Episode 322 Transcript
Hello, it is Rachel and welcome to episode 322 of your Parenting Long Game. When most of us start researching how to raise children in respectful ways, one of the most common things you hear is to say something to your child like, “It’s okay to be angry, but it’s not okay to yell at people.” And something like that might really resonate with you because you do want to let your child know that their feelings are acceptable, but that certain behaviors are not acceptable.
But I want to take this concept one step further today in this episode by explaining how to strengthen your influence as a parent by validating your child and their experience so that they know it’s okay to feel a certain way… without condoning negative behavior so they know it’s not okay to act a certain way.
The good news is that it is possible to show you care about your child without condoning their behavior. And the better news is that there’s actually a formula for doing this and I want to let you know what the formula is because a lot of parents tell me they struggle to balance the two. And it is important to be able to balance both if you want to be a powerful positive influence and at the same time if you want your child with big emotions to grow up trusting in and respecting themselves.
But first, let’s talk about why most people do struggle to balance letting their children know that how they feel is okay with making sure they’re not agreeing that the behavior is okay. Let’s be real and acknowledge that when you were growing up, you probably were not validated. No one told you it was okay to have feelings. In fact, you may have learned that it wasn’t okay to have feelings, and that may be even more of a reason why you want to validate your child’s feelings. But because you didn’t receive this as a child, it wasn’t modeled for you, you might not be sure what it looks like to both validate and still hold the line.
Which leads to the next issue. Because usually when you validate your children, it does feel good. Your children seem more confident and closer to you. And honestly, you probably feel closer to them when you see their perspective. But sometimes you may wonder if you’re connecting too much and letting your kids think they’re getting away with something. There may be a nagging voice in your head saying, “But wait, when I validate them, am I just letting them get away with what they’ve done? I’m not teaching them anything. Am I being too permissive?”
For example, let’s consider a mom named Anne. Anne’s daughter was frequently mean to her son in the mornings for making them late. Anne knew it was her daughter’s anxiety, which she’d struggled with for many years, that led to this meanness. She knew that her daughter wasn’t trying to be mean, but she was so nervous about getting to school late that it came out in this meanness towards her brother.
Anne got this, and she wanted to let her daughter know that she understood. At the same time, she knew that her son didn’t deserve his sister being so mean to him. So she didn’t want to give her daughter the impression that her anxiety was an excuse that she could treat her brother that way. She wanted to validate how her daughter felt to make sure her daughter knew that she had her back, but she didn’t want to condone how she was treating her brother.
And she also wanted her daughter’s behavior to stop, but she didn’t know how to make both of these things happen at once.
Now, Mom Anne had learned from her own childhood and from family members that validating a child’s perspective could be going too easy on them, being permissive, and that she needed to make it very clear that what her daughter was doing was unacceptable.
So Anne had tried to be more firm with her daughter, but it didn’t change her behavior. It only seemed to make her daughter more anxious and irritable. And again, Anne felt deep down that validating was important too, and she honestly did understand her daughter’s perspective. So she said things to her like, “You feel anxious in the morning, huh?”
Her daughter seemed to feel much better that her mom got it. But all she did was say “Yes. And it’s my brother’s fault that we’re late.” she just started blaming her brother more, not taking any responsibility for herself. So Anne didn’t think she was getting through to her, and she didn’t know how to get through. She didn’t know how to be a powerful, positive influence.
So you may be stuck in this place too where you can see what your child is going through and you’ve learned that you need to show them that you care, you want them to feel respected, but it seems like when you try to tell them that, you’re not doing enough and they’re not taking responsibility.
But you’ve also experienced that just being firm doesn’t get them to change either. And the truth is neither one of these strategies in isolation, neither validation in itself or being firm in itself, neither strategy works for children to be open to other ways of dealing with situations.
If you want kids to be open and if you want kids to change, you have to be able to validate but also be clear that they have to change.
So if you’re in a place where you’ve tried to show your child that you understand and you’ve also tried to be more firm and you’ve noticed that in neither case your child’s behavior is changing, then it’s important to learn to balance the two.
And the way to do this is through what I call a “‘validate and support change’ combination.” That’s where you are both validating them and letting them know that change needs to happen. You’re going to do both at the same time. That’s why this is a combination.
You set the expectation. And you show them that you care how the expectation affects them. So for example, Anne may say something like, “it’s not okay to be mean to your brother.” And you also show that you care how the expectation affects them. So Anne might say, “…and it’s hard not to be mean because you’re anxious. So I want to help you find another way to deal with anxiety.” Those two things are happening at the same time.
Now, when you’re able to do both, both validate and let them know that change has to happen, you’re telling them that you see and care about what’s going on for them. And you’re also telling them that there’s an expectation, but you want to help them meet that expectation in a way that is respectful to them.
So again, Anne, who wants her daughter to be less mean to her brother, may say something like, “You do not want to be late. You hate getting to the classroom late. Since Since it’s not okay to talk to your brother that way, let’s talk about a way to help mornings go more smoothly without yelling at your brother.”
So again, using that “‘Validate and support change’ combination” shows a child that their point of view matters and also that they do have to change. Your child knows you care because you’ve genuinely seen their perspective and they also know that they can’t get away with anything because you’re being confident as you set the boundary.
And as they recognize that they must meet the limit, they also know they have your help in meeting the limit, which again, shows that you care as much about them as you do about enforcing the limit. That is even more validation and connection.
So in order to use the validate and support change combination, you see their point of view. Then you let them know that since there’s an expectation or limit, you want to help them meet that limit.
So here are a couple of other examples of what this looks like. You could say something like, “Brushing your teeth is boring. Reading together feels a lot better than brushing your teeth, especially when the story is exciting. You do have to brush your teeth though, so do you want to know some ways to make it less boring, so we can get through it and get to that book?”
Or you could say, “You hate when I make chicken for dinner. Since I don’t make different meals for everyone, and I will make chicken sometimes, let’s talk about other solutions for you when I make chicken for dinner, besides just telling me that you never get anything you want. I have some ideas for what you could do, but you can also tell me what your ideas are.”
So again, you’re seeing them. You’re really understanding what their perspective is. You’re also saying there’s a limit and you want to help them meet that limit. You are balancing firmness through your action, because you’re not giving in to them, with respect for what they are going through.
The reason this works is because you start with a connection. That means they know you’re not against them, and they don’t immediately go into yuck and fight or flight. When you don’t start with a connection, when you just imply that your child must change and that you don’t care about anything except them changing, a child focuses on, “why don’t they care about me or my perspective?” They don’t focus on changing their behavior.
But you also need to show them that there is an expectation that must be met. If you’re not also firm in saying that a certain behavior is unacceptable, then your child’s thinking, “Oh, change is too hard. I don’t want to have to change, so I won’t. And it’s likely nothing bad will happen because my mom or dad doesn’t always mean what they say.”
By finding that balance between validation and firmness, your child thinks, “Ah, mom or dad or caregiver is serious and they mean what they say.” But you’re also connected, and because you want to help them, they haven’t gone to the place of yuck that prevents them from changing. Their ability to do hard things is influenced by your ability to reduce the threat by showing that you are a strong, powerful leader and at the same time that you have their back and can and want to help.
And I wanna give you an example of what this would be like for you. Imagine you’re learning a new skill at a job. It’s a hard skill, and you’re really having trouble learning it. If your boss implies or even says to you that it’s too bad that that skill is too hard, you have to learn it anyway, and they threaten what will happen if you don’t learn the new skill, you’re not going to learn that skill faster or better. You’re going to go into yuck and focus on what a jerk your boss is. You’re probably going to try to Find a way around that skill. So if they’re not validating you at all, that’s not going to go very well.
But if they’re too easy on you, that’s not going to go well either. Imagine your boss says, “oh yeah, that skill is hard, I know, I found it hard too.” And then they don’t push you at all. They just say, “Oh, okay, forget it. You don’t have to do it.” Then you’re not going to work hard to learn this skill because they’ve gone too easy on you.
But imagine that boss balances firmness with respect. Imagine they say, “Oh yeah, the skill is hard. I know I found it hard too. Since you do have to learn the skill, let me teach you some shortcuts that work for me. And we can practice them together because you do have to learn how to do this skill.”
Imagine you could sense that your boss had confidence that you had to learn the skill and they knew you could do it, but they also had connection and they cared about your struggle and wanted to help you do better. How much more quickly would you be able to learn that skill if they balance that firmness and confidence with the connection and respect?
You know you want your child to feel heard. You know, you want your child to listen to themselves, to trust their instinct, and you want them to know that you have their back, but you also want them to know that certain behaviors have to change.
But again, both of these can and should happen at the same time. You can say to a child, “hey, what happened to you in this situation matters. And there are rules in our home and I want to help you handle these rules.”
Your confidence in setting that limit builds their confidence that they know how things are going to go and that you are a strong leader. And your connection with them, having their back and helping them be successful, improves your relationship and their ability to handle difficult situations when they really do need help knowing how to handle them.
Now parents who have worked with me on this, including Anne that I talked about earlier, have said that these conversations actually bring them closer together. Kids feel better when we’re a strong leader, as long as we are also connected. And then they’re more open to listening, they know then that we are there to help them and they know that we are the right person to guide them. This is how we become a powerful positive influence and our children are motivated to do things even when it’s harder for them.
That’s why the methods I teach parents to raise resilient, confident, and mentally healthy children is not just about trying to find the best way to make your child change, whether that’s to be nice or to be mean. It’s by seeing what’s under the behavior and what your children need to do better.
And the truth is they need you to be confident and firm, and they also need you to be connected and respectful. It’s about seeing what your children need and giving them what they need, including a parent who can be both confident and connected. It’s also about though giving yourself what you need so you can get there and release control of managing your child’s emotions and behavior.
And I will tell you that teaching you how to recognize and give your child what they need and teaching you how to give you what you need to be able to let go a little… that’s something that’s really important to me.
And I spent this summer diligently creating a new program to help you be able to do this.
This program teaches you how to use strategies like the “‘Validate and support change’ combination” to help you raise children who are independently resilient, who learn how to do difficult things and handle difficult emotions so that you can spend less energy managing this for them.
And the cool part about this program is that getting there only takes 10 minutes of your time a day. If you want to know how to make this happen for you, if you want to understand what your child needs in order to feel and act better, and what you need to be able to let go a little bit so that you’re not managing all of the emotions, we can talk about what this would look like.
You can schedule what I call a “Path to Independence” call, where I’ll talk to you about where you are right now and I can talk to you about how to get your child to this place of independence and confidence without you having to lose your mind from stress or overwhelm. You can find details about that “Path to Independence” call on my website, as well as other resources that can help you, including a summary of this call with the examples that I mentioned. All of that is on my website at rachel-bailey.com/322. Thanks for listening and I’ll talk to you again soon!
