Is My Child A Monster? A Parenting Therapy Podcast
Is My Child A Monster? A brand new parenting therapy podcast. You get to be a fly on the wall in Leslie Cohen-Rubury’s office and listen in as she sits with parents who share their stories in therapy sessions recorded live.
Is My Child A Monster? A Parenting Therapy Podcast
Hannah & Alex Part 3 of 3: The Balancing Act of Parenting
It’s no secret that parenting is a challenge. We want our children to be happy, and it can be difficult to see them upset or hurting. Leslie has been working through this with Hannah and Alex, parents of three year old Paxton, who’ve returned for their third and final session. Together they reinforce the changes they’ve already implemented with Paxton, like correcting habits and communicating clearly. Leslie also shows them how they’re setting Paxton up for success now when it comes to very adult things like handling disappointment and pain. Hannah and Alex have also begun communicating their emotions more clearly, adopting the “emotion mind” language with each other, which in turn helps model it for Paxton.
Time Stamps
- 5:30 Using Logic with someone in Emotion Mind usually doesn’t work (at any age)
- 6:20 Address issues, validate feelings, and move on (without bringing it up over and over)
- 7:03 Extinction burst - why behaviors tend to get worse before they get better
- 8:33 Teach kids early that they can handle disappointment
- 10:54 How to reinforce manners without giving in every time a child asks for something “nicely”
- 15:30 Life can be hard when you are a rule follower
- 20:04 Short-term gratification can cause children to always want more, more, more
- 20:38 Practice delayed gratification
- Even if you don’t get the short-term results you want keep exposing your child to new foods and new activities
- 24:25 Practice communicating with your partner about being in emotion-mind
- 31:01 To promote flexible thinking and Dialectic thinking use “and” instead of “but”
- 37:34 You can’t protect your child from the pains of life, and the greatest gift you can give them is the ability to know that they can handle that pain
- 39:03 Review an event in the past is for the purpose of learning, not for re-experiencing. Ask something like “what do you think would work for you next time?”
Show Note Links
Youtube channel videos on Behaviorism
Leslie-ism: When your urge is to react, take a pause and then choose to respond.
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, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. Join the conversation with your own questions and parenting experiences.
Credits: Is My Child a Monster? is produced by Alletta Cooper, 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.
[Music: The Wilds Beyond by L-Ray Music]
0:02 Alex: His comfort thing would be picking, mostly, Mom's nails. We tried saying, “You can't do this anymore because it hurts,” which lasted not even a few hours. As soon as bedtime comes around, he wants the nails.
0:23 Leslie Cohen-Rubury: Have you ever tried talking your child out of behaviors, that are rooted in intense emotions, with a logical approach? Does it work? You know and I know it doesn't work, but you do it anyways, because you may not know what else to do. I'm Leslie Cohen-Rubury, and 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. And no, your child is not a monster, but may be misunderstood.
In my last session with Hannah and Alex, we ended talking about their three-year-old son Paxton's habit of picking his mother's nails. They've tried talking him out of it, and it hasn't worked. So, today we're looking at other strategies to help change this and other behaviors. And sometimes parents aren't ready for change. Some parents may not be ready for change or don't want to say no to their child in order to avoid their own discomfort at witnessing their child in pain. When you do this, it can feel like you are protecting your child and protecting yourself.
It's so hard trying to figure out when to give in, when to set limits, and how to do that. And if that wasn't tricky enough, Hannah and Alex also have to deal with their differences; because when Hannah wants to give in, Alex doesn't, and when Alex wants to give in, Hannah doesn't. Parenting is full of dialectic dilemmas where you feel the tension between these two opposite ideas and perspectives. Just like most families, Paxton has his rules, Mom has her rules, and Dad has his rules. All of these unspoken rules are like bumper cars crashing into each other. And households that have a lot of rigid rules, spoken or unspoken, can experience a lot of tension.
Okay, now, as a reminder, all of 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.
2:52 Leslie: Hi, Hannah. Hi, Alex. How are you today?
2:55 Hannah: Good. How are you?
2:56 Alex: I’m really good.
2:57 Leslie: Great. Well, I’m going to let you start and tell me what's been happening.
3:03 Hannah: Sure. We tried to address the finger picking with the fingernails, and it didn't go well.
3:16 Leslie: Oh, goodness. Okay, so I like to…It's interesting you start that way, because I like to be a little bit more balanced with strength-based, and I want to work on the hard things, but I also want to know what's going well. So I'm going to put a pin in that—we're going to come right back to that, because I'm so curious. And I want to know, do you feel like anything's working? Or do you feel like you're trying something with more motivation, or anything like that?
3:45 Alex: I would say that the big thing that we worked on this time was telling Paxton, “Here's what we're having for dinner.” And whether he wanted to eat right then or not, saying, “It's there for you when you need it.” Or, we're not going to go do that activity or buy that thing. And no matter how upset he got, we would acknowledge that he's upset, but we would not cave in to his big emotion.
4:18 Leslie: Especially as he was escalating, right?
4:22 Alex: Exactly.
4:23 Leslie: So you were starting to say, “no”.
4:27 Alex: Yeah. I think the big one is, after addressing it for the first time, moving on, not continually going back and addressing it over and over again, because that seemed to have amplified the problem. And there is definitely an effect of addressing it, acknowledging the “why” that he's upset and moving on.
4:55 Leslie: Okay. You've got the winning numbers right there. That's excellent. Because I didn't even realize that. But you might say no, but then you need to go over it and over it and over it and over it. And I'm not really exaggerating. We do, as parents, we think we can talk our way into logic with our children.
5:18 Alex: He's not yet four.
5:19 Leslie: It doesn't matter. It doesn't work at fourteen.
5:24 Hannah: Well, that's good to know.
5:26 Leslie: It doesn't even work at forty four. When someone's in emotion mind and someone's feeling big emotions, logic is not part of their thinking at that moment. And I mean that—any age.
5:38 Alex: I know this.
5:41 Leslie: So, allowing yourselves to say, “Okay, we addressed it like you said.” That's number one. You validate his feelings, “Ugh, this is really hard for you, buddy. You are so disappointed we are not getting that toy, or you can't do that activity.” And then you move on. And the nice thing about a four-year-old is you can still use distraction. Actually, it works again at a 14-year-old. But distraction moving on, even if he's holding on, you move on, right? Oh, that's great. Like I said, it's a winning combination, because you don't want to forget any one of those parts: saying no, validating, and moving on allows there to be a flow, and he will get with the flow. Now, I bet he's still having some big reactions.
6:30 Hannah: Yes, some of them are even bigger, I think, than they were before, just because we're standing our ground and we're not caving. So…
6:40 Leslie: That has a name.
6:42 Hannah: It does?
6:44 Leslie: It does. It's called an extinction burst. So, when you're trying to extinguish a behavior, like you said “no,” you're trying to get him to quiet down, he behaviorally, says, “Well, I'll just get bigger.” He's not thinking this. He says, “I'll get bigger,” and then it gets worse before it gets better. You've heard that phrase, right? It gets worse before it gets better. That's, in essence, behaviorally, an extinction burst.
7:11 Alex: But I will say, as recently as yesterday, at the store, he wanted a bag of chips. Huge scene at the store, stood the ground, acknowledged the upsetness, and then kind of switched gears, and he recovered faster than I thought he would. Maybe not fast—it took us till we were up, having him help me check the items. But by then, he had realized, “I'm not getting this, and there's no amount of yelling that I'm going to get this.”
7:53 Leslie: He realized he wasn't going to get it. He also realized he could handle the disappointment. I mean, as a four-year-old, he's not saying, “Well, Dad and Mom, I can handle the disappointment,” but that's what you're teaching him, right? Isn't that great? It is you're teaching him to handle disappointment.
8:12 Hannah: That sounds good.
8:15 Leslie: Thank you! That feels good. How wonderful you're starting early because you don't want to have a 14-year-old, an 18-year-old handling disappointment for the first time in their life, right? So, that extinction burst is very real. The behavior gets bigger and louder and all that, and then eventually it goes down. And it'll happen over and over again at different scenarios, if you say no at another time, it gets where…and that's where parents don't understand. So they think, “Oh, my God, I'm doing something bad. It's getting worse.” Well, that's behaviorism. The behavior is trying to survive. He's trying to get what he wants, which is a brilliant strategy. And we want to teach him that we don't we don't always get what we want, and you get to make some decisions that are not fun for him.
9:08 Hannah: Is it healthy for us to encourage him to ask? I mean, that seems silly coming out of my mouth, actually, but…
9:16 Leslie: No, nothing’s silly…
9:20 Hannah: …teaching him to ask nicely for the things, even if it's something that we don't want him to ask for, whether it's a snack or like a cookie for dinner or something like that—we'll just use that as the example. And he asks so nicely now, because he knows that that's how we want him to ask us for things. And now that I've talked about it, I realize, yes, that is healthy, because he's I want him to have manners. So…
9:47 Leslie: Okay, he asking nicely is beautiful. Just saying, “Try that again,” and he knows what that means. So now he's asking nicely, but does that mean you give it to him?
9:57 Hannah: I think sometimes we cave for the things that we wouldn't give because he asked nicely. And we're like, “Well, we do want him to ask nicely for things,” but I wouldn't necessarily have given it to him if he didn't ask nicely.
10:13 Leslie: Okay, so you're trying to reinforce manners. But he's figuring out, “How do I get what I want? I just have to give them what they want, which is say it nicely and I'll get what I want. So now I don't need to scream. I just have to say it nicely and I'll get what I want.” Not the best strategy, you guys. [Laughter]
I do agree that you're trying to reinforce that he asked nicely. Well, he talks to you nicely all day long, my guess. When he says, you know, when he gets in the car and he says, “Let's put on music,” say, “Hey, great. I love the way you ask. That's great. I'm happy to put on music.” We also, believe it or not, when it comes to manners, we can model it and model it and model it—that's so important. And when he asks for something and you put the radio on, the putting the radio on is called a functional validation. That means he's gotten what he wants.
Whereas, if he said something like. “You have to put the radio on,” and you say, “Try that again, bud.” And he says, “Can you put the radio on,” and then you put it on, we don't have to say “good job.” We don't have to say “nice job.” We don't have to praise it when we turn the radio on. Because he asked it in that way. You've reinforced it.
11:37 Hannah: Okay.
11:38 Alex: That makes sense.
11:40 Hannah: And I would say that's more along the lines of how we handle that. But there have been situations where he did ask nicely and we're just like, all right, so that is validating him in a not great way.
11:58 Leslie: No, it's reinforcing that he can get it. And you know what? I am not going to say yes or no as a black and white issue. There are such beautiful times when you want to give in to your child, and you want to give in and you just want to give it to them. I think that's totally fine. We don't always have to be logical. Sometimes we just have a big heart and we want to give our child a cookie for dinner.
12:22 Alex: A lot of times we'll say, “You can have it, but you must eat XYZ first…”
12:29 Hannah: Yeah, we have done that as well.
12:31 Alex: You know, chicken and a vegetable first, or a couple pieces of your apple first. And he'll eat it. He knows that, “If I do this, I will get that.” And I don't know if that reinforces the good manners or not, but he's a good mannered boys, so I don't worry about that.
12:51 Leslie: Okay. If we do everything moderately, we're in good shape. We're in good shape if we do things…You know when you started in, I mean, you've come a long way. But in our first session, I mean, really, I'm like, “Wow, you guys are amazing.” In our first session, he was staying up till 10 o'clock at night, 9:30 at night, because he wasn't getting off his screen.
13:16 Alex: Massive difference.
13:17 Leslie: It was massive, right? It was a nightmare. It's a massive difference. You guys are feeling, I hope, more competent. You can handle saying no, he can handle saying no.
13:36 Hannah: I have all the confidence that we can handle that now.
13:40 Leslie: I like that. I like the idea that you can say, “Sure, let's have this cookie. We're going to have dinner, and then we're going to have dessert.” It's also, again, nothing is black and white. Have you ever in your life had dessert before you had dinner.? It's not the end of the world. We get to learn to break rules. That's a fun thing to do, and I haven't asked you this, too many questions about Paxton this way. But is he a big rule follower?
14:15 Hannah: Yes, he follows rules really well.
14:17 Alex: Well, for certain things, for sure. I mean, the things that we've set black-and-white rules on, such as holding the hand when crossing the street. He will not go near a street. He'll wait and hold the hand up, even if he's 10 feet ahead of us. I don't worry about it at all, because he's never broken that rule since he was very, very little.
14:40 Leslie: And does he follow the rules at school as well?
14:42 Hannah: Yes, that's where I get the biggest feedback that he's a rule follower. He does so good at school.
14:48 Leslie: Okay, so rule followers…great, lovely. And life can be hard as an adult when you're a rule follower, because you don't give yourself permission to sit down until every dish is done, or all your chores are done, or someone else is doing something out of turn or unfair, but you won't break a rule. So it's very interesting that sometimes we do need to break rules.
So when it's safe and when it makes sense, I want to teach flexible thinking and say, “You know what? For fun, we're going to have a cookie before dinner. We're going to have our dessert and then our dinner. That's a backwards rule. We're going to pretend it's backwards day,” or whatever. And that's where schools have fun. They have kids wear pajamas to school: “pajama day.” That's to teach them we're going to break a rule.So if you guys are rule followers, be careful that you don't get too rigid about his following the rules. Everybody's following rules.
15:55 Hannah: We both break the rules a lot.
[Laughter]
15:59 Alex: We’ve been rule breakers in our day…
16:00 Hannah: Our whole lives.
16:02 Leslie: Ahh, we got two rule breakers. Oh, that's really interesting. So, do you think because you guys are rule breakers, you are going to make sure your son is not a rule breaker?
16:14 Hannah: Maybe. I think maybe I lean towards that, that I was such a rebel when I was a young teenager and a kid, that I don't want Paxton to be that way, I guess…even though I'm like, he's probably gonna be.
16:33 Alex: You turned out alright. Just because you had a rebellious stage, we all get to live life, you know, experience every stage.
16:46 Leslie: We do, and parents often don't want their children to go through what they went through.
16:58 Alex: It's hard.
16:59 Leslie: Yes.
[Music: A Walk in the Forest by Olexy]
17:18 Leslie Cohen-Rubury: 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, Wednesday, August 21 at 8 pm Eastern time for a free Q and A session for my podcast listeners, where you get to ask your burning parenting questions live on Zoom. Space is limited, so please register at ismychildamonster.com to receive the link. And if this time doesn't work for you, please also fill out the form and let us know what would work. That date one more time is Wednesday, August 21 at 8 pm Eastern time. And don't forget, it's free. I can't wait to answer your questions. I hope to see you there.
[Music]
18:25 Leslie: I would say, just because I've been listening, that I know you care about raising him. And tell me if I'm wrong, you're raising him to act right, be right, do right.
18:40 Alex: Right.
18:41 Hannah: I would say, I think, yes. But also, I'm just like, if you want to act out of line a little bit, I don't stress about that stuff. Because if he's throwing a fit, or we're at a family event or something, and…yeah, I'm like, “You do your thing over there, we'll be alright.
19:02 Leslie: So, I'm not going to make it extreme, because it doesn't sound like you are doing anything extreme. Just notice that if he's a rule follower. Know who your child is, and help him with the areas that he's not so comfortable with. Because no one's a rule follower everywhere, right? He wants every toy—that's not a rule follower.
19:23 Alex: He does want every toy.
[Laughter]
19:27 Leslie: He does want every toy.
19:29 Hannah: It’s so bad.
19:31 Alex: He's like, “I want that.” And recently, it's like, “Put it on the birthday list.” He's asked for it every day, and it's on the list. That's something that we struggled with lately. Anything he sees on a video, because there's a lot of that…
19:55 Hannah: …or a pamphlet that came with something that he got for Christmas. And he's like, “I want that, Mom. I don't have that. Can I have that?” And I'm like, woooo.
20:03 Alex: Yeah, we can't get everything. There's not enough room or money together.
20:11 Leslie: And do you really want your child to have everything in life?
20:14 Alex: Of course not.
20:15 Hannah: No. I mean, I want him to have enough.
20:18 Alex: Yeah, he's got more than enough, but, yeah, I do want to make him happy. It's a fine line of, like, we can't do it for obvious reasons. You can't get every toy. And I know how happy he is when he gets something new. You know what I mean?
20:38 Leslie: So, a lot of times there's a short term gratification for getting something new.
20:44 Alex: Well, that's what it is.
20:47 Leslie: Right. It's the same thing that video games do to our brains. There's something in playing games that triggers the response to want more, and getting that same response when he gets something, it triggers in his brain to say, “Wow, I got it.” And that feeling is a great feeling, and not something that's long lived, and not something that really always helps us with our long term interest, because we really need to practice delayed gratification. So your idea of put it on the birthday list, put it on the Christmas list, and even put it on the I-dream-a-dream list—he can have a dream list.
But here's something I want to bring up, as well. Because there's the material world and there's the non-material world. Does he ever put on his list snuggles? Does he ever put on his list a walk in the woods? I know he wouldn't put these things on his list. But I'm wondering if, when it comes to be birthday time or it's you wake up and “I've got a special treat I want to do. I want to have snuggles before we go off to the day,” so that you start to also make what's so important the non-material world—the connecting, the nature. Those things: music, dance, you know, having dance parties. And making those things very special. So that in addition to wanting toys, he will want nature, connection, art, art in a fun way or whatever. Does that make sense?
22:27 Alex: I think we do some of that, for sure.
22:30 Hannah: I feel like I've tried to make it special so that he does want to ask for those things. He never asks for them. He doesn't ask for dance party or color time or anything of those little things that we sit down and intimately do together.
22:50 Alex: Besides playing.
22:51 Hannah: Yeah, besides, “Build this track for me, because I can't.”
22:53 Leslie: Totally fine. Remember we talked last time: If it doesn't work now, you try again in three months. So try it again in three months. And even though you don't see the result, it's a long term investment. And the kids may not do it as adults. So we want to expose our kids to all kinds of things.
23:22 Alex: I would say we do get out, and especially when he was younger. Now that we're both working, he doesn't have as much exposure to nature and going on walks. But I would say, the earliest years he was out.
23:38 Hannah: I carried him on my shoulders because I went too far.
[Laughter]
23:45 Hannah: “Well, now I know your limit.”
23:47 Alex: He also asks for hugs. He does ask for intimate stuff. He is a lover boy. He asks for pickup time. He doesn't ask it as pickup time, but he says, “Will you pick me up?” which is essentially saying, “Can I have a connection?” And he does that all the time. So I would say that he does have that not-material want list as well.
24:16 Leslie: Great. And when we started the conversation, I would have been convinced that this child, all he ever thinks about are toys, and maybe it is still the majority of time, right? He's surrounded by a lot of material things, as we all are, and we just learned a lot about him, which is, he wants to be picked up. He likes the snuggles you play with him. He's gotten out in nature, and sometimes reminding yourselves of those things as well is just a nice reminder.
24:47 Hannah: Yeah, that it's not just toys, toys, toys.
24:49 Alex: Another thing we worked on a little bit, not with him, but with each other, is the emotion mind thing. I would say it's probably come up less than a handful of times, but I have engaged with, “Are you in emotion mind? And is that why it feels like we're in two different spaces?”
25:10 Hannah: And I'm like, Yeah.
25:13 Alex: It's either a yes or a no, but either way, it at least has come up as we're thinking about. Maybe this person's not in the space to have this conversation.
25:24 Leslie: Oh, that's great. So you're saying, Alex, that this is what you and Hannah are working on, correct?
25:29 Hannah: Yes.
25:30 Alex: Yeah, just so that I can have an understanding of, are we able to talk about things we need to talk about right now.
25:40 Leslie: Yes: Is this the best time?
25:42 Alex: Right: Is this the best time?
25:44 Leslie: That's great, because you're really getting familiar with it yourself, intimately familiar with it. So you use it back and forth. Hannah, did you try it with Alex?
25:55 Hannah: No.
25:57 Leslie: Okay. Alex, are you open to Hannah trying it with you?
26:01 Alex: Yeah, of course I would say I 99.98% of the time are in, not wise mind, but what's the…
26:10 Leslie: The reasonable mind.
26:12 Alex: …reasonable mind. I stay there pretty much all day, every day. I have a very peaceful job. I'm super, super comfortable and happy, so I don't get to emotion mind too often. Whereas I think Hannah does. And therefore, if I'm feeling a type of way, it could be because she's in emotion mind, and now I'm in emotion mind, do you know what I mean? And so I'm like, “Are you in emotion mind? Because I'm feeling like I'm getting into emotion mind. And I'm trying to figure out how we got here, essentially. And maybe there is no reason.
26:50 Leslie: Oh, there is. Usually we have things that prompt the behavior, prompt the emotion. So I would say there are. But it could be a distracting thought. It could be, Wow, I should have done that.” It could be very small things. It could be a pain in your knee, and it's, “Oh, my knee's bothering me.” Who knows what throws us into emotion mind?
And sometimes figuring it out in the moment is not the best approach. Sometimes it is the best approach. So, yes, I appreciate that you are naming and starting to look at each other and respect, “Hey, is this a good time to talk?” Because now you're showing respect to Hannah and allowing her to have her emotion. Because if you're in emotion mind for whatever reason, then maybe you need a little time or space.
What works for you, Hannah? Can you share what works for you?
27:47 Hannah: Space works the best for me.
27:49 Leslie: Nice.
27:50 Hannah: Just to separate, get my thoughts together, kind of calm, quiet, and then I can come back out and not be in emotion mind anymore.
28:00 Leslie: Nice. And what are we learning about Paxton? Are we learning that Paxton, because now you're doing the… he's got the big emotion, you're validating and moving on. And does that work for him to process his emotion?
28:14 Hannah: To give him space?
28:16 Leslie: Yes.
28:17 Hannah: Yes, absolutely, yes.
28:18 Leslie: Okay.
28:19 Alex: And he actually wants space.
28:20 Hannah: He does. And he probably gets that, maybe, from me? I don't know. From seeing me do it? I don't know. Or that just works for him.
28:28 Leslie: Beautiful. Okay, I did say I was going to put a pin in the hands-and-nails-at-bedtime. So explain the situation again, because I want to hear it, assess it. And let's get into this a little bit.
28:42 Alex: So since he was a baby…
28:45 Hannah: Infancy.
28:46 Alex: …his comfort thing would be picking mostly Mom's nails. But anybody's—my mom's, her mother's, the teachers now at school. It's his comfort thing. For bedtime, that's what he wants for just sitting around…
29:11 Hannah: …like, “Ahhh, hi, Mommy. Could I have your fingernails so I can pick it? And I'm like, “No.”
29:16 Alex: It's 100% a comforting mechanism for him.
29:22 Leslie: Okay, so when he says, “Can I have your nails to pick?”, you are going to now try to respond by letting him know what he's asking for. “You would like some comfort. Perhaps you're tired, perhaps you want comfort. Perhaps you want connection,” and you could almost play. “I'm going to put my fingers up. Do you want connection, comfort, or cuddles?” or whatever.
There's something he's asking for. And probably the picking is…it's so old, it's like a blanket or a thumb. It's a calming, soothing behavior, absolutely. And sometimes we have to change the things that soothe us.
30:09 Hannah: Yeah. So we've tried clipping his nails down really short so that he can’t…
30:14 Leslie: I get it. I get it. No, what I want to do is, because we've discussed that this hurts other people, so we want to substitute the picking. So, tell me what you tried. You said it didn't go well, but tell me what, maybe, you didn't try. Maybe you did try. It doesn't matter.
30:32 Alex: The most we tried was saying, “You can't do this anymore, because it hurts.” That's the avenue we took, which lasted not even a couple days, not even a few hours, probably. Because as soon as bedtime comes around, he's no longer using manners. He wants the nail, you know what I mean?
30:59 Leslie: Alex, you just said that you've explained to him it hurts us—excellent. He needs that information. So, now you've explained it hurts him. But does it acknowledge what he…
31:13 Alex: …what he wanted—the comfort.
31:18 Leslie: So you need to pair those two things. You want connection, you want comfort…
31:23 Alex: …but this hurts, so we need to do something else.
31:27 Leslie: And use the word “and” instead of “but,” because it's true. Both things are true. “And it hurts us. You want connection, you want safety, you want comfort—something to help you cope with this moment. You're tired. And this really hurts. So we are going to find something that helps you get the comfort, helps you get the feeling that you're safe and coping, and something that's okay for us as well. We're going to brainstorm.”
32:01 Alex: So this definitely should, in theory, work. He's smarter than us, because Hannah said, “My thumb hurts. You can't pick it.” And so he's picking another finger. But he really wants the thumb, and so every day he asks, “Is your thumb better now?” And now, all of a sudden the thumb's better, so he's back to picking the thumb. So he changed it from, “It hurts picking,” to, “Your finger hurts. I'm not hurting you. It's you that's hurt.”
32:35 Hannah: Because I had a wound on my thumb from work. And I was like, “Oh, he can't do that there.”
32:42 Leslie: So, wait a minute, let's look at what happened. You were hurt. You were legitimately hurt on your thumb. You said, no, he didn't pick your thumb.
32:51 Hannah: No, he chose my pinky instead.
32:53 Leslie: But what I'm trying to say is: he can do this. Maybe you guys, and I understand it, are a little scared by, “Whoa, this is a big thing for us to face.”
33:04 Alex: It’s massive.
33:06 Leslie: I know it's massive.
33:08 Hannah: I don't know how to actually get him to not do it, because we've asked him and it just…
33:15 Alex: Just pull the hand away?
33:16 Hannah: Yeah, like, I hide my fingers?
33:17 Leslie: Absolutely. So I'm thinking, what—I've never recommended this in my 40 years of working—what if you wear a glove?
33:27 Hannah: I was thinking about putting band aids on all my fingers…
33:30 Leslie: No, put on gloves.
33:31 Hannah: …so ridiculous…
33:32 Leslie: Gloves on, put gloves on. I mean, you could put band aids, but he'd still be picking the finger. Put a big fat glove on. And eventually that…you could there…you can hold a little…There might be a little stuffed animal that has fingers. I would maybe find a stuffed animal that has fingers, and say, “This guy is really friendly, and he says, His nails are okay. You can pick his nails because he said it's okay.” And that could become his stuffy.
34:03 Hannah: Okay. Now, I have tried something like that with a sloth that he loves. I said, “Why don't you hold this sloth’s hand instead of Mommy's hand?” So maybe I'll reintroduce that and see if he takes to that.
34:17 Leslie: Well, yes, and it's going to take a lot for you to say, “Mommy's hands are no longer available.”
34:23 Alex: Yeah, that's the big one.
34:25 Leslie: Yeah, what's so scary about that?
34:28 Alex: I's bedtime, because we still put him to bed with Mom in bed with him. And so it's his main source of comfort at bedtime. And therefore, he's fallen asleep to it every day of his toddler life, for sure.
34:48 Leslie: So the truth is, he can handle this change. Because we saw it—that your thumb wasn't available, and he handled it. Now it's very different when you take away your hand completely. And you didn't think that he could handle no-technology in his bedroom. So yes, I think it'll be painful, and he does still have you. We are not taking you away.
35:16 Hannah: Should I offer to cuddle closer, with no hands or…?
35:22 Leslie: Here's the thing. I want you to let him know that this is going to happen during the day, when he's in a good mood, when you're coming home, or whatever, on a weekend, even right, when he might stay up a little later or being very upset. So do this on a Friday or on a weekend where you say, “Okay, I'm going to protect my hands. We are always going to make sure everyone's safe in this family. My hands are not safe right now. You're picking. When you were baby, you had little hands, and you did little picking, and I was okay. But you're growing and the picking hurts. So now there's no more picking. That's going to end today. And I'm going to stay with you. And now let's brainstorm. You can hold my hand with a glove on. You can hold the sloth, because sloth’s got fingers. I spoke to little sloth. Sloth says, he said you could pick his fingers. He's safe.” I would do it in advance. And I would expect this is not going to be easy, and he can handle it. Yes, Alex…
36:28 Alex: So, every time she's home, she has to be in gloves, because he's going to ask non-stop for a while. At least for a couple days, at a minimum.
36:41 Leslie: So, every time he asks, you can say, “Raise your fingers. Decide what three things you want to feel connected. Do you want comfort? You want cuddle? Do you want to kiss?”
36:52 Alex: Connection.
36:53 Leslie: Yeah, connection. Every day, let him know that that's what he's asking for. When you want my fingers, these are things you might also want. You might also want me, a kiss, a hug.
37:11 Alex: And we have to tell the teacher at school too, who lets him pick her that…
37:14 Hannah: She does not. I don't know where you got that from.
37:17 Alex: Miss Renee says that he does it.
37:19 Hannah: She told me that he did it, but she does not let him. Okay,
37:24 Alex: I just heard that it happened at school, so I assumed…
37:25 Hannah: No, the ladies are not letting him pick their fingernails.
37:27 Leslie: Okay, so good. Obviously, they may have started doing it, but now they've changed it.
37:36 Hannah: Maybe I ask one of them, “What is your routine to address that?” See where that goes.
37:46 Leslie: Being able to witness his pain, we said this in the first session as well, is very, very hard as a parent.
37:53 Alex: It’s getting easier, though. It is getting easier not to witness the pain, but just to understand that it's not actual pain. It's, you know, he has a disagreement, and this is his way of coping or responding to it. It's for his greater good, right?
38:16 Leslie: Let’s acknowledge that it is pain. It is pain when he doesn't get a cookie, that's pain. To him, in his world, that's pain. When he doesn't get a toy, that's pain. So we are acknowledging his pain, but learning to cope is about dealing with our discomfort. And you cannot protect your child—no matter what you do—you cannot protect your child from the pains of life, because everyone experiences pain.
So, if everyone's going to experience pain, then the greatest gift, the greatest gift you can give your son, is the ability to know that he can handle it. And that's what you're doing when you witness his pain. And you never have to cause him pain. We never have to go out of our way to cause our children pain. But when you say “no” to that toy in the store and he feels pain, okay, this is when he's going to demonstrate, maybe an hour later, maybe two days later, that, “Wow, you got through a really hard time. Big disappointment. You did it, buddy. Wow.”
39:18 Alex: That we haven't done…
39:21 Hannah: We haven't revisited it.
39:22 Alex: We haven’t gone back to a pain. Is he too young to go back to…I think that's why we didn't, is…
39:30 Leslie: No, he's not too young. Just say it in passing.
39:34 Alex: I just don't want to revisit the pain and go back to that. It comes back enough on its own, that I don't think it needs to go back. I mean, maybe it does, but maybe not at this age.
39:49 Leslie: I actually think it's better when he's younger, because we all need to go back. We all need to learn from our mistakes, so to speak. There's this huge source of learning. There's a real wealth of learning when we can look at: “Wow, this is what I did. What could I have done differently? What got me to that place again and again and again, that I behave this way?” So we do want to be able to go back, and if we re-experience, as opposed to re-learn, then…yeah, that's what it is. You don't want him to re-experience the pain. And I don't either. Start early.
40:30 Alex: Well, I'm saying the re-experience the pain, if I bring up something that was painful for him. I don't know this as a fact because we haven't done it, but it is my belief that if we reintroduce a pain, he will re-experience it. Because he's an emotional being to the core. I mean, we left Costco, and he didn't have a smiley face. And because I said he crinkled up the…that's why he didn't get a smiley face. He's screaming to go back in there for a smiley face. He doesn't care about that smiley face one iota. He's never cared about the smiley face I would draw on the back of the receipt, ever, until this one time, and probably because he was super tired.
41:13 Leslie: So let's find a way to make it work.
41:15 Hannah: But we did go back to that, yeah, because he told me what happened in front of him when you guys got home and he did not re-experience how he felt at Costco.
41:23 Leslie: And so in those moments, you can say, “Give me a high five. You did it. You handled that disappointment.” So that's the first step, is when he goes back to it, he's more in control. You can then just say, “And you handled that disappointment.” So, it's a little phrase that you can add, as you're coming out of the store. “But I didn't get that toy.” “And you handled that disappointment.” And not every time.
41:56 Hannah: We're missing that.
41:59 Leslie: Once in a while, sprinkle it in. So, do you have a plan for the fingernails and all that?
42:10 Alex: Glove doesn't…you're in gloves all day at work…
42:12 Hannah: It’s fine. It’s fine.
42:14: Alex: …that's where I feel bad. It's already in gloves all day.
42:18 Leslie: So, don't put on gloves all day, just your hands are not available all day. I think when you feel comfortable, don't try this until you guys say to each other, “We're ready.”
42:30 Alex: And when it's cut-off time, it is cut off, there is no going back, yeah, just like the tablet in the bedroom.
42:40 Leslie: It’s just like the tablet. It's just knowing in your heart that you are teaching him that it's got to be a win-win situation out there. We are not going to let someone get hurt so someone else can feel comfortable. And he can't understand that. Yes, you're telling him it hurts. That's good information for him, but he can't comprehend the depth of, “I'm hurting you,” because you keep letting him do it.
So it's a little bit of a contradiction here, because you're letting him do it and you're saying, “But it hurts.” If it hurts, you're not going to let him do it. Not everything's cold turkey, but this one I don't think we need to do in small steps. I think this one is when you two are ready and you believe he can handle feeling safe and feeling comfortable and connected in other ways, then you'll be there for him.
And yes, you will have maybe a week. I don't think it'll be a week, but you'll have a few days of real challenging…And you can wait to do it. I don't know if you have a February break, a Spring break. You can do it when he's right, you know, maybe doing it when he is in his regular schedule.
43:54 Alex: The most important thing is that we're ready…
43:57 Hannah: …to have a bad night.
43:59 Leslie: Yes, and possibly have a bad night. You're not definite. There's no guarantee here, right? [Laughter] It's tricky.
44:09 Alex: It's tricky.
44:11 Leslie: It’s not easy. And I respect the fact that you're trying to balance. That's the whole big thing with parenting, is balancing the “no's” and the yes’s, the strict and the giving in, the when it's not okay and when it is okay, the nature versus the material world. We don't need to be extreme. We would like to find a middle path.
44:34 Alex: Absolutely.
44:36 Hannah: Yeah, I agree with that.
44:37 Leslie: Try these things. Go back to what we've talked about. The fact that you are together, you are working on the pieces that you can work on by doing the emotion mind, the wise mind, and you're starting to check in with each other. That's a great way to raise him. That's really a healthy home, to be able to have a child who hears that. “Mom and Dad are doing this. They're looking at each other and saying, Hey, are you in emotion mind? Because when you're in emotion mind, I get a little emotional, too. And then he's going to get emotional. But we've all got this, we can figure this out.”
45:13 Alex: We can figure it out. Thank you.
[Music: Acoustic Guitars Ambient Uplifting by Oleksii Kaplunskyi]
45:24 Leslie Cohen-Rubury: I'm going to do a little psycho-educational teaching in this wrap-up. As with all the episodes, we use what comes up in the session, and we want to extract the principles and concepts so that you can use this information in your life, with your child.
So first, a sincere thanks to Hannah and Alex for participating in this process. One takeaway from this session is the difference between reacting and responding. Reacting is often impulsive, acting without thinking, and mostly from our emotion mind—fear, worry, frustration and anger. Responding is taking a moment to give yourself a chance to think about the situation and make choices from your wise mind. When Hannah and Alex run to get a new meal for Paxton when he's upset, they are reacting. When they leave the apples on the table, validate Paxton, and move on, they are responding.
Reactions are not always our best parenting strategies. Responding can be hard and takes practice. It's not like flipping a switch. And the nugget from these episodes that helps you get there is the commitment to sticking with it. If you want to learn more about states of mind and reacting versus responding, check out my YouTube channel, where I've posted videos on these topics. You can also find links in the show notes.
Behaviorism is another important topic I want to expand on, but this outro is getting a little too long, so I've uploaded a video about that on my YouTube channel as well.
[Music: The Wilds Beyond by L-Ray Music]
Next time on Is My Child A Monster?, we unpack rule-following and how that kind of rigid thinking can have such a strong impact on your family life. My daughter, Dale Rubury, is back for this episode to share her experience as a rule follower.
Subscribe to Is My Child A Monster? wherever you get your podcast, so you don't miss an episode. And if you like what you hear, tell a friend—it really makes a difference. 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 Dale Rubury. Our theme music is by L-Ray Music. I'm Leslie Cohen-Rubury. Thanks so much for listening.
And this week, remember: when your urge is to react, take a pause and then choose to respond.
Transcribed by Eric Rubury