Karen Part 2 of 3: How To Establish Limits and Teach Coping Skills

Parenting is a work in progress and the idea that you get to learn as you go is essential.  In today’s episode Karen, who is eager to learn returns for her second session as we unpack the complexities of parent-child relationships of her three children.  Karen is seeking advice on how to raise resilient children, how to set limits when it feels like your daughter’s best friend talks back to adults and when your kids fight in the grocery store. Understanding who your child is and understanding the situation you are dealing with can change your perspective and guide your parenting skills.

Time Stamps

3:10 Helping get kids off technology can range from connecting to your child to changing your expectations.  

4:18 The change in the parents behavior can have a direct impact on what the child does

5:25 Changing your perspective from what the child is doing to you vs what’s happening to the child

7:39 Change takes time - manage your expectations

9:08The difference between authoritative vs authoritarian -  Learning to be comfortable with your authority as a parent 

12:20 Human interaction is complex - assess the contributing factors including your child's vulnerabilities, expectations and beliefs

14:35 Missed opportunities - its like missing a train - there will be another one

16:19 Be “REAL” with your kids 

17:33 Name the elephant in the room - verbalize what’s going on

18:35 Put your foot on the brake - Stop trying to teach/rationalize and put your foot on the validation gas pedal

19:20 Expand your thinking - be more flexible - get rid of stereotypes

20:10 Stop after the validation - don’t talk so much

22:20 Parenting is often counterintuitive

24:24 Practice taking a non-judgmental stance

25:29 DON'T change the limit - Validate and help them express themselves more accurately - with plenty of examples 

28:25 FACE the challenge instead of avoiding the challenge

• Story of community service - giving back to others

31:37 How to raise resilient kids and teach them to cope with life's struggles 

36:40 Reinforcement - acknowledge what they experienced rather than praise

37:28 Coping skills are designed to keep the problem from getting worse (or from escalating) and learning to tolerate the discomfort

• 5,5,5, Skills -5 things you hear, 5 things you see, 5 things you feel

Resources:  

• ACCEPTS Skill in Dialectic Behavior Therapy
• IMPROVE Skill in Dialectic Behavior Therapy
• Self-Soothe Skill in Dialectic Behavior Therapy

Leslie-ism: The road to happiness is knowing how to handle the life’s struggles

For a full transcript of this episode and more information about the host visit https://lesliecoh`podcasts/ . Yo u 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 

Transcript

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

0:02  Karen: We've told our daughter, “Look, we don't like her behavior. We don't like to see that rub off on you.” So we've been trying to kind of limit that friendship. And so she's been like, “This is my best friend. How can you not let me be friends with her?”

 0:23  Leslie: So often our kids have friends who we think are “bad influences,” so our impulse is to avoid those kids. Whether we act on that impulse or not is not so simple and requires a moment of pause. As parents, we do need to take time to step back, assess the situation and find some balanced solutions. This is, Is My Child A Monster?, a parenting skills podcast where you get to listen in as real parents and caregivers share their trials and tribulations in coaching sessions recorded live. I'm your host, Leslie Cohen-Rubury. And no, your child is not a monster, just misunderstood. 

Today is my second session with Karen, who has three kids, ten-year-old Kate, eight-year-old Vivian, and five-year-old Owen. Vivian has a friend who Karen doesn't approve of, so we spend time working through how to manage that without alienating her daughter. We also deal with another really common parenting experience: when kids fight in the grocery store. It's frustrating and overwhelming and makes it hard to get your errands done. So today, we assess what's going on below the surface and look at things that Karen can do differently as a way to effectively shift her children's behaviors. I offer a different perspective that might feel counterintuitive and also might just work. We also go over some practical coping skills to help your kids manage their feelings of distress. 

So 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. 

2:23  Leslie: Hi, Karen, how are you today? 

2:25  Karen: I am great, Leslie. How are you? 

2:28  Leslie: I'm doing well, thank you. Do you want to jump in with starting where we left off?

2:34  Karen: Sure. So I guess the intervention with the technology was kind of the last session, and it worked really well with Kate, my 10-year-old. So I would sit next to her when she'd said two more minutes, and I'd watch her game, if she was playing a game, and then we'd kind of be like, “All right, that's been two minutes. You're done.” So that worked well. I mean, there were times when she wasn't playing a game, and she was looking on YouTube reels, and I had to come up with a different ploy. But for the majority of time, giving her that time while being next to her, she knows how long two minutes are, so I felt like I was surprised at how easily that worked. And then I could kind of engage with her, with her game, when she was playing. 

3:21  Leslie: Isn't that lovely. I really want to say that we're reinforcing behavior that she's getting reinforced for: I've got Mom here when I let go and turn off my technology. That is a good feeling for her, which reinforces that behavior. That's great, awesome. Okay, glad to hear that feedback. Keep going.

3:43  Karen: And then my youngest one, Owen, I have accepted now that it's just going to be this way. And so I've kind of set my expectation, and I've done two things. One, I've downloaded an app on my phone that I can turn off the TV. So I say, “If you're not going to do it now, it's the time, we're ready to go. If you're not going to do it, if you can't pause it, I'll turn it off.” So I'll just go ahead and turn it off, and then I'll get mad, and sometimes I'll turn it back on, and then I'll turn it off, and then we kind of just come up. I'm like, “It's done. You know, that's the way it is.”

4:18  Leslie: Wow. So in the other case, Kate made the changes necessary, and she got off the computer. Here, I don't hear Owen making the big changes. I hear you made a big change. It sounds like you made a big change. What was the change inside of you?

4:33  Karen: Just when you kind of reiterated, like, this is not me being a bad mom—this is him learning how to stop—you can't be on technology all the time. And the other thing is, I've also waited where it's really time to stop. And my husband usually will come and do it, and I'm like, “Okay, if you do it, then I don't have to be involved.” Or I can just turn off the TV. So I'm not dealing with the nonsense anymore. I was getting so worked up on the timeframe. And it's not going to change anything, so I've just tried to help lower my expectation, that this is him. This is a battle for him. It doesn't make me a bad mom. I don't have to listen to what he's saying, “It's unfair. You're mad at me. It's because of you.” And he's so angry. It's just it is.

5:25  Leslie: Beautiful. So I would say—I'm going to name that—as you change your perspective, you change the way you see the situation. So instead of seeing it as, Look what he's doing to me, I'm bad, he's telling me I'm bad, you changed. You had a complete shift. And you said, this is his learning to deal with disappointment, and it shows me his anger, and he's got to learn how to deal with getting off technology. 

And at five years old, some people still have difficulty, even at 55 years old, but at five years old, this is totally fine for him to get upset, especially when you're not the one getting upset. So you just stick to it. And I love the idea that you said, “You can turn off your technology and do it all by yourself, and you're in charge, or I can do it for you.” And when he doesn't do it, you say, “Okay, I'll do it for you.” And that's it, not, “What's wrong with you? Why can't you do it? You should be doing it.” It's just like, okay, no big deal. “I do it, or you do it.” I love that. I can just hear how easy it is for you, and that's what we want—a little more ease. Useful parenting.

6:30  Karen: Yes, I just feel, like I said, very overwhelmed when I can't get anywhere with any of them. So now I have the strategies for each of them. So, couldn't have come at a better time. Still working on it. Technology's still there, and it's too much, but at least now I've taken myself out of the equation.

6:50  Leslie: Exactly. So do you have any follow up with Vivian, your middle one? 

6:57  Karen: I found out she does know her passcode. Remember, I thought I was so smart, and she goes to me and asked for her passcode. I found out she's had it this whole time, which I guess is good, because she's still going to me. So she's still been pretty good about stopping. She still kind of hides away, and I have to get her. But I've said, ”Is this fair in your world to give you the extra time while I get the other two off?” So I feel like it's making progress so

7:26  Leslie: And I don't know if I said that before we wrapped up last week about your expectations for how fast things should change. I usually give people the long term, which is, you need the next 18 years to work on what you're working on, or the next 10 years. So the idea is that you had something to do. You had changes you could make. You made changes with all three. 

And with Vivian, the last case, what we talked about, is you verbalizing and naming what she's doing. So she gets insight to, Oh, I'm getting more time by sneaking away and then coming back, or is it fair that I'm getting a little more time? Whatever it is, it's all a work in progress. Because, as we know, technology is not going away. The problems won't go away. It's your ability to not get burnt out and to be able to keep going forward, because raising children is a long term, exhausting process.

8:25  Karen: Yes. Like I said, I have little ways of making each one better, so hopefully that continues.

8:34  Leslie: Excellent. So that's a great follow up. 

8:37  Karen: It’s a work in process. 

8:40  Leslie: …work in progress, which is what it's all about. But I love that you're changing some of the approach, the way you're seeing it. And I hear a little bit of the…did you ever read Horton Hatches The Egg?

8:52  Karen: I did. So I read it, and it was a cute story. It's funny, because I feel like there's different Dr Seuss books out there, and I had never come across it. So I guess the lesson is keeping true to your word. 

9:08  Leslie: Yes, keeping true to your word. And the way I like to sort of morph that into the parenting aspect, is that I can say what I mean and mean what I say, and I don't have to prove that. I don't have to fight that with my children. It's just I have authority. And the problem with authority is when we exercise control and power over someone. I get to make some rules in the house, and I get to say that we need to do certain things. I mean, it's not easy, but I can say what I mean to help my children understand that we're working together. And I don't have to be authoritarian in order to be an authority. There's a big difference between authoritative and authoritarian. Do you know what that difference is?

10:04  Karen: Where they fear you type thing, right?

10:07  Leslie: That's the authoritarian. 

10:11  Karen: I don't think my kids fear me at all. I think I'm working on the first rung.

10:15  Leslie: As a matter of fact, it's almost like you're afraid of your own authority a little bit because you had trouble…that's why your husband came in, or that's why you gave them so many options, because you didn't want to be seen as the authoritarian, mean person. And yet, when you have trouble figuring out how to establish some limits and things like that, it could get you frustrated, where you could end up yelling and you could feel out of control more than in control as a result.

10:45  Karen: Totally. That's exactly what happens. I feel like I get pushed over until my buttons get pushed, and I'm done. And then I get angry at them.

10:53  Leslie: Do you want to talk more about that? Your buttons getting pushed? 

10:56  Karen: Sure. I'll give you an example. We were at a pool party yesterday, and when we got out, I took them to the grocery store, just my middle and my youngest. And they just were fighting the whole time in the grocery store. They both wanted to sit in the cart, even though they're kind of too big for the cart, they're both kicking each other in the cart. They were just being, just, very poorly behaved. 

And at a certain point, I just was like, “This is unacceptable. This is not how we act. You guys are not being nice to each other. I said no hitting, no fighting.” And so the whole car ride home, I just was like, silent and frustrated with them, and they let it get to a point where it's…like, the behavior. And sometimes I think…like my middle one with the younger, she specifically, she's always like, “Why do I have a brother? I don't want a younger brother. His job is to annoy me.” And I get mad at her because I'm like, “Don't talk that way. That's not even the option.” 

But I also expect more from her, because she's older and when she does want to engage with him, he loves it. So it's like, “Why are you being so hostile?” Which is making me get all upset, him get all upset. So it's a little dance in that situation. So I wanted to ask you about that.

12:14  Leslie: Well, the first thing that pops to mind is: human interaction is complex. I love my brother. I love when he plays with me. I love when we get along. I don't like when he wants to sit in the car and he's annoying me and I'm tired. There's vulnerabilities. If they were at a pool party, out in the sun, running around in a pool, maybe hungry, maybe they didn't eat. Well, I hear vulnerabilities of exhaustion. I am recalling last session where she was also jealous of “he has no homework”—she made that comment. So again, there's that part that maybe she wants to be that five-year-old baby, or little one who gets to not have homework and sit in the cart and someone-take-care-of-me because life is hard for her. 

It's so complex, it's not so easy. A lot of times we boil it down unfairly and say she's being a brat, or she should know better. And it's an oversimplification of a very complex problem, because it's emotions, it's vulnerabilities, it's different personalities. I want to respect that, for you, there's a lot going on; and for each of them, there's a lot going on.

13:30  Karen: And I think she did think it was just going to be us two going. So then when he joined, she was extra frustrated,

13:38  Leslie: Right there, you just nailed it. You just hit the target. There's a lot of issues. I make a target in my mind, and I think, Okay, there's this issue, this issue, this issue. And I've got all these issues going on, like a big cob web or something. And then all of a sudden, you say she had the expectation that we were going to go alone. So he burst her bubble, and now she's going to express it, but inaccurately—she's going to express it by being annoyed by him and being bothered and giving him a hard time. 

There's a lot of ways to approach this, but by any chance, did you start with—because it's in the back of your head, she expected us to go alone—did you validate that to her by literally saying…

14:25  Karen: I did not, no.

14:28  Leslie: So I just call that a missed opportunity. You didn't do anything wrong. It was just, Oh, I missed that. It's like missing a train. I missed that train. There will be another train. 

14:36  Karen: When you brought up the vulnerabilities, I was like, Oh, that brings up why she's acting like this. 

14:46  Leslie: When we are dealing with people, we want to look at vulnerabilities. Before I study any problem, any problem behavior, why I have this problematic behavior, I say, Are there any vulnerabilities that we need to consider?

15:01  Karen: That's good to know.

15:03  Leslie: Let me role play it with you. Let's say you're driving there and the thought goes in your mind, all of a sudden, you had to take your son with you. Now, Owen’s with you. Did it ever occur to you in your mind, Oh, she wanted to go alone ?

15:20  Karen: Yes, once we got there.

15:24  Leslie: Let's pretend it happened in the car or in the store, whatever. What could you do next time, if that vulnerability pops in your head and you have this little light bulb moment, Oh, she wanted to go alone.

15:38  Karen: I mean, I could tell her, “I knew we talked about going to the store, and I'm sorry, but I had to pick up your brother. But I hear that you really wanted to spend time, just the two of us going. So in the future, why don't we make a point to go out, just the two of us again?”

15:59  Leslie: And she might respond with a big, “I really thought, Mommy, you said we were going to go alone; and he always has to ruin everything.” And what if she said he has to ruin everything?

16:10  Karen: “I hear that you're frustrated by this situation.” Umm, how else could I validate that?

16:19  Leslie: I'm going to say something. I just wonder if it'll help you. How would you be really real? Pretend it was your friend, not your daughter, not that I want your daughter to be your friend. But how would you say it if it was a peer of yours who said, “Well, it really feels like he ruined it, the whole thing.”

16:37  Karen: Like, “It sucks you feel that way.” 

16:41  Leslie: We might not want to use the word, because you might not want to say it that way. Or if it was my 12-year-old, I really probably would use that, because that's the way they're thinking now. But I do suggest being real. I can lean towards the clinical side of sounding. I mean, my six year old grandson—now almost 10—and for four years he's been saying, “Nana, that's your therapy stuff. Stop talking to me like a therapist.” So I lean that way, obviously. And kids want us to be real. 

17:15  Karen: So what would you say?

17:16  Leslie: So what I might say, “You are fed up and tired when he comes, when you wanted time alone. Right now, all you can think about is it's not fair.” And then she'd go, “Yeah, it's never fair.” And I’d go, “Right now, it's not fair. It doesn't feel fair to you.” 

So that could make a difference, because when we verbalize what's going on, sometimes the problem behavior goes away. I have twin girls, and they were in their senior year, and college was looming in the future for them. And they started fighting really, really intensely, more than normal. And I just decided to put it out there, put it out in front of them. “Hey, I wonder if your fighting is getting you ready for your separation when you go to college.” That's all I really said. And it was like, we let the air out of the balloon. They didn't need to keep fighting because it was named, it was out there. So it doesn't happen that way all the time, but sometimes it is as simple as naming it.

18:24  Karen: And I think I also want to say, “Well, he has to come. I don't have anything else. I have to pick him up.” I try to rationalize it and not name it—not name what she's feeling.

18:35  Leslie: Because you end up trying to explain, explain, we try to teach our children. I would say: put your foot on the brake. She doesn't want that, that's why she's keeping it up. Because I think she's telling us loud and clear, “Mommy, stop telling me why I'm supposed to be older and what I should do. And that's not nice.” Start to just validate a little more. Put your foot on the brake in terms of trying to teach her; and just a little heavier on the validation gas pedal. 

I don't say that for every kid, but in this situation, that is what I am hearing with her. And I might say, Because you have to deal with the disappointment going into the store, what is one thing that might help you deal with that disappointment?” “Well, can I sit in the cart by myself?” “Sure. Okay, Owen, you're going to run down the aisle and find me the graham crackers that we need.” And so you would think, let me put the older one to work, because she's older. I want parents to break that stereotypical kind of thinking, which is, because she's older, she should do this if she wants to sit in that car. You know what? She's not going to be able to fit in that cart as a 15-year-old. So let her fit in the cart as an eight-year-old. Let her sit in the cart if that's what she wants to do. 

So I would actually reverse it. Tell Owen that he's going to be the one who's going to go down and pick out three apples or pick out whatever. Okay, how's that sound? 

20:08  Karen: That sounds good. 

20:10  Leslie: So we're going to expand our thinking, be a little more flexible in our thinking. You can validate it, and sometimes it's just the timing. When you validate her, put a period at the end, stop. And then, two minutes later, or five minutes later, when you get in the store, then I would say, “Is there something you want to do that might make you feel special, because you know your brother's coming along? And I realize that was a change in expectation.” You don't really have to do that. But I might also say, “Hey, would you like to sit in the cart today? I'm going to put your brother to work.” And then she might say, “No, put me to work, too.” Who knows? 

20:48  Karen: Awesome. Thank you. That is very helpful.

[Music: Acoustic Motivation by Coma-Media]

21:02  Karen: I had another thing on my mind about friends, it's also with the middle one. She has a best friend that goes to her school. She doesn't live in our neighborhood. She's in a different grade, but she's her best friend. And when she comes over, she's—I mean, my kids are not the most respectful, but—she's very…we feel her behavior. Just the things that she'll say back to adults is a little just, we're not that comfortable with. She'll just say, “I don't have to listen to you,” to our face and stuff. So we've been concerned about letting our daughter interact with her. 

So we've been trying to kind of limit that friendship, and we've told our daughter—we're honest with her. We're like, “Look, we don't like her behavior. We don't like to see that rub off on you.” And so she's been like, “This is my best friend. Did your parents do this to you? How can you not let me be friends with her?” And we're not saying she can't be friends, but you if we have the choice, we'll be like, “Go play with a neighbor. Go play with someone in your class.” 

So what are your thoughts? I know peers are so important to kids, but I'd love to get your thoughts on what's in the best interest.

22:17  Leslie: Okay, I think it might surprise you, again, I tend to go in an opposite direction than most people, because a lot of parenting is actually counterintuitive. So you're telling me, if there's a problem with this peer, let's avoid her. And that's understandable. I get why parents do that. But I'm going to go counterintuitive, and I'm going to say: let's not avoid. 

Parents want to avoid. I'm going to back this up to a little larger principle. Parents want to avoid risks. They want to smooth out the road for their children. What do we call those? I don't know, Snowplow Parents or something. There's some kind of parent who wants to smooth out the road so there are no obstacles. I recently had an older parent. I forgot her kids are older, and she said to me, “Boy, was I under the wrong illusion. All I wanted, all I thought I wanted, was to make sure my children were happy.” And she said, “Instead, what I really realized would have helped them out is how to cope with life, how to handle the struggles.” So the struggles are actually the bumps in the road. And if we smooth it out and we give our child no struggles, how are they ready for life? They're not ready for life. That's an illusion that they're going to be happy because that's not what life serves us. 

So the road to happiness, if I'm going to a little cliche, is actually knowing how to handle the struggles in your life, and it's all in how you handle those struggles. So I'm going to name this friendship as it may be problematic, no if, ands, or buts. There might be some challenging obstacles or struggles in this relationship, maybe more for you than for your daughter, but either way, I know that you're seeing the impact that it might have on your daughter. 

Number one, there's a lot of judgment. She's not good for my daughter—I’d like to get rid of that judgment, because we never know if our children are going to be a good influence on someone else. So let's just get rid of the good and bad. She's not a bad child. She's doing the best she can, and this is a hard pill to swallow with the skills she has in the present time. 

Now she's in your house, she's talking back to you. What was that line? She said, “I don't have to listen to you.” Okay, so if she says something like, “I don't have to listen to you,” I am not going to personalize those words. Remember what we just talked about last time: don't personalize your children's words. “I hate you,” what your five year old is doing. This child is saying, “I don't have to listen to you.” I heard your son was trying to express his anger. I see this little girl trying to express her personal power: “I've got power, and I don't have to listen to you.” I don't have to get baited by that. Do you remember what actually you were telling her to do? 

25:24  Karen: Yes, it was to get out of the pool. It was, “Okay, it's time to get out of the pool.” And she said, “I don't have to listen to you.”

25:29  Leslie: So I would say, let's call her Sally, “Hey, Sally. It sounds like you don't want to get out of the pool. It sounds like you're trying to tell me I don't want to get out of the pool.” And I could stand there and go, “No, I don't want to get out of the pool.” And you can sort of role play what it feels like to be really upset, “I don't want to get out of the pool.” So you're putting the words that she wants to learn to say to you, because it's okay to say, “Oh, I don't want to get out of the pool.” 

And you could say, That works really well, if you want to tell me you don't want to get out of the pool, that's okay. It doesn't mean I'm going to let you guys stay in the pool, but I can truly respect the fact that you don't want to get out of the pool. Who wants to get out of the pool?” And then you could get your daughter to say, “I don't want to get out of the pool,” and, you know, all the kids don't want to get out of the pool. “All right time to get out of the pool,” so you don't have to change your limit. So sometimes when we validate and help children express things more accurately, that's all we're trying to do. We're not changing the limit. The limit is it's time to get out of the pool.

26:34  Karen: And for just having her know that language explaining it differently…

26:40  Leslie: Yes. So that's one way of doing it. Another way of doing it is to say, “Hey, Sally, would you try that again? That didn't work for me, sweetheart, try that again. I want to hear what you have to say.” This is where I'm baiting them. “Hey, Sally, I really want to hear what you have to say. Can you say that again? Try again.” And I say it with a smile, but I'm setting a clear limit. That's not the way we talk in this house. And you know what? If she doesn't try again, your daughter heard you clarified what goes on in this house so your daughter didn't learn…she learned, My mommy knows—I know—what's appropriate, what's not. She's actually learning. “Oh, my friend didn't change what she said.” So there's so much learning going on.

27:27  Karen: Okay, that makes sense.

27:32  Leslie: We may not get this little girl to change her tune very quickly, but if you model that you're not the one getting upset and saying, “Don't talk to me that way. Get out of this house.,” I don't want to get angry, because then it's my problem. This problem is this little girl's problem. So I can say, “Try again.” I can give her the words that she needs, like I said in the first example. And the third way of doing it is I might say, “Hey, you might want some personal power. Why don't you guys get out of the pool and you tell me what you guys would like for a snack. I'm going to give you some personal power over what you want for a snack.” So that you're teaching her, she wants power, and here's an appropriate way to use power,

28:16  Karen: Perfect, so she can initiate something.

28:21  Leslie: I just made that up off the top my head—there's probably five other different ways. But what I love is to face the challenge rather than avoid the challenge. There's so much learning in doing that. I have a classic example where my kids were younger, five and seven, and a little boy used to play with them, and he would come over, and my kids noticed that he “stole” some gum from my refrigerator. So he went and took the gum, and according to my kids, he “stole” it. 

I know that parents often go to parents and say, “Hey, your kid's doing this. I just want to let you know that my kids felt like he stole something from us and did it.” And that's an approach, not the approach I took, though. I want my children to see that this is a 12-year-old who might be trying to get something of value for himself. Children take things because they need value. So I wanted to make him feel a little more important. 

So I actually said to him, “Hey, I think you might be trying to feel important. And so I'm going to ask you to come over, and because you took something from us, you get to give something back. I'm going to put you to work, and I'm going to let you use the vacuum in our pool.” Because we were in Florida, we had this pool. I said, “I'm going to let you use the pool vacuum and clean up the pool. “That way, there's something you took from us now, there's something you're giving back to us that works for me. Does it work for you?” And he actually smiled and said, “Yeah, I'll do that. I'll do that.” 

Instead of shaming him, I gave him an opportunity to look good. Now, it doesn't always work that way, but that is why they have found that detention doesn't work with juveniles who are misbehaving and doing problematic behavior. But what works is community service. So when someone does something…now that I'm saying this, this is another idea with her. I believe in community service, making someone feel good by giving back. So if this little girl really was acting problematically in your house, you could say, “I realize you're struggling because you're taking some of my time and energy to watch you or whatever. I'm going to let you guys pick a job. You can either water my plants with the hose, or you can sweep the walkway.” Again, give them an opportunity to give back. And so then it's much more from a respectful point of view, it's not them getting away with it—-I'm not suggesting that they get away with it—but I do not want to shame children in the process. I want my daughter to see me treating another human being with respect and acknowledging that this behavior doesn't work. And I use that language, “That doesn't work for me,” and I can still treat you with respect so that when you're in our house, you have a voice in our house, and we have some limits and rules that we will follow.

31:28  Karen: Very good. I like that. I've taken some notes on that. Yes, thank you.

31:32  Leslie: Great. 

31:35  Karen: So what other ways…when we raise our kids, to be able to cope and deal with these bumps on the roads. What are your go-to’s to make kids be their most resilient selves?

31:47  Leslie: Part of it includes giving them enough room to make mistakes. I believe you might have said something last session where you were like, “They don't do what I want them to do.” 

32:05  Karen: Correct. Yes.

32:06  Leslie: That is a given. That is an absolute given in parenting, that children will not do everything you want them to do. If you then judge yourself as, Well, I must not be a good parent, or I've got bad kids, or anything like that, it's problematic for you. So instead, in my mind, they're supposed to make mistakes, they're supposed to misbehave, and when they misbehave, now they have an opportunity to cope with the consequences. 

So one simple way is—I don't think you have the cold weather where you live— but in the winter up here, kids often go out without their gloves, without enough warm things on them. It's on them, but parents want to make a big deal, and don't want their kids to suffer. They don't want them to get cold or whatever, and they have those big fights. For some reason, middle schoolers up here, seventh and eighth grade, they think it's the coolest thing to wear shorts in the middle of winter. And I have said, which lowers the immune system more, wearing shorts out on a cold day or having a fight with your mom? Having a fight with your mom can be pretty stressful on the immune system.

33:19  Karen: And they probably don't even feel the cold, right? [Laughter] That doesn't bother them at all.

33:24  Leslie: And so the idea of fitting in and belonging in middle school might be way, way more important, but I do know that setting your child off after a major fight could be stressful on their immune system, and stress does weaken the immune system, so we want to keep that in mind. So that would be one way—letting them have natural consequences. I just really want to reinforce that when your son is upset, and I never asked you, how long does he stay upset when you turn off the technology?

33:55  Karen: It’s not that long. Sometimes he'll go put himself in the corner, or get real angry. But it's pretty quick. Within three minutes, he's over it, he's moved on.

34:07  Leslie: Okay. And I would recommend that you actually say to him once in a while—just sprinkle it on, don't do it all the time—”Hey, you struggled with getting off, and you did a great job dealing with that struggle, dealing with that disappointment.” I want to validate the struggle. So if a child comes home from school and says, “So-and-so didn't let me play Four Square and I was left out on the playground,” we jump very quickly to, what can we do to fix that? Did you ask someone else to play? Did you tell a teacher? Did you do this? And I would say, instead of fixing it, “Well, that's tough. What did you do to handle that disappointment? What did you do when that happened?” Or even simpler than that, “Tell me more. That's coping. 

Coping is the opposite of fixing. Coping is sitting with discomfort. So any time that our child is uncomfortable, if we can bear witness to their discomfort and just sit with it—and I'm opening my hands because it's an automatic thing. Open hands in dialectic behavior therapy is something we call Willing Hands. And so when I'm willing to sit with my child because they got left out of the playground, or they didn't get a turn, or they didn't get to go first or whatever, I just want to acknowledge that. I want to just acknowledge “Wow. So what did you do to handle it?” In this case, when you tell your son to get off, you say, “You know what? You yelled, you cried, you went to the corner, and then you joined the family. That's good coping.” 

As they get older, I might ask them, “What else did you do to cope with that situation?” So then I'd start using the words of, “Did you use a coping strategy? What was your coping strategy?” And just bring that word in, that that's what they're doing when they are dealing with a difficult, uncomfortable emotion or situation. “Hey, you coped with that.” “What did you do to cope with that situation?” “Well, I thought about my other friends,” or “I started singing a song in my head,” or “I turned on my lava lamp,” or whatever.

36:37  Karen: So give them some praise for when they do figure it out on their own.

36:40  Leslie: I'm going to call it reinforcement. Acknowledge what they're doing. Just to clarify, praise is, you would say, “I'm proud of you.” Praise is a judgment that says I'm proud of what you've done. It's conditional. It's letting them know how you feel. I want to reinforce their coping and how they feel. So sometimes their coping doesn't feel good to them. So I wouldn't want to say, “Wow,, you did such a great job. You did such a good job.” With coping it’s, “Did that work for you?” Because not all coping skills…now we're getting into some advanced DBT. Not all coping skills are designed to make us feel better, improve the situation. They are designed to keep it from getting worse.

37:39  Karen: …from escalating.

37:43  Leslie: Or making the problem worse. For example, if your son comes home and says, “I couldn't play Foursquare,” or whatever they were playing, or,”I didn't get a turn on the slide,” you might say, “What did you do to cope with that? How did you handle that?” And he'll say, “Well, I yelled at my friend and I hit him.” “Did that work for you?” “No, I got sent to the principal's office.” So, it's coping. He handled it, but it didn't work for him. 

So there are three things. It can make things worse. It can help you—coping is to help you tolerate it. If you make it worse, you're not coping, you're making it worse. But if you tolerate it, that's the coping part, and if you're improving it, you might be fixing it. Coping is that middle ground of being able to tolerate the discomfort. That's the real definition of it. I have a little Leslie-ism of learning to be comfortable in an uncomfortable situation. That's my definition of coping: learning to be comfortable in an uncomfortable situation.

39:06  Karen: So it's a parenting strategy, too. I can see that

39:10  Leslie: You got it. I use that line a lot, and it just gives you something to say without it saying we need to fix anything. It's just like, “You get to practice being comfortable in an uncomfortable situation.” The most I would add after that, either I would just leave it at that, or I might add, “Did it work for you? How'd that work?”

39:29  Karen: Because then it teaches them if they want to try that again or move on to something else,

39:33  Leslie: Exactly. And I'd say that to my friend or to my husband or to my kid, adult children. It still sounds great, which is what's interesting. Whether I'm talking to my five, eight-year-old or 10year-old, this is the way I speak respectfully to them, the same way I would speak to a friend. T

You asked a great question about those coping skills. I think I gave you a bunch. Technically, there are a whole lot of strategies in the Dialectic Behavior Therapy world, and maybe you'll try this a little bit for homework that we call distress tolerance skills. And the distress tolerance skills—and I am going to send you a list of a few of them—are things that we can ask our children. This is a way to individuate again. We spoke about that last week, where we're going to treat each child differently. I would love you to get either a whiteboard or some index cards and make strips and write down coping and then get each one a little container for them, so they can have a box of coping skills. They can have a cup holding their ideas for coping skills. I use tongue depressors, the kind that doctors use, the big fat tongue depressors to write some coping and distress tolerance skills. 

I might even have one container in each of their bedrooms, and then I might have one on the dining room table. So basically, it's a list of skills that you can go to when you need to tolerate some distress. And these are the same things we teach adults dealing with distress when you cannot fix the situation, but you want to help someone just cope with it and tolerate it. And one of the first ones I was taught, which is just a lovely one, is called 555. Some people call it 54321. I like the 555, which is: Name five things you hear. 

So you get real quiet and listen to five things you hear and you describe it in detail. I hear a bird coming from that tree over there, or I hear the clock ticking behind me, or I hear whatever. So five things you hear, five things you see. And be detailed. You don't want to say, I see a lamp, but I'd say, I see a lamp that's probably about three feet tall. It's got a rectangle-shaped lampshade. And you get them to use their brain when they're describing what they see. And then five things you feel. And it's not emotional feeling, but sensations. I feel my left foot on the carpet. I feel my hair on my neck or whatever. And you can go from 54321, and you just repeat it, five things, four things, three things that you hear, see, and feel, and it's a nice way of just tolerating the distress that you're in.

42:42  Karen: So instead of spiraling, it kind of gives you something to focus on. Is that the idea?

42:45  Leslie: It's a little bit of a break from the emotions. 

42:52  Karen: Would that be the same thing as going for a walk or listening to music? 

42:57  Leslie: That's right. Each child is an individual, because someone might hate walking, where another one might love to go for a walk, or someone might want to cuddle, and someone else might want to take a really cozy blanket and sit on the corner of the couch, or cuddle up with a blanket, or go pet the dog. There are self-soothing ones where we can use any of our senses. So there's a list of all the different senses. There's a whole bunch of different skills. I'll send you a long list. 

43:35  Karen: Yeah, I'll do them for myself. [Laughter] 

43:37  Leslie: Yes. I love that you said that—make a list for yourself as well. And, let's say, swim or jump in cold water. Well, I can't do that everywhere. I can't do that anywhere and everywhere. So I might have some of my more tried-and-true. I might have some of the ones that I can go to anywhere. One of the ones I teach high school kids is, I just teach them to squeeze each finger really, really tight, because it can be their hands are on their lap, and they can just go through each finger, giving it a really tight squeeze, holding it for a minute, then going on to the next one. And it's just a way—I'm really upset right now, but I'm just squeezing each finger. And so that's a sensation of just doing that. So you want to find one—breathing, counting your breaths—there are different ways that you can do them. 

Well, I think we should wrap up there. Give you a chance to practice all those things. Make a list, and let your kids do that with you.

44:36  Karen: Yes, I'm excited. Thank you. These are great. 

44:40  Leslie: Be patient. The ideas that you're getting, techniques to help you feel more competent, and the idea that it will be teaching your children even if we don't see the results right now.

44:53  Karen: Exactly. And that is a fear: Am I doing the right thing? Is this bad? It's getting me upset. It's obviously impacting them. So it's nice to have a different perspective and try new things. 

45:06  Leslie: Trying new things, and knowing they need a long time to learn these. So, we talked about helping you be more comfortable with your own sense of authority and not personalizing it. And now we also want you to have faith in yourself and in the skills you're teaching your children. 

45:25  Karen: That’s huge.

[Music: Working Time by Dream Protocol]

45:30  Leslie Cohen-Rubury: So, I sent Karen home with homework to try new strategies and even that new perspective, and she seems to be responding really well. I really appreciate that. She says she feels nourished by this new perspective and these new strategies. What we've noticed in this episode, and in general, is that parenting is an immersive experience. It requires us to pay attention on many, many levels. It requires us to know what's going on within ourselves and what's going on within our children. 

You've heard me talk about assessing—assessing what's going on in order to understand our child. We need to figure out what's going on within ourselves, whether it's on an emotional level, spiritual level, physical level. There's just a lot of different ways and a lot of different things that we need to be holding. One of the things that I want to speak about is the counterintuitiveness of parenting. I spoke about it briefly in this episode, and it's that feeling that it doesn't make sense. But in the end, when it's effective, it really does make sense. 

So what doesn't make sense is your impulse. For example, if your child is yelling at you, saying mean things to you, your impulse is to get out of there, is to stop that behavior by not being present. And what's counterintuitive is to go towards them. And in going towards them, we may actually be communicating, “Hey, I hear you're upset, and I'm here to hear that anger, to hear your frustration, to hear that disappointment.” 

We have many examples of this counterintuitive nature of parenting, even in the example of wanting to avoid those friends of your children who you may think are not good influences. Or when you're trying to fix your child. Your impulse is to fix it, go fast, try to get rid of the kids, avoid those other kids. But the opposite may be true, that actually reaching towards that child who is speaking disrespectfully to you, and giving your child space when they need to change their behavior—these are the counterintuitive ways that parenting might actually work for you. 

And finally, I just want to say one more counterintuitive thing, which is that respectful parenting doesn't mean you can't set limits. I've heard many parents say, when I talk about respectful parenting, that I'm letting their kids get away with things. That is not what I'm saying. I'm saying we can be respectful by validating our children's emotions, their feelings, their behaviors, their impulses, their thoughts. And at the same time, we can set limits. So we don't need to be mean. We don't need to be that authoritarian dictator parent who is mean and parenting by fear in order to help set limits. 

So this week, keep in mind that the road to happiness is knowing how to handle life’s struggles. There it is again, that counterintuitive nature, that if we want to help our children find happiness in life they really need to know how to handle life struggles. Because no one gets to avoid those struggles. And when you feel competent in handling your struggles, you can often feel a sense of happiness and gratefulness in your life. 

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

And join us next week for my final session with Karen, where we unpack her irritability about her upcoming vacation and family visits—a perfect storm of people-pleasing judgments and shame. 

You can subscribe to Is My Child A Monster? wherever you get your podcasts. And please rate and review to help spread the word. You can also find a full transcript of this episode or sign up for my newsletter at ismychildamonster.com. The Is My Child A Monster? team is Alletta Cooper, Camila Salazar, and me. Special thanks to Eric Rubury. Our theme music is by L-Ray Music. I'm Leslie Cohen Rubury. Thanks for joining me. 

Transcribed by Eric Rubury