Episode 335 Transcript
Hello and welcome to episode 335 of your parenting long game. As I’ve mentioned before, I teach what I call Leadership Parenting strategies because these are the strategies that are going to get you those long game results that you want to see.
And one of the main parts of being a Leader Parent is becoming what I call a “Powerful Positive Influence.”
But unfortunately, as parents we leak influence in so many ways unknowingly. And one of the most common ways we leak influence is when we see a child’s negative behavior, mood, or attitude as something that they’re doing wrong – as a behavior problem.
So we assume that they’re being a problem when they’re resisting doing homework… or when they’re making a huge production out of brushing their teeth instead of just going to brush their teeth… or when they refuse to try something new because they know they’re not going to be good at it.
We see these as behaviors we have to change. And we look for the thing that’s going to get them to do what they need to do, whether it’s homework or brushing their teeth or learning how to do things they’re not good at.
But again, when we see things this way, when we see these negative behaviors, moods, or attitudes as something that we have to make them change, we lose influence.
Instead, what we need to do is see what is under their behavior.
And often, when kids aren’t doing what they’re supposed to do, it’s because of something that I call the “avoider brain.” And recognizing and addressing the avoider brain is way more powerful than trying to search far and wide for the best thing that’s going to get them to do their homework or brush their teeth or do uncomfortable things.
So I’m going to tell you a little bit more about the avoider brain, but I also want to remind you that with this episode comes a free resource, which is a summary of what I talk about and some examples. And you can find that on my show notes at Rachel-bailey.com/335, along with other resources that will support you as you are raising a child with big emotions.
So let’s talk though about this “avoider brain.” The avoider brain is, as I said, what leads to children resisting doing homework or brushing their teeth or resisting trying something new. The avoider brain is not an anatomical part of the brain per se, but it does describe the brain’s tendency to avoid uncomfortable things.
This may look like “strong willed behavior” when your child is negotiating or trying to control the situation, but what it is actually is the flight part of their fight or flight response. Their brain senses that something might be uncomfortable doing homework, or brushing their teeth, or having to try something new when they know that’s uncomfortable.
And so the way their brain copes is to do anything it can to avoid that task. It’s doing this to “protect itself.”
So again, if your child senses anything potentially uncomfortable about an activity or a task, and they haven’t mastered their ability to handle their yuck or discomfort (has your child really mastered that ability yet? Probably not.), then their go to is going to often be to avoid that thing.
Now it’s true that most people will avoid something uncomfortable, but this is even more true with kids with big emotions because they’re more sensitive to discomfort. They feel it more quickly and they feel it more strongly. And they also have generally pretty poor ways of managing their yuck, so they try to avoid it.
Another reason this is really common in kids with big emotions is that they’d like to feel in control, especially where discomfort is involved. And the way they get control is to resist doing homework, to try to get out of something they don’t want to do, to try to avoid something they know will involve more uncomfortable feelings.
And that desire to avoid, that avoider brain, is very powerful.
Now, the avoider brain does try to avoid a lot of what it perceives to be a “threat” because it’s going to be uncomfortable. But there are two common things it tends to avoid over and over.
One is the tasks that are boring.
So why would boring tasks be a threat or cause yuck to a child? It actually is a threat because kids’ brains need and are used to a certain amount of stimulation. If they know a task isn’t going to provide that stimulation, they’re going to avoid it.
In fact, their brain sensing that something boring is actually doing the opposite of providing stimulation. It’s going to force more exertion on the attention system to try to maintain their attention when it’s boring. And the brain likes comfort and ease. So its instinct is to avoid that task so that it doesn’t have to exert more energy.
So a child avoids homework or practicing an instrument or brushing their teeth or anything else that is repetitive and monotonous – anything that provides no novelty and provides more work than a good feeling. They’re not necessarily aware of why they’re resisting it so much. If you ask them, they’ll probably just say “I don’t know…I just don’t feel like doing it.”
But really their brain is sensing this monotonous task as a problem or a threat and trying to avoid it.
Now the second thing that’s really commonly avoided for kids with big emotions is anything that they know is going to be uncomfortable, usually because they’ve experienced something similar in the past and it’s been uncomfortable.
So again, this may be avoiding things they’re not good at, or avoiding conversations that are uncomfortable, like talking about feelings or something they’ve done wrong. Because in addition to our kids seeing boredom as a threat, they also see a lack of ease (when things aren’t going the way they’re supposed to, or when they’re not comfortable)… they see that as a threat as well.
Because honestly, those feelings are very strong and they don’t know how to handle them. So they don’t like those feelings of not being good at something, or the feeling that comes up when they talk about feelings.
Because to them, again, feelings are confusing, and often they’re told that their feelings are wrong or bad or need to change. So they do avoid these activities and these conversations because their brain has deemed them as a threat, something to protect themselves from.
So what do we do about this?
Obviously, the first step is to recognize it. And to do this very simply, you can have your child make a list of things they hate and want to avoid. (Now, some kids may avoid talking about the things they want to avoid. And there are strategies for handling that. These are some of the individual questions I answer in my Leadership Parenting Academy.)
Generally, if you ask your kids to list what they hate, they’re going to come up with items pretty easily.
The next thing you want to do is just take one or two of them and ask them what they hate about those items.
Invite them to complain and complain loudly. I’ve talked about this before. To me, inviting complaints is one of the best things that you can do as a parent.
First of all, the invitation to allow them to complain shows them that you care as much about them as about the thing you’re trying to get them to do –the homework or the brushing the teeth.
Second, when they do tell you what the problem is, that leads to what they need help with. So if they say something is boring and they don’t feel like doing it, chances are what they need is help dealing with boredom, help dealing with that avoider brain.
Or if they say “I hate it when…” and then they tell you what they hate, chances are they need to learn how to handle an uncomfortable feeling.
Once you’ve identified what the issue is, then of course, you address the issue.
So, for example, one idea for boring activities that they have to do is to teach them how to incorporate engagement.
For example, brushing teeth is boring, so they can incorporate engagement by standing on one foot, or having a parent mirror what they’re doing as they’re brushing a teeth, or have them tell you a story that they want to tell you, after every sentence of the story, they have to brush their teeth ten times.
In the Leadership Parenting Academy, I do have a list of ideas that you can start with, but the truth is that often when kids realize that engagement feels better, they come up with ideas on their own.
So again, to address the avoider brain you need to start to notice it and try different strategies to address the thing that they are avoiding.
So I want to give you an example of how I worked with one family whose child avoided their daily reading.
This boy was given an assignment to read for 20 minutes a day and he resisted and resisted and did everything he could to avoid. And his mom usually said to him, “If you just have started by now, you’d already be done.”
And here’s the thing: She wasn’t wrong. If he had started already, he would have been done.
But just telling him that he would be done does not address the avoider brain. It doesn’t address the reason he was avoiding the reading.
So she asked him to complain about the reading. And he said two things about the reading.
Number one was that the things he was reading were too long. And number two, he said, “I hate having to read about things I just don’t care about.”
Now, she couldn’t adjust the length of how long he had to read or the assignments he had to read, but she could address the avoider brain.
So the first thing they did to address the fact that he said it was too long was they broke up reading into pieces. He was allowed to pick a number from the numbers 5, 6, and 7…and that was the number of minutes that they were going to read before they took a little bit of a break.
And she showed him that the longer the number, the fewer the sections that he would have to read. So if he chose the number 7, they would only have to start 3 times. But if you chose the number five, they were going to have to start 4 times. She gave him complete control over the decision, though.
Next she dealt with the fact that he said, I don’t care about what I’m reading. So what she did, because she couldn’t change the reading, was she brought in some silliness.
He’d read for the amount of time that he had to read, and then in that section that he’d read, he would pick one sentence for her to read in a very silly voice. And after every section, she always did.
It brought engagement in. It also gave his brain something to do while he was reading to kind of look for a sentence that he thought his mom was going to sound the funniest reading.
And what happened when she addressed these issues is that he started reading – because they had addressed what he was avoiding. The reading was overwhelming, so they broke it up and gave him a little bit of control. He couldn’t stay focused when he didn’t care about what he was reading, so they brought in a way for him to care a little bit more.
At that point, he was reading because his avoider brain didn’t have to avoid. Instead of nagging him or telling him, “You’d be done already…”, she recognized what was beneath his behavior, his avoider brain, and she addressed it.
That’s why it “worked.” (I say this all the time when I’m working with parents: If something works, we’ve met the need. If it doesn’t work, we just haven’t met the need yet and we can keep trying until we do.)
Now, in this case, recognizing the avoider brain is another example of recognizing that what is underneath so much negative behavior… is Yuck caused by a threat.
The threat may be it’s uncomfortable, or I don’t know how, or I hate this feeling. But there’s always a threat, and when we address that threat, we finally get the outcomes we want.
And when we respect the avoider brain or whatever else is underneath negative behavior, we can address it, and then we don’t see the negative behavior.
Even more, when we respect the avoider brain or whatever else is under the behavior, we gain influence. We become that powerful positive influence.
Our kids sense that we are working with them to help them be successful rather than against them, trying to find a way to make them do things that matter to us but not to them.
Leaders know how to influence and motivate. And when we are influencing and motivating in this way, we’re also strengthening our relationship.
And lastly, when we respect the avoider brain or whatever else is under the behavior, we give children tools that last forever. So that later when they’re in school now, or when they’re in school ten years from now, or when they’re at a job, what will happen is when we’ve given them these tools, and when they find themselves avoiding, they can ask themselves, “What do I hate about this? And since I have to get it done, what can I do about what I hate?”
This allows them to be more resilient in life.
So now we have a better relationship and they can be more resilient in life.
That is a Leadership Parenting strategy. And that is Long Game parenting.
Now, again, if you want a summary of this episode or more information about the Leadership Parenting Academy or other resources that will support you as you’re raising children with big emotions, all of that is over on my website at Rachel-bailey.com/335.
Thanks for listening. I’ll see you again soon.
