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


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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.  

Have you ever felt like you're the only parent dealing with <fill in the blank>?  That "blank" can be a pretty big list, can't it?  From eating, biting and potty training issues for toddlers to whining and the start of homework or screen time battles for elementary kids. When middle and high school kicks in anxiety, disrespect, lack of communication, unhealthy behaviors like drugs, lying, stealing and porn can creep in as well.  Ugh!    How about a kid who pulls the fire alarm at school? What friend can you talk to about that?  Or you are from a different country and your kid is trying to fit into high school behaviors that just are so against your culture you feel completely isolated?

So many parenting issues hit us right in the gut and have such social stigma attached that we feel there's no one to reach out to.  Our own parents and friends can be harsh judges sometimes, can't they?

I want to offer hope to all of you!  In the spirit of a new year and a new decade please feel free to reach out to me and get whatever help you need!  Here are a few ways:

1 - EMAILING - It's FREE!
I usually respond to email issues within a day or two.  Email [email protected]

2- PHONE CONSULTS - It can be free or paid
When an email issue gets complicated sometimes I just choose to work with the parents on the phone since it's simpler.  However, sometimes folks just want a coaching session and can't come in person so we set up a paid coaching session. 

3 - COACHING - In Person
I have a private office at my home in Los Gatos where I offer one hour coaching sessions.  I love to meet people in person if at all possible. My rate is $50/hour. However, most of you know that I help parents no matter what so if there are financial barriers I'm happy to work around them.

Bottomline: Don't be lonely and suffer needlessly!  I really, really mean it when I say I want to help.  It's tough out there and I want each and every one of you to have as many joyous moments in your parenting walk as you can.  Know that you are not alone!

Many of us have learned how to set Loving Limits so that we can tell our kids what WE will do instead of what we DON'T do.  It's super positive and really helps kids understand in a loving way that they aren't running the show in our households.

However, by setting limits we're really helping ourselves to keep calm and be in control.  
Look at the following scenarios - Which version shows the parent is in control?  Is calm?  

1. I'm not serving dinner until you put away your mess! 
2. I serve dinner to kids who've put away their toys.

How about:

1. You can't play on the computer.  You haven't finished your homework yet.
2. We allow kids who've finished their homework to play games on the computer.

​
Little ones are easier to set limits since they are so willing to please us and receive our love (not to mention they're more dependent on us for helping them do things).

1. I'm not reading you books tonight!  You took forever to get ready for bed so there's no time left to read.  No crying!
2. I read books to kids who are ready by bedtime which is 8:15.  This is so sad that you took too long to get ready.  I'm sure that things will be better tomorrow night.  I know you're sad, me too, since I love reading you books at night.  (notice the empathy!)

When our kids get older we can still keep setting limits.  Here's a story from one of the moms in my class of how she's using loving limits with her two older kids.  Hats off to her since she's remaining calm and in control!

                                                          =================================== 

So, every morning I have to ask my kids to put away their cereal box. So, yesterday morning when the cereal box, got left out, I took the cereal box and put in on top of the fridge. (The place I put stuff that they have lost for the week.) Here is the conversation my son and I had (it was his cereal):

O: Mom, why is my cereal on the fridge?
Me: Oh, it is so sad. It was left out on the table again this morning. You can have it back on Saturday (when they always get their stuff back).
O: Oh, okay. Tomorrow I will just open another box.
Me: Buddy, I am so sorry but you lost the privilege of eating cereal until you get that box back on Saturday. You will have to figure out something else for breakfast tomorrow.
O: Okay, I will have toast.
Me: Ummm...that is a great start but you need to include some type of protein.
O: Great! You can make me eggs.
Me: Oh, you know,  I will be busy making lunches and my own breakfast. You usually make your own breakfast so you will still need to do that tomorrow. (I was SOOOO tempted to make him eggs.) You can make your own eggs. You know how to do that.
O: Oh, I don't want to do that. How about nuts? Will that work?
Me: Sounds like a great plan.

And this morning, he did just that. No complaining. No helicopter mom rescuing. No complaining about cereal boxes left out. Even his sister made sure hers got put away. #winning!