Kids crave consistency

DId you know that your kiddo craves you being consistent? It's hard, but they want you to be consistent so badly! Are you able to be consistent? If not, why not?

Doc David

Transcript

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Hey friends, Doc David here. Let's talk about doing the right thing as a parent.

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You are listening to Edge Drinking. Your answers to life, relationships, and daily living.

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Hey all, how are you doing? Hey, I apologize. I uploaded a uh episode last week about gaslighting, and then I went to listen to it just to see if the audio sounded okay. And it was horrible. And then I had one of my listeners shout out to Ryan. I'll I'll protect you. I won't say your last name. Um, I know Ryan personally, so I know that's why I I'm not a stalker, that's why I know his last name. Anyways, he was he said, Man, that audio is horrible. So I took it down because um I don't want you to have to suffer through horrible audio. So I think this audio is better. Um, I recorded it and listened to it, and it sounded tons better. So I I guess we'll find out. Part of the challenge of doing a podcast is that um as you're doing the podcast, you don't know if something's gonna sound good or not. And so then you could do this whole long podcast. And because it's just me and I don't have a sound engineer, I am my sound engineer, um, at the end of a podcast, it could sound like crummy. So hopefully this is uh sounding better. Anyways, okay. Um, so I I have every week uh when it comes to a Friday, um, I try to think back, I try to think about what theme kind of presented itself this week as I worked with couples and families and individuals. And then um I try to see if I can talk about that theme. I do in I try to do an Instagram um recording every week, and then I post that on Sunday night. So if you don't follow me on Instagram, here's my shameless plug. I would love for you to follow me on Instagram. It's at Dr. David Simonson. Um so yeah, I'd love to get a follow there, and I love to I I do enjoy comments, right? And so um, yeah, put you put your comments there if you want. I know my one follower who listens to this podcast puts some no offense, Ryan, dumb comments on my Instagram posts, but I love him, so I'll accept it. It's fine. Um, but yeah, so every week I I try to post either something on a podcast or something on Instagram, and I don't always get to just because I get busy, and so I try to keep Friday open to be able to do that. And I was thinking this week about what were some themes that came up, and the biggest thing theme that um seemed to be coming up this week related to parenting and related to uh consistency in parenting, and let's dig into that a little bit. Kids, and I'm saying zero to eighteen, nineteen, twenty if you have people in your own, probably about eighteen, um, kids crave consistency, they crave um things that they can rely upon, and so when parents don't provide consistency to them, um when when parents become unreliable, um it really harms a child. Um, and I know this because of two things. One is that as I've worked with families, there have been occasions that I've been able to talk with teenagers in family therapy where I get them to acknowledge how they've how much they value boundaries, they hate them, they intensely um get irritated by them, but deep down they recognize that boundaries are the thing that lets them know that their parents care about them and their parents have concern for them. So that's one. Two is I've talked to so many adults about the families that they grew up in, where they the message consistently has been I didn't think my parents cared about me because they didn't give me boundaries, they didn't they were not consistent in the consequences. Now on the other end of that, I've had people talk about how they had parents that were too um, I don't know if you can be too consistent, but were abused to the point of abuse with with their boundaries and with their consistency, and so that was harmful as well. So there is a balancing act. Um there's times that I think it is okay for a parent to give and be flexible with consequences and boundaries, but the goal is to be consistent as consistent as you can. And there's two places where this came up um this week as I worked with families. One was um a divorced family, so blended, a blended family, and another was a single parent family, and and kind of how it looks is like this um the biological parent or the non-biological parent is complaining that the biological parent is not being consistent, or the single parent um is frustrated because their kids are not doing the chores that they have had for the last three years, and the single parent is having to um ask over and over and over for these things, these tasks to be done, and then when they're not done, there's no sort of like consistent kind of consequence to not having these things done, and that applies to both the single parent home and the blended family home. This also happens in a two-parent home as well. I mean it's not just unique to these other kinds of families, it happens in all kinds of family makeups. Um, but I want to address it specifically about the important how consistency, um, not not doing consistent stuff relates to bad behaviors or bad parenting, um, specifically with single-parent homes and blended family homes. Um, I think it's it's more I mean it happens again in in two-parent households and quadruple parent households. That is a thing. Um it happens in all kinds of households, but particularly where I've seen it be a little more likely to happen is in the blended and the single-parent homes. Um and here and here's here's what happens. So um, you know, in a in a blended family, a lot of times the family is, you know, they they see the kid week week on, week off, week on, week off. There's some families, and this seems to be a large majority of families, blended families that I work with, where kids are there every other week. And so they're essentially there four days out of 30 days. Think about that. Four days out of 30 days. Um, I don't know the math to that, but I think it's like 17%, right? And so when you're a parent and you're desperate to have a relationship with your kid, um, and they come over to your house, the last thing that you're wanting to do is apply consequences for bad behavior. The problem is, um that means then you're not consistent, and it means that you're allowing bad behavior while kids that live in that home full-time and they have and they have a biological parent that's in that blended family, they start to feel like things aren't fair, or that by that non-biological parent starts to get annoyed when the um the one kid comes into the home, you know, four days out of the month and wreaks havoc. Um you gotta remember at their core, kids crave consequences. Kids crave consistency. Let me take that back. They don't crave consequences, they crave consistency. Kids crave consistency, and consistency can be around rewards, consequences, etc. And so you have parents, you and and if the shoe fits, please put it on. Because it happens to me too. There's parents who will have to do a consequence, but they won't do a consequence, or they won't stay consistent because they want to they feel bad, or they want to keep a relationship going, or the other parent is a Disneyland parent, and so they're worried their kid will say, I don't want to come over anymore, because it's you you're being consistent. All I can say to you is in those moments, good parenting should outweigh emotions. Let me say that again. Good, consistent parenting should triumph over emotional things. Um because so often emotional things, guilt, fear, anxiety, um, are are killers in relationships. And if they they will often get you to do the wrong thing as a parent. And I've seen I saw I've seen that several times this week. So that that's in a blended family. Now, in a single parent family, um, where either a mom or dad either you know is divorced or widowed or something like that, guilt starts to creep into that single parent, like, oh, look what I put my kids through. My kid's dad or my kids' mom it was abusive, was harmful, was whatever. And those parents then have this guilt and anxiety over the things that they think they put their kid through, and they feel a responsibility for that. And so what happens in those instances is like when a kid gives some pushback, and those kids are living with the single parent full time, and a lot of times what happens is those kids they you know push back on that parent, and um the parent has this guilt, and they're overwhelmed already with the amount of work they're having to do with taking care of these kids by themselves, and then you add on top of that this guilt of like, well, I did put them through, I did make these bad choices, and I did put them through these things with their with their dad or with their mom, and I feel bad for that. And so then that parent then does not require things, require, has no expectations of their kids, or does not stay consistent when their kids complain about something that they don't want to do or something that they're struggling with. And I will say it again, I mean, I do have compassion for these for these blended families and these single-parent families because that it is an you are in a hard position. I I totally get that. Yet at the same time, consistency in parenting is super important. Kids crave it. And so to the single parent who's struggling, who's overwhelmed, who is feeling guilty, who's feeling fear of losing a relationship, I I don't completely understand that because I haven't experienced that myself. Um, but I can see that, and I would I really want to encourage you, it's still super important to stay consistent with your parenting. It's still super important for your kids to learn there are um there need to be boundaries in things. And yes, be flexible with your boundaries, be flexible with your consistency. But at the end of the day, consistency is key. Consistency is something that your kids crave. And that's that's for blended families, that's for single-parent families, that's for do that's for families that have all the parents there. Consistency is so uber important, and when it doesn't happen, kids get confused. They won't tell you they're confused. I mean, maybe if they're older they will, but generally they won't tell you they're confused. You'll see it in how they act. Um they won't do chores consistently, or they won't listen to you consistently, or they won't listen to you at all. And then you as the parent are kind of wishy-washy about it. And like, why should they listen to you? Because you're not even certain what you're wanting from them. And so uh it gets difficult, and that's a theme that really came up and was really um impactful to me this week as I've talked as I talked with some single parent parents and some blended families, and just the harm that that lack of consistency is doing not only to the kid, but the damage it's doing to the relationship with the with the other partner, the non-biological parent that's in the home. That's a killer. And so if there's anything that I can encourage you on this week, and the in as you think about parenting, is consistency. Your kids totally crave it. Um they won't tell you this, but my uh you just you may I just have to trust my 20 years of experience of working with families that um consistency and kids craving consistency is a thing, believe it or not. They won't tell you it, and they will fight you on it. Um but but it is a thing. Consistency, consequences, and boundaries, those are all things that can be very positive and healthy in um parental kid relationships. So hopefully that's helpful. Um love for you to comment or uh go to my Instagram and comment. I'm kind of I'm putting kind of the same thing up there in a couple days. But if you have any questions, feel free to reach out, headshrinkink at gmail.com. Or if you have any comments, please comment um on wherever I post this or on Instagram. Have a great weekend. Um, we'll talk more next week.