Sustainable Parenting | The kind and firm solution for resilient kids and dependable calm.

138. Stop Arguing And Start Calming: How To Get Real Cooperation

• Flora McCormick, LCPC, Parenting Coach

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Power struggles don’t end because we find the perfect argument; they end because someone helps the room feel safe again. We unpack a practical, science-backed shift from control to connection that brings cooperation faster and with far less effort. 

Drawing on HeartMath’s research on heart coherence, Bruce Perry’s state-dependent brain science, and Ross Greene’s collaborative problem solving, we show how a calm presence, a softer voice, and a few validating words can lower defenses and invite real reasoning back online.

You’ll hear real-life wins that make the science feel doable: a preteen upset about missing class for therapy softens with one clean reflection, and a toddler melting down for a same-day shot calms once feelings are named and a plan is promised for later. Along the way, we cut through common myths about validation, explain why arguing fuels arguing, and offer language you can use tonight. 

If you’ve been stuck between being too gentle or too harsh, this middle path—kindness plus firmness—will help you parent smarter, not harder, while building your child’s resilience.

If this conversation helped, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review to help others find sustainable parenting tools. 

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SPEAKER_01:

Today, we're talking about something that transforms stuck moments fast. It's not a magic script or a perfect argument or a more convincing explanation, but it is what I think you're needing most in that moment where you feel like you're losing control. When you're already in a power struggle at 7:40 in the morning on a Saturday, or you're exhausted when you pick up your child and they just launch right into all of their complaints about how life isn't fair, and you feel depleted. Friend, when you feel like you have no control that seems to help the situation, this is a different seat I want to offer you that I think can unlock much better results. It settles the nervous system, softens defenses, and opens the door to cooperation. Hey friend, welcome back to the Sustainable Parenting Podcast, where we bridge the gap between overly gentle parenting and overly harsh discipline so that you finally have the joy and ease you've been missing. When you are parenting with kindness and firmness at the same time, ugh, parenting finally feels sustainable. You have dependable calm and resilience built in your child. I'm your host, Flora McCormick, licensed therapist, parenting coach, and mom of two. And I'm so glad you're here. Before we talk strategy, let's talk science. There is a reason that control is not the thing that most gets us to have a child cooperating. If we launch right into arguing against a child's argument, guess what? We're giving them fuel for more arguing. However, if we can shift and know the brain science of what really does help in those moments, we can get cooperation fast. Here's what's typically missing, friend. It's the biology of understanding how connection melts defenses. Here's the heart math explanation of why this works. If you know of heart math, then you understand some of this. But if not, I encourage you to check that out. There's some links in this episode's description. HeartMath Institute has decades of research showing that when we're near someone within arm's length, um, whoever's nervous system is calmer or more regulated, the other body is literally going to sync with that calmer, regulated nervous system. Now, you may be saying, well, my nervous system isn't any calmer when they're not cooperating. And yes, friend, it is a call to action for us to do our work on how to regulate our body so that when we're within arm's length, that connection we offer to our child then can give what's called heart coherence. The rhythm of our calmer heart can soften and smooth their elevated heart. Here's the cool part when a parent steps closer, softens their voice, even places a hand on a child's shoulder, the child's heart rhythm starts to sync with the parents. They've done scientific research that can really look at all of the electrodes firing, and it's there. The heart feels I'm safe. I don't need to keep defending myself and proving myself. Defenses lower, reasoning returns, flexibility rises, and cooperation becomes possible. We know this further also in the work of Ross Green, one of my favorite authors, who wrote a book called Raising Human Beings. That's the one most accessible to all families. And you may know him previously for as the author of The Explosive Child. And he then wrote Raising Human Beings to apply the same principles to kids of all kinds of emotional reactions, which is every child, every adult, even, right? So he helps us to know that kids can only access their problem solving when their defenses are down. Hear that again. I mean, it's really comes from understanding also the work of Bruce Perry that our brain is really in one of three emotional states. It's either calm and able to reason, or it's emotional, or it's super freaking out flight-flighter freeze. So we can't do our frontal lobe problem solving if our brain is in an emotional place or freaking out place. So we have to lower the defenses in order to get to the problem solving. Calm the emotion to get to the problem solving. Defenses drop when people feel heard, understood, and not alone in their problem. Now, this is hard when their problem is us. Our kid may be coming to us as we pick them up from school saying, you never make sister go to appointments like this. Why do I have to go to counseling? And you want to argue with them and say, This is a ridiculous problem. But what they're most looking for to bring their defenses down is they want to feel heard, they want to feel understood, and that they're not alone in their problem. Ross Green talks about how kids resist when we feel they feel someone is trying to impose instead of trying to understand. So if you and your child has been resistant, have been more likely to then impose your argument to convince them their argument is wrong. Guess what you get? More pushback. Instead, I want to encourage you to shift to more understanding. When someone feels understood, when they feel listened to, they are more likely than to listen. They want to feel like you get them. And I'm going to give you some examples in just a moment of real parents sharing how they have applied this and how it has helped. The key is when we offer connection, it softens, it gives a sense of more opportunity for collaboration because they feel like you get them, they are not alone, and their feelings are seen and heard and understood and seen as valid. That's different than trying to get control of a kid that is not doing what we want them to do. When we start with connection, compassion, even empathy is a key piece of this. And here's the other beauty, my friend. When you can sink into connection instead of control, it's so much easier. So much simpler. I'm always saying here at Sustainable Parenting, one of my goals is to help you parent with kindness and firmness in a way that is parenting smarter, not harder. So much out there, especially in the overly gentle parenting movement, feels very exhausting. Like I have parents come to me all the time. My gosh, I was validating my kid for 45 minutes last night and it still didn't work. I think I still need to be more patient. Oh, that's exhausting. That's parenting harder. Friend, here we want to parent smarter, not harder. There are things we can do that take less time and actually are more effective at our big goals. And this is one of them when we lean into connection instead of control. It's easier. It works faster. Trying to get your child to cooperate by using logic or debating or trying to craft the perfect response, uh, it's exhausting. Typically, you're just fighting so hard to have the quote right argument that only to have them argue right back. And then you have to have a new great argument and they argue right back. These little lawyers, ah, I've had parents tell me it's like, gosh, my kid is gonna be a great lawyer when they grow up. But right now it's really pissing me off. Heck yeah. Those wise little kids, I've gonna serve them well in the future. But if you keep arguing, you're just giving them more to argue against. Controlling a situation just fans the flame that's burning where they don't feel understood, they don't feel seen, and they feel alone in their problem. So the more you try to control, the more they're left alone, the more they're fighting with you. When parents try to melt, try to manage a meltdown by arguing our point, we stay locked in the storm. So connection can use the simple principle from Daniel Siegel that when we name it, we tame it. When we reflect a child's feelings, that's super simple. We don't have to come up with a clever argument that's gonna be quote, right and win. Guess what's more effective? We say to a child what they just said to us. We just name it to tame it. We're not arguing, we're not proving a point. And that can sound like, oh, this feels really unfair right now to you. It seems like you wish we had more time to stay at the park. You really didn't want it to go this way. That's it. I'm imagining the kid has just said to me all the things they think are unfair and why they want to stay at the park, and why it's not fair that they don't get to get the flavor of ice cream they were hoping for. And rather than arguing, it's simpler and more effective to lean into just connecting and naming their feeling. Guess what? It really works. Not because it gives in, it doesn't, but it gives them their dignity that their feelings matter and we see them, they are seen, they are understood, they are not alone in their problem. That lowers resistance. This isn't permissive parenting, friend. You are not giving up your boundaries, but when you are striving to control, control, control with just the right argument, I want to invite you to drop that and seek connection and compassion first and foremost. And I bet you'll be shocked. I have talked with parents this week that have seen this work better with a 16-year-old. And I'm gonna share with you right now examples of someone with an 11-year-old and a toddler. So, friend, I invite you to hear these stories of how connection before correction really made such a difference and had much better results than trying to control.

SPEAKER_02:

She was like having some friend issues or whatever, and then she was fine. And then later on that afternoon, she got annoyed because they're going to therapy and she has to have her therapy appointment during school and she doesn't want to have to get taken out of class. And I tend to get like, well, it's just it's an hour every other week, it's fine, you know. I want to start saying those kinds of things, and I do. And then I had to stop myself. She's like, I'm gonna go wait in the car because we were about to go to dance. And I was like, okay. And so then I caught myself because I was like, I'm gonna go in the car and we're gonna talk about this. And I was like, wait a second, let me just like relate to her. So I got in the car, and um, I was like, You really are bummed that you have to miss school for these lessons for these sessions. And she was like, Yeah, I was like, Yeah, that does suck. I was like, I hate it when I have to, you know, leave something that I want to be at for another thing. It kind of sucks. I'm sorry. And then she was fine. Like, I was like, really? That's all it took. And she was like, on to the next thing. She had a smile on her face. She was not having this little like preteen attitude anymore. And it was like in my head, I'm like, did that really just happen? Is this magic? Like, what happened?

SPEAKER_01:

That's it. That's going to be the juicy thing that leads to a positive relationship, her turning to you in difficulties from now till her 40s. And it really is. It's that simple and it's that hard, right? It's that hard for us to like go there. Your first instinct is all of our first instinct. Let's just tell her not a big deal. Come on, move on. But if we can pivot, it actually can take less time to be so much more effective.

SPEAKER_03:

Yay. Uh QN, I think I would say um still kind of hits an eight to a 10 sometimes on, you know, for different reasons. And there was an incident last week where um he kind of hit that. And I think being able to just recognize that I can like oh, it was we were driving home in the car, he saw I got a band-aid for getting my vaccines, and he like really wanted to get his shot too, which is great. But he like wanted to go right now, and and he just like hit a 10 of just like screaming in the car. And you know, at first my instinct was just to kind of be logical and just kind of say, like, hey, the doctor's closed, like, we can't go right now. I need to make an appointment. And you're just like, okay, this isn't working, like that doesn't make sense. Um, so I think just recognizing that like he hit the 10. I just need to be there for him and let him like let this pass, um, validate his feelings, like, understand that he wants a band-aid too, understand he wants a shot. Um, and by the time we got home, he calmed down and I was like, I'll call the doctor and we'll find time to go this week. And he's like, Okay. And then he was fine. So I think just kind of like not trying to, you know, get to that logical place of like, hey, this doesn't make sense. Like, why are you crying? And just kind of seeing that he's in that overreacting state, and then allowing him to let it pass. And then once he's calm, being able to go from there and and um found that to be um a small win, you know, just tantruming a 15-minute car ride home and just kind of just like, ah, okay, well, I can't do anything, and I'm just gonna let you let you be. So um, yeah. So I think that was my small win.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, same thing. This applies to 11-year-olds just as much to a three-year-old is the this is that process. It's so weird, but when we feel like we have to fix it or rescue them, um, or like quiet the emotion that seems so irritating or irrational, sometimes all we need to do is go through this process. Name it, validate it, listen, let it all air out, and you know, and then if need be, there might be guiding them.

SPEAKER_00:

Listeners, if you need parenting advice, talk to my mom. Sustainable parenting with Flora McCormick.

SPEAKER_01:

Friend, if you'd like to leave a review to share how sustainable parenting has been impacting your life, I would be so grateful. It helps others to know what's possible in their families too, and you can do so easily by scrolling to the bottom of all episodes, clicking on that fifth star, and leaving a comment. Also be sure you you subscribe to the podcast so that you regularly get the downloads each week and don't miss a single tool and strategy to be parenting with more kindness and firmness at the same time so parenting finally feels sustainable.