The Kindness of Consequences

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled. Well, this is a treat for me. I'm going to be responding to a response that I received from the parent that I was trying to help last week in the episode called Demanding.

Stressed. And what's happened to my gentle child. Her son has been frustrated, stressed out, explosive, aggressive. Sometimes she just had another baby.

There's an older sister as well who is also a strong personality like this boy is, but he's the one that's been struggling. My sense was a lot of it may have to do with this huge adjustment in the family of there being a new baby, because I know how that throws children into a tailspin sometimes. The gist of the advice I offered this parent was I believed that this little boy needed to feel the parents arms around him. Figuratively, yes.

You're behaving in all these ways that we're not going to let you behave. We're going to do what best we can to stop you, but we're not against you. We know this isn't your fault. We see you're going through something and we want to help you stop.

So one of the ways I suggested they might try to do that is to have a family meeting because I thought maybe they could all talk about how she could help them when he's feeling like kind of that explosive mood that makes him want to lash out. And really the point of it wasn't about we're going to find the solution that makes it all smooth and make it all work. Absolutely not. Because it's just not going to be smooth during these transitional times when everybody's struggling a bit to make the adjustment.

So there's no way it's going to be smooth and he's suddenly going to turn a corner and be this perfect angel. But the point is to give him that message by saying, we're going to all work together to help you in these situations and make it work for all of us. It's just that gesture that will help our children to feel seen, safe, that we're on their team, we're not against them. Just that alone is usually enough to help the child feel a lot more comfortable and therefore not as reactive in their behavior, not as dysregulated.

So I did also suggest that the parent not come rushing in every time that he says he needs her help right now. And a lot of times it was a bit ridiculous that he was demanding that she come to help him make certain projects happen that were really kind of pie in the sky projects. Anyway, I said, so when children are making these over the top requests and demands or any requests that we can't fill, they need to reserve the right to have their feelings about that, but they need us to just be honest and strong in our response and our boundaries around that and to not take it upon ourselves that we've got to help him do this. This is a very capable child and he doesn't need us to try to make things work for him.

So our children can be very convincing, right? Especially when we're worried about them. We're maybe overwhelmed that we have a new baby and these other two children to take care of, and here's our son going off like this. We want to kind of drop everything to try to help him, right?

But no, that's not what he needs. He needs us to be able to allow him to share how not okay he is and for us to believe that he is okay and he can handle this. Children don't need us to drop everything to help them. It's often more helpful for us to say, you're having a hard time with that.

I see. That's a really hard thing you're trying to do. I can't come right now, but maybe later after I do these things, you know, whatever we feel, to be honest in that way. And I said to this parent in the podcast, it really doesn't matter when this started and for what reason.

The result is the same. Your sweet, gentle boy is still there, but he's struggling mightily and probably feeling somewhat alone in that struggle, which makes it even scarier for him. It's that feeling alone part that we can fix right away. So we can't fix the rest of this, but we can definitely fix this part where he's feeling alone.

And that's why I suggested this parent reach out to him in a way that sees him, that accepts where he is right now, but really wants to help everybody to function better together. And in the last exchange I had with this parent, she said, that sounds amazing. It eases my heart. I hope I can communicate all of this to them in a way that makes sense.

So then she wrote again to me. She said they just had an initial conversation and came up with a creative idea. We'll see if it works. Meaning the two older children just came up with a plan how they could handle getting along together better.

And then a couple days later, the parent wrote, hi, I tried several times this weekend to sit the kids down and talk to them more formally about a plan for safety. And what I would need to do for feeding the baby time if things aren't peaceful. But the four year old just says I know, I know and starts to make loud sounds or cover his ears. When I try to talk about it, I can tell he's uncomfortable and worried about it all and gets this fake smile on his face and starts doing things he knows bother us, like making noises with his mouth that cause spit to fly out.

So I don't feel like I was able to get a tangible plan in place. And when the seven year old is feeling stubborn, she'd rather hold her ground, get bit or hit and then cry about it. And if I tell her she was stressing him out, he will say yeah, you're a bad girl, like it's justified that he hurt her. I felt so confident in the plan when you initially responded, but implementing hasn't gone as I hoped.

I'm in quite a mess, aren't I? This morning I was feeding the baby upon waking up first thing and my son called from the other room. Of course I couldn't go, so he came in and started being very loud on purpose. My husband took him back to his room and closed the door so they were both inside.

He immediately started claiming that dad hurt him, which he says anytime we need to physically move him to another place. That's a tricky one because when you're trying to hold onto a flailing, strong four year old, you you have to hold on sort of tight and sometimes move quickly to stop him from hurting someone. Up until recently, I would consider myself a great mom. I spend every waking minute, and the ones I should be sleeping thinking about how to be the best mom to raise resilient, thoughtful, fulfilled kids.

And when we decided to have another baby, our son was a sweet and gentle three year old and we could have never imagined this phase. He's truly so smart. Hard to even explain how cool his mind works and how creatively and I'm heartbroken at how he's struggling. So she shared all that with me through my written response to her.

And then I guess she heard the podcast. I just listened to the podcast episode. It was wonderful. I'm so grateful you took the time to respond to me and create the podcast episode.

3 days ago When I sent those other messages, I was listening to other recent podcast episodes and trying to focus in on aggressive behavior, which got me back to looking on your website and I decided to buy the no Bad Kids Master course. Janet, I can't tell you it's been life changing already the way it's broken down and the printouts led me to a very important we were getting boundaries and discipline all wrong. We were not being confident leaders or using honest consequences. For some reason I had this idea that any consequences were bad.

And so our son was just so lost and so powerful in his role in our house. He'd jump on his sister aggressively while watching a show together or spit out food at dinner and we would tell him we didn't like it, but there was no actual consequence. After the course and your suggestions in our message exchange, I've realized that I haven't been a leader. I've been loving and compassionate and responsive to behavior, but not clear, certain and comfortable and not stepping up with boundaries and discipline for actions that are unacceptable, unsafe, etc.

It's been three days since I realized this and the change is already incredible. I can see our four year old's real smile. Silly loving nature happiness for the day in the morning and so much less aggression. And this is because I've had more and clearer boundaries.

Not been afraid to say no. Cleared his meal from the dinner table and he repeatedly wouldn't sit in his chair and eat peacefully. I can see his relief in my confidence and leadership and comfort with his frustration and big feelings. I don't know how I didn't pick this up in all of the podcast episodes.

I've listened to the importance of pairing the letting them vent the feelings part with the actual discipline part. But now it's clicked for me and it's truly life changing. Thank you so very much. So I hope this doesn't sound like I'm doing all this to advertise my course.

I guess you'll have to believe me that I'm not. What I want to advertise or what I want to share and encourage is for everybody listening. Especially if you, if you're struggling to consider, if you're willing to let go of your child having a negative response to the choices that you make. Because this is a place where so many of us, myself included, get stuck.

And while I touched on it in my podcast last week to this parent, it wasn't what I was really focusing on, maybe as much as she needed me to. So that just shows how, you know, imperfect I am in my responses and in my understanding of what's going on based on written exchanges with people. But I did try to express how important important it was that she not give in to him while she also accepted him. I want to talk a little about honest consequences because this topic is kind of a tricky One to understand it's a little bit nuanced.

The way I see it, the way people normally talk about consequences is I'm going to give them a consequence or I'm going to use a consequence when I talk about honest consequences. It's not us trying to give something, you know, as a synonym for punishment or some tactic. It's not for us to use as a way to punish our child or make them stop doing the behavior. The way it works best is if it's simply reflective of our personal boundaries, our wants and needs, us taking care of ourselves and taking care of our family the way that we need to.

So it's not something that we pull out of a bag. Here's a consequence to make you stop doing this. It's really about, what am I going to put up with here? And so it's very specific to that situation.

It's a logical consequence to the action. Logical consequence is another good word. But I use honest. That's my word.

Because it's even more about our relationship and us personally, and not like some toolbox that we're pulling up to try to make it work. That never works as well. Because parenting is always going to be about a relationship. And when we approach it that way, connecting as two people that need to get along with each other and understand each other better, that's when it works.

For example, she talked about clearing his meal from the dinner table when he repeatedly wouldn't sit in his chair and eat peacefully. Right. So we're offering food to our family, and obviously we want him to eat. But if he's showing us he can't eat and have decent behavior at the table, then we don't have to put up with trying to make it work for him.

In fact, that's not a good message to give him that we just so can't stand up to you that we're letting you basically disrespect all of us and make our mealtime unpleasant and make us feel resentful that we've offered this to you. So it's not a tit for tat. It's not using something to get a result. It's just us being in a relationship, not putting up with behavior that doesn't work for us.

And we know our child can do better, maybe not in that moment, therefore they're not ready to be sitting and eating with us right then. So that's a logical consequence, but it's also just an honest consequence, as is when we say, you know, if you can't be Calm with me when I'm feeding the baby. I'm gonna have to go in this room and close the door. Not because I'm mad at you, not because I'm punishing you or want to make a point, but because this is what I need to do.

I'm taking care of myself and taking care of this baby, which is one of my big responsibilities right now. It's so easy for us. Out of all of our love and care and what we think respectful is where maybe we feel we're being more respectful. If we just let our child do all these things and we just do our best to always be there, that's not respectful because that's not respecting ourselves.

And if we don't respect ourselves, then we can't really respect our child and vice versa. So in a way, I feel like everything that I've tried to share, at least on this topic of behavior and boundaries, it's this one hump that we have to get over. Most of us, we are working so hard to be sensitive and respectful and care about our child's feelings and all of that, that we're too afraid to have common sense rules that we stick to. They are part of caring for us and our family.

And it means being what I used to think was. And I talk about this in the master course a lot, our perception of our job. I used to feel I was being such a meanie, such a bad guy. My child says, oh, help me do this project right now.

It's not convenient for me. I would rather be doing this other thing I was doing. Or maybe I want to be the baby. And I don't, you know, I don't want them to be asking me these things, but I don't want to say no.

That puts a child in this position, as this parent so insightfully realized, to have way too much power. How scary is it to be such a power player in your home when you're only 4 years old? And they can't tell us this. That's the hard part.

They can't say, hey, help me feel a little more like a kid here. You're giving me too much power. Generally, they're not going to tell us this. They're just going to say, I need you more than ever.

And now I need you every second of the day because you haven't been giving me boundaries. But I can't tell you that part. I need you. I need you.

I need you all the time. And I don't like this, and I don't like that. And I get to behave like this and right. It's a trap that we can fall into and hard to see our way out of.

And again, that's why so many of my episodes are around this topic. We all have to find our way to this point of leadership with our children where we're confident and comfortable in our role. Not hang dog or tentative, but really looking out for ourselves and our child that way. Maybe even taking what we thought loving our child was and turning that on its head.

Because it's not loving to be giving up so much of our leadership to our child. It just feels nicer in the moment sometimes until we start going, I hate my job. I hate being a parent. I don't like my child anymore because I'm trying so hard to please them and it's not working because that's not what they're really needing.

So anyway, that's my soapbox about that. I love that this parent found her way to that and we all have our own process to it. I'm so glad that my course was able to help her see her way through, and I really hope that lasts. So this is what I said back to her.

I'm so thrilled that you're having this result and so very, very grateful you took a chance on the course and shared your success with. I just saw your previous note and what came up for me when you said he was saying, I know, I know. And this is when she was trying to make a family plan with him and she wanted to talk about it with them more formally. And she said, he said, I know, I know.

So what came up for me when he was saying I know, I know is that somehow the way this discussion was coming out, he still felt a little blamed, more than understood. Because kids don't respond defensively like that or push us away like that unless they still feel that edge of, we don't like the way you're behaving and obviously we don't like the way he's been behaving. But what he needs is us to switch that a little bit to, you know, you're having a rough time and I see that. And all we want to do is help you and to really mean that.

So it's not about the words. It's about that we've opened our heart to. He's just not able to handle all these feelings he's having. Right.

He needs more of our help. He needs more of our nesting, which also means these boundaries that give him comfort. So I said, maybe it was him feeling a Little too much power and responsibility as you weren't setting limits with quite enough confidence for him. The stronger the children, the stronger they need us to be.

Unfortunately, I learned this the hard way with my child. I'm absolutely over the moon for your wonderful response. Please keep me posted. It definitely doesn't have to be all good news.

And then I asked her if I could share her notes again and she said yes, please share with others. It's making such a difference since I've been holding these boundaries and welcoming his feelings to them. He is noticeably less stressed, meal times are completely different in just a couple of days and he wakes up happier and asks me to help him make a book if I have time. After I'm done getting ready, it would be so helpful to hear some more examples of the right way to use confidence with limits and discipline boundaries when a child might be hurting a sibling, demanding attention from a parent, insisting on having several different breakfast foods, threatening bad behavior or hurting if parents or siblings don't comply with wishes, etc.

The course covers this stuff with great strategies, but it's so helpful to hear examples of ways to handle more of the common struggles parents might encounter. Just a thought. So yes, I would love to give more examples of how that could look and feel in all these situations. So she said to use confidence with limits and discipline when a child might be hurting a sibling.

So there they do need physical help. If we see it starting, I wouldn't just, you know, be on it in a split second, but really trying for that comfortable leader approach, which is not rushing in like everything's an emergency because it isn't, but seeing it and coming over. Can you stop yourself? And as I say this, maybe I'm walking over if I can.

If my arms are full or I'm with the baby, then I don't just say like, oh, could you be careful there? Not intense, not excitable. Something that feels leader. I see you, I notice you.

I want to help you stop what you're doing. Maybe I can't do it right now. If I can get over there, then I'll be like, oh come on, let's give her a break. Or what's going on here, you two?

And the way to be able to have those kind of responses is again, to expect these kinds of behaviors. When a child has been showing us they are having a hard time right now in this passage of life, we don't need to know the reason, but we see it's happening. So while this is going on, we want to Be ready for these things are going to happen and we don't need to rush in like they're emergencies because they're not. You know, sister is seven and it sounds like from what this parent is saying that she really can handle herself better than she might want to let us believe.

But what happens with children is when they're used to us intervening and blaming and kind of taking sides that way, which is really natural to do, they get caught up in the drama of that of like, oh, my brother's being so mean, he's such a bully. And then he says my sister's bad. If you could go in with this attitude that they're doing what they're doing, it's normal sibling stuff. Neither one of them is the bad guy.

They're both getting caught up in a dynamic in their relationship. No one's a victim, no one's a villain here. We just want to help them work it out as best we can. And the best way to do that is to not get caught up in it with all our emotions.

Again, it's feeling yourself. Embody that power that you have as their leader, as the adult. They're little kids. Even a 7 year old, even a 10 year old or a 12 year old, they're kids, they're very convincing, they're very intelligent, they're very strong a lot of the time and confident and assertive and aggressive and all that sometimes.

But they're still little kids. That's something we want to remind ourselves of. So demanding attention from a parent is the second one she asked about. Demanding attention from a parent.

Right. We hold our ground. You're trying to demand my attention. I'm not going to ignore you, but I'm not going to be able to give you my attention right now.

Maybe if it goes on and on, I finally look and go, oh, you're still trying to get my attention. This is what I can give it to you after I do these things. But you can demand if you need to demand. And if that means hurting somebody, then having that unpowerful response is the key.

Again, not running over, don't do that, don't do that. Stop, stop. The problem is giving them attention. It's giving them that kind of attention that's urgent, that gets in our way, gets in their way because it doesn't make them feel as safe in our nest.

So having what I've called in the past a ho hum response, we're not letting it change us. We're still the confident leader. Yeah, you're trying to get attention in these weird ways. Come on, honey, you know better than that.

You don't need to do that with me. I'm going to be there for you soon. Taking control that way. It feels so good when you start to get this in your body.

It will bring confidence to every area of your life. Okay. Insisting on having several different breakfast foods. I know we can get caught up in that, but that's really.

That's one of those. We're looking out for ourselves. Here's what we have. We're being really honest.

Here's what I'm offering. You can have this or this. Whatever's comfortable for us, whatever works for us. And they want something else.

They want to demand something else. I'm not going to do that. You don't have to eat anything. Being able to hold our ground, not with tension and anger.

And you know you're not going to take this away from me. That would be stooping to their level. We can hold our ground so easily when we believe in ourselves as leaders, which this parent is starting to do. And I just want to encourage her so that one you just don't buy into.

He doesn't need those different foods. What he needs is some confidence from us as a leader. Threatening bad behavior or hurting if parents or siblings don't comply with wishes. All right, we're not going to fall for it because every time we fall for it now, he has to keep trying to see when we can show him those boundaries that we have.

We can show how uncomfortable we are. Even when he throws all these wild things at us like threats and. Ah, that made you really want to do this? Well, don't worry.

We'll be there to help you if you feel like acting on it. That don't worry has helped me to be able to be the confident leader, the bad guy quote, which is really the good guy, the trusted guy that makes our children feel safe and loved and like they get to be kids. That subtext or sometimes saying it out loud. Don't worry, I'm going to do this.

Don't worry. I'm not going to give you too many choices for breakfast because I know you really can't handle that. But I always want to know what you have in mind. Like how strong would that be if we could get to that level?

Right. And we can. Once we feel that conviction and how loving this is. You'd be surprised at the strength that you have in you.

Not afraid of your child's feelings around it. When you know that you're doing the most heroic, loving thing. We have so much power and strength inside us. That's what we want to tap into, that benevolent power.

So, in short, what I want to say to her in response to all of this, in terms of consequences or setting limits, whatever she wants to call it is hold your ground. If you don't want to read more books at bedtime because the behavior's not working out and not comfortable for you, they're stalling or whatever, you don't read more books at bedtime. We don't have to keep the meal going. We don't have to keep the different breakfast choices coming.

Hold your ground. Don't let him get your attention in a big way when he's demanding it and it doesn't work for you. If it does work for you and demands it, oh, sure, I would love to just try to always undercut their intensity for yourself. Go way down.

It's the opposite of what Michelle Obama said, that when they go low, you go high. When they go high, we don't have to go there, we go low. That's where we'll feel our confidence. So then she said, thanks again for everything.

I'll keep you updated. I will say my husband still struggles feeling bad when our son says unkind things to him and doesn't accept his help or guidance. We could use ideas on that topic, too. He knows to try to stay calm and unruffled, but he finds it easier said than done, especially when he feels he's going above and beyond to take great care of him, which, of course, he is.

So I wrote back. I feel this for him, too. I'd encourage him to not be a doormat going above and beyond when your son's behavior isn't warranting that. There again, that holding our ground.

But yes, the key is to keep reminding ourselves how not personal this is, that none of these words represent literal feelings towards his dad, and that they've built steam because our child senses this is affecting us while it still feels impossible to him to control. And that's kind of scary, right? When you're hurting your dad's feelings and you don't really even know why you're doing this, and you feel out of control and you're just caught up in behaving this way, and now you're hurting your big, strong dad, he doesn't want to do that. So it is hard.

And so many parents bring up this particular topic to me about parents feeling the other ones getting favored and they're getting pushed away and how hurtful this is. If we could see how immature and how actually this is a bid for please see beyond me and love me. Don't take this personally, dad. If we could try to reimagine that every time, it would be easier for us to not take it personally, because it absolutely isn't.

I don't have any magic tricks to help with that, except to see it for what it is and know that it's just a dynamic that gets created when he feels a little hurt. This behavior has power, and he doesn't really want to have power in his heart of hearts, but he can't tell us that, so we got to be the ones to not give it power and even have a sense of humor about it if we can. Like, oh, boy, I'm not your favorite, am I? If we could get to that point where we see it so clearly and know that it actually means we are very loved because our child's trying to take a little hurt out on us this way.

And they wouldn't do that if they didn't feel so safe and loved. So we can reframe that, too. When we put it in context. We don't need to take this personally, but we don't want to kowtow to it either in any way.

So go get me that right now, dad. You know, it doesn't make me feel like doing that when you talk to me that way. No edge in our voices needed. Just stick it up for ourselves.

No, buddy, I'm not gonna let you boss me. Nice try, though. All right. And one more note.

She wrote to me at the end. She said, thinking back through this again this morning, when I approached the conversation with them, it felt very focused on keeping big sister safe and therefore didn't feel like it was creating safety and a loving vibe for everyone. I can see how he definitely would have still felt like things were his fault, were worried about him being out of control here. I just wanted to offer one more thing, and that's in these rough times in our family or with a certain child in this time when all of this transition is going on, it can be natural for us to believe as parents that we need to be just more worried about everybody's feelings and taking care of everyone and, you know, trying our best to please everyone.

But what children actually need when times are hard is the opposite of that. I mean, they still need our sensitivity about their feelings when possible, but they need that smaller nest. They need more boundaries. They need us to stick up for ourselves even more so that they can fall apart even more so that they can unravel but have us not be trying to fix it.

They need to feel safe and little, like little tiny birdies in the nest. So not letting go of boundaries, actually being willing to give even more about all these little things, the little mealtime behaviors, how many meals we're offering for breakfast. So keeping everything reined in, sticking up for yourself even more because the other way doesn't work for them or for us. I hope some of this helps.

Thank you again to this parent for all of her notes, to me, all our exchanges, and for, yeah, taking a chance on the course and giving me all her feedback. We can do this.