Episode 332 Transcript
Hello, it is Rachel and welcome to episode 332 of your Parenting Long Game.
One of the things that’s most obvious to me and hardest for me to see, one of the reasons I’m actually so passionate about helping parents of children with big emotions, is that a lot of kids who feel things strongly are not that confident.
They don’t feel good about themselves. They often feel bad about their behaviors.
They wonder why they react the way they do, and they wonder why they can’t stop doing what people tell them they shouldn’t do. They wonder why they can’t calm down when people tell them to, or stop making such a big deal, or stop being so disrespectful.
They doubt themselves, and sometimes they don’t even like themselves.
And one of the signs of their lack of confidence that you may recognize, is they often won’t do things that are hard. They won’t ride a bike if they don’t feel confident that they can do it, or they resist trying a new sport or activity because they fear they might be bad at it .
So they tend to resist things that they don’t feel like they’re already good at. And of course, as a parent, it’s hard to witness this. You imagine all the bad things that will happen if they don’t learn to do hard things, that they won’t learn to ride a bike, or they won’t ask for what they need, or they won’t learn to push themselves and grow in school and in life.
So you encourage them, you say, “It’s okay if you don’t know how to do this, you should try it anyway, that’s how we get better.” But that tends not to work. When you do that, I bet you still see them refuse to do the things that they have to do.
Or maybe they attempt to do something they’re not good at, but the moment it gets hard or frustrating, they give up.
Now in this episode, I’m going to tell you a little bit more about what’s going on for a child who does that. But if you want to get deeper into your child’s shoes, to understand what’s going on for them specifically, I will have a live event at the end of January, which is called “How to Boost Confidence in Children with Big Emotions.”
That will help you apply what you’re learning in this episode to your situation. And I’ll tell you, even if you’re listening to this after that live event has already taken place, in the future I’ll be doing other similar events where I help you get into the shoes of your child so you see exactly what they need and what you need to support them.
But again, for now, I’m going to tell you why a child resists doing things that are hard or gets really frustrated when they start to do something and they can’t do it right away.
Understanding what is beneath the behavior is such a big part of using Leadership Parenting strategies to become a Leader Parent so you get long game results. Because one thing Leader Parents do is they look beyond what they see — a child who isn’t pushing themselves or a child who doesn’t want to try hard things.They look beyond that to understand what’s going on beneath the behavior and addressing that.
So why don’t children want to do hard things? Yes, it’s a lack of confidence, but the lack of confidence isn’t just about the thing they have to do. The lack of confidence is actually a lack of faith that they can handle uncomfortable feelings.
They know that something’s going to be uncomfortable before they’re good at it, and they don’t want to experience that feeling. So they try to avoid it by shutting down or refusing to do the hard thing. When they think about feeling that feeling, they see it as a threat or a problem.
They go into fight or flight and not doing things or avoiding the things that are hard is the flight part of fight or flight.
So as a Leader Parent, it’s really important to not just convince them that they should do hard things, but to teach them how to handle the uncomfortable things.
So again, as a leader parent, you’re not convincing them that it’s not hard (because to them it is), or reminding them that they can do hard things (because they don’t believe they can do hard things), and your saying that they can doesn’t all of a sudden make them believe it.
You address this by teaching them how to cope with the feeling of discomfort. I have strategies that I teach so that you can help your kids recognize discomfort, know how to get power over it by creating safety in discomfort, rather than being afraid of it, and actually use those strategies in the moment.
These are all Leadership Parenting strategies that I teach. I did work with one parent who, for example, taught this process to her daughter, and her daughter ended up coming up with a “3 2 1 action” strategy to get power over her discomfort so she could do hard things.
We can teach our kids to do this, and when we teach them how to handle discomfort, that’s when they become more confident, not when we just tell them that they can do hard things.
So again, if you’re seeing your child not trying to do hard things, it’s because they don’t know how to handle discomfort and that’s what they need to learn.
But as a Leader Parent, you don’t just understand what’s going on for your child. You have to also consider what you need. Because very honestly, while your child is learning those strategies, and it’s going to take a little while, you have to be confident that they’re going to get there. You can’t be someone who says, you can’t be someone who says, “Oh, I’ve taught them that strategy. And it’s not working…” because that will put you into fight or flight as well.
Handling discomfort is not natural for kids. Heck, it’s not even really natural for adults. So as they’re going through the process, they need a leader to guide them through it. But remember this, the more yuck you have, the more frustrated with how things are not working, or the more doubt you have about whether you’re doing the right thing, the more yuck you have, the less influence you are.
The more you doubt yourself, the less of a strong leader you are.
And kids aren’t going to push them to do something hard just for the sake of it.
They need a leader who is strong and confident showing them how to do these strategies. And a leader who supports them when they start to doubt themselves because this is hard and they may not get it right away.
So it’s really hard for them to trust us and see us as a leader and use our encouragement if we doubt ourselves. So we have to work on our yuck that arises when we see our children in these situations until they master new strategies, which are really not easy for them to master.
So it’s important that you say to yourself, “When I witness my child struggling to do hard things…why is that causing me yuck?”
You don’t want to ask yourself that judgmentally. You want to ask yourself that with curiosity “What is causing my yuck? What is bothering me about this?” To be a leader parent, you need to ask and address that question.
Now when you ask yourself what causes yuck for you, there may be a lot that comes up.
It may be that things from your past come up, when in situations you couldn’t or didn’t do hard things. What may come up when you ask about your own Yuck may be fears about the future for your child if they don’t learn to do hard things. And it may be fears about yourself as a parent and what it means about you if you don’t get them to do hard things.
As a leader parent, it’s really important for you to address the yuck that comes up for you as well.
Now even though there might be a lot that comes up for you, for right now I want to make things simple by giving you a strategy for one type of yuck that comes up a lot when I talk to parents about helping their children who don’t want to do hard things.
Very likely, one type of Yuck that you’re experiencing is not knowing whether you should push your child, or whether you should let them quit something when they’re uncomfortable. You might be wondering, “Should I push them so they learn they have to do hard things? Or, is pushing them too hard just going to make them shut down even more?”
So I want to teach you a strategy that you can consider that helps improve both your kids resilience and their mental health. These are questions you ask yourself when you wonder whether you should push. It’s like a little “when to push” test.
And I’ll tell you that the main idea is that you do need to push your kids at times.
They need to face discomfort. but not just for the sake of facing discomfort. They need to face discomfort for the sake of alignment, for the sake of becoming the best version of themselves.
So let me tell you a little bit more about that. The truth is that kids do have a lot of discomfort and there are certain things that they just have to be uncomfortable with that they can’t avoid. Especially things related to school, or other things they have to do.
But what about beyond that?
Should you let them quit the dance class that they hate or the club that they complain about every week? My answer to that is the “when to push” process.
So again, you want to push them but not to be uncomfortable because we’re afraid that they won’t be able to handle discomfort in the long term. You push them toward alignment or, like I said before, being the best version of who they genuinely are. In this case, we’re pushing them toward something rather than away from something and that’s really what you want to think about.
Because most of us push kids because we’re afraid that if we don’t push, they’ll become quitters. That’s pushing them away from something that we’re afraid of. That’s you pushing because you’re trying to avoid bad things from happening. That’s what I call Yuck Fueled parenting — parenting to avoid something you’re afraid of, and that is the opposite of Leadership Parenting.
Yuck Fueled parenting reinforces that discomfort should control our decisions. Remember, our kids, when they don’t push themselves, they’re being controlled by discomfort. Our kids are avoiding the discomfort of the hard thing. We don’t want to reinforce that, and we don’t want to reinforce that that’s the way to make decisions.
So instead of deciding what they should quit or not quit based on trying to avoid things, decide based on pushing them toward what they want to be and who they are.
Push them toward being the best version of themselves rather than away from the fear that they’ll become a quitter. Push them in areas that are aligned with the best parts of themselves.
So maybe you have a child who’s a little bit of an entrepreneur. Teach them how to be uncomfortable in areas related to growing a business. Teach them how to ask people for things, even though that may not be a strength of theirs, but because the outcome is aligned. Or if your child enjoys art, encourage them to take an art class that is out of their comfort zone, one they’ve never taken before, because it will make them stronger as an artist.
Push them toward becoming the best version of themselves, rather than away from something because you’re afraid of the outcome.
So questions to help you out, this really does become your when to push test. Ask yourself, Why would I be pushing them to continue doing something? Am I afraid something bad will happen if I don’t push them that they’ll become a quitter? Or they’ll never learn to be uncomfortable?
Or, am I pushing them toward becoming more aligned with their talents, and their passions, and the qualities in them that they can use to contribute to a better world?
So for example, if your child wants to quit piano, are you making them continue because you’re afraid of what will happen if you don’t? Or are you making them continue their piano lessons because that’s aligned with who they are, and will help them become the best version of themselves?
Now the answer to these questions should depend on your child. But once you identify it for your child, you know you’re aligning with who they are and that it’s the best thing for them. That’s what a Leader Parent does.
So that when they’re complaining about how much they hate practice, you don’t have to wonder, “Am I doing the right thing?” You can say to yourself, “Yes, I’m doing the right thing. I’m helping them become aligned with the best version of themselves.”
And then you can be confident in those moments when they are struggling to do the hard thing. You can be that leader who is strong, who supports your child through their struggles, because you are not having your own struggles. So again, this is what a leader parent does.
A leader parent aligns with your values, not your fears. And we want our kids to learn to do the same thing, to align with their values and not their fears or discomfort.
So I mentioned two leadership parenting strategies today. One was teaching your child to get power over their discomfort. And the other that I went a little deeper into was the when to push test for making decisions about when to encourage your child to do something hard and when you’re just doing it for the sake of making them uncomfortable.
These are both part of the Leadership Parenting strategy because, remember, we use these strategies to become a leader parent and we’re really addressing what does your child need.
In this case, your child doesn’t just need you to encourage them that they can do hard things. They need to learn how to handle discomfort. And when they do, they’ll be confident that they can handle anything new because even if they’re uncomfortable, they know they can manage and survive that feeling.
The other part of the Leadership Parenting method is asking yourself what you need. You need to understand what in their behavior, their lack of pushing themselves when things get hard, what does it trigger in you? And you need to figure out what you need so that you’re parenting from your values, not your yuck, not your fears, not your exhaustion, not your guilt, or any other yuck that will reduce your confidence and therefore reduce your influence.
It is possible and actually not very time consuming when you’re using Leadership Parenting strategies to make sure you’re parenting in a way that leads yourself and your child to the best version of yourselves.
And when you see your child resisting hard things or being less than confident, you won’t wonder, “Am I doing the right thing?” Instead, you can say to yourself, “Yes, I am doing the right thing.” Know it’s important for them to be uncomfortable in this situation because it’s helping them become who they’re supposed to be.
And when you are that confident and your child has a strategy to address their own discomfort, you will see them trying new things because they know how to handle that feeling and they have a strong leader there pushing them toward the right direction, not away from the things that they or you are afraid of.
That is what Leadership Parenting strategies do. That is long game parenting.
Now, as always, I have some resources for you that will support this episode on the show notes. First, there will be a summary of this episode with examples. That’s a free resource for you.
There will also be a link to that event that I mentioned where you can boost the confidence of your child with big emotions.
And lastly, when you’re ready to learn leadership parenting strategies, all in one place and through a step by step process, you can learn how to do all of that in my Leadership Parenting Academy and my Leadership Parenting Success Lab. Both of those programs teach leadership parenting strategies, but one is in a group format and one is in a one on one format.
All of these resources are on my website at Rachel-bailey.com/332.
Thanks so much for listening and I’ll see you again soon.
Free live “Power Hour” event: How to Boost Confidence in Children with Big Emotions