Hannah & Alex Part 2 of 3: When Saying No to your Kid feels Impossible

There are many reasons why children feel uncomfortable. And when your child is uncomfortable you as the parent often feel uncomfortable. This week we’re back with Hannah and Alex for their second session, who have come to Leslie about their three year old son Paxton. These parents are vulnerable with Leslie when they speak about how hard it is for them to say no to Paxton when he wants something. They also admit that they regret some of the parenting choices they’ve made with Paxton, and fear that they are responsible for some of their son’s habits. Hindsight is hindsight. The focus of the session is about figuring out what to do now in the present time. But these parents are committed to growing and changing and Leslie is there for them every step of the way.

Time Stamps

• 3:24 Parents feel amazing when they do the hard work of taking technology out of the bedtime routine
• 7:40 Remember to reintroduce skills or foods or ideas at a later time
• 8:10 Commitment is necessary to  make change - and it provides the motivation
• 9:17 Creativity is great when it comes to food issues : how you serve it, when you serve it, what you serve, where you serve it
• 11:58 Dialectic perspective - honor and respect your partner’s perspective 
• 13:55 Giving in to the short term relief at the expense of long term gains. Especially when our children are struggling 
• 18:40 Parents can always look back and say, “I should have done it differently,” but parents shouldn’t shame themselves when they are doing the best they can with the skills they had at the time.
• 25:13 How should we as parents engage with our child’s big emotions; be careful to acknowledge without reinforcing it
• 26:43 When do we transition kids from distracting from big emotions to acknowledging big emotions
  • Teach your child that feelings are valid 
  • Distraction is one option (you can revisit the emotion later)
  • Validate the feelings, do nothing to fix it, and move on
• 29:40 Separate your feelings from you child’s emotions
• 33:57 When children have “comfort” habits like picking their parents’ fingernails
• 39:10 You can be emotionally connected with your child without being physically connected

Show Note Link

Leslie's Blog writing on The Dilemma of the Chinese Finger Trap


Leslie-ism: Take a moment to look at the ways you both physically and emotionally connect with your child.

For a full transcript of this episode and more information about the host visit https://lesliecohenrubury.com/podcasts/ . You can also follow Leslie’s work on Facebook and Instagram. Join the conversation with your own questions and parenting experiences.

Credits: Is My Child a Monster? is produced by Alletta Cooper, Mia Warren, AJ Moultrié, Camila Salazar, and Leslie Cohen-Rubury. Theme music is by L-Ray Music. Graphics and Website Design by Brien O’Reilly. Transcriptions by Eric Rubury. A special thanks to everyone who contributes their wisdom and support to make this possible.

Transcript

[Music: The Wilds Beyond by L-Ray Music]

0:03  Alex:  We did not let him cry himself to sleep, because it is impossible to watch an infant cry. I mean, maybe not impossible, but at the time, it felt impossible, knowing that it was going to make everything harder in the long run. But we could not stop ourselves.

 0:22  Leslie:  Parents can get bogged down with what can feel like a constant series of parenting fails. It's hindsight that often allows caregivers to recognize what they could have done better. It's important to acknowledge where we can improve in parenting while also forgiving ourselves for sometimes getting it wrong. And there's a third element, and that's noticing and celebrating your wins. 

This is, Is My Child A Monster?, a parenting therapy podcast where you get to listen in as real parents and caregivers share their trials and tribulations in therapy sessions recorded live. I'm Leslie Cohen-Rubury and no, your child is not a monster. 

Before we dive into Hannah and Alex's second session, I want to let you know about something exciting I'm doing for my listeners next month. I'm hosting a free virtual question-and-answer session where you get to ask me your burning parenting questions. I'm so excited to hear what's on your mind. The session is on Wednesday, August 21 at 8 pm Eastern Time. Space is limited, so please register at ismychildaminestra.com. And don't forget, it's free. 

Okay, so back to Hannah and Alex. They feel a lot of shame around some of their parenting choices that they think have made things worse for their three-year-old son, Paxton. But they are here, now, ready to learn and grow. They are committed to making changes, and that is a crucial ingredient. All the knowledge of parenting skills in the world won't make a difference without the commitment to implement them. And these parents sure do have that commitment. 

In this session, we're focusing on Hannah and Alex's feelings of shame, Paxton's attachment to his parents, his picky eating, and how his habit of picking Mom's fingers at bedtime is not a healthy form of connection. We explore practical tools to keep Paxton and his parents feeling connected. 

Now, as a reminder, all the names and identifying information have been changed, and though I'm a licensed clinical social worker, this show is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for therapeutic intervention. So let's begin. 

2:58  Leslie:  Hi, Hannah, Hi, Alex, how are you two? 

3:00  Hannah:  Good, Leslie. How are you?

3:02  Alex:  I'm very good.

3:03  Leslie:  Good, good, good. I'm so glad to see you guys and have you here together to talk again, to see how it's going. So tell me how it's been going.

3:14  Alex:  So there's been a few things that we really set our mind on working on since our last session. The big one that comes to mind is Paxton falling asleep without his iPad in bed. We set a timer, and then we turn it off, and then we go to bed with no electricity. We put on music. Usually it's like a Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, and he is able to go out without a fuss. So that was a major change for us. 

 3:46  Leslie:  Oh, my goodness.

3:47  Hannah:  It's amazing. 

3:48  Leslie:  Wow. And I love what you said to start off. You said we put our mind to something, I think something like that, right? Tell me more about that. You were committed, you guys, right?

3:59  Alex:  Yeah. I think it was both affecting how well he was sleeping. It was affecting the routine itself. He would stay up much later using the iPad. So this put a bigger timer on exactly when he was able to fall asleep. It was a lot quicker as well as, I think, how well he slept through the night. You know, quality of sleep, timing of sleep—these things matter for a child, as you know. So it's a big difference, and probably pays a lot of dividends throughout his day. If you get better sleep, better quality sleep, you have a happier child.

4:40  Leslie:  Oh, my goodness. And how do you guys feel?

4:44  Alex:  Yeah, it feels really good. I mean, he still gets what he needs, what he wants, I should say, as far as his tablet time after school or whatever. But it's not a detriment to…sleep really is the big one, right?

5:02  Leslie:  And Hannah, you just said, “Excellent.” What does that feel like for you as the mom, as you're putting him to bed and all of that,

5:12  Hannah:  It's amazing. I don't have any other word for it than amazing. 

5:16  Alex:  It’s a lot less fuss, I think. 

5:19  Hannah:  Yeah, it's a peaceful transition into sleep. We're not fighting about turning the tablet off or the TV off to fall asleep. He's not falling asleep to it. So, from the time that he gets into bed and the time that he falls asleep is very short. It's maybe ten, fifteen  minutes, sometimes faster. He's, like, asleep in five minutes. And I'm like, “Whoa.”

5:46  Leslie:  And before, tell me again, wasn't it really long? 

5:51  Hannah:  Hours.

5:52   Alex:  Hour, hour and a half…   

5:53  Hannah:  Yeah, because he's watching his favorite things. And he's like, “I can't stop watching. I don't want to fall asleep.”

5:59  Alex:  And you don't want it to turn…he doesn't want it to turn off, because, you know, that's a fight…

6:06  Leslie:  …and you guys were so worried about getting him upset. And my guess is he was upset for a day or two or three, how long?

6:12  Alex:  Yeah.

6:14  Hannah:  So, the last session, we cut it out completely. And we just have kind of switched some things to make it easier without the technology. So we let him pick: he gets to listen to music, he can pick his song. He prefers Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, and we just put it on repeat, and that's…he falls right asleep to it.

6:38  Alex:  He gets to bring a train or a car to bed with him, kind of as something to soothe, to help the transition from going from technology to no technology. So he gets something still in his hand, something that he knows he likes.

6:55  Hannah:  We let him pick it.

6:56  Alex:  It won't keep him up. You know, it's just a comfort thing for him, I think, more than anything.

7:03  Leslie:  By any chance, does he have a stuffed animal, or does he like any stuffed animals?

7:08  Alex:  We have so many stuffed animals. A lot of stuff. He would much rather have grabbed his favorite train.

7:14  Leslie:  Okay…

7:16  Hannah:   …a hard plastic toy. 

7:18  Leslie:  That’s funny. Yes, that you could hear my brain thinking, “Let's give him something soft.” But no, he obviously doesn't want something soft. That could change. And so what I would say is, introduce it again in six months, or three months. It's a very good idea to reintroduce things that might make sense, and if he doesn't, no problem. But you never know, never say, “Never,” in a way. So you could go back to it, because stuffed animals do work really well as comfort and transitional objects. 

So that's great. I am so excited for you guys. You accomplished it on your own with commitment. And I just can't say enough about commitment, and I want you to remember that, because when you have to do hard things, that commitment, that driving commitment to knowing why you're doing it, is what helps you get over the hump of doing whatever's hard.

8:17  Alex:  I agree and on that point of reintroduce it down the line. But as far as food is concerned, we found that that's a common thing. If he doesn't want something that we've given him a lot of, we wait a couple weeks because that's another issue that we do have, which is his diet. 

And that's something that we also disagree on in parenting as being a serious issue. But, things like bananas or apples, he'll get sick of it. He'll start saying no. But you wait a few weeks or wait a couple months and reintroduce those things, and he might decline at first. But if you cut it up and put it in a bowl while he's hungry, he'll eat it and he'll like it, because these are things that you know he likes. 

9:07  Leslie:  Yes, beautiful. So I like that idea of being creative and saying, “We can introduce it again later. We can change when he eats it.” So I know we get really stuck that certain things are breakfast foods and certain things are dinner foods. But I know a lot of families that love having breakfast at dinner. That creativity is very good with parenting. So perhaps the apple was out, of sorts, but maybe it's a good snack in the car. So be creative as to how you serve it, where you serve it, when you serve it. 

You mentioned, “That's where we disagree.” Do you want to go into that? I mean, disagreeing as parents is pretty common.

9:54  Alex:  I come from a nutrition background. I'm very health conscious. And that probably trickles over to me being a overprotective dad as far as what is appropriate for him to be eating and eating a lot of. And not to say that Hannah isn't conscious of what he's eating, but certainly doesn't care to the degree that I do.

10:21  Leslie:  It's a matter of intensity, right? 

10:23  Hannah:  Yes.

10:24  Alex:  And certainly I can go overboard with things like that. It can make me very stressful. And I believe that Hannah's goal is to not let that overtake the view of things. It's not something to get worked up about, necessarily. We both have the same goal in mind, which is happiness and health of everyone. 

10:52  Leslie:  I like the balance. And I like your perspective on seeing that Hannah's point of view—and Hannah, I'd love to hear from you—but Hannah's point of view that I care about nutrition, but if it's making all of us stress, then is it so nutritious? Because remember, stress affects our immune system.

11:15  Hannah:  So as long as he's eating something, I'm like, “Yeah, he's eating, I'm good.” I don't necessarily stress too much about what he's eating, whether it's a cookie for breakfast to get him out of the house. To get him to go to school, he also gets a yogurt. So it's like he's getting some sustenance with the cookie, and also getting a yogurt.

11:41  Alex:  …and a vitamin.

11:43  Leslie:  …and a vitamin. Nice. Well, I do want you to both honor each other's point of view. If you see Alex's face drop, you might acknowledge, “Hey, Alex. I do know that you really care about healthy food and healthy eating, and I want you to know that, yes, we're running out the door, and I do care about his health.” So every once in a while, if you acknowledge the way Alex is thinking, then you're supporting each other and being able to move forward when there's some bumps. 

And the same thing for you, Alex. If you get really passionate about, “You know what? I really want to change this cookie in the morning. I want him to have something else.” You might say, “I'm really concerned about the fact that he hasn't had a vegetable, or a fruit,” or whatever, you get to honor the fact that, ”I get that, Hannah, you don't want me to stress us all out. I get that. I'm going to turn the volume on my stress down a little bit so that I'm not making everyone anxious about this.” But that we care about it without making ourselves too stressed about it. So I like that you could honor each other's point of view.

13:00  Alex:  Yeah, I think we generally do a pretty good job of that. 

13:05  Hannah:  Yeah, I don't make him feel bad when he gives him a cookie for breakfast.

[Laughter]

13:10  Alex:  It is something that we do struggle with or disagree with, I would say, on a regular basis. And it's something that, like you said, with a little bit more communication and…

13:21  Hannah:  …commitment…

13:22  Alex:   …commitment. And also seeing each other's point of view, things can improve.

13:29  Leslie:  So, seeing each other's point of view, working towards a common goal—these are very good ideas. In terms of the food, I wanted to take one slight angle, which is, sometimes there's another issue going on, which we talked about a little bit in the last session, and it had to do with also, like, going to bed or dropping him off at school: your sensitivity. You don't like seeing your child uncomfortable. That means sometimes we do give in, and sometimes we give in, in ways that pacify or quiet down the moment, but might have long term effects of, “Wait a minute. I don't want him to get upset, so he doesn't learn to tolerate distress. I don't like to tolerate distress.” You said “yes” to that. So that sounds like something we could pay attention to. 

14:24  Alex:  This is a major issue for us. We have struggled to deal with, in the moment, stress that I think has, to his detriment and to our detriment, made the rest of parenting a lot more difficult.

14:40  Hannah:  I feel like we've worked towards not giving into the crying and the tantrums a lot since our last session. I've noticed a huge difference of just letting him, letting him cry, letting him get it out, and leaving the bowl of apples on the table. And when he's done and ready, he eats the apples, and it's the same thing…

15:04  Alex:  I agree.

15:05  Hannah:  …with saying goodbye to him at school. It was causing crying, and some big behavior emotion. And I am now at a point where I can say goodbye, give him a hug and a kiss, and he still sometimes shows some emotion. And we, as a team, the teachers, I kind of had a conversation with them about how it was hard for me to leave him like that. They're also reassuring me, like, “We got him, he's good. You have a good day at work and he'll be fine.” 

15:39  Leslie:  So those are changes.

15:42  Alex:  Those are changes. That was the second big one, besides the tablet, was saying goodbye to him at school. We've made a commitment to also say our goodbyes properly. 

15:53  Leslie:  Oh, that's beautiful. I love hearing you say that you allow him to have the emotion. 

16:03  Hannah:  We're no longer trying to, “Shhh, shhh,  quiet quiet.”

16:10  Leslie:  So allowing him to have his emotion is something I'm going to come back to. But Alex, you wanted to mention some examples.

16:20  Alex:  So, I don't disagree with what Hannah's saying. I do believe that we have made strides into not giving in at the adversity of being upset for whatever decision. We've gotten a lot better with it. My only point was, in the past, we have made those mistakes going back from the very beginning, which has led to a lot of these long term problems. 

The biggest one that comes to mind is a lot of parents let their children cry themselves to sleep, and thus they get used to sleeping on their own. Well, because of many circumstances, one, we were living in the same room as him at one time. We were living with our parents, and we're separate from each other and from him at different points in time. We did not do that. We did not let him cry himself to sleep. In fact, a lot of times we would co-sleep, and I wouldn't say it's been a detriment—we've loved our time laying next to our child. But to this day, he still needs a hand to go to sleep. He's still…if he wakes up in the middle of the night, if Mom or Dad, but usually Mom, isn't right there, it's a problem for him. 

17:37  Hannah:  So maybe you have some advice for us on how to break that.

17:42  Alex:  There's that, and also it's just an example of, had we been a little bit tougher for a week of letting him cry himself to sleep and sleep train. Not that I'm saying it was necessarily possible, because of a lot of different circumstances, but things like that. Diet is another one. If he cries to get what he wants, and we've done that for such a long time, even if we are breaking that now, there's been a long standing, “I can cry until I get mac and cheese, and I will get mac and cheese.”

18:19  Leslie:  Absolutely. So first, what I want to say is, parents can always look back and say, “I should have done it differently.” So even though I let you explain that, under other circumstances, I would have interrupted you and said, “Alex, stop.” I would have said, “Alex, no, we're not going there. We're not going back. You're not shaming yourself, you're not blaming yourself. We're going to accept the fact that you were doing the best you could with the skills you had at that time.”

18:52  Alex:  Hundred percent agree. 

18:54  Leslie:  Okay, beautiful. So, we want to acknowledge that, yeah, you're probably doing the best you can at this moment in time and we can do better. Why did you decide that this was the time for support, for therapy, for intervention? How did you decide now?

19:13  Hannah:  I brought it up to Alex that maybe we should try this out and see if we can get some tips, because what we're doing right now is not working. We had tried a couple of different things; the ideas that we had, they're just not working. That's where the idea came in, and it's kind of affecting our relationship, because we don't sleep together at night. I sleep with Paxton. And at first, when he was maybe a year and a half, two, we had moved into our own space. And every night, it wasn't all night, it was: put him to sleep, I could sneak out, he would sleep through the night sometimes. For the most part, we could get a couple of weeks or a month out of him sleeping by himself without interruption. Now it's fall asleep with him, and I wake up with him. So it's just gotten excessive, I think.

20:17  Leslie:  So, a few things there. We’ll come back to sleep—remind me to come back to the sleep, because you're asking how to get him through the night. But what I wanted to say, Alex, you were sharing that you gave in, you gave into the crying…but you learned something about yourselves as parents. You learned that it's uncomfortable to see your child uncomfortable.

20:40  Alex:  Yes, and we knowingly that it was going to make everything harder in the long run, but we could not stop ourselves. I mean, I would even say that we need to do this to her, as if it was something that she was doing wrong. And then I would do the exact same thing, because it is impossible to watch an infant cry. I mean, maybe not impossible, but at the time, it felt impossible,

21:05  Leslie:  Absolutely. And I am not going to say what's right and wrong, because guess what? There is no right and wrong. 

21:13  Alex:  He's amazing. I don't know if he would have been the same lovable, attached-to-your-hip kind of…He's a love bug and I wouldn't change that for the world, not for any more sleep. So…

21:27  Leslie:  If you were sitting here and you had a 15-year-old and you could say, “We've given in, and he gets upset and he cries. And now we don't know what to do, because we always gave in, and right now we can't keep giving in.” So whether your child's 15 or 5 or 25, there's always new learning. And it takes that commitment to say—and it may mean going outside of your own circle of husband and wife or partner and partner, but—to get some support when you feel as, Hannah, you said it was getting bad. And it was getting hard. 

So, I just wanted to point out that asking for help and getting some ideas is a wonderful thing. Then you go and try them, and you see how they work, and you come back so excited. I'm thrilled.

[Music: Acoustic Folk Music Guitar by ArtMusic]

22:31  Leslie:  Here's what we are working on, probably slowly, but very important overall perspective of parenting. One is that if your child's uncomfortable, that's not bad. It's simply your child is uncomfortable, and we want to respect discomfort as much as we want to respect happiness and joy. Discomfort is a natural, biological, hardwired emotion, so we don't want to take those away from our child. And we don't want to let him know that only when you're happy and only when you're smiling, then Mommy and Daddy are happy. So, “Hey, you're having a tough time. You don't really want these apples. They're really disappointing. I get it.” And then go on with your 10 minutes. 

23:22  Alex:  We often do validate him being upset. I will say that. “We understand you're upset. We understand you don't want this.” The next thing to say is a lot of times where we get caught up. Do we say nothing, but you have to eat your apples?

23:42  Leslie:  You say nothing.

23:43  Hannah:  We keep it going, though.

23:47  Alex:  So, we acknowledge it, and then let him be upset, and then reintroduce?

23:52  Leslie:  Yeah, sometimes you do it where you put the apples down, you're having apples. Other times you check in with him and say, “It's snack time. Here's a choice of apples or carrots,” and he might make a choice. Choices are nice. Not infinite number of choices, but definitely choices give him some knowledge of himself and some agency. And say it, notice it, validate it, like you said. And then, yeah, go on about your business.

24:20  Alex:  Okay. Even to the point of continue doing what, you know, the cleaning, or whatever we're doing?

24:25  Leslie:  Yeah. Let him be gently upset. And it conveys a message. What message do you think it conveys”

24:33  Alex:  That the apples are there and that, “It's okay that I don't want them.”

24:37  Leslie:  Beautiful. So there's no big scene here. And it's okay I don't want them, and these apples are here. That's a beautiful thing to teach him.

24:47  Alex:  He's big emotion. He's big emotion. Loving. Sadness. He's got a lot of emotion, that boy. He's, a lot of times, in emotion mind.

24:57  Leslie:  So, it's a little confusing as parents. What do we do with this big emotion? If you engage with it and it's escalating as you engage in it, you could be making it grow bigger. You could be actually reinforcing the big emotion rather than, okay, “You have big emotion. You're at about a nine right now,” you might even help him name how intense it is with a number. He's probably just learning numbers. And then when he calms down say, “ I think you're at a five.”

25:30  Alex:  I like that. 

25:31  Hannah:  I do like that. Yeah, I think he would respond really well to that.

25:35  Leslie:  And you could do it for yourselves. You know, “I'm at a nine.” [Laughter] Oh, that was a good look at each other! You can realize that your emotions get big. You can recognize what number on a scale of 1 to 10. And you can say, “I'm going to turn my volume down a little bit.” You're learning to tolerate big emotions as well.

25:59  Alex:  Yes, I love all that.

26:01  Hannah:  I have another question. Let's say we're in a big emotion, and normally we've been like, I'll try to distract him to something else, instead of just saying no. And maybe big emotion is not a great example for that, but maybe I told him he can't have this, and when he starts to get that big emotion, we just kind of try to distract, instead of letting it be. And I'm wondering, when do you transition kids from those distractions into just “No”? This is just, the word “No” means “No,” instead of redirecting them.

26:45  Leslie:  Great question. Do you know any adults who distract because they're feeling big emotions? [Laughter] Okay, so it is both a very healthy way to reduce intense emotions. So, distraction is a very healthy way of reducing intense emotions. 

But it can be used as an avoidance of an emotion as well. So we want to use distraction in a healthy way where it's helping us reduce the emotion, so we can then deal with the emotion. And then—not right now, he might be a little too young—then you go back to the emotion and say you could still do it with him. “You were really disappointed when I said no. That makes sense. I get disappointed when people say no to me. Disappointment when we don't get what we want is a very justified emotion. I wonder what else might work for you when you feel disappointed.”

27:43  Hannah:  Okay.

27:45  Alex:  So, it's acknowledge the emotion and, when needed, distract, and if you need to come back, you can come back.

27:54  Leslie:  Yeah. You don't always have to come back. I know some parents who really come back over and over and over again. I just say: when it seems relevant, otherwise, just move on. Move on. 

Did I teach you a little bit last time—because you used the language, Alex, you used emotion mind—so, did I teach you a little bit of emotion mind, then reasonable mind, wise mind, that kind of thing?

28:16   Alex:  Yes.   

28:17  Leslie:  Did you try that?

28:18  Alex:  We did not, but it's still there. 

28:19  Hannah:  It’s still in our heads.

28:21  Alex:  It’s there. 

28:23  Leslie:  I love it. Totally fine. I love that it's in your head. Remember, you're learning something, and in order to teach it to someone else, you’ve got to figure it out yourself.

28:32  Alex:  Yeah. I'm not in emotion mind most of the time, I would say. And so I don't know when Hannah is in emotion mind, and a lot of times I'm trying to figure out why something is the way it is in a…you know…

28:49  Hannah:  …because I'm an emotion mind.

[Laughter]

28:50  Alex:  …because she's in emotion mind,

28:52  Leslie:  Okay.

28:53  Alex:  There's not an easy way for me to address her without that kind of language. I feel like that language is really important in our life, because of who we are. And I'm an emotional person, but I'm mostly an emotional person off of other persons’ emotions. So unless I know she's in a wise mind or a reasonable mind, it's really hard for me to gauge. And I think most of it…the best thing I can do is realize she's in emotion mind and it has nothing to do with me…

29:28  Hannah:  …and talk about it. I’m not mad at you. You didn't do anything. I'm just…here.

29:37  Leslie:  Okay, this is key in parenting. Children complain to me. I've heard children complain all the time, “If I'm upset, then my parents get upset. And so now I don't even want to share with my parents.” So I have a lot of teenagers who say, when I'm doing family therapy, they say, “No, I don't want to share, because if I bring it up, Mom or Dad…,” or whoever, “...it's all about them, then they get upset.” 

And so it's very important to learn this skill for each other as a couple and also as a parent, when he's upset…

30:12  Hannah:  …Paxton, yeah.

30:13  Leslie:  …yeah, for Paxton, so that Paxton gets your undivided attention. “Hey, buddy, I can see you're upset. My guess is it may be you're upset because Mommy went to the store and you didn't get to go.” So you start to really acknowledge what's going on with him and separate your feelings from their feelings.

30:33  Alex:  I think we've done a good job of that. 

30:35  Hannah:  I could be better.

30:36  Alex:  Especially recently, just because he's upset does not mean we're upset.

30:41  Hannah:  Recently, I will say it's been better.

30:44  Leslie:  And Hannah, you said last time that there's a lot of difficulty of separating between Mommy and Paxton, you have a hard time separating.

30:54  Hannah:  Hmm…

30:55  Alex:  I think that's gotten better, too. 

30:56  Hannah:  That’s gotten better. 

30:57  Leslie:  Excellent.

31:00  Alex:  Maybe bedtime might be the only time…

31:03  Hannah:  …that he's, like…

31:05  Alex:  …”I need mom.”

31:06  Leslie:  That's understandable. Bedtime is actually rather hard for children. You are working really well. You're committed to creating some good sleep hygiene for him. You said you go to sleep, you're holding his hand. My guess is at 18 years old, he's not going to want to hold your hand. 

31:26  Hannah:  Yeah, I hope not. [Laughter]

31:27  Leslie:  But it is okay to start to work on it now, and there are different ways to work on it. I like the step-by-step approach. So, I might bring in my own reading material, like a book or magazine, and I would sit next to him and say, “I'm going to read.” Because if you usually put your hand on him, now you need your hand to read your book. So it's like, “I'm going to read my book, and I'm right here.” And then maybe every five minutes, put your hand on him, give him a rub, and then go back to your book, and then put your hand on and then it's a step-by-step. 

So once you get your hand off of him, then you're going to have your chair, or you're sitting on the floor next to his bed. Then you move a little further away from the bed. And then you move a little further. You go across the room, and you sit on the other side of the room. Then you sit maybe outside the door. You can also do a different approach, which is, “You get to lay here for five minutes, listen to your music. I'm going to come back in five minutes, and I’ll check on you.” So you start to do the check on him and come back. That's also a possibility.

32:39  Hannah:  I just feel like we should mention this. He likes to pick our fingernails. He's got, like, since he was a baby, like an infant, he would just pick it. And that's his comfort with holding hands while he's sleeping. He needs a fingernail to pick, and it's like an obsession. It's not something he can just let go, we've tried. 

33:04  Alex:  I will say, though, he goes to school now, and he takes a nap at school, and for sure he's not picking his teacher's fingernails. 

33:14  Hannah:  Uhh…he does.

33:15  Alex:  All I'm saying is, he's falling asleep at school in his own cot by himself every day. 

33:26  Leslie:  And I think that's a great point, Alex. I do want to say that that's probably something I would stop immediately. That's not one of those slowly-but-surely, because it's causing you—I'm making an assumption, I might be wrong—it sounds like it's causing you harm.

33:45  Hannah:  Yeah.

33:46  Alex:  No. 

33:47  Hannah:  Me? Yeah, it hurts. It's physically painful for me. He sticks his fingernail in my cuticle. 

33:54  Leslie:  So, I want to set a very clear limit and say, “I know you want to connect, and connecting is a wonderful thing. We can connect, and it's not okay to pick my finger.” Just cold turkey—cold turkey. No, let's do…

34:12  Hannah:  We’ve tried…

34:14  Leslie:  Yeah? Okay, where's the commitment, you guys?

34:17  Alex:  Yeah. You're saying this is a must do, immediately.

34:21  Leslie:  It's not the end of the world. If you did it, it's not the end of the world, but you're here with me, so I'm going to say it's a must do. No, it's not the end of the world. But I don't like the idea that it's hurting you. I don't like the message that it sends at all, that it's okay to hurt someone. 

34:39  Alex:  He's not trying to hurt. Let's make this clear. It's literally a finger. He likes the clicking of the fingernails. It's not for pain. He happens to have long fingernails, and that's why it hurts, is we need to clip his nails. That has nothing to do with pain. 

34:56  Hannah:  I think he wants to get an emotion out of me. I. So whether I go, “Oooo…” or, “Owww…”

35:01  Alex:  I disagree. I could not disagree more. It is purely for comfort.

35:06  Leslie:  So let's imagine both things are true. Let's imagine that there is some comfort involved. Let's imagine that it gets a reaction and it gives him a little bit of sense of, “Oh, wow, I created a reaction.” But either way, I just think we can find a substitute, and we can really, strongly send a message, you want to be connected. 

35:31  Alex:  Even after every day for three years of letting him do it, it's no longer okay.

35:38  Leslie:  That's right: “That rule is no longer working for me.”

35:41  Hannah:  …and at three he's going to understand, like, what? 

35:49  Alex:  …who makes the rules.

35:51  Hannah:  …what being connected means.

35:52  Leslie:  No, but you're sending the message by substituting something. You're not withdrawing yourself. You're going to stay there and you’re going to say…maybe get a squishy toy, maybe get some very textured thing. I mean, O.T. has a whole bunch of different kinds of textures, and… 

36:11  Hannah:  Occupational Therapy? 

36:13  Leslie:  Yes. So he might need a textured object, or some kind of object that he can hold. That's why he's holding his trucks, like you said, or trains. 

36:24  Hannah:  They’re hard. So, I wonder if that is fulfilling that need for that. 

36:30  Leslie:  Try a whole bunch of different objects and say, “Which one do you want to hold on to tonight?”

36:35  Alex:  I do think it's about connection, and I'm fully on board with take-away-the-fingernail—I'll say that too. But if we're replacing it with something that's not fingers or not like an inanimate object, it is taking away connection. So we're acknowledging that he wants a connection, while also pulling said connection away?

36:55  Leslie:  Okay, good question. So one of the things that we're going to do in the long term is we're teaching that we are connected even when you're not in the same room. That's why you're saying, “Goodbye and I'll see you later,” because he's learning to trust that people go away and people come back. Because it is an important lesson to learn that we are connected when we are not together. 

So we're going to do it slowly. But I would maybe say something like, as he's playing, I might be rubbing his back. I might say, “Oh, I'll do tickle time, while you hold your toy.” And you tickle his back, or you rub his back, so you go through these steps of, “We're connected. We've got music. You're going to now feel your music, connect to your music,” and you may still stay in the room. You might need to do the slowly-moving-away in a process. Right now, we don't have to go complicated, because you can do this in a step-by-step approach. 

And what we see working is when you guys make the commitment, he trusts you. 

38:02  Hannah:  Yes, he does. 

38:04  Leslie:  He trusts you. And so yes, he might get upset and he might resist it in the beginning. But what do you do when he shows that discomfort? 

38:11  Hannah:  Acknowledge it, and then let it be. 

38:14  Leslie:  Yes. You're going to keep going. You're going to stay committed to, “We know that we're helping you, buddy. We know that we are connected to you.” So, Alex, when you said that you're pulling away connection, if you feel like you're abandoning your child, then you're not connected. If you believe wholeheartedly, “I am with you, and I am here for you, and I may be in the room and I may not be in the room. We are connected.” It comes from deep inside of you that you are giving him that message.

38:44  Alex:  Okay. I needed to hear it.

38:45  Hannah:  I loved this session. 

38:48  Leslie:  I'm so glad. It's really a pleasure to talk with the two of you. It brings tears to my eyes how committed you are, how you saw…Yes, I see you. too—we'll both cry [Laughter] —how your commitment was in his best interest. You saw the difference it made for him. What a beautiful thing. You really care about changing the habits that may not be in his best interest and working through your own discomfort and his discomfort to make these changes.

39:21  Alex:  Absolutely.

39:22  Hannah:  Yeah.

[Music: The Beat of Nature by Olexy]

39:35  Leslie Cohen-Rubury:  So often clients bring up something that's been weighing heavily on their minds at the very end of a session. We call that a doorknob issue, because they drop a big issue as they're about to walk out the door. I can only imagine that Hannah and Alex felt very vulnerable at the end of this session when they raised the issue of Paxton picking Hannah's fingers at bedtime. There's a lot of shame and there's also a lot of confusion. 

For Hannah and Alex, who believe that any connection is good connection, this is actually an anxiety behavior rather than an attachment behavior. I've said over and over on this podcast how essential connection is with your child, but what's important to know as our children grow is that the connection changes from external and physical, such as hugging, cuddling, co-sleeping, to the internal and emotional, where your child knows that they are safe and you support them even when things are hard. In practical terms, this is a process of learning that you are connected even when you are apart. And this is so important as your children grow into adolescence and may start to reject the physical connection. If you've taught them that you're there for them, then that emotional connection remains.

[Music: The Wilds Beyond by L-Ray Music]

Join us next week for Hannah and Alex's final session to find out what happens with the bedtime finger-picking. And we explore the concept of behaviorism, which is a fancy term for changing a child's behavior. 

Subscribe to Is My Child A Monster? Wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss an episode. And if you like what you hear, tell a friend. You can find a full transcript of this episode or subscribe to my newsletter at ismychildamonster.com. The Is My Child A Monster? team is Alletta Cooper, AJ Moultrié, Camila Salazar, and me. Special thanks to Eric Rubury and Mia Warren. Our theme music is by L-Ray Music. I'm Leslie Cohen-Rubury. Thanks so much for listening. And this week, take a moment to look at the ways you both physically and emotionally connect with your child.

[Music]

You've been listening to other parents on the podcast, and now I'd love to invite you to bring your questions and concerns directly to me. Join me on Wednesday, August 21 8 pm Eastern time for a free Q and A session, live on Zoom. Space is limited, so please register at ismychildamonster.com. To receive the link, and I can't wait to answer your questions. I hope to see you there. 

Transcribed by Eric Rubury