The Courage to Be Disliked (and Why Your Child Needs It) #77

In this episode Jon explores the tension many modern parents feel between connection and control and why “validation is not the same thing as leadership.” He reframes one of the hardest identity shifts in parenting: having “the courage to be disliked” in the moments that matter most. Listeners will walk away with a clearer, calmer way to lead their kids through big emotions, without losing connection or authority. 

Transcript

The Gentle Parenting Trap

Jon @WholeParent 0:00

This is the strange moment that so many modern parents find themselves in. We're trying to parent differently than we were raised. Many of us grew up with this sort of because I said so parenting. Lots of control, not much emotional understanding, if any. And now we're trying to do something healthier, something more connected, something more emotionally aware. But somewhere along the way, a lot of us picked up the idea that validating feelings means that we have to wait for our child to agree before we can act. So we sit there, talking and validating and explaining and explaining and explaining. And what was supposed to be this whole gentle parenting thing suddenly feels like we've just ceded all of the power over to a tiny dictator. Today on the podcast, we're gonna talk about where we actually need to draw that line. Let's get into it. I am not out on a porch anymore. When I was recording the episodes that recently came out, uh all of that was up on my porch. And I have since been spending a lot of the time that I haven't been making podcasts completely redesigning my basement into a recording studio. And that's a really fancy term. I if I could like give you a tour around, you'd see that it still basically just looks like a basement. But uh right behind me, it looks like I'm in a really cool, swanky room. And I put up acoustic paneling so that the podcast is gonna sound better. And I tried to put up all this stuff to just kind of make it a little better, a little bit more, I don't know, just like podcasty. And part of that is that I'm gonna start trying to release, starting to try to release video podcasts, uh, not on YouTube because that feels like just too overwhelming. But I'm gonna try and release them on Substack, which is a place that I direct people to direct you to as you're a listener of the podcast to support me. For five bucks a month, you can get articles. I've not been great about releasing those, but I have a new plan. I've hired somebody at Whole Parent who can kind of just keep me organized and keep me putting out the content for you guys. And so uh you get articles, hopefully, ideally once a week, and then also uh video podcasts for every episode and ad-free. So if you're sick of hearing the same ads over and over, you can subscribe over on Substack. And yeah, for five bucks a month, you can get an ad-free podcast. The other place that I'm thinking about putting these up, and I don't know if this is gonna happen right now or sometime in the near future, is inside the membership, which is where our first question comes from today. It comes from a dad, his name is Matt, which is funny because my kid's name is Matt. But anyway, let me go into it. I'm gonna read it to you here. It says, Hey John, my uh I'm a dad of a four-year-old, and I'm trying to do this whole validating feelings thing, but sometimes it feels like it just drags things out. This morning, he didn't want to put his shoes on for preschool and kept saying thing, I kept saying things like, I know you're frustrated and I know it's hard to stop playing, but he just kept melting down and we're getting later and later. So, how do you know when to validate versus when to just make a thing happen? Uh so to be honest, I am really glad that this question was asked because, like, so often I think so many parents are sitting in this exact moment that you just described, Matt, where they're trying to say the right gentle parenting words or like they're trying to use the right script while everything is just unraveling around them. And it's funny that you used this exact example because this is the example. If you haven't read my book, which I know you have, Matt, but in general, if you, the listeners of the podcast, have not read my book yet. Uh, my book, Punishment Free Parenting, came out over a year ago. So it's it's crossed its year uh birthday, and it was forwarded, or the person who wrote the forward for the book was Tina Payne Ryson, who is the co-author of The Whole Brain Child and No Drama Discipline and The Yes Brain, and so many other great parenting books, The Way of Play, which actually is a book that she came out with with somebody who's different than the co-author for the other ones. Um and in the forward of her book, she actually describes this kind of perfect exact scenario where it's like, how do I get my kid out the door? Like, when do you just put your kid's shoes on or just stick him in the car seat without their shoes on because like it's time to go? Like, do you have to debate? Do you have to excuse me, still getting over a sickness? Do you have to debate? Do you have to argue over every single thing? And when I hear the phrase validate your child's feelings, I feel like many parents interpret that as like, I have to wait until my child feels okay before I act. But what Tina said and what I have tried to teach, but it's really hard to navigate, it's like a really hard thing, needle to thread, is that like that's not actually what validation means. Validation is letting your child know, like, hey, your inner experience, did I just say your inner ear? Your inner experience, your inner experience makes sense. Like it's true. It's true to you. You don't have to like it. But it's not just like immediate permission that whatever behavior they're engaging in is acceptable or is is okay in that moment. And it's certainly not a requirement that they, the situation like changes to meet their desires or their expectations. So if you have a kid who's melting down over putting their shoes on, like you don't have to cave to them in order to validate them. What you say, when you say something like you're frustrated that playtime is over, right? That's validation. That's acknowledging your child's emotional world. And that's incredibly important because kids often feel calmer when their feelings aren't understood. But here's the cure, the key piece that I feel like often gets lost, and what Tina said in the foreword, which is that validation is not the same thing as leadership. Young kids, especially around the age of four, which is what I'm I know your child is, and what's that kind of that preschool age, three, four, they're still developing, and specifically their brain is developing systems that help them with impulse control and flexibility. And the part of the brain that's responsible for those skills is the prefrontal cortex. And that is very, very underdeveloped still. It's very immature. And so while their emotional centers of their brain, right, their amygdala and their limbic system, the part that's like sending them into the spiral of emotions, is actually pretty developed and extremely active. Their prefrontal cortex, the ability to shut those emotions down or put them in context is a better way to say it, is underdeveloped, which means that when your child is upset about their shoes, their brain is no longer in a state where they can like calmly problem solve around that situation. They need something else. They need what we call co-regulation. And co-regulation is two things happening simultaneously, right? Emotional connection, but then also boundary setting and structure. So in that moment, you might say something like, I know you're upset that it's time to stop playing. I can see that you're frustrated, I can see that you're disappointed, like, name the feeling, exactly what we talk about. But then you can add, and you should add, it's time for your shoes. I'm gonna help you like put your shoes on, or I'm gonna put your this one on this foot. You can even give them an option, like, do you want me to put on your left foot or your right foot first? But like you are going to insert the boundary there. And the second part that action is not about being harsh and controlling. It's actually your nervous system, right, which is able to do the executive functioning tasks that their nervous system and their brain is not able to do, again, because they're underdeveloped, is like synchronizing with them and helping their nervous system to organize, right? So this sounds very woo-woo, but what we actually see in the fMRI machine when we put parents and kids into a scanner is, and not at the same time, not the same scanner, but different scanners. And they, they uh when we scan them together, we see that their brains, when they're talking, actually, and when they're corregulating with each other, their brains actually start to light up in the same way. So like you can actually use your brain to calm your child's brain. And you are the one who knows what the next step is to putting on their shoes. You are the one who knows that you have to get out of the house right now. Like that's not your child's responsibility. And we have, I think, in the gentle parenting, modern parenting movement, forgotten that it is still our job to help our kid get out of the house. Like it's still our job to hold that boundary. It's still our job to get them moving. And we don't have to be a tyrant or a dictator to do that, right? Your leadership can be calm. And calm leadership actually does something powerful neurologically. Your prefrontal cortex is essentially temporarily functioning as your child's prefrontal cortex in those moments, and you're showing them that the big feelings can exist and that also life can keep moving forward. And this is where I think a lot of modern parenting and just like modern parents in general get super stuck, is that many of us grew up in homes where adults had plenty of the authority, no emotional attunement. And so when we hear, we heard things constantly, like stop crying, or just like because I said so, or you know, just do what I say, and like there's no if, ands, or buts about it. When I say jump, you say how high we'll go, like any of that stuff. And so now we are trying to do something better, but and we're emotionally aware, right? Like we're compassionate, we're responsive. And the instinct is beautiful, like it comes from a really good place. But in trying to move away from the authoritarian parenting, the parents actually slide into the opposite extreme, which is where they feel like they can't step in to help at all. Where we feel like we have to wait for a child to agree with every single thing before we do it, which is just really not great for kids in so many ways. Um, I'm gonna get into that more, but like just understand that like that, we think that that's what our kids need. It's actually the opposite in some cases of what our kids need, because uh kids don't need parents who remove their own leadership. They need parents who can combine warmth with structure. And this is why psychologists came up with the concept of authoritative parenting and decades of research have now shown us that this is the strongest emotional, behavioral, just like success outcomes for kids. It's not strictness and emotionless parenting. It's also not permissive parenting without any boundaries, right? It's warm and it's clear. And if you're sitting on the floor negotiating about shoes for 20 minutes, everyone's stress level is rising. Sometimes the most regulating thing that you're gonna do is actually to gently move the process along. You say something like, you're upset, I hear that, it's time to go, and I'll help you, right? And yes, your child is probably still in those moments going to cry. That doesn't mean that you did the wrong thing. Crying while being safely guided is very different than crying because everything feels chaotic and your parents just yelled at you to shut up and get in the car. One is dysregulation, the other is learning how to move through disappointment. And actually, one of those is one of the most important skills that we can teach.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

And I think you know which one it is.

Why Kids Need Clear Leaders

Jon @WholeParent 12:16

That's a massively important skill if you don't want your child to become entitled, which is, yes, a real thing. Like you can definitely make your kids entitled if you don't hold any structure and any boundaries. Like life is full of moments where they're gonna feel upset and have to keep going. The goal is not to eliminate those things, the goal is to show kids that they can have these feelings and then they can still move forward, which is exactly what we're doing in these moments when we just like help them to put their shoes on and get them buckled in their cart seats. It's not rejecting conscious parenting or you know, failing at gentle parenting. It's modeling something way more powerful, which is my job is to both help you understand your feelings and to lead. And I think that this is where like I want to go a little bit deeper into this because kids do not feel safe when they don't feel like adults are in control. And this has been something that I've been like deconstructing and reconstructing in myself. And this was a huge part of writing the book, which is why I was so grateful that Tina essentially pointed out this exact scenario in the foreword. This idea that the best, most loving and compassionate thing that we can do is to have no boundaries for our kids, is is is so the opposite of true. Because what we know and what we've experienced, like what we have so much research to support, is that kids lack because of what we were talking about with the with the brain being underdeveloped, like the other thing that the prefrontal cortex does, other than like all of those executive functioning tasks that we were saying and emotional regulation pieces, is that it's also the part of their brain that's interpreting things and predicting the future effectively. And when kids feel like their parents are just kind of at their whim, like the kid can just kind of do whatever they want and then it will crash out the parent because like the parent doesn't know how to handle, like like, oh, if I like cry enough, then like I won't have to put my shoes on, then I won't go to school. Or if I like, if I just say like, no, no, no, enough, then like my like the the boundary will change. Then kids actually get into a place where they don't they don't actually think that there are any boundaries, because if there were boundaries, those boundaries would be held. I hope that this is like making any sense at all. In my head, it makes sense, but I don't know if it's making sense in the way that I'm saying it. Like when if your child doesn't see you holding those boundaries, they don't actually take seriously that you're leading. And imagine that you were in like a life or death situation, you had somebody like you were lost in the woods and you had like a ranger with you, or you were like the all I can think of is I just read this book, The Endurance, about Ernest Shackleton taking like 28 men through the uh Antarctic, and he like survives, they all survive. It's a crazy story. But uh in that scenario, like the whole point, like the everybody just wants somebody to lead. And when the person who's leading has that like assertive tone, and again, it's not emotionless, like it's I think that's the myth, the myth that we have to deconstruct and that we have to kind of tear ourselves away from is like strong leaders don't care about emotions, or they don't care about the emotions of the people who they're leading. Like that the opposite is true. Like the strongest and the best leaders deeply care about the emotions of the people who are their leading. But strong leaders also we know, like when you have a person leading and they're they're like, yes, we're gonna go here, and then we're gonna turn left, and then we're gonna go here, and then we're gonna turn right. And when there's that like clarity that they're bringing to the situation, you can't help but feel more calm. Now, just imagine that kids like they don't have to be lost in the woods. Um, they don't have to be lost in the in the Antarctic in 1915 or whatever. Uh they feel like the world is life or death and unpredictable, just like in your neighborhood, just going to school. They that's how they feel, that's how they go through the world. And so, like, I think that there's a real place here to say we have to be willing to be leaders, and we have to be willing to to kind of hold lines and say, like, okay, now it's time to put on our shoes. Like, it's okay to be frustrated, and it's okay to be overwhelmed, and it's okay, like, like there's all this stuff can be true, and also now it's time to put on our shoes. Like, now it's time to get in the car, it's time to go to school. No, but it's like, I want to keep doing this, everybody's I hear you, you want to keep doing this. It's so frustrating when you want to keep doing something, but we can't. And you know what? I feel that way too sometimes. Now it's time to go to school. Or now it's time to go to school preschool, now it's time to put on our shoes, now it's time to get in the car. Like that clarity actually actually makes kids feel safer and calmer.

SPEAKER_00 19:20

And here's the crazy thing about boundaries, and I I want to have another entire episode.

Courage To Be Unliked

Ratings Reviews Sharing And Support

Jon @WholeParent 19:25

And if you feel like I'm coming to an end, it's because I am. I'm trying this new thing where I'm I feel like if I just cover one question in more depth, uh it's gonna be more digestible. So um, if you hate this new structure and you want me to go back to covering three questions, please uh email me at podcast at wholeparentacademy.com or uh send a text message through the service at the bottom in the show notes and tell me, John, don't do this. We want three questions, not one. But I feel like it's easier to answer these questions like in their totality. And occasionally I might like combine two questions or something, but anyway, you don't need to know how the sausage is made. Um all of this to say, I think we need to have an entire another episode about boundaries because there's this principle that is so clear, which is when we have good boundaries and when we can keep our kids generally safe from the big things, then our kids can have so much more freedom and autonomy within them because they know that we're kind of looking out for them, right? They can be free to be free when they know that they're not having to look out for their own good. But the opposite is also true. So when our kids feel like they're in control and they're in charge and they're kind of running the show, they don't feel safe. And the reason they don't feel safe makes a lot of sense. It's because they think, well, if I push hard enough, my mom or dad will let me do something dangerous, or my mom or dad will like, they're not really in charge. And so I'm in charge and I'm looking around and going, I'm not very not, I'm not very experienced to be in charge here. Right? It's kind of like, you know, if we were, if you're lost in the woods and you're like, the guide is like, okay, we're gonna go, you know, walk over this hill. And you're like, are you sure that's the right way to go? And they're like, I don't know. What do you think? Now you feel the opposite, right? Now you feel like, oh my gosh, this is way worse. Like I thought I was like in a bad place. This is way worse than I initially thought. This is way scarier. Now you're looking to me. Why are you asking me? I was just asking a question, right? Like that is how we have to see this. Like, your kid looks to you for their truth of the world. And so lead not because you're an authoritarian, but because you're authoritative, because you can have authority while also being warm and emotionally attuned and validating. And validation, I guess the whole point of this is that there is a there is like a there's a false dichotomy, there's a false um what it what is it called? Like duality in the way that you're asking the question. Like you're saying it's this or this, and I'm totally forgetting what what this is called in the moment. It's how you know the podcast is live, right? Um there's there's there's a false choice being offered, uh and that is like either you validate or you hold boundaries. No, it's not either, right? It's both. It's you hold boundaries and you hold the line and you get your kids' shoes on and you get them in the car, and you do so while validating. And here's the hardest part for us as parents is we have to have the courage to be unliked in those moments. We have to have the courage to be like, I know that you don't like this, but that's okay. I'm your dad or your mom, and this is what we're gonna do anyway. We have to have the courage to do the right thing, even when the person who we're doing it for doesn't like it. And we have to have the courage to be willing to upset our child and hold the space to validate. Like you can be as mad at one of the things I say to my kids when I'm at my best, and I don't say it when I'm at my worst, and I can always, I can always check on myself and know when I need to like go take a break and take a breather because I'm not parenting well, is when I have the the power and courage and authority to say you can be as mad as me, at mat as mad at me as you want to about this, we still gotta do it. And if I'm calm and I say that, like I'm like, hey, I'm never gonna love you any less, but you can be mad at me, that's cool, whatever. Like, that's when I know I'm at my best. I have the courage to be disliked. So, anyway, coming back to this after that great episode of the Thais. Um, I hope this tickles your ears this week, and uh keep asking me good questions, and that's what I got for you tonight. Take care. 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. 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 Oberon 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.