Ep 032: Stop Punishing or Fixing Everything For Your Kids

In parenting, it's vital to recognize that punishment and rescue are two sides of the same maladaptive coin.  When we exclusively rely on punishment or rescue (or DISMISSAL) as our only responses to our child's big feelings, we inadvertently rob our children of opportunities to build their resilience.  It's essential to be there for your child when they're in pain without resorting to rescuing them from it.  It's also essential not to punish or dismiss big feelings as this is always felt as rejection from the parent.  Rejection only feeds the inner turmoil and creates bigger problems in the future.  
Pulling our child in, with arms wide open, and supporting them through the rough parts of life is how they will become resilient adults. And in our resilience - we find the path that leads us to our happiest life.

In this episode: 
- I quiz Papa Rick on what he's learned so far about Relational Parenting
- We provide practical tips on how parents can support their children through difficult emotions and problem-solving, allowing them to grow and learn.
- We help you set realistic expectations for your child
- Discuss the undeniable repetition you will endure if you truly want to be your child's guide.  Not just the nagging parent telling them what to do their whole life.
- How grace for your kids and rewiring the way your speak to your kids will actually help YOU be kinder to YOU. 

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Happy Parenting and Good Luck Out There!

Creators & Guests

Host

Jennifer Hayes

Host

Rick Hayes

Editor

Natalie Long

What is The Relational Parenting Podcast?

Welcome to the Relational Parenting Podcast! I’m Jennifer Hayes – a Parent Coach and 20 year Childcare Veteran. Each week I sit down with my own father (and cohost), Rick Hayes, and discuss the complicated issues that parents face today, as well as some of the oldest questions in the book. From the latest research and the framework of my Relational Parenting Method, we offer thought-provoking solutions to your deepest parenting struggles.
Relational Parenting is an evidence and experience based parenting method created by me - Jennie. After 20 years in the child care world, in every scenario you could possibly imagine, I realized one thing: EVERYONE was prioritizing the behavior and performance of a child over their emotional well-being. This frustrated me to no end and when I re-visited the latest research, I realized there was a better way. I started applying the principles I'd been learning in my own self-work, parent-child relationships, and partnerships, and I started gobbling up all the new research and books I could get my hands on. When I saw the results of putting these practices into play with the children I was taking care of - the difference in myself AND the kids I worked with was ASTOUNDING.
I am SO PROUD to be presenting Relational Parenting to the world. I can't wait to hear about your own journey. From Parents-to-be to the seasoned parenting veteran - there's something here for everyone!

Jennie (00:01.334)
Are you sure? OK.

Jennie (00:09.198)
My brain. Maybe I am pregnant.

Uhhhhhhh... Yeah... For real...

Papa Rick (00:14.97)
Fingers crossed.

Papa Rick (00:18.766)
That's, you know, you start having, you start having emotional swings that aren't normal when you're trying to get pregnant. It's like, Hey, maybe you're pregnant.

I get to not getting your hopes up thing.

Jennie (00:32.498)
I would love if pregnancy wasn't this chock full of anxiety. That'd be great.

Papa Rick (00:32.804)
How long?

Papa Rick (00:37.238)
Oh boy, my understanding is it will be, that's what it is, is your hormones going crazy getting your body to where it wants it to be.

Jennie (00:46.677)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (00:47.842)
with little regard for your schedule or anything else.

Jennie (00:53.547)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (00:55.002)
It's a ride. How soon can you take a test and find out? For sure.

Jennie (01:02.986)
Anytime. I mean, my period was supposed to start.

last week.

Papa Rick (01:10.35)
week ago. Okay.

Jennie (01:11.702)
But today, I mean, today is day 29. So like, we're still in the window of, I could start any minute.

So anyway.

Papa Rick (01:22.222)
So still in the first two standard deviations of your belt.

Jennie (01:29.154)
So we are, I'm just like, I'm like, I don't get nervous for these anymore. And I am like nauseous with like not wanting to do this. It's weird.

Papa Rick (01:41.338)
Really?

Papa Rick (01:45.274)
Hmm.

Jennie (01:48.458)
Like not feeling like my brain can teach output.

Papa Rick (01:55.13)
too inwardly focused or something like that? You don't have enough to share? Something like that.

Jennie (01:57.106)
Yeah. But anyway, we don't really have a choice at this point. So.

Papa Rick (02:07.694)
not prove.

Jennie (02:08.769)
Um...

Jennie (02:15.03)
Welcome back everybody. Welcome back to the relational parenting podcast. This is a me and dad episode, a dad and, what should we call it? Dad and me, like a TV show, dad and me episode. We've had, we had a three week run with guests and we're gonna have another three week run, three week.

Papa Rick (02:18.723)
Hey there!

Papa Rick (02:30.906)
Dead and high.

Jennie (02:43.774)
run with guests, just shuffling things around and trying to fit everybody in. And it just like, we're starting, we're scheduling out into February and March of next year. And but like these people that I'm meeting are so amazing and wanting to get them on the air. And it's, yeah, it's hard to not just schedule everyone back to back, but excuse me. So

Papa Rick (03:11.074)
No, maybe we'll have to switch to that sometime.

Jennie (03:14.326)
Yeah, maybe someday we'll just, I don't know, but I kind of feel, I feel like these, with guests, it's a topic that's dependent upon the guest. And with our episodes, I get to teach something that I see, you know, that I currently am seeing in the parenting community that needs to be addressed or that people don't know about or...

Papa Rick (03:15.146)
You know, guess, guess.

Jennie (03:42.482)
I get to fill in the gaps with these episodes. I get to fill in and teach things specifically from the relational parenting method versus a guest who the content is kind of dependent upon their expertise, which is great because we need other people's voices. But I think I've played with the idea of having

Papa Rick (04:06.092)
Yes.

Jennie (04:09.37)
of it just being a guest podcast, but I don't want to lose these episodes. I think that they're really beneficial and I think there's a lot of the intergenerational

Jennie (04:24.114)
exchange I think really happens in these episodes. It's magnified when it's just you and me. So anyway, logistics, decisions behind the scenes. But this week we are talking about a parenting skill that, it's one of the parenting skills that I

Papa Rick (04:28.85)
Mm-hmm.

Jennie (04:55.15)
try to teach new parents or any, I mean, any parents that come to me because it's such a non-intuitive skill. And a lot of parenting and a lot of people will say like, you'll just figure it out when you become a parent. And while that's partially true, there are things in life that are non-intuitive or non-automatic.

Papa Rick (05:23.018)
Yep. Yeah.

Jennie (05:24.042)
We're not always like, we are not just another animal. You know, animals, we have animal instincts, but we also have a prefrontal cortex that creates, we have judgment, we can prioritize tasks, we can like make choices, whereas animals, you know, lions and tigers and bears, oh my, they just, everything they do is based on instinct and survival. And for the most part.

Papa Rick (05:52.706)
Yeah, our social side is a little more complicated.

Jennie (05:56.162)
So we have, yeah, and we've got a piece, part of our brain that animals just literally don't have. And so what sets us apart is having the instinct and then having the ability to look at that instinct and go, is this actually the right choice in this moment? Or is this just base instinct? Or is this just my past experience telling me that this is the only way to handle this situation?

and taking a pause, not just reacting. We say this a million times every episode. We're not just reacting, but we're choosing our response to any given situation. And so I think that our instinct,

for a lot of people and a lot of parents that I've worked with, a lot of parents that I've worked for, and even in myself, the instinct when a child has an undesirable emotion or behavior or outburst or reaction to their environment is to either punish it

and stop it or to fix it and stop it, to swoop in and rescue. And the instinct to do that comes from a wonderful place, maybe not the punishment one, but the instinct to swoop in and save them from pain comes from a wonderful place of protection and love and empathy. The instinct to punish

Papa Rick (07:34.094)
fix things, yeah.

Jennie (07:45.074)
Also, actually, I will argue comes from a good place. It comes from a place of wanting our child to develop into a social being who isn't shunned or made fun of or any of those negative social reactions we can get if we're not well behaved. There's also a fear. There's a…

Papa Rick (08:03.618)
So, for...

Papa Rick (08:09.806)
Hopefully it's a protective thing. Hopefully it's a protective thing, right?

Jennie (08:13.31)
Yeah, it can also come from a place of parents feeling embarrassed if their child doesn't act perfectly in every situation, being judged by other people or other parents, et cetera. And really those things shouldn't matter in your parenting. What other people think, nobody knows what's actually going on with your child except you. And if your child's having a tantrum in the grocery store, you're not going to be able

Papa Rick (08:23.226)
Mm-hmm.

Papa Rick (08:39.094)
Mm-hmm.

Jennie (08:42.494)
Like it's your job to respond appropriately to that child so that it doesn't cause harm to your relationship with them and literally ignore everything else. If anyone is looking at you or watching the situation or you feel judged, even if no one has said anything or someone has said something like.

politely tell them to fuck off and give your attention back to your child because nobody has any business, or ignore them, but nobody has any business interfering in that situation or laying their judgment on it unless they are purely there to offer assistance. Hey, do you want, can I help that? Can I help in any way?

Papa Rick (09:09.815)
Or ignore.

Papa Rick (09:25.982)
Yeah. Can I hold your purse while you clean that up?

Jennie (09:31.458)
Yeah, I don't know that I would trust that either, but, um, there's a lot of other things to offer besides holding someone's purse that can be, or let me clean that up. You like go take care of your child is more like a helpful offer. But anyway, so there's, there's two sides to the same coin that I see constantly.

Papa Rick (09:38.839)
Let me hold your wallet for a second there.

There you go. That's a little more altruistic.

Jennie (10:00.886)
is we're either punishing, shaming or guilting a child's actions or undesirable actions, or we are swooping in and fixing undesirable feelings. So your child doesn't listen to you. If your child doesn't want to do something that you are trying to get them to do. If your child is, you know,

arguing with you, whatever that might be that gets the punishment. That's one side of the coin. And the other side of the coin is usually when your child, something happens to your child or in your child's environment that causes them pain. And they have an emotional reaction to it. And you, the parent, swoop in to fix it, take away the pain, et cetera.

And so those are two sides of the same coin that have the same outcome, which is that your child is never going to learn how to appropriately deal with big emotions.

So we'll talk about positive emotions or positive things. And we've talked about praise. We did an episode on praise and, you know, when your child does things that you like or appreciate or want to repeat. But today we're gonna talk about when your child, when your child does.

Jennie (11:34.226)
to say this when you're when there's another way to respond besides these two options not everything needs to be punished and corrected or fixed and pain free your child when your child is experiencing pain or upset towards you what they need is for you

to understand and let them feel that way. You don't have to make it okay for them to act how they're acting. You don't have to, you know, coddle them or anything, but you do need to sit through the storm with them and say, I see how frustrated you are. I know you wanted another cookie. We're not gonna do that right now. I know you're so frustrated. I'm sorry you're feeling that way. That sucks. You know, I see how frustrated you are.

Jennie (12:34.718)
instead of stop crying, you know you don't get two cookies after dinner, you only get one. If you're going to act like this, then there's going to be no cookies after dinner anymore. Like threatening, like shaming, you know better, punishing, go sit in timeout because you want two cookies, stuff like that. And then a child breaks their toy and experiences internal upset because my toy is broken.

and parents swoops in and says, it's okay, we'll just order a new one on Amazon. It'll be here in two days. It's okay, it's okay, we'll just get a new one. It's fine, just stop crying.

two most common outcomes that I see and the two worst things you could possibly do repeatedly to your children to help them with their emotions.

Papa Rick (13:13.067)
Yeah, exactly.

Papa Rick (13:29.23)
Yeah, I think a lot of it comes down to parents being in a place, keeping themselves in a place where they can like choose an approach. When you see a, you know, the words that are coming into my mind as you're talking are like control, are you controlling or are you teaching? You know, what do you want to do?

Here, if it's just like, Oh, I'm embarrassed because my child is making a noise and somebody's looking at me. You know, that doesn't seem a real healthy way to go at working with the situation. You know, you, you generally, if it's a, if it's my child is about to run out in front of a car. Well, okay. We just need to get this under control right quick before somebody dies. Um, if it's, if it's otherwise it. I know. Well.

Jennie (14:18.782)
Right. We're never talking about that. We're never talking about a child running in front of a car. That's always your example.

Papa Rick (14:24.286)
I'm, I try to, I try to cover it cause that, cause that will be the, that will be the comment. Well, we will sometimes you do have to control, right? Yeah.

Jennie (14:31.682)
Great, let them comment and we'll respond to it. We like comments. If you want, and if you want to be that extreme of a human being.

Papa Rick (14:41.594)
That's right. But normally what you're, I think what you're doing as a, as a parent is you're wanting to teach. It's a, you know, everything is a teaching moment. Kids are running around, learning the boundaries, learning where the fences are, learning how to deal with emotions and circumstances and other people. Their size or bigger. And you know, everything is, everything is really a teaching moment and, and try not to make it about yourself. That's sometimes a challenge if you're in a hurry.

Jennie (14:42.003)
your choice. Obviously.

Papa Rick (15:11.158)
which parents always are.

Jennie (15:13.59)
Well, and I would disagree with everything as a teaching moment.

Papa Rick (15:19.394)
Hmm. OK.

Jennie (15:22.166)
because that...

also creates this.

parent.

Jennie (15:34.066)
taking over the situation and telling a child what they need to do. So not everything is a teaching moment. In relational parenting, the primary thing that I teach people is actually every moment is a chance for connection and to deepen your relationship.

Papa Rick (15:38.979)
Hmm.

Jennie (16:01.726)
You can deepen your bond with your child. You can deepen the trust and the respect between you and your child.

Jennie (16:11.254)
But first you have to let go of the idea that you are going to always be able to control or ever be able to control what your child does.

Jennie (16:27.47)
Once connection, once there's connection, once there's a come down, once regulation is restored, then we can teach. Or better yet, then we can ask our child to participate in the problem solving. Because more often than not, your kid already knows they fucked up.

Papa Rick (16:49.498)
There you go.

Jennie (16:55.03)
Your kid already knows that they shouldn't have done that. Your kid already feels bad for doing it. And the only thing that us retelling them what they should have done instead is going to do is cause more shame. Instead of bringing the child in and saying, what could we do next time differently? What do you think?

Papa Rick (17:01.026)
Mm-hmm.

Papa Rick (17:06.057)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Papa Rick (17:16.378)
Now see, that's what I mean by teaching sometimes. Modeling, you know, offering alternative ways of thinking about things, not necessarily telling them what to feel, but going through that exercise with them, showing them how to deal with these circumstances. Right? Not like lecturing.

Jennie (17:29.219)
Hmm.

Jennie (17:34.558)
Yeah. I would, I think that the word teach then is inappropriate. I think guide.

would be...

Papa Rick (17:45.151)
Okay, fair enough.

Jennie (17:48.802)
And I'm just, I'm just...

Papa Rick (17:50.966)
more useful in helping people get a handle on it. Yeah.

Jennie (17:51.962)
saying this because I think

that the word teaching is you are speaking the information to someone who doesn't know things, right? Yes, a one way from me to you. And I think that guide, the word guide, every moment is a chance to guide your children. Every moment is a chance to connect with your children, to connect and guide and deepen your relationship.

Papa Rick (18:05.351)
One Direction.

Papa Rick (18:09.138)
Okay.

Papa Rick (18:12.597)
Mm-hmm.

Jennie (18:26.102)
Because we are, that's really truly the definition of what parenting is, is guiding a being from infancy into adulthood to be the most healthy version of themselves that they can be, to be the most fulfilled, happy, healthy version. So that they can then pursue their purpose and life's meaning on earth.

Papa Rick (18:27.322)
Fair enough.

Papa Rick (18:31.01)
Mm-hmm.

Papa Rick (18:44.474)
healthy, yeah, successful, whatever that means, yeah.

Jennie (18:54.866)
as well. And if, like, I just get this image of like, parents standing over small children and going like this. If this is the image that we have of what parenting is, then we're, that's where we lose the connection and the relationship part. But if we bring our children in as teens,

Papa Rick (19:09.998)
Mm-hmm.

Papa Rick (19:17.259)
Mm-hmm. Now that's a good distinction.

Jennie (19:20.426)
Yeah. If we bring our children in as teammates, you know, and you're the, the

Jennie (19:32.846)
team leader.

Papa Rick (19:33.498)
Hmm. Captain. Captain of a team, yeah.

Jennie (19:36.55)
Yeah, you're the team leader, you're the captain, but your children are your teammates and need to be treated as equals and valuable and valued for their gifts and what they bring to the team and their ideas and their opinions and their thought processes and their emotions because emotions give us information and you need to meet the needs of your team. You don't punish your team for having needs. You find ways that everyone on the team has their needs met.

Um...

Jennie (20:18.338)
really walked into this episode this week without like any pre...

Papa Rick (20:26.659)
without a number of bullet points to jump around on.

Jennie (20:30.074)
I know. So when you, I know, I think we've talked about...

Jennie (20:38.99)
We've talked about you and teaching, like you loved to teach us things in any given situation. We've taught, and you, your childhood, yeah. And then, but you did that because in your childhood, no, like you had very little guidance. And so you wanted to not be like an absentee kind of parent. You wanted to teach your kids things.

Papa Rick (20:48.25)
Mm-hmm. Sometimes a luxury.

Papa Rick (21:12.078)
Part of that too was later on, my time with you was limited. And so it didn't, it didn't have a lot of that. And when you were older, uh, didn't happen organically. It happened, you know, like on a Wednesday night, it's like, well, okay, if it's going to happen, then I just got to dump it. And, uh, that was, that was a little less than ideal too. But there's a lot of people out there in that situation.

Jennie (21:12.096)
And then probably.

Jennie (21:18.891)
Yeah.

Jennie (21:38.434)
Yeah.

Jennie (21:42.59)
Yeah, and...

Jennie (21:50.19)
forever it was gone.

Jennie (21:57.322)
Knowing, knowing what you know now.

Jennie (22:06.826)
What would you?

Jennie (22:10.998)
Here's the question, what would you do differently when it came to big emotional, whatever, when we were little? I'm thinking of like when we were small or in middle school or in high school and we had big emotional outbursts or we got angry or whatever, I guess pick an age. How would you approach

Papa Rick (22:24.191)
Mm-hmm.

Jennie (22:40.986)
us differently. Whether we were disagreeing with you, pissed off at you, or we had experienced a painful experience with a friend or a toy being busted or whatever. Pick a scenario and what would you do? What did you do? And then how would you do it differently knowing what you know now?

Papa Rick (22:57.786)
Mm-hmm.

Papa Rick (23:09.578)
think of an instance or two, the anger and upset, I always kind of enjoyed dealing with that because that's, I think we are really ourselves when we're angry, you know? That's when the filters, the whole idea of regulation really kicks in when you're upset.

Jennie (23:12.338)
Yeah, yeah.

Papa Rick (23:39.286)
And, you know, people will say things in anger that they don't mean. And I'm like, no, I think they do mean that they just let it slip. They didn't mean to say it when they say that. But I think you're being genuine when you're, when your lizard brain kind of takes over. So kids, I like to guide them as much as possible through like a.

I don't know, teaching Sunday school, whether it was you kids or other kids.

Papa Rick (24:13.466)
There were times probably where I, you know, in terms of what I did do, there were probably times when you guys were fighting, would fight about something and you just put an end to it, right? When you're wee little and there's not a lot of arguing, not a, when there's not a lot of angling going on with the little kids where they're just angry, you know, sometimes you just have to separate them.

until the hormones or whatever calm until they calm down and then you and then you reintroduce them together you know when it's not so emotionally charged but just being emotionally charged is tough to deal with sometimes and like you were saying before

Papa Rick (25:06.746)
people get upset in different circumstances and the circumstances kind of grow as the kids grow, as the people grow. You know, the kinds of things that high school kids are upset about are generally different than, hopefully are different than the things that three year olds are getting upset at each other about. So you calm down, distract. A lot of the emotions are the same. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jennie (25:28.022)
Maybe on the surface, but the general, the emotions are the same. I'm hurt. I'm scared. I'm frustrated.

Papa Rick (25:36.426)
The reasons for the triggering of the emotions is usually more complicated when you're older. Hopefully by the time you're 17, you've learned to deal with the three-year-old kind of issues. You know, he took my toy.

Jennie (25:48.426)
Not if you weren't taught how to when you were three.

Papa Rick (25:51.478)
That's right. That's right. That's probably where a lot of crime comes from.

Jennie (25:56.572)
So separating young children, what did you do? What did you do? What did you do when you would separate us? Would you just separate us and make us all go calm down alone? Would you come talk to us? Would you like, what did you do back then? And what would you do? Yeah.

Papa Rick (26:00.173)
Mm-hmm.

Papa Rick (26:05.1)
Mm-hmm.

Papa Rick (26:13.358)
Both. Both of those. Both of those as, as the situ, you know, parenting is so complicated, you know, the specific, the circumstances are always important. Sometimes it'd make you sit there together just out of arms reach. Right. You know, I know if you could, if you weren't in the car traveling and everybody was crunched together, you know, where I'd just tell you to sit on your hands for a while, you know, and it's like, chill out till you're.

Jennie (26:41.015)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (26:43.058)
till everybody gets the impulse to mess with everybody else under control. And then talking, tried to talk about it. I tried not to ever let it just go. There had to be some talking about it. So it's like what happened and okay, we kind of have a plan for it not happening again for the most part, trying to keep the uproar in the household to a minimum.

Jennie (26:47.092)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (27:11.338)
You know, if you got into it and then we sat down and cooled off, not just a time out, but sat down and cooled off and then talk about it at my convenience. You know, if I was working in the, you know, sometimes some of that time I was working in the basement. You know, if you guys were just having trouble getting along for whatever reason out in the basement.

There'd be a time of sitting down and if I got a phone call, I got a phone call. You know, that was kind of the random part of it was, well, now you're at the mercy of the courts or, you know, some authority, you'd be the authority. And then you come back out and say, okay, what, what's going on, what happened? And if they get, and then sometimes things would get too complicated. Everybody's skewing the story, their direction, you know, I remember how kids get good at.

Jennie (27:45.486)
now.

Papa Rick (28:03.534)
describing things as, well, I was throwing a ball and Jenny got in front of it and got hit. You know, it's all very, you know, very, I didn't do anything and it just happened, you know? And then, you know, working through, getting to a point where it's like, yeah, that one's not going to fly. And I enjoy that.

Jennie (28:14.658)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Papa Rick (28:30.006)
You know, where nobody's dying, I always just kind of enjoyed watching your mind's work and twist and turn. And that's where a lot of our talking came from, was the twisting and, you know, coming from the twisting and turning that kids do to figure out how to deal with situations. I'd just go with it and let it run and let you tie yourself in knots and sit there and think about it, you know.

Jennie (28:46.591)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (28:58.486)
Basically, it wasn't over until you could get along. You know, sometimes it took repetitions of that.

Jennie (29:05.25)
So now from the relational perspective, when siblings fought or...

Papa Rick (29:12.106)
Mm-hmm.

Jennie (29:17.698)
I'm just gonna use that because that's kind of the example you were giving was when we, the three of us would fight from a relational perspective. Is there anything you would do differently?

Papa Rick (29:21.85)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Papa Rick (29:35.818)
Yeah, yeah, there would be the talking. I would probably still interrupt and there might even be some sitting down. I'm sitting here walking through it. It's like, okay, knock off the commotion. What's going on. But there would probably be more talking about how you felt when you did it. You know, what less I was probably more focused on the mechanics of who, who did what.

You know, one of my rules was always the first one to lay hands on the other one is wrong. You don't get to lay hands on other people. You know, you got to find another way and suggest other ways. Now it would be trying to make you more aware of what you were thinking and feeling and how to not just be at the mercy of that. How to, it's like, yeah, okay, I get that. And, you know, making sure they feel heard, making sure you feel heard.

And I think that, you know, feeling heard, feeling a lot of times, a lot of times with kids, it's just about their feeling unjustly treated. It's the injustice of things that really gets kids going. And so getting you to feel like the injustice has been resolved, you know, and everybody knows why everybody felt unjustly treated. And then I...

imagine most of the time that will that would move on but that's you know that's time consuming there's also times where there isn't time to do that right away so that's a

Jennie (31:11.95)
Well, but it's not any more time consuming than trying to figure out who laid hands first and getting three sides of a story. If, so I, so what you, I like what you said was instead of, instead of trying to get through the mechanics of who did what, who said what, who did this first, who triggered who, blah, you're instead going, right, which is what kids are terrified of and why we all.

Papa Rick (31:21.91)
Yeah, that can be very time consuming too. Yeah.

Papa Rick (31:30.042)
Mm-hmm. And then pronouncing judgment.

Jennie (31:39.514)
stop saying, I threw the ball at Jenny and say, I threw the ball and Jenny stepped in front of it is because we're trying to hide from the wrath of our parent because we felt for whatever reason he felt justified throwing a ball at me because of whatever I did to him. And then you just go around in circles and it's the same in, in partnerships and in romantic partnerships. The fight is never about the fight. The fight is about some, someone got hurt.

Papa Rick (31:45.187)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (31:49.826)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (32:06.307)
Yeah.

Jennie (32:09.654)
and reacted. And that's what sibling relationships are too. So if you spent the time you were already spending on asking the kids to identify their emotions and how they felt, having each kid hear how the other kid felt instead of you threw this and you did that and throwing accusations.

I was really, my feelings were really hurt when so-and-so said this. And well, my feelings were really hurt when, you know, so-and-so did this. Oh, well, and then I thought that they were gonna do this. So I threw a ball and so that they wouldn't, you know, hit me or whatever because, because anticipation, even though it didn't happen, the fear of it happening is still very real and very visceral.

Papa Rick (32:37.666)
Mm-hmm.

Papa Rick (32:43.295)
Mm-hmm.

Papa Rick (32:54.248)
Mm-hmm.

Papa Rick (33:03.324)
Mm-hmm.

Jennie (33:03.978)
Um, and so there's, you can get to the bottom of something. I think it's what you said is perfect. You can get to the bottom of whatever it is so much faster. If you focus on what they were feeling and then and say, Oh yeah, that's, that sounds like it would hurt or that's, that sounds frustrating or that sounds painful and, and validate that they felt that way, you don't have to validate the actions that they took.

Papa Rick (33:14.857)
Mm-hmm.

Papa Rick (33:19.834)
Mm-hmm

Papa Rick (33:26.746)
Mm-hmm.

Papa Rick (33:31.786)
Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah.

Jennie (33:33.302)
but validate that they felt that way. And then in that particular situation, after all of that, okay, I was gonna give you the answer, but I'm not going to. After you've, the three, we've had a round table, okay? The three of us were fighting, you walk in, you cut it off and you're like, whoa, everybody stop. Take a second, take a deep breath.

Papa Rick (33:51.638)
Yeah, I need this to stop.

Jennie (33:55.054)
Hey, like what's going on? We all jump in and try to tell our side of the story so we don't get in trouble. And you're like, whoa, slow down. Everyone take a deep breath. Maybe you sit down on the floor with us and you're like, hey, are you guys frustrated right now? Or whatever, you start the conversation. Yeah, you start the conversation. You get us all talking about our feelings. And then what? We've all been heard. We've all expressed our feelings.

Papa Rick (34:10.05)
You could do a little prompting, give them some vocabulary, name the feeling. Yeah.

Jennie (34:25.022)
What's your next step? I like this. I like what this has turned into. This is a quiz day. We didn't even know.

Papa Rick (34:31.042)
Yeah, yeah. Role-playing or, uh, or yeah. Now I wish I had the video camera in the, up in the corner of the basement, you know, where we could go back and say, okay, you know, June 3rd, 1962 or whatever. We could go back and replay this. Um, so if everybody's was sitting and taught taking turns, we'd have to say, okay, now it was Jenny's turn to talk. Now it's, uh, brother's turn.

Jennie (34:44.532)
Yeah.

Jennie (34:56.886)
Yeah, there'd be some refereeing.

Papa Rick (34:58.506)
Right? You know, you do some refereeing and everybody's talking and you do some.

Jennie (35:05.878)
What comes after?

Papa Rick (35:05.958)
lead, you can ask some leading questions and everybody feels heard, then the next step would be, so what are we going to do different going forward? I mean, as a parent, my concern at the moment is I have some place to be. I have some where, you know, I have other things to do. I need to go mow the grass before it gets dark or whatever. And so I want to avoid repetition.

Jennie (35:11.394)
then yeah, then what's next?

Jennie (35:29.067)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (35:34.806)
So the next step for me as a parent is like, so how are we going to do it?

Jennie (35:37.166)
Avoiding repetition, yes, is the short-term goal. But the long-term goal is that your children grow up and have connected healthy relationships with one another and they help each other out through life. So, so often, yeah. Right, so the short-term goal, which is also extremely valid and is usually what parents are talking about and frustrated about, it's like,

Papa Rick (35:42.571)
Right.

Papa Rick (35:52.531)
and me with them, and I've shown them how to do this to their kids.

Papa Rick (36:04.666)
It's a limiting factor, yeah.

Jennie (36:05.998)
I have a million responsibilities that I need to handle. I can't constantly be playing referee. And it's like, yes. And if you want to raise healthy, happy, functional children who like each other and stay in touch and remain family and play with cousins and all the things, like if that's what you want for your children, then you need to put in this time. And it's gonna take.

the same amount of time to punish them as it is to have an emotional, emotionally intelligent conversation and help them work it out. So you've, so yes, you need to go mow the lawn and you want to, to not have to come back inside to us fighting again. But ultimately long-term vision is that you are raising three children who love and respect one another can lean on each other in hard times.

Papa Rick (36:41.79)
and have some residual benefit for the next time.

Jennie (37:02.986)
you know, perhaps when you're not around anymore, whatever, you know, parents think, you know, you think of these things. So anyway, so I just wanted to point that out. That's a short term thought process. And there's also, but there's also a long term goal here. And, and, and so we've, so I'm sorry. So we've had the, everyone has had their emotions heard and addressed how I was feeling. I was this, I was feeling that I was feeling this. Okay. We've all heard each other.

Papa Rick (37:07.454)
Mm-hmm.

Papa Rick (37:13.25)
Yeah. Yep. Big picture. Big picture.

Papa Rick (37:27.326)
Mm-hmm.

Jennie (37:32.694)
What's your next step? You said, what are we gonna do differently?

Papa Rick (37:34.71)
Well, so what are you going to do? What are we going to do next? Yeah. What are we going to get? We're all going to get up and go. I got to go mow the grass. What are we going to, what are you going to do different? Because it was always, you know, and I'm sure this is true everywhere. We had three kids in the house. Any two of them together were generally fine. It was when all three of you were in the same room. Right. There was a sibling. There was some, something about that. We'll have to study up on that, but that's when, when it became three.

Then it ended up somehow or another being two against one. And then somebody felt abused somehow or another, or actually in fact was abused one way or another, and it's like, okay, I'm asking you guys to provide a solution instead of just, I think I did pretty good at saying, at least giving you a chance to do that.

Jennie (38:14.668)
Yeah.

Jennie (38:21.943)
Yes.

Papa Rick (38:28.714)
And then at some point, if that was not working out and I didn't have time to deal with it, it's like, okay, everybody go sit on your hands. I mean, there was some way of immobilizing or separating or, you know, there just, there just wasn't the time for some reason to deal with it. But I always let you guys, I tried to let you guys propose a solution.

Jennie (38:44.862)
Yes, but my question...

Jennie (38:50.35)
Okay, and my question is specifically, what would you do knowing what you know now? Not what did you do? Because we covered that. What would you do knowing now a more relational connected approach?

Papa Rick (38:58.047)
Right.

Jennie (39:09.074)
after having everyone speak about their emotions.

Papa Rick (39:14.134)
I'm not sure I'd do anything different. I would, I mean, once everybody had explained and understood how everybody felt, right? Okay, do you understand why you shouldn't have done that? Then I think I'm still stuck on putting it on the kids to come up with a plan. How are we gonna avoid this?

Jennie (39:33.442)
So I think that's good. I don't know that maybe I missed it. I don't, yeah, asking the kids to come up with a future plan.

Papa Rick (39:41.626)
What can you do? How do you deal? How would you do? Which in turn ends up being, well, when they have kids, they'll be like, so what would you guys do to avoid this in the future? Which does not take into account the really repetitive ones where someone is really irritated with somebody and they are intentionally instigating these things. In which case, you know, it's not about just.

feelings. Somebody's got something that needs a little more study digging into. But getting the kids, okay, but getting the kids, getting the kids to propose a solution and then stick to it would be my next step today.

Jennie (40:12.066)
Right, so we skipped a step.

Jennie (40:21.014)
You have, yes, so those are two addressing emotions and coming up with a plan for the future situation are two steps in the process. And I'm really excited that you have those. There's a step in the middle that you missed. So we can't just express emotions and then leave them floating around in the air.

Papa Rick (40:26.435)
Mm-hmm.

Papa Rick (40:37.54)
Hahaha!

Papa Rick (40:40.867)
EW

Jennie (40:49.034)
and then try to come up with a solution for a future situation. We still haven't fully addressed the current situation.

Papa Rick (40:54.966)
Well, that's so I'm thinking before I get up and leave, I mean, the plan they come up with is immediate is for the next half hour, you know, for implementation right now. We got, we were upset. Are we okay? Are we good now? Right. Are we still upset?

Jennie (41:05.422)
Okay.

Jennie (41:13.734)
But why would they be good? All we've done is say, this person did something that hurt me, I'm hurt. What makes you feel better when you tell someone who loves you, you've hurt me? Is it, well, I won't hurt you in the future.

Papa Rick (41:20.99)
Okay.

Papa Rick (41:29.198)
Oh. Well, you need restitution.

Jennie (41:33.258)
repair. So we all express our emotions and then the guidance is

Papa Rick (41:41.122)
Not just an apology, but whatever it takes. Yeah.

Jennie (41:44.01)
Well, enforcing children into an apology if they don't feel sorry is also, you know, one of our episodes, but you being the coach and the guide for, okay, Jenny just had her turn to talk and what she expressed was that Josh said something that hurt her feelings, and then she threw the ball at Josh to hurt him back. And so Josh, Jenny said that you hurt her feelings.

Papa Rick (41:51.268)
not productive, yeah.

Jennie (42:14.222)
what is something that you could do right now that might make her feel better or might help you guys reconnect. And then he could offer an apology or he could say, I didn't mean it. I was just, I was feeling stressed out because whatever. And I took it out on you and I didn't mean to. And then, okay, Jenny, when you threw the ball that hurt Josh, what's something you could do right now? And coaching each.

Papa Rick (42:20.18)
There you go. Yeah.

Papa Rick (42:40.099)
Yeah.

Jennie (42:41.01)
of us then through with helping to repair the emotions that are now floating around. Because if you don't do repair, and they might not be ready for repair immediately, they might need, I know that I was probably the kid that would have been sitting there seething, pissed, feeling no matter how hurt I was, I probably needed to walk away for an hour. And you're going to have kids that do that.

Papa Rick (42:44.378)
doing a repair. Yeah.

Papa Rick (43:05.294)
Mm-hmm.

Jennie (43:09.118)
I'm not coming down right now. My nervous system is gonna take, yeah. And my adrenaline takes a while. And I think Josh would have probably been the A plus student in repairing immediately. And I would have been the kid that was like, I'm gonna go to my room for four hours, don't talk to me. And then I would come out with my head hanging low and been like, I'm sorry, Josh. I didn't mean to.

Papa Rick (43:09.396)
Yep, yep. Takes longer for the adrenaline to dissipate, yeah.

Papa Rick (43:18.447)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (43:31.37)
Yeah, and that's okay.

Jennie (43:37.974)
Like I didn't mean to hurt you. Ha!

Papa Rick (43:39.474)
I've had time to... And that's the thing, your head, you get agitated and you're not thinking straight. And it's so, yeah, whatever it takes to get so you can think straight. And sometimes it doesn't happen in five minutes. Yeah, okay, everybody go to your room and read a book for till dinner. You know, if that's the way your kids work, then give them, if they can't come up, if they don't come up with it, yeah. Yeah.

Jennie (44:00.906)
Well, and if that's the way one kid works.

But just because I maybe needed to go read a book until dinnertime doesn't mean Josh and Nathan should have been made to, or maybe I needed to go ride my bike. Like it doesn't have to be a punishment. Like go do this till you're ready to apologize.

Papa Rick (44:14.119)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (44:22.966)
Yeah. But if they're not ready to, if they're playing together and getting in conflict when they're together, then separating them.

Jennie (44:33.63)
Yeah, Jenny, what would you like to go do?

Papa Rick (44:35.582)
Even if it's their idea, it's like, how do we fix this? And it's like, well, okay, why don't you go ride, you know, once you go, go away for an hour, you know, or however long it usually takes Jenny or whoever to do that. And you, and that's part of the, it's part of the solution is okay. We're not. So that as soon as you turn around and leave the room, they're not right back at it. That's like, okay, we didn't, that didn't work. We're going to, now we need to do something different. You know, I'm also big on.

Jennie (44:45.61)
Yeah.

Jennie (45:04.364)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (45:05.91)
not repeating the same mistake over and over and over. It's like, well, okay, that didn't work. Next solution, let's brainstorm a little more. And sometimes it is, it's just, you get them away from one another because everybody's having a bad day or nobody got enough sleep the night before, or everybody had bad lasagna, you know, or whatever. Boy, you gotta be flexible in this business.

Jennie (45:14.019)
Mmm.

Jennie (45:22.071)
Yeah.

Jennie (45:32.014)
It's important though to give each individual child the chance and the choice to choose what they feel they need in that moment. So Josh might be able to repair and say, and apologize, I might not. And so taking it a step further after talking about everyone's emotions.

Papa Rick (45:45.45)
and see if it works sometimes.

Papa Rick (45:57.006)
Yeah, Josh is a good peacemaker.

Jennie (46:01.39)
Um, you could even ask each child then what do you need right now in order to feel safe and secure, um, in order to move on from this situation. And I could say, like, I may not need the apology. I might just need space, but that helped lets me, the child check in with my body and my feelings. And

literally request or state my need out loud so that then they also know like I'm not just like stomping away and slamming my door and like being pissed off, which just makes siblings want to tease each other even more. Like I'm I want to go calm. I know that I need space. I need to go calm down.

Papa Rick (46:34.574)
Mm-hmm.

Papa Rick (46:42.819)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (46:46.434)
That's right.

Jennie (46:52.978)
Um, before I'm ready to, to apologize before I'm ready to repair, before I'm ready to play again, before whatever. And that helps me grow into an adult who can identify that instead of screaming at my partner or saying something I don't mean, et cetera, I can identify, oh, I need to go calm down. I need alone time. Um, and then I can come back to this conversation. Whereas Josh might be ready to say, I'm sorry.

Papa Rick (47:00.288)
Mm-hmm.

Papa Rick (47:13.77)
Yep.

Jennie (47:21.746)
Or Josh might say, I just need an apology, or I just need us to stop fighting, or I just need this. And then he's fine to keep going. Or whatever Nathan needed. So asking each individual kid, we've talked about our emotions. Everyone's been heard. Everyone feels heard. And then checking in with each child, okay, what do you need in order to feel safe right now? What do you need in order to?

come back to play together kindly. And each child's needs are probably going to be different. And then you can offer the choice for a sibling. You know, if one sibling says, I just want someone like, you know, I just want them to apologize to me, or I just want my, want it acknowledged by the person who hurt me.

Papa Rick (47:56.11)
Yeah.

Jennie (48:18.962)
then you can ask that sibling, are you ready to offer that to your sibling? Um

Papa Rick (48:23.31)
Can you do that or, or yeah, it's a negotiation.

Jennie (48:25.79)
Yeah. And if not, right, it is, it's a, everything, and it is a negotiation. And, oh God, these are just such important skills for life.

Papa Rick (48:37.946)
Well, and we can drill way down into it. I mean, if people are not ready yet, you have to be flexible on the timing.

Jennie (48:46.626)
You have to leave it open to the, the child has to choose to do it. If you're just forcing children to say words or do something because then they're never gonna learn it.

Papa Rick (48:52.298)
And they...

Papa Rick (48:56.502)
Yeah, no, absolutely. And they may be too young to come up with the alternatives when you start doing this. And they may need a little bit of prompting or coaching or, well, what about this? How does this sound? Or, you know, you may have to give them ideas, seed ideas, um, when they just don't know, particularly if somebody or everybody is still agitated. I'm a big believer that.

Jennie (49:05.623)
Yeah.

Jennie (49:22.542)
Hmm.

Papa Rick (49:24.138)
while everybody's agitated, that's not the time to problem solve. You know, that's, you can talk, that's that. I think that's the good transition that I wish I'd have had before was getting kids to talk about their feelings is a good transition from, you know, bringing kids down gadget, you know, from agitation to, okay, my forebrains in control. Again, my lizard brain is still agitated, but my, my higher

Jennie (49:44.183)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (49:52.846)
function, my higher cognitive functions are in control. You know, I'm a big believer in you're allowed to feel any way you want to feel. You are not allowed to act any way you want to act and, and teaching that, which is regulation in my mind. Um, so yeah, those are those, that would be a great methodical. Here's a tool to use. Okay. Everybody sit down here for a second. And we're going to talk or.

Jennie (49:57.388)
Yeah.

Jennie (50:04.162)
Mm-hmm, yep.

Papa Rick (50:23.642)
and have it out. And then, boy, you know, who was it? We had a guest not too long ago about, you are the expert on your children. That's, you know, what one kid needs versus another. There's no formula for that. You have to figure out who needs more time, who's holding back, you know, who's not being, who's not earning up. Yeah, yeah. And how to deal with the resolution.

Jennie (50:41.142)
When asked them.

Especially in the beginning, like depending on how old your children are, like this, this could take a while and might need some repetition before you get good at it because your children are used to something very different. They're used to being punished. They're used to, right. Like not everyone is going to start doing this, is not hearing this podcast when their child is born. And not everyone is going to.

Papa Rick (50:55.374)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (51:01.418)
Everybody needs practice. Yeah.

Jennie (51:14.838)
No one is going to do it perfectly all of the time. Um, that like we're still human as adults, we're still figuring our shit out, regulating ourselves so that we can walk into that room of kids fighting and create calm and not add to the chaos. And that's a learned skill. Yeah. And so it's not about doing it perfectly.

Papa Rick (51:19.107)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (51:33.986)
That gets, yes, be rooted, be the column. Yeah.

Jennie (51:44.482)
the steps being executed perfectly in a perfect line. But I know some people like having a checklist is useful and asking your kids like, yes, you are the expert on your child. And that quote came from an episode on the education system where you're talking to the school about your child. You have, you know something is off with your child and someone keeps an entity or an administration.

Papa Rick (52:13.338)
Poopoo, yeah.

Jennie (52:15.17)
is ignoring you and dismissing you. That quote came from that episode of like, you know your children best, trust yourself and your instincts. In this particular situation, this is not a, you decide what your children need, each individual child. Like you need to be asking your children what they need and believing them when they tell you. And they're going, they are going to get better at telling you what they need the more that you do this.

Papa Rick (52:21.274)
Mm-hmm.

Papa Rick (52:41.518)
Making them, yeah, making them think about what they need as opposed to what they want to do in response. Yeah. Yes.

Jennie (52:48.57)
asking them to think about what they need. Inviting them in to participate, offering choices because if we make our kids do anything, they're never going to learn it for themselves. So we're creating a safe environment. Yeah.

Papa Rick (52:55.395)
That's it.

Papa Rick (53:03.662)
Did I say making? Getting. I meant to say getting. Getting them to think about what they are. Yes. Yes, not holding them down and poking them in the eye until they think about what they need. But yeah, we're getting.

Jennie (53:13.778)
Yeah. But we're inviting, we're creating an environment that is safe for them to do that. And then we're inviting them in to do it. And depending on how old your child is, depending on your previous forms of discipline and punishment, it might take them a while to open up and be willing to say anything to you. Because kids are terrified of being punished and they're terrified of being shamed.

Papa Rick (53:33.75)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jennie (53:41.458)
And kids are going to be kids. It's going to, they're going to be mistakes. They're going to be repeated fights. They're like you, the parent expecting for something to work once and for it to never happen again, get over it. It's going to. They're children, they're learning, they're figuring out life. Even as adults, we all do the same fucking shit to ourselves all the fucking time. Oh, I shouldn't have eaten that much ice cream. It hurt my stomach. Oh, I shouldn't have like, whatever. Like it twisted my ankle. Like we still do dumb shit.

Papa Rick (53:55.65)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (54:02.891)
Yeah, we'll see you after the car.

Yeah.

Jennie (54:11.326)
even as adults because it takes a few times to learn it.

Papa Rick (54:14.53)
Yeah. And expect it to have an effect on you as a parent too, because it'll make you think about, you know, when you start teaching your kids things or, or guiding your kids, you'll find out you're guiding yourself too. It's, it's changing the way you talk to yourself, which is the real key. That's what, that's what does solid. I mean, everybody.

Jennie (54:29.685)
Mm-hmm.

Jennie (54:33.91)
Well, and yeah.

Papa Rick (54:38.622)
where it could all be a simulation and we're just, you know, it's just our internal simulations talking to other internal simulations, however you like to look at it. But it's all about getting in your head, getting in their heads.

Jennie (54:47.809)
Yeah.

Jennie (54:51.862)
And also, and the other way that children will learn how to do this is through you modeling it. So if you are in a disagreement with your child, the way you respond to them, the way you acknowledge, oh, I see, like, you must be frustrated. I see how you're acting, you must be frustrated. Or if you mess up going to your child saying, I'm sorry, you didn't deserve that. You didn't deserve to be spoken to that way. I really messed up, I'm so sorry. And modeling.

Papa Rick (54:57.53)
Mm-hmm.

Papa Rick (55:09.715)
Yeah.

Jennie (55:21.206)
the repair, modeling the emotional intelligence. And so they're gonna learn to do that with, I have watched children learn to do that with each other without any coaching between them, but strictly from how the parents speak to the children. And then the siblings speak to each other that way.

Papa Rick (55:22.51)
That's so important. Yeah.

Papa Rick (55:35.926)
Yeah, I was just going to say that modeling is at least, if not more important than the, you know, the thinking it through, talking it through thing. Just being a model is good. And that's why it's such a tragedy, you know, people who can't say, I'm sorry, you know, that's hard on everybody, including the person who can't say they're sorry.

Jennie (56:00.53)
Yeah. So before we run out of time, so we taught that was the one side of the coin with punishment. And the other side of the coin is about fixing something that your child has experienced separate from you. So, or maybe not even in your household, but a child has experienced a situation that you want to go in and save them from.

And so it could be my toy broke, my friend said something about me at school, like whatever it is, your child is having a really difficult emotion and they're coming to you crying or maybe they're not, maybe they're coming to you very calmly, but it's a very, you know that whatever they're feeling is really gross and you just want to save them from that pain.

Papa Rick (56:29.711)
Hmm

Papa Rick (56:48.451)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Jennie (56:52.494)
or you just want to make the tantrum stop over the broken toy, whatever it is, whatever emotion you're fixing.

Papa Rick (56:59.074)
Yeah.

Jennie (57:03.614)
swooping in and promising to buy them a new toy, swooping in and telling them how they should think about a situation with that friend who hurt their feelings. Like, oh, well, then they're not really your friend. That's not helpful either, because that makes it even worse because they're like, but they were my friend and now I don't have a friend. Like, it's not helpful.

And so... What?

Papa Rick (57:31.142)
Yeah, I was taught the phrase by a counseling, a friend that's a counselor, been a counselor for many years, to check yourself if you're, you can't fix rescue or protect a lot of times, you know, those are things that you can teach better and worse ways to deal with, but you can't, you know, there's a lot of things you can't, you can't fix someone else's emotional state or...

or rescue them from a situation. All you can do is talk with them about maybe, you know, provide different ideas on how to deal with things that are healthier, that make them feel better.

Jennie (58:13.474)
Well, that's like, especially with adults, that's something that you're taught of like, you can't, you know, you can't fix, rescue, or save a partner or a friend. Like all you can do is be there for them. But with kids, it's, I mean, it's similar. You can't fix, rescue, or save them from their emotion. You could, or you could try, and, you know, making your child, trying to make your child feel better or not feel pain.

Papa Rick (58:14.552)
Yes.

Papa Rick (58:23.254)
Yeah.

Jennie (58:43.318)
does nothing to teach them how to deal with life. And so a lot of arguments, yeah, well, and a lot of arguments, it just stops the discomfort momentarily in the short term. That's all it does. It doesn't serve the long term. It doesn't serve them in problem solving for themselves. The importance of letting your child experience pain.

Papa Rick (58:50.126)
Like you said before, short term.

Papa Rick (58:59.19)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jennie (59:11.222)
is that once your child becomes an adult and leaves the house, they're going to experience pain. They're going to experience heartbreak. They're going to experience difficult situations that they have to navigate and come up with solutions or next steps or overwhelm. They're going to have to do that, and they're going to have to do it without you. Sure, they can pick up the phone and ask for your advice, but most people...

want to be able to rely on themselves. That's where confidence comes from, is that I can rely on myself even when I'm faced with something I've never seen before. I know I got this. And the I know I got this comes from being able to have a trusted person, parent, adult, sit

Papa Rick (59:49.891)
Yeah.

Jennie (01:00:07.254)
with me in my pain as a child where it's safe, but still very real. I'm experiencing this pain. It feels like the world is ending. Surely life, this is it. This is as painful as life gets. And having an adult sit with you in that, but not try to fix you, rescue you or any, but reassure you that this too shall pass.

Papa Rick (01:00:34.494)
Mm-hmm.

Jennie (01:00:36.298)
and I'm with you and you're not alone. Because if we feel alone in the world or we feel like someone's just trying to tell us what to do or fix our situation or whatever, like all we're caught up in is how we feel right now. And we just need someone to sit there and hold us in that pain. And then once, yeah.

Papa Rick (01:00:39.609)
Mm-hmm.

Papa Rick (01:00:54.958)
That's where you get overwhelmed. I can't, I, there's, there's so much coming in. I can't deal with it. And you don't feel if there's nobody else you can call or, you know, talk to, or something, then you're just dealing with it alone and that's, that's no fun at all.

Jennie (01:01:11.574)
Yeah, so learning in childhood that there are people you can trust and rely on to sit with you when things are really hard and ugly. But also after repeated times of that, you then learn yourself. It's solidified in you. After repetition, it becomes solidified confidence in you that, okay, I feel this very deeply, but this...

and this really hurts and this really sucks and it feels like the world is ending, but I know that that's not true. I know that it's just how I'm feeling. Yes, I've been through this before and you've had the reassurance of someone normalizing it for you and sitting through the pain with you. I know I'm not alone. I know that if I need help, I have someone I can call.

Papa Rick (01:01:43.967)
I've weathered this before.

Papa Rick (01:01:55.662)
Yeah.

I got people, yeah. That sounds like a definition of resilience.

Jennie (01:02:00.31)
I've been through this before.

Jennie (01:02:05.202)
Exactly. And if you don't let your kids, you know, and let's even take it down to, I'm three and I just broke my favorite fire truck toy. I'm not saying don't ever replace your child's favorite toy with a new one. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that

Papa Rick (01:02:16.151)
That's right.

Papa Rick (01:02:20.734)
Right, right. I just, I just love the different levels. We can talk about this on it's all the same stuff, you know.

Jennie (01:02:27.875)
Oops. It's all the same. And that's why I love people who say, if you're a parent coach, niche down. And they mean like by age group or by specialty. And I'm like, emotional development happens at every age and how you respond to these situations does not change based on age. Creating relationship is the same and no matter how old you are. Creating connection.

Papa Rick (01:02:39.282)
emotional development or yeah.

Papa Rick (01:02:48.054)
Yep.

Jennie (01:02:54.102)
focusing on connection, building healthy relationship is the same no matter how old you are. So my niche is connection and building a healthy relationship and that's it. So anyway, so I do from a lot of gentle parents, people who look down on gentle parenting or conscious parenting, mindful parenting, blah, whatever, all the different names for it, who look down on this more emotionally focused form of parenting.

Papa Rick (01:02:58.402)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (01:03:02.778)
There you go. Yep.

Jennie (01:03:22.378)
And they say, well, the world doesn't do that. So I can't raise my kid like that because then they'll be soft and they won't have any real world skills. Bullshit. This is the only way you're teaching your child real world skills.

Papa Rick (01:03:37.193)
Just the opposite. Yeah.

Jennie (01:03:39.014)
is by teaching them about themselves, making them resilient because you're not rescuing them from their hard feelings. You're not punishing their hard feelings. You're having them work through those feelings in a healthy and appropriate way because everyone's going to have hard feelings. It's going to happen for the rest of your life. And if you just punish them away or fix them constantly, that human is never going to be fully integrated.

to be able to handle the real world. So you need to be the safe space so that your child can learn how to navigate the real world before they're actually in it.

Papa Rick (01:04:09.186)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (01:04:19.234)
That's tying into what you've said before about, now see, look at that. My phone just, I got it all shut up. It's an actual alarm and it still won't shut up.

Jennie (01:04:24.822)
That's so weird that you have it on Do Not Disturb and it... phones can...

Jennie (01:04:31.403)
Oh, it's cause you, yeah, if you have alarms set, the alarms will still go off.

Papa Rick (01:04:37.806)
Alright, it's dead now. You've talked before, we've talked before about... Golly, swallow the bug. Internal versus external stuff, you know. When you're sitting, you're talking about having other people squash your emotions and not learning to, you know, handle them and deal with them to a level, that's suddenly in my mind, that's talking about...

internal and external motivation, you know, where you're waiting for somebody, you get in a situation and you're kind of waiting for the world who isn't going to necessarily have your interest at mind come in and you know somebody else in the world come in and deal with your feelings or help you out of your feelings or whatever as opposed to being equipped to handle progressively more complex and daunting

tasks by virtue of, hey, I started learning some of this stuff, how to deal with my feelings. We get feelings and things get urgent and we get overwhelmed and we don't think straight. And that's a spiral that we all get into. And boy, the sooner we start teaching our kids to deal with that, you know, well, what were you thinking? What are you going to do about it? Everybody okay? And on and do that.

85,000 times by the time they're 17, you know, here we are again. How can you know, but that's training, you know, practice. How do you get the car? How do you get the Carnegie hall practice? Same as anything else. So yeah, that's, it's, I agree. Totally. That's, that's the only way. That's the only path to resilience.

Jennie (01:06:05.191)
Yep.

Jennie (01:06:24.522)
Yeah, and so not just to say, just to kind of sum up, because we didn't spend much time on the fixing things. If your child is three and their favorite toy breaks.

Jennie (01:06:40.894)
And instead of just reacting and saying, it's okay, it's okay, we'll just get a new one. We'll just order a new one. Instead of that, and I'm not saying don't ever replace their toy. I'm saying before you tell them, oh, you can just buy a new one.

Jennie (01:06:56.874)
You want to let your child feel that. You want to let your child be sad. No, it's not even about that. Let them be sad over something they love breaking. And then once their sadness passes, it's not because it's a consequence of their actions. They're just playing. There is no consequence needed. When they've experienced the sadness,

Papa Rick (01:06:59.566)
suffer the consequences a little bit. Yeah.

Papa Rick (01:07:07.758)
Hahaha

Papa Rick (01:07:13.199)
Yeah.

Jennie (01:07:26.078)
And when you've said, I'm so sorry, baby, that's so hard. Oh, that's so frustrating. That's so sad. Yeah, that's your favorite toy. I know that's so, that sucks. I'm so sorry. Come here, do you need a hug? All the things, and then they calm down. And I'm telling you, it literally takes as long as it took me to say that for them to calm down. If you just say those empathetic words, they're fine. And then, you know what happens after that? They start problem solving themselves.

Papa Rick (01:07:33.594)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (01:07:37.923)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (01:07:44.246)
Yeah. Empathize.

Jennie (01:07:55.566)
themselves without prompting, without anything. Most kids, even at three years old, will start making suggestions to fix the situation themselves. Whether it's, we can glue that piece, can we glue that piece back on? Can you help me build a new one? They'll start asking or suggesting different ways to fix the situation themselves.

Papa Rick (01:08:23.155)
Okay.

Jennie (01:08:26.77)
Unless they've been told for years and years and years, we'll just buy a new one, don't worry about it, right? Cause then that's not gonna come naturally to them. But if they're little.

Papa Rick (01:08:32.258)
Well, that's the thing. If you're starting at this, yeah.

Jennie (01:08:38.142)
If they're that little, it's very likely that there have not been too many things broken that you've had, that you've offered to replace. And there, if you let them just feel what they feel, give them some empathy, they will start problem solving on their own. It is human nature to problem solve, not collapse on the floor and just give up hope. That's not human nature. That's not survival instinct. So

Papa Rick (01:08:55.586)
Yep, yep, yep.

Papa Rick (01:09:03.362)
Yeah.

Jennie (01:09:09.022)
Um, fixing, jumping in and giving a reactive solution to your child anytime they have big feelings, you steal their chance to solve the problem themselves.

Papa Rick (01:09:25.794)
deal better with the world. Yeah, kids that collapse, collapsing kids collapsing in tantrums or, you know, hopelessness. That's a, that's an excellent chance to sit there and you know, okay, let's what's going on and not because that almost communicates that they're expecting someone else to fix it. Right. What was me? Yeah.

Jennie (01:09:27.946)
You steal that from them.

Jennie (01:09:49.95)
It communicates that they're not capable of fixing it themselves. It communicates lack of ability and that they need someone to save them. And then we all watch Disney princess movies and grow up thinking that we need to find Prince Charming who's going to save us from ourselves.

Papa Rick (01:09:57.538)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Papa Rick (01:10:06.634)
Yeah, or social media. Yeah. Everybody's everybody's perfect life watching everybody's perfect life all day, make you crazy.

Jennie (01:10:09.226)
Yeah, well now it's TikTok.

Jennie (01:10:14.284)
Yeah.

Jennie (01:10:18.166)
Like let your child save themselves. And that doesn't mean that you're not an empathetic loving presence for them. It means that you're not fixing every emotion that they have. You can't steal their pain because then you steal the lessons that they take away from their pain.

Papa Rick (01:10:25.402)
Mm-hmm.

Papa Rick (01:10:37.99)
know, and you're not necessarily teaching, you're guiding them through those.

Papa Rick (01:10:45.722)
Right? I get it. I get it now.

Jennie (01:10:47.99)
Yeah. You know, we sat here before this, we started this episode and I was like, what? I was like, I'm, I don't know. Should we do what, like do a reintroduction of what is relational parenting or should we do this, um, this quit fixing everything for your children, this punishment versus fixing things versus emotional intelligence. And I feel like they kind of merged. I feel like, because this is, this is the foundation of relational parenting.

Papa Rick (01:11:06.778)
Mm-hmm.

Papa Rick (01:11:10.154)
Mm-hmm. They did. They did.

Jennie (01:11:15.198)
Um, and I do want to do, I have, um, the first, when we did the first episode, I didn't have this yet. Well, I had, I, I had it created. I hadn't printed it and laminated it. Um, but I do, well, I did some events earlier in the year, so I made some signs and things, but. I guess we will, we will do another episode that's that is specifically talking about the, the pillars and foundations of

Papa Rick (01:11:15.352)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (01:11:27.087)
Oh, it's laminated now, ooh.

Papa Rick (01:11:34.102)
All right, you're building, you're building.

Jennie (01:11:42.714)
the relational parenting method that I created. But I did finally create the relational development pyramid. And it's two-sided.

Papa Rick (01:11:44.552)
methodology.

Papa Rick (01:11:49.099)
Nice.

Jennie (01:11:54.85)
they're the same, so they correspond. So relationship to caregiver corresponds to physical competence. Emotional competence also responds to relationship to caregiver. And then as we develop social competence, we develop relationship to non-caregivers. And as we develop cognitive competence, we develop relationship to ourselves.

Papa Rick (01:12:01.653)
Okay.

Papa Rick (01:12:07.943)
Gotcha.

Papa Rick (01:12:17.165)
Okay.

Jennie (01:12:24.102)
and each of these builds on the one below it. And you can't skip any of them.

Papa Rick (01:12:30.071)
This is like reading levels, right? And when I was a kid in school, they had little reader things and they'd have a bunch of books and they kept track of what level you were in, niche you were in for reading. You kind of have to go through, if you can't read the level one books, you're not going to have much fun with the level two books and so on. That was, you know.

Jennie (01:12:50.41)
Yeah, well, and even learning to read, you can't read if you don't know what the letters are and the sounds that they make. So you've got to there's a first step before the second step can develop, before the third step can develop appropriately, before the fourth step. And that fourth step of relationship to ourselves is what matters when we step out into the into the world. And if we aren't building those bonds with caregivers and non-caregivers,

Papa Rick (01:12:59.477)
Exactly.

Papa Rick (01:13:05.21)
You saying?

Jennie (01:13:17.63)
Then the bond we have with ourselves, the confidence we have in ourselves, the resilience that we have with ourselves to overcome difficulty in life, none of it's gonna develop appropriately. And we're all gonna, and your child's gonna go through 10 years of therapy, if not more, to build them themselves in adulthood. No.

Papa Rick (01:13:26.586)
Mm-hmm.

Papa Rick (01:13:33.934)
That's right. That's one of, and so, and somebody else and somebody else, somebody also be getting paid to do it. That touches on one of the, one of my favorite topics is don't expect to not learn anything from your kids when you're doing this, cause what, as you start, as you start working this way with your kids, you'll find yourself, you're working with yourself too. You'll hit, you'll hit old, old wounds.

Jennie (01:13:42.239)
Right.

Jennie (01:13:49.066)
Oh my God, you need constantly learning from your kids.

Papa Rick (01:14:02.51)
old bad habits and you'll be learning from it as much as the kids will.

Jennie (01:14:10.126)
Yeah, if you let it, parenting, having children will absolutely transform you as a person.

Papa Rick (01:14:17.078)
Yep. Not a one way street at all.

Jennie (01:14:22.469)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (01:14:24.59)
Good stuff. Yeah.

Jennie (01:14:24.674)
All right, that was good. That was great. I liked it. I liked where we went. We often start UNI's episodes. I used to be very, like try to be very, I was like on my own ass about like creating this beautiful outline for us. But when I started just kind of showing up and being like, this is what's on my mind today. And then you're like, all right. And I was like, here's a couple of the talking points that I'm gonna talk about.

Papa Rick (01:14:43.178)
Yeah, bullet points.

Papa Rick (01:14:48.275)
Mm-hmm.

Jennie (01:14:52.714)
And then we just kind of fly. I don't know, it always ends up working out.

Papa Rick (01:14:52.884)
Mm-hmm.

Papa Rick (01:14:56.762)
Well, we're kind of hitting a stride here. I find myself harkening back. You know, we've got enough history and enough guests and enough talks of our own, where we're kind of figuring out where we are, getting in the groove, we're getting a groove going.

Jennie (01:15:10.702)
We're getting in a groove, but I think it's also nice to not plan everything so meticulously and just let it be, go where it's going to go. I had no idea we were going to talk about your conflict resolution skills between us. I didn't even, I mean, depending on how much I cut, if you guys hear how long it took me to come up with the actual question I was trying to ask you, it's because I didn't have one planned.

Papa Rick (01:15:17.203)
Oh sure.

Papa Rick (01:15:35.862)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, that's part of the draw here. Just us chit-chatting about parenting. Hopefully in a way people can glean and get interested. And for me, it's all about making the world a little bit better place. You know, passing on what we've learned.

Jennie (01:16:01.266)
All right, friends, well, happy parenting and good luck out there.

Papa Rick (01:16:08.687)
Bye bye.