How to Stop Yelling at Your Kids with Dr Laura Markham, Episode #175

The child psych podcast brings to you the top parenting and mental health experts in the world designed to educate and inspire you with current research and concrete strategies that foster resiliency and healing in children and teens. Most importantly we're here because we need to raise a generation of children who don't need to recover from their childhoods. Hello and welcome everyone to the child psych podcast. I'm Tania and I'm Tami and we are registered psychologists, registered play therapists and the co-founders of the Institute of Child Psychology. And today we have one of our educational heroes. We've been following which feels like since we were very young in graduate school. Dr. Laura Marcom who is the founder of AHA Parenting. She's trained as a clinical psychologist at Columbia University but she's also a mom so she understands kids and parents. She uses her PhD to translate proven science and child development research into practical solutions you need for the family life you want. Dr. Laura Marcom is author of three bestselling books, Peaceful Parent Happy Kids, Peaceful Parent and Tappy Siblings, and Peaceful Parent Happy Kids workbook. And we recommend these all of the time to our followers. So this is yeah we're just very honored to have you here because we look up to you more than you probably realize how much you've influenced our clinical work. So we're just blessed to have you in this space with us. Thank you Dr. Marcom. I'm excited to be here with you today. Dr. Marcom, I think and Tami mentioned it in your bio. I think what I love most about your work is just how tangible the tools are. I think for so many parents you know there's books and there's realms of research but is how do I actually apply it to my everyday life? You know when I was in grad school when I would read parenting books or research they were mostly by man at that point and I would read them and I would say okay I get it I like this but how do I get my kid in the bathtub or out of the bathtub right? And so my my mission became to take the research that was being done that was so wonderful and to apply it to everyday life to help parents with the daily challenges that we all have. How do you get your kid in the bathtub? Absolutely absolutely. I think that's what parents need is how the how. Tami and I went through tons of your work and one of our favorite quotes is all misbehavior is a cry for help or connection. Respond to the need and the behavior will change. Can you talk about this a little bit more and give us some examples? Well it's very common to be told as a parent oh just ignore it and he'll stop right? So an example might be that um oh he he started swearing you know he's four years old and he says damn and then he looks at you to see what you would say you know and he there's and parents say just don't give it any validation and he'll give board of it and he'll stop once he doesn't get a rise out of you. Now that's not a bad approach right? You know he's not getting a rise out of you he's clearly looking at you trying to get a rise out of you but there's a reason he's doing it what could the reason be that he's doing it because he just like the power of it right? So you don't have to give him the power you don't have to be reactive to acknowledge what he's doing to say huh I haven't heard you use that word before. What do you think that word means? I don't know but daddy said it when he had the hammer and he hit his thumb you know like so it's a powerful word he's trying it out on you. I think you know that's an example where you know you could see why somebody would say that you know don't don't give it anything but my experience with kids is when they say the damn or the word whatever the word is and you don't acknowledge it they're gonna up the ante they're gonna try it when they're in the grocery store line they're gonna try it when you're at your mother's for dinner on Sunday you know they're gonna try it with you're they're in the drop-off line at preschool with the teacher right? They're gonna see what it takes to get a reaction because when kids are communicating something with their behavior they're gonna keep doing it until they get they get the answer right that they're trying for you know another thing would be when when a child is you know I'm just trying to think what are the many things that we're told to not respond to oh you know crying he he he um he wasn't heard you know don't don't don't coddle him well that we know from the research that that kid's gonna cry more he's gonna feel like he has to cry a lot to get his needs met to have us respond and give him some comfort right so when kids express anything it's it's asking it's a bid you know jungga that would call it a bid the idea a bid for something for for connection for affirmation for acknowledgement just even see me do you see me here mom or dad right so we don't have to um give them whatever it is they're asking for but we can acknowledge that we see it and that there's a there's some communication going on we hear them you know when when you're 12-year-old snaps at you you can say excuse me I don't speak that way to you please don't speak that way to me what's going on sweetheart right you know people say oh well she's 12 just you know just ignore her tone I don't think you need to ignore her tone you can acknowledge that that tone's not what you do in your house but you can and then you can invite her to tell you what's going on she might just roll her eyes and say nothing mom but at least she knows a you saw it that's a boundary we're not gonna act that way toward each other but the you did ask her what's going on and a warm voice and she can come back to you when she calms down and say mom I don't like it when you blah blah blah or whatever it was yeah so we're always I think the biggest take I get from that and from your work in general is there's always an ask a need for connection from our kids and they don't always ask in the most polite ways and they just don't have that impulse control um and you know if we don't answer that need we're gonna take a lot of time repairing and chasing reasons for that and so it's better to just slow down and say hmm be curious maybe that's a good way just be curious about what could be going on and what need isn't met is it yes I don't feel seen I don't feel hurt I feel frustrated I don't have the skill in order to communicate to you but something there's an ask yeah there's an ask yeah I know too that with my four-year-old that when I don't respond to the bid that she ups the ante it keeps going right because you're saying do you see me do you see me she doesn't see me lift me up the ante so I think that when we're able to as time is it slow down um our kids feel seen by us and they feel hurt yeah yeah what I think you're one of the four runners who really started this movement towards peaceful kind of conscious parenting I think you're one of the first who got there honestly and in your book you talk about just to direct I'm gonna call you here the truth is managing our own emotions and actions is what allows us to feel peaceful as parents ultimately we can't control our children or the hand that life deals them but we can always control our own actions so it becomes about the choices we make and letting go of some control so if you know for all the parents listening here how do they start working from yelling and reacting to a place of like your book peaceful parenting like to make that transition where where do they even start I think we start wherever we are so if where we are is screaming at our kids every day even you know you're not necessarily going to be able to stop yourself from screaming but you can do the hardest thing you can notice while you're doing it just stop and shut your mouth just like if you find yourself screaming just shut your mouth that is the hardest thing because everything in you is in you know it's this you're in the state of emergency right fight flight or freeze at this moment you're in fight your child looks like the enemy so the hardest thing in the world is to interrupt that but the minute you notice it just shut your mouth take a breath you can turn away from your child so you don't have the stimulation of whatever was making you scream you know just take another breath and then you can turn back and say I'm going to calm down and then we'll talk about this right you don't have to stop whatever you know you were angry your child for some reason you can come back and talk about that in a reasonable way but just calm yourself first now what will happen if you do that today tomorrow the next day is that by the fourth day you're going to notice a little sooner you're going to notice a little sooner I have helped thousands of parents stop yelling and they all say the same thing that it's some they they start by saying I can't stop yelling I don't even notice I start yelling I just all of a sudden I'm screaming but somewhere in there they'll say to me you know I now I notice before I even opened my mouth. So as you stop yourself, you are able to stop yourself earlier and earlier in the process. And you get to a point where you open your mouth, you're like, "How many?" And you stop yourself. And you say, "I'm gonna calm down." And then we're gonna talk about this. And you turn away and you do that. And then you come back and say whatever. In a reasonable way, I need you to get this cleaned up or whatever. And then tomorrow or in two days, when you feel that impulse building, you're gonna notice it before you open your mouth. You're gonna take a deep breath and you're gonna say, "Okay, I'm calm. I can deliver this message." Right? And it's a perfectly reasonable way to get your point across bullying and intimidation yelling is how you get your point across. So this is how grown-up solve problems. They learn all kinds of things that we really don't want them to learn. And they also, as they get older, they lose respect for us. They learn to tune it out. They tune it out. They absolutely, the famous, like Jason, "Time for your bath." Jason, "Time for your bath." Jason, how many times I have to tell you? And Jason looks, "Oh, mom, serious now." I'll go, "You all right?" They tune us out until we're yelling. So there is a transitional time period when you stop yelling, when you back off yelling, where you have to get your kids attention in another way. And I've heard from a lot of parents that they thought it would be more work, and it is initially, but it ends up being so much easier for them because they're more tuned into their kids. So an example with Jason would be, you go over to Jason who's playing with his legos, and you say, "You're not yelling at him from across the room, 'cause you're stopping the yelling thing." You did say, you know, you're washing the dishes, dinner dishes, and he's over there, and you say, "Jason, time for your bath." And he ignores you, right? 'Cause he's trained, he doesn't do anything to you to yell. And at that point, you notice, and you're getting a little frustrated, that he hasn't responded. You stop, and you turn off the water, and you dry your hands, and you say to yourself, "Where in a transitional period here, it's gonna be okay, I'm gonna connect before I redirect him." Can you act before you correct? Can you act before you redirect? I'm gonna go over to Jason, and I'm gonna connect with him, and I go over to Jason, and I say, "Hey, what are you doing?" Oh, that looks so cool. Oh, does that fly? Oh, show me. Wow. Hey, Jason, look at the time. Oh, no, mom. I know, it's a bad time. No, mom, I have to fit. I hear you, it's time to stop playing Legos, and get ready. Now, if you fought about this in advance, which you will fully you did, you say, do you wanna take your bath now, or in five minutes? And Jason, like every other human being says, five minutes, and you say, "Okay, we've got to deal. Five minutes, let's shake on it." We always keep our promises, and you might even say, it's gonna be hard for you in five minutes to stop. How can I help you do that? 'Cause if it's gonna be too hard, we should just go now. And Jason says, "No, don't be able to stop." And you say, "Okay, maybe we'll fly it to the bathtub when you're ready." And so you're making a little bridge between now, what he's doing now, and the future, right? And so, was that a lot of work? More than yelling? Yes, absolutely. What is the takeaway here? He's learned that he matters to you. He's learned that you're serious about what you're saying, and he does have to listen to you. And he's learned that actually, he has a really good relationship with you, and he loves it when you're like this with him, and he wants to please you. He wants to cooperate without yelling. And in five minutes, you come over, you say, "Hey, Jason, hi, mom. Five minutes, son, we gotta go." No, I know, we said five minutes. We're gonna keep our promise, we need to go, but are you gonna fly it up? All right. And Jason does it. And what is the other takeaway here? It's about his brain development, because we know that the way children learn to self-regulate, the way they learn self-discipline, is they're building neural pathways that allow them to give up something they want, the LEGOs, he wants the LEGOs, right? He wants to do those, but there's something he wants even more than the LEGOs. He wants that relationship with you. It's higher, it's higher value, Dave, right? He's gonna give up the LEGOs for what he wants more. And that's what we all do. I want that cake, but my health is more important. I'm gonna give that up for what I want more, right? And when he's 12, he's 15. When his buddies want him to come up often, smoke weed with them, with them behind the school, he's gonna say, "No, I wanna keep my promise to my parents, I wanna stay on the soccer team, I wanna, whatever, there's something more important to him." And he is, not only that, he's developed the neural pathways that will allow him to exercise that kind of self-discipline. We know that's how it develops. So every time we are able to resist yelling and to demonstrate our own self-discipline, to connect with our child, so they're invested in cooperating without our us yelling, every time we do that, we're helping our child build self-discipline. We love your work around your biology and your pesticity. How do we hardwire our children for happiness and for success? So you've already given one example, but how do we do that? - Well, the amazing thing is that mother nature has already set us up for that hardwiring to happen. Mother nature wants human beings, well, what's every entity that's born to have the best chance of success, right? So if you're born in a war zone, you need a different kind of brain. Then if you're born into the loving arms of your parents, who are going to nurture you and feed you and take care of you and help you have a great childhood, right? We all want that for our child. We don't want the brain from the war zone. The brain for the war zone is, it's sort of a scary brain, right? It's overreactive. It's trying to keep the child safe. It's always in a state of emergency and everybody looks like the enemy. That's not the brain we want. We want the brain from that child who's loved and nurtured, right? So how does that brain develop? Well, we actually know there's been some great research done. So we know that the babies, at this point we think, you know, we're born so unfinished. The mind is born unfinished. That's nothing mind. The brain is born unfinished. The brain and the neural pathways, the whole nervous system. And the reason it's born unfinished is it gives us the best chance to adapt to our environment, right? And so when the parent holds the child and interacts, we're just beginning to understand what happens. There's so much that goes on. But the parent's brain is connecting to the baby's brain. And the baby's brain is taking its cues and wiring up based on the parent's brain. We actually think there's a template, basically. But we do know that when the parent is calm and soothing and provides safety for the baby and connects with the baby, sees the baby and is responsive when the baby smiles and the parent smiles back. When the parent, you know, nuzzles the baby and the baby laughs at the parent less that all of that dance is shaping the brain. We know that the child's brain is actually growing in response to this. We know that the alarm centers of the brain are settling down. That child might have a less developed, just smaller, a make-to-lead. It's perfectly capable of acting in an emergency, but it doesn't have to be big like the kid in the war zone, right? Because that kid doesn't need a big alarm center because that kid has back up. They have mom and dad taking care of things, right? And maybe the hippocampus, the hippocampus is super important for learning, for processing memory, for stress management, just for mental health in general. We know that the hippocampus is super important. As the baby and the parent are interacting, the hippocampus responds and begins to take shape based on that interaction. It's bigger in kids who have responsive parenting. It's a bigger hippocampus. And it's therefore, when I say it's important in stress management, it's able to settle down the rest of the brain. When the parent's in a state of alarm as they deal with the baby, the baby gets into more of a state of alarm. When the parent is relaxed and responsive when they deal with the baby, the baby's more relaxed and responsive. We can utilize our nervous system response to then calm or escalate our kids. So there's a mirroring going on there. And when parents, I think, realize how important their mental health is of saying like, when we're in a good state of being and we're calm and connect to our own bodies, this then calibrates our kids' nervous system and they're less reactive. So there's a dance, this mutual receptive kind of dance that goes on. And really, we have more control than we think we do. And we can't control everything. But what I'm hearing is you've got that. that power to do that. It's like the pilot driving the airplane. If we can keep calm during turbulence, our the passenger settle in. But if it were, if we're vibrating and we sound a little unsure about the turbulence and you're on the intercom, the passengers are gonna panic because they'd say the pilot doesn't know what they're doing either. - I love that you describe that as we have a power because I think a lot of parents could have heard but I just said and been like, oh my goodness. I was stressed out. I just had a baby and my baby wouldn't stop crying and you know, I couldn't get any sleep. And of course I was stressed out that I stress out my kid. Did I give them a brain that's overreactive? And I want to reassure that parent the answer is no. Right? If the answer is no, it's repeated exposure to something. It's not those times that you got totally stressed out. That's fine. It's repeated exposure that shapes the brain. That's the first thing. And the second thing is, yes, it is true that we have an impact on our kids. Let's let that empower us to look after ourselves. So we have a state of well-being rather than right thinking, oh, I can just put myself last on the list, off the list, forever and just keep tendin' to my kids. No, we actually need to be on our list. It's not sustainable to have yourself fall off the list because we need a state of well-being before we can provide a sustained experience to our child of them feeling safe and regulated. Dr. Mark Mait the beginning of our conversation, we're talking about how all of our child's expressions dress are bits of connection. And I think the one part their parents often forget about and even myself is that with teenagers, we're also doing their co-regulating all the time. So we think of it very naturally with babies at Nuzel, but it's happening with our teens one of the time too. - Yeah, I've got a teenager at home right now. And her bid for any of you moms who have her dads, or care givers who have teenagers, there's my six-year-old wants a hug and a kiss and cuddles. My 14-year-old, her bid for connection, she walks up to me in the kitchen and gives me a little poke or she will burp. And it's these little things to tease me and they're not big things, but it's that little like, do you see me? Do you notice me? I'm present and I'm part of the family. And it's like, but it's more subtle versus my six-year-old who like wraps his whole body around me and it was like, I want attention, my 14-year-old. It's just these little like even moving into proximity into the kitchen is a bid. - Even within those moments, her brain is still developing and changing according to what's happening in that connection with you. - Yes. - Which is incredible. - Yes, and her ability to calm herself down still depends on you being able to stay calm during that interaction. So she's still taking her cues from you and developing her skills. And even her ability to work out a conflict, right? She's learning from you how do people who have a difference of opinion or different needs work those things out, right? If she comes in in a state and she's, oh, it's said about something and you feel attacked and you respond by yelling back at her. That's one way to work something out. If she comes in in a state and she's all upset and you feel attacked and you take a deep breath and you remind yourself that she's 14 and you can handle this and it's gonna be okay. And you say, whoa, you're really upset about this. Well, of course I'm upset. You didn't, blah, blah, blah. Wow. Okay, I didn't understand that you needed XYZ, you know, the money for the school trip, the uniform clean tomorrow, whatever it was that you didn't understand she needed that is now a major failure to hurt her, right? And you say, my goodness, no wonder you're upset. Now she can take a breath. Her needs are being taken seriously. Somebody's got her, she's got backup. She doesn't have to escalate to be heard. You say no wonder you're upset. She can take a breath and she can settle that and you can say, we're gonna get this solved. We're gonna work together and she takes a breath and you say, can I give you a hug? She's like, all right. And she probably at this point is gonna say, I'm sorry, yelled at you, mom. I just was worried about blah, blah, blah, you know. Probably that's what she do. And if she doesn't, you also as the parent can at that point say, you know, next time you were pretty upset about this. Next time remember, I will, I will be here waiting to hear what you're upset about and to help you solve it, you don't have to come and yell at me. You really don't, 'cause I will always be ready to help you sweetheart. And then she'll take the hug and she'll be sheepish and say, I know mom, I'm sorry. And then you're done. Notice how different that is as a way to work out the problem than you yelling back at her. And think about what her relationship eventually will be like with her life partner and how she will approach solving problems with that person, right? - That's such a great thing I think. And I've seen some different social media accounts do really well with this at fast forwarding. It's like what we're doing now is parenting with intention. And we always think of being like, how will this interaction impact my kiddo when there are 15 in there, like for instance, like at a party and they're spend, you know, they wanna come home, but the only way to get home is, you know, calling home or getting in the car of the drunk driver. Now, if they have a good relationship with us and they feel safe with us, they can call us. But they're scared of us or they know they're gonna get screamed at. They might wanna risk, you know, they wanna might divert that and say, I'd rather take the risk of getting in the vehicle with someone and maybe not get in trouble. So it's always thinking like, what's our long term plan here? 'Cause the short term can really just be horrible sometimes. There's a lot of big emotions and it's messy, but like what's our long term game here? - Yeah. - In 10 years and 20 years. Like the marriage, like what kind of you know, partnership do they want? - Yeah, beautiful. - Yeah, yeah, I think there's always some confusion around peaceful parenting, gentle parenting and how that connects to consequences. Sometimes, to get on our social media accounts, people say, how do you consequence and then also gentle parent? Can you actually do those two things together? So I'd like to hand it over to you and see what you have to say to that. - Absolutely. I think you can have limits, but that's different than a consequence. A consequence is usually code for punishment. So the gentle parenting, peaceful parenting, conscious parenting, present parenting, all of that is about bringing ourselves into the work of parenting and being aware of the feelings that we're having, the thoughts that we're having and not getting hijacked by them. That's what mindfulness is, right? Mindfulness is noticing what's going on and not getting hijacked by it. So we notice our own feeling, but we don't necessarily take action on the feeling, right? That's what mindfulness is. We're not shutting down our feelings or our thoughts. We're noticing. And with our child, we are being conscious about what's going on between us. We're not just being reactive. And we're aware that our child is a full human being. We're not manipulating them with punishment and bribes. We're coaching them with their feelings. So when they have a big feeling, we're helping them. The 14-year-old in the kitchen, we're helping her solve her problem. We're also helping her with the feelings and how she's responding to those feelings and the action she's choosing to take based on the feelings, right? And all of that is absolutely sending limits. You heard me settle limit with her that she doesn't need to talk to me that way, right? We've got Jason into the bathtub. All of what we're doing with our kids, there are limits all day every day. But none of that is a consequence. So I want to be clear that I do believe in repair. So when a child hits their brother or sister, when a child rips up their brother or sister is drawing, when a child takes their glass at the table and throws it at the wall and it breaks, right? When a child does anything that they're acting out and it hurts another person or it hurts a thing, the first thing I want to do is keep everybody safe. All right, don't step in the glass. Make sure the sibling's okay, whatever. Just stop the child from carrying out more drawings, whatever. That's the first thing I'm gonna do is focus on what that, let's everybody calm down. We're okay. Let me see. All that must hurt. Ouch, you're tending to the person who got hurt, right? And then I'm tending to the person who had the big feelings who acted this way and I'm saying, wow, I guess you felt I wasn't listening that you needed to throw that glass to get my attention. Or whatever it was, you know, that you really, you have something to tell your sister that's really important. You can tell her in words, not hitting her, right? So we're helping them to put into words what it is they want or need without it becoming an attack on the other person, right? And then the next step is repair. But first we're helping them express what they want or need, right? Because that's how they begin to work through whatever feeling drove them to this behavior. We're helping them. And if they're saying, no one ever listens to me right here. Of course I do. It's going to take a little while to help that person settle down, right? Maybe we, maybe at that moment, they're not even helping us clean up the glass. If we've got a dog or another kid who's going to get in the glass, we need to deal with that first. But hopefully we're able to leave the glass be for a minute. And we're able to tend to our child who's so upset. And we're able to, you know, just shut the doors the dog is in the bedroom or something for the moment. And we're tending to our child to swap, saying, "You feel like nobody listens to you? That must hurt so much." Tell me, sweetie, what do you mean? You don't listen, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then they tell you everything, and it all spills out of you, say, "Oh, my goodness, it must have really hurt your feelings when I didn't pay any attention at that moment." Tell me more. And you're listening, and you're helping them work it through. And at some point, those feelings, which have now been expressed, have dissipated, and you've reconnected with the child, and you're hugging them, and then you say, "That must have really hurt to make you so upset you had to throw the glass to get my attention." And you know what? You never have to do that to get my attention. I will always listen. If you think I'm not listening, you can say, you can put your hands right here and say to me, "Mommy, I have to talk to you, and I will look you in the eye, and I will take that as our signal, and I will listen." Right? You give them an alternative to throwing the glass or whatever, and then you say, "So you never have to throw out of their glass to you?" Or something like that. And what do you think? Do you ever have to throw out of their glass? Ask them. If they say, "Yes, that'll be important work for you to do, that's something you need to know." If they say, "No," you say, "Yeah, give me five." We got that solved. Now we do need-- we have a glass to clean up. Come on, let's do it. We always clean up our own messes. Don't worry, I'll help. The same way you would with the spill milk. You're not-- it's not a big production. You're just going to go do it together. You're their backup, but they have to clean it up. And with their sibling, they need to make things better with their sibling, not a perfunctory apology. But sometimes parents will say, but I wasn't convinced that that apology really helped. You know, it was like a routine, a rope thing that the kid didn't seem to actually feel it. And the sibling didn't actually take it as anything that met anything. I would say to that, you would say, to the sibling, who got hit. So your brother is telling you, he's sorry. Does this feel better now? Or you feel good now with this? Or is there something else that needs to happen between the two of you? And the kid-- People. Right? And the kid might say, he always says he's sorry. And he still hits me. And then you know, again, you've got some work to do. And your kid knows he has some work to do. So it's not just like he gets out of this and gets to go play again because he said he was sorry. You say, what'd you hear your sister say? And you help the two of them talk until they get to the point where he's able to say, I am sorry. I just wish you wouldn't call me names. Or whatever is going to happen between them. But at this point, now they're closer to repair. So I think that it's really important that we as human beings notice when we do things that hurt each other. And that we try our best to make those things better. And when our children are expected to do that, our children grow a little bit. They grow in responsibility. And they also realize that they don't want to be that person who did that hitting, who threw that glass. They don't want to be that person. They don't need to be that person, because they don't want to make that repair. They want to-- the process of the repair makes them realize that they didn't want to do it, actually. And so it helps them not repeat their behavior. But notice how different this is. Then if we rub their nose in it, right? If we say, OK, go apologize. Well, what I really liked about this was your focus isn't just on setting a limit. It's also on teaching a skill. And so, and the parents sitting there saying, well, what skill maybe was missing here? And you're doing a little bit of an investigation of being like, well, and looking at intent, and then also how it has impacted not just-- it's not just about the one child. It's about the dance between those kids in this instance, which is important. And they both end up feeling hurt. So you've done this intervention with limit setting. But now you've got two kids who feel like they have a voice. And mom cares what both of them-- how both of them feel. And you've also modeled how to make a repair. And if repairs don't work, then we're going to do a dance and we'll figure out what's going on underneath it. That's just what it is. And notice there was no consequence. In the sense, parents use consequences as threats. If you keep doing that, there will be a consequence. Or you hit your sister again, no screen time for you, or now you have to go to bed early or whatever it is. Is that going to actually help? There'd be no hitting next time? They haven't learned anything. They don't know what to do. They have. And told, I must stop this thing. But the problem that started it was they lacked-- well, sometimes it's emotion regulations, they co-regulation. But also, there's a skill missing. Otherwise, they wouldn't be engaged. This kids don't want to be bad. Kids just are lacking the capacity to make good choices in those moments. And that might be because they just need a good cry. And they need you there. Or it's like they don't actually know how to conduct themselves. Yeah. And I think most of us never learned in childhood how to express what we want and need to someone else in a way that's not an attack. Right? Think about how many marriages people don't know how to do that yet. Absolutely. Absolutely. I love the emphasis is more on growing beautiful human beings than on punishing something out of them. Yes. Thank you. Oh, how beautifully said. Yeah. Or just like that automatic compliance. I get what I need as a parent in this moment. But and maybe you have peace not only because they're not fighting anymore, but ultimately we have it set the stage yet for the rest of their life. Like they don't know how to be yet. They're just avoiding getting yelled at. But they're not really sure next time this happens, well, then what the heck do I do when I get mad? Like, I know I can't do this, but what now? What now? What do I do? And in the same way that the parent says, I have to yell at her to get her to pick her clothes up off the floor. The kid is saying, I have to hit my sister to get her to stop calling me names, right? Because we haven't actually helped him or her, whoever our child is to to a solve their problem and be learned the skills to solve the problem themselves in the future. 13. That's lovely. Do you want to just rapid fire questions? Wait, so we have three questions for you. There are rapid fire ones. OK. So what is the worst advice you've ever received about parenting or raising children in general? Maybe it's back in your graduate days in Columbia. But what was some of the yucky advice you got? Oh my goodness. Well, I think the most obvious bad advice is your child needs to know who's boss. So you hit them to show them. You know, he just needs a good lick, right? That kind of advice, I think, is still-- if you look at the stats on how many people still spank their children, it's an awful lot of people. So I would say that's the worst advice. Yes. Spare the runs full of child is the way to save you. And then what's the best advice? The best advice, I think, is learn from your child. When you're handed your baby to pay attention to your child to learn what they need, because each one is different, each human is different, right? And they'll let us know what they need, rather than operating through some prescription of, well, he should be going to sleep now. He should be on some schedule now, or he should be whatever. He should be different. This whole, they should be different. That's bad advice. The love them as they are and give them the conditions they need to thrive. And they will grow into themselves to beautiful selves, right? The conditions-- you know, it's like when you have a plant on your counter, you give it-- if it doesn't look like it's thriving, maybe it needs more water, less water, more sun. You pay attention to that plant. I have a green thumb just because I pay attention to the plants, there's nothing else. And it's the same thing with children, right? We just-- if we pay attention to them, we see what they need. Just the grace to be in the space to become kids. Beautiful. Yes. Yes. And then if you could recommend another resource, other than your own lovely books and website, what is one book or podcast or website that you would say, oh my gosh, look at this person's work, or read this book, like it's amazing? There's so much that's great that it's very hard to pick. You know, I-- Maybe your top ones? I-- you know, I'm going to give you an old one and a new one, maybe. Because I would say that many parents still have a hard time just acknowledging their children's emotions. And so I would go back all the way to the 1960s to favor in mazlash how to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk. And I would say just acknowledging kids-- the reason I like that book is it's cartoons, basically, where you see the bubble of what the parent says and the situation and you say, oh, right, I could say that. And so I like that it's just such clear instruction of boiling it all down to that. It's not the theory. It's just how do you actually acknowledge your child? So I think that's an important skill for all of us to learn. I would say the more recent work about-- There's a lot of great brain work from Dan Sinclair. Zegal and Tina Bryson, the whole brain child and their other work, I think, you know, brain work. And also Mona Della just has a new book out. And she really integrates the brain work. And so I think we're just starting to understand, you know, co-regulation and how children act out when they don't feel safe. And we can help them, feel safe. We can help them shape a brain that will not only feel safe, but can calm them down. So that they can, for the rest of their lives, regulate themselves and calm themselves down. And they get that from their interactions with us, which we've talked about today. So I think those authors would be people to look at for sure. Beautiful. Dr. Markham-Temmy and I both subscribe to your incredible newsletter that's chalk a block full of tips and strategies. Could you tell our listeners a little bit about your newsletter and how to find it? So my newsletter is free at Comes Out Every Week and there are the beginnings of four articles. And I try to have them and be about different things. So one might be how you can stop yelling and another one might be how to get your toddler to sleep through the night and another one might be how to handle defiance or backtalk at all ages within age by age guide. So you know, there will be four different articles. And it's free. So we'll see you next time. what's been such a pleasure. - It has been my pleasure. These were such great questions, and I wanna say to all the people who are listening to this, that it sounds really hard to do what we're describing, right? It is a responsibility that your children's brains develop based on their interaction with you, but I wanna say again, that you can do it step by step. You're not gonna stop yelling all at once, you're gonna start moving in the right direction, just increase your ratio of good moments to bad moments, just one more time that you self-regulate and meet yourself with compassion the rest of the time, because only when we're compassionate to ourselves can we do better, right? So I just wanna leave your listeners with that encouragement that they don't have to be perfect. They can do this one step at a time, and they, you know, center later a year in a whole new landscape. - That's beautiful. - Thank you. - Thank you so much. - Thank you. - We have so much more to share with you at ICP, and whether you're looking for parenting support, or you're a professional looking for strategies to help children who are struggling with their mental health, we have the answers you're looking for. At ICP, we offer a unique member to program that gives you access to over 60 accredited online courses, and past conference workshops offered by the top experts on the planet, and also provides a community platform where you can connect with like-minded professionals and parents, sharing ideas, resources, as well as advice from the ICP team of professionals. You can access our courses and workshops through your desktop or through our app, offered exclusively to our members. Please go to icphelps.com to start your journey with us today. (upbeat music)