The Whole Parent Podcast
The Whole Parent Podcast
When kids get MAD that you hold boundaries.... #54
Episode Summary
In this episode, Jon explores what it means to hold boundaries when your child is angry with you—and why that discomfort doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong. Grounded in the truth that “kids aren’t supposed to like your boundaries all the time,” he reframes children’s anger as a normal, even necessary part of development. Parents will leave with reassurance, nervous-system insight, and a clearer sense of how to stay emotionally available without overexplaining, rescuing, or giving up their limits.
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If you've ever set a perfectly reasonable boundary and immediately regretted it the moment after your child melts down, glares at you, or tells you that they are super mad at you, this episode is for you. Because here's the truth that most parents are not told. Kids aren't supposed to like your boundaries all the time. And when they don't, it can stir up guilt, panic, make you second guess, or have that strong urge to explain, rescue, or take it back just to make that discomfort stop. In this episode, we're talking about the art of letting kids be mad at you without shutting down, overcorrecting, or losing connection in the process. As always, we'll break down what's actually happening in your child's brain, when they're disappointed, why your nervous system reacts so strongly to their anger, and how to hold loving limits while staying emotionally available. You'll walk away with knowing exactly how to handle these moments when your child's frustration feels personal and overwhelming. If that sounds good to you, let's get into it. I have all of the heaters on today. Actually, not all of the heaters, I have all the silent heaters on today. I just can't stand to run the one that has a fan that uh sounds. I can hear it through the microphone when I'm editing and posting these, and it just drives me nuts. So I don't have that heater running, but I have all the heaters running, all the other ones running, because it is 10 degrees out on the porch today. But I am out here to record this podcast for you anyway. So if it's a short one, please do not be mad at me. I probably was freezing my butt off. But I have a decaf coffee, and so I want to jump right into it. And I'm gonna start with a story today. And the story came from today. My in-laws were watching my kids today, and they were getting overwhelmed with these cars that we got them for last Christmas. And so, for those who don't know, last Christmas we did one gift per kid, and they all got the same gift. There were these yellow and black rideable remote cars, or not remote, uh electric cars, and they go like a total of three miles an hour. Okay, so don't this is not like your your electric scooter or your e-bike or something. I don't did not give one of those to my three-year-old. Uh, at the time he was only two, technically, when he opened it, he didn't turn three for another week and a half after that. But uh yeah, we got them these cars, and that was the only thing they opened on Christmas, and it was great. So if you're worried about not having enough Christmas presents for your kids, my kids got one Christmas present last year each. It was the same thing, like I said, and they loved it. In fact, they loved it so much that we had to put them away because they were just like they use them so much and they get so overwhelming because they you can hear them and they're just like as they're driving around the first floor. And we have we try and keep our house kind of empty of stuff so that our kids can really play well. And so they they have little courses that they drive around around the dining room table and around the coffee table in the living room and into the kitchen, and it's wonderful, it's beautiful to watch them do this. And we pulled them back up because you know it's been a while since we've used them and charged them up, and they were driving all around the house before my in-laws got here. And then my in-laws came and they kept driving all around the house because my kids didn't have school today. So usually my in-laws come and they watch my younger two who are uh almost four and just over one. They don't watch the older kids because they go to school, kindergarten and I don't know, whatever grade my older one's in. I I I know how old he is, but he's in a school where grades three through five are all combined, and he falls like somewhere in that range where in some subjects he's like in fifth grade, in some subjects he's in third grade. I think technically his age, because he was born in September, is third grade. He should be in third grade. But anyway, all of this to say that um they're home today because it's freezing cold. Like I said, it's 10 degrees out in the porch. It was like two degrees at the start of school today, and they go to an outdoor school, and so when it's super, super bitter cold, they just don't have school. And so they're driving around these cars, and my in-laws are just kind of getting more and more like haggard by this. And I can hear them start to kind of go into some parenting that is like totally understandable, and I and I'm I don't judge it at all, but it's just not ideal, kind of like the threats, and like if you don't stop doing this, then I'm gonna tell your dad, and like then this is gonna happen, this is gonna happen. And so I just intervened, I walked into the situation. I heard them from upstairs, and it was about time for nap anyway for my little one. So I came downstairs and I just put the cars away. And it was because the cars needed to go anyway away anyway. It was like time for them to take a break, and it was time for my kids, again, my younger one to my youngest to go down for a nap. We don't do the cars during nap because it's too loud. Also, it was time for them to like all go get lunch and then go out. They were gonna go out somewhere because it had warmed up a little bit and go to the library. And my nine-year-old was so upset with me about this. He was like, Why are you putting them away? Nobody broke any real rules, nobody got hurt. Like, this feels like a punishment. It feels like you know, you're taking something away that we were having fun with, and there's like no reason to do that. But the reason to do it was that it was time to be done with the cars for now. And there was actually like basically four really good reasons. Reason number one, we were getting close to that point where like things were escalated and somebody was going to get hurt. Thing number two, obviously, the timing, they had to go somewhere. It's harder to leave the house with the littler ones when the cars are out and they want to stay. Thing number three, it was making somebody uncomfortable, it was making the grown-ups uncomfortable, even though they weren't the ones who were on the cars. And then thing number four, it was nap time. And so the cars go away at nap time every day. And and I know I, you know, it just feels like the most reasonable thing in the world to just be like, no, like literally we do this every day. But he was so upset with me. He was so, so upset with me. And I just thought about this and I was like, man, you know, in those moments of parenting, it's so hard to not just be like, you know what, it's fine. Like, okay, you can do it for five more minutes. Or to, or to, you know, be like, you know, you're so ungrateful. Why aren't you just more grateful to the fact that you even have these? Or you're lucky that I charged these up for you and brought them upstairs for you. Or, you know, uh there's just so many different reactions. It's just viscerally emotional to have a kid who you love so much be so angry with you and so frustrated at you. And so I was like, I gotta do this episode because in that moment I held the boundary and we didn't go and get the cars back out. Like and it was okay. The cars came out later in the evening when it was time for that again, and it was great. But it didn't feel great, and it wasn't his fault for being upset. Like, in fact, and this is kind of what I'm talking about today, although my wife says I need to stop forecasting so much and telling you ahead of time what I'm gonna say before I say it. Um, just say it and then stop telling us about it. Just go ahead and say it, which by the way, is exactly what my editor in For Punishment for Free Parenting did. My first draft was just me constantly saying, but I'm gonna get to this in a later chapter. But you know, in another chapter, I'm gonna get to this. Uh so yeah, I'll try to do that less. It's just kind of how I talk. It's somewhat to remind me to say this later. That's part of it. But one of the things I'm gonna say later, immediately violating my own advice that I just said, is that in a perfect ideal parenting scenario, sometimes there's going to be conflict because your kid doing what they're supposed to do developmentally looks like pushing boundaries, and you doing what you're supposed to do from a parenting perspective, good, ethical, good, smart parenting. In fact, one of the four pillars of good parenting that I talk about in my book, Punished for Free Parenting, is holding boundaries. And that conflict means that there is going to be some rub and there's going to be some like not great feelings all the time. And it's not even because you did something wrong. There's this isn't even something that necessarily is needed where you're like, you have to apologize and repair. Like sometimes you're just gonna make them mad because that's just what it is, that's just life. And so let's get into the first question, which comes from Emma. It was a DM, and it says, Hey, so this might sound dumb, but I swear my six-year-old gets mad at me personally when I say no. Personally, it was in all caps. Like if I say no to dessert or screen time, he doesn't just cry, he glares at me, like full on I hate you energy. And I know that he's just a kid, but it feels awful. I end up explaining myself way too much or being like, I'm not a bad mom, right? Which I hear myself saying, and then I'm like, why am I doing this? Is this normal or is this like attachment damage happening in real time? Because sometimes it feels like he's storing this up, and one day he's just going to hate me. Emma, thank you for the vulnerability that it takes to ask this question. It is totally normal for us to feel like bad parents, even when we're not bad parents, because our kids are upset with us, in part because we lack emotional dysregulation tolerance or emotional distress tolerance. Many of us were brought up, and I was just talking about this on a workshop. Many of us were brought up to suppress all of our negative experiences and feelings because our parents didn't want to hear about it. Some of us were brought up with narcissistic parents who literally, if you express like I'm mad at you about this, they would say, Well, I'm just a horrible dad then. I'm just the worst dad ever, and I and everybody hates me, and I should just go die, and everyone would be better off without me. Right? And so, like this, and some some of our parents just ignored, you know, I'm really upset at you, and just like stonewall, blank stare, knock upside. Some of our parents got defensive. I'm really mad at you. How dare you speak to me that way after everything that I've done to you, done for you? That's a Freudian slip if there ever was one. All of these things are ways in which our parents cultivated no emotion or or failed to cultivate, I should say, emotional distress tolerance in us, their children. And so oftentimes we growing up when we did feel the sense of like I was never allowed to be upset with my mom. I was never allowed to be upset with my dad. And so if my kids are upset with me, it must be because I did something really wrong and really bad. Because man, if I was ever upset like this, like it would have had to be so bad for me to get to this point. That is not necessarily true. In fact, and again, this is like what I was saying before, I should have just waited till this moment in the episode to say it. Really, in parenting, our job is to hold boundaries and it makes our kids' lives better when we hold boundaries. Ultimately, in the long term, but even in the short term, it makes their life better when we hold boundaries. And also developmentally, at the exact same time, their job is to push boundaries. And so imagine that if you do everything perfectly and they do everything perfectly, and I'm not saying that any of us can do anything perfectly, but just say that we were for the sake of argument, where everybody's doing everything perfectly, you still should be in conflict sometimes. You still should be mad at each other sometimes, right? Like I heard this quote from Taylor Swift or Travis Kelsey, I think, about their relationship recently. And I don't often get into pop culture and stuff, but it's just like I was like, this is not healthy. They were talking, he was on his podcast and they were talking about like arguments or something, and they were like, Oh, like, you know, in the last two and a half years, how many times like what do you guys do when you get into arguments? They're asking Travis, her uh fiance, this. And he's like, We've never gotten into a fight in two and a half years. Now, I'm gonna tell you right now, if you've never gotten to a fight with your partner in two and a half years, there's there's evil e either a level of such emotional maturity, like far transcendent beyond what is normal in a human. Like you have got to be have so much work that you've done, which I do not expect to be the case of a professional football player who lives in a high emotions environment and a professional music recorder and performer who live lives in a high emotions environment. Like, I would not expect either of these people to be able to constantly and at all times regulate their emotions to such an extent where they never come into conflict. It's either that or there's deep dysfunction and suppression of emotions, which is what I'm would be more afraid of, right? And so when I hear even that couples are like we never ever fight, I'm like, mmm, like then let's we need to learn how to fight well and fight fair and fight in a way that we're not like going for the jugular and we're not using language that's deeply hurtful and long long-term hurtful. But and I know I'm I'm not whole partner, I'm whole parent, but I'm giving you marriage advice right now. Uh that's that's healthy. That looks like healthy marriage is knowing how to fight well because eventually there's gonna be things that come up where you're gonna be in conflict and it's a values conflict, or it's a it's a childhood wound conflict. And like that's gonna happen. Like it's normal to get into stuff with your partner, and your relationship is gonna be stronger when you learn to apologize and reconcile and come back together at the end and say, you know, I'm sorry after a period of whatever, you know, cooling off. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. This is this is where this was coming from. There's no excuse. This is how I'm gonna change going forward. Like that is a healthy relationship. It's reconciliation. It's not like just never ever fighting and being because there's a level of like indifference to that, right? If somebody cannot make you mad, it's because they're they do not matter enough to you to make you mad. Like my wife can drive me up the wall in ways that you all probably could not because like I care so deeply what she thinks about me, because I love her so deeply, and I'm so vulnerable to her that sometimes that vulnerability is gonna cause me to get hurt in our relationship. And the vulnerability that she has is gonna cause her to get hurt. This is the same thing with kids, except unlike with your partner, where I suppose there could be long periods where you never get into difficulty because you're both adults. With kids, some of the difficulty is kind of inbuilt. Like they are supposed to push your boundaries, they are supposed to push back, they are supposed to say, I don't understand why. They're supposed to be mad, they are supposed to practice their different types of relational management on you. Like they're supposed to say, I hate you, so that you can tell them, hey, earlier when you said that you hated me, that that was a pretty big word to use. Like, do you know what that means? Do you know how how other people would receive that? Like, there's nothing you can do that would never make me love you less, but that is something that for other people, that's gonna be a big, big thing to say. I want you to know. Like, you want your kids to practice on you, you want your kids to work out the kinks with you. And so it's there's going to be times, and this is going back to Emma's question about like feeling like a terrible mom. There are going to be times when like everybody's doing everything that they're supposed to do, and you're in conflict with your kids. And so the job in that moment, the thing to do is to name what they're feeling, but not violate or or or um flex on the boundary. Now, there are times, and this is not really an episode about boundaries, it's more an episode about like kids being upset with you and how to cope with that. If this was an episode purely about boundaries, I would go into deep depth about the fact that boundaries are super necessary for kids because if they don't have boundaries, and this is like neuroscience 101 of evolutionary biology, if they didn't have boundaries, they wouldn't know what was safe and what wasn't safe. They're relying on you to tell them or to show them through your boundaries what is safe and what's not safe. And they're they're they can be more free because they know you have their back. So, so kids grow better and they grow more freely and they feel like they have more autonomy actually within boundaries than if they had no boundaries whatsoever. In the same way, in that episode, I would probably also go on to talk about how boundaries need to then change as kids grow and develop. And so it may be a reasonable boundary to say that your three-year-old can't play in the front yard without you because you know they could wander into the street because they're not paying attention, or you know, neighbors could come by and be like, what are you doing out here? Now, I personally uh ascribe to the philosophy that, you know, people are not trying to kidnap your kid constantly. That's a that's a myth. And when we tell our kids that, like, hey, every stranger out there is trying to kidnap you, it makes them like more nervous. And so I tend to have fewer boundaries about like playing in the front yard. But I think it would be unreasonable to have the same boundary of you can't play in the front yard without me when your kid is nine. I think if everybody can agree that's listening to this, it's functionally different from a three for a three-year-old or a two-year-old to be playing in the front yard alone than to for a nine-year-old to be playing in the front yard alone. Like those are different things. And what we need to remember is that that represents a boundaries change for us. That if we had a boundary that was right for a three-year-old, it doesn't necessarily mean this the boundary is going to be right for a nine-year-old. And so we have to be willing to change our boundaries. But in this moment, it is not the time to change your boundaries when you've just held the boundary and when you've just expressed the boundary. Now, later you can have a conversation with them when everybody's calm and you can say, hey, like to your six-year-old, why did you feel like that was an unreasonable boundary for me to hold? And maybe they present you with a compelling case and you go, okay, well, let's change the boundary, but not in the moment of dysregulation. That's not the time to quote, give in. That's not the time to whatever. And it's certainly not the time to double down on, like, am I a bad mom? Like, should I have not done this? Because you're kind of placing your emotional stakes on them. So, what your job is in that moment is to just name what they are feeling and just say something to the extent of like, I hear that you're really mad at me right now. I hear, I get it. I'm saying no, and I'm here for it, but I get that you're mad at me and it's okay for you to be mad at me. And then shut up. Don't overexplain. It's really hard. I'm saying it like it's easy. It's actually really, really hard, but there's no explanation necessary. What happens when we get into this framework of just overexplaining ourselves? Like, the only reason I'm doing this is because of this and this and this, and oh, like please don't think I'm a bad mom. I promise I'm doing this for your good, is we wind up putting our emotional like stakes on our kids. And I don't know why I keep saying stakes, but like our emotional baggage on them, as if they are responsible for our emotions. Your kid is not responsible for your emotions. You are, and if you really have zero ability to accept when somebody is mad at you and understand that it may not be about you at all, in this case, it's certainly not. You're holding a good and a right boundary for your kid to keep them safe and they're mad at you about it, like that is not about you, that is about development. Like, that's not, and they're not, he is not gonna hold that against you later. If anything, the thing that kids hold against their parents later, if you want to know, is one, you made me responsible for all of your emotions, and I had to walk around on eggshells because I was afraid of hurting your feelings. Kids will hold that against their parents later on, and that is not uncommon, unfortunately. Or two, you had no boundaries, you gave in to everything, and you didn't keep me safe. And I just wound up not having boundaries, and like that was not good for me. So, really, what you're doing is not the thing that's going to cause your child to have struggles later on in life and be really frustrated with you. In fact, your defensiveness about it is way more likely to like have that be the thing. So just remember this anger does not break connections. And this is why it was frustrating to hear that, you know, Travis Kelsey kind of forward this. I'm sure it's not true, right? I'm sure there isn't, there's absolutely no way that this is true, that they have never fought. But it's it's just even destructive to forward it as a myth of like, oh, they're the perfect couple, they're the you know, gym teacher and the English teacher, and they um, you know, are getting married and we all love them. And and I think that they're they're fine people, right? I'm not complaining about them, but it's a it's a to to say we never fight is to say that fighting represents a the break in relationship. It it doesn't. Anger does not break relationships. Bitterness, stonewalling, resentment, those things break relationships. But frustration, everybody doing what they, you know, your kid pushing boundaries and you holding boundaries, like does not break relationship. And so just remember that that's what that's what this is. This is nervous system. This is you're teaching his nervous system how to cope with disappointment. And that is okay. And in the process, you're gonna have to teach your nervous system how to cope with people who are mad at you, even when it's your kid. Okay, let me go on to the next one. The next question comes from Jake. He says, I feel like every parenting account says hold boundaries, but what if my kid just loses it? My daughter is four, and if I hold a boundary, she escalates until everyone around her is miserable, and then my wife's looking at me like, seriously, you're gonna die on this hill. So I cave or I snap, or I snap and then I cave. Is there a point in which holding the boundary is actually worse than just giving in? Because honestly, sometimes it feels like I'm choosing chaos on purpose. Jake, this is a great question. And um, I I want to say that there are times when it's better to choose peace than chaos. Especially in when I think about Ross Green's work, his he wrote a book called The Explosive Child. He talks about choosing battles. And I think if you have a kid who just absolutely struggles to regulate their emotions around every single boundary, I think you pick one boundary, one behavior that is particularly um manageable. So I'm not even saying like the worst behavior, right? Don't start with the hardest thing to correct. You pick one behavior that's particularly manageable. Like, great example here, leaving the toilet seat up, right? Uh, I live in a house with three boys. God, I can't leave the toilet seat up. We got two girls who live here too. My one-year-old's not using the toilet yet, but one day she will. And my wife is obviously around. So we need to like, you know, keep the toilet seat down. I have not really had to fight this, but my mom had to fight this battle with me. She really focused on just that one behavior for a period of time and just reminded me every time, hey, you gotta stop whatever you're doing because you have to toilet seat up. You gotta come over here and put it down. Until I had built that habit of just doing it because I was thinking about somebody else. I think that was a great example of something that is very fixable. And there are kids for whom you have to start with something small like that, and then show them that they can hold that you they can cope with disappointment and you can hold boundaries. This is kind of a bad example because that's like a habit, it's not, it's like a behavior, it's not really a boundary. But like if you know we're only having ice cream after dinner or something, right? I would not try and hold every boundary like that. I would hold the one boundary that way and then show how, hey, we were able to wait until after dinner and now we're having ice cream, right? Like you practice the emotional distress tolerance that happens. Again, we talked about this with Emma. We talked about now it's about training your kid for emotional stress tolerance so that they don't become like many of us, which are people adults who have very low emotional distress tolerance. And so you have to build that emotional distress tolerance in your kid. And it means sometimes not to hold every battle. I will say that there is a difference between holding a boundary and getting in a power struggle. And getting in a power struggle looks like when we hold the boundary and then we they push the boundary, and we don't just like say it once and then move into regulation. We wind up in this like back and forth, like, no, you will do this. And and that oftentimes escalates kids way worse than the initial boundary being held. And so oftentimes when people say, like, do I have to hold every boundary? Like, do I like which how do I choose my battles? I think you should never get in a power struggle with your kid because it's just universally futile. Like, there's just no reason to do it to yourself or them. Like it's just it's painful for everybody, and there's no reason. Um, but a power struggle takes two people participating. So you can just say the boundary and then immediately move into like an emotional regulation game, or just you know, coming to terms with them and getting on their level and talking to them and saying, like, I get it, it's hard. I'm here with you. Do everything that I just told Emma, I can see that you're really frustrated with me about this. I'm still saying no, but you have every right to be frustrated in me. Let's go find this other thing. Like, we can have a script around this, but really it comes to there are times when we when we have to like pick and choose our battles. But most often when people ask this question, what they really mean is why is the way that I'm holding the boundary causing them to just spiral? And my guess is the way that you're holding the boundary is that, and and this is a real Jake. I don't, I don't mean to call you out. Maybe I'm just being a little bit like this is how dads are, but this is a common problem that I work through with dads where where it becomes about respect and authority. And I and holding boundaries is not about respect and authority. I'm gonna say that one more time. Holding boundaries is not about respect and authority. And I admit I got a little distracted when I'm saying this. Because there is a person outside right now, when I say that it's two degrees around my house, who is singing extremely loudly and drunkenly. And I live in this like very quiet suburban neighborhood, and this doesn't usually happen. Okay, I'm gonna try and ignore that and continue with our podcast episode, but somebody needs to hold a boundary that that person who sounds like they might not be wearing any clothes needs to be uh boundaried in their house and they can sing there instead of out on the street in the middle of the night. I guess it's not the middle of the night, just dark, like it's the middle of the night. Anyway, here's your step by step. You hold the boundary, and then you move to regulation. Script is this Hey buddy. Hey Missy. Hey girl. The answer is no. You do not have to like it. I'm still here. Should we play the color game? Should we draw on your back? Should we insert emotional regulation game? You can get the top five at the link in the show notes, right? My top five emotional regulation games are in the link in the show notes. Like, no, but don't fight about it. The answer is no. Let your no be no. If you waver and you keep explaining yourself, like it's just not kind. Let me let me say this and then I'll and then I'll move on. We'll take a little break so that I can do my little ad roll and then we will we'll go to the next one. But it's just not kind to keep pushing no, no, no. And the reason why I say that is because when we keep saying no and we keep pushing back against our kids, we actually are sending the opposite message that our no is sending. We are essentially still in the argument, which means they still think that there's a chance that they might win out. And that's not fair to them. If they're not gonna win out, it's not fair for us to hold that like that, right? And so if you cave because you're in the midst of trying to hold this boundary, but really it's a power struggle, and then your wife is like, Are you serious? We're in the middle of the grocery store. This is this is where you want to fight with our daughter right now. She's four. Grow up, right? My wife has said that to me too. Not about my daughter, because she's only one, but definitely about my other kids. Um, if you cave in the grocery store, then you send the message that sometimes I cave, which is not kind, because then they're gonna fight. It's like there was this experiment where they put these rats into this water and they let them swim with a with like no way of getting out. And uh like they would give up within like, I don't know, 10 minutes or something like that and just drowned. And the researchers would pull them out, but they would just like give in and they would just like let themselves die because they just like gave up hope. If they had a rat that they put in the water and it set it swim around for five minutes and they pulled it out of the water and dried it off, and they put it back in, the rat would not give up for an hour because it last time it got saved, it got bailed out. And so it didn't give up because now it thinks that if it just keeps going for a little bit longer, eventually the researcher will come pull it out and save it. That's a terrifying and horrifying experiment. I'm sorry if that was traumatic, I probably should have said trigger warning or something. But that's kind of what happens to our kids when we give in, especially the longer we we wait before we give in and we cave. And again, this is not adjusting boundaries after a conversation after the regulation, right? 20 minutes later, an hour later, our kid comes back to us and goes, Hey, we were really frustrated. And by the way, with all of these, that is what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to come back later and go, hey, we're so you're really upset. How do you feel about that? But now, right? Then changing the boundary after more information or after your child is calmly explains to you why they think it should be different, is not caving, but caving because they screamed loud enough is actually teaches them to do that behavior, which is not kind because they don't want to do that and it's not good for you. And I'm not just saying like it's bad for you because you don't want them to scream, I'm saying it's bad because like it's just like it's bad for them. Like, why do you want to teach them that that's the way that they get what they want? Right? Not good. Okay, let me take a quick break and to do our little ad thing. Boo-doo, boo-doo, and then I'll be back. Our final question was an email sent in by Laura. She says, I my problem is I can't stand when my kids are mad at me. I grew up in a house where people stayed really hostile toward one another. I don't want to be like that. So when my seven-year-old stops and slams the door after I say no, I feel instantly panicky and I go into fix it mode or I overreact, like, hey, do you want some ice cream? Which I know is dumb, but it feels necessary. How do I stop taking her moods so personally? I love that we're ending here. This is sort of where we started, but it's to an more extreme extent, right? It's not just like your kid isn't is supposed to be mad at you. This is understanding that your body is responding to old relational threats. And so I begin this by saying you grew up in a house where people are really hostile towards each other and you don't want to be like that. That is the narrative that is driving your entire parenting journey. And I I think it's time that we put that narrative to bed, Laura. I think it's time. If I was working one-on-one with you, we would unpack, we would sit down, we would write a narrative of your home, of what it looked like to parent growing up. I encourage you to do that if you want to. We would look at those unconscious stories that we tell ourselves about what it is to be a parent, what it is to be a child. I don't want to be a nuisance, or I don't want this, or whatever. And then we would release those things because none of us comes to parenting as a blank slate, but it definitely is our job to do our best to not give pass on our junk to our kids. My friend Eli is writing a book, How to Deal with Your Stuff So Your Kids Don't Have To. I haven't not allowed to talk about what's in it. I'll put it that way. I know it's in it, but I'm not allowed to talk about what's in it. But the reason why, even before I knew it was in it, I was so excited for her to write it was because I wanted to start my book. When I wrote the original Punishment Free Parenting manuscript, the whole thing started with unpacking your past. And that was the whole first part. And eventually the first part became the five pillars of parenting, and that was like, or the four pillars of parenting and then punishment, the chapter on punishment. But it started with unpacking your past because I actually think, Laura, that you that none of us can do our best parenting until we go back into our past and realize what stories we're telling ourselves about those people. And if you are unwilling to do that, if you're like, oh, my parents did a fine job. I'm just really wanting to do something for my kid. I just want to start over with my kid. You can't start over until you address the things that came before. So, what I would say is my guess is if you grew up in a house where everybody was hostile toward one another, you felt like a peacemaker. You felt like your job in that house was to be the quiet one or perhaps be the facilitator of relationships, to be the one who didn't cause trouble so that you know you wouldn't contribute to that hostility. And so you respond to your kids by doing that. But now you're in a different role. And as we've said throughout the whole episode, your kid is supposed to be mad at you when you hold a boundary that they're trying to push. And that doesn't make you wrong and it doesn't make them wrong. And so the problem is if you see all hostility as problematic because you were the peacekeeper, then of course all hostility is going to cause you to want to just fix and fix and fix. And it doesn't always cause people to fix and fix and fix. It might cause other people to shut down, it might cause other people to fight back, right? Like this is it's like fight, flight, or freeze or fix when we come into hostility, right? And so what it sounds like you're the peacemaker and and you're just trying to, you're going into default patterns that actually are not adaptive for your daughter. And so understand this you don't have to relive. Like you have to do the work so that you will not relive because you are not responsible for doing that for everyone always. You're not responsible for other people's emotions. Her feelings belong to her, and that's okay. And you don't have to fix them. Like you can, she can be mad, and that can be okay. And I'm not saying that it won't affect you at all because like some of this stuff is just like neurobiological in the way that we like pick up on people's feelings and we catch their feelings and stuff. But and and and you want the connection, right? But again, like I said at the beginning, like we're not you the broken attachment is not, does not come from people being frustrated at each other. It comes from stonewalling and and resentment and things like that. And in this case, it comes from trying to be a fixer all the time, right? So you you've you've grown up and trained, like you've not trained. Your circumstances in your context trained your nervous system to not tolerate any disapproval, to not tolerate any frustration, to not tolerate anybody being angry with you, to anybody being angry around you, even. And so, because of that, you are like, look, I can't let my house become what my house was growing up. And so I need to make sure it's not that way. And and here's the the magic, Laura. Your house wouldn't have been that way if people learned how to apologize. Your house wouldn't have been that way if people learned how to emotionally regulate and not blow up all the time. Your house wouldn't have been that way if people had done their own self-work. And and I don't know all the context, right? I don't know if substance abuse was a piece of this. I don't know if there were mental health concerns that were a piece of this. I don't know what the domestic situation was like. I don't know if there was depression in the home. I don't know. Like, like there's so many things I don't know. I don't know if there was job-related stress, if there was financial related stress, if there was things that you didn't even know, right? If your parents were abused themselves, right? Like I don't know all of the context of you of their home. What I know though is that in you the response for you has been, I need to fix and I need to compensate for all dysregulation around other people. And what I can tell you is your house would have been fundamentally different if your parents had modeled reconciliation, if they had modeled coming back together, if they had modeled deep connection. And I'm not saying that your parents didn't love each other. I don't, I, I, I really don't want to judge people. What I'm saying is from your perspective as a child, resentment was was palpable. And the way that we cure resentment is not by burying our frustrations. That actually creates more resentment. Or burying our problems or suppressing our emotions, it just creates more resentment. The way that we deal with our resentment is through apologizing and reconciliation. We get this from the work of John Gottman and others. And so that's what you're gonna do with your child. You're gonna learn and train your own nervous system to tolerate her disappointment. And then you're gonna, in the in the process, train her nervous system to not be the next generation of people pleaser, I have to fix everything, I have to solve everybody's problems because that's just my role in this. You don't want that role for your daughter. You've already said that because you said, I don't want my home to be like that. The only reason your home that you felt that that was your role was because your home was like that. So you can't have your daughter fulfill that role. That role shouldn't exist. A child shouldn't be compensating for the dysregulation of the adults in the home. They're not developmentally able to do so. And so this is kind of a fiery way to end a podcast. Maybe I'm just getting worked up so that I d adaptively don't freeze my buckets off out here. But um I hope that that gives you some insight. That is what I have. I am freezing. That is what I have for all of you listening to this episode of the whole parent podcast. The only very, very last thing that I will say is that my advice to all of the people listening here and the advice of all of the parents who have kids who are mad at them, which by the way is all parents, all parents have kids who are mad at them occasionally, is to not let it fester. Show up 25 minutes later and say, hey, that was a rough thing that we just went through. I'm here for it. I'm not mad at you. Uh let me know what I can do, like, so that we can hold boundaries more effectively in the future. Again, you're not caving, you're just offering that. But a little conversation, 2045, even the next day, minutes later, um goes a long way. Alright. See you tomorrow, neighbor. Thank you for your time listening to the whole parent podcast today. I hope you got something out of it. I have a couple quick favors to ask of you as we end the episode. The first one is to jump over on whatever podcast platform that you are listening to right now and rate this show five stars. You'll notice there are a lot of five-star ratings on this show, whether that's on Spotify or Apple Music or Apple Podcasts. We have a ton of five-star ratings and it helps our podcast get out to more people than almost any other parenting podcast out there. And so it's a really quick thing that you can do if you have 15 or 20 seconds. And if you have an additional 30 seconds, I'd love to read a review from you. I read all the reviews that come through. If some if you particularly like one part of the podcast or you like when I talk about something or whatever, imagine that you're writing that review directly to me. The second thing that you can do is go and send this episode to somebody in your life who you think could use it. Think about all the parents in your life. Think about your friends, your family members who could use a little bit of help parenting. It's vulnerable to share an episode of a parenting podcast with them. I get it. But imagine how much better your life is as a result of listening to this podcast, of following me on social media, of getting the emails that I send out. You can share that with someone else too. And so I encourage you, just go over, shoot them a quick text, share this episode with them, or share another episode that you feel like is particularly relevant to them. The last thing you can do is go down to the link show notes at the bottom. And like I said in the mid-roll, you can subscribe on Substack. It's$5 a month or$50 a year. Uh I don't have that many people doing it, and yet the people who are doing it have made this possible. And so if you like this episode, if you like all of the episodes, if you want them to continue, the only way that I can keep making them is through donor support, free will donations to the podcast. Please, please, please, please, as you're thinking about the end of this year, as you're thinking about your charitable giving, I know I'm not a 501c3. You can't write it off on your taxes, but if you'd like to give me a little gift to just say thank you for what you've done this year, the best way to do that is over on Substack. Again,$5 a month,$50 a year. It's not going to break the bank. It's probably less than you spend on coffee every week. Definitely less than you spend on coffee every week. Maybe uh less than you spend on almost anything, right? Five bucks a month is very, very small, but it goes a long way when it's multiplied by all of the different people who listen to the podcast and sending that over to me. I get all of that money. It's just my way of being able to produce the podcast, spend money on equipment, spend money on subscription fees, hosting fees for the podcast, all of that stuff. Email server fees, all that. So if you're willing to do that, I would love it. Thank you so much for listening to this episode, and I'll see you next time.
