Show notes
You can listen wherever you get your podcasts, OR— BRAND NEW: we’ve included a fully edited transcript of our interview at the bottom of this post.In this episode of The Peaceful Parenting Podcast, we have a coaching call with Laurel and Derrick. This call is such a good one because we cover ALL the big ideas behind the peaceful parenting approach, while applying them to real life scenarios in a home with three kids. Topics include sibling rivalry, nurturing our kids, self regulation, how to handle kids asking lots of questions and always wanting more, what parenting without punishment looks like, and more!**If you’d like an ad-free version of the podcast, consider becoming a supporter on Substack! > > If you already ARE a supporter, the ad-free version is waiting for you in the Substack app or you can enter the private feed URL in the podcast player of your choice.Know someone who might appreciate this post? Share it with them!We talk about:* 7:00 What it looks like when our children truly respect us* 9:00 7-year-old refusing to get dressed* 12:10 Why it is okay baby and nurture our kids* 14:00 Tuning into our own self regulation* 18:00 Mindset shifts to give our kids the benefit of the doubt* 19:30 How to handle sibling rivalry* 24:00 Don’t try to make it a teachable moment* 38:00 When kids ask questions over and over* 41:00 Why kids always want more!* 45:00 Helping kids see how their actions affect other people* 55:00 Why kids lie and what to do* 57:00 Natural consequences, boundaries, and limits* 1:02 Peaceful Parenting MantrasResources mentioned in this episode:* Yoto Player-Screen Free Audio Book Player* The Peaceful Parenting Membership* Free Stop Sibling Fights E book* Free How To Stop Yelling at Your Kids e-coursexx Sarah and CoreyYour peaceful parenting team- click here for a free short consult or a coaching sessionVisit our website for free resources, podcast, coaching, membership and more!>> Please support us!!! Please consider becoming a supporter to help support our free content, including The Peaceful Parenting Podcast, our free parenting support Facebook group, and our weekly parenting emails, “Weekend Reflections” and “Weekend Support” - plus our Flourish With Your Complex Child Summit (coming back in the spring for the 3rd year!) All of this free support for you takes a lot of time and energy from me and my team. If it has been helpful or meaningful for you, your support would help us to continue to provide support for free, for you and for others.In addition to knowing you are supporting our mission to support parents and children, you get the podcast ad free and access to a monthly ‘ask me anything’ session.Our sponsors:YOTO is a screen free audio book player that lets your kids listen to audiobooks, music, podcasts and more without screens, and without being connected to the internet. No one listening or watching and they can’t go where you don’t want them to go and they aren’t watching screens. BUT they are being entertained or kept company with audio that you can buy from YOTO or create yourself on one of their blank cards. Check them out HERETranscript:Derrick: Hi, good morning.Sarah: Hi Derek. Nice to meet you. Hi Laurel. Hi. Are you a firefighter, Derek? I’m—yeah, I’m actually—I see you’ve got your sweatshirt.Derrick: Yeah. Just a heads up, I may have to jump off if we get a call.Sarah: Okay. Well, so nice to meet you guys. So you’ve got three—boy, girl, girl. And what would you like to talk about today?Laurel: I think I just love your whole—I’ve sent Derek a couple things—but I just love your whole premise of peacefulness and remaining calm when it’s easy to get angry. Mm-hmm. And just some tools for doing that. I guess like some basic things, because we would both like to say where, you know, we have like, you know, the streaks where we’re all calm, calm, calm, and then just—and then her, yeah, limit. Yeah.And so yeah, just tools for when that happens. We have very typical age-appropriate kind of response kids, mm-hmm, that need to be told 80 times something. And so it’s frustrating. And then how to help them kind of see—without bribing, without threatening discipline, without all of that. Yeah. Like how to have a better dialogue with our kids of teaching respect and teaching kind of “we do this, you do this.”Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, maybe. Okay. So there’s always gonna be situations where it’s hard to stay calm, you know? Just being a parent—like of course your kids are gonna push your buttons sometimes. But rather than—so, we do always start with self-regulation.And what I mean by self-regulation isn’t that you never get upset. It’s that when you do get upset, you know how to calm yourself and take a minute, take a breath—whatever you need to do—so that you don’t yell. Because yelling hurts our relationship with our kids. You mentioned respect. I think there’s an old idea of respect that used to mean that kids were afraid of their parents, right?But real respect is that you care what another person thinks. Like, that’s real respect. I don’t want to do this because I don’t want my dad or my mom to be unhappy with me—not that I’m afraid of what’s gonna happen if I do it, but I care what they think and they care what I think. And that’s how I define respect. True respect doesn’t mean that you’re afraid of somebody; it means that you care what they think, right?So when we yell, we chip away at that. Like yeah, we could get them to do what we want through yelling or threatening things or taking things away, but we’re chipping away at our relationship with them. And that’s really the only true influence.And as your kids are getting older, you’re gonna see that you can control them when they’re little, right? Because you can pick them up and move them from one place to another or whatever. But there’s a famous quote by a psychologist that says, “The problem with using control when kids are young is that you never learn how to influence them, which is what you need as they get older.” Right? You need to be able to influence them, to get them to do what you would like them to do. And it’s all about the relationship. That’s really what I see as the most important thing.So back to what I was saying about yelling—yes, that’s really important to be working on—but there’s also: how do I be more effective so the kids will listen to me and I don’t have to ask 80 times? How do I get their attention in an effective way? How do I get them to cooperate the first time or at least the second time?So it’s a combination of learning how to calm yourself and stay calm when things are hard, and also being more effective as a parent—not asking 25 times, because that just trains them to ignore you. Like, “Oh, I don’t have to do it until they yell,” or “I don’t have to do it until they’ve asked me 25 times.”If there’s something really unpleasant you had to do at work that you didn’t want to do, you might also ignore your boss the first 24 times they asked you until you knew they were really serious, right? Mm-hmm. I mean, you wouldn’t, but you know what I mean. If they can keep playing a little bit longer, they will keep playing a little bit longer.So I think what would be helpful is if you gave me some situations that have happened that you find challenging, and then we can do a little bit of a deeper dive into what you could have done instead, or what you could do next time if a similar thing comes up.Laurel: Yeah. I mean, for my daughter, for example, the middle one—she’s so sweet, she’s such a feeler—but then when she gets to the point where she’s tired, hungry, it’s all the things. She often doesn’t wanna pick out her clothes. Something super simple like that.But when I’m making lunches and the other kids are getting ready and all the things, I just have to have her—I’m like, “You’re seven, you can pick out clothes.” I give her some options, and then she’ll just lay on the floor and start screaming, “You don’t care! Why don’t you pick out my clothes?”And then instead of me taking the time that I know I need to, I just tell her, “You have one minute or else this—so you lose this.” I just start kind of like, “This is yesterday.” You know, so she doesn’t wanna get dressed, doesn’t wanna get her shoes on. “You get my socks, you get all the big—” And then I end up picking her up, standing her up, “You need to get dressed.” And then both of us are frustrated.Sarah: Yeah. No, that’s a great example.So first of all, whenever there’s difficult behavior in our child, we try to look below the surface to see what’s causing it. The symptom you see on the outside is a kid lying on the floor refusing to do something she’s perfectly capable of doing herself. That’s the iceberg part above the water. But what’s underneath that?To me, I’m seeing a 7-year-old who has a 3-year-old sibling who probably does get help getting dressed, a capable older brother, and it’s hard to give enough attention to three kids. What I see this as is a bid for attention and connection from you.I don’t know if you listen to my podcast, but I did an episode about when kids ask you to do things for them that they can do themselves. Seven is a perfect age because you’re like, “Oh my God, you’re so capable of getting dressed yourself—what do you mean you want me to put your shoes on you?” But if you can shift your mind to think, Ah, she’s asking me to do something she can do—she needs my connection and nurturing.So what if you thought, “Okay, I just spent all this energy yelling at her, trying to get her to do it. What if I just gave her the gift of picking her clothes out for her and getting her dressed?” It would probably be quicker, start your day on a happier note, and you would have met that need for connection.And yes, it’s asking more of you in the moment, because you’re trying to make lunches. But this is a beautiful example because you’ll probably see it in other areas too—what’s underneath this difficult behavior? Kids really are doing the best they can. That’s one of our foundational paradigm shifts in peaceful parenting. Even when they’re being difficult, they’re doing the best they can with the resources they have in that moment.So when someone’s being difficult, you can train yourself to think: Okay, if they’re doing the best they can, what’s going on underneath that’s causing this behavior?I just want to say one more thing, because later on you might think, “Wait—Sarah’s telling me to dress my 7-year-old. What about independence?” Just to put your fears aside: kids have such a strong natural drive for independence that you can baby them a little bit and it won’t wreck them. Everybody needs a little babying sometimes—even you guys probably sometimes. Sometimes you just want Laurel to make you a coffee and bring it to you in bed. You can get your own coffee, but it’s nice to be babied and nurtured.So we can do that safely. And I tell you, I have a 14-year-old, 17-year-old, and 20-year-old—very babied—and they’re all super independent and competent kids. My husband used to say, “You’re coddling them.” I’d say, “I’m nurturing them.”Laurel: Oh, I like that.Sarah: Okay. So I just wanted to say that in case the thought comes up later. Independence is important, but we don’t have to push for it.Derrick: Yeah. No, I think that’s super helpful. And I love—one of my good buddies just came out with a book called The Thing Beneath the Thing.Sarah: Oh, I love that.Derrick: It’s such a good reminder. I think sometimes, like you addressed, Laurel is often a single mom and there is the reality of—she’s gotta make lunch, she’s gotta do laundry, she’s gotta whatever. And sometimes there’s just the logistical impossibility of, “I can’t do that and this and get out the door in time and get you to camp on time, and here comes the carpool.”And so sometimes it just feels like there needs to be better planning. Like, “You just gotta wake up earlier, you gotta make lunch before you go to bed, or whatever,” to have the space to respond to the moment. Because the reality is, you never know when it’s coming.Like, totally independent, and she wants to pick out her own clothes in one example—but then all these things creep up.Another way to describe what Laurel and I were talking about in terms of triggers is: I feel like we both really take a long time to light our fuse. But once it’s lit, it’s a very short fuse.Sarah: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.Derrick: So it’s like for me especially, I’m cool as a cucumber and then all of a sudden the wick is lit and I’ll explode.Sarah: Yeah. I think that’s really good to be aware of. The thing is, if you go forward from today and start looking—you’re calm, calm, calm, calm, calm—sometimes what’s actually happening is what my mentor calls gathering kindling.We don’t realize it, but we’re gathering kindling along the way—resentment, eye-roll frustration. If you can start tuning in a little bit, you’ll see that yeah, you’re not yelling, but maybe you’re getting more frustrated as it goes on. That’s when you can intervene with yourself, like, “Okay, I need to take a five-minute break,” or, “We need to shift gears or tap each other out.”Because it feels like it comes out of nowhere, but it rarely does. We’re just not aware of the building process of gathering kindling along the way.Derrick: Yeah. No, that’s helpful. I have two examples that maybe you can help us with. You can pick one that you think is more important.Sarah: Sure. And I just want to comment on one more thing you said before you go on—sorry to interrupt you. If it’s annoying to have to dress a 7-year-old in the middle of your morning routine, you can also make a mental note: Okay, what’s under the thing? What’s under the difficult behavior is this need for more connection and nurturing. So how can I fill that at a time that’s more convenient for me?Maybe 7:30 in the morning while I’m trying to get everyone out the door is not a convenient time. But how can I find another time in the day, especially for my middle child? I’ve got three kids too, and I know the middle child can be a bit of a stirring-the-pot kid, at least mine was when he was little, trying to get his needs met. So how can I make sure I’m giving her that time she’s asking for, but in more appropriate times?Derrick: Yeah, no, that’s helpful. I think part of my challenge is just understanding what is age-appropriate. For example, our almost 10-year-old literally cannot remember to flush the toilet.Sarah: Mm-hmm.Derrick: And it’s like, “Bro, flush the toilet.” It’s been this ongoing thing. That’s just one example. There are many things where you’re going, “You’re 10 years old, dude, you should know how to flush the toilet.” And then all the fears come in—“Is he ADD?”—and we start throwing things out there we don’t even know.But it seems so simple: poop in the toilet, you flush it when you’re done. Why is that? And that’ll light a wick pretty quick, the third or fourth time you go in and the toilet’s not flushed.Sarah: Yeah.Derrick: And then you talk about it very peacefully, and he’ll throw something back at you.Sarah: So do you have him go back and flush the toilet?Derrick: We do.Sarah: Okay, good. Because if you make it a tiny bit unpleasant that he forgot—like he has to stop what he’s doing and go back and flush it—that might help him in a kind and firm way. Like, “Oh, looks like you forgot. Pause your video game. Please go back and flush the toilet.”Also, maybe put up some signs or something. By the sink, by the toilet paper. There are just some things that, if they’re not important to kids, it’s very hard for them to remember. Or if it’s not…I can’t tell you how many times I’ve told my boys, “Don’t put wet things in the hamper.” They’re 17 and 20 and it drives me insane. Like how hard is it to not throw a wet washcloth in the hamper? They don’t care if it smells like mildew.Derrick: Yeah.Sarah: It’s very frustrating. But they’re not doing it on purpose.Derrick: That’s the narrat…
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