Curious Neuron

How to respond rather than react to your child's behavior

• Cindy Hovington, Ph.D. • Season 5 • Episode 19

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Ever wondered why your child's emotional outbursts seem to trigger your own? It's time to break free from this exhaustive cycle! We're unravelling the wisdom behind Dr. Susan David's 'Emotional Agility'. This episode shifts the focus from managing our children's emotions to assisting them in emotional regulation - it's all about creating a constructive pause or space between a child's action and our reaction.

Let's dive into the heart of emotional agility and explore the profound impact our emotions have on our reactions to our children's behavior. Discover the power of validating our own feelings, reframing our limiting beliefs into facts, and the magic of engaging with our children through activities like storytelling. This journey is about empowering you to help your children feel seen, heard, and validated. Buckle up for an insightful episode that not only explores the science behind emotional agility but also equips you with practical tools to assist you on this extraordinary parenting voyage.

Read the article and get the free PDF by clicking the link below:
https://www.curiousneuron.com/blog/2023/7/31/responding-rather-than-reacting-to-your-childs-behavior-is-about-your-ability-to-cope-with-emotions

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Speaker 1:

Hello, my dear friend, welcome back to another episode of the curious neuron podcast. My name is Cindy Huffington and I am your host. If you are trying to figure out how to help your child with their emotions and usually this means also understanding your own emotions then you are at the right place. I have a PhD in neuroscience and I specialize in emotions and mental health, and I try to summarize the research around emotional health, mental health, emotional development, emotional intelligence anything that will help you support your child and kind of coach them through their emotions and their development. So today I want to talk about a book that I've been reading called emotional agility. I only want to talk about a small part of it because it falls really well into something that I've been talking to you about for a little while now, which is taking a pause between your child's action and your reaction. But before I do so, I do want to thank our sponsors. First, thank you to the Tan and Baum Open Science Institute for supporting the curious neuron podcast for years now. I am so grateful that an organization that supports open science and is part of an academic institution here in Montreal supports what we're doing here with the curious neuron. It means the world to me, but I've also had some new sponsors. If you haven't noticed yet, they are on in all the show notes.

Speaker 1:

First, I would like to thank our new sponsor, betterhelp, for supporting the curious neuron podcast. Mental health and well-being of both the parent and the child are important to the brands we work with, which is why we were so happy to get the support and to get sponsored by BetterHelp for this podcast. Betterhelp is the world's largest therapy service and it's 100% online. With BetterHelp, you can get the same professionalism and quality you expect from in-office therapy, but with access to a huge network of therapists, more scheduling flexibility and a more affordable price. Click the link below to get 15% off the first month of therapy. Secondly, I would like to thank PocPoc Playroom for supporting the curious neuron podcast as well. We have been friends with PocPoc for a long time now and they are giving you 50% off a one year subscription for this app.

Speaker 1:

Pocpoc is a collection of digital toys that spark creativity and learning through open-ended play. This was, in fact, the first app that my kids ever played with that I felt comfortable introducing to them because it is open-ended, there aren't loud sounds, it's not over stimulating, so it's great for neurotypical kids, for neurodivergent kids, it's okay for like a calming activity, even if it's screen time. So I really do encourage you to try it out for seven days for free and to click on the link in the show notes to download the app and get 50% off your first year. And lastly, a sponsor for August Only is a company that is local, based here in Montreal, called Go Coconut. If you follow me on Instagram, you know that most of the pictures that involve my kids playing involve their play couch, and this play couch is designed so well and basically takes three kids jumping on it every single day and hasn't changed its structure. So if you are looking for a very good quality play couch that will take your child away from the screen and give them some physical activity during the day, whether it's summer or winter or rainy day or cold day, you could have the play couch in your home and get 15% off only for the month of August. So click on the link below to get 15% off your play couch and use the code curious neuron. And lastly, if you haven't done so yet and you're enjoying the CuresNorah podcast, don't forget that you can rate it and review it on Spotify or on Apple podcasts and send me an email at info at CuresNorahcom, I will send you a free PDF called Meltdown Mountain, which is a visual that can help your child understand when they're starting to feel dysregulated, why or what tools, sorry, that you can use when you're feeling dysregulated, and it'll give you the information that you need to support your child through this. I'm also going to put the link to a article on the CuresNorahcom website, and this article has a free PDF that's going to help you work through what we're going to talk about today, so you can get all of that in the show notes. There's a lot there today, a lot of information. All right, let's move on to today's episode.

Speaker 1:

I was listening to my Bialyx podcast called the Breakdown, and there was a guest that I've been following for a while. Her name is Dr Susan David. She has a book called Emotional Agility. I hadn't read it yet. I had it in my, I have it in my Kindle and I hadn't started reading it, but I had to read a lot about her and read a lot of her quotes. What she talks about makes a lot of sense and after listening to this podcast, I knew I had to start reading that book, which is what I've been doing now for about a week. I absolutely love everything that she's talking about and it's all backed by the signs that I've been summarizing for you and talking about. And there was something that she brought up that was linked to a specific topic that I've been telling you about for a while now, and it's that pause, creating that pause in between your child's action and reaction, and she describes it so beautifully, and the article that I have on my website has an image as well, that kind of breaks down what she's saying.

Speaker 1:

Parents will often ask me like how do I manage my child's behavior, or how do I stop this behavior, or how do I stop these big emotions? It's not really about stopping emotions. They're going to happen. We might be able to give them guidance and help them regulate, to come back down that mountain, right, that peak of the mountain for their emotions, which is what I've been talking about as well for a long time. I personally think that that question how do I manage my child's difficult behavior should be reframed to give us more of a perspective of our own role in their behavior, and that we kind of are the solution to helping them with their behavior if we change ours first. So I think we should be reframing that question to how do I manage my own emotions when my child displays this difficult behavior? If we can do that, then we can reevaluate and reassess our own reactions and realize that sometimes our reactions are causing certain behaviors or reactions in them, because in essence, we don't want to react to their behavior emotions. We want to respond, and this was something that I learned when I ran that emotionally aware parent challenge through WonderGrade, which is the app that I have.

Speaker 1:

You can try it out for free for a week. You can click the link in my show notes. I always have a link to WonderGrade, since it is the app that I'm co-founder of, and this helps you and your child with their emotions. So when we ran this weekly challenge that we had for parents, most of the parents were telling us that they felt that their emotions were going from zero to 100, or that they had no idea what their triggers are, but felt triggered very often, or that they just couldn't even see it coming when they lose control of their emotions. So they would lose it very often, and I think that when we are in that sort of situation where we feel like we're losing our control of our emotions. Very often, we need to start thinking of that pause. I say pause, but Dr Susan David talks about a space, and this space that she's talking about comes from the work of Victor Frankel and she describes it so well.

Speaker 1:

So during this space, which is very minimal, obviously, you think about your child's behavior, which she would refer to as a stimulus, and think about your response, which is how you are reacting or responding to your child's behavior. Between those two things is a space, a space where you have the power to choose. You have the power to choose. However, the most difficult part of all this is that your thoughts and your emotions play a very big role in this space. If, for example, your child doesn't want to leave the park and they're screaming and they're crying and they're running away from you and parents are looking at you, during that space between your child's action or behavior, which is yelling at you and running away, you can respond by yelling at them, trying to catch them, trying to grab them and bring them towards you, getting frustrated, and that's the zero to 100. However, if you become more mindful of that space and realize that there are certain thoughts going into your mind and becoming more aware of that, and there are certain emotions that you are feeling in response to this behavior that your child is exhibiting, then you can start gaining a little bit more control of what your response is to your child's behavior. Isn't that information so empowering? As a parent, right?

Speaker 1:

I know that we go through a lot and I know that we are stressed, we are tired, we are burnt out, we are overwhelmed, but none of those really take away our power to choose during that space. It's okay to feel tired and overwhelmed, but it doesn't mean that we have to constantly lose control of how we respond to our kids. And the more that we can start responding to them rather than reacting to them, we will teach them and model how to respond to us, how to take a pause and a moment before reacting to something, whether they are with us or with somebody else. When we start modeling this and start even thinking out loud to show them how we're creating that space and how we're creating that pause, this will become what they start to do as a child, and I know that they can do this because I've seen my 4-year-old do it. Actually, he was doing it just a little bit before he turned 4.

Speaker 1:

There was an episode I believe I spoke about on the podcast where he said it out loud to my other son that he was upsetting him and he felt very frustrated and mad. He stomped away, but then he gave it some thought and came back and said I didn't like what you did with that toy. It made me mad. And they had a conversation. He took care of his needs in that moment and walked away because he didn't want to do anything worse than yell at his brother, which he didn't, which he used to, but he didn't. And I know that if we continue to model this for our kids, that our kids are going to develop such strong and healthy emotion regulation skills.

Speaker 1:

So, going back to your child who's running away from you in the sand, trying to get away from you, not wanting to, you know, come home and leave the park we could react to it by yelling at them, trying to grab them and bring them back, like I said, or if we become more mindful of what's going on in our brains and what we're thinking of. So my thoughts could be I don't have time for this, we're going to be late for soccer and I need to make dinner Now. We need to leave Now. My thoughts could be I'm so embarrassed no, sorry. My thoughts could be I don't have the energy for this and I really don't want to deal with this right now. She does this every time we go to the park. My emotions around it and my feelings could be I'm so embarrassed that the other parents are seeing me do this and I'm such a failure. They're seeing me fail. It could be. I'm frustrated, I'm overwhelmed, I'm tired, I'm stressed and I don't want to deal with this.

Speaker 1:

So there are different ways and they mix together, obviously, but there are different ways that we can have thoughts. Sometimes our thoughts are limiting. We're judging ourselves. We might have this intrinsic bias of ourselves that we can never get it right. Dr Susan David goes through all of these in her book, so I really highly recommend that you read it if this is something you struggle with. But also it just reminds us that some of the like our thoughts are not usually facts. So, rather than go through this volcano of emotions and thoughts that just start rambling through your mind and are usually negative, how about we change it to naming facts and labeling our emotions?

Speaker 1:

I mess up all the time might not be a fact, that might be something you believe, but there might be times that you are at the park and you successfully bring your child out of the park. What did you do differently that moment, or how did you feel that was different? Or what were your thoughts that might have been different. You might have been less tired, maybe you didn't have a soccer game that you needed to go home to and get ready for, and that's why you're less stressed. Acknowledge and validate what you are thinking and what you are feeling in that moment, because we know from CBT or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy that our thoughts and emotions impact our behavior, if we can take the time to understand how we are feeling in that moment and that's not 10 minutes of work, it's just literally thinking. You have a thought? I suck.

Speaker 1:

I never get my child out of the park. I'm embarrassed. Switch them to facts and validation Facts. Well, I sometimes get her out of the park. Maybe I need to become more aware of what worked. Right now I need to get her out of the park and right now I'm feeling embarrassed because parents are looking at me, but they're judging me, or maybe not. I'm making that assumption. It's not a fact and even if they're looking at me, they don't know me and this moment is just a moment. It will pass. I just need to get my kid out of the park. So, instead of focusing on this behavior, let me focus on what my child needs. Now I met my needs. I spoke to myself and reminded myself that I don't fail every single time. I acknowledge and validated my emotions. I'm feeling embarrassed, and that's okay. I don't have to feel bad that I'm feeling embarrassed. Let's just move past this moment and let's just gain control a little bit more of this moment that's causing me to feel this way.

Speaker 1:

Go to your child and validate their feelings the same way that you just did that to yourself. I can see that you're feeling frustrated, or I can see that you're really mad right now and that you want to leave. I saw that you were having a lot of fun. Look, I need to leave. We need to leave because we have soccer and I need to make dinner and make sure that you get to soccer on time. What if I give you one more minute to swing? Or what if I give you two more pushes on the swing or three more slides, you decide. Obviously you are the parent. You can set that little boundary and make sure that you give yourself enough time to have this moment with them. You can give them a five minute countdown, one minute countdown, whatever works, but make sure you give enough buffer to be able to say this to your child and then say something like but I can't change the fact that we have to leave. How about we Blank? You decide what to do. Swing one more time, slide down the slide one more time, walk home together. We could jump over the lines on the sidewalk together. You want to do that together? Or we can create a story as we're walking. You want to make up a story about, I don't know, a unicorn and a dinosaur, whatever it is.

Speaker 1:

Try to think of a way to bring your child back to connecting with you in that moment of distress, or find a way to help them regulate. You know it could be. Once we get home, we can have some quiet time and you can color while I make dinner. Anything that works for your child. There isn't a script for that, because every single child is different. Whether they are neurotypical or neurodivergent, they will be different in terms of what works for them Same thing for us as adults. So find a way to just connect with your child, validate them and their emotions and then continue to set the boundary. But we need to leave, and I'm you know. I can see that it's making you feel bad. We're going to come back to the park.

Speaker 1:

The goal is not to make them stop crying immediately. That's not what I would define a success. To me, success is your child feeling seen, feeling validated and feeling heard. They might still cry, they might still be upset, but odds are, if they're feeling those three things, they might give into it at some point or still go against it. But if you keep repeating the sort of pattern with them where they feel seen and heard and validated, they will feel good about that connection they have with you when they are feeling distressed and they will eventually learn that you are there to set the boundaries, but also you are there to show sensitivity and warmth towards their emotions, which we know is covered by research so much, and there's lots that shows that the more we can do that with our kids, the more that they can feel connected to us and that helps with their brain development, their emotional development, their mental health and so on. So it's not about giving in. It's not about making them happy either. It's just about showing them that the boundary still stands. But you see them. That is all, my dear friends. I hope that this episode gives you a bit of empowerment, or makes you feel empowered. The next time your child is having big emotions, think about your own thoughts and your own feelings in that moment first, always start with you first. If you can regulate yourself and help yourself calm down, you will respond to them rather than react. I hope you all have a beautiful and lovely week.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for supporting the Kierisneron podcast. Make sure you are subscribed to the podcast, make sure you take a moment to rate it and review it. Follow us on Instagram at Kierisneronpodcastcom. You can also follow us on Facebook and all of that. Visit our website, kierisneroncom. I am grateful that you are here and I know that you are rocking it as a parent. I will see you next Monday. Bye.