155: How to get your child to listen to you

Hi, I'm Jen and I host the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. We all want our children to lead fulfilling lives, but it can be so,

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Hello, and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo Podcast. Today, we are here with a pretty special episode because we are welcoming somebody who's actually been on the show before, and that is parent Chrystal, and Chrystal took the Taming Your Triggers workshop about a year ago and she came in after that to discuss her experience in the workshop, and she actually came back into the workshop as a peer coach. And so we're here with her to talk about an experience that we've had in the workshop recently. So welcome, Chrystal. So great to see you again.

It's awesome to be here. Thanks for having me along.

Yeah, and so we decided to have this chat because of a parent posted in the community that they have been asking a question about their child not listening, and you gave just such a beautiful response to it. And I knew that I wanted to explore this further with you, and so the gist of what the parent was asking was, "Is it so wrong to just ask a child to do something and expect them to comply?" This parent did say that they kind of come from a background of being controlled, and I think it's fairly safe to say that for most of us, that has caused some fairly significant challenges in terms of understanding ourselves and understanding our needs, and then several other parents also said as well that they weren't listened to when they were children and really feel triggered now when their children don't listen to them, because they feel disrespected when their children don't follow the rules because they had to learn to follow the rules when they were little. And as I was thinking through what we wanted to talk about today, I think there's two questions that this parent is ultimately asking, and that is, firstly, are there times when we should just ask our children to do the things that we want them to do? And that should just be the end of it? And just to make our lives easier as parents, and then the second thing is using the tools that we're learning in Taming Your Triggers, in the Parenting Membership, and most everywhere that I teach really, are we going to raise entitled children who can't navigate working with people working with organizations, I mean, working with the law, right? Legal systems where problem solving is just not going to cut it, and I think that so many parents don't want to squash their children's voices, but they also feel, "Oh my goodness, sometimes can I just have a little bit of compliance." And so if you're hearing this conversation, and you're thinking I want to dig into this more, then I really would invite you to join the Setting Loving and Effective Limits workshop. Registration is open right now. For the first time, we have two ways of participating, on the Flex Path - you get exactly the same content as on the Guided Path, but you get to consume it on a schedule that really works for you, on the Guided Path - we give you an email a day between May 9th and 13th. It's a couple of pre-work modules before that, but either way, you can upgrade and have daily coaching calls with me between May 9th and 13th, if you really want to dig in deep into setting limits effectively and using the kinds of tools that we're going to talk about in this episode, so that's enough about the setup. If you can take us back to that post when you read that post in the community. What came up for you and do you remember feeling similar things yourself? As you know, the idea that was expressed in that post?

Sure, yeah, there was a lot in that. Just to start with, I love the Setting Limits. The Setting Limits workshop was my first taster in really experiencing Your Parenting Mojo, and so I would highly recommend it. I'd give a double thumbs up for that one to jump in with both feet to test it out as well. When I read the post originally, it was very interesting because obviously the post was asking exactly like you said, can I just ask my child to do X Y Zed, and then they do X Y Zed, and for me, I'm lucky enough that I'm nine years down the journey now. So I've got a nine-year-old child, and then I've got a seven-year-old child, and a three-year-old child, so I'm not in that space going, "Oh my gosh is this going to work? Is it not going to work?" Because my daughter is nine years old, and I can see this way of parenting actually does work, because obviously, I'm raising a child who is able to do what I asked her to do when it needs to be done. But I think as parents, there's so many areas where we think, "Oh, they must do what I'm asking them to do right now." And actually, I learned from you, Jen, and I tried to think this isn't an emergency, and so often, you know, we get triggered, we think, what are people going to think about us? And so much of our parenting can boil down to what people are going to think about us if we're out in public, or we are with family members, or, you know, in all these different scenarios, what are they thinking of me? Or then that shock music of, “Oh, my gosh, and then my child's gonna end up like you said, breaking the law, not following directions, being entitled.” And I think if we can learn just to take a breath and think about what is happening in this situation, is it an emergency? You know, when it is an emergency, then 100% you need to say NO, and the child needs to follow that, or you lovingly support them to follow the ‘NO’ that you're setting, but I think there's so many other scenarios in that NO really isn't necessarily the right answer, and I think we can learn to work with our kids much better than, you know, just saying NO and wanting them to follow that process.

Yeah, okay, so I wonder if we can trace out this history a little bit for folks who maybe didn't hear you when you were on the show last time, can you give us a bit of a sense of what your experience was like as a child specifically related to compliance like. Was it optional for you to do the things your parents asked you to? What was that relationship like?

Well, it's interesting. I'm the eldest of eight children and so my parents had children every three years for 27 years, so there's 27 years between my sibling and myself, and I think it just got to a point where you have that many children and that many needs, and then my parents kind of working through their own baggage and issues, that it was just a lot easier if the children just did whatever they were told when they were told to do it. And then sadly, coming from the generation that my parents came from, and then a religious background, there was, you know, this higher authority thing where you must do first time obedience. I was thinking about this last night. There were a lot of very strong authoritarian, White males speaking into that space in parenting, and it was very much like First Time Obedience. That was such a big thing in our family the “First Time Obedience,” you do what you're asked when you're asked to do it, and I remember my parents saying, you know that 1,2,3 magic is had been quite popular: you've got one, you've got two, you've got three, and my parents didn't want to do one, two, or three, because they're like, you've got one, and then the consequences are going to follow pretty strongly after that, so we learned very early on too, and also, my mom suffered quite badly from undiagnosed postnatal depression, so coupled with that, there was also this underlying well, I feel responsible for not only her needs, but I was the eldest child so I feel responsible for every other child under me. I spent a long time as I was growing up just reading in the room all the time, like, what do people need, what is expected of me. My parents told this cute little story when I was about five. I would offer everyone cups of tea if I saw that there was conflict kind of escalating, and they thought that was very cute, but as an adult, I think that it's very sad that from a very young age I was trying to know what was everybody needs to try and keep the peace and to stop things from escalating, and I made sure that my mom don’t end up in bed for days on end, so yeah, there was a lot to navigate through as a young child.

Okay, and so compliance was not in any way optional then. I can picture myself as a parent making compliance non optional, and then thinking, okay, how does that play out into the teenage years? So what was your relationship like with compliance in those teenage years?

This is a thing people become so shocked when their sweet little 12 or 13-year-old gets to this point, and they say, "Well, you can no longer control me." And when parents can no longer control their kid, what have you got? You haven't worked on any relationship building skills, it's skills, you haven't got problem solving, all you've got is control, and yet, you've got this 12 or 13-year old saying, "Well, you can't control me any more." And you know, they come into their power. I know that I definitely came into that power and was like, "Well, you no longer control me." And I'm going to do all of these, you know, behaviors. And then you coupled that I remember when I did Taming Your Triggers, and we went through the ACE score, the Adverse Childhood Experiences, and it was so refreshing to go because of all these scenarios, you know, there's 10 different tick points, I guess, then I probably had about seven out of that, it was just such a relief to go because of everything I've been through, there's actually no wonder that I'm behaving or thinking, or doing the things that I was doing, and so it's almost like if these are what you've been through, you can almost guarantee that these are the outcomes, but I guess the hope in that is the counterbalance. So if you have..what is the other one?

The resilience, I think.

Resilience. Yeah, so if you have all of these things inputting into your life, then that counteracts that. And it's interesting because I looked at my siblings who haven't gone through as many things as I went through, and they were involved in team sports, and they had a lot of outside influence, so I think that there's a lot of hope in that, but for me, personally, I had these high A scores, I didn't have a lot of, you know, resilience stuff coming in, and so I ended up in drug and alcohol, and abuse in different relationships that weren't positive for me, and it was you can all link that down to my childhood and outhaul how I was brought up so.

Yeah, I often see in the parents that I work with, they tend to go down one of two paths. They either go down the path that you were down, or they go down the well, yes, I've learned how important it is to be in control, and I'm going to be in control of myself, and I'm going to be the perfect child, and all of that looks great because it looks like you've got a child who is the model achiever gets the great grades, gets into the right schools, and then things fall apart at some point down the line, when the child realizes I have no idea what I really want for myself, because I've gotten so used to just doing what everybody else tells me to do, so I definitely see both of those patterns showing up. And so you are coming from this place where, okay, so in childhood, lots of control exerted on you, and then you went through this phase of nobody controls me anymore, at some point after that, you become a parent and I'm wondering, what was that like, that relationship with control when your first child was born?

Just sit back and stay there. It is interesting when I went through my rebellious stage, although I didn't want to be controlled, I was still always looking for those figures that I could bring myself under, and then whenever healthy figures, you know, whether that was boyfriends or institutions, or whatever, it's because I wasn't taught what to do with all this freedom, or how to have autonomy. I was still searching for someone to say, "This is how you act. This is how you think. This is how you behave.” And so even when I came out of that rebellious stage, it's interesting to look at it, "Oh, well, that's the bad things, drugs, alcohol, being promiscuous, whatever, that's bad, yet, behaving right, doing the right thing, that's good.” Yeah, if you haven't picked those internal belief systems and what's driving you, it's just as damaging to live in performance, people pleasing, and perfectionism, and people are like, "Wow, you're doing such an amazing job," yet, you know, none of those things have been being dealt with, and that's what I loved about Taming Your Triggers, and then obviously, the therapy that I had coupled with it, that I was like, you don't want to be doing either of those ones, you want to be completely free to be who you are, express yourself and all of those things. So it was interesting bringing all of that into, when my first daughter was born, and very early on, we could see that she was incredibly strong-willed, and so you know, for six weeks old, she wouldn't be held in her lacking arms, she needed to be upright on your chest and then when she went through, you know, the terrible twos, it was on. It's really sad when I look back on it now, well, obviously, we just have grace because we do the best with what we know at the time, but we were going to go to the bakery, which was just up the road and in my mind, this was going to be, you know, a beautiful experience, and all she had to do as a two-year old was put her shoes on, not hard, and her whole paradigm has been and will continue to be, don't do anything for yourself that you can't get somebody else to do for you, and now obviously, I see that there's fantastic leadership skills, you know, everything that you would want in a CEO or a world changer, you know, whatever, but at that stage here, I've got this two-year-old, I'm the boss, she's not like, once you've got your shoes on, then we can go to the bakery, and you can have a doughnut, you know, whatever, come on, just do that. So 40 minutes in, and she still hasn't put her shoes on. I'm not moving from this because I am the parent, and I didn't break it at all, and I think we could still be there trying to put shoes on if at that moment, I don't know how I probably didn't take her to the bakery, whatever, but it caused a pause for me to go, "Hang on, what do I actually want my parenting to be like?" Because at that time, the very strong message was if you've got a strong willed child, you've got to break them, you've got to break that strong will out of them, and I thought she was gorgeous as she was and I didn't want to break that out of her, I didn't want her to become a people pleaser and to not have that strength, but could I recognize it was a strength. And then that night, I jumped on Facebook. It was really interesting. It came up with the gifts behind the misbehavior and I've never ever seen anything like that before, and it talks about how behind every misbehavior, depending on how you view it, there is a gift, and so, I kind of started to really explore that idea, and from there, the door just swung open, looking at RIE and Janet Lansburry in Respectful Parenting, and I just felt like my whole world had opened up and it resonated a lot with me. This is the type of parent that I would want to be. I knew if I parented timeout, all of the authoritarian style. I'm like, This is what's going to happen when she's 12. And I didn't want that for myself or my family, so yeah, that's the thing that stands out the biggest for me in terms of this shift that I made, and it was a welcome shift, and it worked really well for our family.

All right, so thanks for helping us understand where you came from in terms of making that shift, and now I'm curious as to what things are like now. Maybe we can start with limits and boundaries, and how you navigate that. So how do you know when to set a limit and when to set a boundary with your children?

When I read your question about that, I was like, "Oh, don't ask me that," because I was still learning to be authentic in our kind of journey, and part of me that's like, "Well, I can't do this interview with Jen, because I'm a fraud." You know, I get this wrong every single day. But I think that's such the beauty of parenting in this way, you get a chance to repair, and you get a chance to every single day reflect, and think what type of parent I want to be like, and so there's things that I do well, but learning how to set boundaries and limits is one that I'm still kind of exploring, and when I was thinking of it, I thought, because I didn't even realize until I've done Taming Your Triggers, how it feels in your body, like you say a lot, that there's such a disconnect in our western culture between what's happening in our mind and what's happening in our bodies, and I had learned so long ago, you know, from a really young age, that you just dismiss how you feel. If you're feeling anxious or worried, or any of the body signals that your body says to you, like, well, that doesn't matter, because I've spent such a long time denying how I feel, second-guessing myself, and so on. Over the last 12 months, I think the biggest thing for me, of learning how to set limits and boundaries is it's actually really more about me, and so I'll say to my daughter, “I'm really struggling to support you right now. I'll be right back.” And that's a time for me to pause, you know, not lose my crap, and just really work out what I want to be like in that moment, and so I think the limits and boundaries setting has been a lot more about myself, and how I feel and how I would like to move forward, really about what it would look like with my children, but especially with the younger one, that would look like I won't let you hit me, I can't let you hit your siblings, I'm going to help your hands, I'm going to keep you safe. So I guess a lot of it is more around physical safety, and then I'm kind of still exploring what the rest of it looks like.

Yeah, thanks for being real with us. It’s always appreciated and welcomed. And so I'm just wondering for folks who have younger children, and one of the reasons I'm loving this conversation is because we get a chance to see what it's like with the older children, but with folks who are still in it with younger children and thinking, “Well, if I said to my child, I need a minute and I'm going to step away and figure out how I'm going to respond to you. I'll be right back. My kid is gonna hang on me, my kid is gonna follow me. There's no separation.” How do you navigate this with a younger child?

Yeah, well, my daughter does do that and it's something that we had to problem solve because I said, "I'm struggling to support you, I'm going to be right back." And she will cling on to me and that has been a huge trigger for me, and it's something that I've explored through the Your Parenting Mojo community, I was like, I feel so empowered and brave when I set a boundary, yet if somebody doesn't respect my newly found boundary straightaway, I like lose it, there's not much of a pause between. I think that they should recognize what an amazing job I've done setting a boundary because I never have before, as I was still exploring, you know, okay, that didn't go so well, that didn't look how I want it to look, and so I've had to say to McKenna, which is my seven-year-old, because I have prised her off me in a way that I wouldn't think is, you know, how I would want to move forward as a parent, and so we've come up with some plans if she could have a teddy to hold, or she can't remember exactly what it was because she's much more respectful now, because she knows that I come back, I think that's the biggest thing. At first, it was like, “Well, is my mom going to come back? Is she mad at me?” And the other night, I popped out of bed and I said, "Today wasn't such a great, I was terrible," or something like that, I can't remember exactly what she said, "Mommy, you're not terrible, just your behavior." She had gotten from the very popular show Bluey, also how we do want to parent that behavior isn't who we are, when we have a hard time It doesn't mean that we are a disappointment, or me leaving her isn't a rejection. It took a lot of conversations and a lot of really putting in those boundaries, so that she knew that this was in her best interest for me to be able to just have a break and then come back, so you know, it wasn't perfect but it's much better than it was.

So often, I think when we set limits specifically, which is, you know, a limit is when we're trying to change somebody else's behavior, and boundaries is saying, “This is not going to work for me, this is what I'm willing to do.” So when we're setting a limit, we sort of feel as though we have this need "for control." Like if I just had control in this situation, and that sort of takes me back to your story about, you know, your two-year old putting on their shoes. You wanted to be in control in that situation, right? And then it's like, if I'm in control, then everything's okay. I'm supposed to be the boss, and then I can breathe if I'm in control. So I'm curious about how you decide when it's the right time to set limits and when you can reflect and say, "You know what, there's something else going on here. There's something going on beneath this need that I have to be in control.” How do you navigate that?

I think having strong-willed children is very helpful in that term because they never really do something just off the back of me asking them to do something, there's a lot of conversations that take place, so really, for me, unless it was a safety issue where I have to enforce something. Then my four-year-old doesn't even wear shoes, you know, I was so passionate about getting my child back then to wear shoes, and now he'd much rather prefer to not wear shoes, were living in Australia, obviously, we have grass and where possible, unless again, it's a safety issue, then I will enforce you have to wear shoes or we can't do X, Y, and Zed, which I've kind of finally to I've gotten to that place where I'm like, you know, if my four year old doesn't want to wear shoes, then we can't go to the supermarket or whatever, I'm actually very happy to go, well, we're not gonna go to the supermarket, or a lot of what I've learned is how often we push our children past their capacity, because we want to do something or we need to do something. And even yesterday, we just moved states. It's been, you know, a huge change for us. And we were all going to go for a family drive, and it was going to be lovely, and then I could see that my nine year old was just struggling, like she was pushing everyone's button, and so I said to my husband, with just my seven year old and my daughter and I did some cooking, which is our favorite thing to do, and we went for a walk, and I could have been like, "Oh, we're going to have family time." And it would have been horrible, you know, all of us together, but I think a lot of it as a parent, in terms of respectful parenting, is looking at does this actually have to be done now, and gonna be more pleasant experience for everyone if we can adjust as we need to, as supposed to push through or grit our teeth and make something happen. Does that make sense?

Yeah, absolutely. Yes. It's so easy for us to get stuck into the ‘this has to happen,’ right? “I have to go grocery shopping. Well, do I really? Does it have to be done in that way? Do I have to go to the grocery store (the big grocery store) today, and get everything I need for the next two weeks? Or is today the day when we just want to go down to the local market and get enough for dinner for tonight, and breakfast tomorrow and call that a day? Or could I ask a neighbor to borrow some food? Or could I ask a partner to bring some home for me? Or what do we have in the freezer that we can scrounge up? We get ourselves, I think, into this sort of box of his is how it has to happen and when we can't see outside that box, then it makes it really hard to find ways to meet our needs and meet another person's needs as well. I want to get to needs, but if we leave boundaries, do you teach your children about boundaries? It seems fairly clear that you grew up in a way that your boundaries were not respected, it was like, “Wait, do I even get to make boundaries?” So do you teach your children about that? And how do you do that?

It's really interesting, although I feel like I'm not great with boundaries. When I thought about how I teach my children boundaries, I actually am very great with boundaries, and so I've taught from a very young age, and again, having a child who is very vocal and letting me know what she likes and doesn't like, makes that much easier, but we've always said stop means stop, and no means no, and so I was very blessed to find that from Janet Lansbury, and ride that, you know, it's your body and trying to teach body autonomy as soon as you can, really. And so it's amazing watching the three of them together, you know, they're very physical with each other but as soon as someone says, "No," they just jump off each other, or they say, "Stop," then everybody stops, and if they don't, then I will come in and support them and say, "Oh, Mckenna just said stop." Or the other thing that we've worked on too, is that it doesn't have to be no or stop, it can be looking for those body cues. So I'll just jump in and go, "Ah, looks like Isaac's not really enjoying that at the moment. Isaac, are you enjoying this?" And he'll say, "Yes," or generally, if he looks like he's not going to say no, you know, I'm really supporting them in that process of stop means stop. No means no. And then yeah, supporting them in what that looks like.

And so that goes through their interactions with each other, but also with you, I assume, as well.

Yeah, with us as well, and then extended family. And we've been involved in quite a few different communities, and people would come up to my eldest daughter at the time and try to give her a hug, and she'd just be like "no," because she only wants to hug or kiss her family members, and so we would work with her as to, you know, are you happy to give a high five, and it was also a very good way for her to see if someone was coming towards her, she's like, "high five." And so, from a very young age, you know, put that physical distance in, in a way that still is a bit like socialization, what can you offer to someone that you know, that you are comfortable offering to them? And so yeah, she would do high fives and was very interesting to watch my family, who raised us in a way that you know, you don't get to say yes or no, whatever, but over a couple of years, they'll now say to her, "Do you want to high five when they see her?" and I just think that's an incredible shift in my family that they've learned to, like it's taken quite a while, but they've learned to respect her boundary of, you know, high five, and then it's interesting because my daughter just loves hugs, and so navigating through all McKenna loves hugs, but he doesn't necessarily want to hug everyone, so that's been really interesting, too.

Yeah, Awesome. Okay. And so as we start talking about needs, as always, the most exciting part for me. You have taken this and you have run with it, for sure, it's been absolutely fantastic to watch. I just want to tee this up for folks who are listening and who is newer to this idea like needs, what does that mean? How does that help me? And so what we're talking about here is having what we call “Problem Solving Conversations,” so when we're in a situation where something isn't working for us, in our heads, we may know it in our bodies, that there's something in my body that's telling me that there's something about this is not right, and using that as an opportunity to say, "Okay, let's pause here, and let's see what's going on.” And perhaps, if we're newer to this, we find ourselves in the middle of a difficult situation and we extract ourselves from it in the most graceful way we can at the time, and we end up having to do this process afterwards, and then when we get more accustomed to it, we can kind of do it in the moment. And so the process that we're doing is sort of going in with a non-judgmental observation and saying, “What is the thing that's really happening here?” I always love to come back to an example - my daughter a couple of years ago, and we were staying at somebody else's house, and they had this huge gaping deck, and one end of the deck, there was a set of stairs and there were a couple of light-colored planks in the deck, and she's jumping from one to the other as a kind of way of measuring how far she could jump, and then the steps are like, you know, three planks further. I'm thinking, okay, she's gonna take her head or down these steps, so I was able to say to her, “Can we talk about what you're doing here with the jumping?” And so I'm not going in and saying, “Oh, you need to do something differently, or you're going to break your neck,” or whatever, to sort of a really non judgmental observation, and then I'm trying to understand what is my feeling here, I think really important in that example that my feeling was really a fear for her safety, there was not also this additional annoyance because I was trying to work, I was actually sitting out there so she could play well, and be close to me while I was working, so I was not at all annoyed over being distracted, and that's a really important thing to know early in that process, and I also tried to understand her feelings, which was sort of joy and delight, jumping, and really enjoying the physical movement. And then we sort of go one level deeper, which is, what is the need of each person here? What is my need in the situation, my need is for her safety, my need actually was not for a quiet place to work, I was fine with the jumping, I was fine with the noise, and by identifying that, I'm able to come up with potential solutions that will meet that need that would be different from the set of solutions that have had a different need, so I have this need for her safety, and she obviously has this need to show her competence in jumping, and she's also having fun. And so, what are some ways that she can meet her need for enjoying herself and for showing how far she can jump? And I can also meet my needs to ensure her safety? What we ended up doing was, I think I said, "Actually, what if you moved over to a different part of the deck?" And she said, "Well, then I won't know how far I can jump. I could mark it with stones,” and I said, "Yeah, you could do that. I'm just worried that if you jump onto the stone, you're going to roll your ankle and fall over,” And she said, "Well, what if I put the stones over to the side then?" And so, at that point, we have a solution that meets both of our needs, right? My need for her safety is met. Her need to jump and have a good time is also met. If I had an additional need to have a quiet place to work, then that solution would not have met my needs and we'd be talking about jumping further down the garden or me going inside, or other potential solutions, potentially involving her not jumping and doing something else. But it's this identifying need that's absolutely the critical piece to really, I think, this whole question about not listening, right? Because when we say a child isn't listening, what we're saying is, “You're not doing what I'm telling you to do.” But most of the time, we haven't tried to understand our own needs, nevermind understanding the other person's needs either. And so we're telling them to do this thing that really isn't grounded in meeting anyone's needs necessarily, It's just because it's the thing I got attached to in my mind right now, and I think I want you to do it. So I wonder if you can maybe tell us some examples of these kinds of conversations that you've had maybe with your children at different ages. How do you use this approach in your daily life?

Yeah, we obviously use that very often in our daily life, I think, probably, over the last couple of years. About needs, obviously, I didn't really ever know anything about needs, or just a general one that we all need, you know, love and security or whatever, I just did not know all of that, there are so many underlying needs inside, so I think recently, an interesting one, often, comes up in terms of medication or giving things to children that they need, and my daughter was born with a cleft palate, so my seven year-old, and when she was born she needed to have an operation to fix that, and so that was fixed but it's interesting that there's still some medical trauma or things around that we need to work through. And so the other day, she had to have some spray for her nose because she had a lump or something there, so the doctor said, “You have to have this spray.” It's like, “I'm not having this spray.” And I got into this power struggle, I was like, “Well, you have to have it now. End of discussion.” But I mean, what do you do? It was a spray, I could chase her around, and then that moment, you take a deep breath. This actually isn't an emergency, and so I calm down and then I came back to her later, and I said, “The doctor said that this is going to be able to help you breathe properly,” and just explain it to her and I said, “I would love for you to talk to me about how that feels for you, what's going on for you.” She's like, "I don't like the way that it feels." It was a different experience for her, and then I just listened to that and I didn't problem solve with her anything at that stage, I just thought it's important for me to know what's going on for her because so often we think, we know what this is for my child, but we actually don't really know until we ask and so I say, “Well, you know, this is important,” and I explained it, and then the next minute, probably about, you know, not that long after she came back, and she said, "Well, I can do it myself,” as opposed to me doing it for her. And there was another thing interesting enough through the COVID period, where we had to do a lot of rapid tests, you have, like a stick that you put up your nostrils?

The swab testing

Yeah, the swab test, they call it rapid antigen or something. And we worked with our kids, because they're like, "We're not doing that." And they were actually very happy to do it themselves, and so that was very interesting, as opposed to kind of violating their boundaries in that they were able to go, "We're happy to do the swab test, and we'll stick with them," and there were no issues at all, yeah, we could have tried to pin them down or do whatever, and we didn't have to do that, and so McKenna came back to me and she said, "Well, I can do this myself," and so we practiced how far up the nose it would have to go, and, yeah, we had no issues after that. And I think the more your kids know that you're on their side, and you don't get into an us vs. them scenario, the more willing they are to work with you.

I just want to pick up what you said on the us vs. them scenario, that's so critical, right? Because so often, I think it seems like, if my child is not listening, then I'm already in this us vs. them scenario, because they need to listen to me, because I know that they need to take the medicine or I know that they need to do whatever is this thing I'm asking them to do. So how do you get yourself out of that mindset?

Well, I mean, whenever I feel that resistance, whenever there's resistance with my kids, it generally is a reminder to me that I'm getting into an us vs. them scenario, and so I just go with any of that. The resistance to me is the red flag that something's not working, especially with my middle child, she's very connection oriented, and so my eldest daughter will just be like, "Well, I'm not doing that and you can't make me,” and it doesn't impact on our relationship, really, she's like water off a duck's back. But my middle daughter, if there is a connection issue, then that's very hard for her to listen or work through anything with me to you know, she'll run away or whatever. And I realized the other day, we've had so much stress and pressure on us as a family because we have just sold our house, downsized by 80%, relocated and are living in a caravan.

And recording from said caravan.

And so I had noticed that my daughter, my middle one, was starting to run away from me when I was speaking to her, and you know, she'd go and cry on her bed or whatever, and that was this thought in my head. I was like, "Oh, I want her to be running to me, not running away from me." And so yeah, I had to drill down for her what's going on for her, and then explain, you know, how I'm feeling with the stress and the pressure and whatever, and we reengaged and worked through that. But for me, the thing that says something's going on here is that we need to work through the resistance, which is a very easy thing to be able to recognize, to tell you. Yeah, there's something we need to work on here.

It is. Yes. But classic parenting advice says, "If you cave in, then the child knows you're going to be a pushover." right? And so you shouldn't cave in, and what's more, if you have a partner, your partner shouldn't cave in either, because you have to be a united front. So how do we get past that? Seeing that resistance and thinking, “Okay, I've already told you, you need to put your shoes on. I've drawn the line in the sand here.” How do we get to the point where we can see that resistance and then say, “Oh, okay, maybe shoes on right now is not the ultimate thing that needs to have,” do you think?

Well, I mean, the shoes scenario happens every single day, and there's six shoes that I have to get on. so that's a really great one, but again, do the shoes have to be put on there? Like my son hates socks, so we got shoes that he could just slip his feet into, like, so many of these scenarios are telling us that there's something that we need to explore here, and as soon as we can explore those things, then a lot of this resistance just disappeared, and so my son can't handle the socks and the other girls, they can put them on in the car, like here is there a lot of different, you know, other things that we can work through. I think the United Front one is an interesting one, and I don't necessarily agree with that because I think sometimes your partner or kin parent in a way that isn't necessarily how you would want to parent, and so it's been very interesting for my children, like, I know, I'm very lucky that my partner and I are 80% on the same page, you know, which is a really high percentage, and I'm very thankful for that, but there’s the 20% there and I'm sure he would feel the same way as me, and so the kids will come to me and say, "Well, that sounds like something you need to work out between you and Dad." And so I'm really comfortable to go, “Well, this is my values. This is how I parent and I'm happy with this,” and with him, and his relationship with his children, I don't really agree or I haven't aligned myself to that we need to be a united front, I think this is my relationship with my kids and that's his relationship with our kids, and they're great with that, and so they know you know, Dad will say X, Y and Zed, and that will be the expectations, and then you know, happy to comply with that, and now, do with me what I am expecting as well, and that hasn't caused any issues at all, but I think if we stick to this, we need to be united front, we need to be on the same page, you're not going to be able to parent in the way that you want to, and you're going to have a lot of clashes. And I think parents think a lot of the time, while my partner is not on board with this so I can't, then parenting this way. And for me personally, to start with, you know, this was nine years ago, and it was such a big shift that I was doing a lot of this by myself, and in that sense of gentle and respectful parenting, all right, and I was very comfortable with that, and we were able to separate out how we wanted to parent in the same scenario. It’s very interesting too, I think the research shows that if you have one caregiver that is really very intentional in the way that they parent and how they raise their children, and that's okay, as well, like that will have some really positive outcomes, which I found really, you know, encouraging and then freeing as well.

Yeah, completely, absolutely on the power to navigate these situations with two parents. And then just to backtrack to what you were talking about the socks, because I just want to make sure parents pick up on the importance of what you said there, so your youngest child doesn't like to wear socks, and so what we can identify there is he has a need for comfort, right? and his need for comfort is not met through wearing socks, you have a need to protect his feet, and so, how can we meet both of those needs? We can wear shoes where you don't have to wear socks. We're meeting both people's needs, we're not steamrolling our child into wearing socks because you must wear socks with shoes, we're just seeing both of those needs for what they are and holding those with equal weight, and saying, “We can find a way that works for both of us.” And I'm imagining maybe with your middle child, if she's making a lot of connections, then maybe you helping her to put the shoes on would be the thing that helps her to overcome, yeah. so her need in that moment is for connection, your need is to protect her feet, and we can meet both of those needs, right? And I think this is especially important for folks who have more than one child, that maybe you get into the mindset of, "Well, I have to treat them both the same. I have to treat them equally so they won't be jealous, and they won't feel as though one of them's getting something the other one's not getting,” whereas, when we can see each child's unique needs and meet those needs, then our relationship with that child, I think it’s so much better, and also because each of the children is seeing, “My parent is meeting my needs, my parent is meeting my needs. I don't care really what you’re getting,” you're getting a bit more of this here and a bit less of that here, and I don't care because my needs are being met. Have you seen that play out in your town?

Yeah, 100%. And just on the shoe thing again. Another thing about that is to create more space, I cannot get out the door in five minutes and meet all those needs, and so you're exactly right with my middle daughter, I do create that five minute just with her, “I'll help you get on your socks and your shoes,” and we have this really quality connected time together, but I think the biggest thing is, if you've got multiple children, you just have to create more space, things take a lot longer and you can't parent in a way that you want to parent when you've got so much time pressure on yourself. And yeah, it is interesting, my kids have never, as yet, had any conflict in terms of rivalry or anything like that, and I was very lucky again, to read How To Talk So Kids Will Listen, and then on with that one was that the siblings' book the?

Siblings Without Rivalry.

Siblings Without Rivalry is something that stood out to me so much then, and I'm sure many people can connect with. How I was raised is you do things not because of enjoyment, but so often, you do it for performance, so if you're playing the piano, so that you’ll be in a concert, if you're writing a poem, I know from my experience, I wrote the poem, and then that was entered into the competition, if my siblings cooked, then that was entered into the Hobart Show, so people could come along and get the accolades and ribbons for these things. And there was something that just stood out to me so much in Siblings Without Rivalry. We talked about this girl who wanted to play the piano but she didn't play the piano, as well as her older siblings, and so the mother sat down with her and said, "We don't have to play how she plays, but do you enjoy this? and if you enjoy this thing, then you should continue on doing that.” And so we've just really tried to create a culture in our family around, “Do you enjoy the things that you do? So, you may enjoy being creative but McKenna enjoys something else, and you can just really take out a lot of rivalry when you don't put the performance aspect on it. I feel myself doing this, sometimes, I'm like, "Oh, show Auntie what you can do," and then I just take a step back and go look, “Show Auntie how much you're enjoying this or whatever.” But I also don't think like, I don't say, I love you all the same because I think that sends a message that all of your needs are the same, and so exactly that I've been able to recognize that very early on, and I say, “I love you all differently,” because there is nobody in my life like, McKenna or Imogen and Isaac, and so if you're not the same, you are different, and I love you for who you are; each one of you uniquely.

Yeah, oh, that almost makes me want to be your child. And so I want to speak a little bit about the second part of the question, what we started with, which, you know, we've talked a lot about not listening in our family and what's ultimately beneath that, and the idea of what the child is essentially saying is the thing you're trying to get me to do isn't meeting my needs right now, and how we can go about meeting that need, while also meeting the parents' need, and then, of course, the other part of it is well, the world, we wish the world worked like this, the world broader world doesn't work like this. How are your kids in the broader world?

Some things that stood out to me this year, she started a new school and being in that school they were doing drama, and her teacher was just really impressed, she said, “She's super creative,” like she was really amazed at the way that she engaged in that process, and I thought that that was really interesting because she had so much time to just be creative and be allowed to be herself, that often shines out in a lot of different ways. And then another thing that really surprised me at the start of this year, was that there was a group of kids, like the cool kids at school, that were bullying another child who had like ADHD and a few different things that they needed extra support, and so my daughter disconnected from this group that was bullying this child and decided that she was going to connect with her and be her friend, and then the other thing that I found really interesting is that she will often push back on it, she was at, like, a church group, and she felt like the leader was trying to get her to say "sorry" to her younger sibling, and she just said, "That's not how it works in our family," because in our family, they do have to reconcile, like, it's very important for me that they reconcile in a way that works for their temperament, you know, the worst possible thing that I could do would be say, "You must say sorry, and that's the end of that," and that just destroys the relationship, but I say, “You need to reconnect with her in a way that works for you,” and so she'll draw her card, or she'll bake her a cake, or they'll do something that shows that they love each other, and that they're for each other, but it doesn't necessarily look like being forced to say sorry. And so it's been very interesting to watch these scenarios play out over the last couple of months of just seeing Imogen shining, you know, who she is, but also, she does push back on authority a little bit, and I don't mind that, I think there are a lot of systems that are in place that need pushback, but she was able to do it respectfully in that scenario, and I think it's good, like, these are the conversations that need to be taking place and things.

Yeah, absolutely. I just want to go a little bit further into that because I know parents are thinking, does she get in trouble at school for pushing back?

Well, I think the interesting thing is we get so worried about this socialization, like is my child going to be able to socialize, and it's so interesting that when they know that their home is their safe place, and they're free to be themselves, then they do follow. I see her follow all of the rules that are supposed to be followed in school, like her report said, you know, she got all of these conscientious abiding students, and she was voted by her classmates to be the student rep of the class. And the thing that I find is when you're teaching your children how to be respectful at home and how to respect each other's needs, and points of view, and problem solving, often the kids will have these fights, and then I'll sit down with them and I say, “Okay, what were you needing?” Or just help support that process, and they come out the other side really able to work through those things. And so I find sometimes in that terms, the kids who have been raised in a gentle, respectful way, are miles ahead in being able to maneuver around the systems that are quite different than how we would have it at home, and it's a positive, you know, it's been a really positive outcome.

Yes, that's definitely what we see as well. And I just also want to pick up your point about systems being challenged, and for those of you who are listening to the podcast, Chrystal is White, and I'm White, and I'm in the US, and we have a very different racial context and challenging authority for my child who is mixed race but mostly White presenting, is not so likely to result in severe harm to her, and there are other children in the world who are not going to be able to challenge authority in the same way, and expect that they're going to come out of it unscathed. And so I really think that it's the onus is on us to raise children who are going to step forward and be the ones to challenge authority when they see something that is wrong, and whether that takes the form of telling another adult, which is, you know, at a young child's age, that's probably the form it should take, and as they get older, being willing to say, “I don't think that's right,” because there are people who, unfortunately, due to our circumstances, are not necessarily as able to step forward and to challenge authority in the same way that our children are able to, and to not have repercussions. So as a White parent raising a White presenting child, I see that as a critical component of doing this work. And it sounds like you're in the same mindset, Crystal.

Yeah. 100%. I appreciate that.

Yeah. Okay. As we sort of wrap up here. I'm wondering, you're in a very challenging period right now with a lot of change in your life. And yes, you're going out on this grand adventure, and also, it's a massive amount of change for five people living in a fairly small space. How are you all ready? And how do you see yourself moving forward navigating these situations, where it feels like, “I just wish my child would listen to me,” and moving out of this control based mindset, and into a mindset where we are actually meeting everybody's needs.

I think I've been able to shift probably in the eight years, I don't have a mindset anymore that my child should do what I want them to do, and also I'm kind of laid back so it makes it a bit easier to you know, have that approach, but like the last couple of months have been very, very intense, and being able to be present has been quite challenging, they stopped sleeping, their behavior went out the window. So we've been in our caravan now for three nights, and like the last two nights, I've had a full night's sleep there. We're working together really well, and I can see, and also, I'm happy and relaxed and everything's coming together really well, but again, I always just come back to when you feel that resistance or whatever it is just digging down what's happening, like underneath the surface there, and why do we have that resistance, and so although it has been challenging, we're now two days and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, which has been amazing, like they woke up this morning, and they were passing high fives up and down the bunk because they're in three bunk beds above each other, and I think that's also an amazing opportunity as a family when we are going through hard times, how do we model that? I've been able to say to my kids, you know, “I am really sorry that I've been struggling in the way that I communicate or I'll come back,” you know, multiple times a day and say, “Hey, I didn't play that out how I would want to or.” The other day, something was so affirming to me, actually, so my daughter, my oldest one, has always struggled to show empathy, like, I was very concerned when she was around seven of all these things, if she's going to be entitled, is she going to care about other people, you know, a sibling will hurt themselves, and she would just step over them, and I was like, “Oh, what's gonna happen?” And so we were sitting at the table the other day, and they were teasing me, and my nine year old daughter said, “Mom’s had a bit of a hard day today, I think she probably isn't up for being teased.” And I like you know, inside I was like, “What?” And it goes to show you just keep modeling, just keep showing, and that was an amazing amount of empathy and true, and that's what I'll say, Isaac looks like he's not really enjoying this at the moment, or he's not up for that, is that right?” And so he’s incredible, and just again, affirming that it is going to be okay, and we are going to get out to the other side where our children are empathetic, and they are respectful, and they know how to work within systems, but equally, they are going to be able to say, “That doesn't feel right to me. I don't think that's right,” and really start to change the world in a really positive and exciting way.

That's so beautiful. Thank you so much for coming back Chrystal. It was so great to see you at the beginning of this grand adventure and to check in with how you're doing, and to really see how to bring this stuff to life, right? How to take this idea of my child doesn't listen, what do I do to this entirely different mindset, this different way of being with our children that meets both of our needs, so thank you so much.

Oh, and I just appreciate you and all your input as well, we're so blessed to have you.

Thank you. And so for anyone who's listening, thinking, I want to do that, and I have no idea how to get started. Chrystal got started with setting limits workshops so we would love to come and have you along as well. You can sign up right now, Setting Loving and Effective Limits workshop, and you can find all the information on that at YourParentingmojo.com/settinglimits.

Hi, this is Jess from Burlesque, Panama. I'm a Your Parenting Mojo fan and I hope you enjoy this show as much as I do. If you found this episode especially enlightening or useful, you can also donate to help Jen produce more content like this and also save us from those interminable mattress ads. Then you can do that and also subscribe to the link that Jen just mentioned. And don't forget to head to YourParentingMojo.com to record your own message for the show.