Episode 343 Transcript

Hello, it is Rachel and welcome to episode 343 of Your Parenting Long Game. You may or may not know this, but one of the three main components of my Leadership Parenting Academy is teaching parents of kids with big emotions how to set limits confidently and effectively…so kids actually respond in a positive way.

And setting limits with our kids who feel things strongly is important to address and focus on because let’s be honest, our kids do not react the same as other kids do.

When we set a limit…when we tell them that they have to get off of their device or when we tell them it’s time to take the dog out for a walk, or when we tell them to get out bed in the morning…when we set limits and expectations, it’s not just that our kids sometimes don’t listen to us. (Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t.)

But what most of us have trouble with is the reaction they have when we do set a limit or expectation, because often their reaction is disproportionate to the situation.

So let’s say you ask your child to get off of their device. Sure, you might expect some type of frustration, but with our kids it’s a lot more.

So you may ask your child to get off of their device — when they knew they’d have to get off of their device — and they get angry at you exploding, “It’s not fair!”

Or maybe they negotiate for more time over and over, starting with, “Can I just finish this part?”

And then asking for five more minutes and then just two more minutes. And then when we finally put our foot down and say, “No, it’s time to get off of the device,” they become livid that we’re saying no when we’ve just said yes three times.

Or maybe your child becomes rude to you when you ask them to get off of their device saying something like, “You’re just so annoying.”

Or maybe they even respond in a way that’s disproportionate, but more quiet as they get upset with themselves when we tell them it’s time to get off of their device saying, “Why do I always forget? Why do I always mess up?”

And perhaps because we get tired of dealing with these overreactions over and over, we don’t tend to handle their reactions to our limits very well either when they do act out, becoming angry or disrespectful or negotiating or even hard on themselves.

We usually react to their reaction. So if they’re angry with us, we react to their anger, saying something like, “You knew you’d have to get off of your device. Why are you so angry?”

Or if they negotiate and they get upset, when we put our foot down, we try to defend ourselves and say, “I just gave in to you three times.” We get frustrated that they keep pushing us.

Or if they’re disrespectful to us saying, “You’re so annoying,” we think in our minds that we must get that disrespect to stop. We say, “Do not talk to me like that!” and then threaten to take away the things they care about.

Or if they’re hard on themselves, we react to that saying, “Everyone makes mistakes. It’s okay. It’s not the end of the world.”

We react to their reactions. And when we do, we not only make the situation worse… but in those cases, we are doing exactly what we’re asking them to stop doing.

Think about it: They’re getting upset at what we ask them to do. In this case, they’re getting upset that they have to get off of their device. In that moment, they have yuck about that limit. And if you remember, when their yuck is higher than their skills to be able to regulate yuck, you’re going to see a negative reaction.

So when your child is angry, they have a lot of yuck and they don’t have the skills to manage it. When your child is negotiating, they have a lot of yuck and they don’t have the skills to handle it, so they just try to get more and more time.

When your child is disrespectful, they have a lot of yuck and they don’t have the skills to handle it, and that comes out as disrespect. Even when they’re hard on themselves, they have a lot of yuck. They don’t have the skills to handle it, so they start to beat themselves up.

So what they’re doing is they’re not managing their yuck very well, and what we’re doing is the same thing. Their reaction creates yuck for us, and we are not handling that yuck very well either.

And when we’re not handling it well, what it does, it creates a secondary layer of yuck for our children. So they have that first layer of yuck that they have to do something they don’t want to do.

But when we react to it by getting angry or getting annoyed or threatening to take away things they care about or using logic when they’re upset.

When we’re having these reactions because we’re uncomfortable with their reaction, we are adding to them a second layer of yuck.

Now, not only are they upset about having to get off the device, but now we’re adding more yuck to the situation and they feel like they have to defend themselves against us.

Here’s something you need to know: Our children are more likely to focus on that secondary yuck that we are creating than they are to be mature and responsible and get off their device quietly and nicely.

Humans are wired to focus on the “threat” of another human being. They will do that in lieu of responsible, mature behavior.

So now instead of learning how to get off their device more maturely, they’re focused on how upset they are with us at the fact that we’re yelling at them or taking away things they care about or try to use logic when they’re really upset.

The secondary yuck that we’re adding not only makes the situation worse, but we lose our influence and the situation is likely to go poorly the next time.

So let me give you an example of what I mean by the fact that humans are wired to notice other humans who are a “threat” more than learning the lesson we want them to learn,

So I’m going to have you imagine a situation you might go through as an adult. Imagine you get a call from your child’s school that they’re sick and they’re really upset. Your child really wants you to be there.

So you’re probably thinking, “Oh wow, I need to get there really quickly. My child is struggling, they’re suffering. I need to get to their school.”

And as you go to their school, you’re speeding. You’re going above the speed limit because you want to get to your child.

Now imagine you get pulled over by a police officer. So you roll down your window. The police officer comes over to your car and you start to tell them that you’re speeding because your child is sick at school and they completely cut you off and they say, “I don’t care why you’re speeding. This is unacceptable. You are on a road where there are a lot of kids and you could have done a lot of damage,” and they’re very, very angry with you.

You try again very nicely and politely to defend yourself. But that police officer says, look, “I don’t want to hear anything!” They go back to their car, they write up their ticket, they give you the ticket very angrily, and you barely got a word in edgewise.

Now imagine though, a different police officer pulls you over. Imagine this police officer walks up to your car and you say, “I’m really sorry. I’m rushing to go to my child’s school.”

And they look at you and they say, “Yeah, you know what? I’ve been there before. I have kids too. I understand what that’s like. I still do have to give you a ticket because you’re not allowed to speed and there really are no excuses. But I totally hear what you’re saying.” They go back to their car, write you a ticket, they hand it to you.

They say, “Good luck with your child. Have a nice day,” but they wrap it up by saying, “Keep in mind, you really cannot speed on these roads.”

So two very different experiences.

Now imagine you are talking to someone about this experience later. Maybe you’re telling a spouse or a friend about it.

If you had police officer A, chances are, what you’re going to focus on is what a jerk the police officer was that they wouldn’t let you talk. And most of your story is going to be about talking about the police officer rather than the fact that you were speeding.

But imagine you’re telling the same story to a friend or a spouse, and you’re talking about that second police officer, chances are what you’re going to focus on in that situation is the fact that you were speeding.

The second police officer did not pose a threat to you. They didn’t come to you with all of their yuck, so you have more room to focus on what you did wrong.

In the first situation, you feel like you have to protect and defend yourself. In the second situation, you are more likely to be able to learn the lesson.

Humans focus on another human being who brings yuck to the situation. It is the way we are wired.

Our goal in these situations when our children get mad at the limits and expectations that we set, is to not bring that secondary yuck.

Now I want to get deeper into how you can stop creating a secondary yuck for your child. What you want to do is to recognize that the initial yuck is going to happen. Your child is not going to like it.

When you set a limit or a boundary, they’re going to have a reaction because they are not robots. And until they have mastered the skills to handle their yuck maturely, their reaction is not going to be a positive one. Your job is to not react so much to their reaction.

You want to recognize that they’re in yuck.They’re on that yuck curve. And remember, in order for this behavior to get better, they have to travel the entire yuck curve. That means their yuck and yuck behaviors, their anger, their disrespect, those are going to get bigger before they get smaller.

But eventually once they travel the curve, their behavior is going to get better. Their anger’s going to go away, their disrespect towards themselves or others is going to go away. Now, if you’re not sure what the yuck curve is, I also have a free resource about that on the show notes for this episode. So check that out as well.

But keeping in mind that they have to travel this yuck curve is essential because when we introduce that secondary yuck, when we’re reacting to their yuck reaction, it keeps them on that yuck curve longer and it prevents them from learning the lesson that they have to get off of their device when we ask them to.

Remember that first police officer was going to keep you in yuck much longer with the second police officer, you were able to focus on your own behavior.

So, when you don’t add more yuck to them when they are on the yuck curve, they’re more likely to listen to what you ask them to do more quickly, to get off of their device, or take the dog out or get out of bed.

But for now, think about a limit that you have set in the past that led to some drama.

So start by thinking: What was the limit or expectation that I was setting?

Then ask yourself: Were they upset by that limit or expectation? If the answer is yes, that’s their initial yuck.

Then ask yourself: How did they respond to the limit? What was the negativity? That is their yuck behavior.

Next, ask yourself: How did I respond to their response? And if your response to their response was negative, that is the secondary yuck that you are contributing. That’s what you want to stop doing.

So your job is to focus on what you need to focus on so that you don’t go into yuck. This is what I teach about in the Leadership Parenting Academy. When I talk about regulating yourself, I have lots of strategies to ensure that you don’t go into yuck when your child has a yuck reaction.

You want your child to get mad at the limit, not mad at you.

Your job is to remind yourself that you will teach them how to handle their yuck more maturely later.

For now, you need to focus on staying regulated so that you don’t lose your influence. This behavior will stop happening all together when they master strategies to handle their yuck more maturely.

But in order for them to even be open to these strategies to handle their yuck more maturely, you have to be a powerful, positive influence, and you lose your influence when you create secondary yuck.

So again, when you let them have the feeling about the limit, then they’re mad at the limit, and you don’t lose your influence.

And ultimately what happens in the long run when you stop adding secondary yuck is that they learn to get through their feelings of discomfort more quickly.

This gives them the ability to recognize that they can handle discomfort because they’re no longer associating discomfort with you being mad at them about how they’re handling their discomfort. They simply recognize that when they’re uncomfortable, the feeling passes.

This is long-term resilience. We get there using leadership parenting strategies. This is long game parenting.

So remember, the Leadership Parenting Academy can teach you those step-by-step strategies for setting limits for regulating yourself so that you don’t create secondary yuck and for teaching your children the skills they need to be to handle yuck more maturely on their own.

There is a link to that Leadership Parenting Academy, as well as many other resources on the show notes for this episode at rachel-bailey.com/343.

Thanks for listening and I’ll see you again soon.

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