B (14:06)

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A (14:31)

So the old school authoritarian approach was and is to basically shut down a kid's emotions. Sure, you will change their outward behavior, but you're not teaching them anything and you're not becoming that trusted leader that they need, that trusted parent. It's a huge missed opportunity to. To teach kids how to deal in healthy ways with their inevitable emotions. And sometimes it's subtle. And even good parents will say, oh, honey, there's no need to be nervous. You shouldn't be upset. Oh, your brother never had a problem with this. And see, that is not that different than dismissing your spouse's emotions. When I was younger, I was guilty of saying this to my wife. Oh, honey, there's no need to be upset. You. It'll be okay. Now, I stopped short of the caveman response. You're just overreacting. But here is what I was honestly saying, and I think this is important. So I want to draw this out a little bit for us as adults. This is kind of what I was saying to my wife. Could you please stop expressing or having those emotions? Because your emotions make me really uncomfortable. I don't know what to do with your emotions, and now I feel obligated to fix you or fix your mood so you're not upset. See, that's not an uncommon feeling between spouses. But here's what maturity says. When my wife is kind of quiet and she's struggling inside, I am not responsible to. To fix it. To fix her or to make it better. I make an offer to listen. Hey, honey, if you want to talk about it, let me know, and I'll be glad to listen, preferably at halftime. I'm kidding. But I'm glad to listen. The agreement on her part is, honey, if you did something wrong or need to apologize or make it right, then I will tell you. See, that way, I don't have to guess as if this is something that I played a part in. I just let that way I can distinguish, like, okay, she's just struggling with something. So I go about my day and I give her space to process without following her around and trying to fix it. See how we do that with our kids? Oftentimes we walk around and we think, well, I need to fix that mood right away. And then we end up making it worse. And I Will tell you it is really uncomfortable. It is fascinating how often it comes back to being about me and how I feel about her moods and emotions. I selfishly want to scream, could you please just process this and get back to being in a better mood so I can enjoy my day and be in a better mood. And it's hard. I can tell you that with practice you can get better at this. So you can enjoy your day, be available to your spouse and kids, but not have to change their moods. It is very liberating for everyone because if you're just walking around trying to fix your kids or your spouse's moods, it will make it worse. Everybody will be upset. Now sometimes the tough approach that we took right, that, that kind of authoritarian approach that I hear people, a lot of guys are like, well, that old school approach used to work well back in the day. Sometimes that is just a counter reaction to the overly sweet or accommodating response to emotions. That sometimes allows kids to express whatever they want with no limits or boundaries, as if it's okay to lash out and call your parents names just because you're upset. And this is where I do think we go a little too far with handling our kids emotions now. Sometimes parents get stuck saying, honey, do you want to identify your emotions? And we talk, talk, talk endlessly about their emotions and how they're feeling. But we often get entangled and caught up, up in their emotions and never really lead them to deal with the emotions. We don't lead them through it. So it's as if just identifying and talking about emotions is the end goal. Like, see, I did it, I was empathetic and listened and don't we all feel better? And parents routinely send us videos of their interactions with their kids during emotional upheaval. Please don't do that because it's really upsetting for me. Because most of the time it's horrible how people do it. And much of the time there is a parent trying too hard to be understanding with a child. And they go on and on and on. They're like, well, honey, how does that feel and how's that feeling? And I'm watching the child, I'm like, the child just really wants the parent to shut up and please just give me some space or lead me and show me a different way. I hope that doesn't offend you because I'm not meaning to be offensive because I understand your heart and your intention is to be loving and compassionate towards your child and to treat your kids and maybe in ways that you were never treated. But what I want you to know is that will backfire with the strong willed child. See, you're more compliant, less emotionally intense. Kids may find this talk about emotions soothing and helpful, so by all means do that. But I can tell you that your strong will child will find this kind of talk irritating and not helpful. What they're often screaming inside is, I know what my emotions are right now. It's not that hard. Duh. My frustration at not being able to do this, the way I picture doing it, makes me feel helpless and like a failure. These changes in plans make me feel out of control. And that's why I want to seek and assert control. My anxiety, the unknowns over this new activity make me feel nervous and unsettled and, and not confident. So what do I do with these emotions? See, does that make sense? It's not just like, well, let's just talk about it, let's identify. It's like, no, I need a leader. I need someone in my home who's been through this before to come in and help lead me through this. And remember our steps in calming kids with big emotions. Our first step is not to try to get them to calm down. And remember that talking a lot when people are upset tends to make them more upset because it's really hard to process language when you are very emotional. And so our first step is to give them something they are in control of. Remember that phrase motion changes emotions? Sometimes a movement or a physical activity actually helps them call calm down. And we use that non emotional, matter of fact tone that says, I'm not moved by this. I know what you're going through. I've seen this before, done it. When your world is out of control. Mine's not. I can handle anything that comes my way. We also validate with intensity. We avoid eye contact. So I will get. Look, I want to give you a real life example that just happened in our home where with me about two hours ago. So I already recorded this podcast earlier and for some reason it didn't save on my laptop. So I lost everything I had recorded and it was a really good take and I was really frustrated. Look, I'm an intense type a driven jerk by nature. And so my response was not, oh, well, darn it. I guess this gives me an opportunity to do it even better next time. I'm so grateful for this chance. That was not my initial response. There was some swearing and grunting and so if my family had just said, oh, it's not a big deal, you're really good at this. Just record it again. Well, see, that's dismissive. And my response inside would been like, oh, yeah, well, go. You know what? Right. You don't get it. But I also don't want them to say, oh, honey, I can see you're so upset right now. Do you want to discuss your feelings with me? No, I really effing don't. Right. Like in that moment, I don't. Now, thankfully, my family and Mrs. Kulm, they actually listen to our podcast. So she said, well, that stinks. She said something else, but she said, that stinks. I hate when that recording app is so unreliable. Now, does she really know? But she knows it would be foolish to ask. Well, did you actually hit the record button? Right? Because that would. That would have been. Made me furious. Or she knew not to say. To point out how good that applies actually is. So she validated what I was feeling with intensity. Yeah, that stinks. See, I love doing that with kids. Short and sweet. Then she gave me some space to process without trying to fix the situation or my mood, because in that situation, I needed a little time to process because I put a lot of. I'm not saying this in a self. Whatever way, but I do put a lot of time and effort into these because I want them to be respectful, helpful, and I respect your time. So I want Nita to process a little bit. But then a few minutes later, she casually and evenly said, hey, if you get a chance sometime today, we could use some more kindling and firewood split. And I was like, she just celebrate. Calmed me. Well done. So watch how cool this is. I was really frustrated, but she didn't dismiss it or try to make me feel all better. With a sweet tone, she validated with intensity and then casually gave me another mission to focus on. Splitting wood is incredibly helpful for dealing with frustration and disappointment. It's so sensory. The feel of the axe splitting the wood, the pleasing crack, the. The pile of kindling. Think about this. Which gives a sense of being in control and accomplishing something. Because I can see, I had this big log, and now I have all these little pieces, and I'm carrying it in, and it feels like I'm actually in control of something and doing something. Well, that is very therapeutic. And that's why I always say, please have in the back of your head or written down on the refrigerator, what are two or three different things your kids can do that are physical, that are sensory, that give them a sense of accomplishment when they're upset? And plus, while I was splitting wood. I listened to this other podcast and learned that exercise before or after or after learning actually leads to improvements in short term memory and processing. So as I split that wood, I, I actually had a couple more insights I added to this recording. So when your child, when something your child is really focused on, let's say they're focused on building something, they're creating something they pictured in their brain, but it doesn't look right, they will lose it emotionally and dismissing them by saying, oh, it's no big deal. You can fix that. That's not helpful. But you also don't want to do that thing. And I see, especially on Instagram and a lot of parenting pages, the mom gets down at eye level and says sweetly, honey, do you want to tell me how it makes you feel when your project didn't look the way that you wanted or expected? Honestly, what are they supposed to say? Because a strong willed child might say, yeah, well, that syrupy little tone that you're using makes me want to hit you right now, mom, because it is infuriating. It sounds condescending to them. So instead, I'd rather you walk into the room and say, oh, man, I'd be really angry if I put that much effort into a project and it didn't turn out the way I wanted it to. Man, that's frustrating. See, that intense validation says, oh, my dad, my mom, they get it. And you're not trying to talk them out of their mood, but you're also not entering into this, into this emotional space where they don't want to be. Because sometimes we draw them back and we're like, honey, let's talk about it for 15 minutes. Like, no, I don't want to talk about it for 15 minutes. So then I may walk away to give the child some space to process and I may say something, hey, do you want a snack or a drink or anything from the kitchen? Because I'm going to go grab a drink. And now you're giving them space and some sense of control because they can choose what they want. Hey, could you bring me back a snack? While in the other room, I may say something like this, hey, when you're ready, if you think that you're, I need some help outside. If you're strong enough to move some dirt, move some mulch for me in the backyard. I could really use your help because sensory kids really like doing physical things. Remember on that previous podcast that one mom who brilliantly had said when I was on the phone with her, I was like, hey, See, do you have anything in the basement your child could move? And remember, she said, oh, honey, you know what? I was going to clean down there because we have company coming. You know, I don't know if you, if you can do this, but if you could move the sofa to the other side of the room in the basement, that would really help me out. See, I'm in the middle of building something, doing something. I'm really frustrated and angry. Or it could be something emotional that happened at school with a friend. It doesn't matter, I'm out of control. But now my parent just gave me a mission. I'm like, oh, oh yeah, I can go move that. See, I'm in control of that. It's physical, like splitting wood. That was really good for working off my frustration. So now watch what has happened. I have now connected and bonded with them over their justifiable frustration. I am teaching them tools to calm down movement. Having control over something. See, instead of just talking about the emotions or dismissing them, saying, hey, this is going to happen to you in life, you are going to experience frustration and disappointment. So moving, having control over something, having a mission, something very physical that'll help you. And this kind of humility on our part also leads to contrition. So there's this little phrase in there. Hey, when you're ready. On the next episode of the podcast, I'm going to share why that is such a powerful phrase and how to use it. And I'm going to give you detailed scripts and action steps to address these emotional situations that are pretty common. We'll go over anxiety over going to a new activity. We're going to cover when kids talk back and use a disrespectful tone to you and a child just playing, not listening to you. So in the next few days, let's practice these new tools we talked about on this episode. Really wrestle with your childhood issues, how you view authority figures, some of that childhood, those childhood wounds, practice that even matter of fact tone. Come up with a few missions that you can give your kids to that are physical and sensory when they are upset. Let's practice this. Look, it's going to be uncomfortable for you at first. And even practice this with your spouse when they're a bad mood man, that'll make you change in the end. This will lead to connection to teaching and kids who can handle their emotions. On moms and dads, you can do this. Look, so much respect for you for working so hard at this. So if we can help you in any way let us know. Love you all. Bye Bye.

C (31:17)

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A (31:36)

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C (31:36)

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