Chat with Cheryl: Why Fixing Isn’t Always the Answer | Ep. 151

It’s instinctive—we see our kids struggling, and we want to step in, fix the problem, and make it better. But what if fixing isn’t always what they need? 

Transcript

Speaker 0:06

I'm Cheryl Lang, and welcome to the Parenting Podcast. a mom recently shared a story with me about her daughter's loose tooth. And what started out as a small moment turned into a much bigger conversation about emotions, how we handle them, how our kids experience them, and why slowing down to really listen matters more than we think. Instead of rushing to fix things, what if we took a moment to simply be present? Let's talk about what that looks like in everyday parenting.

Cheryl 0:53

Okay, Christy, I have a question for you. Wait, I'm supposed to have the questions for you, but okay, go ahead. Do you remember losing a tooth as a child?

Christie 1:05

Oh, you know, I don't know if I remember losing a tooth, but I remember having Some of my baby teeth pulled, like they, I guess they wouldn't come out. The dentist gave me this little plastic treasure chest to put my, my teeth in. But yes, I remember that season of life. Yeah, I was trying to remember

Cheryl 1:25

but that was such a big event in childhood. And I kind of just like, I don't remember at all. I remember my children losing teeth.

1:32

Yeah.

Cheryl 1:33

and I'll tell you why I was thinking about it.. So I recently was with a mom. And when I say recently, I'm with a lot of parents. And I talked to a lot of people. And she was laughing and saying, Oh, we had a situation this morning. They have, uh, I don't know, a six year old, I think and she said she has a really loose tooth, like one of the front ones, and it's kind of dangling there. I

Christie 1:57

remember my kids. It's just rough. In the

Cheryl 1:59

stage, do you pull it? Do you let it just go? And the child was so upset about it, she wouldn't go to school. Oh, poor girl. And so they talked with her and trying to figure out what to do. And she just was melting down. Mm hmm. And so then she said to me, she said, do we do the right thing? Should we have made her go to school? So

Christie 2:21

they let her stay home.

Cheryl 2:22

Yes they did. And they happened to work from home, so it worked real well. Yeah. And so my answer is, I have no idea.

Christie 2:30

Yeah. That's, that's probably a good answer because it could go either way.

Cheryl 2:34

Well you know, that's so much of life, and especially parenting! Uh huh. Yeah. And I remember, Christy, A lot of times I wanted the answer. Right. I don't want you to talk to me about all of this. Just tell me what to do. Do I let them go to the party or not? Uh huh. I don't want to wait. I don't want to be matured.

Christie 2:53

Parenting book, page 703, yes or no. Yeah. And,

Cheryl 2:57

uh, with life and with the experience I've had, I found out so many times there It is not that kind of answer, and that's why we talk like we do. That's

Christie 3:10

why it takes so many words to work these things out.

Cheryl 3:13

So we sat and had a conversation about it, because I go, I'm sorry I cannot tell you. She asked what would you have done? I don't know. But I listened, as she talked more, okay. I liked, I what you did. I think you had the bigger value that you listened to what your daughter was saying, not with her words, but sort of with her heart. And as she talked about her, she said she's a more sensitive child. She said her older sibling probably would have just reached up and pulled The tooth out. Right. You know. But, they listened with sensitivity and were concerned and so they just kind of let her talk about it and said, it's okay, it doesn't matter, stay home today and then we'll see about tomorrow.

3:55

Right.

Cheryl 3:56

What I liked about that. That is something I'm learning more and more in life, that a lot of times people including our children, need us to sit with them

4:08

in whatever

Cheryl 4:08

they're in, and to be very present, which that's what they were being, and not try to fix something, you know, particularly there's loss or pain or grief,

4:22

fear,

Cheryl 4:22

fear. That's, that's not always a real good fix.

Christie 4:27

Right. Well, and, and the tricky thing is, is, is partly the personality differences. Yeah. I, I as a parent tended to be one that was like, you're fine, get, get in the car, we're going to school. You know, get, get over it, let's just buckle up and, and move forward. And um, that, that wasn't always the best way to handle things because sometimes I didn't take into account their emotional needs as much as their physical needs.

Cheryl 4:55

And I erred on the other side of it as being too concerned about their emotions and too concerned about how they felt about it, what they're going to take away from it. So did I ever mention to you parenting is messy?

Christie 5:08

Uh, yeah, I've picked up on that,

Cheryl 5:10

you know, so that's what I thought we could talk about is. How to approach this sort of emotional thing, how to deal with our kids to help them with complex emotions, right? Because I will say growing up, there was none, zero, no one ever talked about emotional health. Uh, I've been in church all my life. Um, I've been in mature spiritual circles and up until recent years, just no talk about emotional health. Um, we talk about what you should do, morally is this right, let's weigh the odds, did you have a big test at school today, you know, the likelihood of whether or not the tooth will fall out during the day, are you going to bleed? We dealt with the facts and maybe the linear way of doing something instead of saying, let's slow down and consider the emotion of it.

Christie 6:01

Right. Yeah. Same for me. I mean, a kid of the eighties over here, I know that you just kind of did what you had to, what you were told to do and go through the motions. And I, I think that's one way this generation of parents is winning right now is. It's being mindful of kids emotional needs as much as their physical requirements they want to put on their kids. And I know my, my struggle with this and maybe because I had girls, I don't know why, but I always was afraid of being manipulated by their emotions. And so I would kind of put my steel armor up like, oh no girl, you're not getting away with this. You know? And and so that would have been a hard scenario for me because I think, oh she just doesn't when I go to school, or she just It's trying to get out of something instead of being mindful of, okay, well, why, why is she not wanting, if that were the case, why is she trying to avoid this situation or you know, what about this tooth is bothering her so much?

Cheryl 7:01

And, you know, the problem is, you have to really slow down to do that. Mm hmm. You know, when you're talking about, you had four girls kind of bing, bing, bing, bing. Yeah. So, you were drowning in so much.

Christie 7:14

And some more sensitive than others. Some could roll with the punches of my personality or my parenting style in that moment. But others, I, I think I really did some damage and hurt their hearts in a lot of ways. But

Cheryl 7:26

I, I also think that some of the, oh, I'll just buck up and move on type personality, the stronger, um, personality that maybe they're bucking up and moving on and not paying attention to how they feel.

Christie 7:41

Right. I was maybe in that scenario, you're almost acting as an enabler to something they, they have a, their. They have a tendency to do anyway. Oh,

Cheryl 7:51

so look, parenting is so messy. Yes. this is where I love studying what other people have done because they have enlightened me and shown me and I've loved the more that I've learned about it and how important understanding emotions is let's see. So the first time I really heard about it, it was very early 2000s. And it's we used to have blogs,

8:14

right?

Cheryl 8:14

Right. Okay. And this blog was written by Dr. John Gottman. And I recommend him. Yeah, I think he's so solid and he has doctorates. In psychology and Just has a lot of wisdom. And I read an article in that blog from him. That's the first time I ever heard anyone talk about emotional quotient.

8:36

And

Cheryl 8:36

he said, your emotional quotient in your children is so much more important than their IQ, their intellectual He said, So, EQ will conquer IQ every time and then he made an argument for it. And I was so impressed. Wow. I'd never heard anyone else ever say anything like that. People just, they use their emotions. They poured all over the people, whatever vomited them, but i didn't ever hear in parenting. Oh, by the way. Start paying attention to their emotions that we should validate them Yeah. one time I heard you talk about it's so important to validate their emotions and I'd like you Talk some more about that because you're the one that actually gave me that word

Christie 9:18

Hmm. Well, I mean, like I said, I have not been always been good at emotional awareness my own or my children's and Yeah, I think I've, I've learned, like you, through reading and learning from others in recent years, that, um, validating a person's, Feelings of, of that's, that is their reality that they're operating out of is the best way to connect with them and then walk, walk through it with our kids.

Cheryl 9:46

It's so good. So, um, Dr. Gottman put me on this track and beginning to do it. like whole brain child has a phrase that he says, you name it to tame it. And they're talking about emotions. And so then they can explain how it really works neurologically. But there is something about putting a name to your emotions. And that's where I ended up in this conversation with this mom are you giving her names so she can say how she feels? Oh, that's good. If you've ever heard us talk about it, for example, there emotion naming charts wheels that you can get You know, also for for us, Kristi, when I was walking some adults through a study on this, and it was about emotional intelligence and being self aware and emotional health. One of the different charts about your emotions and that these are the ones we kind of see, like anger or sadness. And they were the ones that we can kind of readily name,

10:50

right?

Cheryl 10:50

And then I had long list underneath them. And one of the exercises we did is, okay, think about something that triggered you this last week, and then find on the chart across the top, a word that you would describe how you felt And so everybody chose them and then said, Ah, take a few minutes and look at the words underneath, and see if any of those are actually what you feel

11:13

Mmm.

Cheryl 11:14

It was really insightful.

11:16

Hmm.

Cheryl 11:16

I remember two in particular, who said, at first I thought it was, Anger. Mm and when I looked at it, I realized it was shame.

Christie 11:23

Wow. And

Cheryl 11:24

that's huge. Those are Very different. Very different feelings Or somebody else said, Oh, it felt like anger, but really it was powerlessness, Mm hmm. And then you can start digging into that and having conversations.

Christie 11:39

Finding the root of where that feeling is coming from.

Cheryl 11:42

And if it works for adults Let's do it with our children and so trying to do that, to give them names and we've talked about it here before, how I wish I'd known to do it with my children.

11:53

Yeah.

Cheryl 11:53

As I got older, I began to learn about this, but I didn't know when they were little. And so, with my grandchildren I mean giving them the words and if there's any word I could say applies to maybe a. TODDLER 2 YEAR OLD, it's frustration.

12:08

They get

Cheryl 12:09

frustrated all the time, because we block what they want to do, or they want to be in control, and we won't let them, or the cookie didn't last long enough, or it's time for a nap and they don't want it. So there's a lot of frustration and they're moving from being a baby

12:25

to

Cheryl 12:25

being a child.

12:26

Right.

Cheryl 12:26

And so that transition is really hard and there's a lot of frustrations. And so I love giving that word frustration to them. And it was fun for me with one of my grandchildren at that age. And you have a lot of practice when you take care of them. that they were frustrated a lot. And so I gave them that word several times during the day. I think maybe you're frustrated and then finally later on in the day, later on, I just slated. I slated.

Christie 12:55

Yes. But they're

Cheryl 12:55

naming it to have a name rather than just, I felt bad because we used to say I felt bad. I felt sad. I was angry. I don't know if there are any other words we really used. Mad. Yeah, mad. People say I'm mad all the time. Right. So mad. Kind

Christie 13:11

of the go to.

Cheryl 13:12

Yeah And then you go, well, let's dig into it. Right. I love as parents. Yeah. That we can now have kind of these conversations with our children and, and they have posters that you can get. Mm hmm. And they have like the. Sort of happy faces, little

Christie 13:26

emoji looking,

Cheryl 13:27

Yeah and one friend I know she's working on it And their family has been through some rough times. Mm hmm. She will say at a certain time of day Everybody find one of the emojis and they've talked about what they mean and point to it to how you feel right now And so they're working on it. but trying to name them And then sit with them and talk about it, you know, and, uh, one of the things in talking, particularly with my grandchildren, or I do it with adults, you know, I'm really frustrated about this, you know, or that just made me feel so rejected. And then sit with them in it. One of the things I've learned to do is a lot of times I say, you know, Do you want to sit with me? They're young enough. I go, do you want to sit in my lap and they get up in my lap and then I just say, you want me to sit here or you want to talk about it?

Christie 14:23

That's really good, Cheryl.

Cheryl 14:24

You know, isn't that great? I wish I had known that all of my life. Yes. Because I tried to, oh, we have to talk about it to figure it out. Right. Instead of saying, you want me to sit here with you? And it's really interesting because sometimes they go, no, I just want to sit.

Christie 14:39

And that requires so much patience as a parent, where my, my go to was always. Here's a sticker, let's feel better and move on down the road, but to sit in those emotions and give them space and time.

Cheryl 14:53

And I felt like the parents were kind of doing that with their daughter, with the tooth thing. You know, giving her time and talking through her emotions. And we can't do it every time. You know, every time a two year old melts down, you cannot sit and have a long conversation Right. But as we can,

Christie 15:11

Or like you said, with the two year old, you can identify the emotion for them in a short, you know, if you're, if you're in the back of Target and, you know, you're not going to sit down and have a heart to heart over tea with the two year old, but you can say, Hey, I know that's so frustrating that you can't have that toy. Pick them up, put them in the cart, and talk about it while you're walking.

Cheryl 15:28

Yeah. And I would say that's really frustrating, I can understand, even though they're flailing their arms and legs at you and demonstrating they're frustrated, you know, but the nice thing about parenting, Christy, most of the times we have many, many opportunities to do it again differently

15:45

Yeah.

Cheryl 15:46

Also some of mine that go, no, I don't want to talk about it, then wait and then come back later and say, hey. You want to talk about that now? Would you like to revisit it? Or we don't have time. I cannot talk with you right now. Right now I need you to get in the car.

16:03

Right

Cheryl 16:04

now we have to go. I have to get to work. But let's talk about this later. Because see, like if my friend, if both of them had to be at a job, it would have been a different situation. Yeah. They wouldn't have that luxury.

Christie 16:16

But identifying The emotional challenge that the child's facing and setting a time, you know, to deal with it later could bring some, some validation still.

Cheryl 16:28

Yeah.

Christie 16:28

Like, Hey, I'm sorry that you still have to go to school today, but this afternoon, you know, we're going to talk about this and

Cheryl 16:36

And I think that's so good because that's bringing real life into real struggles. Yeah. Instead of saying, no, we always have this Brene Brown conversation about everything. Uh huh. That's not real life And I do love the grace that I can come back and revisit it. With the children that we can talk about it even though it doesn't fix it. Talking about it doesn't always fix it, but it really makes a difference. And you talked about validating. One time one of mine came and they were so sad they'd been working on something and they made a mistake like a whole big bead thing and they spent hours setting it all up and then one bump of the knee and it all went all over the floor. That's just awful. Yeah. Okay, so she was very upset. I asked you want to talk about you want to sit. And so we just sat for a little bit. And then we began talking about it and how it's frustrating and, And a little conversation, and then I was able to say, showing empathy, I said, boy, do I understand. And then I gave an example of my own life, of messing up like that saying, I'm so sorry, I really understand, because I've done the same thing. And she just looked at me and said, Wow, it just makes so much difference to hear that somebody else has struggled like this, too.

Christie 18:01

Hmm, what an insightful little girl.

Cheryl 18:05

Wow, yeah, because that's what I actually want too I mean, advice is good. But first I want somebody to sit with me and then talk about it and possibly talk about what to do But that is a long game and so like I said, we can't do it all the time, but opportunities to do that. Um, I think it's so valuable.

Christie 18:29

Yeah. Well, and just as you're saying that, I'm thinking that's how, you know, we, we say, we hear people say a lot, you can't be your child's friend, but that's how you're developing the, the friendship you will have with your child as an adult. Like you're working towards that friendship. It makes me think of the C. S. Lewis quote of friendship being like someone coming along and saying, Oh, you too, you know, and that's, you know, you crawling in the hardship with your child or grandchild and connecting and saying, yeah, this is a real human experience you're having. I've had that too. It's just putting one little pebble in the jar towards the friendship you're developing with your kids.

Cheryl 19:09

And to help them, you know, and role modeling to them, but the problem is, if I take it personally, that's the deal. I have to be in a place, like you're saying, we can't talk about it this morning, I can't do anything, and I need to be emotionally ready, or maybe I'm involved in the issue and emotions are really high, and you can't have a good conversation when emotions are high.

19:35

Right. And

Cheryl 19:36

to delay that conversation, I would say, A lot in the teen years that we have to delay the conversation until we're all settled and that mom, me and dad. But we are composed and we're in a good place emotionally and then have a genuine conversation trying to walk through it.

Christie 19:57

Well, yeah, and I think back to my own scenario raising my kids and it would have been, um, Margin. Time margin. To have the time to not be overcommitted, frazzled, you know, overwhelmed by my own tasks, but instead to have a lifestyle with enough margin in it to take the time to sit with that child. And we are, you know, acknowledging it's not always possible, but you, you know, if you're, if you're booked to the max, which I often was and didn't have the time to sit with the children to listen.

Cheryl 20:32

Well. Christy for me to sit with my emotions. Yeah. We need to work on our own emotional health as parents and as adults Yeah, Because I didn't like the negative emotions and that's same with my children. Oh, don't feel sad Let me let me tell you nice things. I love you And God loves you and it's okay.

20:51

Right.

Cheryl 20:51

And I, I was trying to fix it instead of sitting with them and walking through so that they could develop more of an EQ.

Christie 21:01

Well, and that may be one of the hardest things about parenting is more often than not it happens in those. Early years of our adult life that we're trying to grow up ourselves. We're trying to sort through our own Emotional health and learn healthy habits for ourselves So it does make it more time, you know

Cheryl 21:18

as we're learning we talked about last week We were talking about being in a relationship with our grown kids with grace And humility, we can always come back and say, Hey, I realized I didn't do that right. Right. I'm really sorry. And then maybe possibly repair some things and maybe have a conversation in their adulthood that we never had when we were young.

21:42

Yeah.

Christie 21:44

It's very true, and it's so freeing. I've seen that in, you know, with my adult kids, being able to go back and talk about those things, and laugh about some of them. Like, you know, sometimes they're more aware of my shortcomings than I am, you know, obviously. But, um, There is, there's grace there and, and humility takes you a long way.

Cheryl 22:04

It sure does. Wow. This is fun. Our time's gone. Thank you so much. So parents, remember, hang in there, keep loving, keep persevering, because it's worth

22:15

it.

Speaker 2 22:22

It is funny, isn't it? How something as small as a loose tooth can turn into a moment about trust, patience, and our emotions. Parenting is like that. We think we're just handling the practical stuff, but really we're shaping how our kids understand their feelings, relationships, and life itself. So this week, try to notice one of those everyday moments when your child is frustrated, nervous, or unsure. Instead of jumping in with an answer, what would happen if you just sat with them? Ask a question. Give them words they didn't yet have. I mean, like Christy quoting C. S. Lewis. Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, What? you too?? What if parenting worked the same way? When we slow down long enough to say, I see you. I get it. I'd love to keep this conversation going. Reach out anytime at contact at theparentingpodcast. com or connect with us on social media. Thanks for spending this time with me. And remember, you don't have to do this perfectly. Just keep showing up, keep giving yourself grace, and keep walking this road with your kids.