AUDIO PODCAST HERE:    Podcast 51

​In my last podcast I had a wonderful time talking to my two sons but one of my dear friends said she wondered about the “Energy Drains” we talked about.  It sounded like it was effective in getting my sons’ attention and got them to consider how their behavior might impact their lives but I didn’t really explain the full concept.  All parents find themselves in situations where our kids do stuff that really takes energy out of us, yet we don’t know how to respond.  This episode is dedicated to figuring that out so we don’t get caught off guard and can effectively get our energy back in loving ways.

First off, I’ve been a facilitator of Love and Logic® parenting classes for over 10 years now.  It’s such a wealth of great parenting advice presented in really logical ways that are, for the most part, easy to understand.  Things like choices, setting boundaries and allowing for natural consequences are part of just about every solid parenting curriculum no matter what.  There is one term that Love and Logic® coined that has been the hardest to get parents to understand what it means and how they can have it work lovingly in their homes.  It’s Energy Drain.
 
The basic premise is that when kids do things that drain energy out of us, we don’t have any energy left to help them with other things in life.  As a result, they need to put energy back.  Let’s break it down into four parts:
1.What might drain our energy
2.How do you let your kids know they’ve drained you
3.How might kids replenish the energy we lost
4.What do you do when kids choose not to replace your energy
 
So, let’s go!
 
1 - What might drain our energy
This list is pretty easy to come up with for most parents but here are some things that come to mind:

• Whining
• Disrespect and talking back
• Not doing chores
• Not doing homework
• Forgetting stuff at home and causing parents to go get things – homework, sports equipment, musical instruments, lunch boxes, water bottles
• Sibling fighting
• Screen time limits being ignored
• Tantrums

 
I think you get the idea.  Most of these issues have no natural consequences that can put a stop to poor behavior.  When a kid whines or talks back, we’re stumped and often times react to the negative behavior in a negative manner with yelling or punishing.  We usually come up with “Go to your room!” Or: “You’ve just lost your screen time with that attitude!”.  Right?  Doesn’t that sound familiar? 
 
However, sometimes we helicopter a natural consequence like bringing a lunchbox or homework to school when our kids forget instead of allowing them to deal with missing that item themselves.  When we rescue like that, we rob them of learning opportunities but, here’s the key for this episode, we rob ourselves of our time and energy that we don’t get back.  We give and they take.  Not a good formula for the long term. I now have to take MY time to correct a mistake that was not mine.  Not fair one bit.  However, lots of parents just take it in the gut, suck it up and run to school.  It all becomes very draining and possibly infuriating when it happens over and over.
 
Let’s move on. 
 
2 - How do you let your kids know they’ve drained you
 
When your energy is drained you have choices, don’t we love choices?   You can be dramatic or matter of fact, it’ll depend on you and your kids.  For kids 8 and under I think dramatic can work really well.  “Wow, all those toys all over the floor really drain my energy.  Oh man, I’ve got to just sit on the couch and recover… Ugh… I don’t even think I can get up for a long time… Soooo sorry.”  You can have drama but make sure you have empathy too!  This isn’t a punishment, and you need to be really careful it doesn’t morph into that, and empathy will really help.
 
“Gee, this is sooo sad.  I had to do all the dishes you said you’d do and now I’m really drained.”  You might also use: “This is so sad.  It took so long to brush your teeth and get ready for bed that I’m too drained to read you a book.  I hope I can get some energy back tomorrow so we can read stories again.”  Yes, this might result in a meltdown or tantrum, but you need to hang tight to get the result you want. Tomorrow night will go more smoothly as will the night after that.  Every time you give in it sends a signal that your words don’t mean anything.  It basically keeps allowing your child to have a free pass to manipulate you.
 
For teens and tweens, you might be much more casual and make a statement like: “Gosh, you’re talking back really drained my energy today.”  No drama needed and we need to be careful not to get upset when they roll their eyes or give snarky comments when you say this.  Just let that roll off for now.  I do want to recommend you have a Family Meeting with your family, especially with older kids, so that they understand what happens when mom and dad have energy drains.
 
We’re getting more clear on what drains our energy and how use empathy and possibly drama to let your kids know about it,  so let’s move on again. 
 
3 - How might kids replenish the energy we lost
We need to make sure both your child and you are even emotionally.  This is only going to work if everyone is calm.  If your child is crying or yelling back or resentful, you’ll just have to wait.  If you’re upset that they just called you awful names, you need to wait until you have a clear head. 
 
Once that happens then you’ll say something like: “You know how I did the dishes for you earlier.  That really drained my energy.  How do you think you’re going to put energy back in mommy?”  Or: “You know how you and your brother were fighting so much yesterday, that really drained my energy.  What would you like to do to put energy back in mommy?”
 
You might also wait until after school and say in a loving and empathetic voice: “Wow, so glad I was able to run your homework to school today.  That was pretty important, I could tell but, gosh, it really drained my energy.  I was in the middle of writing my lecture and it took an hour out of my day to find your homework, drive to and from school and get restarted.  I’m wondering how you’ll be putting energy back in mommy today.  Would you like some ideas or would you like to choose something from the Energy Drain list on the fridge?”

Believe it or not, most kids actually pick up on this concept really quickly especially when a parent had a solid relationship with their child and uses this in a loving manner and doesn’t turn it into a punishment. 

A good friend who’d been using Energy Drains on his two little boys had been forgetting the empathy part and so they sounded like punishments. “Nick, you hit your brother.  That really drained my energy so go pick something off the list on the fridge.”   That sounds so different than “Wow, Nick, that’s so sad you decided to hit your brother.  It really drains my energy.  We use our words in this house when we have conflicts.  What would you like to do to put energy back in daddy?”

I have a handy list nearby on my fridge or in my head of things they can do to replace the energy drained by their poor decisions. It might be making dinner or sweeping the floor.  It could be dusting or putting lotion on my hands.  It is something your child does for you that they don’t normally do, possibly one of your regular jobs and it should be age appropriate.  If you talk about this whole concept as a family and have them help put together an energy replacement list, they’ll even buy into the program faster.

The whole idea of getting them to replace your energy is to get their brains to recognize the impact their behavior has on other people.  When we let them get away with bad behavior sometimes it’s just because they have no idea how they impact others.  It creates entitlement when we put up with it, doesn’t it?  Your kids think it’s fine to fight with each other because they’ve never known anything could happen except you get mad and make kids go to their room or lose screen time.  They know every time what will happen, but it doesn’t motivate them stop fighting and learn other methods of getting along.  If they fight and all the sudden after they’ve cooled down in their room, they have to pull weeds in the backyard or clean the bathroom, they might get the hint that there could be a better way. 
 
It’s our job as parents to have them take a pause.  They might not be happy about any of this but, over time, they will start to see that their behavior does impact others thanks to your loving and empathetic interventions.  If you haven’t heard my boys in Podcast #50 take a listen and hear what they have to say about the long-term impact of Energy Drains.  Here’s a hint: it mattered and it didn’t make them hate me.  Whew!
 
Here's a link to the ENERGY DRAIN IDEAS list on my website to help you with some energy replacement ideas.  Feel free to download the spreadsheet to edit and print your own if you’re so inclined.  My goal is to make energy replacement easy for you, so have at it!
 
Now, on to the last part.
 
4 - What do you do when kids choose not to replace your energy
This is where things get a little harder.  You’ll have to have something happen, a consequence, when they fail to put your energy back.  You need to know what your child’s currency is, what lever you have over things you do for them, that they want you to keep doing.  Here are some ideas:

• I drive kids to school who’ve put my energy back. 
• I read books at bedtime to kids who’ve put my energy back.
• I drive kids to the store to shop who’ve put my energy back.
• I serve dinner to kids who’ve put my energy back.
• I make dinner when I have enough energy to do so.
• I wash clothes for kids who put my energy back.
  
  

Notice, these are said with love and are not punishments.  Your child can choose to put your energy back, it’s not required.  However, you need to hold strong about what you choose to not do for them so that tantrums and whining about your “stupid energy drain stuff” won’t get to you.  You’re going to go brain dead and say: “Yeah, I know… it’s really hard sometimes.  I’m sure you’ll figure it out.  I sure love you.”  That can keep making them mad though so don’t be surprised when they’re in the learning mode of this technique.  Just be patient.  Nod your head or hum: “Uh huh…” or “Wow…”
​
I’m going to offer one other solution for getting energy drain replacements going when it comes to kids not doing chores.  This one worked great for my own boys in their middle and high school years.  I never yelled or nagged about doing chores, I know, it’s hard to imagine.  I let it be known that I’d be happy to do any chore for them and I posted a list of charges on my kitchen bulletin board.  They each had weekly and daily chores, not an overwhelming number but a few.  It was only $20 for me to take the garbage bins to the street, $5 to refill TP and $10 to comb the cat. Everything had a price and I used prices that would get their attention.  I collected my charges once a month from the pink note cards that went on the bulletin board to track when I did a job for them.  It allowed me to be a happy mom and they got to be responsible since they didn’t like giving me their money.  I was also willing to bargain with them if they did one of my jobs so they didn’t have to pay me.  I was flexible! 
 
If you talk to your family in a Family Meeting about what drains your energy, they can be prepared to help balance the scales in your home away from the take-take-take that happens way too often.  I’ve seen parents with kids as young as two make energy drains work and as old as high school.  It helps build respect for others which is a necessary life skill we all need to become thoughtful, successful adults. 

In this blog I’m going to continue our quest to teach manners to our children.  We’ve already covered “please” in Podcast 47 and explored how to encourage acts of kindness in Podcast 48.  Now it’s time to figure out how to get our kids to say “thank you” and how to help develop a general sense of appreciation for not only “things” but also training them in thankfulness help to promote an “attitude of gratitude”.

THANK YOU
As I said previously, getting our kids to use “Thank You” is tougher than “please”.  Why is that?  Because it happens AFTER something, not before like “please”.  It’s easy for a kid to just forget and hard for us to not feel like we’re nagging to get them to do the thanking we expect them to do.  It means we have to work a bit harder to get the response we want.
 
Let’s start with some ideas for you to ponder.
 
First, Start Early:
Even a baby can be taught to say thank you using sign language which I total admire folks who are able to start that young.  However, most of you listening probably have older kids so just start your “thank you” training as soon as you can.  What this really involves is training yourself, something that can be difficult for some of us, but every time you give something to one of your kids, stop and wait for a thank you.  Don’t do anything else until you get a thank you.  No nagging, just wait. 

You can gently and empathetically prompt them with one of these phrases if it’s not obvious to your child what you’re waiting for.  Something like:

• And what do you say?
• In our house we say what when someone does something for us?
• I’d love to hear that “thank you” in your sweet voice.  It really fills me up when I’ve done something for you. 

Notice the tone of my voice.  It’s gentle. It’s loving.  Practice that tone.

When you hear your kids getting help from someone else instead of yourself, feel free to gently use similar phrases.

• And what do we say to a friend who helps us? 
• And what do we say when brother helps you?

I think you get the idea.
 
Next, Be Consistent:
When we want to set up a new skill, we have to remember to use it A LOT!  Feel free to have a Family Meeting and talk about thanks – why we use it and how it makes us feel when it is used.  Let your kids know you’ll be making an effort to help the family use “thanks” every day and in every way.  They might get tired of hearing you gently remind them but you need to respond to their gripes with kindness and empathy.  “Oh, I know, it does take extra time to thank people but, in our family, we are thankful every day.  Do you need a minute to gather your thoughts?”
Notice again my tone. 

Lastly, Give Praise for Thankfulness:
A simple response from us as parents can help reinforce positive behavior.  Here’s an idea, after a child uses “thank you” say:

• I loved how you said “thanks”.  It warms my heart. 
• I really appreciate that. 

I know, it almost sounds like you’re thanking your child for thanking you but, hey, we need to be positive and, for me at least, it does warm my heart. 
 
FAMILY THANKING EVENTS
In all of our families there are times when we should be thankful.  Here are some ideas that come to mind that hopefully you can weave into your family’s DNA:

Dinner Thank Yous: At each dinner as a family have everyone say three thankfuls.  Why three?  I think our kids often just say something quick to get rid of the “task” at the dinner table so have categories of thanks for them to use.  They can even help pick the categories to make it more appealing.  One idea might be: something inside the house, something outside the house and something inside our hearts.  Or, something at home, at school and at a friend’s house.  Maybe: someone in your family, a friend nearby and a relative.  
Come up with a creative list and try it out.  Change it up over time!  Change it with the season.  Whatever you can to keep thankfulness examples alive in your home. 
Bedtime Blessings

If your family is a bit crazy at dinner time, nighttime might be a good alternative for setting up a routine of thankfulness.  It is usually a sweet time of day to pause and ask for thankfuls as the kids are cuddling into bed, maybe after books.  You can use the same category idea if you want or keep it simple.  Again, being consistent will help.
 
Thank You Notes for Gifts: Writing thank yous for gifts our children receive is excellent training for practicing thankfulness. 

When my boys were young, even 3 or 4, I would have them write or draw thank yous for both birthday and Christmas presents.  I participated a lot when they were that young but as they got older, we moved on to where they not only wrote the cards but they got out the supplies and wrote the envelopes and put stamps on and put them in the mailbox.  Now a days that might be all old fashioned so if you’re family and friends accept email thank yous, that’s fine, but the really important part is setting up the practice a routine of: “I get gifts. I am thankful. I thank the people who were so thoughtful to think of me.” 

Do something and do it EVERY time.  One parent I know used to only let their child open a present if they’d already addressed the Thank You to the relative or friend.  Some other families write a list of gifts on a notepad as they are opened so there’s an easy way to know what came from whom after all the unwrapping is over. They use that list to make their cards. 

Making Manners Fun
Now that we’ve got some ideas of the basics, let’s see what else we can add that might help us have fun with being thankful in our homes.

FANCY DINNER
One idea is really cool and I’d love to hear from you if you try it!  I’d even be up for being invited to a dinner with your family if you’re in the Bay Area in California. Here’s the idea: have your family can stage a “fancy dinner” night where all good manners are overtly discussed and practiced.  Get out the candles and the fancy table cloth (assuming it’s easily washable) and try it.  Show them how they ask politely for food using “please” and to say “thank you” when someone passes them something.  Give LOTS of praise too! 

It’s so fun to go overboard and even have them pull out their chairs quietly and clear the table with a smile before being served some fancy dessert.  Make it fun!  Dress up in fancy clothes or have a color theme.  It’s great to include a round of “What am I thankful for” at the same time.  Maybe you can sneak in some lessons in how to use utensils politely or where the utensils are supposed to go around their plate.  Make it feel like a 5-star event!  Bottomline, have a bunch of fun exaggerating.  Kids usually love that.
 
FAMILY MEETINGS
Moving on, if the Fancy Dinner idea wouldn’t work for your family for thankfulness training at mealtimes, maybe you have uncooperative teens who think you are totally weird, you should have a Family Meeting, you know how I love those, to talk about other ways in which you can improve on manners either at the table or anywhere else in life. 
 
MODELING
Bottomline, it starts with you!  Make sure you’re modeling thoughtful, kind manners yourself.  Our kids are little imitators who grow up into big imitators so being on the right page yourself will help. 
 

AUDIO PODCAST HERE:  Episode 47

A few months ago, I asked my FB group what areas they needed help with in the manners department.  I was thinking of the “please” and “thank you” kind of manners, you know the ones that included sending thank yous to people who gave you gifts.  However, I got a whole list of ones that weren’t even in my brain any more now that my boys are grown and out of the house.  The parents sent in all sorts of requests:

• How to handle interruptions (this was the most requested one!)
• How to get kids to say please and thank you for meals
• Using “excuse me” when interrupting
• Dealing with table manners including the “eating with your mouth open” offense

Yikes!  I thought this would be a breeze of a podcast.  Well, it’s clearly a larger topic than I’d anticipated so I’ve decided to do a series of podcasts on manners so that I can delve deep and you can pick and choose the areas that you need most help on so here goes!
 
The basics of manners is about teaching kindness and thoughtfulness of others, to allow our kids to see outside their often times very selfish world.  Our mission as parents is to grow our children into people who are thoughtful, respectful and conscientious and manners are part of our responsibility in getting them there.   This first lesson is about how to instill one of those foundational magic words into your kids – “please”.
 
PLEASE
How do you incorporate “please” into your family?  Here are my ideas:

• Start young: I would very start young.  There’s baby sign language for please.  If you have a small baby, use it!  You can do a google search and find lots of resources for it. 
• With Older Kids Set Family Rule: A lot of you know that I think communication is really helpful and I love Family Meetings for doing that.  If you have been struggling with “please” and other manners, hold a Family Meeting.  It should be short and sweet.  I wouldn’t lecture but I’d make a short statement about how in our home we treat each other with respect and using “please” and “thank you” are pillars of respect.  Let them know how you’re going to start by encouraging the use of “please” in a consistent manner. Ask your kids what they think, listen to their feedback and you can schedule more meetings as you move through different manners. 
• Practice! What does the dialog sound like? Well, in my home my routine was, when asked without a “please”, I would nicely say “And how do you say that nicely?”  Then, if the child just said: “Please.” I would then say: “How do you say that in a full sentence?” I not only required this of my own boys but also their friends who were over constantly.  I was even handed, not forcing just my own boys but the boys they were playing with to treat me with respect. 
  • Using a full sentence request
    • Mrs. Eschen, can I have some gold fish?
    • Sure, and how do you say that nicely?
    • Please
    • Nice try, how do you say that in a full sentence?
    • Please can I have some gold fish?
    • Of course, here they are. 
  • “Excuse me?” One mom when asked for something without manners set up a signal for her kids and that was: “Excuse me?”
    • Mom, I need to go to the store to get poster paper for tomorrow! 
    • Her reply was:  Excuse me?
    • Mom, may we please go to the store to get poster paper for my project for tomorrow?
• Upgrade for Older Kids: As your child gets older you can incorporate “may I please” into your phrasing to upgrade their speech into a more formal and respectful tone. So, in our example it would be “May I please have some goldfish?” or “Please may I have some goldfish?”.  You get the idea. It’s subtle but certainly an upgrade.  Have a Family Meeting to talk about the need for an upgrade.  Keep explaining that this is a Life Skill you are teaching, not a method of getting them to submit to our will for no apparent reason.  People want to be with people who treat them with respect, that’s why we’re upgrading.  It’s practice for life!
• Role Play: I gave you some examples already but I think that the use of role playing can be incorporated to hone your family’s skills while having some fun.  Learning should be fun so put on your thinking caps and even incorporate your kids into the brainstorming of how to do that if you can.  One idea might be to set up a special dinner with special plates and lots of different dishes on the table that have to be passed around.  Then practice while you eat!  “John, may I please have the rice.” “Andrea, please pass the mac and cheese.” Over exaggerate the whole meal!   Maybe you have a special “Please” Meal once a week for a while?  Maybe you have a “Please” Breakfast on the weekend?  Or a “Please” Game night where you have to ask for the dice nicely each time.  Come up with a few ideas and try them out. 
• Consistency is Key: What can make all this work? Consistency!  Yep, I said it took 10 years and I’m not kidding.  I was loving and kind.  I didn’t nag.  I didn’t lecture.  I just waited for the correct response and then, and only then, did they receive what they were asking for. 
• Model What You Want to See: Modeling the behavior you want to see is hugely beneficial to your quest for any behavior but especially in the area of respect and manners.  You being kind and using “please” will complete the loop.  Your kids notice what you do.  They are little sponges.  They will know if you are sincere and true to this quest for good manners.  Be it.  Live it.  Because, if you don’t, by the time your kids are tweens or teens you’d be amazed at how they seem to join the Hypocrite Police and will start throwing your poor manners right back at you.
• Leverage The Please: Keep in mind that you have leverage with “please” since it happens BEFORE something your kids want.  If your kids want something it means you have currency to trade.  If it’s help with math or washing their favorite pair of jeans or playing a game, you know their brain is in an open mindset to listen since they want something from you.  Seize the day!  Ask for the please and you’ll get it. 
• Other Ways to Give Kids Feedback: I just wanted to throw out a few other ideas for how to request the “please” in your home, just for variety.  Remember to always use a loving and gentle tone:
  • You’re missing the magic word
  • What’s that magic word again?
  • I can’t hear you when you ask like that.
  • Lastly, if they ask rudely for something give them a choice, you know how I love choices too, they can ask nicely or encourage them to solve their own problem if they don’t want to.  For example, if they say “I need some milk!”, your reply might sound like: “You can ask for it politely or try to get it on your own.”  Just make sure if they are sassy back at you and say things like “You never help me!” that you just give them love and not start an argument about their poor attitude.  A simple reply of: “Hmm… that’s sad.  Any what did I say?”  Then go listen to podcast #41 on Disrespect to remember what to do about that sassiness. 

 

PODCAST LINK HERE

In a previous episode, #20, I talked about how setting boundaries and loving limits can help your family run more smoothly.  You communicate the boundaries up front in a loving way and you allow for consequences to happen when the boundaries are exceeded. It sounds so easy when I say that right?  Easier said than done.
 
A few days ago, I ran into a family who’d been to my classes and lectures and have been trying to implement good boundaries over the classic issue in all our homes – screen time!

They set up clear boundaries, 30 minutes a day for their 5th grade boy.  Their son knew the rule but the parents told me that just about every day as soon as he was done with his 30 minutes he immediately started asking for more time.  And he kept asking and asking and asking.  Dad felt their boundary worked about 75% of the time, meaning their son got no extra screen time,  but 25% of the time their son got more time.  Hmm… Mom and dad were not in agreement that the 75% was a good success rate – dad thought it was pretty good but mom thought they could do better.  However, both of them were in agreement about one thing -- that their son begging was really getting to them. 

Our kids are smart.  When we give in 25% of the time, we give them permission to ignore our boundaries which can easily lead to begging.  It works for our kid 25% of the time which is way better than 0% so why not try it?  That’s what goes on in our kids brains without them even having to think about it. 
 
What’s a parent to do?  How do you get beyond the begging for more when you have been quite clear about the limits?
 
There are two things I’d recommend.

1. Use a simple phrase:  AND WHAT DID I SAY? 
   When they ask for more screen time, it would sound like: AND WHAT IS THE LIMIT?   Have them repeat the limit back to you then say nothing or, at the most, give them empathy that limits are hard.  Give them real empathy, “I’m sorry this is so hard on you.”
   
   
2. Have consequences for complaining and whining about not liking whatever limit they don’t like.  Love and Logic recommends using ENERGY DRAIN when things like this happen that don’t have natural consequences.  It sounds like: “Wow, this is so sad, it really drains my energy when I keep getting asked for more screen time when you know you’ve already had your time for the day.  How would you like to put energy back in mom?”  Notice my calm voice with empathy.  I’m sad that they’ve crossed the line and need to put energy back. 
   
   Feel free to even be dramatic when they start asking for more screen time!  “Oh my!!!  My head… it’s awful… my whole body is draining of energy!  Ugh!  Being asked for more screen time is just the worst!  What are you going to do to help get my energy back?  I’ll go sit here on the couch to recover while you figure it out.”     
   
   I have a handy list nearby on my fridge or in my head of things they can do to replace the energy drained by their pestering me. It might be making dinner or sweeping the floor.  It could be dusting or putting lotion on my hands.  It is something your child does for you that they don’t normally do, possibly one of your regular jobs.  The idea is to get their brains off thinking about their selfish requests onto the impact their behavior has on other people.  This is true for all ages of kids!  2-year old’s might be dusting or vacuuming while 16-year old’s might be making dinner. 
   
   Here's a link to my Energy Drain Idea list.
   
   But what do you do if they won’t put your energy back?  This is where things get a little harder.  You’ll have to have something happen, a consequence, when they fail to put your energy back.  You need to know what your child’s currency is, what lever you have over things you do for them that they want you to keep doing.  Here are some ideas:

• I drive kids to school who’ve put my energy back. 
• I read books at bedtime to kids who’ve put my energy back.
• I drive kids to the store to shop who’ve put my energy back.
• I serve dinner to kids who’ve put my energy back.

If you’re able to ask for the replacement in a loving and consistent manner your kids should view you as fair and reliable even if they don’t always agree with the rules.  No yelling.  No long lectures, just empathy.  “This is so sad that you’re having trouble with boundaries.”  You do have to be prepared for a tantrum or two when you’ve had to use a lever to get them to put your energy back but, stay strong.  You can do it!
 
Why Boundaries Fail:
I just want to take a minute to go over a few more reasons why some of your boundaries might not be working in your home. 

1. Boundaries are Undefined – this is where you think they should know them but you never actually said it out loud
2. Boundaries are Too Flexible – this is what happened to my family with the screen time issue, the kids don’t know when mom and dad might enforce a limit but there are limits
3. Boundaries have Too Much Negativity – when boundaries are always negative it makes kids want to rebel, there is a lot of “you can’t” do this or that
4. Boundaries have no Consequences – you set a limit and then don’t do anything when the limit is broken
5. Too Many Boundaries – this is when parents are trying to control way too many aspects of kids’ lives and the kids have no room to breathe, they are always breaking rules every 10 minutes since there are so many rules

 
How to Set Good Boundaries:
Now let’s do a quick review of how to set good boundaries:

1. Define the Boundaries – I love to recommend families have Family Meetings to help define and set limits so no one is surprised and everyone has some input into the rules when it’s possible.
2. Make it positive! You want to tell your kids what they CAN do, not what they CAN’T do. 
3. Have Consequences - Kids need to know what will happen if they choose to disobey you or ignore you.
4. Be Consistent – we talked about that already
5. Be Reasonable - it’s great to make a list of Family Rules but be careful not create so many rules that the kids feel they don’t have choices and will start to rebel.  It’s best if you can incorporate ways for your kids to have a feedback loop especially when setting up new rules as your kids grow. 

1. Be Calm and Loving – when our kids give us grief feel free to go braindead.  “Mom, this sucks that I can’t use screens when all my friends do all the time!”  Your response is: “I knooooooooowwww” in a boring, but loving tone.  You can always talk with your child at later time to ask for feedback if you get too much grief but not in the moment when their emotions are activated. 

 
I hope this was helpful. 

Here's a link to my other episode and the Energy Drain Idea List:
Episode 20 - Creating Calm with Boundaries and Limits
ENERGY DRAIN IDEAS

PODCAST LINK HERE

Would you like to know how to deal with your child getting a bad teacher? Having a bad teacher can feel like a prison sentence for the whole family. Sadly, there is nothing you can do about it immediately but hope for the best.
What makes it worse is when every other parent in the class starts complaining after the first day of school because they know what it is going to be like for the next nine months. Most of us know that it’s almost impossible to change classes once a class list is set which is part of the reason most schools that I know don’t post their class lists until a day or two before school starts each year.  But what can you do to make the most out of the situation?
 
In this article I want to talk about a few things.  First, what do bad teachers look like?  How do they behave? Next, what can you do about it as a parent and, lastly, what can your child do about making it through the year in once piece having learned what they need to.  That’s a lot to cover so let’s dive in. 
 
First, there seem to be three kinds of bad teachers: Fluffy, Boring and Mean

1. What’s a Fluffy teacher?
   • These are the ones that often show movies or tell personal stories, getting off topic. Often times they are super nice human beings but just don’t manage to teach much or don’t teach the topic at hand. How can you tell if your child has a fluff teacher?  You might begin by asking to see the curriculum and look up the Common Core Standards to find out what your child should be learning. This will send a message that you are informed and watching.  My niece had a second-grade teacher who had been a kindergarten teacher for 20 years and was moved up due to class size issues.  Well, after a while my brother and his wife, who both happened to be teachers, noticed that homework coming home was kindergarten level work.  I kid you not!     
2. What’s a Boring teacher?
   • These teachers just read from the script or are just unchallenging and can be deadly.  One friend was in a class with a high school history teacher in her last year before retiring. That teacher could care less about teaching.  She literally read the textbook.  It was agonizingly boring each and every time my friend went to class.  What a drudge to get through that.
3. What’s a Mean teacher?
   • These are the scary ones.  Ones that might yell and scream at the kids in their class.  They might demean kids in front of others.  They might deal out punishments unevenly or even play favorites where your kid isn’t the favorite.  Or maybe they’re just impatient and won’t answer questions so your child comes home not knowing the material. These teachers can cause lasting damage so we need to keep our eyes and ears open if you think your child has a teacher in this category. 

 
Julie Plagens at Mom Remade has a wonderful article about dealing with bad teachers.  I’ll put a link in my podcast notes. It’s called How to Deal with A Bad Teacher: 15 Strategies to Survive the School Year
That’s a whole lot of strategies but I’m going to go over just a few that I think might really help families in this situation.
 
Wait and See
The first approach would be to wait and see while doing research

• You need to investigate to see if things are really as bad that they seem.  Sometimes our kids and their friends, not to mention other parents, can really blow things up.  Gather information from multiple sources if you possibly can -- class work, opinions from other parents with kids in that class, info about how things are going in other classrooms for that same topic; that sort of thing.
• You might find people who took that teacher's class last year and ask them how they got through the year. They might say "It doesn't get better but stay quiet or it gets worse." Try to find students who did well in the class and ask how they achieved that - ask to borrow their notes if they have any. Ask them if they have any tips on how to do well in the class.
• Another way to research is to volunteer in the classroom if it’s allowed which it often is at the elementary level although since COVID-19 not much is allowed any more. I’d read the teacher’s emails and look over the assignments.  Don’t helicopter, just be aware of what’s being studied and communicated. 
• You should also try to figure out what the teacher’s perspective might be, sometimes it’s not all your child says it is.  Bottomline, research before taking sides.  Even parent rumor mills can vary depending on how different kids reacted to the same teacher.  I had one parent tell me that her son hated a particular teacher he’d had a few years before which made me a little worried but, for my son, she turned out to be one of his most favorite teachers.  Go figure. 
• I just want to say that during this “wait and see” phase, sometimes things do settle down and kids figure out on their own how to get through each day or even start liking the teacher they were complaining about.

 
Communicating with the School
However, if you really feel that things need to be addressed you need to start the next phase which is communicating to the school

• Teacher meetings are the starting point.  Set up a meeting with the teacher and your spouse or partner.
  • As you meet you need to phrase the concerns as issues that require clarification instead of an attack, like “Mr. Jones, I need your help.  I’m a little confused about something.  Annie said _____, but I think she may have misunderstood.  Can you explain it to me?”  This gives the teacher an out but implies you’re watching what’s happening at the same time. You need to tread lightly since alienating your child’s teacher is one of the worst things you can ever do as a parent since your child can suffer as a result.
• If you feel unsatisfied the next step is to have a meeting with the principal or someone above the teacher like the head of a department
  • Ask for a meeting with the administrator and the offending teacher together to voice your concerns.   Nothing makes a teacher angrier than going over their head without giving them a chance to correct things. 
  • In my case, my son’s 4th grade teacher was a fluffy teacher. He and his classmates weren’t learning much at all.  We parents grumbled in the background for a few months as we started to see how little our kids were learning.  She was a new teacher at our school although not a new teacher to teaching, so it took us a while to see things.  A few parents chatted with the principal but nothing happened.  Our comments seemed to be treated as casual parent grumblings which principals here a lot of over the course of the year. It’s part of their job, right?
• Community Pressure
  • As a last resort, if the teacher and the principal won’t listen to you as a parent, talk to other parents and address the situation as a group. There is power in numbers. It makes a statement.
  • In my case, By Feb/March of that year it was apparent that we needed to move to a united front of concerned parents.   There were 5-6 families who strategically set up individual meetings with the principal over a month or so period.  You could set up one meeting with lots of parents but that’s not what we chose to do.  The principal got the message and that teacher wasn’t hired back.  It sounds a little harsh but once a teacher is offered tenure it’s almost impossible in California to get rid of them.  This didn’t help our kids that year but it certainly prevented other families from suffering in future years and we really felt heard which made us feel a little bit better.

Learn to Cope
Lastly, it seems that most of the time your child is just going to have a bad teacher and you have to help them learn how to cope with it. You can’t always have the best teacher, the best principal, or the best school.  I’m sure all of us remember times when we had a bad teacher in our youth, or a bad boss or a bad co-worker.  This is life. There are lessons to be learned about working with difficult people and bad teachers can turn kids into problem solvers with the right love and encouragement from their parents and peers.  As possible solutions you might get extra tutoring, set up study groups, correct homework yourself or become your child’s reading or writing partner.  It’s all extra work to get though the year but figure out what will make the learning happen, don’t let the bad teacher take away a whole year of learning.
 
If your child is 5th grade or older, if at all possible, you want to brainstorm with them on how they can handle the situation themselves.  You don’t want to rescue every time and talk to the teacher for them every time they have a problem.  Lots of kids are afraid of authority figures and need encouragement to stand up and be heard.  What can you do to help?  Feel free to role-play or even have your child write down what they might say to their teacher about an issue.  Step in only after the child has tried on their own.  If they don’t understand something, encourage them to stand up to the teacher and ask for extra help.  It might be really scary and hard which is why I’d suggest some role-playing with how that conversation might go. 
 
That said, sometimes a bad teacher just won’t help a kid learn.  I was talking to a recent college student whose AP Calculus teacher in high school just didn’t seem to know the material and wouldn’t and couldn’t even help them.  They tried talking to the principal with and without parents and nothing changed so the students in that class learned that they had to adapt.  They gathered together in study groups. They traded notes. Some of them had tutors and they traded those notes.  They used Kahn Academy lessons online.  They learned that they could learn without that bad teacher and they all wound up passing that AP exam in spite of that teacher.  It was twice as much work as they should have had to do but they did it. 
 
In another instance, when my younger son was a junior in high school, he struggled with a teacher who was constantly picking on him.  This teacher was in the boring category and my son just hated his class.  He was getting a good grade but came home every day complaining about how much he hated being in that class. 
 
After a few months I decided to challenge him. I know that great teachers have the ability to make one-on-one connections with students.  They are able to do amazing things with them since their students trust them and feel seen.  In this experiment, I decided to encourage my son to flip that where he’s the one who makes the connection with the teacher since this teacher didn’t seem to know him as a person and was picking on him all the time for putting his head on his desk and not participating.  I told him that if he when to his tutorial period with that teacher and had a conversation about ANYTHING, I’d give him money.  Yes, I am not above using money to motivate behavior of things kids don’t know how to do yet and I decided this was one of them. 
 
So, a few days later, he and a basketball friend, who also was in that class, decided to go to tutorial and talk to this teacher who happened to be a basketball coach of one of the girls’ teams.  Well, wouldn’t you know it, they talked about basketball and they even enjoyed the discussion.  You know what happened?  The very next class the teacher was nice and each day after he was too.  That teacher “saw” my son and, you know what, I think my son “saw” him too.  In chatting with him about this he even remembers that he tried harder to participate.   They weren’t the best of friends or anything but things worked out. The best part is that my son learned a life lesson in how making connections can really make a difference.  It was worth every penny I spent!
 
One of the last strategies in Julie Plagen’s article is about having a good attitude.  I love this idea. Listen to what others say but always talk nicely about the teacher in front of your child.  Sometimes when kids hear parents talking trash about a teacher, they’ll use it as an excuse to slack off or worse. 
 
I interviewed a number of people young and old for this podcast from students to parents to teachers.  The discussions were so much fun.  It was interesting that each person could remember a bad teacher or two.  Some teachers didn’t know the material. Some teachers were always unprepared. Some teachers were boring as heck. Some teachers had class pets and treated some other kids unfavorably.  But you know what, all those kids made it through to college and beyond.  They had loving families who supported and encouraged them.  They had parents who would listen to them, help set up and augment their studies, and give them empathy when things were tough.   They learned that life sometimes gave them lemons but, typically, they were able to make lemonade.  Sometimes it was a year or two later but, in the end, they made it.

I know as a parent of younger children; things might seem dire and you have a right to be concerned.  A young dad who has a 5th grade son just heard that his son got stuck in the class of a bad teacher for the third year in a row and is losing his joy of learning.  That sucks.  I’d certainly keep a close eye on that 5th grade teacher early and often.  I even know families, myself included, who’ve found that moving to a different school was worth the bother as a last resort.  I wouldn’t keep moving my kid every time I wasn’t happy with a teacher since it creates lots of other stressors that can be significant, but it’s worth considering. 
 
I just want to finish up by saying getting our kids through school is certainly a journey of ups and downs.  I pray this article has given you ideas for keeping the journey a little smoother. 

THE AUDIO PODCAST IS AVAILABLE HERE:      ​LISTEN​​
​
I'm not sure what to say about living through history at this moment in time.  I live in California where virtually all schools are doing remote learning.  I know my podcast reaches outside of California so hopefully not everyone has to deal with all the issues I’m going to talk about.  We never expected to be having distanced learning due to a worldwide pandemic.  We certainly have to get through to the other side and we will get through it.  This article is meant to give you some food for thought in setting up your family for success with remote learning.

You all know I love practical parenting so I’m going to start with the physical setup ideas of how to get things running smoothly then move on to things like setting up routines, family rules and how to keep things fun and flexible. 

Let’s dive in!
​
Lots of you have already started your distanced learning this school year so just listen for some ideas to make adjustments if you’ve got some bumpy areas going.
 
1 - Physical LEARNING AREA

• Organize - I’m sure your school has already recommended you set up a quiet and organized area for your student with a desk and chair, not a bed.  Having bins or shelves with supplies can really help keep things organized so your child doesn’t get frustrated trying to find different items.  If at all possible, you want to make sure the table height and chair height are appropriate for the size of your child.  Kids sitting in adult-sized chairs for long periods of time can be really uncomfortable and distract from learning.  If you’re on a limited budget, ask your school if you can borrow a desk for the duration of online learning. 

 

• Get rid of distractions – One of the biggest helps for learning at home is to get rid of distractions, meaning toys and stuff, from the work area. 
  
  One family I work with has the option of having their kids in their bedrooms with a desk and supplies.  To prepare, they spent the week before school clearing out any visible toys from around the study area.  Their son loves Legos so that meant not only Legos off the floor but also off the shelves and out of the room.
  
  Another family with a 1st grade daughter found that even though she was blessed to have her own room that it wasn’t going to work for them.  It was too hard to pack up all her toys and too far away from mom watching over her.  They got creative and set up a workspace on the dining table using one of those tri-fold poster boards to create her own little cubby area.  They even had her decorate it.  She had all of her supplies nearby but also a buffer from things like anyone else in the house walking by.  If your child is in a public space, you might want to try to build a cardboard barrier like that.
  
  

Lastly, you also need minimize other types of distractions like the family pets and siblings who are babies or toddlers who might cause disruptions not only for your student but for the entire online classroom.  Your child’s teacher will often help manage some distractions but please, please discuss not having excess noises like eating, doing dishes, vacuuming, cooking and such going on while your student is learning and trying to concentrate. 

• Provide quiet and focus – Next we’re going to talk about how to get a quiet environment.  Lots of families are using headphones to block out noises from the home while helping to keep kids focus.  I love the idea.  If you have the flexibility, have your child select the headphones. If they aren’t comfortable, you might try different types or figure out another location in your house that they can be alone and not have to have headphones on. 
  
  I talked to a mom who felt it odd that she can’t hear what’s going on in her daughter’s classroom since the headphones block out what the teacher is teaching and what other students are saying. She’d really like to listen in, but she had to remind herself that if this was a real classroom, she wouldn’t be able to do that.  We do need to trust our teachers and let our kids know we are here to assist, not to attend school with them. 

If you have an older student, you might run into this other issue with headphones.  One student objected to their very functional headphones because they didn’t look cool enough, so she didn’t want to use them, but it disrupted the whole family when she didn’t since her sister and parents were also all working from home.  What do you do with that?  We should show empathy for that child and allow them to use their own money to purchase any other headphones they deem more appropriate.  You provide the basics is what I’d recommend and allow them the flexibility to use their own money to upgrade if they want to. 

• Moving around – Now some families are finding that their kids need to have different locations through the day or week to keep things fresh.  It’s really hard for kids to sit in one place for a long time so they are getting out of their chairs and wandering when things get boring or hard.  Maybe they do online in one location but do their required reading on their bed or a comfortable chair.
  • If you have multiple kids who need some variety in location, set up a schedule of who goes where and when.  Maybe one location is the kitchen table and another is more private.  If both kids want the same location feel free to ask them how they’d like to rotate – daily, weekly or maybe even throughout the day.  Let them have input if at all possible.  You know I love Family Meetings and this could be a topic for your family. 
  • If you have other areas of your home, feel free to use them as long as they are set up ahead of time. One family is working to figure out how to rotate to the backyard picnic table while the weather is still nice out for a few hours a day.  It might take some trial and error to figure out how long and what time of day, but it’s worth a try.  You allowing for flexibility in keeping kids engaged in fresh ways to learn is really helpful.
    
    
• Charge devices - Keeping devices charged and ready to go is also super important.  When devices fail families get crazy stressed out with anxiety about missing out on work or being embarrassed that they aren’t online when everyone else is.  Many families are finding that chargers with extension cords or power strips that remain plugged in all day and night works best.  The rule should be:  If your kid is online, they should be plugged in.
  
  
• Check video and audio connections – You also need to make sure video, audio and connectivity is working.  Someone should test all of these out probably 30 minutes before class starts in the morning.  If you have a child in 3rd grade or higher, they should be the one testing everything out.  If there are problems, work with them to train them on what was done to fix the problem.  Some schools have special hotlines set up for students and parents to call for technical assistance.  If you’re fortunate to have that support, have that number or web address printed out on a paper and posted somewhere really obvious so you can call or email without a struggle if you need outside help. With school starting up the this issue is probably the most stressful for just about every family I talked to.  Prepare for problems and know what you’ll do if they happen.
  
  
• Keep online safety in mind – Now I want to talk about online safety.  If you’ve listened to my podcasts on Screen Time Issues, episodes 11 and 12, you know how highly I press home the point to keep all electronics in public places.  Well, for some of you with multiple kids learning at home in addition to adults working from home, you might have to compromise and let kids work in their bedrooms, sometimes even with the door closed.  In this difficult time we need to be flexible, I think it’s fine to revise some of those screen time rules but not to throw them out the window. 
  
  During the times of the day that online learning is happening, room time screen time is fine.  Once online learning is done, all devices come out of the rooms or get powered down.  If that doesn’t happen and you find your kid on YouTube or Fortnite, make sure you have consequences defined just like you have in the Digital Contract for your home that was talked about in the Screen Time podcasts. 
  I would also recommend letting everyone know that once we return to in-person learning that the family screen time rules will go back to being what they were with no screens in bedrooms.  Mention that every so once in a while so that it’s not a big shock when the rules are imposed again later on. 
  
  Just to let you know how serious this is, I already heard from one school that they had to deal with a 5th grade boy logging on to porn during class time.  Just imagine what can happen if you left the device in the bedroom day and night with no supervision. 
  
  

 
2 - ESTABLISH CLEAR ROUTINES
Now I want to move on to how to keep things running smoothly in your home through all of this by establishing clear routines so everyone knows what to expect, it’s not a jumble every day. 

• DAILY SCHEDULE -Have a daily schedule not only for academics that most schools are already providing, but also for family routines.  When does everyone wake up?  Eat breakfast? Make it be as much like “real school” as possible.  You won’t have to get “out the door” but being “in your seat” and having guidelines for getting there is really helpful to everyone. Do the same for after school and bedtime routines so that things feel “normal”.
  
  
• POST INFO - You might want to post their routines on a bulletin board or on the kitchen fridge so that they can, or you can, refer to them. 
  
  
• WEEKLY SCHEDULE - In addition, have a weekly schedule to show assignments and assessments plus other fun activities both with school, family and friends.  Have your child make the schedule if at all possible.
  
  
• I found a fun resource on Pinterest that I’ll include in the show notes that has blank daily and weekly schedules and even some useful signs to print out so your kids can let others know if they’re online or taking a test or on away from their computer. 


• Next, set up regular CHECK-IN times with your child especially if they are in elementary school.  
  • Morning – it could just over breakfast
    • What subjects are today?
    • Any tests/assessments coming up?
    • What resources do you need?
    • What can mom/dad do to help?
      
      
  • End of Day – maybe right after online learning ends but could be at dinner or before bedtime
    • How far did you get in your tasks?
    • What did you discover?
    • What did you do great?  (“Glow”)
    • What was hard? (“Grow” opportunities)
    • What could we do to make tomorrow better?
      
      
  • Most reports I have from high school students and their parents is that the students are tracking their own schedules, but parents should still lovingly check in to see how things are going.

 

• YOU NEED TO HELP WITH TIME – Another area to assist with time.  Time is a tricky thing.  If you’re too young to tell time, it can be stressful to know if you’re on time, if you’re older you can get distracted and not even look at a clock.  Using timers and alarms can be a godsend.  Figuring out if you need an alarm for a specific time like 8:30am to get online vs. setting a countdown timer that shows how much of a 90-minute session is left can be really helpful. 
  
  One family told me their son was so anxious about getting back online after lunch that he was short-changing himself time allocated to lunch.  Setting an alarm really helped him but a countdown timer that starts at noon and counts down for 60 minutes can work too.  Ask your child and experiment with what works for them.  You can get timers from Target or Amazon or download timer and alarm apps from the internet. 
  
  

3 – Another thing you want to do is ENCOURAGE INDEPENDENCE

• There are a few things you can do to help to do that:
• Let the teacher teach! Don’t assume you have to do the teaching.  Yes, you might answer a question or two, but you don’t need to learn how to teach algebra, that’s what the teacher is for.  
• Let your child own their work.  The more you can let your child own their education, the better off everyone will be.  Training your child to take charge of their schedule, devices and school work is where we need to head.  Let them make mistakes and you be around to help problem solve.  From what I’ve heard kids who are 4th grade and older are doing pretty well understanding that their school is their school and they don’t need a parent hovering very much at all. 
• Train them to ask their teacher. Let them ask the teacher for help, don’t step in and ask the teacher for them.  Show them how to ask for help, model it for them.  Model anything and everything they need to be successful.  Don’t do things for them, if at all possible.  If you feel that you need to talk to the teacher make sure your child is around to participate.
  
  

4 – SUPPORT FAMILY LEARNING

• When school isn’t in session, try to look for creative opportunities to include learning in the rest of the day:
  • Cooking - Math/science/reading– measure things, fractions, weigh things, read recipes – make cookies, make dinner, make sourdough bread, just make anything and include your kids
  • Laundry – Math – count socks, matching, sorting like things
  • Gardening – science
  • Vacuuming or sweeping – PE!
  • Just have fun!
    
    
• BOREDOM BUSTERS – It would also be helpful to have ideas ready in the event that things are going sideways with either learning or the environment.  If they can’t connect, make sure they know there are options of other things they can do.  Keep a list of those nearby so they are easy for them to find.  If they can’t read yet, make picture posters of ideas but the point is that you are prepared with things to do.  I’ll put a link to my Pinterest pages with activity ideas. 

https://www.pinterest.com/maryeschenparentingdecoded/boredom-busters/
https://www.pinterest.com/maryeschenparentingdecoded/kids-fun-indoor-activities/
https://www.pinterest.com/maryeschenparentingdecoded/activities-for-teens/
 
5 – LEAD YOUR TEAM THROUGH CHALLENGING TIMES
The last point I want to go over is tying in what some of you heard in Episode 17. I encouraged families to come together as a team to solve challenges, so burdens are shared and solutions celebrated.  We need to do this with distanced learning issues.  When problems arise, you need to lead your family team to solutions!  Here are some topics I’ve run across in my discussions with parents lately are probably affecting quite a few of you:

• Quiet times – when are they?  When can people run the dishwasher or play music?
• When can you interrupt mom/dad when they’re working?  Is it any time or a set time of day?
• How are the interruptions done? Is there a signal?  One family has their kids slide a note under the office door to let dad know they need help.  Another family can see mom through a glass door into her office and stand quietly outside till mom can give them a hint about how long it will be till she can see them.
• How are emotions handled? If there are problems that are serious, how can everyone keep their wits about them?  What can we put in place if the work gets hard for our kids to let off some steam?  Or if they’re bored?
• Time with friends- is there a schedule?  A time limit? Can they meet their friends online or do they form a pod with a few other families so they can see each other in person?  What are the rules for meeting in person, how can it be safe?
• Special time with parents per kid – when can each kid have some special time with mom or with dad?  What schedule can work for your family to make sure you have time to connect?
  
  

I want to tell you about a single mom who reached out to me at her wits end.  Her 5th grade son was getting so bored with his online school during the day that he’d constantly get up to get snacks, go to the bathroom, do art or Legos.  He wasn’t paying attention.  It was so frustrating for mom.  Now when we’re upset our brains often go offline and we just can’t even think straight.  After chatting with her for a while, it became obvious that she needed to set up a Family Meeting and go over some of these challenges.  They needed to solve them together.

The two of us brainstormed for a bit so that she’d have some ideas for the meeting.  We talked about if there were other locations rather than just the kitchen table that her son could be at where mom was also trying to work and couldn’t get anything done with her son roaming around.  They are in an apartment so there aren’t many options, but no one was using one of the bedrooms and there was also a balcony available.  Could they work something out so that he rotated to different areas throughout the day?  He also has a really great teacher and we talked about how they could enlist her help in either coming up with more challenging work or different ways to engage her son so that he doesn’t get so bored.  Also, maybe there are some quiet toys he can keep nearby that will keep him in his seat or how about a “no snacks till recess” rule?  It’ll be trial and error for a bit but at least they can be a team to tackle the boredom problem so that mom can get back to work and so can he. 


BE FLEXIBLE AND STAY IN TOUCH
The final and most important thing I want to go over is to do what you know is right for your child.  Some kids will be emotional roller coasters with anxiety.  Please be gentle and be flexible in this challenging time that none of us have ever been through before. Nobody expects parents to replace classroom teachers. And no one expects children to perfectly mimic a classroom situation at home.   Positive intentions, love, consistency, and grace will go a long way towards helping all of us survive this period of isolation and emerge as better people on the other side. Hang in there!

I hope this was helpful.  If you’d like to spend some time brainstorming your challenges with me, I’m happy to assist.  You can either email me at [email protected] or join my Facebook Group called Parenting Decoded and post your issues there for others to learn from.  It’s a “private” group and if you have any trouble joining it, just email me.

THE AUDIO PODCAST IS AVAILABLE HERE:     LISTEN

​Each week during the corona virus shelter-in-place I’ve been trying to cover topics that might be driving most families crazy.  Recently tantrums and night time battles were my focus but after chatting with a few families this week I changed my plans and decided sibling rivalry is a hot button especially as the weeks of shelter in place go on longer and longer.

I’m going to talk about what good might come from sibling rivalry but then some techniques like not taking sides, separating our kids, teaching them communication skills, and how setting aside Special Time can often make a big difference for a family with sibling issues.

With that said, let’s   dive in.

WHY? Emotion Behind Sibling Rivalry
I’m not sure what I really need to say about sibling rivalry.  It exists.  It’s existed since the beginning of time.  Why wasn’t there a manual given to us before we brought that second child home from the hospital? It’s bound to happen so we should prepare ourselves, right?  As silly as it sounds, no one really is prepared for how challenging sibling rivalry can be. 

We need to recognize that kids want attention, power and control.  If those things are disturbed then often times sibling rivalry can arise more frequently then we’d like.
  
Attention: As we all know, kids crave attention of any sort.  When their cravings aren’t met, they can often look elsewhere to generate more attention, often not good attention.  When a younger child arrives on the scene who is cute, adorable and needy (they need help eating or dressing or diapers changed, etc) the older kids try to be good and helpful but no one notices them. However, if they whack their little brother on the head then someone finally notices them.  Not what we’d like but it certainly draws our attention, doesn’t it?

Power and Control: On the other hand, if younger kids feel powerless and at the mercy of older siblings they try to fight back but explode with frustration over their inability to control what they want to happen.  These kids are learning how to get what they want but they don’t have the right skills yet so they use what they have which is to yell, hit, throw, wreck their siblings work or toys, whatever they can. 

It’s all a bit crazy but how we interact with our kids and their siblings during these developmental years will actually impact them in the future.  There seem to be four  types of sibling behaviors in my mind that I categorize by giving names: wimps, bullies, whiners and negotiators. 

• Wimps: In an altercation, some kids cave every time, instead of learning how to stand up for themselves they just give in, it’s easier.  It just doesn’t seem fair that the other sibling always gets their way just because this child gives in.  We parents are worried that we have a wimp in development and we really want to change that. 
• Bullies: This is usually an older, bigger sibling who can rule by their brawn and their brains since they’re more able than younger siblings.   These are the kids who take things away from the wimpier siblings with no regrets.  This can activate feelings of injustice in us parents as we see this child taking advantage of the weaker sibling at every turn.  We wonder if empathy, kindness and fairness are even entering that kid’s head.
• Whiners: They cry about everything and anything.  Helicopter parents play into this big time by siding with the kid who whines the most or the loudest just based on volume we feel a major injustice MUST have happened.
• Negotiators: Some kids learn that if they use their words, they can negotiate what they want.  These kids see they aren’t powerless even though they might not win every battle.  Their self-esteem can be enhanced instead of diminished if the right type of support is in their lives to help grow their negotiation skills.

You probably can see your children in one of these sibling types so now let’s get down to the nitty-gritty about what to do when siblings fight regardless of which type of sibling they are.

I have three rules in mind:

Rule #1 - Don’t get involved, don’t take sides, don’t blame
If your kids are fighting, try stay out of it unless there is bodily harm being done.  Let them fight and figure out what’s going to happen. If they come running to you, send them away.  Try really hard not to listen to their sob stories and don’t take sides.  Most of the time there are two sides to every story and parents don’t always get to see and hear both so just focus on it was a choice for them to fight and isn’t draining you to hear them fight.  Keep calm and encourage them to work it out.  Remember that, KEEP CALM and use empathy!  Don’t engage.  No yelling, no telling.   Yelling gets us nowhere. Try something like:

            Oh wow, I can tell this is a problem for the two of you.  I’m sure you can figure something out. This is really draining my energy hearing you fight. 

Rule #2 - Separate, if necessary
Sometimes the solution is that no one wins.  If they can’t figure things out then it’s ok to step in and take whatever it is away from everyone using EMPATHY and LOVE.

            Oh, this is so sad.  It looks like you two can’t work this out and it’s really wearing mommy down.  I’ll go ahead and put the blocks away for now.  You’re welcome to play with two different things but do it in two different locations.  If you can’t figure out what and where then just go head to your rooms for a while.

Rule #3 – Brainstorm to teach communication and negotiation skills when kids are calm
During the heat of the moment really isn’t the time to solve the larger and longer-term issue of sharing and getting along.  Yes, you can take a toy out of the equation but when things really calm down and there’s no active fight-or-flight brain going on you need to sit your kids down and talk about how to improve communication for next time they have issues.  You’re going to do brainstorming to help your kids learn to set expectations and negotiate.  The brainstorming will happen hours or even days later, it wouldn’t be within minutes of an altercation. 

What would brainstorming look like?  Here are some ideas of what to cover:

• Calming ideas: I’d recommend you ask them to think about ideas of how to stay calm when they notice they are getting upset -- take deep breaths, count to 10, walk away or other meditation techniques.  Write them down.  Put them on a sign.  Practice them every morning or at the dinner table so they know what it feels like.
• “I Feel” Statements: have them express their feelings to each other using “I feel” statements
  • I feel like Ken always gets to use the truck and I never do
  • I feel mad when Sara wrecks my Lego tower, I’ve taken so long to build
  • I feel mad when Jessie takes crayons and writes all over my artwork I was making
  • I feel sad when Alan took the last cookie and there wasn’t any for me
• Taking Turns: Often times kids want to use the same toy or device at the same time.  Encourage the concept of “taking turns” and help them establish mechanisms for keeping track.  For example:
  • Both my boys always wanted to press the buttons when we went into an elevator.  It was driving me crazy that they’d rush in and try to be the first to push a button and wind up in a battle or someone crying that they didn’t get to do it.   So we set a sharing rule that one boy was always the “UP” pusher and the other was the “DOWN” pusher.  It was magic! At least with two kids…
  • In your house, you can set up posters or a magnet on the fridge or an app on your phone to help them keep track of whose turn it is next.  I’d prefer it not be electronic but you can decide as a family ways to keep track of “turns”. It might be that your kids fight or fuss over who reads to them at night.  Come up with a way that you rotate on a schedule – odd days for one kid and even days for the other.  If you have more than two then set up a calendar if you have to and have them check off the days as you go to bed each night.  Be creative but show them that they can share best when they communicate that sharing is needed. 
    
    
• It’s OK not to Share: Feel free to encourage your kids set boundaries to protect items they cherish and how to let others know in a kind manner to respect boundaries.   
  • Little sister, these are my Legos and I’m putting them in my special box. Please don’t touch them unless I say so.
  •  Brainstorm with your children about how to put away toys so they aren’t tempting to others who shouldn’t be touching them
  • You also have to define consequences if boundaries aren’t respected.
    • Oh, this is so sad, Jenny, you knocked down brother’s tower so I guess you won’t be able to play near him today.  You can play in your room instead. 
      
      

Energy Drain
What I’ve talked about so far is all about the kids but I want to talk about you.  Yes, how draining it is for you as a parent to hear all this fighting and fussing day after day.  One of the most useful tools I think of in dealing with siblings is Love and Logic’s Energy Drain concept.  They have a great audio available on Energy Drain as well as another on Sibling Rivalry that I’ll put links to in the podcast notes.  They explain that when kids are fighting it zaps us and they need to put energy back into us or we don’t have energy to read them books, cook them dinner, drive them to a friend’s house or take them to school.  It’s really amazing how effective it is so please look it up. 

I also have a list of Energy Drain ideas on my website if you need help thinking of a chore or act of service for your kids to do to put energy back in you like washing windows, sweeping the back porch or putting hand lotion on your hands.  I’ll put that link in the notes as well.

This concept can be so heartwarming when you take the time to do it.  One mom has sent me a a video of her kids washing the patio furniture with brushes and soap when they drained mommy’s energy by fighting. 
 
Set up special time regularly
Lastly, I want to talk about what to do when your kids just seem to be at each other day after day and you can’t seem to break out of the pattern.  Lack of attention is often the culprit but it could be that one child is just bored or unsatisfied in some other way with friendships or school and torturing their sibling gives them something to do. 

We need to figure out ways to set up what I call Special Time that I’ve talked about in a few different podcast episodes.  In this case, I’d suggest 10-15 minutes of one-on-one time per kid, per day or at the very least per week, so that each kid has some sort of one-on-one connection with their parents to nourish that feeling of unconditional love and acceptance. During that time you allow your child to decide what they want to do with you.  Let them know there’s a time limit and set a timer. 

One mom I know at my church who was having some trouble, decided to set up Special Time right after school with each of her elementary boys.  They rotate 15 minutes at a time and know that when it’s not their turn they are to play quietly.  They LOVE this Special Time and it’s working wonders for peace, calm and connectedness in their home.

            Another family was having a problem with their 6-year-old son, Ben, being mean and fighting with his little 4-year-old brother, Joe, all the time.  They had a newborn as well so it was a busy household. Ben always seemed to be picking on Joe and always seemed to in a bad mood.  After brainstorming with the parents we decided the issue might be that he was feeling disconnected what with an adorable baby girl and mom and dad being so busy taking care of everything and he needed some Special Time. 

With 3 kids it was hard to set aside time but the couple decided that as soon as dad came home from work he would play chess with his son for 15 minutes or so before dinner.  Two weeks later they reported back to me the amazing difference in their son’s attitude and behavior.  He was a new child!  Wow!  In setting aside this time they dealt a decisive blow to their son’s attitude and sibling rivalry at the same time.  Ben was playing much better with Joe and even on his own. 

 was so proud of the parents doing that extra work and it really hit home for me that I need to encourage Special Time to be set up in every home for so many reasons that feed into our kids need for love and acceptance.  In our hurry-hurry world we sometimes need to slow down, don’t we?  It’s hard to make the time but it can really pay off big time especially when you have misbehaviors cropping up all the time. 
​ 
Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed this podcast.  Taking time to train our kids to communicate with each other is so key to siblings getting along.  Keep in mind the three rules – stay out of it as long as possible, separate them if necessary, and brainstorm ideas when things are calm. 
 
Don’t forget to take care of yourself by using the Love and Logic’s Energy Drain concept.  Please remember that you never have to figure out whose fault a fight is, just that hearing all that yelling is draining you and they need to do some work to put your energy back. 

THE AUDIO PODCAST IS AVAILABLE HERE:  LISTEN

I’ve been thinking a lot about sleep lately and how important it is to get a lot of it and good quality with this current crisis going on.  It’s good for our mental health as well as our immune systems.  Well,  I’m an empty-nester and not getting enough sleep so you parents of younger ones might be getting even less than I am so I’m dedicating this to all of you so that maybe a few of these ideas can get you and your family a few more minutes of sleep or at least set a calmer tone in your house at bed time.

This podcast is for parents of toddlers through elementary school,  I have a separate podcast on dealing with issues of sleep and teens so please head there if you have older kids.  In this podcast we’ll go through some ideas for moving toward bed, getting ready for bed, turning out the lights and finally ideas for those of you who have kids who wake up at night. With that said, let’s get started.

Heading toward bed – the transition
For many kids it’s really hard to transition from playful family time to the lonely and boring time of bedtime and night time.  Kids might be hyped up playing and rough housing or they might be involved in a really interesting show or project that will take way longer than our bedtime goals allow.  Transitions are really hard for many kids so we need to make the transitions as painless and battle free as possible.  To do this there are two things we have at our disposal which will prevent many battles before they start – choices and boundaries.  

Most of the time choices are really effective since kids just really want some control over their lives.  We’re so used to bossing them around it makes some of them decide to say “no” no matter how reasonable we are.  If we say “It’s bedtime.” They’re almost programmed to resist.  Offering choices before you hear “no” is SUPER important. You have to use choices early, if you have resistance you’ve lost your battle so make your choices effective and as fun as possible.

So you’re going to use choices like this:

• Would you like to go to bed at 8 or 8:15? (knowing full well we want them to go to bed at 8:15!)
• Would you like to set the bedroom timer or me? (I love using timers especially for kids who can’t tell time yet on their own)
• Would you like to set the bedroom timer for 5 minutes or 15 minutes? (knowing you’re fine with 15 minutes)

If you give choices as to when to head to bed you use them again with HOW to get there.  Try using something like “Wow, it’s time to head to bed!  Would you like to …
…crawl on your tummy to bed or walk backwards?
… or Would you like to go blindfolded or have me carry you upside down? 
… or Would you like to hop on one foot or skip to bed?
Fun is super helpful!  Being creative and offering different choices every night is also super helpful. 

Getting ready for bed – give them choices
Once we get them in the vicinity of their bedroom and the bathroom area to get ready we use   

• Would you like to brush your teeth first or put your pjs on first?
• Brush your top teeth first or your bottom teeth?
• Would you like to take a bubble bath or a lights out bath with a candle?
• Would you like to dry off with a big towel or lots of little wash cloths?
• Would you like mint toothpaste or cinnamon toothpaste? 
• Electric or hand brushing?
• Pajama top on first or pajama bottom?
• Would you like to sleep with your school clothes on or your pajamas?

 
The idea is that you constantly throw new choices at them so that they don’t have time to think that one of the choices is “No!”.  Being creative with choices is key!

Set boundaries
Another skill that is super useful at bedtime is setting boundaries so that your kids know ahead of time what to expect and they’re things that you can stick to.  If your kids can have input as to what they are, especially as they get into older grades in elementary school, the more effective these will be.  For any boundary to be effective there has to be a consequence if you don’t get the result you are looking for. 

What am I talking about?  A useful boundary for most families is setting which time kids are ready for bed. Let’s say that a family starts heading to bed at 7:15 and want lights out by 8:15.  They need a bath, teeth brushing, getting pajamas on and reading books in that one hour of time.  I’d suggest setting a boundary like: “I read books to kids who are ready by 8:00. “  It’s a simple statement that tells your kids that as long as they are ready they can have books for 15 minutes.  This also means that you as a parent have to be willing to have a child having a tantrum at 8:05pm who wasn’t ready on time and will not be getting books tonight.  You need to be ready to have this happen and to give love and empathy.  “Wow, this is sooooo sad.  I love reading books.  I’m sad too.  I can’t wait till tomorrow night.”  You can give them hugs but you cannot read to them. You have to hold your ground especially when you know your child’s currency is book time.  You have to realize that your child had a choice and they chose to not have book time,  it wasn’t you. 

But, Mary, you might say, my child can’t tell time yet.  What do I do?  Use timers again!  Lots of timers if you need to.  Cheap ones from Target or Amazon work great.   Have your little one learn how to set them and get them maybe even to try “Beat the Clock” type contests.  Set one timer for 30 minutes, another for 15, another for 5 and the last one for 2.  Put them in different places to make it fun if you want but MAKE SURE they know there’s a limit and that they get to choose if they get books or not, it’s not up to you.  You give LOVE and EMPATHY if they blow it.  Some of you might want to try this on a weekend night if you’ve got to work on weekdays but you need to start and keep pulling it off for a few days for some kids to believe that your word is true, that there are no books if they’re not ready. 

Lights Out
By the time bedtime comes around most of us have our eyes on the goal – some downtime without kids!  Maybe a glass of wine with our spouse or to watch a show that’s not rated G.  We say a prayer: “Please Lord, let them fall asleep quickly so I can have some ME TIME.”  However, many of us find our ME TIME cut short by kids not wanting to fall asleep.  Some of us fall asleep with them (that’s what would happen to my husband and I), some of us sit close by outside the bedroom door feeling chained there until we can peek in and see that our kid is finally, finally asleep then we tip toe away as quietly as possible hoping we don’t wake them up.  Is that you?   What can we do to get them to sleep? 

If you have a child who really, really won’t go to sleep without controlling where you are then during daytime you need to spend Special Time with them to brainstorm what they need at bedtime so that they stay in bed.  Special Time is where one parent schedules some time with just them and the child, no siblings or distractions, just the two of you. 

During this time you think about ideas for what they need at bedtime since your new boundary is that once books are done mom and dad are done too.  You will let them know that they are welcome to have bedroom time for as long as they want but they must be quiet and stay in their room.  You really can’t force your child to sleep on command but you can allow them to be quiet and in their room and allow them to be in control of their environment.  During the Special Time I’d offer more creative choices than I might have offered in the past:

• Would you like to sleep in your bed or on the floor?
• Would you like to sleep in your sleeping bag or with a different blanket?
• Would you like to be buried by a pile of stuffed animals so that I can’t see you?
• Would you like the light on or off?

The idea is that your child chooses all these things that really don’t matter since what matters to you is that you get your ME TIME and they are quiet and in their room.

If your child won’t stay in their room and you have to constantly put them back or they have tantrums then you need to deal with those then I’d highly recommend that you go and listen to my 5th podcast which tells you what to do with tantrums. 

In brief though, for some kids you might wind up going ahead and cuddling them and falling asleep that night but then the next day you’re going to have them restore all that sleep and free time you lost in dealing with them by doing a few chores around the house.  Yes, even if they are only 3 or 4 you do this.  They need to know that their choice to take away your free time has a cost.  You love them and will help them get to sleep but you need to let them know you need their help to restore that time lost. You do it lovingly and with empathy. 

In the morning you’ll say something like: “Wow, that sure was a late night last night.  I’m so sorry you had trouble getting to sleep and that mommy didn’t have time to finish what I had planned.  It would be great if you helped out today by vacuuming the living room and sweeping the porch.”  I would also take a bit of time to brainstorm again to see what adjustments need to be made when you head to bed again that night.  Checking in with your child and making adjustments is really helpful.  They need to know that problems often take time and many adjustments to solve and that you’ll love them and work with them as long as it takes to solve this one.
 
Difficult Night Time Issues
In working with parents over the years I have offered this advice and for many it works wonders.  The choices and boundaries and knowing your child’s nighttime currency is super helpful.  However, there are a few situations I’d like to offer further advice. 

Kids waking in the middle of the night with siblings in the room that might wake up
One family I worked with has a small house and 3 kids, two who slept in the same room.  Their 4-year-old would wake up every night and scream so dad had to get him to calm down or his son would wake up the whole house and the new baby.  Oh my… definitely a problem.  We decided that getting his child to calm down during the night was really imperative so he’d need to use the Special Time solution to brainstorm ideas about what they could do to remedy the situation.  He would also need to work with his son to give him some jobs to help repair the sleep that dad had lost by getting woken up at night. 

As we mentioned before, this will be with love and empathy, the chores given won’t be a punishment for his behavior that he can’t control yet, just a recognition that he caused distress to someone else and has to help even the waters a bit during awake time. Another dad of a 4-year-old used Special Time to brainstorm with his son what books and stuffed animals he needed at bedtime but he also let his son know that he was too tired to play basketball with him when he’s woken up at night since he’d lost so much sleep.  It took about a week for the two of them to brainstorm enough to figure out their nighttime solution.  It was awesome to hear!  Go dads!
 
Kids wanting to climb into your bed in the middle of the night
Some of you might fall into the category that I did.  My son went to sleep ok but he’d wake up every night and didn’t wake anyone else up but me.  He’d come quietly to my side of the bed and want to climb in and sleep with us.  He was so cute at first so of course I’d let him sleep with us.  Sometimes, once he got back to sleep my husband or I would carry him back to his room but sometimes he was there the rest of the night.  Ugh… I was so tired and not getting good sleep with a little one kicking and turning and taking space I enjoyed in our bed.

  So, what I wound up doing is setting up a little bed next to ours that was just one of those tiny futons and put a crib sheet, a blanket and pillow on it.  My son got to choose what else he’d like on the little bed but it was small and fairly out of the way so I could still get in my bed.  Then, I let him know if he woke up in the middle of the night he was welcome to sleep there and that sleeping with mommy and daddy was not an option.  He was happy with that solution so for about a year from maybe 4 to 5 he slept probably ½ the nights on that little bed. 

​I was talking to another family and they actually have a small teepee set up in their room that they actually let their daughter whose about 6 just go ahead and sleep in all night.  Another family put a sleeping bag outside their master bedroom door for their daughter to sleep in if she awoke at night.  If you don’t mind and have the space, go for it.  It really won’t be happening when they’re teens, believe me.  Bottomline, if your child is waking you and you’re losing sleep feel free to be creative but don’t feel like you have to let them sleep with you.  Sometimes just being near you will be just fine. 
 
Early Morning Wake Ups
The last topic is what to do with kids who wake up earlier than mom or dad.  Actually, I’m going to tackle that topic hopefully in next one of my next podcasts but to give you a hint if you have this issue, use Special Time to brainstorm some ideas with your kid.  If your kids are really little go online and look for one of those kiddie wake-up clocks that go from red to green to signal when they can get out of bed.  More later though but feel free to email me if you need help right now.
 
Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed this podcast!  Getting kids to bed is a lot of work some nights but I hope you can use fun choices and set some good boundaries for getting to bed and getting ready for bed.  I pray for all of you to have a bit more sleep especially when some of us our not sleeping well right now for other reasons.   
 

THE AUDIO PODCAST IS AVAILABLE HERE:    ​LISTEN

Today we’re going to talk about ideas that will move meal times from battles to enjoyable dining.  First, I’m going to talk about how to get kids to sit and eat – a huge problem for many families.  Then we’ll talk about getting your kids to eat different types of food – the next most challenging food topic for parents of little ones. This podcast will concentrate on parents with kids from toddler to elementary school age.  I have a special “teen edition” of food issues that I’m putting up as my next podcast so stay tuned for that if you’ve got older kids.  

With that said, let’s dive in and let’s learn some more practical parenting wisdom relating to food. 

First, how to get kids to sit and eat.  For some of you, the dinner table is a jumping box – kids getting up and down at will having no particular interest in eating, they’d rather be playing.  You might start your meal together but within minutes your kids are out of their seats.  You’re either yelling at them to come back to the table or running after them with food.  For others of you, to get peace at your dinner table you set your kids up on some sort of electronic device.  Your table is quiet and kids stay seated but your kids eat so slowly you wind up feeding them by hand.  If you try to remove the electronics, your kids have meltdowns.  Oh my… no fun at all!

I love to pose the question as to why we parents do this to ourselves?  Is it nutrition?  Are we worried about weight issues?  Or is it a balanced diet?  You know your kids likes carbs but they just aren’t interested in those vegetables, right?  Or maybe it’s different?  Love veggies but not protein.  We want them to be healthy and we feel food is so important that we will put up with just about any behavior for them to be fed nutritious meals, right?  It’s exhausting!

Family Mealtime Rules

So, we need to make a plan.  To change this dynamic we have to set what I call Family Mealtime Rules.  We need to put boundaries and expectations in place so that our whole family knows what to expect.  Here’s the list of four essential rules to getting your family mealtimes into line:

1. We eat at the table
2. We don’t have electronics, toys, or books while we eat
3. If a kid can lift a fork on their own, they need to feed themselves
4. When someone gets up from the table, they are done eating

 
Pretty ambitious, right?  Putting loving boundaries around acceptable behaviors at the table is essential.  You might have heard that kids need limits and when they don’t have them, they think the sky is the limit.  If your mealtimes are out of control it might be because the limits haven’t been set by you and possibly, they’ve been set instead by your kids which is a recipe for disaster. 
 
How long should dinner time or breakfast take in your home – 20 minutes?  30?  10?  I want you to pick a time and shoot for it.   In our example here I’m going to say about 20 minutes since it’s pretty normal. 
Now let’s go through each one of those four rules and see how you can implement them in a loving and consistent manner.

1. Eat at the table
   1. Pretty simple, just like it says, not on the couch in front of a TV
2. No electronics or books or private toys
   1. You need to realize this is just for 20 minutes and that you and your kids can make it together for that time without private distractions.  Yes, that means no electronics for mom or dad either.  Some parents have kids who want to bring cars or trucks or dolls to the table, no thank you for those either!
   2. If you’d like a distraction then offer a family game to play like Yahtzee, Candy Lane, any group game you can all play together.  “Together” is the operative word here.  In my family I set up something called a “Conversation Jar” – it was a bin that had slips of paper kids could draw from with questions them; things like “What was one thing you learned today?” or “What’s your favorite movie?” or “Tell us a joke.”  There are even decks of cards you can buy with conversation type questions on them if you don’t want to make up your own.
   3. The main point here is that personal distractions aren’t allowed but group distractions are.  My goal would be not to need the group distractions for a 20 minute meal but, if you need them, use them!
3. Kids feeding themselves
   1. This is a hard one for lots of parents especially of small kids since we worry they aren’t getting enough nutrition or we see them struggle to eat with a fork or spoon which can be messy and slow.  Once your child hits about two there shouldn’t be anyone approaching them with a forkful of food except themselves.  If you’re that parent who is running after a kid with a fork, you have to stop.
4. Getting up from the table means they’re done
   1. This is the most important rule! 
   2. Here’s what you need to do.  First, make sure your kids know this new rule in a loving manner, no lectures needed, just a simple statement:  “We serve dinner to children who stay at the table.”  That’s it.  Then wait.
   3. As soon as your child gets up you LOVINGLY take away their plate saying something like: “Oh, I guess you are all done.  No problem. Have fun playing.”  Keep in mind that they might actually be done eating, they might have had enough and won’t be back. 
   4. However, if they do run back to the table and want their food back you say: “Oh, this is soooo sad.  You know our new rule is that if you get up it means you’re done.  So sorry.  I know you’ll have a really nice breakfast to look forward to in the morning.”  If there’s begging and crying you just have to put up with it, don’t give in.  This is part of the lesson they are learning, it’s a natural consequence and it will be very effective, you just have to trust me. 
   5. Now, some others of you have kids that will just run off playing.  There’s no need to remind, lecture or to yell after them: “Hey, I’m taking your dinner away! You’re gonna be hungry!” You need to let them decide what and how much to eat, not keep them at the dinner table forcing them to eat everything on their plate.  If your pediatrician isn’t worried about their weight, you shouldn’t be either. I’d like you to consider that as your kids get older, they actually put the food on their plates that they want to eat.  You need to let them own their food intake.
   6. Many kids will come back to you in an hour saying they’re hungry.  I’d encourage you to be calm and empathetic and say something like: “This is sooo sad.  I get hungry when I don’t eat enough for dinner too.  Breakfast sure will be yummy.”  But I know that’s really hard for parents of young ones so I’d offer a compromise to you, have something in your house that your kids kinda like, is really healthy and they can get for themselves.  I love to use carrots as an example.  When they say they are hungry you can say: “This is soooo sad.  Dinner is all done. You’re welcome to have carrots. ”  Whatever you choose for your family don’t make it very attractive, just tolerable. 
   7. One final complication to a 20-minute mealtime is that you might be offering too many snacks to your kids too close to mealtime.  Try to set snack times that end at least 90 minutes ahead of a meal so that your kids are hungry when mealtime comes.

Once you start this and you’re consistent with all these new boundaries your children will know what is expected and that there is love involved around food, not yelling, telling and chasing.  The first few days might be rough for one or more of your kids but you HAVE to keep it up.  If you cave, they’ll know you don’t have any plan.  Your child won’t starve, they really won’t!  If they miss a meal, their little bodies will make up for it over the days ahead.  One pediatrician I was reviewing comments from says that you should really look at a child’s nutritional intake over a week’s span, not a day.  Their bodies have a way of knowing what they need.

All these new rules will allow you to have a completely different food experience in your house.  It should be not only healthier but also happier. 

Food Choices

Ok, now what we’re done with setting up rules at our mealtimes we’re going to move on to topic number two – food choices.   The classic “My child is so picky.”  Or, “My child won’t eat vegetables.” is such a challenge.  What ideas do I have for you in dealing with these? I have four ideas:

1. Food is a source of power for kids, you need to take away their power over you.  The more we push certain foods on them, the more they rebel which causes us to compromise and run after them with a fork or let them use electronics at dinner.   You need to let them know you trust them to take care of their food needs. 
2. Second, don’t be anxious about food which is highly related to #1.  Kids will settle down and grow over time.  Your children need to know you love them and they are secure.  Let their bodies drive what they eat and your job is to keep healthy food in their lives as much as possible.  If your pediatrician thinks they are doing ok then don’t worry.
3. Third, offer at least something on your kid’s plate that you know they’ll eat.  In my house one son like broccoli and the other green beans so we ate a lot of those.  I would have liked more variety but at least they were vegetables.  My sons eventually moved on to Caesar Salad so we ate a lot of that.  Today as adults they eat lots of things, I just had to wait and know that their palates will most likely grow.  That said, we all know adults who are still picky eaters and, hey, they’re living and breathing and it’s all just fine. 
4. Lastly, I think it’s super fun to take our kids grocery shopping with the intention of going on a food treasure hunt.  Have them pick out a few things that look interesting to THEM and incorporate them into your meals. The deal will be that each person needs to take at least one bite of the new foods and they are even welcome to spit it out if they don’t like it.  The idea is to have them try, not to force them, to eat new things so please make it a fun experience and not a torturous one. 
   
   

I have had some families come to me with a few other situations around food.  One involved a girl in about 4th grade who was just always eating.  She was eating good foods but her mom was concerned about her weight and whether she was just eating out of boredom. After brainstorming a bit, we decided that in her house she needed to set up a more appropriate guideline for when the family eats.  Kids were welcome to have a snack after school but then the next time to eat was dinner.  If her daughter said she was hungry later mom used love and empathy and set a new limit: “Oh that’s too bad.  I’m so glad that dinner will be in a half hour.”  This worked!  Yep!  That simple.  Mom just hadn’t set any boundaries around food so the pantry being open 24/7 was the default policy.  It was hurting her daughter and now her daughter adjusted her behavior and things are working really well.  If you have a similar problem you can always add: “There’s carrots in the fridge!”

Another issue a family had with all of these suggestions required a bit more brainstorming.  They lived in a small house and had a 4-year-old who wouldn’t eat his dinner but would wake up in the middle of the night hungry, not at a convenient time like before bedtime.  Ugh.  That was a major drag especially since they had a new baby and a 6-year-old. If there was a middle-of-the-night problem where the 4-year-old was hungry they couldn’t let him have a tantrum and wake everyone up.  In this case, we decided feeding the child food was fine, however, the next day when things were calm the parents needed to make sure there was a loving consequence for waking up a parent due to them not finishing their dinner and being hungry in the middle-of-the-night.  The consequence might be something like cleaning up toys or vacuuming the living room.  The point being that the parent lost sleep and didn’t have the extra energy to do those jobs so the child needs to do it for the parent.  In the Parenting the Love and Logic Way® class that I facilitate this is called an Energy Drain, see link below.

I hope you’ve got some new ideas to try to help get mealtimes under control in your house.  You have the four Family Mealtime Rules to implement in addition to the ideas about how to give good food choices.  I want you to try and to not give up.  Setting reasonable boundaries around food is super, super important.

Link to Love and Logic® technique on ENERGY DRAIN:  HERE


​

THE AUDIO PODCAST IS AVAILABLE HERE:  LISTEN

Today we’re going to talk about what to do when teens won’t show us respect and how to handle things when anger and other emotions are involved in our parenting situations. 

You’re the Worst Parent in the World!
Has your teen or tween told you yet that you’re the worst parent in the world?  Many times?  Or are you lucky enough to say “not yet”?  Well, don’t be surprised if that once adorable toddler or elementary child who doted on your every word turns into some sort of swamp monster and turns on you. 

Sometimes they blow up over an issue that, from your point of view, is small –you didn’t buy the right flavor of yogurt, you showed up 2 minutes late picking them up from practice, you nagged them too many times about cleaning up their room or maybe that you wore the wrong color shirt.  When they lash out at you like that, you just want to lash out at them, right?  Tell them they don’t appreciate the million other things you’ve done for them recently!  It’s not fair that you’re the target and they’re treating you like dirt!  We feel they don’t show us any respect and we can’t get them to no matter what we do.

Respect is something we tell our kids is earned, not given.  If you treat someone with respect then you’ll deserve respect is the old adage.  Well, that works for normal people but we’re talking about a teenager or tween with only half a brain.  What?  Half a brain?  Yep, half a brain. 

There are two issues with our kids' brains that are going on when they are acting disrespectful.

The first is when kids move toward puberty their brains sluff off half their brain cells.  Yep, half!  That’s where my “half a brain” comment comes in.  The brain has been collecting lots of information for the first 12 years or so of a child’s life and biologically they need to make room in their brains to create new neurological pathways that will take them into adulthood and beyond.  So, during puberty the body sluffs off brain cells.  Many of us have heard comments that the teenage brain doesn’t stop forming until the mid to late 20s.  This is the science of what is behind that comment.

The next part of the brain to understand is something that affects us at all ages. It’s when emotion takes over our brains and activates our “fight-or-flight” response.  If we’re angry, yelling, or crying a part of our brain called the amygdala takes over and gets all the blood flow, deactivating the part of the brain where decision making happens called our prefrontal cortex.  If you have a teen this means that they can be hit with a double brain whammy at once – half a brain and fight-or-flight mode so you’d better watch out!

So, let’s get back to what we first started with in this podcast – lack of respect. 

If your teen lashes out, not only is their fight and flight activated causing their thinking brain to shut down but now you know that they don’t have all that many brain cells in the first place.   Does your house ever sound like this?

•  “Why were you so late picking me up?! You are so thoughtless!  You know I have to study for my test tomorrow.”
• “Dad, you never let me do anything fun with my friends!  Leave me alone!”
• “Mom, you never understand anything I say!  My friends are just fine, it’s YOU who aren’t treating me right!”
• “No! I don’t want to get off electronics now!  I’m playing with my friends so shut up and get out of my room!”
  
  

Wow… that’s a whole ton of lack of respect, isn’t in? 

The two most common reactions we as parents have to that bad attitude look something like this:

Reaction 1 – We try to remain calm and reason with them using our thinking brain. 

• “Yes, I was late but things will be just fine.”
• “I do too let you do fun things all the time.  What about the time I let you… (fill in the blanks…)”
• “We have a family rule about electronics and you signed a contract which you’re violating it right now.  We need you to hold up your end of the contract.”
• The complication:  we might have a thinking brain but our kids don’t.  Hmm..

Reaction 2 – The second possible reaction is where we get emotional and activate our flight-and-flight response and start battling with them.

• “I do too treat you right!  You just sit there on your lazy butt and don’t help out around the house at all.  Why should I let you play computer all day and night!  You have to help out around the house or I’m going to never let you play on the computer again!”
• “You are always talking back to me!  Go to your room but hand over that cell phone first.  It’s going away for a week!”
• “You have to do it my way because I said so and I’m the parent!”
• The complication here:  yep, neither party of has a thinking brain!  Uh oh!  A huge problem!
  
  

Reaction 3  - I want to offer a third alternative where both parent and teen have a thinking brain.  Yes!  It’s possible for that to happen.  How?  You have to WAIT.  You have to let all the emotion pass. Even though they are throwing all sorts of mean insults at you, you need to just take it at the time.  Don’t react and don’t engage and defend yourself. There’s no good brain activity going on so don’t feed the monster. 

Try some of these phrases in a really soft and loving voice:

•  “Mom you are so stupid.” Gets a response of “I know….” In a really calm voice.
• “Dad, why are you always picking on me?!” gets a response of “That’s soooo sad…”
• Some parents might get flack for saying those things so they  might even need to just grunt or use “hmmm” as their reaction to disrespect.  
• If you’re really good at staying calm during all of this you might even get: “Why do you keep saying that!” Don’t take the bait and try to defend yourself, just take it. 
• Feel free to say something like: “I talk to kids who are calm.  We’ll talk later.”  And then leave the room.
  ​

You’re going to continue to wait until the emotion passes; with some situations this could be an hour and with some teens it could be days. 

Now, once your teen has calmed down you need to find an opportunity to talk.  Sometimes you can just cuddle up to them when they’re on the couch or at bedtime while other times you need to create a situation where you and your teen have what I call “Special Time” that’s away from other family members and distractions; maybe a walk, a hike or a drive in the car.  For some of you who are worried that your teen might blow up on you when you start having a discussion, I’d even recommend going to a sit-down restaurant since most of us behave better in public places. Whatever you need to do, you need to follow up so that the disrespect doesn’t linger and become a normal state of affairs in your home.

Keep in mind that when you get this special time, you want to talk and not lecture.  You are going to use love and empathy to communicate your unconditional love to your child.  They need to know that even when they are hurting and at their worst that you still love them and want to help them.  Using phrases like:

• “I could tell you were really upset.  Can we talk about it?” will help.  Then have a discussion and see if you can brainstorm how to avoid such outbursts in the future. 
• As part of this discussion you want to make sure you tell them: “It really hurt my feelings when you called me bad names.  You know how much I love you and in our family we treat each other with respect.”   
• Then you get to allow your child to make up the feeling of ill-will they created by coming up with some sort of way for them to pay you back, creating positive energy in your home again.
  • “It’ll really help if you make dinner tomorrow night with me to help put some positive energy into our relationship again.”
  • Or, you might ask them to do a special project around the house or even have them do a special cleaning of their room. 
  • They need to know that their behavior of treating you badly has a loving consequence.  If you want, you can even give them a few choices to make it easier for them to restore your relationship to a more healthy state. 

I often times have parents tell me that when they wait and let emotions calm down the teen will even apologize on their own.  Why?  Because their thinking brain came back online and even they could tell that they were out of control.   
 
You need to be sure that when they apologize that there still will be a consequence to restore your relationship.  If you are loving and calm the teen will understand and they will most likely willingly do whatever task you agree on.  A simple “I’m sorry” from them is just a bit too short and too easy. 

Some of you might say that your teen won’t take the time or effort to restore the relationship.  If that’s the case then there’s more going on and you should reach out to me for further coaching or get some other counselor involved, things usually don’t get better on their own.

I have one last thought especially for those of you who have younger kids.  This emotional behavior where the fight-and-flight response is activated happens at all ages so feel free to experiment on your 2-year old or 8-year old.  With them, when they have a tantrum or blow up, you wait until the emotion passes just like with teens .  It’s usually a lot easier with younger kids and their recovery time can be as short as a few minutes. 
The encouragement I want to give you is that it’s really effective to practice these skills when they’re young so that when they get into their teen years you can more easily pull off waiting during emotional and disrespectful outbursts until their thinking brain returns. 
​
I hope you enjoyed hearing some ideas about how to bring respect back into balance in your household and how knowing a bit about brain science can help you create healthier and happier family relationships. 

THE AUDIO PODCAST IS AVAILABLE HERE:  LISTEN

​·        Welcome to Parenting Decoded, a podcast for practical approaches to parenting.  I’m Mary Eschen and thanks for listening in.  I’m so excited that you’re listening to my first podcast ever.  I’m hoping that I can help you decode the deep mysteries of parenting.  I plan to tackle the most common parenting situations and give you really practical ideas that you can grasp and implement today and do it in a loving and empathetic manner. 

In my work for the past 8 years as a parent educator and coach I’ve found that a lot of cycles for healthy family life are used up with miscommunication, frustration and anger.  My view is the long-term one, helping you to see that what you do today will impact your adult child in the future.  I want to help you create respectful, responsible and independent adults.

With that said… let’s get started to create happier and healthier families!

Today I want to spend time talking about One of the biggest challenges where I live in the Silicon Valley,  Helicopter Parenting.   It’s become such a common term in our vocabulary that it’s even a verb – “to helicopter”.  We are pressured into hovering over kids trying to make everything perfect because we believe this will help them succeed in life and we don’t want to take any chances of our kids screwing that up.      

HOVERING - Some parents literally hover – over dinner to make sure their kids eat a nutritious meal, over homework to make sure it is done or all the answers are correct, or by going online to check grades and assignments. 

NAGGING - Other helicopter parents might use nagging as a way to “help” – “have you packed you homework in your backpack”, “I see your  homework is still on the table, it needs to go in your backpack”, “Let’s get in the car, do you have your homework?” all the way to “I dropped your homework off with your teacher since it never got in your backpack.” Some parents might do this with a loving attitude but lots of us are very, very frustrated that our kid just ignored us each time we tried to nag them to get their homework in the right place.  It’s enough to drive us crazy, isn’t it?

WHY PARENTS HELICOPTER?

WHY - The first thing to consider is the question of WHY a parent would helicopter.  I live in the Silicon Valley where my husband and I have raised our two boys.  It’s a very academically competitive environment and it seems helicoptering is the default style of parenting here.  All these Helicopter parents are wonderful, amazing parents who are trying to see that their kids are happy, that they have everything they need, that there are no bumps in the road for them or if there are bumps then those loving parents will minimize the bumps so their kids can move forward and not be thrown off course. 

I learn best with real life examples so I’m going to talk about some helicopter situations and why a parent might behave this way:

o    Scenario #1.  This is when the parent drops off a lunchbox to school when a child has forgotten it.  The child was reminded several times and it didn’t get done but the parent goes out of their way anyway.  Why would a parent do this?

The answer I get from parents is that they don’t want their child to be hungry, that they want them to eat a healthy lunch and unless they drop it off these things won’t happen.  Some parents think their child would starve!  Ha! 

o   Scenario #2 the helicopter parent wakes up their kid every morning by repeatedly coming into their room to make sure they get out of bed, that kid just doesn’t want to wake up!  You some days have to physically drag them out of bed since they keep going back to sleep.  The child takes forever to get out of bed and often times your entire family starts off their day frustrated and angry.  Why does the parent keep doing this day after day?

Parents feel that the kid can’t possibly take care of getting out of bed on time.  They need watching over because they would sleep right through an alarm and be late for school.

o   Scenario #3 - Now let’s move along to an older child and a helicopter parent who logs on to the school website to closely monitor assignments, grades and attendance.  Why would they do that?

​Parents feel if they don’t look at what’s online then their child won’t plan their assignments correctly, that they might have forgotten to turn in papers or even that a teacher recorded a grade incorrectly and it will impact their future in academics.  They need to make sure that doesn’t happen at all costs and those electronic school systems are a way of double checking. 

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE HELICOPTER – now let’s take those same examples – the lunchbox forgetting, the not waking up on time and the academic monitoring and see what the impact is on our kids

o   The lunchbox  
A kid learns that they don’t have to remember a lunchbox, that it’s really their parent’s job.  If they get to school without their lunch, they can blame the parent.  They can keep playing electronics or Legos or whatever in the morning and ignore when mom or dad politely asked them to pack their lunch in their backpack.  They have been given permission to tune out mom and dad since there’s nothing bad that happens, their lunch always magically appears.  Why should they bother packing their lunch?  Nagging isn’t all that bad, they got to keep doing something fun that they liked.

o   Waking up
The child learns they don’t have to be responsible for getting up, their parents will make sure via nagging or whatever to get them out of bed “on time”.  You know what?  They can even blame the parent for not doing their job of waking them up if they’re late to school.  “It’s my mom’s fault, she slept through her alarm and didn’t wake me up.”

o   Grade/Assignment checking
The child doesn’t bother taking a look at their own assignments, if they miss one they blame the parent for not telling them.  The child doesn’t worry or plan their studies since it is the parent who “owns” the schedule for when things need to be done. They basically get to check out of the planning.  Even if they are willing to do the work, they just wait to be told when and what to do. 

LETTING GO – I happen to know a lot about issues with helicopter parenting.  I’m a recovering helicopter parent.  I was just trying to be helpful and loving but in reality, I was robbing my son of the opportunity to learn for himself and take control of his life. 

One example that comes to mind is when he had trouble with reading in middle school.  He just hated to read so he’d keep putting it off, he’d do his other homework just fine but that reading… boy… it was hard.   He wasn’t a slacker student; he just didn’t want to read.  I finally realized that when I “helped” to set a reading plan with him or even sometimes read the book with him that I wasn’t teaching him anything, he was only learning to rely on me to help make a plan. 

So, one time I decided to put my helicoptering aside and let the responsibility be his, not mine.   My role was to give love and empathy in the event that he got behind.  Well, in no time my empathy was utilized.  “Oh, that’s so sad.  I hate it when I have to read a lot of pages in one night and have a book report due too.”  “Can I fix you a snack?”  In the end I think he had piled up about 200 pages to read in one night which was, of course, impossible.  Well, that was a rough night and I don’t think he ever finished reading that book but when he came home the next day loaded down with his next book assignment (his school was really in to reading lots of books one after the other) I was able to have a discussion with him about ideas about what HE could do to smooth things out in the future. 

I didn’t tell him what to do, we just thought about ideas about what to do and in the end, he decided to use a basic math equation -- # of pages divided by the number of days he had left to read a book.  For his first book that was 25 pages a day.  He looked at that number and was amazed at how reasonable that sounded.  It was so cool to see him realize that with a bit of his own planning that he could conquer what seemed like an impossible and hated task.  Reading was no longer hard for him and when he missed a day, he could recalculate the pages or just read double to catch up, it was doable. 

He was so happy and confident that even today as a senior in college he uses that same simple math calculation to help plan all types of work that he has to accomplish.  All because way back in middle school I let him own his own homework and he was able to learn how to pace his work.  And me, well, I just sit back as a very happy recovering helicopter mom knowing that I’ve helped to raise a responsible adult. 

Bottomline, we Helicopters think we are “helping” our kids but more than likely we are interfering with the development of our child’s sense of responsibility and their ability to solve problems on their own. 

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES
I want to talk a little more about two unintended consequences of helicoptering that I’ve noticed in my time as a parenting coach – one is the impact on self-confidence and the other is how we create lazy kids:

o   SELF CONFIDENCE– when we constantly do things for our kids they often start believing they can’t do things themselves. This shows up in their hearts… they aren’t “smart” enough or “organized” enough or whatever. And they believe it!  In the case of a parent who is always checking on assignments and knowing when tests and assignments are due, they basically let their child know that they can’t do it.  If the parent isn’t there they will FAIL.  This robs their self-confidence and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy that they really can’t do it without mom or dad. Take the kid who makes their parent pack their sports equipment because the kid has learned that they’ll forget something and it will be a disaster so they don’t that responsibility since they’ll just screw it up and everyone will be mad and disappointed so mom and dad better keep packing that sports bag, they can do it so much better.
o   LAZY, ENTITLED KIDS – The other side effect of helicoptering is that we can create lazy, unmotivated kids.  Who wants one of those?!  Have you ever thought or even said that your kid is lazy?  That your child does not seem to care about their work?  Do you have the feeling that you are raising an entitled couch potato instead of an adult?  Helicoptering can give kids power over us.  We run around panicked doing things to cover up for our kids not wanting to do those same things.  When we start covering for them when they are young the problem just grows and grows. 

§  Take studying, for example.  If they won’t study on their own, parents force them to do the studying, they sit next to them to make sure they stay focused, they drag them through the work, planning assignments, correcting papers, hiring tutors.  Their child learns that mom or dad will keep everything on time and in order.  There will be some yelling and lots of nagging but, hey, they get to pass on being responsible, so it’s worth it.

§  How about kids who don’t do their chores?  They tell their parents they are too busy doing homework.  Those helicopter parents fall for that line all the time thus creating entitled kids who feel that there’s no need to contribute to the family, just to their own selfish educational pursuits.

How to overcome being a helicopter:
Let them fail
Let them learn what happens when they forget stuff, that the next time they’ll have an opportunity to remember what was missing
Let them know what a bad grade feels like and that they can study harder and recover
Let them not finish their homework and talk to the teacher about it
Let them not get to school on time and go to the office to get a late slip
Let them not practice their sport and tell their coach why
Let them forget their lunch and figure out how to mooch from their friends or ask folks in the cafeteria 

o   The secret is to Give them EMPATHY so they can get back up and try again!

Love will go far when you allow them to fail and they learn you will love them unconditionally.  If you yell at them, lecture them and reprimand them as they fail then they become panicked and brittle, will break instead of bend.  Comments like “Well,  if you had packed your lunch like I told you to this wouldn’t have happened.  I don’t have time to run to school every other day because you were too lazy to get your lunch into your backpack.  This really makes me angry.”

You want them to know that they can get themselves back up after they’ve fallen down, that they are resilient and that you’re on their side, not running the show but an encouraging spectator and coach who loves them beyond measure. Try saying something like this in a CALM, LOVING voice: “Wow, that must have been a hard to not have your lunch today.  Your snack was in there too.  What do you think you can do to make sure you pack it tomorrow? “

Is your child "sensitive"?  Do they cry at the drop of a hat?  When they can't find their shoes, do they yell and scream?  When they lose at sports do they have a tantrum?  How about when their sibling says something mean to them, do they go to anger in a second?  It's enough to drive us out of our skin some days, isn't it?  It's hard to slow down and figure out what's going on when the kids are pushing our buttons left and right!

Yes, all those situations really are enough to push our buttons.  How can you empathize with a kid who is screaming and yelling when they do it DAY AFTER DAY???  This isn't a one time thing, is it?  It happens ALL THE TIME!  You start cringing when your day opens up with your challenging child whining and complaining.  It makes you want to pull the covers over your head.  I agree that this is all too much for us to handle some days but I want to encourage you to persist... it's really, really important that you learn to use EMPATHY and learn to use it well.  In the long run, empathy will save your family from all sorts of trauma as your kids grow.  It's hard to believe but, it's true.

What can you do?  
1 - BREATHE AMD CHILL -Take a breath and chill out. Calming yourself down is SUPER important.  If your brain is activated into an emotional state you are shutting down the only way weapon you have in your tool box -- your brain.   Sometimes you will need to get yourself to a "safe" place where you can chill out.  You can ask your spouse to take over for a minute, take a walk around the block or, if that's not an option, then just shut yourself in the bathroom.  Yes, your kids will be pounding at the door to get to you but the wait will be worth if for them if the result is a calm mommy or daddy.   

2 - ACTIVATE YOUR BRAIN - Here's the part where, once calm, you might be able to take a bigger view of the picture of what's going on.  Little kids don't have many skills in their little toolboxes -- whining, crying, kicking, yelling, screaming.  Older kids can throw in skills like guilt and shame -- "You're the WORST mom!" or "Dad, you're so mean. I don't love you!" and even, "None of my friends like you, you have such bad taste!".  We need to THINK where those thoughts and feelings are coming from instead of reacting to the emotion they are producing. 

• Why is my 3 year old peeing in the corner when they are already potty trained?  Could it be that we just had a new baby and they are seeking attention from us? Or maybe I've been traveling or working so much they don't get to see me and the only time they get my attention is when they're misbehaving?
• Why is my 2nd grader getting pulled out of recess for aggressive behavior? Could it be that they're feeling powerless with their friends or they feel they have to win a game at any cost?  They might have a raging fire of anger building every time they go to school and it comes out on the playground. Have I missed this?  
• Why is my tween yelling at me when all I did was clean their room?  Could it be they thought I violated their space? That I threw out something that I didn't know was precious to them?
• Why is my teen not talking to me when clearly they violated our policy of no driving in cars with other high schoolers who don't have a year of driving under their belt?  I took away their phone for a week and now they won't even talk to me they are so angry.  Could it be they think I just ripped their lifeline from them?

3 - START EMPATHETIC RESPONSES - Lots of times our response as a parent is to TELL our kids what to do.  "Stop crying, you didn't fall down that hard."  "Your friends will let you play, just get back out there."  "Winning isn't everything, you really need to not get so upset about losing why don't you go to your room to settle down?" "It was your fault you broke our family rules.  Why do you do that all the time?"   We are basically invalidating their feelings by telling them what they should feel.  Empathy allows us to see their point of view and allow them permission to be sad or mad or whatever in the moment.  It's ok that they wanted to win the game. It's natural to be angry that some kid on the team played badly and cost them the game.  That is SUPER SAD!  Our job is to agree and do what's called "reflective listening": "Yes, wow, that was really too bad that the team lost. You sure are sad. "  Just let them cry or vent without you getting involved in the emotion.  Just LOVE THEM through it.  Do the "Yes, that's sad." routine over and over again to help the emotion pass.  Sometimes it can be days for that to happen but the child knowing that you love them unconditionally is what we're after.  They can be little monsters but, we love them.  They can tell and scream but, we love them.  We just keep loving them over and over again. That teen who doesn't have their phone can know from you that it's really hard to be without a phone if you say it lovingly and mean it with empathy in your voice. 

4 - AFTER THE EMOTION - once you have loved your child unconditionally through whatever the crisis was then and only then would you work to figure out a solution to the triggers that set off their emotion.  You would BRAINSTORM to figure out the why and what caused them to go ballistic.  When that toddler pees in the corner, you'd give them love at the time and have them clean up the mess in a calm and loving manner.  Then, later that day, you'd ask what was up with that.  At that young age they probably won't be able to tell you much but I would certainly recommend spending some one on one time with that child so that they feel unconditionally loved, not shamed for peeing in the corner.  Look on it as a learning experience for your child to learn to clean up messes.  

That teen who feels you've ruined their life for taking away their phone needs to know that you love them and won't yell back during times of disrespect, that you love them too much to engage in a yelling match.  But, after the issue has settled down you are welcome to circle back to let them know that you love them too much to let them treat people badly and they need to make that up to you.  The older the child, the longer this time between emotion and repair can take.