Episode 370 Transcript
Hello and welcome to episode 370 of Your Parenting Long Game. In the past few episodes, I’ve been sharing some of the more frequently written notes that I give to my private one-on-one clients after our sessions because I want you to be able to benefit from some of them too.
Another note I give very frequently is: “Work on not seeing your child’s negative behavior as a threat. So when they melt down over nothing, or when they’re mean to you because you’re pressuring them to get ready in the morning…none of that’s good, of course, but we cannot see those behaviors as a threat.”
So here’s what I mean by that note. I’ll tell you generally, and then I’ll go into more detail.
Generally, the way you want to think about this is when your child is having a negative behavior or mood or attitude, they are in some sort of discomfort.
What you’re seeing in their behavior is a reflection that they’re in Yuck, and the only way for the behavior to change — for them to become more positive or more respectful — is for them to get out of Yuck.
But they can’t get out of Yuck if you are in Yuck.
And you won’t get out of Yuck if you see their behavior as a threat.
If you want to diffuse situations, if you want your children’s negative behaviors to move more quickly, you have to stop seeing it as a threat.
We can’t get unstuck from this cycle of escalating negative behavior as long as we see their behavior as a threat.
Now, not seeing their meltdowns as a threat and not seeing their rude behavior when we’re trying to get out of the house in the morning as a threat…this is not the same as condoning what they’re doing.
It’s not saying you don’t care about what they’re doing or you’re being permissive.
The reason we stop seeing it as a threat is actually the opposite. We stop seeing it as a threat so we can help them move through that behavior more quickly so that it ends more quickly.
Remember, their negativity is a sign that they’re in Yuck. Something about what’s happening is uncomfortable. And all you’re seeing in their behavior is a sign that they’re not handling their Yuck maturely.
So, in order to stop behaving that way, they either have to master coping skills (which they’re not going to do in that very moment!) or they have to get out of Yuck.
Now getting out of Yuck, of course, requires them to do what I call “traveling the Yuck Curve.” (Remember, the Yuck curve is a rainbow shaped curve that represents what happens when someone is in Yuck. Over time, when they’re in Yuck, their Yuck is going to get bigger, reach a peak, and come down.)
When they’re on that curve, you’re going to see that negative behavior.
Once they travel the curve, that’s when their behavior is going to get better. That’s when they’re going to stop melting down. That’s when they’re going to stop being rude.
So our goal is to help them travel the curve more quickly.
But in order for them to travel the curve more quickly, they have to feel safe. When they’re in Yuck, their fight or flight response has kicked in. Their nervous system has to be calmed down for them to travel the curve.
But they can’t get out of fight-or-flight if we are in it.
I want you to imagine what I’m talking about.
Imagine you’re in a really bad mood. You’ve had a really long day, you’re overwhelmed, tired, and one of your kids asks you for one more thing… and you just lose it. You are not handling the situation well.
Now imagine someone comes at you and you can tell that that person is also dysregulated. If you can tell that they’re angry with you…that they’re frustrated with you… if their energy is saying, “I need you to stop right now”… you don’t come down off of your Yuck curve. You go higher on your Yuck curve.
So even if that person is right — maybe they’re telling you that your reaction isn’t going to help — you can’t hear it.
In that moment, you’re going to focus on defending and protecting, not behaving better. You are not going to become more regulated when you can sense that they are not.
Kids are the same way. If they can tell we are upset or frustrated, they are going to stay in Yuck and their negative behavior will continue.
Once we regulate ourselves, though, we become what I call a “powerful, positive influence.” Our regulated nervous system powerfully and positively helps them travel the curve and return to positive behavior.
But whether we can regulate and whether we can become that powerful, positive influence is completely determined by how we see our child’s negative behavior in the first place…whether we see their meltdown or their rude behavior as a threat in the first place.
Because how we perceive or interpret things, the story we tell ourselves about a situation determines how we feel. And how we act and the energy we give off and our energy matters because our kids sense our energy long before they understand our words.
And the truth is we do tell ourselves stories about any situation. Now, I will say, I did not make up this phrase “telling ourselves stories”. I first heard this from Brene Brown who says that you should always ask yourself, “What story am I telling myself about this situation?”
Our brains always make a story because at the most basic level, any situation is neutral. It is not bad or good.
Even something like death, which many of us assume is negative, it’s not. It’s neutral. Some cultures like ours fear it, some revere it. Some see it as a transition.
We all assign meaning to something or tell ourselves a story about something, and that’s what we make it mean. As humans, we are meaning-makers.
And the meaning we give something, the story we tell ourselves, determines how we feel.
Let me give you a simple. One of my favorite examples of this comes from the book, “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen Covey.
And in the beginning of the book, he tells a story a man who’s on a subway with his children.Now his children are running around being crazy, bothering the people around them.
And someone angrily walks up to this man and says, “Aren’t you paying attention to your children? Look at what they’re doing. They’re annoying everyone around them!”
And the man looks up and he says, “Oh my goodness. I’m so sorry. You’re right. My wife just passed away. We’re coming from the hospital, and I wasn’t paying attention.”
This man was deep in grief. That’s why he wasn’t paying attention to what was going on, and his kids were in grief too, and they were acting out as a result of it.
Now, as soon as you have a new story about this man and why his kids were running around, everything changes. If you saw that man on a train, instead of being annoyed with him, you’d feel sorry for him.
So our stories or how we interpret a situation have enormous power over us.
They can keep us dysregulated and stuck in our Yuck, or they can help us reregulate and move through our Yuck.
Dysregulation will always happen…we will always stay in Yuck…when we sense a threat, a problem or danger.
But here’s the thing, our brain doesn’t know if something is a threat unless our story tells our brain that it’s a threat.
An event itself doesn’t press the panic button. It’s the story you tell yourself about the event that does.
So when your child rolls their eyes or snaps back at you, or complains or says, “this is stupid,” your nervous system doesn’t react to their words, it reacts to the meaning you assign their words.
That’s why multiple people can have multiple responses to the same child. Their response is going to be based on the story they’re telling themselves.
So if your story is “They’re disrespectful” or “They’re ungrateful,” or “I’m failing as a parent,” you are going to be dysregulated.
And when you are dysregulated, your child is going to feel it. They stay stuck in Yuck, and they have those Yuck behaviors for longer.
That’s why it’s so important to understand what your “stuck stories” are — the stories that keep you stuck in Yuck because they tell you that there’s a threat.
“Unstuck stories” are the ones that help us stay grounded and effective, even as we are addressing their behavior. Because of course we’re going to address it!
We just want to address it from a space of regulation instead of dysregulation because it’s regulation that makes us that powerful positive influence that can help them travel the curve.
Your influence as a parent doesn’t come from finding the best way to control your child’s behavior. It comes from being able to get unstuck through your story.
So, let me give you an example of a family I worked with. A mom told me about her 9-year-old daughter who complained constantly about school, about dinner, about having to leave the house, about everything.
This mom’s stuck story was, “She’s so negative, she’s going to grow up miserable. If I don’t shut this down, she’ll never be happy.”
So every complaint to this mom felt like a red flag.
So her responses to her daughter were fast and firm. She’d say “Enough!” or “You always complain,” or “Other kids have it worse,” or “You need to look on the bright side,: which only created more Yuck for her daughter and led to her daughter complaining more.
So when this mom and I slowed it down, we worked on shifting the story.
We didn’t work on the daughter’s behavior first. We worked on shifting the mom’s story first.
Her unstuck story became, “Right now my child does become negative when her nervous system is overwhelmed. This isn’t who she is, it’s what her body currently does. We’re working on it and it will get better.”
So her daughter was still behaving the same way, but she was seeing it differently.
And because she was seeing it differently, her reactions and her energy changed.
Her tone softened, her body stayed open. She became more of a powerful, positive influence.
And not surprisingly at all, her daughter traveled the curve more quickly. And her Yuck behaviors ended sooner.
Because kids do move through Yuck more quickly when they’re not pushing against our tension.
So to wrap up and make this super practical, I’m going to advise you to recognize your “stuck stories” versus your “unstuck stories.”
So you can start with any situation that you don’t handle particularly well.
And all you have to do is ask yourself, “What am I telling myself about this situation? Is there a threat in what I’m telling myself? Could my brain see that story as a problem?” If so, that’s a stuck story.
A stuck story is going to make you feel urgent or scared for the future, and it’s going to make you feel like you need to shut down their behavior right now.
Now, a stuck story doesn’t mean you’re wrong or bad. It means your brain is just trying to protect you. But protection isn’t the same as effectiveness.
An unstuck story is going to help you realize that there’s a reason for your child’s behavior and that it will not last forever.
It does not excuse your child’s behavior.
It simply removes the sense of danger so you can respond instead of react.
So the next time your child is negative or resistant or emotional, don’t ask, “How do I stop what they’re doing?” Ask “What story am I telling myself about what they’re doing, and is it helping me stay confident and connected right now?”
Because when you unstuck yourself, you give your child the best possible chance to get unstuck from their Yuck and their negative Yuck behaviors.
And that’s how real change happens — not by controlling their behavior, but by changing the meaning you give their behavior.
Finding an unstuck story is a leadership parenting strategy, and that is your parenting long game now.
If you want more resources to help you stay regulated and of course to help your child stay regulated so they’re not in Yuck to begin with, check out the show notes for this episode and I will have some resources for you there.
You can find that on my website Rachel-bailey.com/370.
Thanks for listening, and I’ll see you again next time.
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