn't present then
so they decided that
even though they knew which one he would likely choose
they wanted to present him the option of hey
this isn't working yeah um
so we're gonna try something different
would you like this or this
what do you think what would you like to try as the
as the next experiment
and so that would be an example of
of parents who decided but
a different set of parents could have
decided something completely different
and that would have been fine
you get you're the expert on your family right
you get to decide
yeah I think
you know my
my instinct on that you know
based on how I was raised right
which is one of the one of my fundamental things
is that the way that I was raised is maladaptive
for our modern society and in a lot of ways
and the way that I was raised is my
and my my gut reaction is okay
I'm gonna bring the hammer
if you're gonna have interact
if you're gonna have that kind of aggression
after you play Roblox well
then no freaking Roblox right
and then it it
it turns into this absolute nightmare because the
the aggression finds another outlet and it isn't it's
it ends up getting enhanced by that solution
rather than suppressed by it right
and so what I would do in working with parents is say
like you know what actually Sean
I think you have a reasonable ask
or a reasonable experiment to try
which is to go cold Turkey and do a tech fast
like I think that's reasonable
like
let's talk about if that aligns with your values of
you know how
and then we can play out like
how we think your kids gonna react
we can set you up for success in those situations
and we can prepare you so that you can show up
still with that limit but in a loving way
like I get
I see this is hard we're gonna get through this yeah
I know you can do it and I'm here to help
because that's also empowering to them
to know that they can actually do alright without it
they don't want to be aggressive
right like they
they love that reassurance of
I know you can do this
and we're gonna get through this
I'm gonna help you yeah
they don't
they actually don't wanna feel that way either
no they feel like they do
but they don't
they feel horrible yeah
I I find another one of my
uh reflexes
that doesn't really work all that well is to like
try and stop and give him a lecture
oh I love that one
yeah and
and it's almost like
I feel like I can reason him out of the tantrum or
or reason him out of the the like OK
I've taken the the iPad away
and now I'm gonna sit him down and make him
listen to me drone on for 10 minutes
about the importance of balance in life
and all this BS
and I mean you've
you've done a lot of you you speak very negatively uh
to that and it was
it was eye opening to me tell me more about that
yeah yeah
I I'm
I'm a big like zip your mouth shut coach
yeah I'm not a let's name the feelings coach
because what I've seen over 20 years of doing this
is that 99.9% of the time
when we try to like
name the feeling or if we are moving in with
like you said this lecture about life and balance
and all the things that are
you know important to us and rightly so
it doesn't land yeah right
it doesn't land in that moment
but it often also doesn't land outside the moment
right and
and I'm just very pragmatic
if you're coming to me
like there's aggression going on
or your boy is struggling
like I want things to go better
and I know that they
can and that's just not gonna help it
I just say to parents straight up like okay
I would just say to you like
how's that going for you Sean
is that working yeah
is that working
yeah and it doesn't work
and it doesn't work I mean
one of the one of the things that I realized and
and it goes back to that metaphor of the Sherlock
Holmes brain versus the cone on the barbarian brain
the the kids in cone on the barbarian bro
and if you try and use Sherlock tools to
to get to him in in Conan mode
it's not gonna happen
it's exactly the same thing if I'm
you know having a yelling screaming fight with my wife
it's not gonna it's not gonna happen
it doesn't work with adults either
it sure as heck isn't gonna work with a
with a with a 5 year old kid yeah
no I agree
I I
I I really agree
and I think there's just like
a fundamental misunderstanding also
just about why they're acting out in this way
and there's I talk about the the can versus the won't
and I think when we're responding in that way
with the lectures and whatnot
we're in the mindset of my kid
you know won't do what he knows is right
or won't do what he should do
um and
and that's a really disempowering place to be like
I don't even care if it's true
or not it just is disempowering for us
I would much rather have you in that mindset of
he's doing the best he can
always like yeah
he just can't do better right now
which isn't to say we're gonna excuse the behavior
but what it does is
it makes us refocus back on ourselves
yeah and think about how can we modify what we're doing
whether that be with limits or connection or
you know play
which we haven't stepped into
but which is another thing that I really talk about
in terms of um
aggression like how do we use play strategically
like how can we use these things
to help make the situation better
because he doesn't want to be acting this way
he just can't do differently in this moment
yeah and we react as I love that framing
oh he won't behave in this way
it's almost like saying oh
he won't lift this 200 pound box right
like you wouldn't say that
but you do say it about behaviors
well he doesn't have
it's the same exact thing
in the 200 pound box situation
he doesn't have the strength
or the skill or the muscles
and it's exactly the same thing
with the intellectual skills
the intellectual muscles the intellectual strength
he doesn't have to be able to adjust his behavior
it's the exact same thing
and yet we treat it differently
I agree I
I often use a broken arm example because I
think parents really get it as I'll say to them
look if he broke his arm and he had um
you know a
something that he had to write for school for homework
and his
he was right handed and his right arm was in a cast
and he couldn't hold a pencil right
you wouldn't be yelling and screaming him
screaming at him about
you know like get that pencil in your hand
you need to write this homework out
you know you wouldn't you would get creative
you'd you'd be like alright
well do you want to dictate and all write it or
you know
maybe there's some AI tool that you could use to do it
right you'd help them get creative
yeah and
and we gotta do the same thing
when it's just an emotional hurt
rather than a physical hurt
so let me ask you a provocative question of
something that I've been thinking a lot about
because what this brings to mind is that
when you sit down and lecture them or or
you know treat them as if they're not doing their best
uh or they're doing it intentionally
essentially what you're doing is shaming them
you're you're kind of trying to make them feel shame
for not doing the right thing
and I have a hypothesis
and I want your feedback on it is
and the hypothesis is that there's never actually
a valid use for shame as a parent
what is your reaction to that
I love that you're asking me that question right now
because I've been thinking about it a lot
um
I've been thinking about it a lot
because I recently did a training
I'm now trained in the space program
it's a program that Eli Lebowitz at Yale
put together to help kids with anxiety and OCD okay
and during that training um
there was a section around aggression
and a lot of what he does
and what he teaches is very similar to what I do
but one thing really struck me
and I'm trying to play around with it right now
and he said um
that if we think about like domestic violence right
if there's a if there's aggression in the home
let's just say one parent is being um
violent towards another
secrecy is a problem
right
we need to go public with it to protect the person
and to move forward on the healing
you know on the healing journey
yeah absolutely
and he said it's the same thing with this aggression
and he said something to the effect of
I'm totally paraphrasing that
that like a little bit of shame is okay
is useful for the child
in terms of being able to stop the aggression
I'm not saying I agree or I disagree
I'm simply playing with this right now with clients um
in a way that I haven't before
so part we talked earlier about setting up for success
and setting ourselves up for success
right when we're first starting to address aggression
and one of the things there is
is like I said are there people that we need to tell
um how do we use the resources in our life
and he introduced an idea that I hadn't
I thought about
which is to use what he calls supporters in a
in a really specific way where the child knows that
each time they're aggressive
we are going to tell that adult
that supporter
and then that supporter reaches out to the child
now what's interesting here is that yes
right
there's a little bit of shame there because any of us
when we do something
you know mean or hurtful to somebody we love and and
and we know other people we care about know about it
we feel shame yeah
but we also wanna do better
yeah
and the way that the
that supporter comes in and talks to the child
is very aligned with everything
that we've been talking about here
it's supportive it's loving
it's like you know I
I love you you're a great kid
like I know you don't want to hurt your mom um
you know I heard from her that
after she asked you to turn off your Roblox yesterday
that you punched her um
you know we know that's not okay
so next time you feel that um how about you
shoot me a text or how about
you call me or I don't know
like I'm just making this up on the spot or
or or
or what what do you think we should do next time
what do you think we should exactly what's our plan
so there's yeah something
I love that you just asked me about shame
because two weeks ago I would have said
there's no place for shame
no shame never
we don't want to shame a child yeah
and I'm always open to learning because like I said
I'm very pragmatic I want the aggression to stop
I mean I have great success with families
but if we can do it faster um
and and
and more efficiently and stop the aggression sooner
in a way that's still supportive of the child
you bet I'm in on that so I'm playing around with this
so I don't know I
I and I've been thinking a lot about it too
and what but what one of the things so I've got
I've got a couple of thoughts on it
that I'd love to share and get your feedback on
one of them is that I feel like shame is a tool
that our society and our culture uses
to communicate this favor
and it is really powerful
our
our feeling
our need to be part of the herd is so strong
that when we start to feel that shame
that societal shame
it becomes such a powerful force we almost want we
can't
we feel like we can't live without getting rid of it
and that's one thing another thing is
so it's really really powerful
but as with many powerful things
it loses its effectiveness if it's overused
and so if you
continuously shame somebody
eventually they're gonna become immune to shame
which is actually a much worse problem
than whatever it is that you think you're solving
by shaming people
so that's another observation that I think is true yeah
what do you think about those two things
well I think I
I'll just say that I think shame as a tool is horrible
yeah shame is not a parenting tool
let's just there is OK
that that that's
that's probably a principle that that we can
that is probably well established
I agree
yeah I
I I
I don't think our goal is ever to use shame
to transform behavior yeah
um I'm just getting curious with this new thing
if there's a way to bring something that
you know Brene Brown talks about shame
some kind of to paraphrase sloppily um
you know grows in in darkness
yes and so
we don't want to keep that aggression locked up
in a dark room right
because that child is feeling ashamed and ashamed
because of what he has done
and is doing continually with the aggression
hurting somebody that he loves yeah
so that shame is growing anyway
so I'm going like well
can we how do we compare
that shame
with the tinge of shame that he might feel
if I tell grandma
but grandma comes back lovingly saying
I know this is hard
but I'm 100% sure that you can do it yeah
I heard this happened right
and I know it's hard to do differently
but let's make up another plan
I know it's hard but I know you can do it yeah
so shame is not a parenting tool
but maybe there's a way when it happens naturally
we can we can use it to our advantage
it's tough it's a
it's a tough thing
but I I
I will say one other thing on that
which is that there's always attention
and so anytime anytime I find myself thinking
a is always the right way to go
there's almost always a
B that is diametrically opposed to that
and the real answer is somewhere between a and B
and so never I think we get
go ahead well
I just say I think we get stuck on sort of like the
the little details of how we're gonna respond yeah
and and I think we can just be broader
like what if we paint it with a broader brush and say
OK if our child is struggling
they are they are needing us in some way
they are needing connection with us right
um and so
what's a way that we can offer them connection
right now and that way might be different than
it was five minutes ago
and it might be different than it looks in an hour
and it might be different than it looks tomorrow
but yeah we're always asking ourselves
like I'm always wanting us to be asking ourselves
how can I help that child
like in Dan Seagals word how can I help him feel felt
uh huh feel my love just because your parents well
I do love him okay
it's like great
I love my kids too
sometimes they feel that and sometimes they don't
depending on how I'm showing up
and what state they're in right
so if we just put connection at the forefront
I think the details kind of fall into place
yeah I think that's a beautiful way to
to cut the knot I
you mentioned something about a play and I wanted
I wanted to let you riff on that for a moment
talk to me about the the need for boys to play
yeah I mean
I think human beings in general need to play
and I think boys often times
not always but often times play rougher than um
a lot of people are comfortable with
and so I think that we have to work on ourselves
so that we can get a little bit more comfortable
with that rough and tumble
kind of play
if that's something that our boy really thrives on
and so for example
like often times I'll have a mom come to me and
caught two boys and
and they're going at each other hard
like they wrestle and they're rolling
and they're jumping and they're doing all the things
and often someone will end up getting hurt at the end
and she's going she's like
they're killing each other
they're hurting she's trying to stop them and
and I would suggest let's
let's start by asking them like
do y'all want some help here
are you doing OK because
our perception of what's going on
is often very different from what's going on for them
and so I just think we wanna be sensitive
there's no again
there's no one one thing that's always gonna be true
every child is different but in general
rough and tumble play is a great way to connect
yeah sweating together
laughing together
whether you're adults or children or adults at
with children like it
it it
it breeds connection which is what we want right
we laugh together we feel closer
we sweat we feel closer
we we get bonked
we get to support each other when we're hurt
it builds connection it builds closeness
and those are all things that are like the
the foundation for the sort of
whole house that we need to build around
the aggression falling away
I think that's not a good metaphor
but essentially like we need
we need that we need that rough and tumble
yeah and and
and often times parents that I work with have to
work through some discomfort around that
or they go too hard yeah
right there are some parents who are just like
yeah let's get in there and play
but they're like pummeling the kid
right with the pillow and he's like wow
this is too hard yeah
we need to be aware like
the idea isn't like
as the parent that we're gonna like
you know play the crap out of our kid
no it's like
let them win if they're little and if they're bigger
you still kind of wanna give them a chance
you gotta play harder right
cause it's not fun for them
if you're gonna 10 year old
and you're playing as if he's three
it's not fun you have to up the resistance
but you're gonna play with that to
to the level where there's laughter happening
and the last thing I'll just say about this is
when we have aggression um
parents often feel like
if they're playful in their response
that it's condoning the behavior
yeah and I just really want to say out loud that
that is not the case our goal is to connect
our goal is to help our child
sense that we see his goodness underneath the behaviors
and that we're gonna help him through
and play is a great way to do that
it's not sending the message okay
your behavior is okay it's sending the message okay
I see you're struggling
I'm not gonna take those behaviors
seriously
I'm gonna try to get at you from another angle
I'm being strategic in my parenting yeah
you're almost modeling okay look
this is an appropriate
way to get the thing that you're after
over in this inappropriate behavior
yeah yeah
I like that a lot
if there are people out there right now
who are dealing with aggressive kids
what should they do if they want help right away
what should they do
yeah I have a few ways that I help parents
so if aggression is the No. 1 issue
um I have a course called out with aggression
a step by step practice to stop your voice
aggressive behavior and lift your parenting confidence
and I can give you the link to that
and it's a course that brings you through all the steps
that I just mentioned but with live support
so I will be there
and there's a community of people who will be there
to answer your questions and to cheer you on
and all of that so it's not just
you know here
go figure it out um
so if aggression is top of mind
and that is something that you're ready to commit to
nipping in the bud and you're ready to start
that would be the best place to start
if
a group experience is something that you've discovered
doesn't work well for you
you tend to not show up and you need
you know the personal trainer
I do have one on one coaching as well
that could be
because you're struggling with aggression
in your family it could also be for you know anxiety
it could be for sleep issues or sibling issues
or whatever I do do one on one coaching
and then lastly if you feel like
you know things are a little bit rocky
not horrible but a little bit rocky or you know
they're okay
but you just want to be in a community of parents
who are committed to parenting their boys peacefully
and protecting that their boys right to
to feel and process emotions
and grow into emotionally intelligent men
and just want to be in a community of people who are
actively committed to that
and thinking about that regularly
I have um
a membership community called Parenting Boys Peacefully
and we would be happy to welcome you into that as well
I love all of those resources
and those links are in the show notes
Tasha thank you so much for taking
the time to be with us today
and sharing your wisdom I uh
it is so much in line with the mission of raising men
and I can't tell you how much I appreciate it
I really appreciate the opportunity
to share my thinking with you
thank you for trusting me with your audience
I I don't take it lightly
so thank you thank you
Tasha Shore is the founder of Parenting Voice
Peacefully and the out with
aggression program and also the author of listen
5 Simple Tools to meet your Everyday Parenting
challenges check her out in the show notes and remember
you are a great parent
raising men is produced by Phil Hernandez
this episode was edited by Ralph Tolentino