Speaker 1Hello and welcome to the How Not To Screw Up Your Kids podcast, the bucket-emptying episodes. I'm your host, Dr Mary Han, psychologist and parenting expert. So, pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy seat and enjoy the conversation. Today's bucket-emptying episode is a new tool that you can add to your toolkit. It won't necessarily work every single time, but it's a really powerful tool that we can have in our armoury and it is to sow the seed. Now, this will be really helpful in any situation where you have felt slightly at loggerheads with your child or your children or your teens. Maybe you've been frustrated, that they're not doing their homework when you ask them to. Maybe they're not using initiative. Maybe they're not being motivated. Maybe they're not doing tasks that have been pre-agreed. Maybe they're just not getting ready on time. Whatever it might be, the idea behind sowing the seed is to basically park the approach that you may well have used most traditionally around nagging and reminding our children and our teens that we've said the same thing over and over again, we've asked them to do something. Why won't they do this? Why can't they see that there's a problem that they're not doing their homework or they're not revising or they're not taking initiative or they're not looking after their things? And instead of using that approach, instead we just sow small seeds. Now, if you think about it, even in the most infertile soil, in the most inhospitable places, when we scatter enough seeds, some will germinate. Some will germinate. So that's the whole ethos behind this is that it is about making small, short, sharp, succinct comments, leaving them. They may germinate, they may grow, they may not. There will be a follow-up to this particular tool in terms of how can we optimise the chances that that seed will actually grow through nurturing it, through watering it, through feeding it. But really, I just want you to kind of get the basics, the basics of what sowing the seed is all about. And it's simply about making some small observational comments in a non-invested, non-emotional, almost, flippant is the wrong word, but almost a slightly detached comment. So let me give you an example. Let's say you've got a child who's just never making their bed. Maybe their bedroom is an absolute mess. You can't see the carpet. You can't see the floor because there are things everywhere. Now, our traditional approach could be around that we need to have a conversation. I've noticed that, the bedroom's always untidy. We need to come together with some, you know, some sort of compromise because I'm getting frustrated. I'm then nagging and it's not working. That is one tool. That's the sort of, I've noticed that tool. So that is one. The other tool is simply about sowing seeds where we encourage our children or our team to see that there is a problem. So we're just planting small little comments. Oh, I've noticed that you're finding it really difficult to communicate your school uniform. I wonder whether there's another way that your room could be organized. And that's it, for example. So you're making a comment that isn't directly, the reason why you can't find your school uniform every single day is because your bedroom's an absolute mess. No wonder you can't find anything. But instead pondering, putting just a little comment and then not following it through with any further comment. That's the crucial piece to sowing the seeds. We will sow multiple seeds. We will, sow multiple comments and just leave them there for our teens and our children to then be able to ponder because whatever you might think, the comments that we do make do land, they do sit, they do permeate with our children and our teens. They just don't always do it in that exact moment that we're getting super frustrated with them. And that's why we have to sow these multiple seeds. So it may well be that we seek opportunities when our child presents the problem. So that analogy around clothes and things, it may well be that they come down to, oh God, can this be ironed? This is all creased. I can't wear this. Oh gosh, that really is creased, isn't it? I wonder what happened to that then for it to be so creased? Again, you're not looking specifically for a response. You are simply sowing a seed. We're not looking at following it up. We're not saying, well, the reason is because you just leave stuff everywhere. We're simply sowing that seed. We're another comment. And so that's the way that we kind of sow these seeds. We will talk a little bit more in another episode specifically about how we can nurture and grow and feed and give it the best chance of germinating. But it's actually an incredibly powerful tool because we take the emotion out of it. We're simply making an observation. It's almost like, I want to consider it almost like a news headline. This is what's happening. But we do it rather than necessarily us always instigating it. We do it in response to a comment that our child may make. So we've looked at an example specifically around messy bedrooms. Let's take an example that I suspect a lot of you who have got school-aged children may well be struggling with, whether that's related to homework or whether that's related to revision. So one of the ways that we can sow the seed this way may well be around, let's say you've got a child who always leaves things to the last minute. Maybe they forget their homework or they remember their homework just before they go to bed. And so it's around, again, we're just sowing the seed. We're making small observational comments. We're leaving it to see if it germinates with them. So you get a child or a teen who's gone upstairs to bed and it's suddenly like, oh my goodness me, I've forgotten I've got some maths homework. Gosh, it must be really frustrating when you suddenly realise that there's some work that you haven't done. I wonder if there are ways that we can kind of remember how to I wonder if there are ways that we can prompt. I wonder if there's another way that you can prompt yourself. Again, we're making the comment. We know that there's diarising. We know that there's a ways in terms of scheduling, checking their homework diary if they've got one. But we're not going into, we're not falling into the trap that we might typically do, which involves us giving these long lectures. But instead, oh gosh, it must be really frustrating when you suddenly realise you've got your homework. Gosh, if there was a way of having a system in place that we could remember it so we didn't get this stress, that would be amazing, wouldn't it? Leave it. Walk away. That is so much more powerful. And what happens is, consider it almost like an open-ended question, a pondering, amusing almost, that you say to yourself out loud. And then it's removing yourself. Do not be tempted. Please, please, please do not be tempted to then follow it up with another comment and another comment. Because that's where we then might find ourselves falling into the trap of that long lecturing. And the reason why children and teens simply don't get kind of, they don't respond to that is because it's a sort of, we all have this need almost. We all have within us a desire to be doing right things, to be making good choices. When our faults, our flaws, our misdemeanours are highlighted by other people, even our loved ones, we have a tendency, our initial reaction, our initial response is to deny or to pull up those barriers and those walls. So it's so much more powerful that we don't have, we don't approach things like that. But instead, we just sow these small seeds. These ponderings, these musings. And then what then happens is it sits and it permeates within them. And then they're much more likely to respond. Again, this is just another tool in your toolbox that you pull out when the opportunity is there. I think what you also need to remember really importantly with a sow the seed is that you're not going to get an instant result. This isn't a tool that you do X and you're going to get Y immediately. This is one of those tools that can be really powerful where you have tried other tools in your toolkit and have found a huge amount of resistance. And so that's why it is just accepting that it's going to be a bit of a longer game. We're going to have to keep doing it, but it is incredibly powerful. And it helps us because it also takes out that frustration that we have, that we feel we're constantly in that nagging process. So do let me know how you get on with this. I will be sharing some other additional tools that you can use. And I'll see you in the next video. pieces to this tool, some attachments that you can add to this tool that might make it even more powerful. As ever, if you have enjoyed this podcast episode, I would be eternally grateful if you could follow, rate and review so that others can find my podcast and we can spread the love. So until next time. Bye. Thank you. You're welcome.
PodcastTranscript AI