Episode 348 Transcript
Hello, it is Rachel and welcome to episode 348 of Your Parenting Long Game.
Today I’m going to be talking about reducing your stress when you see frustrating or confusing behavior in your kids. Now, I’m going to tell you the strategies that I’m going to teach you today will work with anyone, but I’m going to focus on your kids because, let’s be honest, as we are raising children with big emotions, we often have moments where our children’s behavior just doesn’t make sense.
Maybe your child suddenly explodes over what seems like nothing, or maybe they’re crying because you gave them the blue cup, even though they were the one who asked for the blue cup, or maybe they refused to go to a birthday party after they’d been talking about that birthday party excitedly for weeks.
And in those moments, your brain is probably spinning with thoughts like, “What is happening right now?” Or “Why are they making such a big deal out of this?” Or, “I just don’t get what’s going on!”
And you know what, that totally makes sense, because you are having an experience there too. You might be tired or rushing to get things done, or you’re just trying to have one peaceful moment and their reaction not only feels confusing, but like an extra weight you weren’t ready to carry.
Now I’m going to tell you how to deal with this, but before I do, I want to remind you of an upcoming event, the free “Negativity Reset” that is happening next week. That event helps you understand the confusing behavior of why your child is so negative, even when you know they’ve had a good day, why they focus on the negative.
They’re always assuming something bad is going to happen. I’m going to talk to you about what is under that specific behavior and what to do about it in order to make sure that negativity doesn’t ruin situations.
The free event includes simple tips, plus scripts, and “say this, not that” phrases.
And all of this information is easy to consume because I know it’s summer, but that does not mean you have extra time right now! So this event doesn’t include any live calls that you have to attend. It’s just very short videos, like five minutes or less. And even the scripts are very quick to read. But this information will help you diffuse your child’s negativity much more quickly so your summer feels lighter and calmer and more connected.
Information about the Negativity Reset is at Rachel-bailey.com/negativity-reset, or you can find it on the show notes for this episode, which is Rachel- bailey.com/348.
But for now, let’s get back to addressing more general confusing behavior. Again, this might be your child exploding over what seems like nothing, or they’re crying because you gave them the wrong cup. Or they’re refusing to do something that they’ve been excited about.
Here’s what I want to remind you today: When it comes to these confusing behaviors, even when a behavior seems confusing, there’s always a reason for it.
And sometimes our that reason has a logical explanation. We just need to think about what’s really going on for our child. And I’m going to give you a strategy in the moment that makes this so much easier to figure out what is going on for your child.
Sometimes the reason for their behavior is not logical. Sometimes our kids are confused too by their own reactions, by their own feelings, by their own intensity. They don’t always understand why they’re so upset.
They may have thought they wanted the blue cup, but when we gave them a blue cup, it didn’t feel good, and they don’t know why.
They may have been excited about the birthday party, but now they feel some sort of hesitancy inside, but they’re not sure what it’s about.
So whether there’s a reason that’s logical or whether they’re not sure what’s going on… either way, when they see confusion and judgment on our face, it only makes the yuck that they were feeling even heavier, scarier, and worse.
And on top of that, many of our kids are incredibly sensitive to judgment. They feel misunderstood even when no words are said. They read our tone, our body language, even a slight pause.
So if we don’t get them, not only might they be confused, but they might start to feel like there’s something wrong with them and they may get more frustrated with us again, only adding to their yuck.
So let me flip this for a second and give you a grownup example of a situation you might be in. This would be someone not understanding the behavior they see in you, and you are going to see how their lack of understanding or what you may perceive to be judgment would fuel your yuck in that situation.
So just quite simply, imagine you’ve had a stressful day. (I am sure that’s easy to imagine!) Maybe someone has cut you off in traffic. Then the line at the grocery store was long when you were already running late. And your kids had been fighting. And you haven’t been able to get the coffee you needed… one thing after another was happening.
And even though you were handling each of these things individually, you’re getting more tired as the day goes on. You’re trying to hold it together. You’re using all of your willpower not to lose it. But you’re feeling tense inside and that may be coming out a little bit.
And then your partner says something to you like, “why are you being so tense right now? We’re just making dinner and you’re snapping at everyone!”
At that point, you’re probably going to break. You’re probably going to get angry or maybe even start crying. And then they say, because they don’t understand this reaction that you’re having, “Why are you so upset? I was just telling you what you’re doing!”
How are you feeling in that moment? You probably have lots more yuck, right? Because they didn’t understand what was going on and they seem to be judging you.
Now imagine on the other hand, instead of being confused by your reaction, your partner knows you well enough to know that if you are acting tense like that, you must have had a bad day.
And they stop, look at you and say, “Hey, how are you? What’s going on?” And they really show that they care about what’s going on.
Or maybe they just have no idea why you’re acting like that, but they give you the benefit of the doubt that if you are tense (for what felt to them like no reason), they assume there must be a reason for you. They give you that benefit of the doubt.
You can see that that first response increases the intensity of your yuck and the other creates safety and is likely to help you get out of yuck more quickly.
Now, let’s bring this back to your child, because our confusion and our judgment does affect them. So it’s important for us to try to stop going into yuck when their behavior seems confusing.
But here’s the good news, if we want to reduce our yuck, we don’t always need the right answer, we just need the right lens.
And that lens could be that we try to see what might have been going on for our child, or our lens could just be giving them the benefit of the doubt.
Let me give you that strategy to help you try to figure out what is going on for your child. And that’s simply to act like an observer of what has been going on for your child.
So if we go back to the bad day you were having, if someone had been observing things that happen to you all day long, they would understand your tension. This is what you want to do for your child.
You don’t want to be a fixer or a judge.
You just want to back up and observe what has been going on for your child, what happened right before they had this behavior, but also rewind a little bit more what has been happening earlier in the day or in general for them.
Have they been sleeping poorly? Were they arguing with a brother or sister? Have they been having trouble at school? Have you had less time with them lately? Have things changed in their life?
Just observing things that have happened to them can help you understand what seem to be really irrational behaviors.
So let’s take a real example.
Let’s say your child refuses to go into the pool on vacation even though they’ve loved swimming all year. Your confused brain says, “What’s going on? They’ve loved swimming all year. Why are they so resistant now? We’re on vacation. What else do they want?”
However, your observer brain is going to say, “We just traveled, so their routine is off. They had a weird night of sleep in a different bed. The pool is new and maybe it feels different.”
So you are not just saying, “What are they doing?!”
You’re asking what has been going on for them, what have they been going through or feeling.
This does not have to take long. Again, it’s just a lens shift. And even if you get it wrong, I will tell you the effort alone to change your lens will change your yuck, your energy and how you respond.
Now what if you try to do that and you still don’t know what’s going on for them? That’s okay. This is where all you have to do is give them the benefit of the doubt. Just assume there’s a reason. Even if you can’t figure out what it is, assume that confusing behavior means they have some sort of yuck.
It doesn’t matter why. They just do. So instead of thinking they’re being dramatic and ungrateful, we’re on vacation. Just think they have some yuck.
And instead of saying to your child, “Why won’t you swim in the pool?” Say. “You don’t like something about this pool, huh?”
Going into observer mode or benefit of the doubt mode helps you to remember this is not about logic. This is about yuck.
And when we respond from that place, something amazing happens. Our kids start to feel safer. They travel the yuck curve more quickly. They recover faster.
Remember how you felt when your partner got into your world where at least assumed there was a reason you reacted the way you did. It feels so much safer and stronger. That’s the gift you’re giving your child when you get into their world or give them the benefit of the doubt.
And there’s a bigger impact that this has as well. They start to trust us more and they start to trust themselves more.
And we as parents feel less drained because a lot of our stress doesn’t just come from their behavior. It comes from the meaning we assign their behavior when we think “My child is being difficult” or “This is confusing.” We feel powerless.
But when we think “They’re struggling, and all I need to do is respect that, whether I know it’s causing it or not.” When we focus on what’s in our control and we shift our lens, we feel empowered.
That is a leadership parenting strategy, and that is long game parenting.
Now remember, if this resonates with you, but you want to know a little bit more about why your child is so negative, remember my free upcoming event, the Negativity Reset. It’s specifically for those confusing moments when your child seems stuck in a negative space, complaining, rejecting everything, or spiraling into “nothing ever works” mode… any of these situations.
I’m going to tell you why this happens, what’s going on underneath. I’ll help you become more of an observer like we talked about in this episode. And just as importantly, in this event, I’ll teach you what to actually do about all of that.
Information about the Negativity Reset, and other resources are the show notes notes at Rachel-bailey.com/348.
Thanks for listening, and I’ll see you next time.
FREE EVENT: “The Negativity Reset” for a more positive summer (no live participation required)
