The Q&A Files
The Q&A Files drops A Wellness Explosion
💥 BOOM! Attention Wellness Warriors. The game changer you have been waiting for is finally here. Say hello to “The Q&A Files,” where wellness meets revolution and your questions lead to new discoveries. Spearheaded by Trisha Jamison, your host, a Board Certified Functional Nutritionist. Cohost Dr. Jeff Jamison, a Board Certified Family Physician, and featured guest, Tony Overbay, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. This podcast blends three diverse perspectives to tackle your questions on health, nutrition, medicine, mental wellness, and relationships. Dive into a world of expert insights and actionable advice, all sparked by your curiosity. Tune in, ignite your wellness journey, and join the Wellness Warrior community.
The Q&A Files
22. Practical Parenting: Raising Compassionate Kids and Handling Tough Behaviors
What if you could turn your child into a beacon of kindness and empathy? Join Trisha Jamison and co-hosts Dr. Jeff and Tony Overbay as we uncover actionable parenting tips that will help you raise compassionate kids. Discover how leading by example and spending quality time with your children, even through shared screen activities, can make a world of difference. We’ll show you how emotional consistency and reliable parenting frameworks like the nurtured heart approach can create a secure environment for your little ones.
In this episode, we tackle real-life parenting challenges, including managing aggressive behavior in two-and-a-half-year-olds and handling biting incidents. Should you use physical discipline to ensure safety? We break down the pros and cons of controversial approaches and share effective strategies for teaching kindness and managing tantrums. From the importance of modeling positive behavior to the strategic use of timeouts, we provide a treasure trove of insights to create a nurturing, empathetic household where children can truly thrive. Listen in for a wealth of practical advice designed to support you in your parenting journey.
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Hello and welcome to the Q&A File, the ultimate health and wellness playground. I'm your host, tricia Jamieson, a board-certified functional nutritionist and lifestyle practitioner, ready to lead you through a world of health discoveries. Here we dive into a tapestry of disease prevention, to nutrition, exercise, mental health and building strong relationships, all spiced with diverse perspectives. It's not just a podcast, it's a celebration of health, packed with insights and a twist of fun. Welcome aboard the Q&A Files, where your questions ignite our vibrant discussions and lead to a brighter you. Welcome to another episode of the Q&A Files. I'm your host, trisha Jameson, and joining me today are my wonderful co-hosts, dr Jeff and Tony Overbay, who is a licensed marriage and family therapist. Today, instead of our usual celebrations, we're focusing on another important parenting tip. So, gentlemen, what parenting tip can you share with our listeners today?
Speaker 3:Oh boy, I wasn't ready for this. I know right, Okay, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I'll go and then you guys can think of one. So a parenting tip that I'd like to share is to lead by example. So that's kind of been our little mantra over the last couple episodes, but children often learn behaviors and values by observing their parents and demonstrating kindness, forgiveness, patience and even empathy. In your actions and how to handle challenges with grace and resilience can really go a long way. So when you model the behavior you wish to see in your child, you instill these qualities in them, fostering their development into becoming considerate and well-rounded individuals. So that is my parenting tip.
Speaker 3:I love it, okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:I'll go next.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:I guess one of the things that I would recommend is the quality time piece, finding things that your child likes and spending time with them doing it. And if one of the things you're having problems with which we've talked a lot about in the recent past is screens and teens and screens, there's good evidence to support that if you're doing the activity on the screen with your child, that that has a benefit rather than it is detrimental to them.
Speaker 2:So I think it's gaming not necessarily gaming, but that too it's a in-person activity that way, versus just letting them do it on the online with a group of friends there. If you're in person doing that, it's much better. So especially educational online things and games at such, it's best to do together in person.
Speaker 1:Okay, I like it, tony.
Speaker 3:Okay, and I'm going to build a little bit off of what you had said, tricia, with the example and and cause one of the things. So I had two competing thoughts. One was I really can't say enough about just having a home base to operate from. I think in the last episode we talked a little bit about using my four pillars to talk to to kids, and I like that because it's a framework and I really like a parenting model and I know there's. I'm a huge fan of the nurtured heart approach, which I think maybe we've talked a little bit about in the past. But there's I'm a huge fan of the nurtured heart approach, which I think maybe we've talked a little bit about in the past, but there's also other ones. What is it? Love and logic, or there's several.
Speaker 3:But I think the reason I say that and this will lead to the bigger parenting tip, which is some good old emotional consistency, because I do think that even when we mean well, that if we are showing up inconsistent, but we're wanting our kids to trust us, to be able to open up to us, to be able to come to us for life lessons, but if sometimes I'm available, sometimes I'm not, then I think that that can. I mean it really, if we go into the deep dive in the world of psychology, that's how we create kids with things like an anxious attachment. Because if the parent, if the parents feeling good about themselves now, they're saying, you know, hey, kids, come, validate me as a wonderful parent and bring, bring to me your questions, cause I'm in a good spot. But then if the parent's not feeling good and the kid comes up to him and needs help, then the parent might say, hey, not now, but can you like come back later.
Speaker 1:Or can't you see I'm having an issue? Yeah, I can't.
Speaker 3:Right, and so then you're basically teaching the kid that they need to, they need to manage your emotions when they.
Speaker 2:they need to kind of figure out when, when they can approach their parent when's a good time to approach the King. I love the the idea of consistency, though. Yeah, consistency can help so much, and I think that might even enter into what we are going to be talking about from her question.
Speaker 3:Okay, Okay, Then I'll kind of leave it right there then, Cause I can go, I can go on and on. I mean, well, I'll say that the reason so, for example, just this nurtured heart approach, I mean there's there's very clear stands, and one of the first ones is is not not reacting, not energizing negative behavior, and that's a that's a great place to be because it shows consistency. If you are grounded in your response and the goal is to not react negatively or energize negative behavior, and you operate from just that home base alone, you'll be a pretty consistent person for your kids to come to.
Speaker 1:Excellent. That is excellent. That is a great segue into so we're going to dive into our next question. And she writes that she loves her podcast and finds information we share to be very helpful, fun and informative. And here's her question how do I help my two and a half year old daughter be nice to others? She is very bright and seems to intentionally want to hurt people. It's really stressful taking her places because she is such a bully and screams a lot. I just need help knowing how to better parent her. Thank you, and I just want to thank Stacey for your question and we appreciate your kind words about the podcast. It's great to know that you're enjoying and benefiting from our discussions.
Speaker 1:So I feel, when it comes to helping a young child learn to be kind to others, it's essential to understand that children, especially at this young age, are still developing their social skills and emotional regulation, so it's not uncommon for them to test boundaries and exhibit challenging behaviors as they learn how to interact with the world around them, and there's something called individuality.
Speaker 1:That is something we actually want our children to develop, because they are trying to separate themselves from you, the parent, and try to be their own self and have their own thoughts and opinions, and it starts about that time, and so they're really starting to develop these really important characteristic traits that we find annoying and frustrating but they're actually really important for that child to develop. So another approach is to consistently model positive behavior. We were talking about consistency and I appreciate both of you pulling that out, bringing that up, and children learn a lot by observing the adults, us around them, the parents. We want to show kindness and empathy and patience in our interactions, and your daughter is likely to imitate these behaviors over time. So this is a patient thing, you know. Just like you talked about Tony, this is the long game in parenting.
Speaker 1:This is as well talked about, tony. This is the long game in parenting. This is as well, and so just one other strategy is to provide clear and consistent guidance on acceptable behavior. So when your daughter exhibits aggressive behavior, just calmly intervene and explain why the behavior is not acceptable. Now you want to use simple language that she can understand and you want to focus on teaching her what she should do instead, like, for example, if she hits another child, you might say we use gentle hands with our friends, let's try giving a hug or playing together nicely so, and you want to catch them being good even when you're not trying to. You know, focus on just even the teaching moment. What you're trying to do is make sure that, at a time when they're sitting there quietly, that's what you emphasize is oh, you're just, you're talking nicely or you're doing something positive, and help them know that they're doing good things, catching them, doing good things.
Speaker 1:Yep, catch them being good. So those are some things that I thought about, and I would love to hear you and Dr Jamison's thoughts as well. Dr Jamison, would you like to go first?
Speaker 2:I really like what you're saying about being consistent and I think that that works in every situation as far as being gentle and telling them what to do different or how to help them understand, and as a two-year-old or two-and-a-half-year-old in this situation, I think it's really hard because there's a lot they don't understand and they're just feeling their way through life at this time. One of the things that kindness and gentleness just doesn't work in my opinion and that's biting. If you've got a biting behavior sometimes and there are going to be people who disagree with me on this, but biting back is the only way I've ever seen that behavior to be something to stop.
Speaker 1:And you don't bite them on the back. We had a daughter one time where, like you need to bite her back. So she was like I can't catch her, she keeps running away, she's literally trying to bite her on the back. We had a daughter one time where, like you need to bite her back. So she was like I can't catch her, she keeps running away, she's literally trying to bite her on the back. But we showed her. You know where she got bit, and the child was old enough to understand biting was bad, and so she did. She didn't bite her hard, but it was enough to like make her feel uncomfortable and she never bit again.
Speaker 2:See, the thing is is that children that are biting and she never bit again. See, the thing is is that children that are biting, it doesn't hurt them. That actually feels good to bite, and kids like to bite because it feels good. But if you get bit it hurts a lot. So they need to make that correlation and the only way to do that that I've seen is to bite back. So, Tony, what do you think about that?
Speaker 3:Oh, I have no idea. It's so interesting that and I'll own every bit of that where I I'm sitting here thinking, wow, but when you just said the thing about uh, that to them it's, it's like uh, you know it's not, they aren't. I don't know, I don't know enough about I don't know what I don't know, um, and uh, what's so interesting is like so I'm not a fan of of spanking, for example, so then, but then neither we right and I knew you guys weren't.
Speaker 3:So then it's funny, because it's funny to see where my brain goes and I can only imagine. It's just. It's just. I love knowing that I don't know what I don't know and then watching my own observation and judgment happen. But then I trust you guys. So then and and so then I was just sitting here taking it all in. I really really was. If we had the cameras on, you'd see me just like. I have my arms crossed, I've got my hand up petting my own beard and I'm just like interesting and I'm trying to poke holes in it and all this kind of stuff. So I don't know enough about it, but I can understand that. I mean, I can hear what makes sense, and we have never.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think it needs to be a child. It's not like a parent bites a child. I feel like if a child is biting children, then especially a sibling, and that's what it was in our situation. And we had a second oldest I won't say her name, but it was in nursery. She was going around biting all the kids and so it was really a problem and so we had to, and then she'd come home and she'd bite her siblings, and so that's when we were like, okay, we have to figure this out. And this was, you know, 20 some years ago, but that's what worked for our family. I don't know if that is just like we were talking about. I don't know if that's going to be a problem for others it may be but it did work. She never bit again and yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm definitely not a proponent of spanking unless it's in the danger. I think that sometimes you have to be up short, not necessarily spanking, but a child needs to be pulled up short and they have to have a very abrupt and clear message given. For instance, we had a child that was playing tag in the front yard one day and she was two and a half and she was running and running and finally she started running towards a busy street and Tricia had to run and catch her by the hair so she didn't step foot into the busy street, right into oncoming traffic. So she got her hair pulled and she was not a happy camper about having her hair pulled, but it was really necessary at that time.
Speaker 1:It literally saved her life, yeah.
Speaker 3:And that one I get. That makes sense. And of course I still go right to my jokes of like man, I would have been hosed then not having hair.
Speaker 1:Then you would have really been in trouble, yeah, but.
Speaker 3:I also, and it's really interesting because we, you know, we, yeah, we never spanked the kids. They never really said anything bad. I would hear my friends this is well before I jumped into the therapy world but one of my friends would talk about, you know, rinsing his kid's mouth out with soap or putting hot sauce in his kid's mouth, and I remember thinking, oh, that sounds crazy. I mean, I don't think that that's going to do anything to really change the behavior. But then I also know that this is such an area that I don't know anything about. So when I was going to give you know, my, my advice here is I appreciate what you were saying, Tricia, about how you say we use nice hands or you know that sort of thing to the little kids, because I just, I just don't know enough about the therapy world, the psychology of how to deal with the kids. So my, my example was going to be, uh, our, yeah, my parenting advice was really going to be about the concepts of differentiation and where, if I look as a parent at everything is a me thing. And then why do I need them to calm down? Why do I need them to do what I need them to do, and there can be a good reason. But is it just because I want? I want them to stop doing what they're doing, Cause it, it bothers me, you know. Or I want them to be quiet because I think that they should know better.
Speaker 3:But then it's my opportunity to self-confront and say but have I taught them well, or have I showed up consistently, or so, uh, so when a two and a half year old, when somebody is saying, okay, how do I teach them how to be nice? I was, I was even thinking I don't know, you know, and so I loved your example of modeling the behavior. And then, but if I go into the world of being differentiated, then I know that I can grow through that relationship or with my kid, even if they're not being nice. Because then it's like if I am going to alleviate my discomfort by getting very angry at them because they're not being nice, then that's clearly me issue and then I'm probably going to be able to change some behavior through fear. But that's not going to last in the long run. So then if I can learn that, okay, they're not being nice makes me frustrated, so that that's an opportunity for me to learn how to to deal or sit with that frustration, while now I engage with them. But I love what you were saying, Cause it's like then, but then what you know, and that's where I like what you're, uh, what you're saying there.
Speaker 3:This is fascinating to me. It is awesome.
Speaker 2:One of the other things I was thinking about is regarding to this question, though is that a child that is misbehaving this way or screaming a lot and what you were saying earlier, tony, about, uh, feeding the behaviors, basically, that you want and giving positive feedback towards, but then separation and taking a child that's screaming and putting them into a area where you're not giving them feedback, either positive or negative, can help stop that behavior as well.
Speaker 2:So separation from the situation, separation from the problem, and then giving them a moment a timeout, if you will, but then being very careful about how long those are. So a rule of thumb that we like to use is one minute per year of life of timeout and then checking on them. So if they're two and a half, so two and a half minutes of time out in an area where it's safe for them to be alone and aren't going to pick something up and break it or whatever, so that they can have a chance to think, but then you check back with them quickly within that two, two and a half minute timeframe. That can be very helpful to help them to change and put pause in their behavior, and that's an interesting thing is allowing a person to pause for behavior. I love that, tony, that once in a while, that you use that for trying to change behavior, whether it be addictive behavior we've talked about pornography in the past and that putting a pause into your behavior helps you change your behavior.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is excellent.
Speaker 3:I appreciate those comments energy, and I think that's a lot of times where a kid will then be able to settle in or feel more emotionally safe and they'll be more willing to listen, or, or, you know, it'll help them learn how to self-soothe, which I think is actually something too that I haven't thought about. So I'm saying this literally right in this moment, but part of being differentiated is learning how to have this calm heart and or quiet mind, calm heart, where you're able to self-soothe your anxiety, not needing somebody else to do it for you. And so, if we go back to what you were saying, trisha, and modeling good behavior is that if a kid gets really upset and then the parent basically is teaching them, well, here's how you get rid of being upset as you get really angry, you know, because then the parent has diffused their anger into the relationship, or they eat.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I want the kid to now take care of it, you know, and uh, so you're almost like teaching somebody that then okay. So now when you get into your adult relationships and you aren't having, you aren't getting your way, you go big because eventually somebody will come in and alleviate your discomfort, whoever you know, whoever is the most uncomfortable. Then they will then take everybody's trauma and yours is alleviated, and I think that sets the stage for having somebody that becomes a real people pleaser or doesn't set boundaries, those sort of things.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that those are excellent comments, and it kind of goes back to something that I shared earlier, and it's individualizing, because when a child is that young, they are trying to separate themselves too, and so they're trying to find their own boundaries, and the more that we allow that to happen in a positive environment, they're going to find them sooner, rather than fighting against you all the time. So I think that there's a healthy way to go about addressing some of these difficult situations. But you know what? Children are children, and they're going to be two and a half and they're going to run into. You know, I'm going to do it my way, no matter what. And you know, do we force and coerce them to do it our way or do we channel that energy in a positive direction? And so that's the challenge for all parents.
Speaker 1:But I also think it's important to also address that sometimes these underlining causes can be from a child being tired or hungry or overwhelmed. I mean, children get stressed out too, and so when they feel our stress, oftentimes they get stressed. So maybe that's taking a look in the mirror and recognizing. You know how am I behaving? Is there a lot of stress in our home? What's happening. Children are very empathic and they feel that stress just as easy and sometimes even more so.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well said, okay, well done.
Speaker 1:Well, that was excellent. So again, thank you, Tony and Jeff for your thoughts and especially Stacey for your question, and I really appreciated how you both navigated this and just kind of your own parenting style, and I think that that's been really helpful. And I also liked how Jeff brought out the kind of timeout. That is something that we have done. We just kind of separate the child from the rest of the family and just give them and I like what you said, Tony a pause. I think that's really important because when we all take time to pause then we can kind of get our wits about us again and we're also teaching positive coping mechanisms, which kind of goes into last week's episode of teens and pornography use, because we want to teach good coping skills Excellent.
Speaker 1:Thank you both of you so much. So that's all for today's episode. Again, thank you for listening to the Q&A Files and don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review if you enjoyed the show. So until next time. I'm Trisha Jamieson signing off and we'll see you next week. Thank you so much. Thanks for tuning into the Q&A Files, delighted to share today's gems of wisdom with you. Your questions light up our show, fueling the engaging dialogues that make our community extra special. Keep sending your questions to trishajamesoncoaching at gmailcom. Your curiosity is our compass. Please hit subscribe, spread the word and let's grow the circle of insight and community together. I'm Trisha Jameson signing off. Stay curious, keep thriving and keep smiling, and I'll catch you on the next episode.
