← ADHD Experts Podcast
ADHD Experts Podcast
539- From Battles to Bonding: A Parent’s Guide to Trading Defiance for Cooperation
01:01:54
Jeffrey Bernstein, Ph.D., shares a program to help caregivers reduce conflict and eliminate disruptive behaviors in children and teens. Understand the underlying causes of oppositional defiance and learn practical tools to restore peace and...
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AI agents are everywhere, automating tasks and making decisions at machine speed. But agents make mistakes. Just one rogue agent can do big damage before you even notice. Rubrik Agent Cloud is the only platform that helps you monitor agents, set guardrails and rewind mistakes so you can unleash agents, not risk. Accelerate your AI transformation@rubrik.com that's R U B R-I K.com.
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Welcome to the Attention Deficit Disorder Expert Podcast series by Attitude Magazine. Hello, my name is Nicole Carr, and on behalf of the Attitude team, I'm pleased to welcome you to today's ADHD Experts presentation titled From Battles to A Parent's Guide to Trading Defiance for Cooperation. Leading Today's presentation is Dr. Jeffrey Bernstein. Dr. Bernstein is a psychologist with more than 34 years of experience specializing in child adolescent couples and family therapy. He is the author of several books, including Ten Days to a Less Defiant Child, and has made appearances on media programs like the Today show and NPR, among many others. Visit www.drjefonline.com to learn more about Dr. Bernstein and his work. In today's webinar we'll discuss defiance and oppositional behavior in children and teens. Dr. Bernstein will help us understand this cycle of defiant behavior, why it happens, and how parents can coach their child or teen through anger. Caregivers will also learn how to manage their own reactions and gain practical strategies to foster cooperation and connection. If you support the work that we're doing here at Attitude to strengthen the ADHD community, we encourage you to visit attitudemag.com subscribe and sign up for Attitude Magazine for yourself or to share with a teacher or a loved one who could benefit from greater ADHD understanding. Finally, the sponsor of this webinar is Brain Balance. When your child is struggling and you know they're capable of so much more, it can be overwhelming, especially when it feels like no one else sees their potential. But Brain Balance parents know better. They know better academic and mental health outcomes, and they know happier children. They also know they're surrounded by a community of supportive parents and brain balanced staff who are ready to work together hand in hand to make a positive impact on their child's life. There's hope and a better way forward. Contact Brain Balance to get started. Scan the QR code on your screen to learn more or visit www.brainbalancecenters.com AttitudeMag Attitude thanks our sponsors for supporting our webinars. Sponsorship has no influence on speaker selection or webinar content, so without further ado, I am so pleased to welcome Dr. Bernstein thank you so much for joining us today and leading this discussion.
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Thanks so much for having me, Nicole. I'm delighted to be here. And again, this talk is entitled From Battles to Bonding. And I am Dr. Jeffrey Bernstein. And as far as the a quick slide here on conflict of interest, I'll let you review this as an audience, but bottom line is I've written some self help books and some of the content is in this presentation. As far as the learning objectives for today, they are about fostering empathy when connecting with children. I look at empathy as the emotional glue that holds all relationships together. I've never had an adult child come into my office, for example, and say what messed up my childhood was that my parents took too much time to truly listen to me. When that happens, I'll probably quit. Helping caregivers manage their reactivity and their child's. Switching your mindset from frustrated parent to becoming emotion regulation coaches is huge. Going to cover that and considering defiant children, defiant behavior in children of today in the context of the anxieties that we're currently living in of climate change and societal and school violence. And then I'm going to give you a sampling of some of the cooperative connection building games that's in one of my recent books to foster openness, trust and communication. I want to first start out though with a brief story and this story goes back actually 25 years ago and that was a really rough time for me. I'm going to be a little vulnerable here and share that My marriage of 10 years at that time was unraveling. My children were 3, 5 and 7. I was working full time at a hospital and really busy, overloaded, trying to build my practice as a child psychologist. Inwardly I think I had a lot of feelings of frustration and anxiety. Imposter syndrome. Still do at times, don't we? All right. And I was the crazy part was I was getting really good feedback from the families I was working with. I was being sent, I was with a group practice and I was being sent a lot of the children and teens with ADHD and oppositional defiant disorder and I was connecting and the feedback was great. But inwardly I just felt like a failure at times. I just felt like I supposed to have my life all together and I didn't. What was wrong with me? Well, one day my daughter, my oldest, alyssa, who was 7 at the time, turned to me amidst one of my screaming tirades, I guess, and she said, dad, you help all these families and you help these kids, but you can't even manage us. And When I look back, what a gift that was. It wasn't easy to hear at the time, but she was right. And I kept willing myself to try to be less reactive. Turns out, by the way, all three of my kids. Bingo, bingo, bingo. Were later diagnosed with adhd. I was never formally diagnosed, but by all indications, I've struggled with it. And I was trying so hard. Be less reactive, will myself yell less and be more patient. Nothing worked. Nothing was really helping me. And then there was this day that changed my life. And that's what I want to share right now. My kids at this point were 7, 9, 11. And this one day, my kids are getting in the car and my son Sam, who's 9, shoves his sister, younger sister Gabby, against the car. And I turned to him like a well adjusted father and a great psychologist, and I said, sam, what are you doing? How dare you treat your sister like that? What have I taught you about, you know, I gave him a lecture. He gave me one of these like, you know, raspberries. They're in the car now, Sam sitting next to Gabby in the backseat. And you know, again, 9 and 7. And I got my oldest to listen the front seat and the car feels like it's spinning, like I haven't even left the driveway. I'm feeling like I'm spinning. And I turn to my son and I say, you will apologize to her. And he looks at me and he says, make me. And at that point, I lived in an. In an area. I'm in the Philadelphia suburbs, but it was bordering. Bordering a rural area by cornfields. I had this fantasy of taking Sam out to a cornfield and teaching him a lesson. I was so frustrated, I'm sad to admit, at one point I had even washed his mouth out with soap. If I'm really being straight up with all of you, of course it didn't work. And this day, this moment was so transformational. I was so frustrated. And somehow I just had the presence to think about moving myself to the top of the car, on the roof, looking down. So I removed my reactive self, at least some of it. And I observed, and I observed the kids who were struggling themselves. And I observed me from above. I looked down on the whole interaction and when I did that, it just, it slowed everything down. And I heard myself after, after Sam said, make me, I heard myself say, sam, I'm asking you please to apologize to your sister. I know you're better than this. And when I said that, I later realized that I was calm, firm and non controlling, which I think is the combination, at least one of the combinations that really helps bypass not only the emotional reactivity of your child who's being defiant and reactive, but our own as parents. Of course, when I said that, my oldest in the front seat, Alyssa, turned to me and said, is that all you're going to do? And I thought to myself, discipline is teaching. Punishment is presenting something negative and expecting a behavior change. And the punishment part wasn't working. I was timing them out all over the place and taking things away. And I get parents coming to me saying, Dr. Jeff, I took this away, I took that away. Veins are bulging in their neck. What else can I take away? I really think the answer is learning to be calm, firm and non controlling. I wasn't attached to the result when I said that to Sam, but of course there was a weird silence as I was driving. About five minutes later, I heard my son turn to my daughter, to Gabby, and say, fine. Sorry, Gabby. And I thought, well, he's not showing remorse, which I often hear from some of the parents I work with. But he did it. And I turned to him and I said, you know, Sam, not as warm as I would have liked, but thank you. Good for you. And that was a pivotal moment of my life. By the way, I'm glad I didn't take Sam out to a cornfield, not that I ever actually would. It was a fantasy. But he turned out to be a powerlifter who squat like 620 and did a deadlift of over 700 pounds. And he's a gentle soul, I must say. But what a turning point in my life that was. So that's what I wanted to open up with today because it's such a powerful story. It's so emblematic of what I want to share with you.
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B R-I K.com the Defiant Children that I worked with and that I've seen over 33 years, they all seem to have some common characteristics. They have a lower awareness of themselves. Emotional intelligence, for example. I'll see kids, a lot of them with ADHD will come in and I'll say, joey, how are you doing in school? Dr. Jeff, I'm doing fantastic. Well, it's the second day of the second quarter, and of course, we're not even looking out of sight, out of mind of all the missing assignments and homeworks from the first quarter. So there's kind of a lack of awareness. There's coexisting conditions in a lot of the adhd. A lot of the oppositional kids that I see, ADHD leads the charge. Depression, anxiety, giftedness. And by the way, there's something that I don't know that I have on the slides, but we always need to keep our eyes out for is when there's something physical going on. There's kids that can have something called pandas. And I'm not referring to the cute, cuddly things at the zoo, animals at the zoo, but pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorder associated with streptococcal infections. I wish I had more time with that. But it's important that we realize there could be a lot of different things that cause adhd. I'm sorry, that can create the conditions, including ADHD as one of them. For oppositional defiant disorder. These kids, over time, get conditioned to power struggles. So punishment starts to not work. They have a short fuse. They're argumentative. Many of them are highly determined, and they perceive themselves as equal or above adults. And there's a cycle, a cycle that I see play out over and over. The child is defiant. The parent lacks understanding. Not because they want to, but, you know, because they just. They're in the moment and they're struggling. And I have a sign here, and we may cover this in a slide, but I want you to keep this in mind, too. As far as understanding our children when they're struggling, it's a big question to ask ourselves. I'm hoping you can see it. Are they struggling with something at that moment, or are they choosing not? And, you know, a lot of times they're, oh, well, they're choosing not to get ready for school. They're choosing not to care about their schoolwork. They're choosing not to behave more rationally in a way that's more acceptable. But at the same time, we need to remember, especially children with ADHD have an underlying struggle. That struggle is not an excuse, but it is an explanation. And again, keep that in mind. It's not an excuse, but it is an explanation. ADHD is not an excuse, but it is an explanation. Some of the kids that I see, a lot of them, they have these cognitive distortions, if you will. Nothing is fair. Everything sucks. No one should Tell me what to do. I know better than you. Nobody even cares. It's your fault. I hate you. You're ruining my life. I see a lot of kids that say these types of things and they share this with me. I think with these kids with defiance, one of the most striking things I see is a limited ability for them to soothe themselves. And I always say life comes down to two skills. And sometimes with the kids in my office, I'll get kind of playful, like, you know, I have a 9 year old sitting across from me with his parents. And I'll say, well, what do you think the two most important skills are? To have a good life. And they'll look at me, of course, their parents are leaning forward, like, what are they? You know, And I well, you know, math skills are important and, you know, computer skills are important and speaking skills are important. Reading all these things. I'll go down the list and I'll say, you know, the two most important skills for life, in my opinion, are, are the ability to calm yourself down and solve problems. Calm down, solve problems every day. 13 miles away from where I'm sitting right now is something called Chester County Prison. There's a lot of guys there that may not be that different than me who probably wish they could go back and have a redo at one critical moment of their life. Maybe some of them were even diagnosed or not diagnosed with adhd. Perhaps, perhaps. But regardless, and wish that at that moment of their life, they had taken a little more time, 15 more seconds, 10 more seconds, 30 to work on calming down or problem solving. It's that big a deal. They struggle to problem solve when they're upset. We all do. But with, with defiant children, they really get very wound up. They have problematic interactions with their parents, with teachers, and there's a belief that they're not understood. And that's why it's so important that we take that time and that we lean into empathy when we're trying to connect with our adult, I'm sorry, defiant children, whatever age they are, all the way through adulthood. A lot of the teenagers I work with, they'll feel that their peers understand them almost like a second family more than their parents. And these cognitive distortions really rev up when these children are emotionally dysregulated when they're upset. So when you use this calm, firm, non controlling way of interacting, which I gave in my story about my son Sam, it's really keeping in mind that no one likes to be told what to do, especially a kid who has a lot of defiance. This way of relating helps bypass emotional reactivity. Let me give you another example. A confirm non controlling statement could be something like I understand from talking to your teacher that your comment to Ben was seen as a threat. Help me understand what you were thinking, what was your view so we can better understand each other. And again, please don't look at any of like there's handouts that are coming along with today. Don't look at any of it as a script, but it's a mindset and that mindset is you want to shift to having observer's mind. If you have to get up on the ceiling and look down at the interactions, see yourself as an emotion regulation coach. It slows you down, you switch lanes. You don't take it also personally when your kid is trying to get you into a power struggle and it helps you avoid those fruitless power struggles. It's very important to check your ego at the door and be willing to let go of any of your desired rehearsed responses and really listen. I think I saw it was M. Scott Peck in a famous book from years ago, the Road Less Traveled. And he was talking about, there was a quote, something like if we would listen to our children with the same level of attention that we would give to a great lecturer. What a gift. And think of how many times today that we're, you know, we're pulled in so many these things, you know, we're pulled in these phones, we're pulled in so many directions and our kids are too those that have them. So listening. Oh my gosh, it's such a precious resource, really listening. It's really important to not fall into the trap of negative labels. I can't tell you how many parents come in and they're frustrated. I get it. Again, keep in mind that a lot of the children that come to me with oppositional defiant related issues, a lot of them have the ADHD diagnosis or they turn out to have it. Lazy versus a more adaptive right, not all encompassing label of motivationally blocked underachiever versus not working up to their potential troublemaker versus they're troubled within. They don't care versus they're missing a sense of purpose. They have no remorse versus they're not feeling safe or they're just not sensitive as I gave, you know, in that example, they're not, they're, you know, they're not showing remorse, they don't care. Well, maybe their defenses are up right now and that's in the way. So we need to be able to give our kids within reason, the benefit of the doubt. It's hard to imagine that any child, teen, adult, child, that's struggling wakes up in the morning and says, how can I deliberately sabotage my life just a little more and create more pain just because that's what my life's mission is? When you put it in that context, we come back to this sign of, you know, struggle with versus choose not. It really kind of puts it in perspective when you ask yourself that question. Okay, so there's a lot of anger that goes on. It's a misunderstood emotion. My mother got me a book. My mom and dad got me a book back in 1978 by Carol Tavris. It was called Anger the Misunderstood Emotion. It's just as is misunderstood today. It's not a bad emotion necessarily. I mean, it's probably responsible for the TSA having checkpoints and stoplights on roads and stop signs and keep us safe. Someone was angry and they were constructive. But we tend to look at anger as this problematic emotion without understanding that it's a signal and that we need to look below the surface and see if angers are surface emotion or what's underneath it. Sadness, shame, frustration, anxiety, to name a few. A lot of times when kids come in my office, what I'll do to help them understand what we're working on in terms of anger is I'll draw two firecrackers, two rectangles on a sheet of paper, vertical, and then I'll put a fuse on each one. And I have a short fuse and a longer fuse. And I'll try to give them this conceptual, pictorial, if you will, representation that we're trying to get a longer fuse, you're still going to have things that bother you. But if you can have a longer fuse and learn how to think, and one way parents can influence that is by being calm, firm and non controlling. Some techniques that are helpful. I wish I had a lot more time to go through these in detail, but kind of coming up with a safe word or phrase. I've had kids say grapefruit banana when they're frustrated, understanding that compromising is a win too. I see so many kids that come in, they're playing a game on the playground at school. I had one just the other day playing in a Gaga ball pit. And just he was so reactive and he was so angry that the ball didn't hit him, even though his peers said they did. And so this whole idea of winning and fairness is a big one. And really having conversations and helping them see how compromising is A form of winning. It's a way of connecting with others. Shrink the fireball again. One of your handouts today has about 57 different strategies that I found help over the years. I have kids look at these and give me feedback. You know, you imagine that you have a fireball in your hand. You close your eyes and you imagine a fireball of anger. And you imagine that you're shrinking it down and it helps with calming down. There's another one. I don't know if I have it on this sheet or not. Yeah, it's down at the bottom of Squeeze a Lemon. I like that one too. In fact, I had a kid just a few weeks ago because I said, well, you know, you have to use your imagination. Where are you going to get the lemons? You know? And he said, I'll go to Lemon Land. So you go to Lemon Land, you grab a lemon and you squeeze the lemon. You imagine that you have a hole in the bottom of the lemon and you squeeze out the juice and you let it go. And then you talk about how when your hand gets tight and tense, your wrist follows, your arm follows, your whole body follows. And when you learn to tighten and then you learn to relax, it's a way of being able to identify those different states. And it helps kids have more awareness. When we can engage them physically and make them more mindful, that mind body connection really helps. Diaphragmatic breathing, very important. I can't tell you how many times I have kids come in and we'll do the diaphragmatic breathing and I say, show me how you take breaths. And of course they'll, you know, we really want to instead have those belly breaths. So because when we expand our diaphragm, as I understand it, we stimulate our vagus nerve located down by the spine, and it sends a signal to help reboot our reactive brain. Counting to 10 works really well because again, we're bringing in a kind of computational task and it slows things down. Stretching. Can I have a whole sheet of. With all these types of interventions, walk away. I try to help kids. We'll do an exercise called Unhelpful and Helpful Thoughts where we work on getting rid of those shoulds and nevers and rigid thinking patterns, or at least trying to contain them. So what goes along with defiant behavior? Anxiety. It's often denied by kids that come in less today. But I still get a lot of kids swimming in that big river in Egypt called denial that they have anxiety. But I think there's been so many efforts to Kind of get mental health out of the closet and into the public talking about it. So that's. I think it's still there, but we need more to do more work on kind of letting people know it's okay to have anxiety. It's how we manage it. Depression can be overshadowed sometimes by aggression. ADHD learning differences lead to that struggle with versus choose not gifted kids. I've seen often it's hard to be super smart, maybe even smarter than some of the adults around you and not get reactive. Imagine that it's very, very hard. Parenting, family dynamics and peer issues, all these can lead to go along with defiant behavior. With ADHD, up to 40% of defiant children by some estimates have defiant behavior. For these kids, it's hard to live in their own skin. It disrupts those two most important skills which in my opinion for life, the ability to self soothe or calm down and problem solve. And it's very important where you can to get schools outside when you can. When you have the resources to get psychoanalytals, neuropsychs. With adhd, neurology becomes psychology. A colleague of mine, Ari Tuckman, I don't know if that was his original quote. I've certainly heard him say it. It may be, but that's a very important quote to keep in mind that again, it leads to this idea that for a lot of these children, they really have a bona fide struggle. Again, I want to keep this image alive for you. Struggle with versus choose not. Because that really helps with the empathy. Okay. Anxiety is a very common problem. It seems. It's ubiquitous these days. It affects 13% of children. And I have more and more kids naming it for me. I think the movies Inside out and Inside out, two wonderful movies, I think, have, you know, getting that message out that it's okay to have feelings, even problematic feelings. And the more that we bring them along for the ride versus thinking we have to extinguish them. It's part of life and learning to live with and manage. But anxiety is a really big driver of defiant behavior. I've seen kids lash out and do things with peers, with their parents, and then later talk to me about how scared they were, how shamed they were, how, how they felt so backed into a corner and their fears overtook them. Depression. I've seen a lot of kids with depression that have kind of an agitated form of depression. They're irritable, they have attitude. And a lot of times that's what's driving that defiant behavior. It can occur too. It's very Important to keep in mind that, you know, we tend to think of, oh, this child has depression, this one has anxiety, this teen has depression or anxiety. There's an intermingling, there's comorbidities that can be very merged. And it's very often a child has a couple different things going, plus life stressors. Things may be going on at home or with peer groups. I've had so many children these days, the preteens and the teens seeing on Instagram or Snapchat things where they're not included, parties they weren't invited to. Used to be there would just be a rumor of something that happened. But now that feeling left out, negative comparison of self to others. By seeing all these teens living their best lives, being their best selves, I see so much of this and I see the number it's doing. So I'm throwing this into the mix as another part of the stew, if you will, that is simmering and boils up into defiant behavior. A lot of kids that I see are, in my opinion, overbooked. They're over scheduled. I see. I mean, as a child psychologist, I'm competing. I'll use that word when I go to schedule kids with soccer practices, drum lessons, piano lessons, scouts, religious activities, you name it. I think it's really good for kids to have structure. But I'm seeing a lot of kids that are very overscheduled. I think when the pandemic occurred, one of the problems was that a lot of kids were socially cut off and they lost a lot of their ability to socialize at the same time. For a lot of kids, it slowed their lives down. So it's sort of a mixed bag. We all know that there's a lot of ripple effects from the pandemic on mental health. But now that we've been out of it for a while, I'm seeing again so many kids spread very thin in different directions and a lot of very tired parents, too. I think defiant children have a hard time prioritizing the demands of their responsibilities, particularly if they do have adhd. We know that executive function happening is really problematic. And I like the metaphor, especially with the academic challenges with kids who have defiance. ADHD of the distant elephant. You know, if you envision an elephant right now that's like, you know, 100 yards away, a football field away, it's not going to nearly be as big. But when it's lumbering toward you, think book report, think presentation, and you haven't really prepared, and now all of a sudden you look up, it's overwhelming. And I think that's often the life of a lot of kids with ADHD and defiant behavior. We are so focused on pathology, so positive reinforcement, in my opinion, it's just so important. We need to not just think in terms of this. Anxiety disorder, depression, adhd, they're wonderful labels. They help us conceptualize when medications are used. They're helpful. They're helpful in coming up with treatment plans. Totally on board. But what about positive psychology? Where is that in the mix? Are we really helping our children and teens identify their character strengths enough? Think of it this way. If you go out today and buy a blue Toyota Camry, I hope I won't get in trouble for mentioning a brand. I don't even own one. But I'm just using this as an example. Any kind of, you know, model, like a blue Toyota Camry. What are you going to see on the roads tomorrow? A blue Toyota Camry, right. Or, or a Nissan Sentra will, will spread it out. Blue one. You know, whatever your car is, make and model, the next few days, you're going to see your newly acquired car. You're going to see other people driving. Why? Because it's top of mind. And in homes where children have a lot of defiant behavior and reactivity, I think everybody's so beat up and worn down that we start to look at only the negatives, the problems, we start to anticipate them. And the more that we can help our children and teens see the positive exceptions to the rule, like Sam, you know, in that example I gave at the beginning, my son, you know, he, he was able to downshift and apologize to his sister. And by the way, later in that weekend, his younger sister came up to him and was provoking him. And he cocked a fist and I said, sam, please. And he let it go. That was a win. And I was looking for wins. And the more we look for wins and we let our children know through that accountability mirror, not only for what they need to do better, but also praise them for what they do well. Concrete, specific feedback, it starts to crowd out the negative behaviors. So we want to give them rewards within reason. Verbal praise, by the way, I think is one of the best rewards. We want to speak through our hearts, from our hearts, and we want to let these strengths build on ourselves. It's so important. I think we're in a world of a lot of pathology and again, learned optimism, character, strengths, grit. When our kids show grit, that bounce back, ability, we want to let them know so they can identify it. When kids get into flow states, preferably not just with a video game, but drawing a picture, reading, throwing a ball, playing a board game where we lose that sense of time. We want to talk about how, what a great coping strategy that is. Okay. And with a lot of the kids that come in, particularly like age 10 and down, I'll have the parents do what I call a positive catchbook. And I'm listing them here. Right. The quick second bullet, quick recoveries. Use their words. They were more flexible. They let it go. Think of Elsa, right? Frozen. They didn't take the bait. They made requests in a calmer way. They resisted hooks like screens. They asked for help. So we really want to take this opportunity that when we want to look for it, write it down, especially for younger children, go over it with them a few times a week, perhaps when they're lying down to sleep and they're more receptive and you have a captive audience. As far as some of my work, one of my books, I have these cooperation games and I want to briefly mention these as I wrap up for today. There's I believe 17 cooperation games in my latest book on defiant children. And one is put yourself in each other's shoes. This actually goes way back to one of my first sessions when I was really anxious. This big tall father with a commanding presence who was a very pragmatic engineer and his kid had ADHD and oppositional defiant and they just kept locking horns. His nine year old was really giving him a run for his money. And in this session I literally had them take off their shoes. So the boy has got his feet lost in his father's size 13 shoes and they actually role played each other. And by doing that and stating each other's perspective, I mean the father broke down and started crying. It was so moving because he got to hear what he sounded like and he was frustrated. So I mean it doesn't always have to be emotionally laden, but it's a way of changing up perspectives, putting the past behind you. So get up to a wall, do a wall, sit and crouch and share issues that you both overcome, maybe that, you know, you've seen each other overcome. You coach your child a little bit to help you with that or get them to focus on their own. Doesn't really matter. The idea is that we're focusing on positives and then handfuls of gratitude. I can't say enough about gratitude. I try to practice it. It's my drug of choice. You can never OD on it. Gratitude is a wonderful way. It's hard to be grateful and be miserable at the same time. So. So in this particular game, standing on one leg, secure yourself with a wall. I don't want anybody coming after me. And state what you're grateful for with each finger in the air and then make a fist and you're not using your fist to punch each other. So on that note, I believe we've gone through the slides. I want to end with that. It's very important to lead with empathy. As I've tried to stress be when you feel in the lane, locked in the lane and stuck in the traffic jam of frustrated parents, switch over to be the emotion regulation coach. Stay calm, firm and non controlling. Again, the handouts. There's a handout that talks about, that gives a lot of good prompts and ways to practice, infuse encouragement, keep innovating and build on those successes.
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Wonderful. Thank you so much, Dr. Bernstein, for such an insightful presentation. That was wonderful. So for our live viewers, please note you can access Dr. Bernstein's handouts by clicking on the Event Resources tab of your screen. That's where you can download the slides too. We'll also be sure to make the handouts available after the live event. Before we start the Q and A, I'd like to thank Brain Balance once more for sponsoring the webinar. And I'd like to share the final results from today's poll questions so the first question we asked was, which aspects of managing oppositional or defiant behavior are you most interested in learning about? During Today's webinar, about 26% of the audience said de escalating techniques for challenging situations. So that was the most popular answer. And then Just under about 22% said strategies to encourage your child's cooperation and buy in. And slightly below that, 16% said self regulation techniques to model positive behavior. And then we asked about the age of your child. And it looks like about a quarter of our audience here has 11 to 13 year olds and another quarter has 8 to 10 year olds and another quarter has 14 to 17 year olds. And then of course, there are children who are younger and older than that as well. So now to your questions. Dr. Bernstein, we had a fair number of questions from parents who need help handling violent outbursts. One mom asks, how can I redirect my child when they are screaming and swearing and hitting and throwing things at me?
- [40:19]
C
I mean, look, there are times I've had families come in where the police are called, you know, when it's really bad, when it's a real sustained, you know, people are risk of being hurt. I think those are really reserved for extreme cases because I've often heard reports that when, you know, the police come, it settles people down. And then there's times where they'll say, well, you know, work on parenting your kid. And I don't know that that's always fair if your child has, you know, some struggles, that struggle with peace. But I continue to believe in confirmed non controlling. I think that it's like Indianapolis 500. I don't follow racing, but there's a pace car, right? Every race starts with a pace car. And when the parents can do their best to not unwittingly fuel the child by staying calm, firm and non controlling, leading with empathy, it really helps cool down that amygdala. Okay. That reacting brain. I see you're really upset. Looks like you're really angry. I hear you. And then gently and ever so gently and calmly to make a statement, I'm here to listen. You don't ever listen. You, I hate. You know, I. I get it. I hear you're really frustrated and then slowing down your tone. Just like Indianapolis, like that pace cars, you stay. If your child revs up and starts, you know, accelerating down the track, your job is to stay that pace at 15, 20 miles an hour. And you say something like, wouldn't you agree that a calm, constructive conversation is probably going to help both of us so that we can both feel a little like we're getting further along so we can both manage this so that I can try to help you even more. So you state a positive willingness and you envision yourself as that pace car. Again, I wish I had magic, but that's the closest thing that I can offer to it.
- [42:29]
B
Well, I think that's a really helpful metaphor there to keep in mind the pace car. So, yeah, thank you for that. We had a lot of questions about helping kids and a lot of teenagers with ADHD who are defiant in getting various kinds of help, who are very opposed to help. So one of the common subjects people asked about are kids who are floundering academically, but they are really resistant to any kind of advice or help or guidance from parents or outside sources. So any advice about how to help with that?
- [43:12]
C
Well, by the way, if I had to give, you know, what's a third most important skill for life? Right. So you've heard me say, you know, today, calming down, solving problems and kind of solving problems is asking for help. But I'd put asking for help as a third category. You know, we're at an age where we look things up on Google University. Look it up, look it up, look it up. But I think when kids can approach a teacher, that teacher can get to know them or a professor for an older child and really kind of get that one to one and get that support. And I think we need to really let them know in advance what could be the obstacles for asking for help and ask gentle questions. Are you worried that if you ask for help that, you know, the teacher is going to maybe snap at you and say, hey, didn't you read that chapter? Or how I thought I just went over that. Is that. And you're not saying that that's necessarily going to happen, but you know, if the child is not giving you anything, then throw some spaghetti on their wall, on their refrigerator, wet spaghetti and see what sticks. So it might be. Are you worried that the teacher will have a negative reaction? Are you worried that your friends could find out and you would feel less than. Are you worried that, you know, you're letting me down as your parent, us down as your parent, and, you know, try to name it. And the more you name it, I know this is going to sound corny, but the more you may tame it, name it to tame it. So name these kind of opposing, resistant forces, normalize them. Say, hey, look, you know, it's hard, it's hard to ask for help for a lot of people. I get it. And maybe even give a little, you know, anecdote about how you struggled as a parent to ask for help or others and then how much better you felt. So I think when you kind of present it that way, you make it a calm, constructive conversation versus how come you're not asking for help. Power struggle.
- [45:14]
B
Right. Okay, thank you. That's really helpful. This is similar, in a similar vein, but rather than academic help, there's a lot of parents who feel like their child or teenager would benefit from working with a therapist or a counselor to work through maybe some comorbidities or other issues. But again, their child or teen is very opposed to this idea. Is there a way to convince them or will these kind of endeavors meet a lot of resistance? What's a useful angle of approach you.
- [45:57]
C
Can recommend every once in a while? And it's very rare, a parent will pull up to my office and the kid won't get out of the car. It's rare. I mean, most of the people that come here, you know, the kids are willing to be here. But first thing is when you tell your child that you're going to go to talk to Somebody please don't say we're taking you to a doctor or we're taking you to a therapist. I think a really good approach is a collaborative approach. And if I had another word that I would want everybody to consider for today. When you feel stuck in your role, trying to help and guide kids that are reactive and defiant, it would be collaborative. So it might be like, you know, there's some things we're doing well, things I'm doing well as your mom, as your dad, and there's things that I think we could do better and we'd like to go talk to somebody. And if you don't want to talk, that's fine. You can just sit there, bring your phone. This is how I would present it. I'm not saying this is right, but. And you know, and I've had so many times where parents will come in and just even doing that, the kids are much more open to it. And then if a child doesn't want to talk, then I'll just talk about them in a respectful way to their parents while they're sitting there. And it's amazing, so many kids, once their parents are talking to them, will start talking. So that's really important. And for the heavy lifting, by the way, for the kids that are really resistant, here is. I don't know if you all can see Rocky down there, but that's Rocky, my dog. That's my little counseling area, but that's Rocky. And he provides a very affirming, calm vibe as well. But on a serious note, I think the more you make it collaborative, the less you pathologize it, the less you make it a tense type thing and make it, you know, this is what families do. And, you know, I mean, I don't lie. I am a child psychologist, but I'd say I'm also a coach and make it more of a coaching model, emphasized positive psychology model versus we're going in for you to get fixed.
- [48:10]
B
Yes, that's great advice. A small bit seems like very important shifts in the approach. Some of our viewers like the idea of a safe word, but want some more details about how exactly to employ that. What happens when your child says that safe word? What happens next?
- [48:36]
C
I think at that point you can try different things. It depends on the age of the child and the personality of the child. I think the best the go to intervention at that point, if the child says the face word, or sometimes it can even be a gesture. I know they do these in classrooms. It could be a certain type of hand signal. Touching the ear, touching the forehead, or, or it could be a safe word like banana or grapefruit. Then at that point, I think the best way is take a break. It's a time to take a break. Younger children sometimes benefit from having a calm down corner in the house. It could be a desk in the living room or off in the den, if you have a den or some separate little area where they can color, they can draw tons of fidgets and just kind of have a time to chill out. So I think a safe word primarily, primarily linked to take a break is a way, but it's easier to use that safe word instead of asking kids to say I need to take a break or I need a break, which is another thing to work up to too. Or wouldn't you agree that it's good right now we're both upset, let's take a break. So I think that's how, that's what I would do. Let me add one other point to that. I think when parents are frustrated, and this is on the handout, on the sound bites handout, being able to say something to coach your child through modeling. You know, Sarah, there's a part of me right now that wants to yell or keep yelling and ground you and take this away, but you know, I don't think that's going to help you or me. How about we take a break? I think that's, I'm not answering. I'm leaving the idea of a safe word, but I'm also moving to that. As parents, we want to model to our kids problem solving in real time and calming down in real time and making a better choice in real time. And I think that's a really good thing to teach them as well. But the safe word can help us get there.
- [50:43]
B
So building on that, we have a question from a parent who says, my child and I both have adhd. How do I help my defiant ADHD child without losing myself into the abyss of ADHD deregulation? So obviously a lot of the techniques that you've already described are going to apply. But are there any specific considerations.
- [51:12]
C
That.
- [51:12]
B
You, that come to mind in your work for parents who are dysregulated with adhd, dealing with also very defiant children? Any words of advice you can offer to that situation?
- [51:25]
C
I mean, with my own children, and it's not, it hasn't been totally sunshine and rainbows. I mean, I'm grateful to say that I have a close relationship with all three, but you know, they're still challenging times. Our emotions can get the best of us. There's things that come up, there's misunderstandings. Right. We're all human. But I think one of the things that parents can do is reflect on their victories. You know, I was really, I was really detailing this, you know, when I hit that slide on the importance of letting our kids know when they're making good choices. I think, you know, there were times I would keep, like on my notes app, on my phone, or a list of, hey, you know, situations that I felt like I handled pretty well with the kids, where I started to go south and I righted my own ship. And I think the more that parents especially, especially, you know, if you have ADHD and you're scared that you're not going to be able to regulate and you're going to go down that abyss. I like that word. How about identify your successes and build on them? I think that'll raise your confidence. I think that'll help you going forward. So that's, to me, is in addition to, of course, taking deep breaths, using the sound bites on the handout entitled Sound Bites, I think that's how I would address it. And look, I mean, then there's more, you know, complicated cases where somebody may benefit from perhaps getting evaluated for medication or making changes in their life if they are in a relationship that's really toxic and problematic. So I don't want to oversimplify the answer, but I can't see a downside to trying to record as parents when we're actually making good choices and regulating our own emotions and feeling good about it to allow ourselves to get recharged and more optimistic.
- [53:10]
B
Absolutely. I love that idea. Some of our readers and viewers are asking about pathological demand avoidance. How do you distinguish between odd versus pathological demand avoidance? Where does it fit in and does it change these recommendations at all or not?
- [53:31]
C
Yeah. You know, the most ethical answer I can give you is I don't consider myself an expert on pathological demand avoidance. I've tried looking it up. I don't think it's a DSM 5, but I think, you know, like in a diagnostic manual of a. But I know it's. It's a term that a lot of people been using. I mean, I. I still think I've had kids that, you know, parents had said that they think this diagnosis fits of pathological demand avoidance and the empathy and pointing out their strengths and basking into victories has really helped. I've also had a lot of kids that fit this type of profile of pathological demand avoidance where when for example, when they're shutting down at school, when the parents can have the child meet with the teacher, with the parent there, particularly for younger children, even up till, you know, 12, 13, preteens, teens, and really kind of create a connection with this authority figure that they might feel intimidated by. I think that can help. Now, if the pathological demand, avoidance has some underlying depression or anxiety, then obviously an evaluation by a psychiatrist, as well as any mental health professional might be really a good thing to consider as well. Again, I don't consider myself an expert on that. I need and want to learn more about it.
- [55:06]
B
Okay, got it. Thank you. Thinking about a broader context and network for our children, we have some viewers who are asking, how do you help other adults, such as coaches or grandparents? How do you help them help your child by using this kind of approach? And the flip side of that is, how do you coach your child or prepare your child for interactions with peers or other people who are not willing to use these kind of techniques?
- [55:41]
C
Yeah, well, like, I know, like, I might have kids in my office where there might be a certain trigger for them. For example, I've had some kids that on the sports field in baseball, for example, if they strike out, you know, they get really angry. They. They throw the bat. I had one older teen curse out a umpire. You know, it didn't go over well. So I tried to kind of take a look at some of the triggers, what it represented, and also to kind of help them see that, okay, if they're having problems here, where are they holding it together when compared to peers who are struggling? So kind of flipping it around a little bit. And if a child sees peers who are struggling, reinforcing to them, not in a shaming way, hey, you know, it's really good that you've risen above this, or this isn't a challenge for you. And then helping them get in touch with challenges that they do have so that hopefully they can have empathy for this child who is struggling. And then obviously, sometimes kids have to disconnect and kind of shift their peer group when there's kids who are more ensnared, let's say, and physicality or reactive behavior, or kids who say things that are going beyond little ribbing and teasing to being cruel. So really having really good conversations, I think, with your child about who they want to hang out with, what they're getting from these relationships, and teaching them that some people have different limitations that they're going through at different times. And then for kids, also using their school counselor as a Resource if they're observing struggles in some of these, some of their peers, and maybe telling in confidence the school counselor so it can get followed up.
- [57:51]
B
Okay, thank you. We have a viewer with an 18 year old who says, My 18 year old son is defiant, doesn't do his schoolwork or help the family with chores or otherwise. I am worried that I have so little time left with him to make a difference. I know, Dr. Bernstein, that you also work with parents of adult children as well. So do you have advice for someone with a teenager and they feel their time is dwindling to make a positive impact or to repair a relationship that's so important to them?
- [58:29]
C
You know, I think that it's amazing how quickly we can move in the repair stage if we really speak from our heart and if we listen and we reflect and we lead with validating. And I think it's really important for parents to manage their own anxiety. I appreciate this person who wrote this in because they're being very real. But sometimes as parents, we feel like our kids have to go at a certain schedule. You look on Facebook and you see the graduation pictures and you feel like you have to keep up. Some kids do better taking a year off, a gap year. Excuse me, I've had kids go to AmeriCorps for a year, community college instead of quote unquote, regular college, going into a trade. So realizing that for some kids, their path may be a little more circuitous, not as straight and direct, and that's okay. Taking some of the pressure off, I think as parents can often bring down some of that tension and anxiety and. And I think the kids pick up on it. Yeah. So I would really, really encourage that. You have, God willing, if you're healthy, not looking at it as the time is just extinguishing. And look, if, you know, I had a father of a child come in once and he gave me some great wisdom. He was talking about how most doors open both ways. So there's some things in life, you know, if you have a child, if you get married, like that's a door you go through. Well, especially the child one, you know, you have the child, you die. But most, you know, like, okay, who wants to see college not work out? I get it. But you know, learning and growing mentality will help alleviate some of that anxiety. Because sometimes it does take learning and growing and we don't just get there on a straight shot. But the more that we create that emotional safety, the more that we know that our kids can call us and talk about their inner anxieties. That's really important one. I'll be really quick. One of the things I always say to parents is think about it this way. If your child's at a party, whether in college or somewhere or at high school, and stuff is going down and they're not feeling really good about it, you know, do they feel safe to talk to you, to call you, to text you? So yeah. And by the way, that's another version of a safe word, is like, I've had kids. This is a different application of it. Like parents kind of talk with their kids that if you're somewhere and there's a real problem, just text me the word apple or something, different context, and I'll come and get you instead of feeling like you're going to create a scene by telling others you're going to leave.
- [61:19]
B
Well, Dr. Bernstein, thank you so much. That'll have to be our last question because we're out of time, but we thank you very sincerely for joining us today and for contributing your voice to this ADHD community.
- [61:33]
C
Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.
- [61:36]
B
Thanks and also thanks to today's listeners. If you would like to access the event resources, visit attitudemag.com and search podcast 539. The slides and recording are posted a few hours after each live webinar. If you're listening in replayed mode, simply click on the episode description. Please know that our full library of Attitude webinars is available as a podcast. It's called the ADHD Experts Podcast and it's available on most streaming platforms. We hope to see you again next week for our free webinar titled the Neurodivergent Female how to build a Business that works for your ADHD Brain. Make sure you don't miss future Attitude webinars articles or research updates by signing up to receive our free email newsletters@attitudemag.com newsletters. Thank you. For more Attitude Podcast and information on living well with attention depth deficit, visit attitudemag.com that's a D D I T U D e m a g.com.
- [62:54]
A
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