Episode 382 Transcript
Hello it is Rachel and welcome to episode 382 of Your Parenting Long Game
Many of us who are raising kids with big emotions have kids who, when they’re upset, will push back…they’ll argue… they’ll negotiate.
And when that happens, it’s almost an instinct to believe that the goal is to “win” the moment, to stop their behavior, to get them to understand, to make them finally see reason.
So if we tell them they have to get off of their screens and they push back, we tell them why it’s important that they get off the screens right now.
Or if they’re angry that they have to go to bed or not listening when they have to go to bed, we try to explain to them why now is time for bed and why they need to keep moving.
We defend our decisions and repeat ourselves and try harder to get them to change their behavior or change their attitude.
But the person who wins arguments is almost never the person with the best explanation.
It’s the person actually who stays the most regulated, the person who doesn’t have to control the situation.
Because influence doesn’t come from intensity. It comes from steadiness.
Think about this for a second: Imagine you’re at work and your boss comes to you about a mistake you made.
They bring up the topic and you start to explain what was going on for you. But imagine they try to win this conversation. They start talking fast. They’re trying to interrupt you. They’re trying to prove why they are right.
Even if they are technically right, what happens inside your body when they’re trying to control the conversation?
You’re probably going to get more defensive. You may stop thinking clearly. You either want to argue back or shut down and escape the conversation.
Now, imagine a different boss, though. The same issue — they came to talk to you about a mistake you were making, and you start to tell them why the mistake happened, and this boss stays calm.
They have a steady voice. They’re certain. They’re grounded. They’re not reacting to your reaction.
They’re not trying to overpower you. They simply say, “Okay, thanks for telling me. This can’t happen again. Let’s talk now about what needs to change.”
Which one of those scenarios allowed you to get out of the fight or flight response? Which one of those bosses would likely have more influence when they told you that you needed to make a change in the future?
Influence does not come from emotional reactivity or controlling the situation. The most regulated person is the most influential.
And this is true in parenting, especially parenting kids with big emotions.
Kids don’t become more regulated and change their Yuck behaviors because we become more intense. They become more regulated when someone in the room stays grounded, even when they are dysregulated.
And this is especially hard for the parents I work with because they are (and I am!) pretty emotionally attuned.
We notice shifts in our children’s tone, we notice sadness and disappointment and frustration and withdrawal, and because we care so much, we often start treating our child’s discomfort like danger.
Not consciously, but physiologically. Our children get upset and our nervous system immediately goes, “Oh no, I need to fix this. I need them to calm down. I need this to stop.”
And that’s usually the moment we lose both our steadiness and our influence.
So I tell parents all the time, and I think about this all the time, success in a situation is not determined by our child’s behavior, mood, or attitude. It’s determined by how we respond to their behavior, mood, or attitude.
Because if our confidence depends on: Did my child stay calm? Did my child agree? Did my child comply quickly? Did this end peacefully?, then we will constantly be doubting ourselves and reducing our influence.
Because kids do get dysregulated sometimes. It’s part of development. It’s part of being human. The goal is to become someone who can stay grounded when their Yuck behaviors and uncomfortable emotions happen.
That is leadership.
When we’re thinking things like, “If I can just explain this better, then my child will calm down,” if our goal is to get the situation to stop instead of letting our child travel the Yuck curve, we lose our leadership and our influence.
Once a child is emotionally flooded, logic isn’t actually going to help them.
Think about how many times your child keeps arguing even after they logically know the answer.
Maybe you’ve already said no to something. They know in their minds that the answer is no, but they keep pushing.
They say, “But that’s not fair,” or, “You said last time,” or, “You never let me.”
In those moments, they’re not looking for logic. What’s happening is there’s so much activation inside of their bodies, they’re feeling so much Yuck, that they have to externalize it somehow. They’re just releasing their Yuck.
The arguing is their release valve, which means your job is not to explain things again, to respond to their Yuck behavior.
Your job is to out-regulate them, to stay steady as these Yuck behaviors happen, stay steady as they’re traveling the Yuck curve…not to let their Yuck behavior, (which is, in this case, the insistence that things aren’t fair)… we don’t want that Yuck behavior to suck us in.
So what this looks like is, while they’re pushing you, you don’t say very much. You can say once, with confidence and connection, “I’m not answering again,” and then stop answering.
While they keep pushing, remind yourself, they’re just releasing Yuck. I don’t have to do anything about this. I don’t have to fix this.
And that can help you remain regulated. This is emotional confidence — confidence in them that they can get through this feeling, and confidence in yourself that you can handle their reaction.
Now I think this is hard for many of us because we associate strength with meanness.
We think things like, “If I become strong, I’ll become cold,” or “I’ll be abandoning my child when they’re feeling these feelings.”
We think “If I hold the boundary, I’ll damage the relationship.”
But firmness and anger are not the same thing. You can be deeply connected to your child and deeply steady at the same time.
In fact, kids with big emotions need that combination because children borrow cues from our nervous system constantly…not just from our words, but from our energy.
If we react to their Yuck behavior and their emotions as if they’re dangerous, they start to believe that emotions are dangerous too.
But when we stay grounded no matter what they’re feeling, we communicate something very powerful. We communicate, “This feeling is hard, but it’s survivable.”
That energy sends a signal to their fight or flight response in that moment that it can turn off.
And when their fight or flight response becomes deactivated, their Yuck behaviors go away. They don’t keep pushing. Their Yuck is no longer there to have to be released.
So our strength actually helps them through the moment AND it helps them build emotional resilience in the long run.
So the next time your child is escalating, instead of asking, “How do I get them to see this?” Or, “How do I get them out of that emotion or that behavior?” Try asking, “How do I stay grounded enough to lead this moment, to be confident that my child can handle that feeling, and confident in myself that I can handle their reaction?”
Now, if you want a more specific example of this, and it’s hard to stay steady when your child is negative, I want to invite you to a free workshop that I’m doing called “When Your Child Focuses on the Negative.”
Because it can be hard to stay emotionally confident in those moments. We’re thinking things like, “Why are they ruining the moment?” And, “I don’t want them to always be negative!”
We end up trying to get our child to change in those moments, and it doesn’t work, so we feel helpless and exhausted and like nothing we say is making a difference.
Well, I’m going to show you exactly what your child does need in that moment of negativity and how you can stay steady and your child will naturally, on their own, shift out of negativity.
We’ll also talk about how to help your child build the ability to handle uncomfortable feelings without going negative.
You can find the link to that free workshop in the show notes at rachel-bailey.com/382.
I’m always here to teach you Leadership parenting strategies as part of your parenting long game. Thanks for listening, and I’ll see you again soon
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