Speaker 1Therapy's biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough. It shows up in the smallest moments. You bite your tongue instead of escalating. You put your phone down instead of firing off that text. You say what you actually mean instead of what would hurt someone else the most. Nobody applauds those moments, but they quietly change your life. That's what growing feels like. And that's exactly what Grow Therapy is here for. Grow is therapy that works, covered by insurance. Sessions average $21 with insurance, and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan. There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments. You just pay per session. Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality, licensed therapists across the U.S., offering both virtual and in-person sessions, nights and weekends. You can search by what matters, like insurance, specialty, identity, or availability. And you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as two days, not the national 48-day average. See if you could pay as little as $0 for therapy in seconds at growtherapy.com slash ACAST. That's growtherapy.com slash ACAST. Growtherapy.com slash ACAST. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.
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Speaker 5Not to Screw Up Your Kids podcast. So, pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy seat and enjoy the conversation. This is episode 127 and today's episode, personal responsibility, the key to success. I'm tackling one of the most common battles parents tell me they are having with their children. And that's children. Children owning the things we ask them to do. Now, there is a difference between doing what you're told and taking responsibility. So, you could be very fortunate to have a very compliant child who does everything you ask them to do, but you're constantly having to remind them to do something. So, for example, there's a big difference between laying the table for dinner, clearing the table, or packing the dishwasher because you've been asked to and independently initiating a seat or creating their own system and processes for stacking dirty plates and packing the dishwasher. The latter, initiating and creating systems, is responsibility in action. The former, doing what they're asked because we've asked them to, is obedience in action. Now, you might be thinking, I don't really care, Mary-Han, as long as they do what's asked. But you will care. Trust me, you will. And that responsibility is an end goal skill. Remember, our children are a building under construction, and we're trying to help them build a strong building that meets building regulations, that's habitable, independent adults, functioning, holding down jobs, relationships, and other things. Teaching personal responsibility means that when things go wrong or your child needs to think creatively to resolve a problem or a challenge, they are capable of doing it. They are capable and competent to do that themselves, which is a life skill they will absolutely never tire of, neither will you. And for those of you listening to this podcast, despairing over battles about homework or studying or motivation, the responsibility shifts away from you nagging them to them owning them. So I'm going to share with you today seven ways we can teach responsibility. All of these tips can be implemented. I would just encourage you to focus on a few first and build up because it's all about consistency. You know, I'm a big believer in starting small. Small changes can have big impact as long as we implement these consistently. Now, the seven tips and seven strategies I'm going to share are not just in the realms of parents with older children. If you've got a toddler, you can do these. We want in an ideal world, we want to be implementing. These strategies early. We want to be teaching responsibility as soon as we possibly can. Equally, if you are despairing, if you are a parent of an older child or an older teen, you can change things. You just choose the ones that will be the most impactful. And again, obviously, depending on how old your child is will depend on the language that you use. OK, let's dive in. The first one, and this is one that I have spoken to my children about, they're probably quite tired of this, but it was. I guess almost one of the first sort of truly responsible things that I asked our children to do, and that is make your bed. It is simple, but it is one of the most profoundest responsibilities that we give to our children that we want and should expect them to do from a very, very young age. I think it's not just about teaching responsibility, but it's about intention. It's about how we start and we frame the day, you know, encouraging. Our children to make their bed and expecting it as a minimum is crucial because what that does is it teaches them responsibility about a space for which they own. Now, it could be that your child shares a bedroom, but still the bed in which they sleep in is a space that they own. It's theirs. It's where they end their day. It's where they recharge their brain and their body repairs itself. And so it's. It's a really good, clear way and in an intentional way to end that phase of that 24 hour cycle and begin the next phase. It's a really super intentional now, and this will be a recurring theme that you'll hear throughout this make encouraging your child to make their bed and be responsible for making their bed means that they make their bed in as reasonable a way as they believe it to be. It is not making the bed the way it is. It is the way that you would like it to be made. We have to really this is really crucial if we're trying to encourage our children to take responsibility and become independent. And as I say, it will be a theme that you'll hear in quite a few of these tips. It is not how you would like to make the bed and I'm going to share oversharing, but I'm going to share. I like our bed. My husband and I's bed made in a particular way. I like the sheet, you know, the duvet to look crisp and sort of things to be in a certain way. And pillows plumped up and placed in a certain way. And the throw place in a certain way. And then there's cushions and other things. Okay. My husband doesn't make it that way. And that is something that we have to accept. That's still making the bed. It's not making the bed the way that I like to, but it is still making the bed. And that's exactly the same with our children. So that is a absolute. If your children are not making their beds right now, and your teens are not making their bed, then that is something that is the first thing that you need to start with. And making their bed is simply redressing it in a way that is not making their bed. So that is a absolute, if your children are not making their beds right now and your teens are not making their bed, then that is something that is the first thing that you need to start the bed and that's exactly the same with our children so that is a absolute if your children are not making their beds right now and your teens are not making their bed then that is something that is the first thing that you need to start with and making their bed is simply redressing it in a way that takes it from looking like a space that they've just walked out of because they've slept in it and at least a more ordered way more ordered in the way that they see it and you have to get over yourself you have to take a deep breath as i have to every day but just accepting that that's it so that is number one number two is encouraging independence are you still making your children's breakfast when they are super capable of doing it themselves are you organizing their laundry are you fixing arrangements for meetups with friends school trips packing driving them to school whatever it is these are obviously going to be different depending on the age and stage that your child is at but are you encouraging independence or are you encouraging dependence and only you can really ask you know answer that fully but when you look at some of the things that you do and these are things that we just do quite regularly i don't know maybe your child says they're thirsty and you go and get them a cup of water yeah maybe your child is three and actually they're perfectly capable of getting themselves a glass of water they just maybe need a little bit of a stool or a step that they can go up and then fill their own water from the tap it's these simple things that are going to help you to build up that independence and there are some things which seem almost negligible and slightly irrelevant that are really crucial at building up that independence young children can become independent much more quickly if we're really intentional and conscious and we reflect on what are the things that i'm doing for my child for themselves now what I will say with that is that we might not want that maybe this is our third second we're not going to have any more children and we're trying to cherish those last moments that we have where you know it's like mummy do it or daddy do it and we really want to nurture that but that's not going to help them in the long term and it's also not going to help us and it's going to set up a whole cascade of other things that will be issues and it seems irrelevant it seems you know like why why does this make a big difference but it does because and we'll talk about this again in terms of the what the brain develops but if we encourage independence what happens is that teaches responsibility because our children learn not by us preaching and telling but they learn through their actions through their doing and if we can do that at those smaller what might seem almost insignificant things it will have a bigger impact later on. So now obviously that independence is going to be different at different ages and stages so if you've got a young child that's thinking about what are the things that I routinely do for my child that they could very easily do for themselves and that's not about losing connection time we can create it in other ways we can find it in other ways but it's really the things that we know that they could do that we're just doing because it's become habitual because we've not really thought about it and that is really important because independence builds responsibility. But it also builds confidence and that's fundamentally what we want our children to have as they grow older and they face different ages and stages challenges so the first one absolute non-negotiable as far as I'm concerned make your bed and actually while I'm saying that if you are somebody if you are a parent who is not making your bed then again it's about children are much more likely to do what they see than what we say make your bed it's life-changing trust me if that's the only thing you do from all of this is get the whole family to make their beds. The second is encourage independence by looking at the things that you're doing routinely that actually you can shift away from you and your children becoming dependent to them and then them becoming independent. The third is about giving choices this is all about children growing up knowing they have agency that you know that they have choices and those choices and options lead to different outcomes some of those outcomes they'll want happy days whilst others lead to less than desirable outcomes which they understand are still within their realms of options this is what which you know it's about agency I make a choice something happens that's an outcome is that an outcome I want great happy days if it's an outcome I don't want I still have agency I know that I can make a different choice or do something differently and then that leads to another outcome yep so it's really knowing about that now there's the obvious would you know when we're talking about giving our children choices there's the obvious would you like this or this but there's the less obvious you need you know this is you know pushes the realms wide open instead of you can either do this or this it's actually being bigger and saying do you know what you need to be in your bed by 8 p.m maybe that's when we do stories or maybe that's when we have lights out before 8 p.m you need to have tidied up your things downstairs you need to have got your bag ready for school and that needs to be brought back to school and that needs to be by the door you need to brush your teeth or whatever it is are the list of things that you expect to be done before bed but you basically hand over the responsibility and you give the choices completely up to your children so it's up to you when and how you get these things done you know I'm giving you creative freedom the end point is that by 8 p.m you need to be in your bed now giving our children creative freedom builds responsibility I mean it absolutely accelerates because they then need to be in their bed and they need to be in their bed and they need to be in their are learning on the job they're learning directly the impact of the choices that they make but it can come at a price if you are a control enthusiast like myself because they may or may not do it the way that you want and you have to accept and encourage that control by us does not breed responsibility there are ways within that giving choice you know saying that this is the end goal and that doesn't even necessarily have to be the end goal but it does have to be the end goal it can be all sorts of things but it's we can do that in stages if we're not ready or our child is not actually at the right age and stage it's not specific you get this at 11 or 13 or 15 or 8 this is much more about where is your child developmentally but if we're not ready to do that because actually the issue is not our child but us then we can start looking at where are the things that I can give my child bigger choices if we're not ready to do that because actually the issue is and encourage them to be more creative and to come up with the solutions themselves and I sort of take that control remove the control that I feel that I need to have and hand that over to my child and what I will say is when you give them choices you have to accept that they're going to do things very differently to you and that they may make mistakes in fact they are likely to make mistakes
Speaker 1therapy's biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough it shows up in the smallest moments you bite your tongue instead of escalating you put your phone down instead of firing off that text you say what you actually mean instead of what would hurt someone else the most nobody applauds those moments but they quietly change your life that's what growing feels like and that's exactly what grow therapy is here for grow is therapy that works covered by insurance sessions average $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan there are no subscriptions no long-term commitments you just pay per session grow connects you with thousands of high quality licensed therapists across the U.S. offering both virtual and in-person sessions nights and weekends you can search by what matters like insurance specialty identity or availability and you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as two days not the national 48-day average see if you could pay as little as $0 for therapy in seconds at growtherapy.com slash a cast that's growtherapy.com slash a cast growtherapy.com slash a cast availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan
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Speaker 5them for that we then don't want to quickly whip in and take control because that does not teach responsibility that teaches dependence and that's not what we want and these seem like small and trivial things but it's built on building blocks it's momentum it's snowball effect the little things that we can remove our control over builds big responsibility builds big ownership has that massive impact so give choices is number three number four teach consequences and what's really crucial follow through one of the big things that we do as parents that sort of undermines the work that we do is our lack of follow-through we'll read incredible things and new strategies you might listen to the podcast and think oh my goodness me that's amazing i'm going to do that these strategies these tips are only as good as our ability to follow through on them because children learn and we'll talk about this when we talk about expectations children learn through their experiences and if they learn that oh my parents set these expectations they say that these are the boundaries but they never follow through it doesn't teach them any responsibility whatsoever follow through is so crucial which is why i encourage you to not take on too much to not try and shift too many things or introduce too many new strategies because being consistent and following through is absolutely crucial to our children taking responsibility and when i talk about teaching consequence this is the shift away from discipline you've done x i don't like it or you shouldn't have done that therefore the punishment for that is the shift away from discipline you've done x i don't is something that i think is going to be painful to you that you're going to be upset about having to do but actually is completely unrelated to the misdemeanor and is super punitive so one of the classic ones that we tend to come up with when our children make poor choices is we remove something that they value and for a lot of our children what they value is devices in some way whether that's time that they have on an xbox or a playstation or whether it's their phones or whether we grant whatever it is that they have on an xbox or a playstation or whether it's their phone or whatever it might be that does not teach consequences if the misdemeanor if the poor choice they've made is completely unrelated so we really need to be thinking about how can we teach consequences that relate to the specific thing the specific choice the ownership that our child has had has not sort of owned up to and taken responsibility for and then followed through on that and if you want to know more about teaching consequences then head over i have taught the I have kind of covered this particular thing. this particular subject about why discipline doesn't work and why teaching consequences is really crucial. All you need to do is head over to the website drmaryhan.com and there is a search function in there at the top right hand corner. If you then just put consequences in there in the search function what will happen is you will get not only the podcast episode but you will also get blog posts that I have done on that particular subject itself. So that's number four. So the first is make your bed. The second is encourage independence. The third is give choices. The fourth is teach consequences and follow through. Number five is don't rush to fix your children's problems. Remember the brain is plastic. We can teach it to be anything and anyone we want it to be. If we constantly fix our children's problems then their brains become hardwired to look for solutions to their problems. So if you're in a situation where you're in a situation where you're outside of themselves and from others if we encourage them to have a go to problem solve you know just just think just become creative then what happens is the brain becomes hardwired to look for creative solutions and their frontal cortex builds its problem solving muscle. That's basically where they problem solve their rational thinking their decision making is all in that front part of that brain which is developing and doesn't really fully mature till about 23-24 but if we're not encouraging it if we're not kind of building those connections by encouraging them to have a go then what happens is that hard wiring does not happen and so they then become much more dependent on others and then looking for that outside solutions rather than that ownership rather than knowing that the responsibility comes from within and actually not you know knowing that they've tried things before and sometimes they failed and sometimes they haven't. So when we talk about building that muscle and that hard wiring we're talking about building that muscle we're encouraging them to look for the solutions within themselves and this also includes when we're talking about not rushing in to fix our children's problems this also includes not rushing in to fix our children's emotions when they are feeling an intense emotion that they don't want to feel remember all emotions are valid we have to allow our children to feel those feelings even though they may not want to experience it but when we rush in to fix our children's it's the same issue here because we're hard wiring so our children are responsible for how they feel it's a choice controversial I know but so true and there's more on that very specific responsibility in an upcoming podcast episode what you just need to accept here and what you need to kind of recognize is when we talk about not rushing in to fix our children's problems I think a lot of us are now understanding that that's something that we need to kind of work on doing and I know that that a lot of you have written in to say that you're really working on that and you're really focusing in on that but when we're talking about not rushing to fix our children's problems it's also I also mean not rushing in to fix our children's emotions to allow them to feel it and then to encourage them to creatively think about ways they can shift from an emotional state that they're not comfortable or not they don't want to be in to a another emotional state and something that it feels uncomfortable maybe that's anxiety or sadness or anger or jealousy into instant feeling happy joyful but maybe shifting away from that state which makes them feel uncomfortable to something that feels a little bit more neutral but there is more to come on that very specific topic so number five is don't rush in to fix your children's problems or fix their emotions number six set expectations now this is not just the obvious I expect you to make your bed it's the added component of expecting your children to follow through and act in accordance with that so truly believing in your child's ability to own their decisions and their choices at the very highest of standards that's not strict parenting it's empowered parenting children will only live up to our expectations if we aim low because it's simply easier you know it may be we've learnt you know maybe our child it gives us a lot of resistance and we thought you know what I'm just just you know this is what I'm going to expect and it's lower then they'll achieve less than their best if our expectations are high they will strive to be their best now let me be super clear when I talk about expectations I am not talking about careers not talking about wanting our children to be doctors and lawyers or expecting them to go to high prestige universities that is absolutely not that that's not what I mean at all that's not the kind of parenting I'm talking about I'm talking about standards of conduct moral values compassion responsibility expecting our children to meet those expectations of high moral values of standards of conduct of being compassionate of taking responsibility the rest will follow in what is best for your child but that's where we should have those high expectations rather than when we're talking about I don't expect you know Jack to late to make his bed because I've just tried so many times and it's it's just not worth the hassle or he we just battle about it and so we then lower our expectations and our standards it's not about being dictatorial it's not about getting our children into a bit of a you know talking headlock of just like you need to do this and I'm not going to accept anything less than that it's about doing it in a compassionate way it's about saying and talking to our children with language that says I know you're capable of this I know that this is something perfectly within your capacity and I know that you're capable of this I know that maybe you've just not felt that you that you have been able to or I've not created environment or a situation or a culture within the home that makes you feel that you can do that because I've rushed in too often to fix it so I'm going to go through as a parent that painful process of them taking maybe not making the bed that the way that you want to or there being a lot of resistance initially but if our expectations are high that this will be something that they will do and work towards that then they will rise to that if we just simply kind of despair and throw our hands up and just say well Jack never lays and it will never make his bed because it's just too just too difficult that's exactly what we'll get back and I'm I know there are going to be trials and tribulations I'm not expecting this to be easy but nothing that's ever worth of any value is ever easy we just need to be consistent and make that the specific focus so set expectations so we've gone number one is make your bed number two is encourage independence number three is give choices number four is teach consequences and follow through number five is don't rush in to fix your children's problems number six is set expectations and number seven is a natural kind of consequence in lots of ways to the other ones and that's accepting that they will fail and knowing it's part of their growth and not seeing it as something we need to save them from so many parents will listen to some of these episodes and will see these tips and find them super super helpful but then really struggle at that you know watching that process of their child not being successful or experiencing pain or failure but it's so crucial that we learn to accept that that's part of growth we accept that in ourselves and the process that we go through but we seem to really struggle with that with our children so it's really accepting that they will fail knowing it's part of that growth and if for you it's about communicating with a really great friend that i'm doing this and i know that this is going to be really tricky for me can i just vent and talk to you and then you encourage me to keep going that's why you know i'm so passionate about this notion of it takes a village to raise a child because we can't do this in isolation we need support we need to be able to talk to other people who are going through similar challenges or have been there and supporting us and encouraging us and telling us that we're doing the right things and to you know to sit with that discomfort that we're feeling because that helps our children to sit with the discomfort that they're feeling so i hope that those seven tips are really helpful for you i think they're super super practical remember it doesn't matter how old your child is for you to be able to implement these now my give this week are going to be these seven strategies and what you what's really crucial particularly around giving choices and encouraging independence is use that space to think of the things that you are currently doing for your child that you just do out of habit that you could begin for the you know encouraging independence that you could begin to kind of just hand over and allow them to do and the giving choices it also gives you a bit of a framework to think of what are the things that i might be able to encourage them rather than saying doing this or this but really broadening the parameter and saying that's the end goal i'm giving you a choice about how you get there and really encouraging them to do that so you're going to get the top seven strategies in the checklist with that space so that you can use it and make annotations so that you can head over to my free resource library drmaryhand.com forward slash library where you'll find the link to download the resource all you need to do is pop in your email address and you'll get instant access not only to this week's podcast resource but all the other free resources across all my podcast episodes as ever if you have enjoyed this episode i will see you in the next one bye bye would love it and be eternally grateful if you could follow rate and review this podcast so that others can find us and we can spread the love. So until next time.
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