The LYLAS Podcast
If you know what LYLAS stands for, then this podcast is for you! Two besties since middle school turned moms and psychologists dish on "the good, the fun, and the yucks" of life! We're tackling all things mental health, "mom balance" (whatever the hell that is), transitions in life (divorce, career, aging parents, parent loss, loss of friendships), self-care, travel, healthy habits, raising kids, and allllllll the things us midlife mamas are experiencing. We hope each week listeners feel like they just left a good ol' therapy session with their bestie! We'll dish on all the tips and tricks to keep your mental health in check and enjoy this thing called life! Meet your life's newest cheerleaders-- Sarah & Jen! LYLAS!
The LYLAS Podcast
"Parenting Without a Manual: Part Two with Dr. Susan Thomas on Child Motivation and Behavior"
Ever wondered how to motivate a seemingly unmotivated child? Dr. Susan Thomas, accomplished school psychologist and parent, tackles this universal parenting challenge with refreshing honesty and practical wisdom. Drawing from decades of professional experience and personal parenting trials, she reveals that motivation isn't about finding the perfect reward—it's about discovering what genuinely resonates with your unique child.
The conversation takes a powerful turn as Dr. Thomas introduces her "AAA" method for handling peer mistreatment (gotta listen to hear it, hehe), and technology emerges as a central theme throughout the discussion, with Dr. Thomas identifying excessive screen time as one of the most significant challenges facing today's children.
The episode concludes with perhaps the most valuable parenting strategy of all—establishing trusted adults outside the immediate family who share your values and can serve as safe resources for your children when they find themselves in challenging situations. Subscribe now for more parenting insights that blend professional expertise with real-world application! And be sure to check out our website for handouts on the “AAA” method!
Please be sure to checkout our website for previous episodes, our psych-approved resource page, and connect with us on social media! All this and more at www.thelylaspodcast.com
Hey folks, welcome back to the Lylas podcast and our part two with Dr Susan Thomas. Now you'll get to hear the answer to the question that was posed in last week's episode about how to motivate a child who just doesn't seem to have any form of motivation. But what do you do if you have a child who you know is clearly not motivated? Like you talked about how your son was very social, your daughter could, you know, kind of care less. What if you have a child who there's ended it, you know, maybe their stepmom happens to be a psychologist.
Speaker 1:But what if there's nothing that you can literally and behaviorally trained and you know WVU and Marshall, but that there's just not a reward or in using those kind of terms of punishment or a consequence that is really motivating at the needle one way or the other, that is really motivating at the needle one way or the other, even whenever they're behaviorally defined in both settings, like meetings with the teachers, the parents, and there's just very laissez-faire in a way. It's very you know anything could happen and it's all still going to be okay. What do you do? I put you on the spot.
Speaker 3:Can't wait to hear this answer. I'm not a magician here now, but I will tell you a couple of things we know about motivation, Okay, and and I have a I have a dear friend that he's. I mean, really y'all should have had him on to talk to him, because he's taught me most of what I know about behavior. But one of the things he'll talk about we talk about reinforcement, because that's what you're trying to do is you're trying to reinforce to get the behavior that you want to see.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:And first of all, I think as parents, we have to stop a little bit and think is this our definition that we have of motivation, Right? Or is this, you know, is this right? I think you have to ask that question first, right, Right. But then I would say, if we can't find something that's reinforcing and he said this to me a million times we hadn't found the right thing. We just hadn't found it yet. And so we have to keep working with that child to find out what will be reinforcing to that child. But I think also, as parents, sometimes we have to let go of things. So and I'll use my own children.
Speaker 3:So my daughter, who's an introvert, was the overachiever, never did anything wrong. I bet maybe one time in her whole career did I ever have to say anything. She took the AP classes. She did all the things right, Right. My son not so much, and it was really hard for me because I saw him as not achieving his full potential. I mean, I'm an educator, I knew what their, I knew what their cognitive scores meant, Right. And I looked at his and hers and I'm like he's underperforming, Right. And so you know, I had to let go of that.
Speaker 3:And as he tells people all the time and look at me now, mom, they let me lead a whole school. And I have to really think about this that sometimes our expectations that we have as parents are what we are putting on. And we want to certainly motivate our kids I'm not saying that but sometimes it's what we think the world wants to do, our peer group around us, and not what's really right for that child. And so I see that a lot and I see that you know listening to my daughter talk about her friends and I watch it and I'm going. You know, sometimes you got to take a step back, yeah, but what is motivating? What's the end goal? I mean, where do they want to be?
Speaker 3:And I do think that teaching them that, setting their goal for where they want to be, so, what is it they finally want to do, and then helping them to see where I think parents come in is. This is why you have to do this, to get to this Right.
Speaker 1:Right, it's the behavioral stuff that you need to take in order to get there.
Speaker 3:Right, and you don't have to like it. You know you may not ever like doing this, but you got to do this to get to this, yeah, and so I think sometimes we got to spend more time on that instead of the end result behavior that's. I mean, you know, there's no, nobody. Nobody gave us a parenting book, did they?
Speaker 1:No, they don't hand you one no, no, hopefully, you know it's a hypothesis you're.
Speaker 3:You're a psychologist, we're setting hypothesis, we're trying some things and then we're coming back. I mean it's a all the time definitely.
Speaker 2:All I can hope is most parents have a lifeline like dr thomas that they can call when Definitely hard to see things clearly.
Speaker 2:And I know at the beginning of this year there was an incidence where some kids were being mean to my son and I did not have the appropriate reaction. You know I was like, well, let me give you some comebacks and this is what you're going to say to that little turd tomorrow. You know, knowing good and well, that's going to escalate that kid's behavior and they're going to, you know, up the ante and thank God for my lifeline, to say, and well, that's going to escalate that kid's behavior and they're going to, you know, up the ante, and thank God for my lifeline, to say, well, let's think about this, Jenny, what's going to happen when he goes to school and gives this comeback to this kid? You know you need that sounding board. Hopefully parents are reaching out. You know that they have somebody that they can have a sounding board to say, well, let's think about what's going to happen if you do that, Because what was your advice to me, Dr Thomas?
Speaker 3:Well, you know it's my favorite one because I think this happens a lot that students come home, your child comes home and somebody's picked on them or you know they'll say there's bullying going on. And you know we've got to really define bullying. It doesn't matter, it's peer mistreatment, right. And so you know, when you were telling me about it and your response, I was going this is not the school psychologist I know giving this advice. So for those of you listening, just know that sometimes we don't use our own training, even with our own kids. But you know, one of my favorite things to talk about actually came out of the Positive Behavior Support Technical Assistance Center and it is about strategies for peer mistreatment, and so I kind of call it the AAA.
Speaker 3:Okay, that first of all, the first thing you have to do is assure your child that when people are mistreating them, it is not generally about your child, it's more about them. They're trying to get attention. They're trying to get attention from peers. They're trying to get attention, you know, or friend, they're trying to get some kind of social acceptance. And if you've ever been a victim of any of that, you know that they're doing it for the laugh from other kids or whatever. So you have to assure them first of all it really isn't about them and you have to let them know and help them to see that.
Speaker 3:And then the best thing we can do for anybody for any kind of peer mistreatment and I'm going to say this even for adults too is to teach them that stop, walk and talk. And it's so simple. Give them a stop. You know, stop, quit. If you're, you know, middle or high school, you may have some other slang words that I don't know what they are now, but you know, whatever those words are, I don't have, I don't have any high school grandchildren yet, so I don't know the vocabulary. But saying stop, I don't like that, or just quit, whatever. And then teach them to walk away from the situation and not engage in it, because engaging in it is actually reinforcing for the person doing it, Because if they're trying to get attention, that's exactly what they just got.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:And so if you walk away and then telling them to for kids to go talk to a trusted adult, and so, so first of all let's assure them and then arm them with that stop, okay, walk, talk. To know to do that whenever anybody's mistreating them or if they see mistreatment of other kids. And then the last thing is really to alert the adults in the building. Because one of the things I said to Jenny when she was telling me about this is I said do you think the teacher really knows what's going on? And I think the teacher really didn't understand the impact. I think she knew something was going on, but she didn't realize it was impacting. And so I think the teacher really didn't understand the impact. I think she knew something was going on, but she didn't realize it was impacting.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And so I think you know those are my. I think just little simple things like that. Having that for your kids is so important it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's almost like you know we joke about this is like having like where's the manual? To be parents, but I do feel like it's so important that we ourselves are equipped I again wrote that one down too with these kind of skills, so that way that we can then teach them to our kids, because the expectation that all parents have this knowledge or have that kind of ability to speak these words and then coach their kids on it isn't always the case, and so just having think these bits and pieces can be really empowering and helpful, no matter what.
Speaker 3:I think talking to others. But I'm just going to say, be careful, because sometimes your peer group is this is what I see with my daughter and I'm you know who is y'all's age, you know is that some of her peers. What they're doing is not you know, exactly.
Speaker 3:Quite right, sometimes it's fine to talk to other parents, but sometimes getting a perspective of somebody that might be a little more seasoned, or old like I am, you know, is good, and sometimes even talking to somebody at your school like a counselor, if you're having trouble with something. Talking to the school counselor, because a lot of times they're going to give you a little bit different viewpoint too, and that's what they should be doing helping you with some of those things as well.
Speaker 1:What do you see are some of the biggest challenges facing kids right now? Just in general, or from like the educational kind of system?
Speaker 3:I think social, I think the social media is the biggest and the ease of of being unkind. It's easy to do now, I think the temptation and the openness of what kids are exposed to and without supervision sometimes and I'm not saying that, I'm not talking about banning stuff and stuff like that, I'm just saying kids have access to so much more stuff and so that means as parents, you have to be so much more, you have to really watch what's going on, you know, with them. I think it's always been true. I just think we have more to look at now, like whereas with my kids we were just, you know, we were checking their book bag right, looking for notes, notes, we were secretly checking, you know, and now you know.
Speaker 3:And I read something really interesting the other day because they said technology has helped parents to know where their kids are. So it's been great, so you can put you know if your child goes somewhere, you know exactly where they are, if they have a phone or something, particularly kids that are a little bit older, but we're not really able to control what all they're being exposed to and I think it's made it really hard for schools, I think it's made it really hard for parents and I think we have to be, you know, really have those clear guidelines in our homes and continue to reinforce them. People are mean, kids are just. They're exposed to a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's a different world to a lot of stuff, yeah that's a different world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like back in the. You know our parents. I guarantee they had no idea where the hell I was most of the time, but they thank God. But also, that wasn't part of their, that wasn't the key it's. I don't need to know where my kid is. I need to know, whenever they're going to be at a place, that they're going to be able to take care of themselves, that they're going to be able to handle whatever situation that they come across. You know, knowing where they're at isn't that important to me. So to hear you say that that was real important to people and that's what they use technology for, I would not even.
Speaker 1:I don't even think about that as an option, like knowing where they're at I just want them to be equipped with skills so that way, if they find themselves in any situation, they know what to do it in that area.
Speaker 3:So, and I think what's hurt, what, what I hear from teachers and educators, it is that is unbelievably hard and I think even driving people away is this total belief in your child. And what they said they did.
Speaker 3:And I mean I know it for a fact that your little angel would never do anything wrong. Ok, we all know we did things wrong. So what makes us think our children would not do anything wrong? And we are doing this pit? We are not creating an environment where the adults we send our kids to school, we're entrusting them to the adults in that building. And if that adult said that you know they were out of area, you know, let's just take that they were in the lunchroom and they were out of their area, we should not be marching up to the school saying Johnny told me he didn't do that, right, because then you've pitted this adult. School saying Johnny told me he didn't do that, right, right, because then you've pitted this adult.
Speaker 3:If you've got a problem and you think your child is being targeted by somebody in a building and that could happen y'all, I mean it could you need to take it up with the adults. Your child makes mistakes. They make behavioral mistakes every day. They're not perfect and when we are making teachers feel, you know, unempowered because we're, you know, coming back because our kids don't do anything wrong, and that's what I hear, that's what I think is the big struggle now for schools is. You know a lot of parents that don't want to admit that. You know, yeah, my child did. Yeah, he talked. Man I had on every report card. I talked too much and I did.
Speaker 2:I still do.
Speaker 2:One of my favorite things that you often say to me is or I've heard you say over the years is teachable moments, right, and really seizing teachable moments. And I had a teachable moment recently with my son, who is a very good kid. He works really hard, he does everything I ask him to do. You know, honestly, he he's a great kid, but he messed up Right, he had, and I messed up, we messed up as parents in, I think, letting technology get a little bit out of control in our house, and we needed to acknowledge that and we knew that and we'd had several conversations, but we let it keep going. And then we got really upset with him recently. He had a friend over and he was on his iPad playing an independent game and his friend decided to leave, as one would. It's not fun to sit there and watch someone else play a game. And we got really upset with him and I was saying to him you know something along the lines of you need to be able to pick up on those kind of social cues. You know if someone's not having fun, maybe you put that away or why. You know it was a lot of conversations. Why did you get the iPad out in the first place. We've made a lot of changes since this conversation. However, you know it had kind of snowballed and we were having this conversation about you need to be able to. You know it's good to have multiple friend groups and to just to be able to socially interact with adults, with children like that is something that's very important to his dad and I.
Speaker 2:And he went to school and told his friend that his mother said that he needed to make new friends, and so he told him that if I've been ignoring you today, that's why. Because my mother said I need to make new friends. Now I'm certain this little boy went home and told his mom that Jack's mom said that he needs to make different friends besides me, right, and so we're talking about this over dinner. And I said, jack, that's not what I said. And he said Well, mom, that's what I heard. And so that to me, you know, I've got this great kid that is really smart, that does really well in school and 95% of the time gets it right, but not always.
Speaker 2:He's still a kid and he's still going to misinterpret what I say and and I think that, to your point, susan, it's our kids, they're they might think they're telling you the truth. You know, I don't think he went and told this kid thinking anything other than well, this is what my mom said, but it was a misinterpretation of what I had said, and so, just remembering that kids kids can get it wrong too, even when they think they're telling the truth, it's been a real teachable moment for us this week In A. We have, you know, done away with electronics during the week and we had some real. It was hard, we had some hard days.
Speaker 2:Those first days are really tough when you take something away, because A I didn't want him to feel like I was punishing him and I kept saying this is my fault, this is your dad and I's fault. It's not a punishment for you. This is something we all need to get better at is putting the electronics down and engaging as a family, because when people are in person, that's when you engage with people, that's when we have meaningful conversations, that's you know, that's when you really build memories with people and build relationships. And so sometimes it's really taking a good hard look at your own behavior and your expectations and things that you have kind of allowed to get out of control without even meaning to.
Speaker 3:And I think that is so powerful, jenny, because you know my favorite line is we've got to build relationships. But I think that is so powerful, jenny, because you know, my favorite line is we've got to build relationships. But I think when I talk about all the social media, it is taking away from the way we build relationships with each other. Yes, if we're, you know, and I think, as parents, we have to be really careful, and I think we, you know, I'm watching my kids, you know, try to balance that. Actually, my kids, you know, try to balance that.
Speaker 3:You know, my daughter, there's no TV during the week because they're trying to their time between the time they get home from work and they're young, six, four and two, and so when the time they go to bed is just a little bit. So if they're, you know, immediately engaged, and so they're not building those healthy relationships. And that's the teachable moments. It's through the things we're doing with each other, that's how we teach. So I think that's another thing that's hard now. And then kids go to school and they're not sure how to act because, you know, too much screen time no-transcript.
Speaker 2:whatever, everything has gotten a little bit easier.
Speaker 3:Well and educationally is better. I mean, we keep thinking kids are learning from, you know, and what we know is that's not how vocabulary and all those skills develop from interaction and when what we're taking in that's not an interaction. And so I think you know it's a great thing. Now, I'm not against listen. You know, we got to do what we got to do as parents sometime, right, right, survival, and that's OK.
Speaker 2:But you also have to recognize. Sometimes, you know I mean I'm definitely guilty of this. After working all day, I want to zone out, I want to stare at my phone and doom scroll and like that's not healthy either, and so I'm ignoring my husband, I'm ignoring my kids, and is it really making me feel better in the end? Probably not. I might get some chuckles out of some of the reels I'm watching, but like other than that, I feel a lot better if I've just played a game with my kids or just had a dance party, or we go for a walk or you know, like that is truly those dopamine hits that really I'm seeking, not so much scrolling. And so again, it comes back to like examining your own behavior, which we, you know, we know we talk about a lot with behavior. You got to look at your behavior if you want to impact someone else's behavior.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean they just that's all they do at school too. I mean our daughter, you know, she gets an iPad. The only electronic she has is the electronic she gets from school. She doesn't have any others, so it's the one that the school gives her, is the electronic she gets from school. She doesn't have any others, so it's the one that the school gives her. And that's what I mean. They're on and they do like these social things on there too, and I'll look at the playground and there's all kinds of fun equipment and they're all sitting there on their iPads and it's just, it's reinforced in all areas, I think, which makes it hard.
Speaker 1:I did see recently I think, dr Thomas, you might know this better, especially from an international perspective it's one of the Scandinavian countries that has actually taken away all electronics and in their educational system, are going back to pencil and paper, like the whole thing, because they've just they're like we're not doing this, we're not going to contribute to this problem. It wasn't broke to begin with and so we're going back to this. Have you seen that?
Speaker 3:I haven't seen that, but you know it's funny because I was just talking with another colleague that Jenny and I work with and we were talking about on math, how when kids are doing things you know electronically you can't see, you can't do error analysis, so like you can't see where the breakdown is I mean, it's true in everything now and so we're so hyper dependent on it. So instead of it being the tool that we use for certain things, we made it about everything. And so and I know for I mean, I know the American Academy of Pediatrics has come out with some pretty clear guidelines for, you know, families about the use of social media and things like that, and I think it's really important for you know families about the use of social media and things like that, and I think it's really important for you know us to kind of look at that because you know it's not all bad but, boy, we can get addicted to it, can't?
Speaker 1:we, yeah, yeah, really can. And that just presents another challenge too, from even a bullying or mean kids perspective, because I know that I have a good friend who, whose daughter was actually legitimately, in using the correct term being bullied Thanks, jenny, from a previous podcast, but it was actually a hundred percent legit. But it's so much of it was social media kind of based, and then she would go to school and these kids all have phones and so they were able to, you know, continue those types of acts or bullying there. But the school just I don't. I don't know that it was ever resolved to the point where she had to switch schools because it was so bad and there just wasn't a solution that was able to be reached within that, except we're just going to have to remove it and and I know schools, parents who have gone to schools, and they want the school to address things that have happened outside of school on social media and they're wanting the school to fix it.
Speaker 3:And you know it's really. You know parents have got to unite and engage. And you know and it would be one more thing for me to police which I had enough trouble policing my children when they were you know, my children's father was a law enforcement officer and he was very good. My daughter was fine, but at policing my son, that's cool. Thank goodness he was better at it than I was. You got to have one good cop in your. You know, somebody's got to be the cop.
Speaker 1:Right, Right. Well gosh, this has been great. I really feel like we've gotten so much from this.
Speaker 2:I know I feel like we could talk for another hour just because A Dr Thomas is a wealth of information. She's got a ton of experience. But it's like you said, you're seasoned and it's always good to get a different perspective Somebody that's already lived this and raised kids once and turned out some successful adults.
Speaker 3:And you know I'm going to. I'll leave you with one little last piece of advice that I believed in and I've given my children. You know we talk about this. Your kids need a village and all that kind of stuff, right? But I always tell you know, I tell my children this you need to have somebody that can be that other trusted parent that's not you that your kids know are safe people to go to, that have the same value system that you have, that they could go to if something happened or if they were struggling. And I think that's really important.
Speaker 3:And I was very blessed that both my children each had, you know, somebody like that. My daughter used it one time and she ended up. My daughter ended up telling me about in high school she was in the wrong place and she needed to get out of there. She knew she wasn't supposed to be there and she called my friend to go get her, and so we had this agreement. You know that these were your safe people, and so I'll just give parents that piece of advice, particularly as you get kids that are getting more independent, that they've gotten out to, you know, because sometimes they go down that slippery slope because they don't want to tell you they've done something they weren't supposed to do.
Speaker 3:Just a little, a little free piece of advice.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. We appreciate your time. We appreciate you coming on the podcast and kicking off season five. So thank you very much.
Speaker 3:That's exciting. Thank you for having me. You know what Y'all were keeping me young. You're keeping me young.
Speaker 2:You don't need any help. I've seen your dance moves.
Speaker 1:That's fine. Yeah, well, seriously, though, thank you so much, and on our website, we'd like to include some of the acronyms and tips that you gave to, so that way they can serve as resources for other parents. We have a lot of friends who are also educators that listen to the podcast, that I think that this would just be great for just tools in their toolbox as well, if they'd already have them in there. So all of that information will be on our new and improved website, which is launching with season five as well. So, thank you, and we're going to share all of that stuff with our listeners too, because my notes on a post-it aren't going to cut it. I need to look it up.
Speaker 2:Yes, you can find that resource Dr Thomas created for us. It is posted to our website under resources. And check us out on social media the Lylas podcast, and at the Lylas podcastcom until next week, y'all Lylas.
