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Join me, Jess VanderWier, a registered psychotherapist, mom of three, and founder of Nurtured First, along with my husband Scott, as we dive deep into the stories of our friends, favourite celebrities, and influential figures.
In each episode, we skip the small talk and dive into vulnerable and honest conversations about topics like cycle breaking, trauma, race, mental health, parenting, sex, religion, postpartum, healing, and loss.
We are glad you are here.
PS: The name Robot Unicorn comes from our daughter. When we asked her what we should name the podcast, she confidently came up with this name because she loves robots, and she loves unicorns, so why not? There was something about the playfulness of the name, the confidence in her voice, and the fact that it represents that you can love two things at once that just felt right.
Welcome to Robot Unicorn, hosted by my parents.
Jess and Scott.
I hope you enjoyed the episode.
Okay, the last two weeks we have had both Dr.
Deborah McNamara on as a guest and Dr.
Gordon Nieuwfeld.
They have worked together.
They're developmental psychologists.
They're very well regarded in the field of developmental psychology.
And they have talked in I think both of their episodes about being like a parent leader, a parent as leader.
Yeah.
In the home.
And we were just talking about how it would be nice to have a discussion about what that means practically, but also to focus on what it means to be parent leader practically for like especially difficult.
types of children which are maybe more angry and have explosive behaviors and that kind of thing.
So that is what this episode is on.
So to be clear, today we are talking about how to be the leader your kids need if you have a difficult, strong-willed, angry type of child.
Sure.
I thought my explanation was pretty good, but okay.
No, that was a good explanation.
I guess I like to have just like a one-liner.
Okay.
All right.
One thing I noted before I went into like the real meat of these questions that I put together.
One thing I have noted with you.
You were quite excited to have this conversation, specifically understanding how what it means to be like a good parent or parent leader for angry kids because you're so passionate about angry kids.
And you always have been.
For like however many years you've worked with kids and families, you always have been.
And I was just wondering why.
Because even in preparation for this discussion, I feel like
You were like, well just imagine what it's like to have a child that is really angry and like is constantly saying no to you or whatever, arguing with you.
And for me, that's not something that like our our girls, I wouldn't say they're angry.
That's not their temperaments at all.
One is maybe a little more sensitive than the others, and maybe had more tantrums when they were
like a toddler preschooler, but like I would never have defined them as being an angry child.
But you seem to be very much passionate about the concept of helping parents who have quote unquote angry children.
Yeah.
So why?
And let me just say off the bat, I don't love the label angry.
It's just what I'm using because
people use that's what people say right so when i get an email from someone let's say wanting to book a session with me or one of my therapists the email is like help i have an angry child or help i have a difficult kid or i have an explosive child so i'm using that language because that is what's used
Not because I want to label a kid as angry.
And I think that goes to why I am so passionate about angry kids.
I think they are the most misunderstood children.
You mentioned our daughter, our middle daughter, this is the one I was all emotional about.
And she's a perfect example of why I'm so passionate about that.
this because when she was a toddler, she was a highly sensitive toddler, right?
And at first we didn't know that.
And I do remember clearly when the pieces started to kind of click for me with her is when we had our third baby and she, the second daughter, was just
Melting down all the time, having a really hard time would try and hit the baby, was not like a mean spirited kid, but just couldn't seem to
control her body and would just have these epic meltdowns.
It was so loud, so frustrating.
And I remember one day it just clicked for me.
Oh my goodness, I have a highly sensitive
kid because I started to notice patterns of okay after a busy day she has a huge meltdown or if there's too much sounds and stuff going on at at one time she has a big meltdown.
If I'm upset she has a big melt like all of these things I started noticing patterns.
Too many people for too long.
She said too many people for too long, she has a big meltdown.
I try and put socks on her, she has a big meltdown.
I try and put pants on her, she has a big meltdown.
You
So I started to connect these dots that, oh my goodness, my daughter isn't just like explosive tantrumer.
She is highly sensitive
And when I started to understand that and when we started talking about what it meant to raise a sensitive kid and really understand what she needed, the meltdowns slowly went away.
And now we know how to coach her and we know how to support her.
And I would agree with you.
I don't see her as strong willed, which I used to label her as strong willed.
I don't see her as strong-willed.
angry, difficult, or any of those things anymore.
But I truly believe that is because we understood who she was and we deeply see her and know her and were able to work with her sensitivity.
And I will say that story of doing that with our daughter, we were able to catch that early on because I've done this work for so many years, right
But a lot of parents don't catch that early on.
And so now at the point that they come to me and they're emailing me, their kids five, six, seven, eight, and they've been struggling with anger for so many years.
And now it's also these cycles are built in of
They're getting punished all the time.
They're seen as bad.
They're told they're bad.
They're getting in trouble.
Parents are like, count to five or whatever.
And by the time I get to five, you're listening to me.
And they're like, I'm not listening.
You know
And so now they also have the label built in.
And I just think that of any kind of children out there, angry kids are the most misunderstood.
And that's why I'm just so passionate about them.
And I just want parents to really get their angry kids and understand them.
And I think it's just totally life-changing what they do.
Okay.
That actually it's a great segue.
Uh so before we dive into strategies, what do you think the most damaging misconception or misconceptions you see parents holding on to?
when they first walk into your office with an angry or defiant child.
This says said with a lot of compassion to parents, but the biggest misconception is
My kid is bad.
And parents mean this in like the most genuine way, but they're like, I don't know why my kid is so bad.
Like they don't listen
They're manipulative.
So you actually have parents that are saying those things while like coming into therapy?
They'll even say, Jess, I know you don't talk about kids this way, but like mine's different.
This is just a kid who just doesn't listen.
You know, I know you don't think kids are bad, Jess, but like what am I supposed to do?
I say don't do this, and he outright hits his sister.
Like, do you expect me not to punish him?
Like, should he have no repercussions to what he does?
You know, so parents come in and they're frazzled and they're frustrated and they're like, look, my kid needs a consequence.
I can't just not give them a consequence for doing these things.
And so I think the biggest misconception is that like
I remember parents coming to me literally one time and saying, I just need you to give us new consequences because we used to spank and we used to send them to timeout, but it's not working.
Like
he just comes out of timeout and he won't let us thank him.
So we need new consequences.
It's not working.
And I think that's the biggest misconception is that that's going to answer your problem, which is not.
Yeah.
We were just talking about that the Dr.
Ross Crane quote.
Kids do well when they can.
Right.
And that's also what Dr.
Newfeld talked about in last week's episode.
As a developmentalist, so I would refer to myself as a developmentalist similar to
Dr.
Newfeld and Dr.
McNamara says my training too, is that we believe that kids do well when the conditions are right for them to do well.
And so for me as a developmentalist, when I have a kid come in, I'm not looking specifically at their behavior.
The behavior is just a symptom to me of a greater issue.
And so what I'm actually looking at
at is the environment.
And as a developmentalist, what we believe is that if the environment is conducive to growing, a child will grow and they will develop and turn into who they're meant to be
Can you explain what that term means?
Because I feel like you're saying developmentalist, but I don't know if you've ever defined what that means.
And I think is it developmentalist or developmental psychology?
Like there are kind of one
way of thinking about it's one way of thinking about children and how they grow and develop.
It's not even just children though.
Like from what I understand, developmental psychology is essentially
Correct me if I'm wrong.
You are tracking the norms for children to grow into successful adults and beyond.
Like you're basically tracking people through life
And these developmental psychologists are looking at how kids interact and then teenagers interact and then adults interact in their environment and how they grow and
Basically have like good relationships and healthy outcomes in life, is that Yes, that's a piece of it.
So I would say that's a piece of it
is that we're looking at yeah what is normal child development and making sure that the child's kind of like in line with what's normal for child development, given some like room for differences, right?
And temperament and all those things.
But the key piece, like I almost think about it as, you know, are plants that I never water.
Yes.
Oh I'm well aware.
Okay, so it's gotten I have plants in the house.
The writing joke amongst our friends is like, oh, I love how many plants you have.
Yeah, Jess doesn't touch them.
Scott waters them, right?
So think about our plants.
Every plant that we have has a potential to grow and develop into the plant that it's supposed to be.
But if the environment isn't right.
If the sun's not shining the way it's supposed to, right?
And every plant is different.
It's watered too much or not watered, the plant won't meet its full potential.
And that's essentially the same way that we're seeing kids and adults.
So the potential is there and the potential wants to unfold and kids want to grow and they want to develop and they want to mature.
But if the environment
isn't conducive or isn't right for them to be able to do that, they will be stunted at a certain spot or stop growing, like maturing.
And so we actually do see that a lot in let's say the preschool age and the toddler age.
That's really the time when we're teaching our kids to take on our calm, right?
Like so part of having the environment successful is they need a calm
caregiver and they need to learn how to calm themselves through repeated exposures to a called caregiver, right?
If a child doesn't
have that and then they reach the ages of five to seven where this is where they're supposed to start developing their ability to calm themselves like a little bit they still need some help but have they never had exposure to a calm caregiver cons
Consistently, we see that they can't mature to the five to seven age and they're stuck.
And a lot of kids end up getting stuck in kind of that toddler age of maturity in terms of dealing with their own emotions
That's not to say they can't grow past it.
It's to say that the environment wasn't conducive for them to grow past it.
People will say to me, well, when can I expect my kid to develop past this tantrum stage?
It's not like I can just say at five years old they're going to be better.
At seven years old, they're going to be better.
If the conditions are right, meaning they have that trusted adult and, you know, enough sleep, enough time for play, all of these things, they will grow and develop
And that's the theory of being a developmentalist.
And it means that we focus a lot more of our time and attention on making the conditions right than we do getting really worried about a specific behavior.
So for example, even potty, right?
The conditions are right for potty, and I could talk about all the things that make a condition right.
The child will learn how to go to the potty on their own.
They will.
They don't need like a 10-step program to do it.
They'll just do it.
And we don't worry so much about when exactly that's going to happen.
We just worry about making the conditions right
So that's the lens of a developmentalist, and that's why so much of what I do is not so nitpicky on like a certain behavior.
It's the greater picture.
Yeah, I think that makes sense.
So we've had two very well-known developmental psychologists over the past two previous episodes, which if you haven't listened, you should listen to them.
And they both use the term leader for our child.
Yeah.
First of all, why use the term leader at all?
Like why not just parent?
Why is that an important distinction for us?
And then second, if we're meant to be
the leader, what does true leadership actually look like in the busy, messy reality of family life?
Especially with
a child that's likely going to be pushing every single boundary.
So if we're talking about those angry children or defiant children, how can you actually be that leader?
Right.
That's a huge question.
I did notice that when we talked to Dr.
McNamara, she did talk a lot about leadership, but also being a provider.
So if provider fits nicer for you, then I think that's also a fine word to use.
I think there's nothing wrong with saying being the parent.
I think just right now in this modern landscape of parenting, people don't necessarily know what we're talking about.
And we say be a parent.
Right?
Because for some people that means no rules and boundaries.
For some people that means being really harsh.
Like it's just not as clearly defined.
When I think about being a leader, I think about the people I would look up to most.
as leaders in my life, right?
And who I wouldn't look up to as leaders.
And whenever I do a talk, I always give like this example of my first boss.
And I worked at a greenhouse, I was really young
and my first boss was a A, a yeller.
So he would just yell at us all the time.
We were little children essentially at the time.
We were like thirteen years old.
He would yell at us.
He would smoke cigarettes and like blow the cigarette smoke in our face.
He would always be drinking coffee.
He'd scare us, he'd like intentionally kind of sneak up behind us to see if we were working.
And then if we weren't, he would yell at us some more.
And to me, that person was not someone I respected or trusted.
And so when he was around under the threat of him blowing cigarette smoke in my face or yelling at me, I listened and I did what I was supposed to do because I was terrified of him.
him.
But when he wasn't there, not one person in that place respected him.
And so when he wasn't there, he was made fun of.
People broke plants when they weren't supposed to, like
They did a bunch of things that they shouldn't have been doing, but that's because they didn't respect their leader.
And then I think about another boss that I had whose name was Barry and when I worked
at the University of Guelph at the Center of Students with Disabilities, and he was a leader as well.
And when I made a mistake, he would coach me through it.
If there was something I had a hard time, he would make sure that I got the tools and training that I needed in order to do my job well.
And he treated me with respect and he was kind to everyone he worked with.
And you've never met a person there who didn't respect him.
And when he was not there, he was as respected as he was when he was there.
And I think about parenting in that same way
Like we want to be the leader who is like the berry.
We want to be the leader who gives our kids the tools that they need to thrive in their role as a child.
And we do that through respecting them and helping meet their needs
and getting their needs met without them having to engage in big behaviors and challenges and stuff in order to do that.
And we give them the training and we set the environment up.
Those are the things that a good leader does.
And that's how I kind of want us to view this.
Okay.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, I think it does.
The only thing that I think you missed out on was how do you do this, especially when the child is pushing against you, like they're defying you.
They're pushing the boundaries.
I always remember this quote and I don't know where this comes from, but kids who need love the most will ask for it in the most unloving ways.
And I think about kids who push back and who have big power struggles.
In my opinion, what these kids are asking for is for a parent to step back into a position of leadership.
Because often what happens is the kids that are pushing back on us the hardest.
They have become the ones that are in control of the house.
And what I mean by that is everybody in the house is walking on tiptoes around them, doing everything they can to keep them happy because they don't want to deal with the meltdown or the outburst
And the child ends up being in control of the house.
And so I think what parents need to remember is that to be the leader that that child needs
they need to step back into that provider or that leadership position and know that there's gonna be pushback from their child, like right, like if you're setting a boundary for the first time, they're gonna push back on you.
But they need you to be in a position of leadership and to be the one that's in charge and be the one making the rules and setting the dinner table and saying what time bedtime is.
Like they need that from you in order to feel safe and then let their guard down a little bit
Hey friends, so at pickup last week, our daughter asked Scott a truly kind of tricky question in front of her younger siblings.
Scott was telling me that when he heard a question like this, he used to panic, but this time he had a plan.
And he said to our daughter, thank you for asking.
Let's talk tonight when we've got privacy.
And that's a line that he learned straight from our new body safety and consent course at Nurture First.
So this new body safety and consent course is taught by me.
So
Jess, if you listen to this podcast, you know me.
I'm a child therapist and a mom of three, and I have taught body safety and consent education for years
This course takes all my years of experience teaching this education and gives you calm, age-appropriate language for body parts, consent, and boundaries.
You'll learn how to teach your kids that no means no, you'll learn how to teach them to read facial cues, you'll talk about safe and unfortunate.
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There's guidance inside this course for the real life stuff like tickling that goes too far and even the difference between a secret and a surprise
We made this course at Nurtured First because research shows that body safety education helps kids speak up sooner and we want that for our family, for Scott and I, but also for you.
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Yeah.
So I know we've in the past, I think we have posts on this and you've probably talked about it on social media too, but we've contrasted authoritative, like a warm structure type parenting, with authoritarian, which is like a cold control.
Type parenting, which in theory sounds very clear.
But in the heat of a meltdown or an argument with your child, and when a parent feels triggered
How can they actually embody warmth while holding a firm line on something?
What does that feel like for a parent and what internal shift is required?
Because I think that that's a pretty challenging thing.
for parents to do.
Still, you hold a boundary, you hold your line, but you do it with warmth and love.
Like how how does that actually come out in reality if you have your child who's
just screaming at you or throwing things or hitting your s their sibling.
I think one thing I like to teach parents is when their kids are having those moments, like they're losing their cool and you're feeling triggered, try to f
find something about them that reminds you of their littleness.
We feel like we've talked about that in another episode, haven't we?
Yeah, I think we have talked about that.
But like on your toddlers, find that their little pigtails or their little fingers or their hands or notice how they're the same height as the table.
you know, or your bigger kids, like they're still little too.
And I think what happens and part of why we get so triggered is that it's so loud, it's so overwhelming, and it makes us
feel make it literally signals to our body a fight or flight response, right?
And so your body isn't registering, this is actually just a seven-year-old in my own house who's losing their cool at me.
Your body's actually like, I gotta run away.
There's a real
threat or I gotta fight back because there's a real threat.
So you need to remind your brain and your body that you're actually safe right now.
And this is your child who you love who's having a really hard time.
How do you do that practically though?
Because when you're talking about fight or flight, like as you are aware, my initial instinct is to fight back.
That's just like what I had to do to survive as a kid, I had to fight back.
And that's still to this day, like I mean I'm not doing it anywhere even close to what I did before.
But I would say my immediate instinct when one of our kids is
what I think is being very irrational, which makes sense because they are being irrational.
They are being irrational, yeah.
Uh my immediate response is like an annoyance or anger.
And it's hard to I would say it's very hard to remind myself of these things.
Yeah
I think a few things.
First, you have to get in the practice of doing that when you're calm, right?
So you have to get into the practice of when you are in a regulated
state reminding yourself like even set like put a little reminder on your fridge or something like they're just little something like that just to get in the practice of reminding yourself of that when you are calm.
So hopefully it makes it a little easier to access that when you're dysregulated.
I think that that's a really important thing.
I think constantly remembering, just like you said, like these are children with immature brains.
And
they will be completely irrational.
That's their job.
Dr.
Deb said it best as she said toddlers qualify for basically every single mental health diagram.
Even though they're not mentally ill, right?
Like that's their job is to be completely irrational.
And so I think when we can remember that, that helps as well.
I think
The main thing though that I would want to encourage parents is like how you respond in those moments will set the stage for how your child responds in the future.
And there is something to be said of a lot of the angry kids that I work with have
parents who will report struggling with anger as well.
And if we are responding to our kids with yelling, being annoyed, being frustrated, being short, you know, grabbing their arm in a harsh way and like pulling them.
they will start to also respond in the same way.
And so a big call to action for parents is you can't expect your child to be calm if you can't provide that calm for them.
And I know that's way easier said than done, but sometimes like having that reality check reminder of wait, I yell at my kids all the time and I'm always frustrated with them.
How could I not expect that they're gonna yell at me and always be frustrated with me?
Right.
So sometimes that reality check does help parents be like, oh shoot, this is actually more about me and my anger.
And like you talked about my childhood and I have to process my own stuff.
Right.
Well, and a lot of the research that I was preparing with for this episode, it all suggested that it's important for you as the parent or the caregiver to be calm in those moments.
Because then that allows your child to learn how to act in a situation like that.
Yeah, what I might ask parents who come to my office and they want ten practical tools and then I say, Hey, let me ask you a deep insightful question instead.
I might say, hey, do you remember a time when you were a kid and you were angry?
And they might go, yeah.
And then I might say, okay, tell me about it.
And they describe a time they were angry, they were sent to their room, they were spanked for it, whatever it was, right?
I say, okay
Imagine being that child again, even draw it out.
How do you wish your parents would have responded to you?
And then often there's tears.
And then often it's like, I wish they would have just asked me what I was so angry about.
Or I wish they would have just sat on my bed with me and talked to me about it.
Or I wish we could have just gone for a walk and talked out.
I was angry, but actually I was just being bullied all day at school and that's why I came home and started yelling at my brother.
Right, there's always
something deeper that was going on for the parents that I worked with.
And then that deeper thing wasn't addressed with their parents.
And then they became angry.
And then to go back to the developmentalist.
standpoint, a lot of adults haven't developed their emotional maturity past these young ages because they never had someone to help them with that
Right.
So now you're an adult, you're trying to figure it out for the first time.
It's a lot.
Yeah, and I think we've talked about that before I've made comments before that statistically speaking
We receive the most angry messages from people who have purchased the anger toolkit from us.
Yeah.
It makes sense from what you're talking about that a lot of parents they're kind of passing that down, that trait down to their kids.
Yeah.
We legitimately see that in the responses that we get.
And it's not as though that that product is any different from like any worse or better than the other ones.
It's great, but it's just interesting to see that play out on a little bit larger scale.
Yeah.
And I want to say I have so much compassion for those parents, right?
Like I'm not passing any judgment because exactly what we were talking about, I think parents do well when they can too, just like kids can do well when they can.
Like
Ross Green says, right?
Like if parents haven't ever been given tools to deal with their own anger and now all of a sudden you have a three-year-old who makes absolutely no sense and is like chucking a bowl at your head because
you gave them the wrong cereal this morning, of course you're gonna respond with anger.
And we have to know that if that's how we respond, we have to expect that our kids are gonna also be angry and respond in the same way back
Yeah, I think that makes sense.
My idea or thesis for this episode was that there are a few key things that parents can do.
that will significantly impact the way they are a leader in their household and make them better and more effective as a parent.
So I've found a few key things that all of the developmental psychologists I looked into would agree on, I think.
And maybe you can help define what they mean and explain why this is helpful for parents.
So the first is uh felt safety and how felt safety is key, and that comes from Gordon Neufeld.
And I think for parents what's important is understanding like a child might be objectively safe.
So they live in a nice home, they have all their needs met, they do extracurriculars and they do lots of fun stuff and all of that they have food.
but they might not actually feel safe.
So what are the subtle and maybe not so subtle ways parents accidentally make their child feel unsafe emotionally, which triggers that defensiveness or that anger or that defiance.
So some ways we can make our kids feel unsafe emotionally without realizing we're doing it.
Yes, and then how like how can we flip that script?
One of the things I think parents do without realizing that this is making their child feel unsafe is they are keeping their children incredibly busy.
I think this is one of the most under-talked about issues right now
is kids are so busy.
So for example, they go to school all day and then every night there's like a different extracurricular weekends are filled
with playdates.
You and I have talked about this on the show before, but when kids are so busy, that means it's taking away from something and it's taking away from A, their time to rest.
which is to simply exist without demands, not sleep, but just exist without demands.
And when we can rest, existing without demands.
Kids can play and our children need time to process what's happening in their life through play.
It's very essential for their development and their growth.
And they miss out on quality time with their parents
Right, you might think you're with your child, but really you're bringing them in then they're with their coach or they're with their teammates or they're with their friends.
And when we keep kids so busy, they lose that togetherness with their parents
So I think that is one way that parents who are good and kind and have the best intentions for their kids and they wonder why their kids are so angry.
that is an area that they can look into and wonder to themselves, maybe they're too busy and we need to take some things off of our plates.
I think another thing that can unintentionally lead to anger in a child is a parent who has a very difficult time holding their boundaries.
So for example, you know, you say, okay, you have one show and then we're going to turn it off.
Then it comes time to turn it off and the child says, no, I don't want to turn it off.
And the parent goes,
Okay, fine, one more show, one more show, one more show.
But then the next day when you say it's time to turn it off, they have a huge meltdown and start getting angry and screaming.
It's because they don't trust your boundary.
Right.
They know that, hey, if I'm loud enough, my parents are gonna let me watch more shows or whatever it is that the boundary is not being firm on.
If you look at how behavior is even reinforced, right?
So if one day you say to your kid, I'm gonna turn off the TV, and then you don't, and you let them watch three more episodes.
And then the next day you say you have to turn off the TV and you end up letting them watch two more.
And then the next day, no, you have to turn it off and then you turn it off and then they have the biggest explosive meltdown.
They're not being able to rest in your leadership.
Right, because they don't know if you're gonna change your mind or not on your boundary.
So that's another thing.
That sounds like something I've done though.
Yeah, most parents have done this to some degree.
But you have to understand like
Okay, once in a while changing your mind on a show, sure.
But if your child consistently expects you to not hold firm to your boundaries based on their emotional response
What they're gonna do is not just the next time be like, yeah, no problem, I'll turn off the TV.
They're just gonna up their emotional response
Right.
And then if that doesn't work, they're gonna up it.
And they're gonna up it.
And all of a sudden we have these angry kids and these parents who say, I'm trying to set rules, but they don't listen to me.
We have to tune in with how firm and consistent are you with your boundaries?
Because if you're not
And as soon as they have an emotional reaction, you let the boundary go, they can't rest in your leadership.
I feel like there is a key distinction there though
I feel like you have to define what a good versus bad boundary is because I feel like I've heard some parents kind of almost threaten their child with their boundary.
Like if
If you don't do do this, then you're gonna go straight to your room and to bed.
Yeah, that would be a threat.
Right.
But that also kind of sounds like a boundary.
Like you're setting a boundary.
If you don't do this thing, then here's the consequence to that action.
have to go to your room and you have to go to bed right away.
Yeah, I hear you.
Here's a shift that's really helped me when boundary setting with our kids.
I now make boundaries that I can effectively enforce myself.
And the kids have to do nothing.
So for example, let's go back to the TV situation.
It's okay, you can watch one show and then I'm going to turn off the TV.
And it I'm not putting it on them.
And this is again stepping into the leadership role.
I go ahead and I turn off the TV.
I'm never expecting a child with an immature brain to take over and like make the right decision in that situation.
My job is to be the mature brain and make the right decision.
And so I think with boundaries, parents can get stuck in, you have to do this or else this.
But they're expecting a small child with a brain who hasn't developed logic or reasoning or anything to make the right choice.
Again, you're setting your child up to
probably make the wrong choice and then get in trouble.
So instead if you can try to focus your boundaries more on something that you can do, like I'm going to bring you up for bed at 7 o'clock tonight.
That's the time that we're going to bed and we're gonna get ready for bed.
Instead of when you see the clock at seven o'clock, you need to go get ready for bed.
So it's like little tweaks that we can do that help us be the leader and teach our children how to make these decisions.
themselves.
Okay.
I think that makes sense.
Cool.
The next tool is collect before you direct.
Beautiful.
And the keys to connect first.
Yeah.
Can you give a real life example?
What does this look like when a child is mid-tantrum actively rejecting any connection that you're trying to give them?
And where does a parent even begin with this?
So I'll say the collect before direct is good for tantrums, but that is definitely a tool that you want to use proactively.
So the collect before direct, I think about like mornings are usually com
Chaos.
You know, you're trying to get kids ready for school out the door and lunch is made, backpacks, blah, blah, blah.
And then you yell at your kid from across the room, right?
Hey, so-and-so.
Put on your coat.
They're not listening to you.
They're playing Barbies on the floor, right?
Like stop playing Barbies and put on your coat.
They're not listening to you
And then you think to yourself, oh my goodness, I have such a frustrating child.
Like just put on your coat.
It's not that hard.
And then you yell at them, right?
Speaking from experience.
Do you yell?
No, not that I yell.
Not that I yell, but I get frustrated with them, right?
The better alternative would be to take
That same amount of time, go to your child, sit on the floor beside them while they play their Barbies, and say, Wow, what you playing right now?
Oh, I'm playing Barbies
Oh cool, what are the Barbies doing?
And then they tell you, okay, so just want to let you know it's time to put the Barbies down and start getting our coats on.
Do you think you can do that with me?
You can even hold one Barbie in your hand while you
your coat on.
Boom.
Now we've collected with them.
We've got their attention.
We've got their eyes.
We've smiled at them.
They feel seen by us.
And then they will be more cooperative and want to work with us.
That's the collect before direct and it is huge.
And often if parents just start doing that, like even at the playground.
I remember I started doing that with our
oldest 'cause she hated to leave the playground to so much FOMO.
She wanted to stay there forever.
And it changed everything when I would start
Hey, what you doing?
Oh, you playing with the the steering wheel?
Oh, you pretending it's a ship?
Yeah, mommy, it's a ship.
Cool.
Oh my goodness.
Oh, I see a crocodile, whatever.
And then, okay, just so you know, one more minute, it changes everything.
In the moment of a tantrum, it can be a little harder because your child's brain is often not hearing all the words you're saying, so
in the moment of a tantrum or big angry outburst, you're not going to be saying tons of stuff because it's just more overwhelming.
But you'd still get on their level before you start telling them what to do.
And even with the tantruming child, right?
Like imagine getting on their level, putting your hands out, holding their little hands and they're freaking out.
Hey, I see you.
I see you're having a hard time right now.
Yeah, oh, you really wanted the cup.
Yeah, I totally get that.
I want to help you out, okay?
Do you think you can come with mommy?
We're we're gonna go walk over to the other room.
Let's go sit together in a chair
It's simple.
It calms you.
Your calming voice, your quiet voice helps to calm them, and then you can get them moving and you can go somewhere else.
Sounds great.
Do you feel regulated me to say that?
I do, yes.
I feel very regulated right now with how calm you were to me.
I wish you would always talk to me.
I have two more.
Okay.
Emotion coaching.
So I think this is from the Gottman Institute.
Yep.
John Gottman.
Validating feelings before
for setting limits.
Where do parents get this wrong potentially?
And is there a risk of validating too much, inadvertently excusing poor behavior?
So how do you teach parents to navigate that fine line?
Yeah, we want to remember that both are important, right?
I think in the current trends, validating feelings maybe becomes more important than the boundary, but we have to remember we need to be the leader our child needs, right?
And the leader our child needs
sets boundaries so that they don't hurt themselves or others.
That keeps them safe.
And so parents need to remember setting boundaries like I'm gonna hold your hand so you don't hit your sister.
Right?
That keeps them safe because they don't actually want to hurt someone else.
And when they do hurt someone else, they feel shame.
And then they have more anger.
So it just becomes a cycle
So I would say where we go wrong with validating feelings is if we leave it there.
And then we're leaving our child to figure out their behavior on their own.
So they have to be paired together.
But validating feelings and setting a boundary would be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, I see you're having such a hard time.
Oh my goodness, really, you're having a hard time controlling your body right now.
I see that.
And man, you're angry.
You really didn't want your sister to take your toy.
I hear you
Why don't I hold your hands for a minute until your body is feeling safe again?
And then we're gonna go talk to your sister about the toy.
Something like that.
So that we're doing both.
We're keeping them physically safe and emotionally.
We're validating their feeling and they know that we get it
Mm-hmm.
I think that makes sense.
Alright.
If a parent listening today feels completely overwhelmed, exhausted.
And maybe even like they are failing potentially.
What is one piece of actionable hope or something?
The first small step you would offer them right now, based on everything we've discussed?
The grace
that you give yourself and the compassion that you give to yourself will pour out into the compassion that you can give your kids.
So if you can't extend grace to yourself to say, look, I've had a hard day.
It's been really tough.
And
I know I want to do better and tomorrow is, you know, we're gonna have a fresh start.
If you can't give that grace to yourself, it's really hard to give that grace to your kids.
So I want parents to know that they don't have to do things perfect.
You don't have to say things exactly the way I say it.
Give yourself some grace.
And then think about that little child inside of you who maybe wasn't allowed to feel your emotions or who was sent to their room to be alone and keep asking yourself, what did I need as a kid?
Because likely that's the same thing that you need now and your kid needs now as well.
Yep.
And just to add to that, the research does tend to agree with what you're saying.
So I think that's an important point that you made.
Yeah.
The harder we are on our ourselves, we end up taking that out on our kids.
And so give yourself grace.
Remember you don't have to do it perfect.
And that will translate to the way that you treat your children.
Yeah, being a parent is not about being perfect.
Leaders make mistakes, parents make mistakes.
It's about being consistent over the long term
Yeah.
Yeah, it's about consistent.
Yeah, and you might backtrack a little bit and do something wrong and then do it better the next time after that.
It's okay to have to repair with your child too.
Yeah, I was gonna say remember that apologies are there just for that reason.
And it's beautiful to model apologizing to your kid.
And that might be the thing that you never had when you were a kid was an apology.
So even that is progress.
So take note of those little things that you do that make you the leader of your home.
And remember that when you make these little changes that Scott and I were talking about today.
It will bring you closer in relationship with your child as well, which makes parenting feel more fulfilling and just it makes things better overall.
So there's a lot of hope.
And I'm so glad that we could hopefully offer some of that to you today
Hey friends, thank you so much for listening to today's episode.
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