Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:01 Welcome to the hand in hand parent club podcast. I'm Emily Murray, a hand in hand instructor and a mom of
Speaker 0 00:00:06 Two I'm Kathy Gordon, a single adoptive mom of a now young adult son, a hand in hand instructor. And we are both moderators of hand in hand's awesome membership program. The parent club, every
Speaker 1 00:00:18 Week, we'll be answering a parenting question. You'll hear about hand in hand. Parenting's powerful, respectful parenting tools. We'll share how they help you work with your child's feelings, especially when their behavior gets harder. Confusing.
Speaker 0 00:00:29 You can feel good about using these tools. They've brought warmth and connection to our own families and to many thousands of families around the world who are using the hand in hand approach.
Speaker 1 00:00:39 That's why hand in hand and the parent club exist. We're here to support you and your family. So you have more good, sweet fun times together.
Speaker 0 00:00:48 Welcome back parents. So our question this week is how do I get them to do something?
Speaker 2 00:00:57 There are so many options in the world. <laugh> some common ones include, oh, some punishments, some threats, some Bries take something away, offer a reward. And these might work, um, once or they might work in the short run, but, uh, sooner or later, your child is gonna start catching onto the system and negotiating for larger rewards. And, um, threats tend to erode our connection with them. So we have some alternatives for you today. So these approaches that, that we're used to hearing about are based in fear and some, sometimes even our fear about, oh, if I don't do this right now, you know, this is just gonna get worse down the road. Um, but we tend to think of, of these types of approaches as overpowering. We are using our bigness and our authority to force them to do something. And that feels yucky for everyone. And it really does, um, break connection. So what we know that works better in the long run is using connection. We know that humans are more willing to, and able to cooperate when they feel emotionally safe and connected.
Speaker 0 00:02:15 I remember the first time I had that kind of light bulb moment. So before I would take my son to daycare, he was probably 4, 3, 4 at the time. Um, we would often stop at the McDonald's nearby now, full disclosure as a single parent McDonald's was a built in play date. Um, but we'd stop there so he could play on the, you know, on, in the Playland. And, um, and then he'd have a very difficult time, as you can imagine, transitioning to, uh, daycare where then I was gonna leave him and to go to work. So I realized that if I crawled up into the play structure and played with him for a few minutes, then when I said, okay, time to go to, um, to, uh, Janie's daycare, then, then he was, it was much easier. He was much more cooperative because we'd had that few moments of connecting and playing and fooling around and sliding down the slide together and getting a lot of laughter going. So that connection greased, the wheels of that transition and getting him to go willingly to the car, to go to daycare.
Speaker 2 00:03:29 This is such a great example of this relationship building for the long term. Childhood is one phase of a child's life, but we are parent and child for all, for our whole lives. And we can lose sight of, of that in those red hot moments when we're, we're feeling that head-to-head battle of a disagreement or defiance or the digging in of heels. So it's, it's really foundational to us having a strong relationship with our child in that long term. Um, we, in order to do that, we have to see our children as, as good. Um, we know they're in there with their good cooperative selves and when we're always reaching toward that, they can show up, um, for us when we're reaching toward that. Good goodness. So when they're saying no, it helps. If we think if they could, they would, and there must be an underlying reason why they can't and that helps us stay in that heart to heart connection with them.
Speaker 2 00:04:30 So we offer connection before we ask them to do something, we might offer a little bit of rough and tumble play. Um, we might offer special time. And when we do that before our request, it can really, um, lift any of that tension or disconnection before it turns into digging their heels. So this is like the preventive medicine of, of our emotional reaction with our children. Um, and even bringing a limit as a li when we're bringing a limit, we can say, no, no more trucks right now. It's time to brush your teeth sweets. And when we bring that, that limit and we put our hand on the truck, um, and we bring that connection, we can turn it playful too. It doesn't have to just be that straight limit. We can say, oh my truck's teeth look really dirty too. Maybe we should brush trucks, teeth. They're so muddy. And this invites them to play with us on their way to doing, you know, chores. It doesn't feel fun to brush teeth. I mean, chores just, aren't an enjoyable thing typically for anybody. So why not add a little bit of laughter and play to that?
Speaker 0 00:05:46 Yes. And one chore that was particularly difficult. <laugh> well, I would say it really bothered me was, um, my son, uh, as, as he got older, you know, just dropping his things on the floor, just dropping his dirty clothes on the floor and not putting them in the, the laundry basket, the hamper that was right there in his room. So I decided to try getting playful with it. And, um, it must have been about nine at the time, maybe 10, um, so slightly older. And, um, I remember, uh, I set it up like, uh, we were gonna play like, I playfully dared him to throw it in the basket. Like, I bet you can't, uh, I bet you can't two points, two points if you get that at shirt in the, in the laundry basket. And, and, but then I started narrating it like a basketball game.
Speaker 0 00:06:39 Can he make this shot? Oh, here comes the defender. The defender's buck. Oh no. Oh no, he's going over. Oh, he's going Elena. Oh. And there any scores and my son of course, was laughing and you I'm trying to block his shots. And it only took a very few minutes before every piece of clothing that was on the floor, every piece of dirty clothes was picked up and put in the laundry basket. And so notice what I did there was not only was I playful and bringing a playful limit, but I was also connecting. And that's really the point that we're, um, heck that's really the point of hand in hand, all of our tools are connection tools. And, um, and so that's the point that we're making today about getting your kid to do something is to connect first and then maybe get playful.
Speaker 2 00:07:33 So it can feel really hard in the moment when we're feeling tight with, um, frustration about like, literally the clothes are right next to the hamper. You go to just put them in the APER. Um, so when we feel those things bubbling up, it can be hard to feel creative. Um, so
Speaker 0 00:07:50 We do have powerless, you know, like when you ask them to do it and they dig in their heels, we feel powerless.
Speaker 2 00:07:55 Yeah. So, um, we do have lots of great articles on the hand, in hand parenting website, all about ideas to help them do something. And so whenever you're feeling stuck or not sure what to do, um, you can just search play. Um, there's one about tidying up one about getting out of the house. One about teeth, brushing homework, using the potty, um, all of them, if you just type in those keywords, you'll see them there.
Speaker 0 00:08:24 Yes. I mentioned last, I think our last episode that when I started to use play, I read a lot of articles. So I had like a lot of ideas in my back pocket.
Speaker 2 00:08:34 Yeah. And then, then you don't have to think so hard, um, because we do feel powerless. Um, and so last time we mentioned mock threats. Uh, and so if you feel yourself starting to get in that threatening ogre mode, that's I feel like an ogre, at least <laugh>, I'm getting there. Um, an example might be, um, for a mock threat for the, a clothing situation is if you don't get dressed right now, I'm gonna put your clothes on
Speaker 0 00:09:04 Myself.
Speaker 2 00:09:05 And the point of these is you're, you're probably gonna end up doing the thing you're threatening as a way to bring some laughter. So you're trying to squeeze their shirt over your head, um, and you know, really trying hard and they get to laugh at you. Um, other options include demanding things, opera style, um, gibberish talk, uh, talking backwards, funny accents. Um, one of my daughter's favorites is when I pretend to yell, but, but only silence comes out of my mouth. So I get confused about why my, my, my face is making up kind of a silly, angry yell, but no sound is coming out of my mouth. And she thinks that's really funny because I do sometimes yell <laugh>. So it, it gives a little bit of playfulness around that, um, that, that sense of, um, sometimes I am loud and scary and now she gets to laugh at me cuz I'm not, um, able to make that sound. So when we feel powerless play is what we can do.
Speaker 0 00:10:09 Yes. And one of the things that we suggest is that you think about, um, creating this culture of silliness and fun in your family. And, and that's the way that you build cooperation is that it's fun to do chores that it's fun to brush your teeth. And again, you know, this can seem a little counterintuitive, like aren't I supposed to be the authority, but it just makes parenting so much more enjoyable. So building this, this culture of silliness and fun, you know, it might look like you wake up in the, you know, wake them up in the morning with your underwear on your head or, um, you, you know, then you, it's, it's time to leave and you walk into the wall or you walk into the closet, they ask for milk and you, um, and you get out the pickles and you can't, you can't figure out how the milk turned green. You know, so, and particularly when you're doing these mock threats, you know, you wanna do it with a light tone, a wink, we, uh, playfully dare them this little twinkle in your eye so that they know that you're not really threatening them and that they, they, they, that they see you. Like one of the things that's really important about play listening is that we're, we're making fun of ourselves. So it becomes like fun to make mistakes, uh, in your family, this creating this culture of silliness and fun.
Speaker 2 00:11:36 So that's actually our one small thing for this week is to just experiment with inserting a little bit of playfulness into spots where you might typically bring seriousness, um, or at least like efficiency efficiency during your day seriousness during your day, poke around in there a little bit, um, you know, pull up the, the article that we, um, are including in today's podcast or do a search on the website and get some ideas that you can tuck away. Um, and, and just, you know, do, do a little poking around in the, in the seriousness of, of life.
Speaker 0 00:12:14 And, you know, as I said, this is not easy. Can seem counterintuitive. No, not <laugh>. Um, so as you're trying this one small thing of getting silly before you ask them to do something, if you feel like this, like I'm, I'm not being the parent, then make sure you tune in next episode, because we are gonna talk about what we can do with those feelings of powerlessness, um, how we can work on them and, and how we can figure out, like what's getting in our way when we get tight and we feel that we're not able to connect. So we'll see you next time. We'll, we're looking forward to you hearing what your experiments of trying to get silly before you try something. Um, uh, how that pans out we'd love to hear from you and come back next week and talk about what gets in our way of doing that. Bye-bye
Speaker 1 00:13:10 Thank you so much for tuning into the hand in hand parent club podcast, please like, and subscribe to hear more and to connect with us between these episodes. Come on over to hand in hand parenting.org to join the parent club where you can get coaching classes and live support.
Speaker 0 00:13:23 Come join our vibrant community of parents in the parent club who are committed to getting the support. They need to be the parent they wanna become. We'd be honored to support you too. This podcast and the parent club are part of hand in hand parenting, a nonprofit organization that supports parents all over the world. We are here for you when parenting gets hard.
