Do you have a child that is more—more loud, more energetic, more argumentative, more everything? Intense children can be harder to raise, but their intensity is a gift as well as a parenting challenge. We talk with Howard Glasser, creator of the Nurtured Heart Approach to parenting. He is the author of Transforming the Difficult Child and Transforming the Intense Child Workbook.
In this episode, we cover:
This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them. Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:
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Do you have a child that is more—more loud, more energetic, more argumentative, more everything? Intense children can be harder to raise, but their intensity is a gift as well as a parenting challenge. We talk with Howard Glasser, creator of the Nurtured Heart Approach to parenting. He is the author of Transforming the Difficult Child and Transforming the Intense Child Workbook.
In this episode, we cover:
This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them. Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:
Please leave us a rating or review RateThisPodcast.com/creatingafamily
Please leave us a rating or review RateThisPodcast.com/creatingafamily
Please pardon the errors. This is an automatic transcription.
0:00
Welcome, everyone to creating a family talk about adoption and foster care. I'm Dawn Davenport. I am your host, as well as the director of creating a family.org. You can go to that website and get lots of information that are relevant to you as a parent, and we would love for you to access all of our free resources. Today we're going to be talking about raising the intense child. This is a subject near and dear to my heart. Since I am the parent of an intense child. We will be talking today with Howard Glasser. He is the creator of the nurtured heart approach to parenting. He is also the author of numerous books, including transforming the difficult child and transforming the intense child workbook. Welcome, Howard to creating a family I as I mentioned, I am really looking forward to talking with you.
0:55
Same here, Don, thank you. Thanks for all the great work you do. Thanks. What do you consider? I guess it starts off, I think we all have our own definition of an intense child, what do you consider to be an intense child? You know, it, it may be that some kids are born with more intensity or somehow
1:21
arrive at having more intensity because of life circumstances. To me, it's life force to me, at any given moment, during our day, we get zapped with, you know, we might be overwhelmed with our life force, you know, something may happen in our myths that throws us and and we get, you know, triggered or joyful. And we you know, can we handle our life or some people on planet earth have more lifeforce than others? However they obtain it and on a more consistent basis, and they don't necessarily have the infrastructure to handle what's on your plate. And that brings kids to mind. Yeah, you know, I always said, or I always say, my child has more, she's more loud, more energy. And their reaction to most things is simply more, they go from like five miles an hour to 60 miles per miles per hour, in about a second. And it's more it but you know, what I so appreciate about how you define it, is that when we are parenting children who are intense, it's easy to slip into the viewing it as a negative because sometimes their behaviors are difficult. And they can have and they're more is overwhelming to us. But I like how you describe it, because it's not a negative. It's a life force. It could be driving us crazy, but it also could be one of their greatest strengths.
2:52
I think it's actually the fuel of our greatness in, you know, if you woke up tomorrow morning, and your intensity was gone, you know, anybody we'd have trouble getting out of bed, we wouldn't be able to it would rain on our parade of being able to live our lives fruitfully passionately. And I think it's the fuel of our greatness that that's been my life's work is how to hinge those two things. and have it be clear and doable for people on a journey of
3:30
being alongside intensity on their own is somebody else's. Yes, exactly. And the reality is, is that our intense kids will often collect a host of labels and diagnoses and what are some of them that you say that these kids collect along the way?
3:54
Yeah, well, yeah, as you're referring to dawn, intensity can go awry. And it often gets equated with symptomatology and symptomatology. If I am a professional in the field I grew up in and any number of medical model professions Social Work psychiatry, medicine, you're ethically deemed to start categorizing it and put those symptoms into categories and before you know it, you're ethically bound to provide a diagnosis and provide best practices which still to this moment is medication ABCD. Unfortunately, when sometimes so right, and sometimes a label or a diagnosis is helpful. Very often it is hurtful, but at times it is helpful because it allows parents and children to access treatment and allows our insurance for some of it. And it also allows parents to have a layer of a way of
5:00
coalescing with others and asking questions, you know, but, but I mean, I say things and certainly, many children end up with the ADHD are odd Oppositional Defiant Disorder are conduct disorder or PTSD or anxiety disorder. There could just be a host of it's an alphabet. You set them all down. Yeah, yeah, you got him? Yep, hidden there.
5:24
And depression, because it could be it's such a confusing life to kids that they wanted to prep along with being anxious and ADHD is such a good point. Actually. Yes. So what makes some kids more intense than others?
5:40
Well, um, you know, I, I've, I've stayed away from trying to answer that question, in any scientific way. And I'll tell you why. But I, I think some kids are just flat out born that way. I think some kids are exposed to stressful lives, neighborhoods, inner circles out of circles. You know, but, you know, I want to say with this one thing, it's okay is your place that there are many, many learned people out there who've studied the science of, you know, they could side every article
6:23
in in the history of these conditions. And, and half of those learned people. At the end of the day, they say it's a brain disorder. And the only answers are medication, A, B, C, or D. The other half say it's a chemical imbalance. And these are brilliant people, but the science to me is so limited, and those people who say it's a chemical imbalance, also say medication A, B, C, or D. And, you know, I am, I am just utterly concerned that our world sees intensity is the enemy. Actually, intensity is the greatest gift ever. We need intense people on the planet, but we just simply need them to have a adequate, structural underpinning, so that they can take that they could transport that wherever they go, they can live their life fruitfully by way of they're more they're more than conserve them. That's been my I've seen that so many times where I would get these kids in my office before diagnosis. And you know, month later the parents would say, I think we got it now. I don't think we need to go see the child psychiatrist. You know, and you know, I am not that learned person. I can't say anything in the in the journals, but I promise you, I think, you know, the majority of what's called ADHD is really just high intensity and you know, the problem is most everything we do in the face of intensity because we freak out of the kids intensity understandably you know it you know, all the parenting conventional normal parenting out there is upside down. It's, if you don't mind I'll give you an example. You know, they say we love respect. We say we love responsibility. And and we have very minimal ways of showing up when respect and responsibility occurs you know, we wait for it to be enough sufficient enough before we say thank you Good job which one the being effectual because they're vague statements, but when when the child is disrespectful, we lean in and we get excited, we you know, blow a gasket, we have the best lectures and reprimands. And kids just simply come to see the truth of energy, that rehab reality at the level of energy. And that it you know, we say we love respect, but actually they come to interpret energy as we love disrespect, because that's when we show up. That's when we're excited. So we don't we don't mean that. We don't mean to deepen a kid's impression they get more intellect through negativity, but we consistently deepen that at home in school in advertently.
9:25
It's when we start showing our energy is when we put our energy into it when we when they do something we dislike. Yes, exactly. And you know, it makes sense from an old school perspective. You know, we're, we say we're busy. I mean, we really are busy at times, but we're never too busy for a problem. Yeah, you know, we make that we it kids wind up feeling celebrated for the things they're doing wrong. Nobody would ever give a kid a
10:00
$100 bill on purpose for breaking a rule but accidentally we're giving up those $100 bills all the time.
10:08
What do you mean a term you use? I think you prefer to use an energy challenged child. What do you mean by an energy challenged child? Well, I it to me, it's the silly picture that comes to mind is
10:24
you have a car with a phenomenal engine, a fancy car. And it's, if it's, you know, it's high octane, high horsepower, it can do phenomenal things. And it doesn't have a braking system, it's not going to be a safe to drive, it's, you know, or it has an inadequate braking system. So, again, an example is this, in the beginning, I mean, you know, there's a diaper industry, because kids in the beginning have no control.
11:00
In the beginning, at the very beginning, there's zero control, we ideally acquire control in a commensurate way, along with our life force, you know, kids get mohkum, you know, they, they emulate, they mobilize, they, they, they start getting excited about things. And hopefully, we as parents inspire enough, or they have innately enough, developmentally, they come along with enough self control,
11:38
regulation, to handle their level of intensity, some kids because they have high octane, and so in, and so much horsepower, so to speak, their braking system is inadequate for the amount. So it means that parents, either knowingly, or unknowingly have to have to either be cleaning up on out 10 all the time, or they have to get really wise and how they're going to build that extra modicum of structure. So kids will, to me, it's building in our wealth and building a sense of where the lines are where this you know, we need to make it more than adequate to, to level up with the high octane. So as entered since it does, I think what I'm hearing is that an energy challenge child, or person has more energy than they currently have self control. And so yes, a disorder of self control of, for lack of better word.
12:46
But that's good news on because, you know, if you, it's good news, if you have a method that will help, it's bad news, if you don't, because we can make things worse all the time. And that is the challenge of parenting, an intense child is, is their job is to, it always felt to me, it's our job is to celebrate and not view their intensity as a bad thing. At the same time, we are helping put in structure for them to gain more self control. Because ultimately, they do need that, you know, you mentioned something transforming the book transforming the difficult child, that many intense or difficult kids love video games, more so than the average shot. And I have noticed that too. Why is that?
13:34
Well, I think while the child's playing a game, like makes total sense. And the rules are inherently clear, and stronger and more encompassing. The incentives are more clear. And encompassing. And the combination of that structurally allows kids the Oh, I get it, like makes sense. I can I can I can live my life in greatness. I can all they want to do is go level level level be the best in the world. And, and, you know, I'll pretend I'm a kid playing a game for a second while I'm playing the game. While I'm going towards the goals while I'm not breaking the rules, the games kind of in my face, confronting me use the word celebrating it celebrating me again and again and again. unlimitedly and it's all energy. It's celebrating me energetically at any next second, I'm free to break rules. game doesn't say don't do this. Don't do that. And if I break a rule and I cross a line, even a hair, the game doesn't go Oh, poor Howard. He's having a bad day or or yet a poor Howard. He's having a good day. Let's not disturb the momentum. It always delivers a consequence. And we look at these consequences. And we think they're drastic and punitive and they're you know, play
15:00
spurting heads rolling but who's actually back in the game in two seconds, the child is. So the game in game on is so powerful. That game not in
15:14
feels like an eternity.
15:17
It feels it feels forever and the child can't wait to get back in. And if you watch kids coming back in the game, if they've been held accountable and limits been set, they don't just come back in, they come in just dying raring to go, they want to go, you know, they're they're determined not to break that rule in every other row. And all they want to do is go more dramatically forward than ever before. So it The game has a logic. That to me is trance. pozible. And consistency, a logic and consistent.
15:54
Total.
15:56
Yeah. I hope you're enjoying this podcast as much as I am. Did you know that we have more expert based content, just like today's podcast, thanks to our partners at the jockey being Family Foundation, when you go to Bitly slash JB f support, that's bi T dot L y slash jbf support, you will find several free online courses from the creating a family.org online Parent Training Center. There are five courses to choose from like disciplining while maintaining attachment, that support stays content very well. Each course is free when you use the coupon code jbf. Strong at checkout.
16:39
You know, let's talk a moment. You mentioned the structure of games. And I wanted to talk a minute about structure. And while I think all children need structure, I think the high intensity child really needs structure. And that's certainly been my experience. But there you talk about the positive forms of structure and versus negative forms of structure. What do you mean by that? What is positive and what's, what's an example of positive structure versus negative structure
17:06
is two lines of thinking here. One is, of course, having a child in programming that's suitable that makes sense to them, like, like dance or scouting or sports or whatever is fine. That's a positive structure. What I'm referring to really, in my sense, positive structure is how do we show up as adults in that child's life, where we're taking stands where we're determined, you know, I am not going to give myself to the nonsense, I'm not going to accidentally reward negativity. With the gift of me, I'm going to be very clear how I show up, I am going to show up for the good stuff, I am going to be determined to point out to you right now being respectful right? Now, here's the evidence done, you're listening really well. your your your your, it's so clear to me, you're thinking about what I'm saying. And you're you're mulling it over and having it inform the conversation. And so and that reveals to me kindness, it reveals to me your thoughtfulness it you know, I could keep going, I could spend the whole interview telling you that the third thing, part of the structure is here's the rules. And I can't stop you from breaking the rule. But if you do, I'm going to reset me and I'm going to say I'm going to say reset, and I'm going to unplug me. I'm not going to give the gifts of me to negativity, or what I deem negativity, every adult has a right to deem what they deem to be negative. But if it but by being clear, let's say let's say we're in a room with a kid, and all of a sudden, that kid interrupts argues, I'm gonna say reset, I'm going to unplug me, but I'm going to be ready and raring to go. Thank you for resetting, like the video game. I'm going to turn back immediately. I'm not a fan of 14 minutes time out for a 14 year old. That's nonsense. It gets people in trouble. I'd rather it be an instance, what's the truth of the moment? The truth of the moment is You look like you were an argument first and roll your eyes, which you didn't. I'm going to be applauding that. If the child rolls their eyes and buses and swears and say reset. I'm going to turn away. I'm going to save the word reset, but then as soon as they stop, that's what I wanted all along.
19:56
I wanted I wanted to good step. So now I got this
20:00
Good stuff. Three seconds later, am I gonna? Am I gonna ignore that I'm going to be like the video game. Hallelujah, you might still feel like cussing and swearing, but you're not, you're handling your strong feelings? Well, to me, that's how you build self regulation, you build, it's like a muscle, you build it and build it, and you build Inner Wealth along with it, which to me is different than self, you know, esteem. You know, wealth is, is something that just, I've seen kids grow up with Inner Wealth, and they thrive, you don't have to tell them how to thrive.
20:41
They're gonna blow you away, they're gonna surprise you and how they thrive.
20:47
Right now, let's get to some of the specifics. If they, for me, personally, traditional parenting techniques did not work well, for my intense Little wonder. Your approach to raising an intense child is based on your nurturing heart approach. What are the basic principles of this approach? A parent and you talked about three standards? And you've you've kind of alluded to them? So let's let's break them out. What is the first step? Okay. Well, and the first stand is very purposely the first fan because I feel like kids pick up that they get more electronegativity, they get more response, they get, they get, they get more reactivity. So the first, when I've worked with a family, the very first thing they have to prove that proven grandma's stamp one, I I am not going I refuse to give me to the negativity, I refuse to give my energy, my responsiveness, my relationship, my energy to negativity, I'm not going to do that anymore. That Stan, what? And and that goes a long way for a lot of kids. Once the parent proves that they can't just say it. You can't just march into the teenager's room and say, Oh, honey, from now on, I'm not giving energy to negativity. That's malarkey. You know, you got to you got to be the truth of that. To establish that, what are some common ways we might accidentally energize a negative give us some examples of how we inadvertently do that?
22:25
Well, I think that classic ways is we have these values that we hold dear, like respect that I said before honesty or responsibility. And, and when we we believe in our culture, across cultures, that the best way to teach a lesson is to teach it in the midst of the problem. So that's when we adults get in gear. And a child's done something that's let's say, irresponsible, they've forgotten to do their homework, or they haven't done their chore or they, you know, whatever it is that we are allergic to
23:09
that so we we in our in the tradition of parenting, what's out there in so many ways out there in the culture, advice, books, articles, the responsible adults, they wind up saying, Billy, you know, they start out nice enough, Billy, it's not okay. To forget to do your homework, it's really important to remember, you need to tell me what your assignments are. And I need to double check it and you might spend 10 minutes with that child in a very loving, little sermonette or a very loving, you know, reprimand or, you know, let's say it's all love. But you know, Billy's just gotten 10 minutes to primetime with mom. Billy's just had an upside down energetic experience is his he may not at first start putting two and two together. But at some point, Billy starts going, Oh, when I am responsible mom hardly ever shows up. I get a whoop dee doo. Good job. Thank you.
24:18
Sometimes, not always, but 100% of the time when I mess up mom's there. She's not only there. She's there. You know, she's excited. So she loves me more the way Billy interprets that unfortunately, because I proved it by turning it around so many times. From Billy's point of view mom loves me more. When I'm when I don't do my homework. She values me more she I'm more meaningful when I don't do my homework, even though she says the opposite. So what are some of the challenges that parents face when trying to apply this strategy of refusing to energize and interacting
25:00
and energize a negative or interact with a negative. Yeah, that's a great question that shows your great mind, your inquisitiveness, your intelligence it is those are those who have great qualities I already admiring you, Don. So the challenges are many, I think the main one is it's in our bloodstream to be reactive. I mean, we're only here because our ancestors managed to survive along the way. You know, how many hundreds of generations ago there were predators, they had to bait in order to survive, they had to notice tiny incremental, what's wrong. hints of danger, sounds, smells, instincts that pointed to danger. So we have a hair trigger to see negativity. It's in our it's in our DNA, it's in our bloodstream. I think that's the biggest issue. And there's so many, I don't know how these books exists, but there's so many books out there that actually recommend that then actually recommend when Billy does the wrong thing, you sit down with Billy, and you tell Billy, how it makes you feel. And you tell Billy why it's wrong. And you you know, and those, those from my point of view, is, is Doom those are doomed, they're going to make the situation worse, they're going to deepen Billy's impression that he gets more analyzed through negativity.
26:43
Let me pause this show for just a moment. I find this topic so fascinating, as you could probably tell, I have always enjoyed learning more about parenting tougher to parent kids. If this episode is helping you shift your parenting perspective, would you please tell us and others about it by leaving a rating or review, you could go to rate this podcast.com slash creating a family and tell us what you think it is a simple way to help us reach other parents like you who will benefit from this as well as the great resources that we share weekly. Again, you would go to rate this podcast.com slash creating a family. Thanks.
27:23
Okay, so the first strand is to refuse to energize the negative. And the second strand, to the nurturing heart approach is to energize the positive. Give me an example of energizing the positive.
27:39
To me, it's like it's it's also a refusal, it's a refusal to not see the beauty in another person's existence. An example is is going out of your way to make a point of going beyond Thank you and good job.
28:01
It's it the human tendency at this point in our world is to just say, when we think something is positive, you know, so many classrooms I've visited, where a teacher believes they're being positive, but they're entirely just saying, Thank you. Good job, way to go. Awesome. And, you know, I said that, you know, in live events to a roomful of people, and I said, Okay, intelligent people tell me what I'm referring to
28:34
please, you What was I thankful for telling you what I was saying good job about and nobody knows. So we have to go beyond the imperative is to go beyond our meager ways of approving, obviously, that we were trying to approve something to something that's, that's much more strong and far reaching and powerful. So I want to, I want to accuse kids of the great qualities that I see in them, I want to take advantage of the moments we have. So to me, it's a stand
29:13
up of commandeering the situation in a way and going I'm going to use my determination to call this kid out on there in a possible man, I'm going to be very specific. You know, we think nothing of being specific when things go wrong, right. Yeah, it's a specificity. You know, it occurs to me that we focus on the negative, which is what you admonish us not to do in strand one. Because it's we as you say, we're geared to be reactive. And that's what's bugging us. It's in our face. We have to deal with that because it's forcing us in our minds to deal with that. But the strand to which is energizing the positive is requiring us to be proactive to notice what
30:00
It would be easy to just skate. You know, at that point, the kids not having us, the kids doing something good. Therefore, we could go on with our life doing whatever it is we're doing, you know, we're cleaning the house or where we're catching up on emails from work, or we're doing whatever it is, we don't have to react then. But the challenge is to force ourselves to react when they're doing what we want them to do so that our energy is pouring into them at that point. Is that the general gist? Yeah, that's that's very much just as being engaging our own gear is being proactive, but, but doing it in a way that's got the greatest lenses in the world, you know, in an enhanced way. We're, we're looking at something under the microscope. And we can stop ourselves when we're saying, you know, the, the normal, thank you and say, Well, I hold on, I got to tell you why I'm thankful. Or what I meant by Good job, here's what I met. And, and I think we also need an expansive way of seeing what's actually good. I mean, you know, when things are not going wrong, and nothing superb is like magnanimous is happening, right? is still the opportunity of saying to a child, I gotta tell you something really wonderful. We've gotten a whole afternoon, you haven't broken any rules, you haven't yelled, you haven't been mean to your brother, you haven't teased, you haven't said any name calling. Those are really wonderful indicators to me, that you are being kind you're choosing to not break the rules that's very considerate of you.
31:54
I really appreciate that. I mean, there's all kinds of ways to reel in, there's so much low hanging fruit of success.
32:04
I I've had parents say to me, Well, I don't know what to talking about. There's nothing good going on now. And I said, Well, you know, the referral slip said your child cusses 24. Seven, and your child has angry outbursts. 24. Seven, I see your daughter over there. She doesn't look happy about being in the office. But she's not yelling. She's not wearing, do you appreciate that? And they go, yeah. And I said, Well, can you put that into words, I remember one family who was in really big trouble. And, and they, the mom looked, turned and looked at her daughter and said, okay, it took her a while. But she said, I appreciate that you're not swearing right now, that really means a lot to me. And they both birth step crying. And she wound up being an extraordinary parent. She looked extremely,
32:59
not promising.
33:03
Very funny, extremely not promising that I ever have to remember that. Okay, so you talk about different ways to recognize the positive and active recognition experience or recognition or proactive recognition, creative recognition?
33:21
is the difference between what is the difference between those? And is the difference important for us as parents?
33:28
Well, I think essentially, the first three, you mentioned, active, experiential, creative recognition are ways of taking what is happening, and reeling it in, and putting it into words and making it into appreciative comments. Active is just saying what you see, here's, here's what I noticed is you you put your plate in the sink, and you clean the counter, and you ran water on the sinks on the plate. So when you get crusty, and, and the experiential part is how to put icing on the cake and say, and what that shows me is that you care that it wasn't your turn to clean the dishes tonight, but you made it easier for your, your sister. And that was very thoughtful. So it's it's a way of putting values inserting the child into your being that value, I see that value when you I see that you you know I see you in this more meaningful way. And then the creative is when I am, you know, really, it's it puts me as the parent in the driver's seat. In other words, I can say, I know we're about to have dinner, but I want you to stop right now and go have a popsicle and I'm using a nonsense
35:00
cool example here. But I want you to go get that I want to go have a popsicle, I'm making an exception today, the one and only day of the year is popsicle day, go get a popsicle. And then the child goes, they look at you funny, like stop doing your homework, go get popsicle. And then you say to Chuck, thank you for doing exactly what I asked you to do. That shows me that you were really tuned in to what I wanted. And you stopped exactly what I said to go and you went and made it happen. Uh, you know, I want to I want to get creative in how I create successes. I know that's preposterous. That was probably a terrible example. But that's kind of what I mean by it. And then the last one is proactive recognition. That's where I really like to go to town and let kids know, here's you not breaking the rules, here's the rules, you're not breaking right now i want i want, it's hard to set a limit. If, if if you haven't declared what the limits are. And it's a great way of teaching the limits. And it's great way of making it fair to kids. So that they feel like the rules aren't the enemy, like the rules are getting them noticed as well. And I really found that to be very empowering for the parent to. And I understand what you meant by creative recognition. Sometimes when kids and quite frankly, parents are in a downward spiral, all we are seeing, all we're seeing is the negative and all our kids are experiencing is, is negative. And if we create a situation where our child can succeed, it gives us the opportunity
36:52
to be able to then be able to recognize their success, but we may have to create the situation that they can succeed. I think that's what, that's how I would understand that. Yeah.
37:05
Is there a problem though, with giving our children too much praise? You? May we're, you know, the generation right before this one is the you know, if a child gets a root, you know, everybody, everybody gets a trophy. Everybody, no matter what we do, it's good. That type of thing. Is there a problem that slipping back into that with with the second strand of energizing the positive? Yeah, I'm just gonna say flat out. Now. There are many people for many reasons who say fully, you know, you shouldn't praise kids. But then, I mean, there's holes in their reasoning. But first of all, it's because the other thing is Thank you and good job. And that's never gonna suffice anyway, it's not nourishing, I'm looking for I'm looking to nourish a child's soul, I'm looking to really connect on them in with a deep level. And then some of the people I've, I've seen be adherence to that point of view of not praising death, think nothing is spending 10 minutes with the child when they've done something wrong. And read them the riot that but you know, they're not willing to even acknowledge a child when something goes, Well, that's destiny will meet that person, they're going to find that the majority of kids in their myths are going to figure that out really quickly and figure out how to be negative to get their involvement. So I disagree with that vehemently.
38:39
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39:25
So let's move now to the third strand, which is absolute clarity on your limits and consequences which harkens back to our discussion about video games. I mean, there's nothing at video games are very clear and have very firm limits as well as consequences you don't you don't advance to the next level or the game is over or whatever. It's very clear. So talk to me some about what the third strand how that would look. Yeah, everybody thinks rule. I mean, I've worked I've had contracts working with the mill
40:00
You know, it's all about coming down hard and you know when it doesn't, when consequences don't work with Level A you got to go to a level be increasingly more drastic and punitive. And the danger with intense kids is they continually that they get more and Outlast your negativity. I mean, when you come down hard on a kid, and in and take them to task on something that's done wrong, we're giving relationship to negativity, it's going to make things worse. I've met so many families who, who pride themselves and coming down hard and it makes things worse. What I'm saying is extraordinarily simple and easy for everybody. it offends some people because they go, Oh, what do you mean, a two second timeout for rolling your eyes or saying a bad word. I mean, what we really want in our heart,
40:57
what we'd really wanted all along is for the same intensity that's gone awry to be the source of a kid's greatness. That's what people want. What people really want is for the child to make good choices and to do the right thing and to be well behaved. So to me, if, if a child is misbehaving, I want to say reset. But I want to be on the lookout for when the behavior behaving happens when the good choices are happening. And if that's one second later, three seconds later, to me if gaming game on like the video game is strong, then game out. Game not in? Why have it be more than the truth of the moment? The truth of the moment maybe for sometimes it's it'll take an hour for a child to stop yelling and fussing. But for the majority of times, it's a matter of seconds. Why wouldn't I want to jump in with two feet and then say, now you're now you're following the rule your consequences over? Thank you for resetting, I want to build their braking system. I want to deliberately say, you're now choosing to follow the rules. You might feel like yelling now but you're not yelling. You might feel like being disrespectful now. But you're not you're using your power. You're using your wisdom, your control. That's where I'm at with that. That's that Stan? Three.
42:27
Okay, so how do we you've talked about the reset as it. So explain that what you mean by reset.
42:34
That is precisely what I just explained is I say the word reset as I'm, that's the consequence. The reset is the consequence. And, you know, if the child crosses the line, even a little bit like in sports, I say reset, I turn away, I unplugged no gift of me to the negativity. But I'm standing really ready to plug back in when the negativity isn't happening. And then I say the resets over
43:06
time. So an example would that be if the child is pitching a fit or are whining or tattling or something that you don't want, then you say the word reset, which tells them that you're asking them to reset their behavior, you've turned from them. And then when they as soon as they stop, maybe just because they're surprised that you've turned away from them. Either way, then you then you re engage and say thank you for thank you for starting over. Thank you for resetting or whatever. Is that? Is that an example? In my head? Yeah, exactly. You got it completely. Precisely. Yeah. And if a child, how do we get our children to comply? Or is that really not a problem and using this approach? Well, I don't worry about that. That's not a problem. Because the truth is, we can't stop kids from breaking rules. They know the secret. Even if they're on Ritalin we can, you know, they could, you know, I remember meeting a kid in my office for the first time and his parents said, Oh, he's not into I was complimenting them for not being annoying and not interrupting. And his parents is Oh, that's probably because he's on Ritalin. And I asked him, who's probably eight years old. I said, even though you're on Ritalin right now, if you wanted to break the rules, could you and he shook his head? Yes. And so I don't want the Ritalin to get the credit. And and I asked him, can I stop you? And he said, No, if you wanted to, could you break a rule? So, you know, we we delusional to think we could stop kids from breaking rules were much better off going, Okay, your whatever you do, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna be in the moment with you. I'm gonna when you don't break a rule, I'm going to be applying and if you do, I'm gonna just simply say reset. And when you're back to not breaking rules, I'm going to be applauding you. I don't feel a need to legislate
45:00
Okay, you're tomorrow, you're not gonna know rule breaking that. I mean, that's, that's silly because we can't,
45:09
you know, it's not in our control, we don't have that ability. I'd much rather build their muscles build their inner wealth and have them gained strength over time. To me, the delicious part of my work has been, you know that at some point, kids don't want to break rules, they get so much more
45:30
out of successfulness than breaking a rule. They were only at some point it was just the habit of breaking rules to get relationship.
45:39
Yeah, kids want to, they want to engage generally with their parents. And so yeah, they want to they want to behave. Well. Thank you so much, Howard Glasser for being with us today to talk about raising the intense child.
45:56
Thanks for joining me today and I will see you next week.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai