Ep 99: Fostering Growth Through Everyday Parenting

Can setting smart limits and allowing children to solve their own problems really foster their growth? Join this episode where we explore parenting strategies inspired by the article "50 Easy Ways to Be a Fantastic Parent." Discover how establishing mutual respect in your parent-child relationships and differentiating between discipline and punishment can significantly impact your child's development. We'll delve into the importance of treating discipline as a form of training that promotes understanding and growth, helping children learn from their mistakes through continuous practice and conversation.

Ever wondered how to effectively model social skills and instill gratitude in your children? Tune in as we discuss practical tips for managing emotions, problem-solving, and teaching both verbal and non-verbal communication. Learn how to foster gratitude by encouraging children to appreciate the positive aspects of their lives. Additionally, we emphasize the importance of boosting parental confidence by exploring a variety of parenting ideas and finding strength in shared experiences and community support. This episode is packed with strategies to help you raise socially adept and grateful individuals, all while maintaining a positive and encouraging approach to parenting.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:13

Hello listener, welcome back. I'm your host, dr Beth Trammell, and this is Things You'll Learn in Therapy. Today, I am going to talk a little bit about an article that I found called 50 Easy Ways to Be a Fantastic Parent, and while I love this article because I think it gives a lot of ideas, and I do think some of them are easy I think sometimes we both oversimplify and overcomplicate some of the things that we do as parents, and so I'm going to talk a little bit about that. And essentially, I am a professor of psychology at Indiana University East, where I'm also the director of the Masters of Mental Health Counseling Program, and I focus mostly on behavioral and communication strategies to build connection between adults and kids, but I also do work with adults as well, and so this article was posted on parentscom, was medically reviewed by a PsyD, so written by Barry Gillies I'll link it here for everyone as well and then medically reviewed by Dr Anne Louise Lockhart, and so I am going to share, not 50. So don't freak out, I'm not going to have 50 things for you today, but I'm going to review a few of these and talk a little bit about how I have talked about similar things in my clinical work over the last 20 years, as I try to help parents kind of figure out ways to be better connectors, but also teachers, because I think this stuff also applies to teachers as well.

Speaker 1: 1:46

All right, so the first talks about limit setting. Okay, and so essentially, what this article is suggesting is that we should set smart limits. And the first thing that the article suggests is that we take charge, and I think that this one is easier said than done. Most of us would say, well, obviously I'm in charge, I'm the adult, and or we might say, oh yeah, I've tried that with my kids, to take charge and maybe it didn't go well. Right, whether your kids are two and a half or they're 22 and a half, I think it's less about having to force your way into control and more about building the relationship through mutual respect. Now, hold on, I know some of you are already like my kids need to respect me, I don't need to respect them. If we're really talking about doing it well, it does require this sort of mutual respect in a way that has the feeling, has the understanding that you are in charge.

Speaker 1: 2:53

I think the other thing here is that sometimes we might not know the right answer. I think, about some of our teenagers, or even some of our adult children, when it's saying take charge, and we sometimes feel like we don't know what the right answer is, and so this article reminds us that our kids really crave limits. They may say they hate your curfew, they may say that they hate when you say no to them doing one thing or another, but honestly, they do really crave that. That, that limit that we have for them, that thing that we know is better for them than what they know, and it is important for us to take charge in that way. Also, within this section, they talk about trying not to fix everything, and this is something that I definitely recommend for parents of teenagers in particular, because they need to learn to step into some of the things that are their creation. Okay, I'll say it this way Sometimes our teenagers make mistakes, and I already talked a little bit about that last week, when we were talking about how we have to realize that our teenagers are going to make mistakes and we don't have to fix everything right.

Speaker 1: 4:16

So if they're coming to us and they're frustrated by something, it's okay that we don't fix it right away. Some of it is problem solving with them and walking them through verbally what you think is the way to find their way out. And I'm saying this to you with all the love in the world, because I know that our teenagers in particular may not want to hear from us, and so fixing it for them anyway may not be what they want either right now or even in the long term, when you have elementary age kids, they may want to come to you and want you to fix it, and my gentle encouragement back to even my own kids in elementary school is well, let's try to figure this out together. Why don't you take a pause and see what you think you need to do in this situation? So encouraging their own problem solving is an important part of their growth and development.

Speaker 1: 5:12

So another thing on this list that they have within limit setting in particular, is a reminder that discipline is not the same as punishment, and I think sometimes there's this idea in parenting, kind of the mainstream idea of what good parents do, and it's often involved around punishment. And what did you do to your kid in response to their bad behavior or their mistake or whatever it is? I tend to encourage parents that discipline is about training right, not about making it hurt. I will have parents who will come to see me and they'll say, well, I tried to ground him and he said, well, he just didn't care about it and so that didn't work, and so I had to ground him for a month and that seemed to make it hurt more. And then he'll learn that he can't do whatever he did. And while that may work some of the time, at the end of the day what we're trying to do is get them to understand that through training Many kids who can have a conversation about what they did, if they can say they've learned about it and they're going to do something different or they're going to try to do something different in the future, then that might be discipline enough.

Speaker 1: 6:28

Remember that they're going to continue to make mistakes. I continue to make a lot of the same mistakes in my own life, even though I know the right answer. Some of us just need continued practice around a whole variety of things, and our teenagers are no different. So, rather than focusing on what is my punishment that's going to make it hurt for them, that they are going to really feel it and that's going to change their behavior, think more about what training do they need and how can they practice that training right? So if your kids struggle with doing the dishes or doing their homework, like, what additional practice do they need? What additional training do they need? Rather than just quickly dangling a carrot over them like I'm taking your device or I'm taking your keys or whatever, think about how are you training those specific things, and then have a conversation about what they think and what you think might be appropriate for them to understand this lesson.

Speaker 1: 7:25

It doesn't mean that kids don't get privileges taken away. I'm not saying that they shouldn't get privileges taken away. In fact, I think sometimes the root of the problem is that our kids have a lot of non-contingent reinforcement, meaning they get access to a whole bunch of things no matter what their behavior is, and I think that that may be driving some behavior that you don't want to see. And so it comes down to thinking about what is it that is going to motivate your child to do the thing you need them to do, rather than just focusing solely on punishment. So there's other ideas within the set limits category Don't clip your child's wings, pick your battles, and I could go on and on about that, if you've already heard me talk about that. I'm going to save you the trouble here, because I have a lot of thoughts around picking your battles. The second thing that they list here is around creating your own quality time, and while I'm not going to list each of these things individually, because I think they're geared toward, perhaps, younger kids, I do want a reminder for all of us that our kids, especially our kids who are overscheduled, especially those of us who are parents who are overscheduled our kids at every age still need us to want to be with them, and if you have a kiddo who acts like they don't want to be with you or acts like they're too cool to be with you, I'd encourage you to continue to nudge. Continue to nudge because our kids need to.

Speaker 1: 8:57

You know my friend, johanna Voss. She is a fellow therapist and she often talks about needing to be felt by you. This is one of the things she talks with clients about. It's things that she has done in trainings with me. She talks about this, this sort of like felt need, that they need to be felt by us. And so think about how do you make memories, how do you find quality time with your kids so they can feel felt by you, and that might mean cuddling on the couch, it might mean taking them out to lunch, it might mean sending them a text or sending them reels. My daughter and my husband really connect and love to send each other funny videos, and so I will hear one or both of them giggling on the couch, and I know that they are watching some of those videos.

Speaker 1: 9:46

So the next thing here is to be a good role model. So I think this one is trickier than we think, and it's actually one that I don't always love thinking about myself, because while I try a lot to be a great role model for my kids, I think there are a couple of things that happen for me. I think I sometimes get emotional, and then my tendency when I'm emotional, is to withdraw. My tendency is not typically to kind of explode or get real loud or aggressive in that way. My tendency is to withdraw, and so sometimes they don't get to see my problem solving, they don't get to see my emotion regulation or my emotional expression, because I tend to hide it from them. Because I tend to hide it from them, I have to be really intentional about walking them through how I'm feeling emotionally and then what I'm going to do about it. The reality is they are watching all the things we're doing, and if we're not showing them certain parts of our struggle or our joy or our excitement or our work life or our conflict with people, they won't get to see those things.

Speaker 1: 11:04

Now, I don't believe in dumping all of our problems on our kids, even if they are older. There's a balance between dumping all the things on our kids and allowing them to see you be a good role model, all the ways. Think about ways that you can do that intentionally. And how can you do that intentionally this week? Right, there are a lot of small ways and perhaps even bigger ways that you can. Yeah, kind of model that. There's a lot more things here, but I'm only going to talk about two last things here because I want to kind of keep this episode short. I'm going to have longer episodes. I'm recording. I've recorded seven episodes now, and so I'm really excited about those coming in the fall with some great guests, but I wanted to keep this one short and I want to talk about social skills and gratitude.

Speaker 1: 11:57

Okay, so when I talk about social skills, there are so many things. Social skills are so many things. It includes talking to people. It includes the subtle, nonverbal things that we do. It includes not talking in an elevator or talking quietly in an elevator. You know, those are just some small examples.

Speaker 1: 12:19

The article will talk about a couple of different ways that they want to help kids learn to talk about themselves, but also, I want to add, encouraging our kids to ask questions of other people. Even our teenagers tend to be very egocentric. That's the stage of development that they're in. It's very appropriate for them to focus on themselves and to only sort of think within their own mind. That's age appropriate and it requires training. You might have to say to your teenager, to your adult, to even your fifth grader hey, so here's something that you can ask another grownup, even mom and dad, right? Instead of just coming home and asking me for all the things you need from me throughout the day, it would be very kind for you to say, hey, mom, how was your day at work? Or hey, mom, what did you do today while I was gone? Or hey, mom, what's been new for you? Or what's been stressing you out? Or what's been making you happy. They may need prompting and practice for those things. There are great lists of questions out there If you search up a list of questions for fifth graders or kindergartners.

Speaker 1: 13:32

Even young, young kids can be taught conversational skills, and I am here to tell you they need to be taught conversational skills. They also need to be taught non-verbals, right? So looking people in the eye, saying hello, greeting strangers In my generation we were raised to sort of not talk to strangers and the reality for employability later, right? So I teach a lot of college students and even for them I'm teaching some kind of basic and or advanced social skills. I'm teaching how to write an email without coming across like an unpleasant person. I'm teaching how to manage conflict, how to receive feedback.

Speaker 1: 14:13

All of those things are social skills that, as you think about your child, you might find that in some ways they're advanced in some of the skills, but in others they still need practice. And so think about where your kid's at and try to come up with additional skills you want them to learn. Simple things like saying hello and goodbye to people ordering their own food at a restaurant. Right, even kids as young as kindergarten can look the waiter or waitress in the eye and say I would like chicken nuggets and mac and cheese, and can you make sure there's barbecue sauce with that? That would be very appropriate to sort of prompt them and have them look at the waiter or waitress kind of with those nonverbal things. If you have a really shy child, try practicing at home with them. Try practicing while you're at the waiter or waitress kind of with that, those nonverbal things. If you have a really shy child, try practicing at home with them. Try practicing while you're at the restaurant, and there would be nothing wrong with kind of rewarding them if they are able to do those things. So think about the social skills that you want your child to have that are really important to you. And if you're like I don't really know what those are, it's conversational skills, it's talking to people that they know and talking appropriately to people they don't know. And then some of the additional peer relationship skills are gonna grow while they're in school. But at least starting there would be great.

Speaker 1: 15:36

And the last thing I wanna talk about is gratitude. We have a lot of research around gratitude and how it has a lot of positive impact on our mental health. Raising kids to be grateful includes having them say thank you for things, but it also includes kind of pausing to reflect on the things that are going well for them, and so I want to just make kind of this last plug here to remind you that gratitude doesn't always just mean saying thank you, though that could be a part of it. You might also just have them think about the things that are going well that they are grateful for in their lives, even amidst things that are hard. It would be fair to do this on a regular basis. Encourage them to journal or draw pictures of things that they're grateful for. Creating a habit for them to be thinking from a gratitude mindset may be a real gift to them as they get older.

Speaker 1: 16:36

Like I said, there was a whole bunch more ideas that if you need a boost to feel like a fantastic parent, I'd encourage you to look at that list, and what I would not encourage you to do is to feel shame or feel bad if there are things on that list that you're still working on or that you have never thought of or heard of, because the reality is we are all working this parenting thing kind of one day at a time, and if you need support or encouragement, I'd encourage you to find somebody in your area, seek out a support group. In some way reach out to a friend, have them give you some encouragement. That's all for now. Stay safe and stay well, friends.