Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
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.
Good morning, Mr.
Scott.
Morning.
I'm tired.
Are you?
Yeah.
I was up at like four in a thunderstorm.
Oh, we had the craziest thunderstorm last night.
I actually thought it was pretty cool.
Yeah, it was very loud so
Couldn't sleep.
I can't believe the girls all slept through that.
That was yeah, that was wild.
That was pretty crazy.
It was like every two seconds, every three seconds, something like that.
It was I can't remember the last time I saw a thunderstorm like that.
Like that was next level.
Our street looked like it was a river
Just flowing right through.
It's like a flash flood.
Yeah.
But you were up really early.
Yep.
There was definitely a four on the clock.
There was a four.
I I can't believe I fell back asleep.
Yeah.
Well, you seem to have that skill.
You've always had that skill.
Yeah, maybe.
I was mad though, because it was the first night in a while that no one had woken me up
And then the weather.
Yeah, then of course the weather.
Of course.
Of course the weather did it.
Anyways, let's dive in to today's topic that I think every parent, including us, grapples with, which is impulse control.
Yes.
I've been like waiting for this day.
I'm really excited.
Honestly, the research that I was looking into, we were going to, just for people listening, we were going to record this already like four or five days ago
But the amount of information on this is overwhelming.
And I needed more time.
Yeah.
And I was also super interested in it.
Like this could be, I think I said to you, like a 10
Ten episode series on impulse control just because of all the brain development and developmental psychology research has been done in the field
So you'll have to let us know if you're listening and you're like, I want more because we want to give you more.
But let's just see how this goes today.
And you can tell us.
The most interesting points.
But Scott and I are both fascinated and
So excited to talk about this.
So I want you to explain why we decided to do an episode on this, but first, before you explain why.
Could you, in everyday terms for our listeners, define what impulse control is and why is understanding its development so crucial for parents who are trying to nurture their kids and frankly keep their
Sanity.
So good.
Okay.
I think most of us can understand to a degree what impulse control is, right?
Like so there's something that our body wants.
So whether it's our brain or our body, there's something that we want
to do right and often for kids it's a movement so it's it's this feeling that comes up in their in their body to say I need to hit my brother
or I wanna run really fast away from my parent.
Right.
And it's not even this conscious thought process.
That's why understanding that brain development is so important because our kids don't have the ability at this young age to be so reflective, to think
I want to hit my brother, but I'm not going to.
They don't have that reflective ability.
Their brain hasn't developed that yet.
So they're just purely controlled by their impulses.
So that's why we see a baby, they have the impulse or the need to get comfort, let's say.
And they don't think to themselves
I wonder what would happen if I cry.
Like would that bother my mom?
Like they don't care.
They just cry, right?
The impulse is there and they just do it.
Same with a toddler who's hitting, right?
They don't think, oh, I wonder if it will hurt my brother when I hit him
They just have the impulse to hit and so they hit.
So our little children, I'm talking kind of under the age of five, are just run by their impulses.
And then as they get a little bit older, and I'm sure we'll talk about this, they start to develop more of the ability to reflect.
And as they develop the ability to reflect, the logic, the reasoning, then they can start to control their impulses.
But we see these little toddlers and they're just run by it.
And I think we have to understand the brain science that they can't, for the most part, control their own impulses.
And that's where the parents come in
But even parents, we have impulses, right?
Like sometimes I sit at a light and Scott and I joke about this a lot.
Like we have funny impulses sometimes too, right?
If I'm sitting in the car and I'm at a red light
And the second it turns green, I have an impulse to honk at the person in front of me.
I'm like, let's go.
That's something you've always had.
I've always had that impulse.
And it's like every time You don't do it.
I don't do it though.
You have the control
But my th my brain says, let's honk at that person, let's go, right?
Or sometimes, you know, if I were to stand next to a pool and I see Scott standing right next to the pool.
Like, I just want to push you in.
Like the impulse would be, I just gotta push this guy in, right?
And you probably have the same is mutual.
Yeah.
And so even as adults, we have these impulses, right?
Or like, hey, we're mad and like our impulse is like we want to hit someone too.
But we have hopefully more control
over those impulses because we also have the ability to reflect.
The part of our brain called the prefrontal cortex is more developed.
But I think where kids are really misunderstood is we just assume they should just know how to control their impulses and we don't see them as these tiny humans or
who are completely run by them.
Is that uh good enough description to get started?
That's pretty good.
Yeah.
Now can you explain, or maybe I can, why we even
wanted to have this episode.
It was quite funny.
Okay, well, two reasons.
First, I've been asked about impulse control for forever.
Okay, so
This is not something new to me to think about.
It's more situational though.
Like we decided this is the the next one we were gonna do, mostly because of the situation last weekend.
So our five-year-old is just starting to learn how to regulate her impulses.
She's doing a pretty good job, right?
She actually does a great job.
She was a very impulsive and I think when you're highly sensitive
There might be more sensory impulses, and I'm sure we'll talk about that.
But she was like very had a lot of impulsive random behavior as a toddler, preschooler, but she's doing really good.
All of a sudden the other day, it was like the end of the day, she was quite tired, had a really busy day, and she's on her bike, and you can almost see it in her eyes, like the impulse is taking over, and she just runs her bike full speed into Scottsdad
Like just out of nowhere.
And she even shocked herself.
Yeah, we were all shocked.
Everyone was shocked.
And she was happy, she was fine.
All of a sudden she just locked eyes at Scott's dad and I could see it
Yeah, we all kind of like looked at her while she was she aimed her bike.
She's still on she's still using training wheels.
So she was just sitting on her bike.
She aimed it at my dad, and then all of a sudden got this look in her eye and then just went for it
Full speed.
And I mean it was whatever, two or three meters away.
So it's not like she was going like full speed, maybe a bit a bit dramatic.
She was Well she would've, but she had said it was very short distance.
Yeah, it was a short distance.
And I I bet if it was a longer distance she would have stalked herself.
Yep.
But it was such a short distance and the thought just popped in her head, I should just run into into my grandfather.
This would be kind of fun.
And then she just did it.
And Scott and I look at each other and I think maybe years ago you'd have been like
Why would she do that?
You know, that's wrong.
Like that's so bad.
Maybe you went with our oldest before you really understood all of these things.
And and I think a lot of parents would blame the child, right?
Like, how could you do that
But we looked at it and we just all of us, even your dad, just started like chuckling, like, yeah, impulse control.
Yeah.
I think I was the one who said that out loud.
Yeah, you said that out loud.
If this isn't a case study for uh
Impulse control.
Children and uh they're developing impulse control.
And does that mean we don't say anything?
No.
Like we still say something.
It was hilarious.
Just seeing her
put her bike in a certain position, lock eyes with my dad, and then just go for it.
Yeah.
And then all of a sudden afterwards she was like a look of surprise on her face.
Like, what did I just do?
Yeah.
Like it's she was fully taken over by her impulses and I feel like we could tell countless stories of our own children and the moments where that reflective ability, the stopping and pausing just wasn't there, especially when they were as they were littler
You know, our three year old still is definitely in that that space where an onlooker could say, well, that's misbehaving, but when you truly understand what's going on, you realize just a child with no impulse control
Mm-hmm.
So many stories.
I mean I feel like it would be fun to get listener stories of like the lack of impulse control.
That would be really funny.
Anyway, continue on.
This is so that's where Scott and I
We're talking later and thinking to ourselves, we should really do an episode, because this is an interesting topic.
And there's so many times we look at each other and we just go
Well, I think we've talked about it before where the same daughter.
Was she mad?
Or she was grumpy or something like that.
Like she was tired.
And we had a bag of bread open for like their their school lunches that we were making.
And she just
had the impulse to shove her foot and squeeze her toes inside of the sort of talk about sensory seeking, right?
Inside of the bag of bread and just touch the bread with her toes.
And we walk in and her foot's in a bag of bread and she's squeezing the bread with her toes.
And Scott and I look at each other like, okay, impulse control, you know, and for a sensory seeker, sometimes it's pretty funny, the things that they do.
Like that was it's hard to get mad at them when they do something like that just because it's And she was probably two at the time.
Yeah.
She's two and her bag is
I I told her that story recently and she thought it was hysterical.
Yeah.
And she's like, I kind of still want to do that.
Like, yeah, I get it.
I feel like a lot of people probably would feel good about sticking their foot in a bag of bread.
So anyway
Just so we have a more nuanced discussion on this, I found this idea of functional impulsivity.
So where it's essentially not all quick, less thought-out actions are necessarily negative.
Right.
So I we want to embrace that complexity, I think.
So how can we as parents differentiate between a concerning lack of impulse control or helping them develop impulse control and a moment of
positive spontaneity or boldness in our kids.
Because I feel like impulse control like it's beneficial for social interactions and for safety and all that kind of stuff.
But there's also a I think a level of impulsivity that's
maybe helpful for being spontaneous and bold and creative and that kind of stuff.
That is such a good question.
Because I've been th I was thinking about that approaching this episode today too.
Right.
I think a lot of the conversation around impulse control is how do we get our kids to control their impulses, right?
And of course, you don't want your kid
hitting people for the rest of their life or being rude or just saying the blurting out the first thing that comes to their mind, right?
And I think that's where it's dysfunctional.
Right, you see a toddler who has no impulse control and they need their parent to teach them how to control those impulses.
Otherwise they turn into that
school age child who's still hitting and still blurting out mean things or you know saying the first thing that comes to their mind and I'm sure we'll get into this, but like impulse control and neurodiversity often go hand in hand too.
Like
That's when you see often the kids who are not starting to develop that in that five to seven age.
But at the same time, how many of us lost our ability to just be bold and just say the thing that we feel
or ask for what we need without completely overthinking it.
So I feel like there is a wisdom to being able to just be like the baby who cries when they're sad and asks for what they need.
and not turn our kids into these people who are these overthinkers and can't ask for what they need and control their impulses so much that they never actually do what they need to do or it stifles their creativity
I think it that is such an important differentiator.
And so what I would say in terms of how do we get there, we have to kind of know what our role is as parents, right?
So our role is not to shut down any impulse that our child has
Right.
Our our goal is to teach and guide our kids always.
And so when you see maybe a more maladaptive impulse, right?
So you have the toddler who's hitting their baby sibling and they can't seem to control that impulse, we want to help shape.
that behavior in a different way, right?
So you have the impulse to hit and maybe that comes from excitement or that comes from this energy in your body.
But we want to shape that impulse so maybe the hitting goes to soft hands.
Or the hitting goes into turning it into a bear hug for yourself or the hitting goes into giving your mom a high five instead, right?
So we can shape
that impulsive behavior so that there's a yes there.
And at the same time, we want to be mindful of not trying to shape or stop the behavior that's actually important for kids for creativity, right?
So the impulse to like go get a whole bunch of crayons and just like make something, right?
Or the impulse to say how they're feeling.
Like that's important that they say how they're feeling, but we can kind of shape how they do that in a healthy way
So I see our role more as people to teach and guide and shape and help these become really healthy things versus just like stopping them altogether.
Yeah.
I think that's a great answer to the question because in the research
It was suggesting or saying that parents and you've said this before too, parents are essentially the external prefrontal cortex, which is the part of the brain that helps with logic and reasoning.
And
Also children this is something interesting that I never knew.
But apparently children grow neurons very quickly and their brain is not necessarily everything is connected to everything, but there's a lot more connections happening in the brain and it's
hard for them to stop some of those impulse like it's literal electrical impulses happening in the brain.
It's hard for them to stop those because there's so many of them.
And so the parents as the external
prefrontal cortex, you are showing them how to respond in different situations, but if you're just shutting them down or
that is gonna end up being how their brain wires eventually.
So it's important to help them develop the right neural
Pathways because I guess there's I can't remember exactly what the term is called, but there's something I think it was neural pruning or something like that, where as they get older
some of the impulse connections in the brain, so the neural connections in the brain, start pruning away and they're left with the strongest pathways.
And the caregiver, the people that they spend the most time with
are the ones that help them strengthen those connections in the brain and then the other ones are prun kind of pruned away.
They atrophy and they don't really work anymore.
And it would take a little bit longer for them to grow back if
But I just found that interesting where kids actually have and it kind of makes sense.
First of all the prefrontal cortex is not super well developed.
I mean it was looking like
it can take into like the mid-20 range for it to be fully developed.
Yeah.
So teens, teen parents need to be aware of that too.
Well so there's an interesting thing about
Teens and we can get into that more, but there's emotional parts of the brain and there's logical and reasoning parts of the brain and during they think it's due to
pubertal hormones, the emotional part of the brain.
They're still both developing, but that portion of the brain, and I can't remember which I have to look again, but
that part of the brain just develops at a much faster rate.
So then their emotions are able to take over more easily when they're going through puberty and in their teen years until
their prefrontal cortex starts to catch up and surpasses it is so important for t tween parents and teen parents to know that.
Because the number one thing like and I've been obsessed with tweens lately.
Like I'm just I can't stop
researching them and thinking about them because I feel like no one's talking about that age.
But it's one of the biggest transitions of your entire life is going through that stage, right?
And we don't give it enough attention
And what happens and what's happening in our practice is all these tween boys and these tween girls with these massive emotional outbursts and impulsive behavior.
And everyone's like, what the heck?
Like where did my sweet innocent little boy go or my sweet little girl
W what we don't understand is their emotional brain, like there's so much activation going on in there.
There's new hormones and their emotions are on fire.
Like there's just so much going on.
And at the very same time, like you said
the logical brain is not caught up yet.
So we have a fire ball of emotion without logic and reasoning.
So what does that look like for parents of tweens?
huge emotional outbursts in the home.
And what do we typically do?
Respond to that with our own anger and our own frustration.
And it just becomes the wildfire.
I think we can get into that 'cause I actually I forgot that I wrote I wrote these questions already earlier this week.
Yeah, yeah.
I want to talk about each of the developmental stages and like the importance of things that we how we as caregivers interact with our kids.
So we talked about the prefrontal cortex, and uh again that's the part of the brain that's mainly used for like logic and reasoning.
I mean it's used for all sorts of different things and it's connected with everything else, but it's the portion at the front of your head.
that seems to take the longest to fully develop.
And then once you hit the mid-20 range, then it slows down development.
It's not it hasn't stopped.
You can still build it and everything.
It just takes longer.
So how does this slow development of the prefrontal cortex show up, do you think, in
everyday family life and what does this mean for our expectations of children, teens?
What I like to tell my clients is that children are born with all of the emotions, but no tools to know how to deal with them.
Right.
So you're born with this rich emotional life.
For babies it looks like everything pretty much looks like crying.
And then you go into the toddler years and it looks like anger.
Crying, confusion, like all these emotions.
Oh, and happiness.
And happiness and joy and smiling.
Like all of these things.
And that's important.
We're born with all these emotions, right?
But what we aren't born with is fully developed prefrontal cortexes, like you were just saying.
And that's where the ability to reflect comes in, the ability to regulate our own emotions, and the ability to think reasonably and logically comes in.
So you have to picture that our little children are these very emotional beings as they should be, but they don't have all these other skills.
And this starts to develop with healthy modeling and support from parents around the ages of five to seven.
So we call that the shift.
If you've listened to the podcast a long time, you've heard us talk about the five to seven shift
But we start to see a little more logic and reasoning, but it's not full out, a little bit more in the tween years, but then we add in that puberty that we were just talking about.
So then we actually see even more emotions again in those years.
And then
It continues to develop the logic and reasoning.
And again, it has to develop with a calm caregiver being the model and the guide into those early 20s and sometimes mid-20s.
And that it only develops with that guide
So a lot of people just have never really developed logic and reasoning because they didn't have the guide, right?
And of course that's gonna have a huge interplay in the home when especially
parents when they're not understanding that and we're expecting a a baby you kind of expect to be illogical, but I think as they become children, we often start to place our own adult expectations on our kids and think you should have thought of that logically or you should have been more reasonable about that.
I feel, and this is just a theory, my own theory, but I think that parents feel as though, let's say, a three-year-old should be able to understand a lot more because they're able to speak.
And they're able to say certain things.
Meanwhile, a year before they couldn't really say a ton.
Like they said a few words maybe and that
But uh they couldn't speak in full sentences or you couldn't understand what they were telling you most of the time.
And all of a sudden they can speak to you and tell you what they want.
So you
I feel like the expectations are exponential.
All of a sudden you're they can talk more clearly and then your expectations because they can speak
are like, well this child should know better.
If they can speak then they should know better, right?
Totally.
And we forget that okay, oh just a year ago they couldn't even talk.
I I think it's so easy to forget that.
And that comes from our own experiences and our own beliefs about children and all those things that we've talked about before.
So it
The way it shows up in the home, I think, is two things.
First, depending on the parents' expectations of the kids, we can get really frustrated with our kids.
And it is frustrating, even if you know that they have no impulse control, but we can get really frustrated and angry at them for their lack of impulse control.
And then be a little bit unreasonable, A in our expectations and B in our discipline.
And also this is where most like older forms of discipline don't take any child development into
account.
Like I even think about timeouts.
Like you put a toddler in timeout and you're expecting them to reflect on what just happened and like, yeah, I guess I shouldn't have hit my brother.
When like their brain literally doesn't have the ability to do that
It's not developed to be capable of doing that at that point.
Yeah.
So a lot of these other m methods of discipline are rooted in behavior change, but they're not rooted in child development.
And I think that's really important to just be aware of.
Yeah.
I think that's
That makes sense.
We can just briefly skim over this, but so there are several executive functions that your brain handles for you.
So there's working memory, right?
So being able to use like memory short term for the thing that you need at like work, whatever, inhibitory control or impulse control.
And
cognitive flexibility, so being able to like think from multiple sides of an argument.
And though they're often described as essential building blocks for self-regulation in general.
And what I was finding was that if
a child is struggling with any one of those things, it can affect all of them.
So if a child for whatever reason has poor cognitive flexibility, then
That usually means that their inhibitory control or their impulse control is going to be affected.
Their memory will be affected.
It's like it's a whole system working together.
So I just found that interesting.
It's not necessarily a question, but
It is interesting.
It's fascinating actually.
There's a ton of neuroscience, neurodevelopment that I was reading that we can't get into, but I just find that interesting.
So if you're noticing like your child
struggles with impulse control and working memory and c like flexibility, so being very stuck on things.
It could be any one of those things that's causing the others to not function the way they maybe should
But let's get into the developmental stages.
We've kind of skimmed over this a bit, but uh I want to talk about for infancy or zero to two years, I'm calling that infancy
Caregiver co-regulation, so being the external prefrontal cortex for your child, is highlighted in a lot of the research as being incredibly critical.
So what does this look like in practice for exhausted new parents?
And how does this co-regulation, almost like the parent as being the external prefrontal cortex, lay the groundwork for safety and trust with that child?
Yeah, I think this is huge.
And if parents can understand one thing about the toddler years and their role, it is it's your job is to be the logic and reasoning and calm that your child can't be
Yeah.
Right.
It's literally helping the their brain develop that.
So if they see it, they will develop it more quickly even.
Yes.
And to mature, right?
So if we talk about a brain maturing, it requires repeated exposures to that calm and logical.
caregiver.
So your job basically to really simplify it down is just to ask yourself, what would I rather my child be doing in this situation, right?
So for most parents, they would rather their child not be screaming in their face, to simply tell them what they're feeling and to not hit their sibling, for example.
Right.
So all I think about when I think about how do I respond to this behavior, I just think, well, what do I want my kid to do?
Well, I want them to tell me how they feel and not hit their sibling.
So instead of
doing something completely unrelated, which is traditional discipline, and doesn't actually teach them any new skills, right?
I just would go in and say
the exact words I would want my child to eventually say.
You're really mad right now.
You really wanted that toy.
Your sister has it.
That's all I say.
And then they scream and shout and
either agree with me or not, but you know, if I know what's going on, I'll I'll say, yeah, that's really hard.
You're really mad.
I just say exactly what it is that's going on, just narrate it out.
And I just let them have their feelings about it because they can't.
They're not gonna get calm and logical right now.
They just have to have their feelings.
It won't be possible for them to internalize that.
Necessarily even in the moment.
Yeah.
And then what I do is I create safety.
So number one, narrating feelings, but not saying too much.
I think far too often parents say way too much in those moments.
What do you mean?
Like I narrate it once or twice
Like you're having a really hard time, you really wanted that toy and your sister has it.
But I don't keep going.
I don't keep saying it.
And I think a lot of parents will keep saying it or they'll be like
What's wrong?
What's wrong, sweetie?
Why are you so sad?
Why are you so upset?
And like expecting again logic and reasoning, like they're gonna tell you they don't know, right?
So our job just narrate it, but the more noise you add
Also to the brain science, it floods your child's brain with even more, and then they're just crying and screaming longer.
Okay, so you say it once, then I just I think to myself, what do I want them to do?
be calm.
So I just try and be the calm as calm as I possibly can.
And then what do I want them to do?
Not hit.
Okay, so if they're hitting, then I'm either holding their hands just gently so that they stop hitting.
or I'm standing between them and the other child so that they can't hit, or I'm just moving them to a different room so they can't hit.
And what I think that does is
It simplifies things down for parents.
It's not about the perfect script.
It's not about exactly like do this exact same thing every time.
It's literally just about what do you want them to eventually do
do that thing.
And to me that makes it so much easier because in every situation where our kids are acting logical like that, it might be a little different what it is I want them to do.
But what I have found is that repeatedly doing that, and it's not once or twice, it's literally like hundreds of times.
Yeah.
I mean it's through we're talking about zero to two years old.
I mean this is
uh worth doing even past that.
But Yeah, even I mean in the teen years, same thing.
They're not necessarily going to be able to comprehend what you're saying in that time, but they may be able to comprehend the feelings that you're sort of instilling in them
And the safety that you're instilling in them in that time.
And what I found with our own children is that they start hitting four or five, all of a sudden they're saying the same words.
Yep.
I'm really mad right now.
I wanted that toy, but they're not hitting.
Right.
And then that that turns into mom, she took my toy.
I'm mad.
Without the yelling and the crying.
And so you see these small steps towards them actually taking on that calm and logic.
that you've been giving them.
But I think parents need to remember that it's a process, it's a long-term game, and the behavioral approaches to these types of impulsive meltdowns and behaviors
feel like you're doing something really important in the moment, right?
Like when you send them to their room, we s you ground them, or you send them to timeout, you feel like, okay, I'm doing it.
But what those approaches miss is you're not teaching them how to actually be calm and logical and reasonable.
And that's the key thing we need to do.
Right.
I think that's a great explanation.
So let's move into the early childhood years, so two to six range.
We often see a dramatic advancement in self-regulation.
So you talk about the five to seven shift.
But even before that, especially around the age of three, you can start seeing a bit more ability for children to control their impulses.
So games like Simon says are often mentioned actually in the research
as being helpful.
So what are some ways parents can playfully support this new skill without it feeling like a drill session?
Love.
Yeah.
Paige who works for us.
We were just saying that we did a post a while back on impulse control and we talked about Simon says, Mother May I, what time is it, Mr.
Wolf, these games that you can play with red light, green light.
Red light, green light, these games you can play with your kids.
in a really fun and playful way.
I play these games with our kids.
Now that's nice.
So we like go outside and play this all the time.
But what it does is it teaches your child's body how to start and stop.
And that's the big thing that they don't know how to do yet.
So around that age that you were just talking about is a great time to start playing start and stop games.
Or even duck duck goose, right?
Where they have to run but then they have to stop and sit down again.
And what you don't realize when you're actually playing those games with your kids is that you're teaching them
how to start and stop their bodies, but they're doing it in a fun way.
So above and beyond the being calm and the narrating all of that stuff, playing start and stop games
can be really, really helpful in starting to develop that ability to control those impulses.
Yeah.
I found that quite interesting that even in these
large studies they're talking about these games like Simon says in red light, green light.
Again, it's so simple.
It's things that we're probably already doing, but you don't even realize that you're helping your child with impulse control.
100%.
Okay, for middle childhood, so I define that as six to twelve years old, kids start to use logic and metacognition
So metacognition is like thinking about your thinking.
So you're able to think at a slightly higher level.
So how can parents leverage this growing ability to help these school-aged kids understand and manage their impact
impulses, perhaps related to schoolwork, friends, or following more complex rules at home.
Because we can we can definitely see this in our oldest, that she's able to
think about the situations that happen at school and then even question her thinking a little bit on how she's interacting with friends and all that.
Like it's quite interesting to see an eight-year-old being capable of doing that
I think the one way we can really support them in this age is A, like remembering that they're still learning it.
And so even though your child may, for the most part, actually be getting pretty good at controlling their impulses
they're still little and their brain's still gonna occasionally just do something that's really impulsive.
Yeah.
Right?
But the key thing is we want to teach reflection.
So we want to teach like what you're talking about the metacognition, we want to teach
the ability to think about your actions.
And eventually then they take that on.
But I was thinking about a great example.
So our daughter, we've done this with her since she was born, our oldest.
Like we've been very reflective, narrating all of these things.
So she's eight.
And the other day I picked her up from school early, thinking this is gonna be great.
She's gonna be so happy that I picked her up early.
What a special treat on a Friday afternoon
Well, she was pissed off at me.
She was so mad that I picked her up and I could do a quick curiosity checklist in my head, like, okay, she's tired.
It's been a really long week.
She's hot.
It was a hot day
And I was like, okay, just gonna give her some time.
She can be grumpy with me and we'll talk about this later.
And then later, so she was so mad.
Like literally, you're the worst mom.
I'm so embarrassed with you.
Why would you do this?
How dare you?
You have to buy me this book that we are reading in class now because you pick me up so like she was so mad.
All this impulsive words that I know she doesn't believe about me, right?
But I just said, You're just mad, hun.
We'll talk about this later.
And I did not get into like the
correction of her words and I figured we'll talk about it later.
Later, she came up to me.
We went for a walk.
She came up to me, held my hand, and she said, Mom, I think I was just tired and hungry and grumpy earlier.
And I said, You think?
And she goes
Yeah, I do think.
I was just thinking about it and I don't really like to talk to you like that.
And I'm sorry, because I know you just wanted to pick me up and do something nice.
And I said, no problem, hun, we're good.
But she did that thinking on her own.
Right.
And I didn't actually have to come and talk to her about it again.
But if she didn't, I would have talked to her about it and said, hey, what do you think was going on earlier?
Why do you think you were so mad at me?
Do you really think it was about me picking you up?
And we would have talked it out
And I think that's the key thing is like we've had countless conversations with her about moments where she didn't act in a way that aligned with who she is as a as a person.
Yep.
And now she can reflect on her own at eight years old, which is amazing.
Well, and even our own.
Like I know I've had conversations about ways I've acted that I didn't like and gone over this is probably what I should have done instead.
And model that to them too, right?
I think for so many parents it's important to remember if you want your child to be calm and logical and reasonable, we also have to be calm, logical and reasonable.
And often that's
a whole other episode on the deeper work that we'd have to do on ourselves.
Yeah.
So you think metacognition and like reflecting on your actions and your thinking.
is helpful.
I also like I spend a lot of time with the girls and let's say I have to solve some problem.
Like there's something that we need to fix in the house.
I'll often have one of them next to me helping and I will verbalize
Like, okay, this is the problem, and here are a few different solutions that we could maybe take to fix this problem.
And I know I if I don't know the answer, I can go to this person or I can search
for it or and just helping them even go through the steps of problem solving I think helps develop logic and it seems like the modeling
piece that you're talking about is very important still.
It's even in these middle childhood years.
Yeah.
Remember your child's looking at you as as the guide, right?
You're the guide.
They should.
And they should.
That is your role.
And so as they watch you navigate your own conflict
regulate your own emotions, that's how what they take on.
And so really a lot of these years are about ourselves and trying to figure out how we can be calm and logical and reasonable and reflect on our own actions.
And so a lot of people learn how to do that for the first time in their lives.
when they become parents of kids this age as well.
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 unspeakable.
Safe touch, and you'll even teach them about their uh oh feeling.
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 Nurture 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.
So check the course out at nurturedfirst.
com slash body safety and to save 10% use the code
Robot Unicorn.
And just full disclosure here, we are the creators of this course and we're so proud of it.
Okay
Let's talk adolescence.
That's 12 to 18 years.
So there's the concepts which we talked about already, but concepts like the maturational gap between brain systems.
and hot cognition in emotionally charged situations.
And I f I found them to be quite enlightening.
So the maturational gap is where the portions of the brain that are more in charge of your emotions develop at a faster rate than
the logical portions of the brain.
And it's this hot cognition is this term is used to describe when a teen or an adolescent is in
an emotionally charged situation or they're being watched by peers or like they have that kind of feeling of the jitters, it causes them to not think clearly because
The emotional part of the brain sort of takes over.
It's the thing that is doing the thinking for them now, instead of the logical portion of the brain.
And it takes
years it takes into your mid-20s and I think it was saying somewhere around like in adolescent that those ages it kind of crosses back over where the emotional portion slows down a bit and then the logical part
starts to build back up and surpass so it sort of it's able to take over a bit more.
I think it's just important to say like tweens
teens there's ruled by their emotions.
Yeah, and there's a good reason for it.
It's not their fault.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And again, it it's helpful I think for parents to realize that because then they can again be the ones to help them
through that and help them still continue to develop their logical portion of the brain and still build those strong connections.
It's not like you're shutting down you don't want to shut down their emotions, but I think it will be helpful
for me to know that when our girls get to that age and they start going through puberty and then that portion of the brain is sort of accelerated, it will be helpful for me to know, okay, this is what's happening.
Let's help them.
kind of get through that.
And what you might even be seeing in your your tweens, like so let's say nine plus or for some earlier developing children, like eight plus
is they actually go from being pretty calm, like they're they're kind of getting to that place or starting to regulate those emotions, and then you feel like you've they've just took a way back step.
And they go back to like the toddler tantrums again.
As we see this a ton in our practice where parents are just so stressed out with their tweens, because they're like
what's wrong with them?
They were calm and now they're not, right?
So just to know that, okay, this is actually part of their development and I have to be really strong on my coaching when it comes to the logic and reasoning at this point because they definitely need our support.
Right.
So how do you think parents can shift their perspective on teens, sometimes frustrating impulsivity?
Especially when emotions are
or peers are involved because the research shows that even if a teen feels like someone's watching them but no one is, it's the emotional centers in their brain that are activated and in charge.
Essentially.
And what does support look like during these years beyond just getting frustrated with them?
I think we need to remember
how fragile they are, boys and girls.
I was just hearing a story the other day.
It just really sat with me about all these boys on a hockey team together and they
play hockey and they're so rough and they're playing and you know they're all tough guys and then they are at a tournament and they come back to their rooms with their their moms or their dads and they all have their stuffies and their blankies and they need them to sleep
And they cry about their day, but only in the privacy of their room.
So I think we need to be super mindful of giving our tweens and teens time and space to just be authentic and be themselves
And make that in your home, right?
Where they can cry still and they can still have their stuffies and we don't forget that they're still just children, really.
Yeah.
But yeah, it's not that long before that they were in diapers and exactly.
It's similar toddlers.
Like tweens, like the more I'm diving into tweens, the more I see the parallels between them and toddlers.
Like again, they were just children and we have more grace for them and now they're tweens and their voice is changing or their body is changing.
We're like, oh you're older now.
Now you're a mini adult.
Like no, they they're not actually and they have a lot going on.
And so I think we need to also be really mindful of our role when we come into that twin years.
of being that calm, confident leader for them.
And I know like I remember my parents being very good at this.
Like you have the drama, like the friend drama at school.
And they coach you through.
Well, I wonder why.
Maybe they said it because of this.
Kids are insecure and and they talk about each other in mean ways, not because
you're a bad person, but because of their own stuff, like really trying to coach our kids through it to help them access the logic and reasoning because when it comes to like the stuff at school
or the mean things kids say or stuff they see online, everything feels personal.
Everything feels about them.
And they're very fragile, but they don't show it.
Okay, developmental science strongly supports authoritative parenting, or what we sometimes like to call a warm structure to parenting.
So that combination of both warmth and clear boundaries as a parent to your your child.
And this is so central to what we actually teach.
Can you give some concrete examples of what responses would look like when a child is being
impulsive versus maybe the authoritarian or permissive response.
Yeah, I think we've talked about that quite a bit, right?
So I think the authoritative response is all about being the change you want to see
Right?
Yeah, I think that that was a good way to describe it.
Like if my child is doing something and I don't want them to do that, my first thought should, well, obviously
be safety, but then after that it should be what do I actually want them to do instead of this.
Yeah, and then just do that.
Yeah.
I don't know if you've said that before
But that was a new one for me.
So I actually uh I appreciate that one.
I feel like I have said that, but not maybe on the podcast.
I in my talks I always talk about that, even for teens.
Because I know we've been talking about teens and tweens as well as toddlers, but like even in terms of screens and how you're setting your boundaries, like you have to
create the environment you want to see in your home and don't leave that up to these children with impulsive brains to create that environment, right?
Like you have to lead it.
And so it's really stepping into your role as a leader.
I think that's the authoritative parenting piece.
And the warmth is the unconditional love.
And what I often I've said so many stories about this over on Nurtured First, but like imagine in these moments when you're providing comfort to your toddler and and you're being the change you wanna see, that years from now they're
25, they're 30, they're having their own kids.
You want them to be able to access the same comfort that you've given them now and remember what it felt like.
to be comforted, right?
So the way you comfort them now, the words that you say to them, the hugs, the support that you give them, that's what they're gonna lean on when you're not there and they're older.
So that's the warmth.
And then the the structure is your child can't make a decision about whether or not their body is safe and whether or not what they're doing is helpful or not.
So they need your support.
So the structure comes in with being pretty firm on you can't hit.
Hitting's not okay in our home.
You can't use rude words when you're telling me that you're angry.
It's okay to be angry.
And I'm not going to talk to you when you're giving me rude words like that.
So I'm right here and let's just take a break.
And then when you're ready to talk, we'll talk about it.
So I think making sure that we don't forget either of those pieces is really important
And the difference between the older styles, right, is very behavioral.
Like we're just looking at, I want to stop this behavior by any means necessary, but then we're not taking the emotions into consideration.
or the child development.
So for the timeouts, I get into to trouble.
People are like, well, what's so wrong with timeouts?
Or like the counting to three method.
I'm like, okay, well there's nothing, let's say, so bad about it.
Like if you just logically look at it, I had
Not an argument, but a discussion with a follower just this week about it.
She was talking about the one, two, three, like I count to three and then my child has to do the thing I said.
And if they don't do it, then they go into timeout for the liege they are.
It's like a really popular book that teaches this.
So let's say I count to three because you won't clean your room.
If by the time I get to three, you don't clean your room
and you're three years old, then you go into timeout for three minutes.
And I said to her, like I get from your perspective, like that's logical.
You've given them three chances and if they didn't do it, well then now they have to go to their room.
But I said that doesn't take into account their brain.
And when you're counting to three for a toddler, all their brain's doing is going into fight or flight
Right.
And then you put them into timeout and their entire existence is rooted in closeness with you.
And you're saying, be by yourself in your room.
All we're doing is continuing that brain, being in flight or fight
response because they want to be close to you.
What happens when they get out of timeout?
Now they're clinging, they're crying, they're hanging on to you because they want to stay close to you.
You get more mad at them, they go back to timeout.
And so I think so often we're punishing impulsive behavior, but all that's really happening is we're getting stuck into punishment cycles and our child's never learning how to control their impulses.
And I'd really caution parents against using that approach
Simply just because it's not effective.
Right.
The thing is it doesn't take into account developmental stages and the brain how it develops.
the brain your child has.
Yeah, and I think if you want to be like I know a lot of people are skeptical about not punishing, right?
But I think
When you understand this, what we just discussed today, you realize it's actually incredibly logical.
It's research backed and
we're trying to teach parents skills that are gonna actually help their child long term, not just shut down a behavior in the moment.
Right.
Now I could see someone arguing that sometimes you need to shut down a behavior in the moment.
Right.
And you need to be
The structure comes into play.
The thing is I agree with you.
But I was trying to how did I speak about this originally?
Right
Yeah, you're kinda just letting them get off.
Like if our oldest daughter hit our middle daughter, we're just gonna let her get off and
Not punish her for that?
That doesn't seem fair.
And maybe that's based on how we as a society, like we, if someone does something that's bad, they don't just get away with it.
Now, can I ask you, because I'm hoping that this will be an episode that is sent to a lot of skeptical parents, because I think compulsive behavior is like the number one thing people are punished for.
So I would love, in your own words, for you to talk to that skeptic parent.
as someone who used to be there, who's saying, Well, don't they just get like aren't they just getting off easy?
Shouldn't they have some sort of punishment when they hit their sister?
What do you say, Scott, to that?
Well, I mean I'm thinking about this through the through the lens of the research that I read, and it's very clear that that warm
Not warming warm control, but like the warm parent with clear boundaries wins out every time.
The the children have the most success in life and it takes into account
the brain your child has.
Because I think people have a hard time understanding the science behind the development of humans in general.
But it's pretty clear, especially learning that children have so many almost extra neural connections in their brain that it kind of makes sense that they have like these random ideas and things and they just decide to go
act on that feeling because they have all of these connections that are built together that make it easy for these impulses to pass through.
And then the part of their brain that's supposed to help them
think through a situation logically about like what are the consequences to this action.
If I jump off the high end of this chair
Like I might break a bone, which is what I did when I was four, I think.
Your daughter last night.
And our daughter last night did something similar, and then I had I told them all a stor that story.
At that age, it's just I have this feeling and I'm not thinking too deeply, I'm just doing it.
Yeah.
Right?
And eventually
over time when a parent shows them and I think the reason I don't know this for sure, but maybe you can tell me.
I think the reason why you want to be
warm and loving and kind to your child is because they will not go into that fight or flight mode.
So it means that they're most teachable because
They feel the most comfort and safe with you.
So then their brain is able to actually comprehend more of what you're saying because you're being warm and kind and loving to them.
Yeah.
And then they build that that trust eventually with you very quickly, but they build that trust and like all these connections in their brain are becoming stronger and stronger.
And I can understand this, but I think being very hard on your kids, like uh me and my siblings, it was it was very hard on us.
that puts you in that like anxious state and it doesn't help you learn things more quickly versus if you have clear boundaries.
you remember, hey, this portion of their brain is not fully developed yet.
I'm going to act that way for them.
I'm going to show them the way that I hope they respond when they're older, knowing that I'm gonna have to do this maybe a thousand times
I think knowing that this actually helps their brain developed develop better and more quickly.
That's what convinced me.
Yeah.
This was the conversation we had all those years ago that convinced you
Right, that punishments weren't the answer.
And just like a really quick, like I'll go rapid fire here.
Another reason punishments aren't effective is like everything we just talked about, the do as I say, not as I do model of discipline just is not effective for kids.
So if you are going to say to them, you know, don't hit, but you spank them, that doesn't work because they're looking to you, like we talked about this whole episode, as the guide.
So however you behave is how they will eventually behave.
So if you're yelling, if you're hitting, if you're sending them away, if you're being rude to them, that is what they will take on.
Or even to others.
Or even to others.
Right?
So
We need to remember that we are the model and their children are looking to us to learn how to behave.
And that is I would say one of the biggest reasons where punishments
fall flat because we're actually teaching them in many cases because we're trying to make them feel bad about their behavior, we're actually teaching them how to do behavior that we don't want them to do.
And so they backfire
And I think the other thing that parents can really keep in mind because people will say, well, when would when do they learn their lesson then?
Right?
And I teach parents, teach them when they're teachable.
And so what we need to know about their brains is in moments where they're having those big meltdowns
They're really dysregulated.
They are not teachable.
Like their brains are just flooded with emotions.
Like just picture that.
So in those calm moments, when your toddler's fed and or child or tween or teen
They're fed, they're calm, things are good.
Work on teaching them then.
Play those games like we just talked about, Simon says.
Do the reflection where you bring a tea up to your nine-year-old's room and say, hey, look, we gotta talk about what happened after school today because that wasn't cool
You know, so do hold them accountable, have those conversations, but don't do it in the moment where things are just not going well because it's just going to overload them and it's just going to be harder for you
Yeah, because I would say, at least the way I was raised, scaring doesn't necessarily teach.
It just makes so like, whatever, if I was spanked, that doesn't necessarily teach me.
Makes me scared of doing it again, but that doesn't necessarily make me understand a better way.
And if anything, it would make me more of an angry kid because of it.
And it teaches you that when you're angry at someone, maybe not your parent because you're afraid of them, but when you're angry at someone
Scaring them to get your point across is the effective way to respond when you're angry.
Yep.
And I think you can go in the opposite direction.
I feel like we're going a little off topic here, but we're going if you go in the opposite direction where you just kind of allow your child to do anything, you're also not teaching them
the ability to control their impulses either.
You're allowing their impulses to run their whole life.
Yeah.
So on one side you're stifling all impulses and all feelings and everything.
And on the other, you're just allowing their impulses to run
every aspect of their life and their their brain.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, and so again, that's where we've been saying the whole episode, just be the change you want to see with your kids.
So just
Help them show them that.
Show them.
Yep.
I think it's so simple, you know, it it again with everything, it's always overcomplicated.
It's never quite so black and white.
But I think when it comes to impulses, I think it's so easy to overcomplicate how to respond when really the most simple answers.
just do the thing that you want them to do.
And eventually they'll take that on.
And so hopefully people can take that away from this episode.
Yes.
I think there's a lot of interesting research on uh that highlights the impact of stress, adversity and
socioeconomic factors.
I sort of want to save that for another time.
I would love to talk do a whole episode on that.
Because those three
like stress, adversity, and socioeconomic factors, which I would say that's kind of related to stress and adversity, they very much influence a child's ability to control impulses.
Yeah.
And I think
That's a whole other episode.
And I also think neurodiversity and impulse control would also be a whole other episode.
I didn't get into any of that.
I know you uh thought we might get into that, but I think that's a kind of a separate
Yeah.
I just know people will ask about that and we'll just we'll save that for another episode.
All right.
I'm going to ask you just one final question.
question.
So do you have any final thoughts or words of encouragement for parents who are in the thick of navigating their child's or maybe even their own journey?
with impulse control.
And I might add that I think for myself, impulse control, it probably took me longer than it would have if I was raised in a different household
I think I've become much better.
But like at the drop of a hat in high school, grade school, even a little after that, I would be annoyed at
annoyed or angry very quickly.
But I feel like that impulse has kind of tamed and uh those connections in my brain are sort of they're not as strong as they once were.
So even me in my thirties, it like it's taken me a while.
to get there.
I think for me, it's also taken me a while to get there.
I think with anxiety and undiagnosed ADHD, I think
there was a lot of times I struggle to control my own impulses, whether that's to like quickly text someone and like try and fix a problem without thinking it through or
saying something without thinking through the impact of what I was saying, you know.
So I would say give yourself a lot of grace when it comes to it, especially as an adult.
I had great parents who really coached me through it and it
you know, it's still hard.
So we can feel a lot of shame around times we didn't control our impulses or we did something that we wish we didn't do.
I think let's take that as a lesson and and try and reflect on your own experiences too and and wonder what you need
And I would even think about that with your kids too, as you reflect with them, maybe trying to teach them the pause, like teach them how to like pause for a minute before
doing something impulsive.
I think that can be a journey that you're on with your kids.
And that's okay too.
So to give your kids a lot of grace and remember they're just learning the world for the first time.
But
also extend that grace to yourself because a lot of us never learned how to deal with our impulses and yeah it takes till your 30s sometimes to 40s, 50s, 60s even to figure that out.
So
A lot of grace within this conversation.
Some people never figure it out, right?
So yeah, I I think I'd want to end with just a lot of grace because
It's tough.
And it's also tough when you're raising impulsive kids because it's cray.
A little cray cray sometimes in the house.
Maybe some aspects of it are not enjoyable, but I think like stuff like our daughter putting her foot in a bag of bread or when you can find the humor.
Her being determined and running straight into my dad with her bike.
Like I could not stop laughing from that.
And they do things like that very often, just minor things, the things that they say.
So I think it could be worth
as a parent trying to see the humor in what's happening.
Mm-hmm.
And maybe it becomes easier if you understand that, yeah, a five-year-old
maybe shouldn't be biking into someone, but that's what they should be doing, kind of, right?
They shouldn't be doing it, but in the same sense that's exactly what their brain is meant to be doing right now and it's your job to help them.
And it's kind of funny.
No one got hurt, so it's kind of funny.
When you can find humor in parenting, I think parenting becomes a lot easier because these kids are quite humorous sometimes and it's not always so serious, right?
And even though it seems serious maybe in the moment, like
You just gotta laugh and they dip their toes in a bag of bread or they get that look in their face and you're like, Oh no, what's gonna happen next?
Or our toddler decides to jump off like the highest
stair or like the table in the living room, even though it always hurts her, right?
Like you just have to sometimes just realize they're just tiny humans and and they're just learning the world.
Anyway, thanks Scott.
This was a really interesting discussion.
You liked it?
I did.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Shower me with more compliments.
No, that's it.
That's all.
That's all for compliments.
So let us know how you liked this episode.
Let us know if you want us to do more on impulse control.
I think Scott and I are fascinated by this topic and would love to
Especially those topics we didn't get to cover today and we'll talk to you next time.
Yeah, oh and I should add, if you're on Spotify, you can leave comments for us.
We try and get back to them.
We try.
And email too.
Yeah, we'd love to hear from you.
Hey friends, thank you so much for listening to today's episode.
We are glad that you are here.
If you enjoyed today's episode and found it interesting, we'd really appreciate it if you'd leave a rating and a review.
Scott and I actually sit down together.
and read them all.
A five-star rating helps us share our podcast and get these important messages out there.
Thank you so much for listening and we can't wait to talk to you again next time.