← Respectful Parenting: Janet Lansbury Unruffled
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Well, today I have, believe it or not, only one parents note that I'm going to be talking about. But it brings up such important, universal, normal concerns that we have as parents that so many parents have asked me about that I can relate to myself. That's why I wanted to respond to this note today. This parent sort of encapsulates some really important issues that can get in our way as parents and make it harder for us to understand and help our child with their behavior. The first one is this idea of our children getting exposed to things that we really would prefer they didn't get exposed to and then bringing those things home. In this case, it's about saying words that this child heard at school. But it can be behaviors that kids pick up from other kids where it seems that they're like imitating another child. So that's the first one. How do we handle that? Why do kids do that? How should we feel about this? And then the other one is sort of entirely different, but they both tie in together. In this case, this idea of us feeling heartbroken about behavior in our kids. It could be when we see our child being mean to their sibling or to other children, behaving in ways that we've wanted so much to prevent in them. Or they're on the receiving end of these unkind behaviors and we care about this job so much. We love our children so much that we can take this really, really hard when they do what I want to encourage you to see as typical, normal things. The problem with feeling heartbroken about what's going on with our child is that it makes it very, very hard for us to respond in a way that helps our child with this behavior. Because first of all, it's hard for us to understand it when we're just feeling so disappointed about it. I hope this is all going to make sense. I think it will when I get into this note. Here it is. Hi Janet, I'm wondering if you have any advice on children bringing undesirable language home from school. My five year old started school two weeks ago. She has come home using language that we don't use at home. Admittedly, nothing terrible, but words that we intentionally don't use. At the risk of sounding dramatic, I am devastated. To hear these words come out of my precious girl's mouth upsets me. But what is more upsetting is my concern that she just mimics others. I've tried having calm conversations with her where I explain that different families use different words. Other families may say things that we don't and that's their choice, but in our family we don't, etc. Today she told me that she only uses those words at school now and doesn't say them at home because I don't like them. I don't know how else to explain to her that those words are not okay without demonizing the kids around her. One very sad and considering homeschooling mother. So this parent didn't use the word heartbroken, but she says she's devastated and very sad and all of that's understandable. We have a right to our feelings. It's something to look at. What I would like to offer is an understanding of how typical and healthy this is for a child to do what her daughter's doing. It's actually what children are supposed to do as they're learning and exploring being exposed to things that they don't quite understand or that are new to them. They bring them home to us, the person they trust, and they're kind of running it by us. It's a way of bouncing something off of someone that was a little bit surprising to you. Probably these words that this child hadn't heard before. She sensed the power in them, that they were used in a powerful way with the children between each other. Or maybe the adults at school reacted to them in a way that gave it power. And then what commonly happens is that we give it all this power because, oh, we're so disappointed. We've tried so hard not to say these kinds of words in front of our child. We've made a concerted effort. And this is the sort of wonderful nest that we create for our children. But the point of that nest is for our children to feel that security and self confidence, to then be able to gradually, in age appropriate ways, be exposed to other things, be exposed to conflict, be exposed to situations that they've never experienced, and try to navigate and learn from those. So the point is not to keep our child in this bubble. It's to do this really hard thing. And I was trying to find the exact words that Magda Gerber used to describe this because it was much more eloquent than what I'm going to say. But parenting is a process of letting go of control over our child. That can be uncomfortable. Right? And some parents do homeschool for that reason because they don't want to expose their children to kids from other kinds of families where they say other kinds of things. I think either way is fine. But this idea that we're trying to keep our children in a bubble is not going to serve them or us. So this five year old is, like I said before, doing what she's supposed to do. She's bringing this home. And now she finds that this has power with her mother too. And that's interesting for her as well. Right? And she needs to keep kind of figuring that out the way the kids do, which is they keep bringing it up. And now, even when she says, I'm only saying this at school now, the girl knows very well that her mother doesn't want to hear this either. That just means, well, now you don't have any control over me saying this. And I'm still saying it. And she's not doing it to be bratty or obstinate or rebellious even. It's more an exploration of this power. And yes, words can be powerful, but the way children use them is really more about learning and exploring. And this is true of all kinds of behaviors that parents ask me about. Where their child starts being rough with other children, being unkind in the way that they exclude them or speak to them. Parents have asked me, and I'm sure I've done podcasts on this topic. I know that I have. They're imitating a child that just has an odd way of speaking, some mannerisms that are, you know, kind of put on, that are like tough or whatever. And the parent is like, oh, no, my child is mimicking other children. And that's a sign of weakness, and that's a sign of, oh, no, they're a follower. And they don't have any identity of Their own. I mean, we can go to all these places with that. Right. And we've tried so hard to encourage our child to be their own person and to be a good person, a kind person who doesn't do those things. And it feels. Yeah. Very disappointing. Right? It can. But if our expectation and understanding of this is my child's just learning and trying to figure all this out, and they're exploring what it feels like to be that child, what it feels like to say those things, what that power feels like. It's not like they're making decisions that this is a good thing to say and this is who I am and all of that. The way that we can help them to go through this process of learning that's really positive for them in gaining empathy for other children and just figuring out life and dynamics and getting social skills. The way that we can help is to be that backboard that they can bounce things off of and to even take that further and explore with them. So I'm going to talk about that. How this parent can go from the stance that she's had so far, which her child certainly has absorbed, how she can transition from that into, if she wishes, to a way of helping her child learn from this and to be able to bounce these ideas off of her mother. So, I mean, first, you might be a little shocked, right? And we don't have to hide that from our child. We could say, wow, that's different, huh? That doesn't feel good when you talk to me like that. Maybe you heard that at school. From there, we want to explore, to try to understand more. We can still let our child know that we're not crazy about that language, but we're really more curious about what they think of that, of what they're saying. And obviously, I don't even know what these words are this child is saying, but does someone say that? And how did you feel when they said that? What does that mean to you? Yeah, that's something we don't. That you haven't heard us say, but now you're hearing it and, you know, what do you think about that and how is it used? And how do the other kids feel when you say that? Do you think not trying to lead them in any direction, but really being that open, curious, learning place for your child to bounce things off of? We can be such a gift to our children when we're able to do that. We can't do it with devastation or a broken heart, which is why these two things have to go together. This idea of what our role really is as parents and what to expect from our children, that they are going to be exposed to a lot of things that we don't like as they enter the world, and that we can be that safe place for them to try to interpret what's going on, to process it. We can actually help them do that. So I guess what I'm saying is to come at this from a confident place, knowing that our child is doing exactly what they're supposed to be doing, taking all that stuff that's happening and bringing it to us for us to help them process it. There was an incident with our third child where he was in soccer, and he was actually in club soccer. So he was, I guess, already eight years old by then, seven years old. A child on the other team was angry with him and threw the ball right at him at close range angrily. And my husband remembers this well because he related to it and it affected him as this moment where. And I believe he even wrote about it for my website a long time ago, because this was a moment when he realized that there were other kids that were taking this game more seriously, that they were getting more emotionally involved in this game in a like us against you manner than he was, that somebody lashed out angrily at him in this really small way, but was unkind. And he hadn't had that experience, at least not in soccer that we knew of until that point. You know, it's like that moment when our kids find out, oh, some people are not kind, aren't fair, aren't polite, that don't like me. Those are uncomfortable things to find out in the world, right? When maybe you've been in this wonderful nest of love where everyone was polite and respectful and empathized with you and was on your team. I remember my dad used to say, and we didn't realize this until later, that he was probably. He'd probably had to work really hard on his language, but he would say, nuts, nuts, nuts. Whenever he was upset, he always said nuts, which is kind of a funny thing. But, you know, it was important to him, he made this concerted effort in front of his daughters that he wasn't going to use words that he didn't want us to hear. And a lot of parents don't feel that careful about that aspect of parenting. But when we are careful and then somebody else undoes what we've been working on so hard, yes, it is disappointing, but it's also life and part of our job, the hardest part of parenting, really, that we have to let Go and let our child experience life. All the emotions involved, all the behaviors involved, all the unpleasantries, as well as the pleasantries. We have to allow them to navigate this, but we can support them by being that open, non judgmental, more curious. We can say personally, hey, you never hear me saying that, but that's the thing, huh? At your school are a lot of people saying it and you can have all kinds of interesting, you know, conversations. You're not necessarily going to get all the answers you want, but you'll get some and you'll be the place where your child doesn't need to keep testing this out with you or keep hiding it and telling you they're hiding it from you. Obviously we don't want our kids to hide things from us as they're being exposed to the world. That's something important, right? That we want to keep that connection, that non judgmental connection where we are the fearless explorers with them aiming for that, not being perfect at that, but reminding ourselves that that's our job, to be fearless explorers with them, to support them in their journey to understanding and navigating these situations. Another thing I remember is I think I've brought this up on the podcast. Before that when our son was in preschool, he had this friend who's still a good friend of his, actually, now that they're adults, I became friendly with the mother and his friend. He kept using this word chicken butt and kept calling her that, calling everybody that. And this mother was just at her wit's end about it. She would tell him not to do that, just really get upset and uptight about it. She didn't like it. And I think I said to her one time, you know, maybe just if you just let him say it and it's not a big deal to you, it'll lose its power. And I'm not sure what she eventually did, but I believe that became such a thing for him because she couldn't accept him saying that and was really uncomfortable. And again, we can be uncomfortable a little bit and go like, I don't really like that, but still accept that our child is saying that and be that accepting, fearless explorer with them. Like, what do you think that means anyway? Is that a fun thing to say? Like, who says that to you? Do they say that to you when they're playing or when they're mad at you? I mean, I'm actually curious about all these things, but we can't get there until we are unafraid about this part of our job. And I think, you know, I realize that one of the benefits to working with children for the amount of years that I have and being a parent, even any parent who's survived the first few years, you do start to realize that a lot of things that maybe you worried about in the beginning are just stages that your child passes through and normal. And they weren't terrible signs that your child was becoming this or that or the other, that it was all part of a process, a learning process. So it's that hindsight that helps us with this. And so I guess a lot of what I try to do on this podcast is share with you the hindsight that I have now and how these details become so unimportant. 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That's journey spelled J-O-U R N I app a P-P P.com podcast unruffled and Use code unruffled at checkout. So how can this parent shift this from where she is now? It's not going to be hard to do if she believes in what I'm talking about, if she can see this as a positive development, that her daughter's not just keeping these things to herself, but running them by her parent. So from here I would wait because maybe her daughter's not going to bring this up again and then really there's nothing we can do. Unfortunately, we don't want to add more power to this by saying, are you still saying that at school? Like, what's going on? Because we've kind of already showed our cards with our child that this bothers us a lot. So to dial that back, just let it go for now and wait until the next time your child maybe brings it up, either says it to you at home, uses these words, or tells you again, I'm saying this a lot at school now, mom, but I'm not going to say it with you because you don't like it. So let's talk about first. If she does say it to you again, just say, there's those words. Yeah, I know I made a big deal out of that, but I'm really more just curious, like, what is up with that? What do you use those for? What do they mean to you? What does that help you say to your friends? Not drilling our child, but just throwing things out there. This safe, open minded Conversation. And we really want to try to go all the way with that. If we've gone the other direction to switch that over because we've decided, hey, this is safe, I believe in my child. This is all okay, and this is what she's supposed to be doing. So that's the big part of this job that I'm asking you to consider, is to help yourself transition in how you feel about this. And then it doesn't really matter the exact words you say, but you can be in that place of openness that your child needs from you. So that's the kind of thing I would say. And if she says something, you know, like, it makes me feel bad when other kids say it to me, but then it makes me want to say it to them, I would just listen. I feel like the words will come to you if you can be in this safe space. Safe meaning comfortable in yourself. And then if she brings it up again the way she. The last way that she has, which is that she's not going to say it to her mother, but only at school, then I would say, tell me more about what's going on with that. Like, how does that go? I know that I made you feel like you shouldn't say it here, and honestly, I'm just more interested in what it feels like to say that stuff and what it does for you. So the thing about understanding the way children learn and what they need from us is that once we get that, we free ourselves. We free ourselves from feeling devastated about every new obnoxious thing that they bring home to us or scary thing or uncomfortable thing. We're still going to be a little scared and uncomfortable and maybe offended by it, but we're not taking it to heart as a failure on our part or some sign that all this work we did isn't panning out, that our child is becoming this negative, you know, person that we didn't want them to be or likes people that we don't want them to like. We have to allow them to figure this out. I mean, that is hard, right? But we don't want to. If we can help it, just leave them to do it alone. And so that's what I'm talking about. As usual, these dynamics are about us making the change. And nothing you're feeling is wrong. It's all understandable. And the reason I brought this note up was because it's universal feelings that we all have and universal reactions to these kind of behaviors that we all have. But once we take a look at that and really understand what's going on here and what our child needs from us. We're so free. We can exhale, we can let go of this and just maybe raise an eyebrow. But go. All right, here we go. Here's another one. Here's the next thing she's learning as she's developing, as she's entering the world the way that I've prepared her to do. I've done well here. That she's not afraid of me, that she's comfortable in this relationship and wants to share it with me. These are all signs that we're doing it right. So I hope you'll see that. I hope you'll give yourself lots of love and grace and see this in a way that makes you feel free and fearless. 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