Discipline (Part 1) #011

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Join Whole Parent as we redefine the very essence of discipline in parenting, not as a tool for punishment, but as an opportunity for teaching and growth. Our latest episode unveils a profound connection between 'discipline' and 'disciple,' urging us to embrace our role as educators in our children's lives, guiding them with wisdom rather than ruling with fear. We tackle the challenges and victories faced at family mealtimes, sharing insights into how rituals like meal preparations and shared stories can strengthen bonds and foster positive behaviors. 

Let's admit it, parenting can feel like navigating an intricate dance, especially when your five-year-old prefers somersaults over sitting still at the dinner table. We empathize with parents and offer actionable solutions that balance a child's need for autonomy with the harmony of family routines. Moreover, our conversation illuminates the power of collaborative parenting, inviting our children into the heart of discipline to cultivate respect and a sense of responsibility. Through understanding, not dictation, we can transform chores from battlegrounds into collaborative opportunities, supporting our children's unique needs and contributions to the family dynamic.

In this episode, the art of patience and the value of waiting for a calm moment to discuss consequences are championed as keys to effective teaching moments. We make a case for discipline that fosters connection rather than fear, and we encourage you to submit your burning questions for future discussions. As we peel back the layers of traditional parenting myths, we invite you to join us in cultivating a nurturing space where discipline means growth, communication is paramount, and every challenge is a stepping stone to deeper family connections.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Discipline actually comes from the same root as disciple. This is a word that often people use in religious contexts, but basically the relationship between a teacher and a disciple is the disciple is the student. It's the same. It's a Greek word that just means student. So when we think about discipline, what we really need to be thinking about is the fact that we are the teachers and our children are the students. So when we're disciplining, our primary goal at all times is to teach, not to correct, not to condition, but to teach. It's a brand new day. Wake up every morning and say it's a brand new day.

Speaker 1: 0:44

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Poll-Hair Podcast. My name is John. I am the host of this podcast, which is all about helping you to raise resilient kids with confidence. We cover everything from neuroscience to development. Today, we're talking about discipline and, yeah, it's just designed this podcast designed to help you to parent in the most effective and best way possible, and so I don't want to waste any of your time. I know that you are a very busy parent, most likely just like me, and so let's just jump right in.

Speaker 1: 1:16

The way this podcast is structured is that we get real questions from parents just like you, who are in the trenches of parenting, figuring out how to raise kids, trying to do it better than was done for them, although many of us had great parents. Not to say that, it's just to say that, hey, we are in a different time, we're in a different era. We know more now than we knew back in the 80s and 90s and so, because of that, we're all trying to do better, and so the format is we get real questions from real parents, like you, and we organize those questions around a given topic. Today, we're talking about discipline and boundaries, which is a massive topic. We're probably going to have multiple episodes on the topic of discipline and boundaries. These are just the three that we got this time around, and we delve into these questions. We give each one about 10 minutes and then, yeah, that's the podcast. So that's what you have to expect if you're first brand new to the podcast. If you are brand new, I really encourage you just to sit back and listen, to absorb, to contemplate the things that we're talking about and if you really, really love it afterwards, make sure that you subscribe and read a review and do all those positive things to help this message get to all the parents that have not heard it yet.

Speaker 1: 2:29

All right, so our first question today comes from Mark. He is a dad to a five year old named Tyler. He says recently we've been through a tough time during meal times. Tyler absolutely refuses to sit at the table and if we try to insist he throws tantrums that can last for what feels like forever. We're feeling overwhelmed and unsure of how to handle this situation without meal times becoming a daily battle. This is such such a good question, mark. I totally get where you're coming from.

Speaker 1: 3:01

Many of us were raised in environments where family meals may have been prioritized, but family meals may not have been specifically for kids. Right? We know that there's really good data out there that says eating with your kids at least five times a week and I'm not saying that that has to be, you know, five dinner times. That's not what the data suggests. Just five meals a week that you eat with your kids can have really really amazing attachment and discipline and connection related outcomes that kids who eat with their families five times a week whether that's breakfast or lunch or dinner or whatever really feel more connected to those families. So, with all the positive outcomes related to meal times. It can often feel like we have to do this in this way, especially when many of us were raised that meal times were a specific way. They looked like this Everybody had their seat. This is the type of thing that we talked about, that type of thing.

Speaker 1: 3:57

But I think that we can actually do things that are that can really really contribute, especially for a five year old who probably is going through some autonomy, discerning behaviors, right. So when they're five, this is something that I talk about all the time. But when kids are five and they start school, a lot of times they will really start to push back on our boundaries, and this is they're basically asking the question through their behaviors. They're asking the question hey, now that I am not as close to you as I once was, now that I am out on my own going to school, these things, are you still going to be there for me? And so that can look a lot of different ways for different kids. It can be baby talk, it can be rejecting, you know, kind of fundamental parts of, of of or routines that we do, things like meal times. It can look a lot of different ways. And so the number one tip that I have in the midst of this is to maintain a level of consistent connection with your kid.

Speaker 1: 4:55

And so, kind of paradoxically, in this case, one of the ways, as I just kind of highlighted that the research says that we connect with our kids is through eating, with meals with them. But in this case, the meal seems to be one of the places of autonomy seeking behaviors and disconnection, and it could be because we're placing importance on it, right. So, mark, if you're a person who, who was raised were meals were this kind of I'm not going to say formal, that's maybe the wrong word but but this really important aspect of your family life and and and for good reason, as we've kind of highlighted, it can often feel like we have to make our kids participate in that way. And then our kids feel that and they go wow, this seems to be really important for mom and dad. This is a place where I can kind of double down and and the autonomy seeking behaviors can come out.

Speaker 1: 5:41

So, the more emphasis and and we put on something, the more exaggerated our reaction to any given thing, the more likely our kid is going to press on that wound of ours to try and see what will happen when they do right. They're just learning and developing as well. And so here here are my kind of three aspects to this. The first is at five years old, we can have a conversation where we set some pretty clear expectations right Now. I want to be very open here and say that the expectation that a five year old sit at a table especially a five year old who's likely in school, who's sitting all day already for, for, for or for much of the day this is true for seven year olds too the the expectation that we just are going to force them to sit in a table quietly for 40 minutes to an hour is a pretty unrealistic expectation, I think, for many kids. Not for some kids maybe it's okay, but for many kids that can be really really challenging. And so we can set clear expectations. Let's just make sure that those expectations are in line with their developmental capacity, and many people try and determine developmental capacity based on, like, what they were able to do at that age right. So, like when I was five, I had to sit at the table for an hour. So therefore you have to sit at the table for an hour. That's not a good way to set expectations.

Speaker 1: 6:59

The better way to set clear and consistent expectations is to basically sit down with your kid at a meal and determine okay, what's the attention span to stay here, and maybe it's only 15 minutes and that's okay. Right, like that's that is. We're going to talk about some ways that we can extend that in a moment, but whatever the baseline is, let's start from there and let's build some positive rapport with our kids of hey, how can we, how can we essentially grow together by building confidence around meal times. So how can we grow by doing it for 15 minutes and then saying, okay, yeah, you're free to go, and maybe me and mom are going to still sit here, and it doesn't mean that your meal has to be over. It just might mean that their time is.

Speaker 1: 7:43

And this is a clear expectation of boundary for my seven year old, his attention span is at a table. He's probably ADHD, but his his attention span to set at a table is pretty low. His attention span to sit in general is pretty low. We love this about him. This is an amazing trait. It also provides some challenges with things like meal times, and so he oftentimes maybe 20 minutes once he's kind of done talking and done, enjoying the conversation.

Speaker 1: 8:10

And I'm not saying that you have to only have kid conversations during that time. You can also have adult conversations. Just make sure that you're not talking over your kid, right? You're not talking over their head or over their developmental level or specifically like just louder than them so that you can have this conversation. In fact, it can be okay to let your kid go once they've kind of exhausted their attention and then have those conversations. But you know, whatever that is 20 minutes for us, he will go off and play, but there is an expectation that we're not necessarily going to go off and play with him at that point. We're we're still eating and we're still going to have our time to sit, and so there can be kind of varying degrees. You don't have to sit, but we are going to sit right.

Speaker 1: 8:48

So setting clear and consistent expectations of what that looks like and then also understanding that when he does a good job of sitting and engaging in the conversation, you don't have to lavish praise, but you can use a little bit of positive reinforcement of just saying like, hey, it's so fun to sit here together, isn't it? You know, I think sometimes we really demonize praise because we want kids to be internally motivated and I think that there's a lot of wisdom to that. But it's also a pendulum swing of if our kid is not seeing that we are feeling good about what's happening and they're only getting our disappointment when our disappointment. Please don't try to tell your kid you're disappointed with them, but they're only seeing our kind of negative reactions when things don't go well. That can create unnecessary hostility as well. So so that's what I would say as far as the clear expectations piece.

Speaker 1: 9:37

The other two things that you can do that I think are really really important. Number one you can make mealtime just more positive in general for kids. So this is where I've kind of already mentioned this. But you can really try and tell stories that are descriptive. If you're going to be talking about something about your day, you know, just tell the story in a way that a five year old can understand, even if you're really talking to your partner. Tell that story in a way that your five year old can participate in some way. Discuss fun topics that include the interests of your five year old.

Speaker 1: 10:12

Oftentimes parents don't take interest. I'm not saying you don't mark, but just in general Parents struggle to take interest in the things that their kids are interested in, whether that's Minecraft or whatever Pokemon or whatever. Your kid is into Hot Wheels, whatever. And when we fail to take interest in what they're interested in, mealtimes can feel like a real chore because now we're just kind of talking about grown-up things and we're not really interested in what you have to contribute. And this is also an awesome time to do something like an affirmation or a gratitude circle where you kind of go around the table and say what's something you're grateful for, or you can say your highs and lows for the days. Any of these things that reflect on the narrative of your child's day, that allows them to reflect on the narrative of their day, has the secondary beneficial outcome of having your child practice the narrativizing of their day and of their life, of their memories. And what we know now is that narrativizing, creating a narrative out of your experiences, is one of the great resiliency tools that we develop into adulthood. So that can have that secondary thing.

Speaker 1: 11:21

And then my other side of this not only making the mealtime fun, but make meal prep fun. Kids are way more likely to sit at a table and be interested in the conversation in the food if they are in some way contributing to the process of getting there and this is not just hey, go set the table right. This is how can they be involved? Can they pick between we're making stir fry? Can they pick between the vegetables that we're going to put in? Hey, we're going to put this one in, this one in. But we want to know, do we, should we put a yellow pepper in, or red pepper, or are we going to put asparagus in this or are we going to leave it out?

Speaker 1: 11:54

You know a lot of that, those small choices that a kid can make, and they can really feel good about those choices. And they can also help with things. That, five years old especially, they can start to do some of the meal prep stuff. I have taught five year old how to use knives kitchen knives, I mean safely. Obviously we're going to, we're going to make sure that it's that they are responsible and that they can be trusted, because those could be pretty damaging. My wife cut herself pretty bad with a knife a little while back while cooking.

Speaker 1: 12:22

But stirring something, whatever, at five years old you can really do. They can really help out with a lot of prep. At two you're just kind of giving them random odd jobs. They're not really necessarily contributing to the meal, but but a five year old can, and so if you can get them involved in meal prep and create a positive environment and have some expectations but also some from praise around sitting at the meal, I think and contributing not just sitting but being engaged and interactive I think that that can go a really, really long way and it's a lot better than the alternative that most of us were taught, which is either demonizing food and meal time, making it this thing that kids dread but you have to sit here until you finish your food, or whatever, which is not a good thing.

Speaker 1: 13:04

You can look at the episode on eating where I talk about why that's a. The clean plate club club is a really, really bad idea for kids long term. But you know, and if you don't go with that, then you're going to be punished, right. That sets up a really negative stereotype and a really negative environment for eating. If we create a positive meal time environment with all these things, I think you're going to have a lot easier time to prioritize this with your kid and be willing to have that conversation and explain. The reason that we're doing this is because this is an important family thing for mom and dad. It might not feel important to you right now, but it's important to us and we hope that someday it will feel important to you as well. But it doesn't have to. You don't have to be happy about it, but let's find ways to make it fun. So that's what I would give you, mark, and as we continue on the other things that I'm going to talk about, feel free to pick and choose through the advice and see what other places you might be able to benefit from as well.

Speaker 1: 13:57

Alright, so our second question kind of this episode is a little bit different than past episodes, because these three things are somewhat different. They're just all around discipline and boundaries, but it's totally separate type of situation. Unlike, you know, the other episodes that are more highly specific. This is kind of another out of left field one. So this one's from Sarah, who has a three year old named Emma and she says Lately Emma has been testing boundaries more than ever, especially when she's upset or doesn't get away. One particular behavior that has been challenging is her habit of throwing toys when she's angry. How can I discipline her in a way that helps her to understand boundaries and consequences without yelling or spanking. Thank you so much, sarah, for offering this to us as kind of a case study and how we can help to discipline, to teach, in other words, three year olds.

Speaker 1: 14:46

The first thing that I want to say, as we engage the concept, the construct of discipline, is to kind of throw out a fallacy that most of us, when we think of the word discipline, what we are actually thinking of is punishment. So when we think about, like I was disciplined for this or you know any of those things any ways that we use that word outside of personal discipline, right, I have the discipline to get up and work out every morning, right? So neither of those things is actually getting to the core of what discipline is. As far as the root of what discipline is and actually how we should be using discipline and parenting, discipline actually comes from the same root as disciple. This is a word that often people use in religious contexts, but basically the relationship between a teacher and a disciple is the disciple is the student. Right, it's the same. It's a Greek word that just means student. And so when we think about discipline, what we really need to be thinking about is the fact that we are the teachers and our children are the students.

Speaker 1: 15:52

So when we're disciplining, our primary goal at all times is to teach, not to correct, not to condition, but to teach. And so many of the discipline practices that we experienced as children are actually born out of a fundamental misunderstanding of teaching, where we think that what we should do is just condition kids to be afraid of doing a given thing, like throwing a toy. And if they're afraid of throwing a toy, if they receive a punishment as the result of throwing a toy, whether that's a punishment of physical pain like spanking, or a punishment of emotional pain right, I'm being yelled at. A punishment of relational pain I'm being ignored, I'm being dismissed. Punishment of social pain I'm being grounded. Obviously, you don't ground a three-year-old but 13-year-old, right? Granted, you can't go see your friends. You can't go to your friend's birthday party. That's social pain, right? So what we do is we can. Essentially, what we're trying to do with punishment is we're trying to condition kids, and what we really want to do with discipline is we want to teach them.

Speaker 1: 16:54

So the goal with teaching a three-year-old is to redirect and then express the consequences surrounding throwing toys. So the consequences around throwing toys are not anything that we impose. They are things that naturally come from throwing toys. So if those who are watching online right now are watching the video version of this podcast, know that I have a cut on my forehead that is actually probably a fingernail, but let's just take for the example of this that if I had been hit in the head with a toy, that would have been the consequence of throwing the toy. Somebody gets hurt, right. Often the consequence of throwing toys is toys get broken. That's another consequence of throwing toys.

Speaker 1: 17:35

Sometimes the consequence of throwing toys can be something that we impose in order to prevent one of those other worse consequences. So if we're throwing toys in a way that hurts people and we want to prevent somebody from being hurt, maybe that toy will be taken away. Now people say, well, that's just a punishment, you're just removing positive reinforcement. That's, by its very nature, a punishment. No, not when what we're communicating is if this continues, somebody will get hurt, and to prevent somebody from being hurt, I have to remove this thing. It's fundamentally different than doing that makes me mad, and when I'm mad, I take out my aggression by making you upset, right? So this is the difference between consequences and punishment.

Speaker 1: 18:20

Consequences are the natural reaction of something that happens and versus punishment is the kind of arbitrary social pain or physical or relational pain that we press upon often children, but adults as well, in order to make them feel bad or feel upset and, because they feel upset, be conditioned to not do the thing anymore. So, understanding that our goal is actually to stop her from throwing the toys because she understands to some extent that toys being thrown is inappropriate for whatever reason actually is a much better way to do it than just we don't throw toys. Why don't we throw toys? Because it makes mom mad. Who cares, right, mom, I guess. But then Emma doesn't learn that we don't throw toys all the time. We just don't throw toys around, mom, right? So this is my fundamental opposition to punishment and it's one of the main things that I talk about in general, and I'm not related to discipline. Is punishment, free discipline. But as far as we're concerned, for this, what would we do in said right, because it's one thing for me to say hey, don't do that stuff. And you know, you even identified. I don't want to yell and I don't want to spank. Very, very good, awesome.

Speaker 1: 19:37

In all likelihood, most of us were yelled at and spanked. In fact, the statistics on this are pretty astronomical 70% of parents in 2012,. So this is way after every person who's a parent today was already. I guess I don't technically know that, but you know, most of us were, in 2012, no longer children. I would say the overwhelming majority of parents today were no longer children in 2012. They're either out of the house in some way or they were in their teenage years or whatever. In the late 2012, 70% of parents thought that certain behaviors warranted hitting your children, spanking 70%. Think about that. 7 out of 10 people that you know were hit not just because their parents were upset, but because their parents thought it was necessary to do so.

Speaker 1: 20:22

So let's just dispel that rumor. It's never necessary to yell at your kids. It's never necessary to hit your kids. You may yell at your kids because you've been conditioned to it. You may even spank your kids at times because you've been conditioned to it. Spanking is worse than yelling. No doubt the data backs that up. But you should be trying to stop all of those methods of discipline and instead we should be doing some things instead.

Speaker 1: 20:45

So, with an older child, let's just get this out of the way. First, it's a conversation, so it's hey, this is why we can't do this. If we were talking about our five-year-old Tyler in the last question, this is how we would go about it. We'd have a conversation about it With a three-year-old. You may not be able to, you may be, depending on developmental, speech and communication skills, impossible to communicate to them that they can't or they shouldn't do this. They could, right, still throw toys, but that they shouldn't do this for X, y and Z reasons, because someone will get hurt, et cetera. And that I think, Beyond the conversation, in other words, and beyond the collaborative Discipline that you can do with older kids, which will be a whole another episode someday the next thing that we can do is we can redirect, and there's two primary ways that we would want to redirect this, and then we can Implement a consequence. So I've already mentioned the consequence, so I'll get that one out of the way.

Speaker 1: 21:36

I would say the consequence around throwing toys is that the toy has to be removed, and it's again. We would explain this in the way of hey, I'm removing this toy or hey, I'm gonna put this toy away for a little while, because it seems like you really want to throw this toy and this toy is not a toy that we can throw. It could hurt somebody, it could break, it could break something in the house, etc. Right, so that's that's number one, right? Balls, no, no, rubber, one of those like rubber playground balls in the house. My son brought one in the other day. I said playground balls, you're not belong in the house. He was no, no, no, I just wanted to show you. Boom hit the table. Glass went flying everywhere. Okay, so that rubber playground ball now is no longer allowed in the house for any reason. It has to be kept outside at all times. It does not have a place in our house anymore. It can't even be brought in to show me to clean it off. You have to clean it off outside. We can create a consequence surrounding that which is just hey, this consequence is to prevent future harm. Any consequence that is Leveraged in the effort to prevent future harm is a good consequence. I shouldn't say that. That's probably not true, but in the way in which I'm thinking of it right now.

Speaker 1: 22:45

Number two the second thing we can do is redirect, and there's two ways that we can redirect. Like I said, the first way that we can redirect is we can say, hey, throw this instead. That works really, really well because the neural pathway that's firing in their brain to want make them want to throw this thing. Then that itch is scratched, but it's it's tied to a new item. So you have like one of those soft little cushy balls or you know a stuffed animal or something that you are comfortable with them Throwing in a given environment.

Speaker 1: 23:16

They go to throw their toy. You say, oh, wait, wait, wait, let me take that from you here. Throw this instead, then they'll actually build a neural pathway. These are the things that I can throw and these are the things that I should avoid throwing. So that's so. That's a really, really great way to kind of handle that situation on the front end. On the on the back end, the other way to redirect is that we just it kind of expressly tell them and this is where parents get really really frustrated. But it does work. It just works slower than you want it to which is they go to throw it. And then you say, nope, toys are not, toys are not for throwing. And you, you hold the item and you put it back down. Toys are not for throwing, toys are not for throwing.

Speaker 1: 23:53

So I had to do this redirection with a two-year-old today earlier, my two-year-old who was trying to eat like cheesy breadsticks Dipped in marinara sauce on the couch. So we don't eat in the living room. I mean, we probably don't follow this boundary closely enough because obviously he thinks that he should be able to eat this in the living room, but he keeps dipping it and then trying to leave for the living room. So I had to keep taking it away from him, putting it back on the table, and I used to go no, we, we breadsticks on the table, we eat breadsticks on the table, we, breadsticks on the table. And people are like my gosh, I would just go nuts and it's like well, I would rather repeat myself ten times right now in that process than have to repeat myself 50 times over the next six months because I yell at them and they don't interpret what I'm actually saying and they don't actually learn anything. So eventually he really got the message I'm I, I can eat this. At first, you know, he did cry, he was upset at me, he was mad because he's a two-year-old and he's autonomy seeking, which is probably a lot of what's going on right here. Right, she's testing her boundaries and when she gets upset, then she boom, explodes, right. So kind of mine, my. I'll give you one more tip as we get into the next one with Jacob.

Speaker 1: 24:58

But but you know, as it relates to this, just constantly redirecting that behavior, even if it feels like it's not working, it does work because you're literally building a neural pathway in their brain. Well, every time you say that, every time you redirect them no, this is where we eat. No, this is where we do this, or this is no choice, or not for throwing, this is how we put dentoise, this is how we do toys gently, and and not just saying don't do it, but also saying no, gentle with toys, put the toy down. That's the stuff that really really seems to work. Well, because you can't just tell a kid not to do something. It's like telling a person not to think about. I forget what the animal people say oh, don't think about the elephant, right, don't think about an elephant. What are you gonna do? You're gonna think about an elephant. Kids in their brains, that's how they work. They don't have the prefrontal cortex development to come up with an alternative to what they're doing. So instead you give them something to throw. Or you say, nope, toys are not for throwing, we put doys on gently Right. That's the second half of that. The same thing, as you know hey, nope, you can't eat this in the living room becomes this is where we eat it. Instead, you know, nope, we don't put this on the couch, we eat it at the table. We eat this at the table. We eat breadsticks at the table. So I hope that that kind of gives you some ideas and, like I said, I'll touch on one more tip as we go forward. I'll let you know. All right, before we get to our third question.

Speaker 1: 26:15

I wanted to take a really quick moment here to step aside and remind you of a couple of things. The first is that if you are not on the whole parent email list yet, this is where all of the best content for whole parent is. So all you got to do is go to link in the description of this video in the show notes and sign up for the whole parent email list. Every single week on Thursday, I send in an email. It is full of amazing parenting content. Sometimes it has to do with something that we've talked about in the podcast, other times it's just other things, and also when I do amazing workshops. I'm doing a workshop this week, but whenever you're listening to this, if I have an upcoming workshop, I'm primarily going to talk about that on my email list. So make sure that you're on that email list so that you can get access to all of that. I have an upcoming book. When pre-orders become available, the email list will be the first people to know. So if you are not on the whole parent email list yet, you have to get on it.

Speaker 1: 27:10

And the second thing is kind of a request from me, and that's if you are finding this podcast helpful which really quickly just jump out of the podcast app right now, not if it's your first episode, but if you've listened to a couple episodes jump out of your podcast app right. Jump out of this episode right now into the podcast app that you're listening to and rate and review the show. I know it takes a couple of steps. It's not automatic. They make it harder than it needs to be, but when you do that, it shows that you really are passionate about the show that you're listening to, if you went through that effort to submit a rating and a review, and so this is one of the number one ways that the podcast apps decide to put content out, and so when you do that, you actually help whole parent to grow, you help it to push to more people so that more people will download it, more people will subscribe, more people will get updates, more people can join the email list, and when all of those things happen, it allows me to keep putting out amazing content like this.

Speaker 1: 28:03

So, without further ado, let's get back to the episode with question number three. All right, our third question comes from Alex. He says I'm a father to a seven-year-old boy named Jacob. Recently, jacob has been struggling to follow instructions and complete his chores. No matter what approach we try, he doesn't seem to grasp the importance of responsibility in following rules. It's becoming increasingly frustrating and I'm frustrating and I'm worried about how to give consequences that will resonate well with him. Great question, alex. I'm super excited to answer it. Really, at the core here is the construct of collaborative consequences, and that's what I want. That's what I want to highlight here.

Speaker 1: 28:47

I understand that many kids don't want to do chores. Many kids don't like following instructions or abiding by boundaries. That is a normal kid thing to not like to follow rules. It's a normal kid thing to not want to do the boring chores. What we also know is that doing chores, having responsibilities around the house, is incredibly beneficial to kids Long-term physical, mental, emotional and relational health. We know that this is a positive thing. I'm not saying that you have to work your child like they're Cinderella. I'm saying that having a few things that your child can do can be really, really helpful in preparing them for long-term living.

Speaker 1: 29:30

I know so many parents who just don't prioritize chores. They just say, hey, my kid's job is to go to school and get good grades or whatever. This actually leads to kids not feeling as committed and connected to a family. When you're contributing to something, you feel more connected to it, and so, similarly, sitting around the table at dinner time, that can be really, really a beneficial and helpful thing. And so I have a couple of pieces of advice. The main one is we're going to talk a little bit about collaborative consequences, which I'm sure we'll have an entire episode about later on, but the first thing that I want to do, before even getting into the collaborative consequences, is to offer that sometimes, for many kids, it is not the difficulty in actually doing the chore, it is the difficulty in remembering to do the chore, and I know that that may sound very like an excuse for many kids. It's not an excuse. This is the truth. There are many people who, for whatever reason, the way in which their brain functions it makes it very, very difficult to remember and follow through with menial tasks. I think specifically of kids who are ADHD, which obviously I'm not prescribing or trying to diagnose your son or anything of that nature. Don't hear me doing that at all. But for kids who are ADHD, things like chores can become incredibly difficult, and the reason is they just have a different way of processing dopamine in their brain and it means that they don't have the same satisfaction for doing menial or not novel tasks, not engaging tasks, and so something like doing the dishes or whatever the chore may be applicable for a seven-year-old, that becomes incredibly difficult for them. So just two things that I would say on that note.

Speaker 1: 31:18

It's really really easy to get into the habit of assuming that your kid just doesn't want to do chores because they don't want to. Don't make that assumption. Try and give your kid the benefit of the doubt. This is a common age-old adage that has been co-opted by a modern parenting creator. But the age-old adage is that you want to be as generous as possible in the way in which you view your kid. You want to assume that they are doing the best that they can with the development and the brain and the personality that they have. And so if you're going to do that, you wouldn't just assume that Jacob is just blowing you off. You would assume that, hey, this is a real struggle for Jacob and we have to figure out a way to go about making this a little bit less challenging.

Speaker 1: 32:03

And so the first thing would be hey, how can we identify chores that feel for Jacob like these are things that can be done. Maybe it means that you have to have it can't be the same chore. Maybe it has to be the same chore, right? Different kids are different ways. Some kids what's more important to them? That they go around and they do each chore every month or whatever, rather than doing the same thing all the time. Other kids, for example me as a child, if I had one chore that I was responsible for, I was much more likely to be able to actually achieve and do that chore. Then if I was trying to cycle through and I couldn't remember, am I on dishes this week? Am I on this this week? Am I on this this week? So just finding applicable chores that actually work and finding chores that are not outside of the developmental capacity of your child.

Speaker 1: 32:53

Seven years old is pretty old and they can do a lot of things. They can help with so many things. They can get themselves snacks, they can help take out the trash, they can even help with things like the laundry. But there are things like cleaning the gutters that you should not have a seven-year-old do, and that's a really obvious example. But there are others that are just a little bit that they may involve too many steps. They may be a little bit too complex. They may involve a little bit too much critical thinking skills. Obviously, a little bit of stress on that critical thinking is gonna help them develop critical thinking. But going beyond the little bit like it's actually Overwhelming to do this chore, that will have a serious impediment and it might not feel that way to you, but it can feel that way to them.

Speaker 1: 33:35

The other thing that you can do is you can create a visual choice chore chart, and Visual chore charts are not just lists of chores. There are things with like little animated pictures or something like that, and anybody can do this. You just go online at Canva or even just like whatever Software is available on your computer or on your phone and you can make little icons and print them out or trace them out or whatever, and these icons can help you to identify what the chores are and when it's visual, it can really really help kids to see it and then remember better, right, and so visual chore charts are really really helpful, especially things where you can create like a picture, like, for example, this is something especially again for people on the spectrum or ADHD people but you can have a picture of what it looks like when it's done. That can be a really help, helpful visualization, but for seven year olds, visual aids can be super, super helpful. The next thing that I would say, beyond finding applicable chores and having a visual chore chart, that can be very, very helpful and setting reminders you can also have reminders and things like that, like there are all sorts of little pieces that you can build into the system.

Speaker 1: 34:44

The second thing and this is where we get into collaborative problem-solving or collaborative discipline or even collaborative consequences is that you want to involve Jacob in the setting of the boundaries and the consequences around not getting his chores done. You want him to have agency in that process, because any process that he has agency in he will be infinitely more invested in. This is the same thing that we were talking about Way back in the first question with why it's helpful to have kids Prepare the meal, because then they're invested in the process of sitting down for dinner. The same thing is true with kids setting the consequences or the chores that they have right, so you can make the distribution of chores really fun. You can have them pick chores out of a hat or something like that. That's like a fun thing. Some kids, that's really overwhelming. They don't want to do that. But in whatever way is possible, try and find ways to have him contribute to the, the setting of the, the chores and the whole process around them, up to and including the consequences for not following them.

Speaker 1: 35:50

And so what this can look like is just simply sitting down to your seven-year-old and saying, hey, if you don't do this, what do you think I should do? Or what do you think the consequence should be? I should have to do extra the next week, and they may come up with really ridiculous things they may come up with. Really, you know good consequences. Yeah, I will lose this privilege or something like that. Whatever it is, you're gonna try and if it's, if it's agreeable to you, right, you have veto power. You don't just have to say like, well, if I don't do it, just do nothing, right, you have veto power. Whatever it is, now you have had their buy-in in the setting of that consequence and they're gonna be way more susceptible to the implementation of that consequence when it becomes necessary, because they were the one who decided on it in the first place. They decided what the consequence was going to be.

Speaker 1: 36:40

Whatever it is, I can't use my iPad until I get the chore done every day, whatever, and it doesn't have to be a consequence. That can also be the framing of the thing up to the point, right, what do you want me to do to remind you to do this chore? Well, I want you to come up to me and I want you to tell me that the bananas are getting rotten in the garbage can or something like that. Like the kids think up silly things, tell them that. Work within their framework, this type of collaborative Parenting approach where you're actually allowing them to have agency and autonomy into the discipline process, into the teaching process, actually leads to kids having way more susceptibility to that teaching. This is this is why child learning is so important and so and so powerful. When a kid wants to learn something, they're way more likely to learn it when a kid wants to actually get their chores done because they've been in the process of setting what those chores are, of determining the, the boundaries around those chores, of Determining the consequences. When we don't do those chores, whatever it is, your kid is gonna be infinitely more bought-in, and so it. It goes from being a thing that mom and dad are telling me to do. This Right to know this is something that I'm doing to contribute to the family, because I had agency and I had buy-in and and I had autonomy in this process, and so that is so, so important and effective as a parenting tool to just use that Discipline process to give them a sense of buy-in and agency. And and then one thing that I said that I was gonna give Sarah One more thing to say with Emma, and I wanted to also say this to you when kids get upset, the time to discipline is not in that moment, and so, whether it's with Emma the three-year-old or with Jacob the seven-year-old, when kids get upset and they kind of panic, freak out, do whatever.

Speaker 1: 38:34

That is not the moment to try, and you know, enact some form of discipline. Wait till cooler heads prevail Before you try and go forward with any sort of consequence, or you know you may have to hold a boundary. Obviously you don't want to just let your kid get hurt or hurt someone else or destroy property etc. But as far as the actual teaching moments or the consequence Delivery or any of that, you can always wait until your child is calm. And so if Jacob is really really struggling with his chores, even after you've done everything that we're talking about and it is going to have to be a hard conversation about, you know, we just have to do these responsible things. Wait until there's there's a moment where that actually is not going to be a heavily charged Moment, right, whether it's you who needs to a cooler head to prevail or whether it's your child, don't try and discipline in the moment to the extent of, of you know, lecturing, teaching, whatever above and beyond what is necessary to keep your child safe. And it's always better to have those conversations later, when cooler heads are available and when the discipline is going to take far better route because they have, more literally, more blood flow going to the learning centers of their brain, they're gonna literally be able to interpret that and embody that in a much more healthy and effective way.

Speaker 1: 39:51

So I hope that these ways of thinking about discipline and consequences and boundaries have kind of been a taste test or a starter to this conversation, because we are gonna have so many more episodes about discipline and consequences and boundaries. These are kind of the fundamentals of parenting. This is where a lot of our parenting is put to the test. This is where a lot of us go back into our childhood wounds. This is where a lot of us you don't wanna default to punishment or whatever else as a means of gaining control. This is also the place where we can do the most amazing and transformative work that is, cycle breaking, not only for our children but for generations to come, and so we're gonna have so many more episodes on this.

Speaker 1: 40:31

But I hope that these three questions started that conversation and encourage all of you out there in Podcast World to ask more questions and, on that note, as we end this episode, I wanted to offer you a new place that you can submit questions. So far we've been getting questions inside the membership. Some of these have come from the membership and also just on social media. But the new place that you can submit questions to if you want your question to be answered on the Whole Parent Podcast, is you can just send them directly to podcast at wholeparentacademycom. So that's podcast at wholeparentacademycom and that is where you can send a question laid out like this just make sure that you say your name, the age of your child and, if you would prefer, your child's name.

Speaker 1: 41:14

Some people don't give their child's name. You can give a fake name if you want. Sometimes it's just easier for me to talk about it in the way, and I have on occasion changed names when a parent has said hey, I don't wanna give my real name especially parents in the membership I don't wanna give my real name or my child's real name. If it's gonna be on the podcast, we don't have to give your real name. We can give you a fake name for the purpose of this, but you'll know, because the rest of your question will be the same.

Speaker 1: 41:36

So if you have questions, please podcast at wholeparentacademycom. That will now be in the description as a place that you can go in the show notes, I should say, or the description, depending on where you're watching this where you can email those questions to. And you'll go in the log of the questions that we get and we try and answer as many questions as possible, doing this twice a week. So I'm so glad that each and every one of you has been asking all these questions that we've been able to answer in these amazing ways. So thank you all for doing that so much. It's been just a joy to do this podcast so far.

Speaker 1: 42:11

And one last note, just a reminder as we conclude, that if you have not yet, you know, if you didn't take my advice at the mid-roll portion of the show with the little interlude, to go and rate and review this podcast and share it with a friend. I didn't say that in this episode, but you can share this with someone who's struggling with these things. Perhaps you have somebody in your life who's really having a difficulty with a toddler throwing, hitting, biting, that type of thing or a person who's struggling to get their grade school, grade school, or to do chores or sit at the dinner table. If you have those people in your life, even if it's you share this with someone, share it with your partner, share it with your friends, because the more that parents can have this information, the more that we can know better. We can do better, and that is our goal, right, so do all of those things. Thank you, beautiful people. We'll see you on the next one.