The calmer you are and the more consistent you are with your actions when you're disciplining, the easier it is to train them out of the negative and also train them into the positive.
SPEAKER_01She loves biting, especially her little sister. She also seems to have hatred towards babies. She always asks to go touch them and then she pushes them so they fall and seems to love it.
SPEAKER_00Why on earth would you let her near a baby? There's no way I would let her near a baby. She cannot be trusted.
SPEAKER_01He hits and pushes other kids, especially ones smaller than him. If I take him away, he thinks it's fun. Timeouts also make him laugh and smile.
SPEAKER_00You gotta be on top of this. It takes a good week or two or three to really train them out of this, but it's worth it.
SPEAKER_01You do often talk about the fact that you treat discipline in general almost like a business transaction. Do you want to go into that?
SPEAKER_00Welcome to the Bratbusters Parenting Podcast. My name's Lisa Bunnage. I'm a parenting coach. I'm a mom. I'm also a grandmother.
SPEAKER_01And I'm Amy Bunnage, Lisa's daughter, and I handle the marketing and planning here at Bratbusters. While I don't have kids, each episode we'll dive into parenting topics and Lisa will answer your questions. Let's get started.
SPEAKER_00Okay, sweetie pie, what is today's topic? Today's topic is why isn't your toddler listening? Why isn't your toddler listening? Oh, sorry. Okay.
SPEAKER_01No, and I I I know you chuckle, but I can only imagine how frustrating it is if you're a toddler parent and you say something once, maybe they choose to not listen to you or they do something completely opposite. I can I can imagine that would be a little frustrating.
SPEAKER_00Okay, think about it. Just let's go down to basics. Everything is new to them. They don't know how to listen yet. They're learning, they're learning everything. They don't know about listening and consequences and all that stuff. They're gonna they're gonna do what they want to do. They're working on impulses right now, okay? You have to train them out of that. Sometimes it's good to have impulses, other times no. They're brand new, they just don't know how to listen yet. That's all. Now, by the age of about two to two and a half, they're starting to learn. Okay, if you're a leader, they're starting to learn, but they're still more driven by impulses, especially at two. When they get to two and a half to three, they can start to learn to control themselves. It takes a while though, but they're starting to learn how to listen, okay? But you mix it with a whole
bunch of fun.
SPEAKER_01And you talk just about how important that fun is with calm leadership.
SPEAKER_00Well, really, the leadership, what I talk about, is more about the connection than the correction. Everyone wants to know about the correction, but really you can't really correct very well unless you're connected. So, and connection means you play in their world because fun is their love language. Play is their love language. That's what makes them feel close to you. They can still love you if you're not connected, they do, but right? But they don't feel as connected. They don't feel that same warmth, they don't feel as good about themselves when they're with you unless you're connected.
SPEAKER_01And you talk about the fact, and I don't know if leverage is the right word, but you talk about almost that it is your leverage, is that you are that connected.
SPEAKER_00That was my leverage whenever I was working with kids. They liked me. I was fun. I made them feel good about themselves. That was my leverage. That was all I had. When I was just mentoring kids in classrooms or wherever I was with kids or teenagers, that's all I had. They liked me. I made them feel good about themselves and we had fun together. That was my leverage. I took that away very fast and for a very short period of time. I'd just say, tell you what, you did that. So I'm just gonna go quiet for 30 seconds. You cannot do that at home. This is only because I was working very intent intensely with them for a whole hour or whatever that I could do that because talking to them was the whole hour. But you're not gonna be doing that at home. But that was my leverage, I was fun. I took fun Lisa away for 30 seconds. They hated it.
SPEAKER_01Now, while of course that connection is so
important, if you do have a toddler who is acting out, you need to correct behavior. How do you go about correcting behavior from a toddler?
SPEAKER_00Okay, with toddlers, it's repetition and actions. It's not about words. They're not listening to you. Their language is actions, their language is old in their world, so they understand it, which is actions. I know parents want to do all these mini-therapy sessions, lecturing, discussing all their big feelings, big emotions, how they're making your feelings. It hurts mommy's feelings when you hit, they don't give a hoot. They're not there yet, okay? They're all about consistent, corrective actions. So let's say they hit someone with a toy, you say no, and you take that toy away and put it up where they can see it, but can't touch it for a period of time. Okay, you remove them from the fun or fun from them. And when you when I say you remove them from the fun, it's not timeout. You take them with you. A timeout is done alone. It's a it's a solo act. I think it's horrible. I can't stand it. But when you remove them from the fun, you take them with you. That's the pool story, if you want to check that out. Um, you can just le uh literally just Google Bratbuster's pool story and it'll explain how I disciplined a kid who did something wrong in the pool that we had.
SPEAKER_01But that's not specifically how you address it with a toddler, is it?
SPEAKER_00Uh no, well, it is still what I meant was removing them from the fun. That was the action I did with that kid. Um, so it was actually the same kind of thing I would do with a toddler, but that was just that particular situation. He wasn't my child, by the way. So it was someone else's kid. It was how I had to deal with that situation. But that's what I mean by removing them from the fun, okay?
SPEAKER_01When you say that, I think that a lot of parents go, well, there are some situations where there is no fun to remove.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's where you remove yourself. You just say no and then you just walk away. They don't usually like it when you leave them. So you just leave the room and just go and do the dishes or something in another room. They'll follow you, but you've already, you've already shown them what you meant. You left, you left and you stopped playing with them, or you can just say, or you can take something fun away. Um, but yeah, you remove yourself. So you remove the connection that you have. And they like they like being around you usually. So you just say no. And then if they're not doing anything fun or anything, you just say no, and then you just wander off and do the dishes in another room or something.
SPEAKER_01And how long are you removing said fun?
SPEAKER_00Uh, five minutes, five hours. You know, you you pick it, depends on the age and what it is. If they've hit with a toy and those kids are still around all day. So let's say they hit with a shovel. I would put that shovel away for the rest of the out of the visit. Okay. So it just depends on the situation. It's different with with all age, it's different with different ages. It could be five minutes with a one and a half year old, okay? But with a two and a half year old, it could be all day.
Now, you do often talk about the fact that you treat discipline in general almost like a business transaction. Do you want to go into that?
SPEAKER_00Okay, there's no emotions with discipline. Discipline is in the negative department. I do not like to sit in that department at all in my life anyway. I just don't like it. I like everything to be fun and positive. That's the way I am. So are kids. They like everything to be fun and positive. So, and I'm very driven that way also. So if you talk about the bad behavior and sit in it and discuss it, and it's just it's just a disaster. You're not a leader. It's almost like you want to berate them, bully them, and blame them and shame them. And it's all the negative. It's too negative. Just say, oh, that was bad. You did that. So here's your consequence. And that's it. I'm done. And it's that fast. Very, very, very quick. And then I'm back to as soon as they calm down. If they're screaming at me, I just ignore them. But as soon as they calm down, then I connect. I say, Oh, do you want to go read a book or something? No, I hate you. I hate you. Say, okay, never mind. When they've calmed down again. So you ready for that book now? See how I have no emotions wrapped around that discipline. None. It's a business transaction. It's not a, I'm not going to judge them for it. Uh, okay, inside I might be a little pain in the butt shoving me nuts today, but don't show it. Okay. So yeah, you just say, okay, that was bad. Here's your consequence, and then move on.
SPEAKER_01I think oftentimes, especially with your social media clips, because they are shorter, if you say business is like a transaction, uh, business, sorry, discipline is like a business transaction. I think that some people think that that feels harsh, but you're really only speaking about discipline.
SPEAKER_00Because when you're disciplining, there's a lot of um anger involved in that too. And so usually when it's when it there, what I'm trying to say is there's no emotions in disciplining. Because if there are, they're going to be negative. Because disciplining usually is seen as a negative. I don't see it that way personally, but usually it's seen as a negative.
SPEAKER_01Can I just kind of go into that? Is like I think from what I'm picking up from your perspective, is that usually when people are disciplining, when you talk about no emotions, it's not like they're like, this is such a great time and everything's wonderful. Like it's not the happy emotions that usually people bring into it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So, and that's that's generally when you're disciplining, you're usually mad. Okay. If you're gonna have an emotion, it's usually a negative one. That's why I say treat it like a business transaction, so remove all emotions. That's why I say that. Whereas when I, I'll be honest, when I'm disciplining kids, not so much toddlers, but when they get older, um, even when I'm disciplining, my tone is very upbeat. I'd say, oh, that was interesting what you just did there. You know, what do you think is a good consequence? See how my tone is? I could not be more calm and more in control. It calms them down. Plus, there's no judgment, they've got nothing to fight back against, right? How can they fight that? I mean, yeah, I mean, they just don't tend to. Once you calm down and you don't use that judgment, that blaming and that shaming, discussing all the bad behavior, it tends to calm them down. There's no shame in doing something bad, okay? This is another thing, too, is you make mistakes too. That's why you're on the behavior board when they're older, because the topic today is why is your toddler not listening? So, but when they're older, three and above, they go on a behavior board and parents have to be on there too.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Do you want to get into the parenting questions? Sounds good. The first one is Yasmin from Australia. How do you get your two-year-old to stop repeating themselves and talking nonstop? Mine just turned to and loves to
talk. I always respond to her and enjoy how much her language is growing. However, it's constant and she doesn't even pause for a second. It's constant all day and very draining. She also often also repeats herself three, two to three times, even when I've already answered her. So for example, mommy, come on, I respond with, I'm just washing up, I'll be there in a second. She'll say, Mummy, come, mommy, come, and it's the same thing for everything. Mummy drink, mommy drink, or watch me, mommy, watch me, mommy. How do I get her to say it just once and not go over the same phrase several times?
SPEAKER_00Well, you don't get her to not say it more than once. You stop replying the other times. So mommy come, mommy, come. You go, okay. And then she keeps saying it, just ignore her. Don't say another word. And then just go over when you're ready to, okay? So you're not gonna, you're not gonna tell her what to do. You're just gonna not react the other times. So yeah, she's just doing it because you keep answering her, I'm assuming. And they do tend to repeat themselves a lot. Toddlers are so proud of the fact that they can talk, they just almost are like, wow, look at me. I'm gonna keep saying it over and over and over again. Aren't I clever? So there's a lot of that too.
SPEAKER_01Do you want to bring up the look, mom, I can talk underwater.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, um, she was three. Obviously, we're mother-daughter. She was three years old, and we had a swimming pool in the backyard. And she we were going underwater together, holding our breath and you know, practicing holding your breath and going underwater because she had all that safety stuff. She was in swimming lessons. So we were practicing. So we were holding hands and we were going underwater, looking at each other. So she goes underwater and she says, under the water, look, Lily, I can talk underwater. And I said, Yes, I know. She didn't get the joke, but she did talk a lot. She talked a lot. Actually, your brother taught, you both talked a lot. Um, I always say you didn't as much because your brother was talking over you a lot because he was five years older, but you did talk a lot. It's cute though, because they're just learning, they're so excited that they can talk. But it sounds more like her talk is more annoying. Mom, come over here, mom come here, mom come here. That kind of demanding stuff. That's why I say ignore that. And also, if you really want, if you're getting sick of the repetition and it's not like nothing you can do about it really, other than I might just start singing. So, mommy, come. And then she gets says it again and again. I might go, row, row, row, your boat. I control the narrative, I control the energy. Okay, so don't let her continually control it. So you can do it that way too.
SPEAKER_01The next question is Monica from the United States. I have a 14-month-old and I want to understand when and how to implement discipline, aka
saying no. I want to do it the right way and be kind towards her, but not become a permissive parent.
SPEAKER_00Okay, I think all discipline is kindness because you're teaching them how to have self-respect and self-discipline. And I think that's the kindest thing you can do. And their self-esteem increases too when they when they um, you know, kids who are acting out, they have very low self-esteem. Okay. So you're, I think this is all kindness. I know I just want to get that off my chest. She's 14 months old, she's still a baby. I just use diversion. If she does something naughty, you just say no, and then you divert her to something else. When she turns about 16, it's kind of a gray area. 16 to 18 months, that's when they hit the toddler years. Now you're starting to use consistent corrective actions. So diversion is not that. Uh, diversion is almost a reward, but don't divert her with anything too exciting, okay? Just say, oh, let's go over here and read a book. So you're not diverting her with candy or chalk. You get the idea. So, but yeah, when she hits about 16 to 18 months, then you use consistent corrective actions. But until then, she's still a baby. She's just, she doesn't really know right from young yet from wrong yet. She's just learning. So you're just diverting her attention. Yeah, it's all you can do at this age.
SPEAKER_01Okay, the next one is Michelle from South Africa. My toddler's 24 months. He hits and pushes other kids, especially ones smaller than him.
If I take him away, he thinks it's fun. Timeouts also make him laugh and smile. What consequences do I give him, especially in public? Also, he will hit and kick the dogs when I say no and pick him up and move him away. Once again, he thinks it's funny. Please help me with consequences.
SPEAKER_00Okay, the animals are a real sore spot with me, because if I couldn't control my kid and my animals are getting abused, I would literally re-home them. I'm an animal lover. My kids knew you do not pick up the dog and you also don't run past the birdcage because it would startle the bird. So if I couldn't have controlled my kids, I would have re-homed my pets. And I mean that. Okay. So anyway, that's that. But what you do is you just remove him from the fun. So I see this all the time when I'm out with my granddaughter, she's two, and there's you'll always see some kid who likes to hit. And there's a right way of dealing with it, and there's a wrong way. The wrong way is when you go up to them and you say, say you're sorry, and then you leave him in the fun. They just keep hitting and hitting and hitting, and the mom ends up crying and taking the child away. You see that all the time. The right way to do it is to say no and remove him. Hold him with you for a good five minutes near where he can see the other kids continuing to play. Okay, now when he goes, when you put him back and you say, okay, the five minutes is up. And then even if he's kicking and screaming, if I said I'm gonna take you away for five minutes, make it five minutes. Then you put him back, and I'm assuming he's probably he'll probably stop kicking and screaming when he knows he can go back on the fun. You stay with him like glue. You're right there. If you think he's gonna hit some kid, you intervene before he does, and you say nope. Like in other words, he you knew he was gonna hit, so you got to intervene. You gotta be on top of this. It takes a good week or two or three to really train them out of this, but it's worth it. So then you say no and you pull him away again for five more minutes. He'll eventually learn, wait a minute, if I'm hitting and kicking and being mean, I'm gonna be pulled away from the fun every single time.
SPEAKER_01Okay, the next question is Maddie from the United States. My daughter just turned two and a half and her little siblings three months old. She recently has
begun trying to hurt her little sister, pinching, grabbing, twisting her ear. She's very deliberately watching to see how I'll react. I walk away and try to ignore her, but she follows me and keeps reaching up to grab the baby's feet and seems to think it's funny. What can I do? I know she's not three yet, but I feel she could possibly be ready for the behavior board because she's very smart and verbal.
SPEAKER_00Uh, there's a couple different ways you can deal with that. One of them would be if she okay, I don't know if she resents the baby or not, or she's just doing it because she's getting a reaction from you. I don't know which one. But what I would do is try and make her the hero in that relationship. So you sit down with her whenever you're feeding the baby, have her sit down. Now protect that baby. Do not let her touch the baby's feet. Do not let her touch the baby's feet, just in case she does pinch or whatever, okay? I wouldn't trust her for one second around a baby. She is prone to hit being aggressive, so you want to protect the baby. Anyway, so whenever you're sitting down feeding the baby, you say, okay, let's get your feeding basket out. So let's say you have a different one for every day. It's just full of a bunch of stuff that she doesn't usually see. She only sees during feeding time. You could just have a Monday basket, a Tuesday basket, a different one for each day, okay? That way she can't argue over it too. If you give them too many choices, do you want basket number one, two, three, or four? Then she could argue, oh, I want the other one. But if it's Tuesday's basket and it's Tuesday, then that's the only one she's gonna get. Anyway, so you pull it down. It's just full of little arts and crafts or stuff that she can do with you, and you're doing it with her. You're actually connecting with her while you're feeding the baby. The reason for that is that when she's near the baby, the baby's around, she doesn't see it as a negative. The baby isn't pulling you away from her, okay? So that's a really good way of helping them connect with the baby. Also talk about how the baby loves her. She's such a good big sister. Don't mention the pinching and all that, okay? That's how much she loves you and all that sort of stuff. Now, but do not let her get a pinch in. You said as soon as I walk away, she's grabbing at the feet. She can't grab at the feet if you're put if you're always having a barricade up. Like you make sure that your hand goes down there really quickly to protect the baby's feet, okay? And when I say your hand goes down there, you are not hitting the two-year-old. What you're doing is you're grabbing the baby's feet so she can't get to them.
SPEAKER_01You do talk about just how important it is to keep the little one safe.
SPEAKER_00It's repetition too. Like parents say, How do I stop them from doing that? You don't let them do it. Okay. You can stop them from hitting other kids by pulling them away. You can stop her from pinching the baby's feet by not giving her access to the baby's feet. So a lot of it, it's almost like you're creating it because they, you know they're gonna do it, but then they you keep letting them do it. I don't. I prevent it.
SPEAKER_01And I can imagine it's tough too, because if you have friends where maybe like their toddlers and babies are not acting like this, it can be challenging because you just want to be able to let them like be right around each other. Yeah, but you can't, okay?
SPEAKER_00Um, I knew someone years ago when one of my kids was little and uh just they were only about 18 months old or something. I can't remember. One, they were really little, like one or one and a half. Anyway, this other little kid um was really aggressive and would take, they'd be in the sandbox together, would take the shovel and hit my kid on the head. And then the mother would go over, she'd kind of pretend she didn't see it, but if she knew I'd seen it, and then she'd sort of, oh, okay, well, say you're sorry. And her little one, he must have been one and a half, would go three, and she wouldn't remove him. He'd keep hitting and hitting the like sorry meant nothing to him. And the mom didn't know what to do. She just kept, she looked like I could see she's she was trying to pretend like she'd taken care of it. She'd done nothing. You know, it didn't mean anything to him. Anyway, I had to stop seeing her because my kid was getting black and blue. But anyway, she wasn't doing anything. You've got to prevent that. I know she was embarrassed, she didn't know what to do, and I don't give advice to people because that's none of my business, right? How they I mean, you're soliciting my advice by being here, but at in my personal life, I don't hand out advice unless I'm asked. But anyway, she wasn't taking care of it at all. Well, anyway, that kid grew up. I found out years later, grew up, was kicked out of every high school that he went to. He was the sk the basically the city bully. He was just so aggressive. She never trained him out of it, okay? It was just almost a re-it got to be a game with him. Thori. And I'm sure at 17, 18, he was still saying thori. I'm sure he's having a lot of barroom brawls too, unless he ended up in jail. I don't know. But she just was so embarrassed that she never took care of business. I'd be far more embarrassed if my kid was hitting, hitting other kids than I would be taking care of business, okay? Sorry, my kid's a hitter. I'm gonna pull him over here, kicking and screaming, kind of laugh it off like that. Take care of business. They're your kid. You don't want them hurting other people's kids. Now, they're born to be aggressive sometimes. Like they're either born to be aggressive or they're never gonna do it. There's four things they're born to do. One is tantrums, one is hitting, one is running, and one is aggression. It's not your fault that they start being aggressive, but it is your responsibility to train them out of it. And you can do this, okay? They don't need to continue that way. They're just more physical than other kids, and that's just the way it is. It doesn't come from a source of evil. It can turn into that, but it doesn't start there. Okay, they're just more, more physical. That's all.
SPEAKER_01Okay, the next one, Sarah from the United States. My daughter is about 17 months old and super active. We did our best to baby proof
the house. However, she climbs under the coffee table and kitchen chairs. How do I go about teaching her to not do these things?
SPEAKER_00Well, you put bells on everything and put bell on her if you can't find her all the time. And then whenever she goes for it, just say no, and then you pull her over to somewhere else. You take her away from that chair and you pull her over and show her something else to do. You can't just say stop doing that. You want to also show her what she can start doing. It's not quite the same as diversion, because it is sort of and it isn't, but you've got to pull her away from something dangerous, and then you say, okay, so here you say no, and then you say, okay, over here, now here's a book. And you might want to hold them there if they keep trying to get back to that coffee table. Also, a lot of people get rid of coffee tables because toddl climb on them. You could literally just get rid of it for now. Take the legs off, put it away. So you could literally try that too. Um, but yeah, with chairs, sometimes I'll put bells on chairs so that you know when they're doing it behind your back, and then go over there fast. And you say, Nope, nope, here's where you can go. And you put her over to her own little chair in a book corner, kicking and screaming, and you stay with her so she can't get back to those chairs again. She will eventually learn. But you a lot of parents are so focused on teaching them what to not do that they forget to teach them what to do. Okay, you want to teach them a whole bunch of different, like bring out different toys, do a toy rotation. They don't care about what the toy is, even. They like something new and different. They they like discover that they're in the discovery phase. They want to discover stuff. So do a toy rotation system. So once a week or once every two weeks, whatever, you bring out another box, you know, box up all the toys they've got out, put it away, and pull out the next box, full of all the stuff they saw a few weeks ago. But to them, they're that much older. They change so much when they're toddlers. So if they haven't seen those toys in a month or two or three months, they're gonna look at them differently. And it's new again, right?
SPEAKER_01Okay, the next one is Aaron from Canada. My two and a half year old is in trouble at daycare for hugging too aggressively, resulting
in the other child falling over. He's the first baby of the family, and it's only his second day at daycare. We've never seen him do this before.
SPEAKER_00Okay, it's only a second day. He'll learn after usually a couple of weeks. So just say, and okay, now he's hugging other kids. Um, it's kind of up to them, but that's a hard one because he's two and a half. You can't really have these big discussions around that, but you can show him. Now, is he allowed to hug other kids, though? That's the I'm not quite clear on that. Are they taught to hug other kids? I don't I don't understand that one because usually they don't. They don't teach children to hug each other at school, usually. So I'm a little bit unclear on why he's hugging those kids. Is it something that you guys do all the time at home? Um, yeah, I'm kind of unclear on that one. Like, why is school why is he hugging kids at school and he's never done it before? Does he not hug any kids at home then? Why is he hugging those kids? I don't know. I sorry, I need more questions about I don't really have sorry, I'd like to have an answer for you, but I need more context. Why is he not doing it at home with little cousins or neighbors, but he's doing it at school? Is he never around other kids ever?
SPEAKER_01It's almost sounding because it just said he's the first baby of the family. So, like, let's say hypothetically, he's just not around a lot of kids his own age.
SPEAKER_00Okay, then I would show him how you hug nicely. I'd get down in his level and I'd say, okay, here's if he gets too rough, say, no, no, no. Say this is how we hug, nice hug. But also, I don't know if the daycare wants him hugging other kids. They don't tend to push that kind of stuff because they know it can get dangerous, right? If they're hugging and they're on the top of a platform somewhere, right? So they tend not to do that. So that's why I'm a little bit unclear. So you can say you hug mommy and daddy, but you don't hug other people. Give it a go. I'm not entirely sure why he's only hugging at daycare. I'm confused by that. Anyway.
SPEAKER_01Okay, we have one final question. So Christine from the United States, 34 months. She loves biting, especially her little sister. She
also seems to have hatred towards babies. She always asks to go touch them and then she pushes them so they fall and seems to love it. Tries different approaches. Nothing worked.
SPEAKER_00Why on earth would you let her near a baby? There's no way I would let her near a baby. She cannot be trusted. Okay? So what you want to do is if she has a little sister that she's being aggressive towards and biting, etc., you make sure she can't keep doing that. Now she's 34 months old. She's almost old enough to be on that behavior board. I would kind of look into consequences. I would I might even just put her on the behavior board because you don't want that little sister to get hurt and say no, biting is your rule. When you when you do bite, there'll be a consequence. Now, you might not want to go with the two consequences until she's three years old. The two consequences are the first one on the behavior board is a positive one. It's doing a chore. If they won't do that, then you resort to the negative one. I might just start with taking something that she likes away. So every time she goes and bites, say no. And then you take her favorite toy away and give it to the victim. Okay. And then you hold her back because she's going to be mad. So I might try it that way. But you can put it on a board and say no biting. If you do, you're going to, we're going to take something away. And then when she turns three, do the two consequences. Okay, well, that was it for the questions. Okay. Why isn't your toddler listening to you? Because they haven't learned how to yet. Okay. But the calmer you are and the more consistent, it's
consistency that matters and actions, consistent actions. The calmer you are and the more consistent you are with your actions when you're disciplining, the easier it is to train them out of the negative and also train them into the positive. Okay. So you're not just teaching them what not to do, you're teaching them what to do. And a lot of parents seem to forget that. They think that children should just learn how to play independently. I never do that. I always get kids started with something. I say, look at this. And I always try and play with things a little bit differently or weirdly. Um, like my granddaughters, too. Um, one day we were just playing on the couch. She had some puzzles or something. So she had her little bus up there, a little school bus up there. And then she was driving. I said, put it in the garage, push the button, which was the one of the buttons on the couch. I said, push the button, and I used the pillow. I lifted it up and I went, and that was the garage. Well, we did that for unfortunately, we had to do that for like two hours. But anyway, she just loved that. It's imagination, it's something different. Then she started doing it with me. So if I had a little card, she'd say, push button. So I'll push the button. Then she pulls up the pulls up the pillow. See, they love new stuff. Show them how to be inventive, show them how to be creative. Okay, make it really positive and fun. So you're you're teaching them how what you want them to do, not just what you don't want them to do. Now, their love language is not discussion, it's not discussions and mini therapy sessions and discussing the big feelings and big emotions. I know it's trending out there, but it's garbage, okay? Their love language is fun. It is playing, it is laughter, okay? That's how they learn. They remember everything far better through fun than any other way. Okay. So be fun. Show them what you do want them to do and how you do want them to play and give them and be creative and come out with different stuff. Remember, it's not just the same old thing week after week. Do the toy rotation, look at their toys, play with them differently.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00I feel like that's a great place to end. It is a good place to end. So thanks so much for joining us. We'll be back again soon talking about another parenting topic. Happy parenting.
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