Episode 324 Transcript
Hello, it is Rachel and welcome to episode 324 of Your Parenting Long Game. As we raise our kids with big emotions, we face some unique challenges. Now, it’s not unique that we’re trying to raise them to be responsible and respectful, to brush their teeth, do their homework, speak nicely to their siblings and to themselves and to us.
What is unique, though, is that when we’re trying to motivate this respectful, responsible behavior, if we use traditional discipline strategies, like taking away their screen time, or not giving them something until they change their behavior, instead of working, those traditional strategies tend to make situations with our kids with big emotions worse.
When we do things like telling them we’re going to take away something because they don’t do what we want, heck, when we even bring up the fact that they haven’t done something we want them to do, things tend to go downhill. Our kids with big emotions usually either get more angry with us if we point out that they’ve done something that they don’t want, and especially if we tell them we’re going to take something away, or they become really hard on themselves.
The situation tends to become very dramatic if we try to use punishments and tell them what they’re doing wrong, and then we feel stuck in what to do next.
Well today I’m going to give you a strategy to motivate more respectful, responsible behavior that will make you feel less confused and more empowered when you’re trying to motivate behavior, mood, or attitude change.
This strategy will not only foster more resilience in your child so they can do uncomfortable things, but it will also help you become a powerful positive influence, which is the first step of the long game method.
And this strategy will reinforce that what works for them to motivate better behavior isn’t what we learned as kids. We are not, when we’re raising kids with big emotions, going to be effective if we tell them why they did something wrong and then threaten to take away the things they care about if they don’t do that thing.
Instead it’s about going beneath the behavior to figure out what’s really going on for them, and to help them do better. So if we want them to act more responsible and more respectful, we’re going to help them get to that place.
And I will tell you that if what you hear resonates with you, I actually want to help you apply it to your situation. I’m trying something new with this episode because, to be honest, I don’t love the one-sidedness of podcasting. I’d like to be able to interact with you you so in my show notes, you’ll see a link to what’s called “Apply this to you & know what to do.” Click on that link and you’ll be sent an email with 3 simple questions about your situation. Once you answer those, I’m going to send you my thoughts about how to apply this episode to what you’re going through. You’ll find that button on the show notes at Rachel-Bailey.com/324.
But let’s start with where you may be right now. You know your child needs to change. They have to do things they don’t feel like doing. They have to brush their teeth, or do their homework, or be more respectful.
But when they’re not doing that, what probably happens now is you may start off being positive and patient, but they still don’t do what they’re supposed to do. And then, when you don’t see results, what most of us learn is that if being positive and patient isn’t working, then we have to throw out those punishments or consequences.
We have to do things that make them feel worse. So we’ll say things like, “if you don’t put your backpack away, you can’t get on your screens.” Or, “if you don’t go to bed, I won’t take you to your friend’s house this weekend.”
But generally, again, with kids with big emotions, that does not work. Instead, either they get more upset with us when we tell them we’re going to take things away, saying things like, “I hate you,” or “that’s not fair, you’re so stupid.”
Or, they’re really hard on themselves when we threaten to take things away. They say, “I always mess up. Why can’t I get anything right?”
And of course you’re thinking, “well what am I supposed to do now? Have to teach them how to act better. But all that happens when I bring it up is that there’s more drama.” So you’re feeling helpless, stuck.
You know that things need to change, but you just don’t know how, so you keep resorting back to taking more and more away, or trying to make them feel worse and worse, hoping that it will make them act better, because honestly, that’s probably what you learned as a child.
And it does make sense that we would fall back onto punishments or taking things away. Like I said, it’s how we were raised. If we didn’t put something away, we’d be grounded, or some other thing that made us unhappy.
We will also resort to punishments very often because we’ve heard “well there are consequences in life. If you don’t do this, then there’s gonna be a consequence”
And deep down, we worry that if we don’t give them consequences now, they’ll have a hard time in real life. We know that a teacher might give them consequences, or a boss in the future will give them consequences, and we wonder, well, how will they handle that unless we give them those consequences now?
So, for those reasons and more, we often feel obligated to take away things if they don’t do what they’re supposed to do.
And throwing out those punishments does make us feel a little bit more in control, like at least we’re doing something. And especially many of us think, well, whatever my parents did worked on me, so it should work with my child, too.
But there’s a reason that taking away things, and even rewarding them, If they do do the thing that you want them to do, there’s a reason this doesn’t work. In fact, there are two reasons. The first reason that punishment and even rewards don’t work is that they don’t teach a child how to do something different the next time.
So for example, if a child doesn’t brush their teeth, they’re not likely thinking, “Oh, I’m not brushing my teeth because I want to be bad.” What they’re likely thinking is, “I don’t feel like brushing my teeth, it’s boring.” What’s really under their behavior is that they don’t know how to do boring things or things they don’t feel like doing.
If we punish them for not brushing their teeth, if we say, “you didn’t brush your teeth now so you can’t have screens tomorrow.” Or even if we say, “if you do brush your teeth I’ll give you XYZ reward,” we haven’t taught them how to do boring things or things that they don’t want to do.
So the next time they have to brush their teeth, maybe that punishment or that reward is going to help them temporarily. Maybe the novelty of it will work for two or three nights, but it does stop working because it still hasn’t addressed the fact that they don’t know how to do boring things or things they don’t feel like doing.
So if you’ve threatened to take away something and that punishment doesn’t work after a few times or the rewards stop working, it’s because you haven’t addressed the real issue. They still don’t brush their teeth in the long run because they don’t know how to do something different.
Now, the second reason that punishment doesn’t work is unique to kids with big emotions.
There’s something very important that you already know about kids with big emotions. They go into yuck easily. They sense discomfort more quickly and they feel it more strongly. So if you have more of a “strong-willed child” and you threaten to take something away from them, They’re very reactive because they get very triggered by feeling out of control or someone having power over them.
So when you take something away from them, even if you told them beforehand that you were going to take away something, or even if you say it very nicely, they still go into yuck. They still get triggered. And when someone is in yuck, their behavior becomes worse, not better.
That’s when they start to negotiate or become disrespectful or defiant saying things like, “you can’t make me brush my teeth,” that’s because they’ve gone into yuck, and they’re negotiating, or their defiance or disrespect is the current way they are coping with that discomfort or yuck.
It’s not effective coping, but it’s their way of dealing with feeling out of control or powerless. They’re trying to get control back. That’s what happens with kids who are more strong willed when we threaten to punish them or punish them.
Or maybe you have a more “sensitive” child. And when you threaten to take away something from them, they’re very reactive to feeling like they’ve done something wrong, or they’ve bothered someone or upset someone.
So if you just remind them that they didn’t brush their teeth, even if you haven’t even said anything about a punishment, they’re gonna get really upset very quickly. They may say something like, “Oh no, why do I always forget? What is wrong with me?” That’s because they’ve gone into yuck at the thought that they’ve done something wrong.
And their coping mechanism when they’re in yuck is to turn that feeling in on themselves. They don’t like making others upset, so they tend to blame themselves a lot.
Now, a child who’s more sensitive may be motivated to brush their teeth because of a punishment or because you said something, but very honestly for sensitive kids, there’s a cost to motivating them in this way. They become so worried about avoiding that consequence in the future that they become more of a perfectionist. They become very hard on themselves and beat themselves up if they’re not doing things the right way.
So if you’ve threatened to take away something and the punishment doesn’t work, their behavior gets worse, or they’re really hard on themselves, then it’s likely that punishment is not what motivates them to do better. It simply creates yuck and doesn’t give them what they need to succeed.
So instead what we need to do is work with our child against the problem rather than against our child. Usually when they don’t do something we want, when they have a negative behavior mood or attitude, we work against them.
We say to them “you didn’t do this” or “you did do this” so now I’m gonna try to make you change your behavior by making you feel bad. Instead, what we need to say is, “if you didn’t do what you’re supposed to do, then I want to help you figure out why. Because you do have to do the thing you’re supposed to do, but let’s figure out the reason for this and address that reason so that you can be successful.”
So if they’re not brushing their teeth, we’re figuring out why aren’t they brushing their teeth? Is it because they’re bored? Well, then let’s address that.
Or if they’re being mean to their brother or sister or friend, we ask, “Why are you being so mean to your brother or sister or friend? Is it because you don’t know how to regulate yourself when you are in a lot of yuck?” If that’s the case, let’s teach you how to regulate yourself.
Let’s see what’s going on for you and give you what you need to be successful. Let’s figure that out because the behavior does have to change, but change will happen once we address the reason and we can work with you to figure out that reason.
Now, the question obviously becomes, well, how do you figure out what the reason is? You can certainly ask your child and they may tell you. I’ve talked about the fact that when you ask your kids about things, you say, what don’t you like about something or what makes it hard and they complain. There’s a lot of information in there.
If they say it’s boring, then that tells you that they need strategies to deal with something boring. But to be honest, a lot of kids, when you ask them why they do something or don’t do something, they don’t know. And since you may not know. And they may not know, we can do experiments with different strategies to figure out what’s going on.
You test different strategies to see what helps them act better. Now when something works, if you’ve told them to brush their teeth, you’ve tried a strategy and they actually do brush their teeth, if it works, it means you’ve addressed the real issue.
It means you’ve addressed the reason beneath the behavior. So if you teach them how to do boring things, and they start to brush their teeth, you figured out that that was the reason that they weren’t doing it to begin with.
Now when something doesn’t work, that means you still haven’t figured out the reason. If you teach them to do boring things and that still doesn’t work, maybe what they needed was connection. So then you test staying in the room with them when they’re brushing their teeth, and if that works, then that’s what they needed. So you try different strategies until you find the one that actually motivates them and helps them do better.
I call this approach “motivation experiments” because motivation experiments determine what actually helps them do better because we’ve met their need.
So the way you do motivational experiments, it is like an experiment. And by the way, if your child likes to do experiments, this can really turn into something cool, because they can create a hypothesis, what they think is going to work. They can test their hypothesis. They can collect data and make charts to note results. It can be really fun. I did this a lot when I was a therapist and a coach. Now, for others who don’t really care that much about experiments, this can be a lot less formal.
So again, this experiment though is all about helping them be successful.
So the way you do this first is you define what success is. So you decide the behavior that needs to happen. I’ll use a new example. Let’s say you say your child has to do their homework by 5 p. m. because they have piano practice after that. Make sure everything is defined clearly, including your measure of success. So if you say your homework has to be done by 5 p. m., what exactly does that mean? Does that mean everything is in the backpack? Does that mean their backpack is by the door? Does that just mean that there’s enough on the paper that you can check it to make sure that it’s done? So define very clearly what the measure of success is.
Then, try different things to help them meet that measure of success. So in my programs, I work with parents to narrow down, based on each child, their age, their temperament, what experiments to start with. But here are some general ideas.
One thing you might start with, especially in a situation where your child has to do homework and they’re resistant, is to teach them a strategy to do boring things. You may have heard me talk about how we can build engagement into boring tasks, teach them how to do that, and see if it “works.” Because when something works, that means we have met the need. That means we’ve taught them a skill that they needed to be successful.
Another thing you could try is a strategy just to get them started. A lot of kids struggle to do boring things like homework or chores, because their brain resists even starting the task. But once they get started, that momentum carries them along. Now if just getting them started “works” that means you’ve met the need.
Another thing that you could do is to teach them a strategy to do uncomfortable things like homework. What can they tell themselves? How can they create breaks? What do they need to get through uncomfortable things? That’s another strategy you can teach them. And if it works, then that’s what they needed.
Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t use rewards and punishments. You can certainly try those. Those can be part of your experiment and some kids may actually need a reward or a punishment in order to do the thing, but I’ll be honest, having done this for many, many years, it’s only a small percentage who actually need those rewards or consequences.
More often than not, they need those strategies to get through the task, but certainly try those strategies as well. I will give you a little hint if you’re going to try rewards or punishments, allow your child to come up with them as well, and often they’re more motivated by their own rewards and punishments than they are by yours. So that’s just another thing to add to your experiment.
What you’re doing in this way is you’re working with your child against the problem. The problem is the reason they’re not doing the thing to begin with. And you’re being curious with them. Hey, what is stopping you from being successful? You are on the same team and you are, and whenever you are on the same team with your child, you are building your influence.
Now, I do want to help you imagine this from your perspective. Imagine you have a project you really don’t want to get started with. Maybe it’s something like organizing your pantry, which you know you have to do because you keep losing things or not knowing what’s there and you buy extra stuff. So you know that you have to organize your pantry.
You even know how to do it, but you just don’t feel like doing it because organizing the pantry is long and boring. You’ve been dreading it, procrastinating, doing all of the things that feel better than organizing the pantry, which let’s be honest, is almost anything. Now, you are avoiding doing the organizing, and someone comes along and tells you that what you are doing is wrong.
They say, “You’re not organizing. You know you have to organize. I’ve talked to you about organizing everything. You can’t find anything if you’re not organized.” And then they take away something you care about, and they say, “Well, since you didn’t organize, you can’t have that tiny window of relaxation that you normally have after the kids go to bed and you get that moment of quiet. I know you like that time of day, so I’m going to take it away from you. I’m going to take away the thing that you care about.”
How are you going to feel if they just tell you that you’re doing the wrong thing and they take away something that feels good to you? You’re probably going to be really resentful, and you’re not going to be that much more motivated to organize the pantry.
But what if they say to you instead, Oh, you’re not organizing the pantry? Let’s figure out why. And they test a couple of things with you. And that what you figure out together pretty quickly is that just not knowing what to do with everything in the cabinet was overwhelming you.
But once you figured out where everything went and you found homes for each item in your pantry, it went really quickly, this organizational process. So, if they work with you against the problem, rather than telling you why you were wrong and punishing you for it, it’s probably not only going to go better in this situation, but you’re going to know how to do this in the future.
We are so trained to think that if a child doesn’t do something, they need to be punished. But punishments and even rewards don’t address the real issue. If something is boring or overwhelming or uncomfortable, punishments and rewards don’t teach a child how to deal with those feelings. Punishments also trigger their sensitivity, whether it’s sensitivity to being told what to do, or sensitivity to doing something wrong.
So then when you throw out these punishments, they go into yuck and things go downhill. Punishments also put us against them, which decreases our influence. And a core concept of the long game method is that with less yuck and more skills, kids naturally do better. They’re naturally more resilient and confident.
So we want to identify the real cause of the problem. Sometimes we can ask them, but if not, we figure out what’s going to work by doing experiments. If we give them strategies to address boring tasks and it works, that means that was what was under the behavior.
If we give them strategies to address discomfort and it works, that means that’s what was causing the behavior. Now if a child isn’t doing something because they thought they could just get away with it, that’s when consequences might work, but you figure that out through experimentation.
You figure out what works, and what works is what they needed.
So working with them, increasing our influence, also increases their resilience because they’ve learned strategies to do things they don’t feel like doing. It increases their confidence because they’ve learned how to do hard things. And it strengthens our relationship. They know we have our back and they know we care as much about them than we do about getting them to do what we want.
So these motivation experiments are one step in the long game parenting method. The method that includes first, becoming a powerful positive influence, so your child does actually listen to you. The long game method that includes second, you helping them identify what they need, whether this is addressing yuck or addressing missing skills, and last, and the third and final part of the long game method is giving them what they need to be successful when you are not around.
Now this method can be used with any child in any situation. And remember, I want to be able to apply it to you. So go to the show notes and not only will you see other free resources, but you’ll see a link to “Apply this to you & know what to do.” Click on the link and I’ll gather a small amount of information from you and tell you how to improve your situation. The resources and that link are at Rachel-Bailey.com/324.
Apply this to you and know what to do
