Transcript of “Why Parents Need RIE (with Melani Ladygo)”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.

As some of you may know, the parenting approach I teach is inspired by the teachings of infant expert Magda Gerber and the nonprofit educational organization she founded, Resources for Infant Educarers, commonly referred to as RIE, R-I-E. The RIE classes I attended over 30 years ago with my firstborn had a profound effect on my perceptions of babies, the art of childcare, and life, really. And I had the privilege of training one-on-one with Magda, as well as spending many hours at her feet, literally, while my daughter played on her floor and I was able to soak up her every word. I cherish those memories.

Over the years, I’ve been asked by parents and early childhood professionals to explain and define RIE, but it’s such a nuanced approach that it’s impossible, for me at least, to sum it up in just a few words. So I thought, who better to give an overview of the RIE approach than Melani Ladygo, who is RIE’s executive director. She’s also a longtime RIE associate and currently teaches RIE parent-infant and -toddler classes in her home.

I’m a huge fan of Melani. I love the way she embodies the respect that Magda taught us. So I’m thrilled that Melani agreed to join me today to help clarify and crystallize her experience with RIE, and all the benefits.

Hi, Melani.

Melani Ladygo: Hi, Janet.

Janet Lansbury: Thank you so much for finally being on this podcast. I’ve been wanting you on for a very long time.

Melani Ladygo: I am so incredibly thrilled to be here and honored that you asked me.

Janet Lansbury: One of the things I want to take advantage of now that I have you here is this idea of the “elevator pitch” for RIE, for what this approach really is. As you know, and I know from being on the board of directors for years, it’s a challenge to find a succinct way to express a philosophy or way of being that’s so rich and important to all of us. I was wondering how you generally do that.

Melani Ladygo: I feel like when I first learned about RIE, the whole reason I took that first course—which was called “RIE I” then and now is called RIE Foundations—the whole reason I took it is because I wanted to be able to do exactly that, to say, “This is what RIE is.” And I took this rich 60-hour course with all these other passionate people that were in early childhood, and I got to the end and I felt so filled up and I still could not say what it was.

I really think it was the years that I spent working in the office as the person who would answer the phone, or I used to say I was the educarer at educarer@rie.org. And I really got practice in talking to people about it and saying what it is. It kind of changes every time, depending on who I’m talking to, but essentially RIE is an organization that teaches parents and professionals how to have respectful, reciprocal relationships with babies and toddlers, children zero to two.

And the more I talk about it, the more I realize that RIE is—well, the name of it itself is Resources for Infant Educarers, and that’s a big mouthful, but it simply means that the organization itself is meant to be a resource for what Magda Gerber called an infant educarer. And she called it that because we care while we educate and we educate while we care. So the organization is meant to be a resource for people who practice this educaring approach.

Janet Lansbury: Or who want to develop that kind of relationship with their child, a lifelong relationship that begins at birth. They want to be able to bond and they want that trust between them and that respect. I originally thought, before I discovered this approach, I thought that bond and respect was something that happens later, when they’re talking and you can do things together and play together in a way that to me meant playing together, which is just where they’re able to participate in the way that you’d expect it to be more mutual.

But then what RIE taught me, or what I learned in that first RIE class with my three-month-old and just observing her, was that she had all these thoughts and all of these ideas and all this stuff going on inside her that I had not realized could possibly exist in a baby. And I wanted to know about that. I wanted to discover that person and get to know her and bond with her. Really, I wasn’t even thinking about bonding with her. I was just thinking how I really want to know more about what’s going on inside the mind of this person.

And that was the first time I realized she was a person. I mean, I would’ve thought that if somebody asked me, but to really see that, that somebody’s got their own thing going on that isn’t just you feeding into them, you stimulating them and them responding. It’s actually them having things coming out of themselves. And that was just fascinating to me. I wanted to know everything about it, I wanted to know how to make this keep happening where I get to see this. And that became my invitation to learning about all these things that were just life-changing.

Melani Ladygo: That is the perfect example, because I think when I say “a respectful, reciprocal relationship,” people are kind of like, What is that? And that’s exactly what that is. Having a respectful relationship with you is, I want to know about you. I want to know what’s going on with you and I want to share what’s going on with me. I’m curious about you. I don’t want to impose things, I want to let things flow. And that’s exactly what you found in that first class, that you are curious about this person and you want to let them unfold and share themselves with you. And it can start at the very, very beginning. I mean, that’s the elevator pitch, so thank you.

Janet Lansbury: Well, I wanted to hear what made you want to take that course. That’s what I’m interested in.

Melani Ladygo: I first started being interested in young babies because I took a child development course and I learned about brain development. And it’s kind of like you said, if someone had asked you if she was a person, you’d be like, Well, yeah. And that’s how I felt about brain development. It was like, Well, of course babies aren’t mini-adults and their brains develop and change over time. But when I realized how much their brains change and how that impacts their behavior and how that could impact a parent’s relationship with their child, I thought, This is what I want to do. I want to teach parents about this.

And I was a baby myself, I was not even 20. And so I thought, let me go back to school, let me learn about child development, and I’ll work in a childcare center so that I can have some “real life” experience working with babies.

As luck would have it, I landed in this infant program that was very RIE-influenced. All the teachers in my classroom had taken that training, the toddler directors, the infant toddler directors had taken it, even the center director had taken this training. And I walked into this room with 12 babies and felt peaceful, and it was kind of surprising to me how peaceful it felt. I slowly started to work there and every now and then I would start to get a little bit of a correction, like a child would start to cry and I’d start to jostle them, “It’s okay, it’s okay.” And someone would come over to me and just say very gently, “It’s okay that she’s crying. We’re here with her.”

There was a time that this baby was climbing up a slide. She was trying to go up that incline and her feet kept slipping, so I came up behind her and I just kind of put my hands under each of her feet so she could push up. And she got all the way up to the top and she had this big smile on her face and I had a big smile on my face. A teacher came down and sat next to me and said, “I saw what you did there.” And I was like, “Yeah, maybe this wasn’t a good thing.” And she said, “No, it was wonderful, but how do you think she’s going to feel the next time she tries to go up that slide and you aren’t there? She didn’t know you were helping her, so she thought she did it by herself, but she really did it with you.” And it kind of got me thinking about the baby’s experience. And she said, “Did she look frustrated? Did she look like she was having a hard time?” And I realized, no, she wasn’t asking for help.

So I started to get curious. I would say, “Well, how did you learn of this? What is this? What is this approach that we’re doing? Why can’t I distract a crying baby? Why can’t I help her climb?” And they would say, “Well, it’s RIE.” And I was like, okay, I really want to know what this is. So they said, “Well, go take the training.” And so I went to Silver Lake and I met for weeks and weeks with a group of people that were passionate about RIE and about early education. And I felt filled up and I felt so excited and I felt like I understood it.

But like I said, at the end of that time, I still couldn’t say exactly what RIE was. I just knew that I was seeing babies in a different way and it felt really good.

Janet Lansbury: I think you spoke to something in your description of your time at the childcare center that is exactly it. It’s that the baby has a point of view, the child has a point of view. And it sounds like the carers were communicating to you, without you maybe even exactly knowing why that seemed different and interesting to you, but it was like they were kind of speaking for the baby. And that’s like what I saw in my daughter, that she had her own point of view there. And that really also could be something of an elevator pitch, that a baby has a valid point of view that’s worth considering and taking interest in and wanting them to express to us as much as possible, so that they can share it, so that they can feel seen.

Melani Ladygo: It’s interesting that you say that about being seen, it’s exactly that. Because you do end up giving this elevator pitch here and there throughout your life. And during COVID, I taught these RIE parent-infant classes outside, to do it in kind of a safer way. And I was teaching a lot of classes because parents were, especially during that time, really looking for connection and support. I was teaching like six days a week.

So I was going to the grocery store and buying a lot of bananas. Because if you’ve been in a parent-infant class, you know that pretty much the snack that we usually serve is bananas. And I was going to this grocery store pretty regularly and only buying bananas. And finally, one of the checkers asked me like, “Okay, what’s up with the bananas? Why are you here three or four times?” And so I said, “Oh, it’s for this class that I teach.” She’s like, “What kind of class?” I was like, “Well, it’s this class where I help parents slow down and let children figure things out on their own and really help parents really see their children.”

And two checkers over, there’s this gentleman who kind of slammed his hand down on the register and said, “I wish my parents had taken that class. They need it right now.” And that’s an adult, right? And it’s exactly that: We all want to be seen. We all have a point of view. Even young babies want to be seen.

Janet Lansbury: Yes. They don’t know they want to be seen, but to be able to invite them into the world being seen is incredible. And then that only continues. It’s like once we see them, we can’t really unsee them, I’ve found, as people. I mean, it took me a long time to really get it, get it that, Oooh, that’s really a person. But once I did, you can’t go back. It’s so interesting. Every baby you see, you’re seeing into them.

And one thing I really wanted to talk with you about, actually you brought it up when we first connected about doing this together: This is for parents. This sounds like we’re talking about how to do the best thing for babies, but what this is really about, and why I share it so passionately, is for us. Because when we see the person in our baby, then we get to be seen by them as ourselves. We get to be ourselves. We don’t have to say the right things and do the right things and be this perfect parent that maybe we saw on Instagram or what we think we’re supposed to be. We get to be a whole person too in the way that we engage with our baby and have boundaries.

Obviously we have to give up a lot to be able to care for the needs of a baby, but we’re doing it as ourselves. We’re not having to go in there and quiet them down and jack them up again to get excited. We can really engage with them in a way that’s so comfortable and easy, and therefore we end up engaging with them a lot more than we might if we thought we had to do it in some performative way. To me, that’s the beauty of this, how it changes our experience. Not only making it easier because we’re letting our child do all these things that we thought we had to do for them, like get them up the slide, get them to calm down. We thought those were our jobs. And when we let go of a lot of those things and are able to be present and receptive to who this person is, it just takes this whole load of work off of our plates.

Melani Ladygo: It so, so does. When I first started working at that childcare center, I was only working six hours a day. I was a super part-time person and I found myself going to the office saying, “Hey, if you need anybody working extra hours . . .” And I didn’t really have time, I was going to school, but it felt so good to be in the classroom. It felt so good to be with children in that way.

Just last week, I had some people come and observe one of my classes. And it was actually kind of a chaotic class because I have a beautiful space where I teach out of my home and I have a lovely play space that opens out onto a deck. We usually take advantage of that full space, but the week these people came, it was raining and we had the door closed. So I had seven very active toddlers in a space that’s about half of the space they were used to having. And it was a busy class, children were climbing and sliding and throwing balls and actually moving a little furniture here and there. They were sharing toys, taking toys. It was busy, but it wasn’t stressful. All of the parents were able to just sit back and simply watch and maybe have a little conversation on the side here and there.

We wrapped class and before even the last parent had left the space, my observers were like, “The parents are so relaxed. Did you see they were climbing to the top of that piece of equipment? How was that safe? How did they feel calm?” They just said, “What a gift to parents to be able to just sit back and have confidence in their children’s abilities.” And I talked about how it’s not that we just suddenly landed here, it’s a process. I walked them through how parents slowly start to develop this muscle of trust by observing their children and looking at them as they struggle through something or as they attempt something they’ve never done before. You’re still going to come close, but you’re going to let them do it. And the more you start to see how capable they are, the more you can relax and have that trust.

I truly believe that is the biggest gift that RIE gives to parents and to children, that trusting relationship and that peacefulness that you can find. Not all the time, but it’s your baseline.

Janet Lansbury: It’s your baseline, exactly. It’s that peace that you felt when you first walked into that childcare center and saw the babies and it was almost jarring to you. Why are people not working so hard trying to keep everybody happy? Because it’s like we’re reunderstanding happiness, what that is. And happiness for babies is being allowed to be where they are in development and be able to be kind of struggling to do things that they may not achieve that time or the next time, but one day they will. And to know that that’s not a negative thing. To be able to see when a child is working on something, how positive that experience is. It’s not just positive that they got to the end and solved it, but that they’re able to be in the middle of it.

Getting comfortable with that as a parent, which is no small thing, it takes us all the way through life with our child. I could say with children as adults, it takes you all the way through the college applications and the career decisions and the disappointments and the heartbreak of relationships. And it helps you help your child through all of these situations and gives them this sense that life isn’t always easy and sometimes it’s very hard. It doesn’t feel good when you’re in the middle of that sometimes, but you’re going to be okay. We could tell kids that until we’re blue in the face, but they have to experience that.

Melani Ladygo: Yes. And the connection, it’s being seen in your struggle. You don’t have to be rescued from your struggle, but just having someone see and acknowledge it and say it’s okay. I mean, I had that exact experience as an adult just a few weeks ago. Someone asked about something I’ve been struggling with and I said, “I really don’t know.” And they said, “It’s okay.” And it was like a little crack opened up in my heart because it’s like, right, I don’t have to have it all figured out.

That kind of goes back to what you said about what it gives to us as adults when we practice this. Watching a baby struggle and not get there and sometimes they struggle and there is no angst, right? They’re just like that baby that was going up the slide. She was just working on a problem and she hadn’t ascribed any kind of angst or worry to it. So it’s kind of like a reflection for myself: Not every problem needs to be quite so stressful.

Janet Lansbury: Yes. And I would say for the baby, that wasn’t even a problem. That was just the situation in front of them that was interesting. They were just exploring a situation that they were in. As parents or adults we frame it as, Oh, there’s a problem and hopefully they’ll find the answer and they’re worried, and all these things that we project. I mean, I’m guilty of all of this still, but I catch myself now. I’m able to hear those voices and go, Okay, that’s you, but let’s really see where they’re at with this. And when they do get upset and cry, oftentimes it’s very much about them being tired or something else when they’re very little. They’re learning that they can manage things and that we are there and that we support where they are right now, as much as we try to do that.

I just wanted to get back to one thing you said about it’s not always easy though, because it definitely isn’t. I mean, being a parent or working at a childcare center, it’s very draining and exhausting, physically and emotionally and everything else. But imagine if we could also find areas of our day that refuel us, allowing us more of that peace. That’s the observation part of this, where you’re seeing and you’re enjoying the challenge of accepting and appreciating where your child is on a particular day, or maybe you are seeing them achieve something they’ve been working on. And all of these things that to me would’ve been unnoticeable, not something to cherish, they become little wins in the day that kind of get you through a lot of the other stuff or help make it a little more palatable.

But there’s still going to be days when it’s just impossible and hard to be unruffled and all of those things.

Melani Ladygo: Yes. I definitely say that this work makes parenting or being with children easier, but this is human relationships and we all get tired and we all get overwhelmed and we all have days, babies included, where things just aren’t clicking the way they need to click and we don’t always stay in connection. But when you have this framework to fall back on, there’s more opportunities to catch those moments because you’re looking for them.

Janet Lansbury: And just to be able to admit you’re in the struggle. I mean, this is one of the things I started doing with my children. If there would be a diaper change or something that was just seeming impossible and they were pushing back and it just wasn’t working and I was trying to do all the things, be respectful and slow it down and let them be a part of it, and they just weren’t having it. And just being able to say, which I did from time to time, “This is really a disaster! We are just not working together here. This is awful. What’s going on?” But to be able to throw your hands up and go, All right, sometimes we’re just not going to get along very well.

Melani Ladygo: That’s such a real thing, and it’s a reset. It’s like a discharge for you and it’s authentic with them. I think it kind of brings you both back to the moment of connection. And then maybe it’ll work, the diaper change will flow after that, maybe not, but you’ve had that moment of connection.

Janet Lansbury: Yes. You’ve put it out there and you’ve released yourself of this thing of, Oh, I’ve got to pull it together and I’ve got to get this working, and all that tension that we do to ourselves because we think that’s our job. But our job is to be ourselves, our job is to let our babies be themselves and give ourselves permission to be who we are. I loved Magda Gerber’s thing of, it’s two in the morning and you’re going in for that feeding or your toddler woke up and was having a bad dream. You don’t have to come in perky, you get to be your tired, grumpy self. You don’t want to try to take it out on them, but we get to be exhausted and Ugh, what is it?

Melani Ladygo: Just like how you would be in any other authentic relationship, right? If you have a houseguest who’s like, “I need this and I need that!” You’re not going to go in, “Here you go!” You might be like, “What is it this time?” And just be real. It’s two in the morning, man. Here’s your water.

Janet Lansbury: Yes!

Melani Ladygo: When you said free to be ourselves, I think about the reflection a lot of parents have about the impulses that come up for themselves. And the thing that RIE gives you is the opportunity to pause and choose, do you want to react or respond? Because a lot of our reactions are kind of knee-jerk from the way we were raised or the way society tells you that we should be with other people.

I’ll never forget this one mom, she had a really powerful daughter and her daughter knew her mind, she knew what she wanted to do and how she wanted to do it. And her mom loved that, except for when she got in the rocking boat and wouldn’t let anybody else in the rocking boat. She wanted to be in that boat by herself. And it’s built for multiple children, so that mom had the hardest time with her daughter saying no to other children getting in the boat. I talked to her about it and I said, “It’s perfectly fair for her to want to be in the boat by herself. I would want to be in the boat by myself sometimes too. And we want her to be able to notice what that no is doing to other people.”

After a couple of times of this, I noticed that she was crying a little bit. We talked about it and she said, “I realized I feel like I always give up what I want when someone else wants it and I don’t want that for my child. I want my child to decide that if I want to be the only person in the boat, I want to feel comfortable being that only person in the boat. And not feel like just because someone else is saying I want it too, that I have to automatically just acquiesce and let someone else in the boat.” Yes, I want you to be someone who’s out in the world who’s kind and who shares, but I also want you to be someone who can take care of your own needs.

Janet Lansbury: Yes, that makes a lot of sense. I don’t think I would keep the other kids away though. I mean-

Melani Ladygo: No, I didn’t keep the other kids away.

Janet Lansbury: Yes, I would be there spotting. First of all, I can totally understand wanting to be in the rocking boat alone because somebody moves it every time you’re just trying to get balanced in it and then somebody else changes that. You’re not going to feel any kind of sense of control. But I think very much allowing that point of view and encouraging that point of view, I would still allow the children to decide for themselves if they want to go up against that. And if they do, I’m not going to let her push them off, I’m going to have my hand there so she can’t hurt them or physically keep them from getting in. For me, the idea is that, Yes, your point of view is valid, and so are these other children that want to get on. I’m not going to help them on, I’m not going to help you hold onto it, but I’m going to allow the children and you to figure that out, with me there keeping everybody safe.

Melani Ladygo: Just keeping everybody safe, and sometimes translating. “I hear you saying no, and I hear you saying you really want to get in the boat with her. I hear that and I see their space. No, I’m not going to let you push. You can keep telling her no, it’s okay.”

Janet Lansbury: Yes, but you’re neutral. That’s the hard thing. I think that’s the hard thing for parents, especially if it’s their child. If their child is one of the two children, how hard is it to be neutral? But that’s what we get to practice with this approach. And it helps with siblings, it makes all the difference with siblings loving each other, getting along with each other, that they don’t feel that we’ve made one into a villain and one into a victim in any situation or that we’re more on somebody else’s side.

Melani Ladygo: Because if you do come in and you litigate that, if you’re like, “There’s space for two and I’m going to hold the boat and this person can get in,” then you are putting a judgment on it and you’re arbitrating it. And instead, what we’re doing is teaching children to be RIE with other children. We’re letting them see the experience that the other person is having, because that is where true sharing is going to happen. For you to be a truly empathetic and generous person, you have to understand what it feels like to be selfish a little bit because, spoiler alert, being selfish doesn’t really feel that good. When you’re the only one in the boat and you’re protecting that boat and nobody else can get in, you’re not enjoying the boat.

Janet Lansbury: Or maybe if they get in and then you say, Well, I’m going to get out, then the people that were so insistent on getting in feel like, Well, this really isn’t that fun when she’s not telling us not to get in here. So everybody’s learning something about how to be in relationships. I mean, that’s why we get the children together in these classes.

And most people don’t have this kind of opportunity, I just have to say, most people do not have these communities, these like-minded people available for playgroups. Parents are maybe working outside the home all day and they can’t give their child these experiences of getting to socialize in a way where there aren’t other parents judging them and feeling like they need to do a certain thing. And I think that is hard.

But what this whole approach gives us is, well, it gives us first the understanding that our relationship with our child is by far the most important teacher of social intelligence and that we have complete control over, at least on our end, how we’re navigating that. And then what we learn from these classes and what we can bring to parents that aren’t able to be in a situation like that is that your child is very capable of social exploring and problem-solving. Maybe there are places you can allow them to do this and they can do it with their sibling, as long as they have us to keep them safe.

Melani Ladygo: That is the thing. And the number one question is, How do I do this when I go to the park? How do I do this with my friend when they come over? My answer is, depending on your comfort level, try. Say, “Well, let’s see what happens.” Or, “I’m watching this and I wonder what she’ll do. I wonder what will happen if we kind of just let them work this out.” Sometimes, maybe most of the time unfortunately, you’re going to get somebody who looks at you like, You are 100% crazy. I need to teach my kid to share and this is what’s going to happen. But you might get someone who pauses back and recognizes, Oh, I could do this in a slightly different way. That’s how you can start to grow your network of people.

It’s low-stakes, only do it when you feel comfortable. But I’ve definitely had people who knew nothing about RIE, but had an interaction like that at a playdate or in a park and said, Oh, I want to know more about that, because they see it out in the world. I think that’s what we need more of, people modeling this in little interactions.

Janet Lansbury: Definitely. One thing I used to do a lot, and it actually helped me build confidence in myself with this approach with my children, is that I would just go up and be what I call the “buddyguard.” I’d just be up next to my child to make sure my child’s not taking something away from this other child or whatever. But I would interpret like we do in class, with my hand there to block things. “Oh, you really want what he’s using and you want to keep that for yourself. Of course, you brought that here.” Just doing that thing of being neutral and allowing the children to experience the conflict.

And oftentimes what happens is they do find a solution. It’s not the one we would find for them where we’d say, “Okay, give them a turn and now you do it.” Oftentimes nobody wants it and they both go off and do something else or they’re interested in following each other or maybe the child does give it to the other child or your child decides that they see something else interesting to do. They find their ways of resolving it. And a lot of times it is the way that actually brings them both more together, in my experience. But not always! I think we have to be open to everything. I mean, that’s the whole thing of letting kids problem-solve, is that it’s a big surprise how it works out every time. You can’t dictate it.

Melani Ladygo: Yes, you’re right. It works out more often than you would expect, but it’s not foolproof. We all make mistakes in our relationships, and especially young children are going to make a lot of mistakes because they’re learning and they’re processing and their brains are developing. It’s so not a hands-off approach. It’s such an approach where you are really present and keeping boundaries, but also not solving.

Janet Lansbury: Yes. And what you find is that it does end up benefiting you, because you have a child that’s more confident going into situations and solving all kinds of problems.

Melani Ladygo: Yes. The thing about that childcare center that I worked at, it was in a pretty affluent place. It was from birth to school age. And it was so interesting to me because when children were ready to enter the “real world” of school from this childcare center, they went in many different directions. There were some that went to very progressive schools, there are some that went to very traditional schools, some that went to very rigid and academic schools, some did unschooling. But the feedback that we would get from all of these different types of schools, it didn’t matter, was they were like, Oh, we are always so glad to get a child from this program. Because what this program was really focused on was exactly that, letting children figure out how to be in relationship with other children.

Because children, when their brains are ready for those academics, they need to have the social pieces kind of worked out. And that’s what RIE really helps children do in those early years. But honestly, that’s what we all need in all of our lives, is the social pieces worked out so that we can survive and thrive.

Janet Lansbury: 100%, yes. Well, while you’re on this podcast, I know there are early childhood educators that listen and people that want to start programs, in-home childcare or center-based childcare, and maybe they’d like to attend the RIE Conference online, which is coming up in just a few weeks. And if you use the code Unruffled, you can get $50 off your registration.

Melani Ladygo: Absolutely. It’s a really wonderful opportunity to dip your toe into all things RIE. Because unlike our courses, where we’re going to teach you exactly what the approach is, what happens at the conference is you get to really see all the many, many different ways that this work can be applied. So you really get to see how does it work in a classroom? We have one workshop about how do you offer free play but also be in alignment with any ECE documentation standards? And we’ve got how do you solve conflict with RIE and through play? It’s just like a smorgasbord of hearing the different ways people can put this work into practice.

Janet Lansbury: Yes, I always think of it as similar to a smorgasbord, maybe it’s the same thing, but I think of it like a banquet that you could feast on as a parent and as a professional in childcare. It’s all there for you. And it’s like, wow, you do feel very satiated at the end because it’s about us, it’s about us and our children, so there’s always a ton to explore. The theme this year is play and you have Peter Gray as the main speaker, which should be phenomenal.

Melani Ladygo: I sat down to read his book knowing that he was going to be coming. And I don’t have a lot of time to sit down and read, but I got through half of his book in one sitting because I saw so many threads. Just like Magda said in one of RIE’s films, Seeing Infants with New Eyes, she said when she’s talking about this approach to professionals, they say, “Well, what you’re doing makes so much sense. I do it with a five-year-old or a four-year-old or maybe a two-and-a-half-year-old as long as the child could speak. I just wouldn’t think about doing it with infants.” When I read Peter’s book, it was like, Oh my gosh, you are practicing RIE with older children. So it’s really exciting to see that throughline.

Janet Lansbury: Yes.

Melani Ladygo: The other thing that I tell people, especially people who are not in a place where they have a class that they can go to, where you feel like you’re practicing this at home by yourself, it does offer a really awesome community. It’s just wonderful to be around other like-minded people that get it. And so even if you’re coming online, just connecting and just seeing that there is a wider world out there of people who see babies the way you do.

Janet Lansbury: I think we’re all struggling for that sense of community. I mean, even before the pandemic, but certainly since then, it seems like it’s still hard to feel as connected to people and this is another way to do that.

Melani Ladygo: Love it.

Janet Lansbury: Again, everybody, if you want to go to the RIE site, rie.org, and register for the conference, you could get $50 off with the code Unruffled. And I hope it’s a huge success. Until then, let’s say goodbye and hopefully talk again very soon.

Melani Ladygo: I would love to. Thank you so much for this opportunity.

Janet Lansbury: Thank you, Melani.

You can learn and enjoy more from Melani Ladygo through her articles at MelaniLadygo.com

The post Why Parents Need RIE (with Melani Ladygo) appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Transcript of “Making a Successful Transition to Preschool (with Mr. Chazz)”

Mr. Chazz has been dubbed “America’s favorite teacher” for good reason. He has a magical way of gaining the trust of kids and adults, inspiring all of us with his charm and his humor. He’s humble, which is refreshing and disarming. And what I appreciate even more about Mr. Chazz is his passion and commitment to the work of understanding how to care for children and to motivate them to be at their best. Mr. Chazz has built an enormous, engaged following on TikTok, Instagram, and through his podcast, “Learning Curve with Mr. Chazz,” and it’s an understatement to say that this is well-deserved. I can’t recommend him highly enough and I’m proud to call him a friend.

Today, I’ve asked Mr. Chazz to share about his latest venture, the creation of a learning and childcare center called Birdhouse, that is surely going to be a model for many more of its kind. I’m also hoping Mr. Chazz will help us understand how to make the transition to preschool or a care center a positive experience for us and our child.

So, here he is! Hi, Mr. Chazz.

Mr. Chazz: Hello, Janet Lansbury.

Janet Lansbury: You know I love talking with you. I think we talked several months ago, but I don’t know, it seems like it’s been too long, so I’m excited to be able to catch up with you here. Especially at this time, because this is when children are starting back up to school, or starting for the first time, some of them. And you have this huge project that you’ve accomplished where you’ve opened your own school, and I want to hear all about that. Specifically, I thought you might talk about what you are doing, what your school’s program is for helping the children to adjust, and how parents can aid in that process at home or in the actual drop-off situation.

Mr. Chazz: Yes, there’s almost two parts of what I can share. One part is the ideal world that I am trying to create with my school in Brooklyn, and then there’s also the reality of most childcare facilities that exist and how to navigate those sometimes not-so-ideal situations.

Janet Lansbury: Have you ever worked in some of those—because I know you’ve worked in a lot of other situations that got you to this point of being able to open your own—were you also in situations where you didn’t feel like it was an ideal transition process?

Mr. Chazz: Yes, I think 99% of childcare centers, the way they do the transition is not ideal. We often do things for the convenience of the adult rather than what’s best for the child or the teachers or even the family unit. I would even back that up and say it is often the convenience of meeting these awesome responsibilities that we often have as grown-ups. So I’m excited to dive into how to navigate the center-based, I’m excited to dive into how I believe we can start to shift and change in early childhood.

Janet Lansbury: That’s great because I feel like a lot of those people listen here as well, and I know that that is where a lot of changes need to be made on that level with early childhood programs. Maybe we should start with hearing about what you’re trying to achieve with your school, and we can talk about how that’s helping to ameliorate some of the issues that you saw going on or have experienced going on in other programs.

Mr. Chazz: First, because I am a teacher myself, I’m going to start with the teachers and then I’m going to answer the question that you were really asking in the beginning about transitions. How we’re doing it differently, and also how to navigate your more traditional early childhood program that you’re going to.

So first at Birdhouse, which is the in-home childcare facility in Brooklyn, the head teacher gets to live upstairs in the school. That way they don’t have to pay rent, so teachers don’t feel like they’re in their own survival state. They can really lend their prefrontal lobes and really care for the children because they feel cared for and they’re not in a survival state. Any parent can very much relate that it is much harder to care for children when you are not cared for yourself.

Janet Lansbury: I think another reason that is helpful, not just helpful personally to those teachers, but to the program itself and to the success of the program, is that you’re encouraging a feeling of commitment to being a teacher there. We know that in that field there’s a high turnover with people working in care centers for younger children, because maybe they’re not feeling cared for and they’re not getting paid as much as they should get paid, probably. And therefore they don’t have that consistency for the children, for the families. So that’s a really good way of ensuring that people are dedicated and will stay.

Mr. Chazz: Yes, I mean, what a novel idea. So that is one of the things that I’ve always believed, that just by taking care of teachers, you’re taking care of children and you’re taking care of parents. Because the children need the consistency and the parents also want it too. I could talk about Birdhouse all day, but I’m more than happy to jump back on topic.

This conversation started off with us talking about how to transition into school and how we do transitions here and also how you can do transitions in more traditional settings where they don’t necessarily allow you to come into the space as much.

Janet Lansbury: I would love to hear your thoughts about that. You have such a depth of experience.

Mr. Chazz: What I will say is this idea of drop-off and pick-up, seeing in traditional centers how often we kind of drop children off like Amazon packages and we’re just like, Okay, you’re here! and parents are trying to just dart out the door. It’s often a very emotional situation. And not that it’s not going to be emotional, but just I wanted to honor that moment of (1) separation from the parent, but also (2) the connection that they’re arriving to in their school family at Birdhouse. Instead of it being this quick drop-off and pick-up, we wanted to focus more on the connection aspect of all of this. So we have shifted the language to “arrival” and “reunion.”

Now, it’s not just a language change, it also comes with a change in how we are approaching this. The arrival time is a time where they come in, they help their children wash their hands, they connect, it’s all focused on integrating them into the classroom and connecting a little bit more. And yes, this takes more time than a quick little drop-off, shoving them in the classroom and then darting out, but I find that this is a way for them to really feel safe and connected and more easily jump into the learning and the play and everything else that we have to offer.

Janet Lansbury: So do you suggest they do some kind of activity that’s preparatory, like washing hands or something that’s connected like that? What’s the plan that you actually give parents for what to do?

Mr. Chazz: Thank you for asking. They come in, I have a little visual of what the plan is so that the children know and also the parents know. Coming in there can be a lot of distractions, so that visual can be helpful because there are a lot of steps. First we have a moment of connection, and the little visual of that is a picture of me because they always come in and see me. Usually it’s a high-five or a hug or a fist bump, and as it’s progressed, it’s become more and more individualized to each child. Each child has their own way they like to connect when they come in. And if they don’t want to connect, they can pass and they don’t have to connect, it’s not something that I’m going to force them to do.

The next picture has a picture of their hook and their cubby, and so the child puts their stuff away on the hook or their cubby or sometimes the parent helps them.

The next visual is they take off their shoes, because we’re in New York and the thought of us playing in the same shoes that we’re stomping around all of New York in just doesn’t feel sanitary enough for me. So they take off their shoes, they walk in across the play space, and then I have little shoe prints where they put their shoes right on the shoe print. Again, visuals are so helpful for helping children and parents know what to do. And then the parents help them wash their hands.

Before the parent leaves, there is a moment of connection that we encourage all the parents to have. Now that can be different for each child. It could be a hug, hug-kiss, it can be a little game that they play, but there’s a moment of connection before the parent leaves. The parent can leave whenever they like, they’re not forced to stay, but they’re also invited to stay during our circle time. So sometimes parents can stay and they stay for circle time.

Now, there is a time where all the parents are expected to leave. And our routine, what we do is we have a goodbye song for the parents. So that is our arrival that is a little bit different than the traditional. Most programs won’t allow you to really stay, they do want a drop-off. They want you to come in, maybe help wash your child’s hands, and then they’re kind of kicking you out of the classroom.

Another thing that we do is we allow parents to come a week or two ahead of time and come in and arrive and do some circle time with us so the child can get connected with the space and also get more connected with us. So if the child does have a hard time when the parent leaves, they have a safe person to go to. It’s really hard to help that child work through the big emotions of separating from their parent if they’re not already connected with you, if they’re not already safe with you. We know that, so we build those connections beforehand.

Janet Lansbury: So you have a program all summer, you’re there the whole year?

Mr. Chazz: All year, we’re year-round.

Janet Lansbury: Okay. So they can come in with their child and enjoy the program and meet the people. And they can stay the whole day, the parents?

Mr. Chazz: We usually just have them come in for just the arrival time, 9 to 9:30, where they’re arriving. They can see other people coming in, they can see how the other children say goodbye to their parents, so they can kind of make the connection that this is part of the routine. And they can also start to get excited about the things in our space, but mostly feel connected and safe with—we call them safekeepers, not teachers—with the safekeepers in our space. And it makes such a difference.

Even with all this lead-up, I’m not going to sit here and tell you that when parents leave that the child doesn’t sometimes cry. The difference is that the child cries and they often come to us for comfort and safety and we’re able to help them work through that because they already feel safe and connected with us. We already might have some strategies that we use to get them into play, we kind of know how they like to play. So it’s a lot easier for them to co-regulate and get to a place where they are regulated enough to play and have fun and build connections with their school family.

Janet Lansbury: So you’ve also met them, the teachers have met the child, and the parent presumably, but the child one-on-one as they’re coming into the classroom to watch and observe and get to check it out. Then how are they connecting with the teacher, or the safekeeper?

Mr. Chazz: When a child is first coming into the space, especially with their parent, they are very cautious, they’re looking. We avoid trying to pressure the child because if we go too fast too quickly, it can create a feeling of uncertainty and like, Oh, this person is trying to get me to do something and I’m not quite ready yet. They really need to know that we will meet them where they’re at, at their pace. I look for little moments of things that they’re interested in that they want to play, and then I notice those things too. I might go and grab something that they’re noticing so they can feel seen and understood and hand them a toy. If they do start to talk and say something, I make sure that I notice that. It’s these little moments we look for, just these windows of playing and as soon as I see them peek through the window, I’m there to kind of open the window so that they can go and explore their curiosity. Those moments of them feeling seen also helps create that safety and that connection.

Janet Lansbury: That’s powerful. So you’re helping the other teachers know these things? I mean, you’re obviously quite gifted, so I doubt everyone that wants to work with children has your instincts, but you’re able to express that to the other teachers?

Mr. Chazz: Another great thing that we have here is that we have cameras. We don’t use cameras to, I caught you doing something you’re not supposed to do! I’ve been in environments where cameras were used that way. Instead, we use cameras as reflection, as really powerful learning opportunities. Often I will go back if there was a moment I think would be helpful for my other safekeepers to see, I’m able to go back to that time and send it to our little group chat that we have and we have these conversations about it. And I did hire people who are already looking from the child’s perspective, already wanting to learn.

Not to say that my safekeepers are perfect and I’m definitely not perfect either, and I make mistakes. And those are also things that we record and I share so that they can also feel safe making those mistakes. Maybe they thought the child was open to play and they tried something, they went a little too fast. That’s okay, that’s something that we can all reflect on. And then there’s always another opportunity to try.

Janet Lansbury: Because I think what a lot of people don’t understand, parents or teachers or grandparents or anyone, when they want to connect with a child we have this idea that it’s about, Let me do something to entertain you or show you something, instead of just allowing that child to show you. Just being quieter and more receptive and letting them show you by where they’re looking, what they’re interested in, and then just reflecting on that. It’s that being receptive instead of putting action out there to try to connect that I think we can so misunderstand. Mostly because we underestimate little kids and babies, what they have going on inside. So instead of noticing that and wanting to help them feel seen and connect with them that way on their terms, which always works, we’re putting effort out there to try to have them connect in a way that we think works. And we waste a lot of energy that way.

Mr. Chazz: We do. And then we get frustrated when we’re not connecting with them, when we’re missing that connection. And yes, thank you for pointing that out, that sometimes just being still and just noticing what they’re noticing and responding to that is the most powerful way to connect, especially with young kids. And even think about how you feel for yourself when someone is noticing what you’re thinking about too. It creates such a bridge to feeling seen that just makes you feel like, Ahhh, this person gets me.

Janet Lansbury: Yes. And I like them. It’s like somebody said, what is charisma? It’s actually when somebody is interested in you. Those are the people we think have charisma, the people that are open to and interested in other people.

I remember going on dates when I was younger, a lot younger, and you’d go out with someone that was just talking about themself and trying to impress you and you’d just be like, Did I even exist? afterwards. I wasn’t even there, really, you feel like afterwards. And then there’s other people that are sincerely interested in you and those are the people you want to see again, obviously.

Mr. Chazz: Right, so true.

Janet Lansbury: You explained how it looks like when it doesn’t quite work, that a child still has feelings when the parent leaves. I was also thinking, what if a parent needs to be somewhere on time and they can’t stay and the child kind of wants them to stay and then they see other parents staying? That can be kind of hard sometimes. What do you do then? I guess you probably just acknowledge what you see them noticing?

Mr. Chazz: Yes, this is a continuous conversation that I have with my safekeepers and also with the parents, because it’s hard on all sides, right? It’s hard for the parent sometimes to leave if you see your child crying and feel the weight of that and you’re just like, I don’t want to leave a crying child. And sometimes a parent might feel like, Okay, I’m just going to stay here until they stop crying, but the child just wants to keep them there. And even for the teacher, it can be that some parents are staying, right? There’s all these parents here and then we have this crying child who’s upset. Does this make us look bad that this child is crying and we’re not able to immediately get them to stop crying? This is something that happens, but it’s always a powerful learning opportunity conversation to have.

Janet Lansbury: Yes.

Mr. Chazz: There are going to be times where some parents can stay and some parents can go and they’re seeing the other parent and that’s going to bring up some big feelings and some big disappointment. And that’s okay. This doesn’t happen often, but things happen at home and there’s a lot of variables here, but there’s been a child crying up until all the other parents left. The child was by the door and we kind of continued life as life was. The child was really upset and clearly wanted his mom to stay. And we know this child, the child didn’t want to be physically touched or hugged or anything like that, but the child also didn’t want to feel completely alone. So we had a teacher kind of over there, checking in on the child and letting them know that, Hey, I’m here. But also not using a lot of words, really a lot of body language, maybe some words in the beginning. Letting the child know, If you need a hug, I’m here. But mostly just kind of being around the child, being available for the child, and the other teacher running the other parts of the classroom.

We did a whole circle time and the child cried throughout the entire circle time. During circle time, one of the children noticed, they said, “So-and-so’s crying.” And that was a powerful moment and we acknowledged it. We didn’t say, “Yeah, just ignore him. Just ignore him.” We said, “Yes, so-and-so is having a hard time. He’s feeling sad because he’s really wanting his mom and he’s really missing his mom. Let’s all take a deep breath for so-and-so.” So we all took a deep breath for this child who was having a hard time.

In this moment where this child was having a hard time and really missing mom and really experiencing disappointment, the other children were learning how to regulate themselves. Because emotions are contagious. Ooh, I’ve got a feeling like there’s some big emotions going on over there. What can we do to help? We can breathe and we can send loving energy to the child. Not only does this help the other child, but it also helps us regulate in that moment. So this child having a hard time was actually a very powerful learning experience for the children.

Now, there were other parents that were around too and I think they were hearing it. No parent actually said anything, but they got to see how we could regulate through the big emotions too. And so even in that, we are also teaching the parents on big emotions happening, that we don’t have to have this big reaction and how we can regulate through and how we can support a child.

Once all the parents left and we said bye-bye, parents, the child then went over to, I don’t know, I think he went over to me and gave me a hug and regulated that way. He was able to kind of jump into the play and then the rest of the day was normal. Now most days the children are able to say bye to their parents and they’re fine. They go, there’s maybe a moment of crying for five or 10 seconds and then they’re good. But this was a day that was a particularly more difficult day.

I share that story, and not just the story of when everything is going great, because I also want to communicate to any early childhood professional or any parent out there that even in those hard moments, as long as we have a helpful mindset, as long as we have our skills and our regulation and we’re seeing it in a helpful way, that these aren’t bad moments. These are powerful learning opportunities for the child and for really anyone who’s around. It could even be powerful learning opportunities for us.

Janet Lansbury: Oh my gosh, yes, a hundred percent. I’ve been able to do that kind of demonstration in parent-toddler classes and parent-infant classes, and it’s exactly what you said. I’m kind of thinking like, Oh gosh, do they think I’m not doing enough to try to get this child to stop or to distract them? But they see at the end that the way a child finishes when they’re finally done with that, it’s so peaceful and you can almost see that they’re lighter, that they’ve offloaded something that’s been weighing them down and could even be a buildup from days of something, stimulation or energy or feelings. And just how beautiful that is.

It’s really hard to explain because as human beings, we just want to do something to fix the child and make it better. It’s just so in us to do that. So for people to actually get a demonstration like that is very powerful. It gives them permission to not do anything, to really just receive it and allow it to be and allow it to be shared.

Mr. Chazz: Yes, thanks for bringing up that part. Ooh, am I being judged for the way that I’m handling this child that’s crying? Because we’re not sitting right there next to him or giving him a hug, will they think that we’re neglecting this child and will they think that we don’t give their child enough when their child is having a hard time too? And all these thoughts for me, they come and they go. I let them go because at this point I’m confident in what I’m doing, so it’s easier for me to let those thoughts go. But I do think that’s an important acknowledgement. And I think even as a parent, when you’re in public, when you’re parenting in public, that that’s also an important thing to acknowledge. You can notice those thoughts and let them go and just know you’re doing what’s best for your child.

And just like you can let those thoughts come and go, you can let those feelings that the child is feeling come and go. They’re here right now, but they’re also going to go as well.

One last thing I’m going to say about the long crying, just another perspective shift that may or may not be helpful: that is an exhausting thing to do. Children do not want to throw themselves on the ground and cry for long periods of time. You try to do what you see your child doing when they’re having a hard time for as long as they’re doing it, and you’ll see how exhausting it is. Maybe the light at the end of the tunnel for you is that because they’re using so much energy, one, obviously they’re not trying to give you a hard time, but two, maybe there’s a nap at the end of the tunnel.

Janet Lansbury: That’s a really good point. And I feel like sometimes with children too, it’s not just the end of the tunnel. It was almost the beginning of the tunnel, that they were just too tired from whatever’s going on at home or they just came back from vacation. And maybe they could face this situation when they weren’t feeling as they do, but that day—it’s just like me when I don’t get enough sleep—they can’t handle it and so they go there. So that can even be part of the cause.

And I think for parents also, it’s important to know that we didn’t make that happen by needing to leave our child or needing to separate or whatever we did. We didn’t make that happen, it’s not our fault that they’re doing that. It’s something that’s probably built up in them that they really need to clear out. And we can help them to do what their body wants them to do, what they instinctively know how to do.

Mr. Chazz: I want to dig deep on that, because we always want to find fault. We put ourselves at fault, the child at fault, or someone at fault. And instead of playing the blame game, just recognize that it just is. You had to go to work. They felt sad or disappointed. They were hoping that you stayed longer. Now they are upset and they’re crying. It just is. We don’t have to judge it even as good or bad. It’s just that things can happen.

Now, if we’re really intentional, this can be a helpful learning opportunity, and if we’re not really intentional and if we’re really reactive or we’re just reacting from our body, then we can turn what is into a bad moment. But it all is dependent on the caregiver and where we’re at with it. Not to say that you, the caregiver, are at fault, but just to recognize that you might have less resources in your body, you may not be able to keep it together because you got less sleep last night or you’ve been traveling and you’re jet-lagged, right? You’re going through your own stuff.

Avoid placing blame on yourself or anyone else. Recognize that it just is. And that we have the power to decide if this is going to be something that’s helpful and positive and a learning experience or something that is hurtful and negative and might be something that we have to heal from.

Janet Lansbury: I really love that expression, I don’t know who made it up, but: This moment feels like this. This is just how this moment is. Allowing things to be what they are in that moment and not trying to fight it or take blame for it. Just allowing yourself to be in it and learn from it, moment by moment. I don’t know, maybe that sounds too esoteric.

On that note about us, the caregivers and the parents, I wanted to just go back for a second to this idea, is it called a visual calendar? What you were saying for parents that don’t have a school like Birdhouse, which is going to be most of us, we don’t have this kind of environment that you’re curating here and that you’ve created. The reason I bring that up is because I feel like it’s helpful to the child to see the step-by-step in a transition, and it’s equally helpful to us because we can feel more settled that we’ve done our part of the bargain. Will our child always accept it? Oh, you did your part. Sure, great! No, they won’t. But it helps us to not be skulking off, feeling terrible about our child having a feeling about something that’s not a happy one. Instead we feel like, Okay, we did the plan, so we’ve done our part and the rest needed to happen.

Mr. Chazz: Just a little visual routine. I mean, a little visual routine card that’s left-to-right saying what you do when you come in. And the kids look for that too. Introducing it, I point to each thing like, Oh, you’re here. The first thing we do is we greet each other and say hello. So I talk them through it at first. And then after about a week or so they’re coming in and we automatically greet each other and then kind of pointing, Oh look, what’s next? And they’re going to it. Next week, they come in and they’re looking at it and like, Oh, I did this. Now I do this. Now I do this. And then it’s less even the parent prompting them to do the next thing.

Janet Lansbury: Yes, they’re on top of it and they love that feeling. Even if it’s something like washing their hands, I get to go wash my hands now! It feels good.

Mr. Chazz: And when they get distracted, because we have greeters, they all kind of greet the children when they come in, we do a little wave, whatever they feel comfortable with. So there is often a distraction. But it’s easy for us to go back to the visual and be like, Oh, look what’s next. And then they can say, Oh, take off my shoes, and now they’re more a part of the process and there’s less friction there.

So that’s one big thing that I’ve put out there as a teacher, but you could also make it for your own child and do that if that helps your child. If you find that your child often does get distracted or has a hard time following what the routine is, and they want to do all the things that are not in their routine first. That’s one thing.

Another thing that a parent is doing is they came into the space and they’re taking pictures of Birdhouse and they’re making a little book of it. They are talking about the schedule of the day and the different things that are in Birdhouse, to get the child excited about playing at Birdhouse and all the things that they’re going to want to do. It’s really helpful to just help children visualize what they’re going to do. And sometimes words are not enough. Often words are not enough, so pictures are very, very helpful for that.

The other thing is if you can have them come in and spend some time in the classroom. Some programs will allow that, some programs might not allow that, but it’s definitely worth an ask. That’s something that could be helpful.

Now also I would roleplay. Before you get to the school, roleplaying what that whole routine is going to look like. And this is a time where you can break out your little routine card if you’re making it. You can go through the routine and just play arriving to school and what that’s all going to look like. You’re going to have little stuffed animals as the other kids, pretend to wash your hands and everything. And then also pretend to leave, but have a playful way that you do each of those little transition moments and definitely have a playful connecting way that you say goodbye and practice that.

It’s kind of like the practice before the game. It’s going to be harder to execute the play if it’s my first time ever seeing the play or hearing the play. Rather than if I’ve been rehearsing the play over and over and over again, even in an emotional moment, it’ll be easier for me to know what to do next. Not to say it’s going to happen perfectly, but those are some strategies that will reduce the friction of the arrival.

Janet Lansbury: I love that. I’ve always told parents, no matter what grade their child is in, to try to give them the lay of the land and talk about the schedule. But I think playing it out is a really great idea. And I would only add that sometimes it gets the kids excited when they know what’s going to happen and can visualize it, but other times it might not get them as excited, but maybe they can even express some of that to you ahead of time. Like, I don’t like that I have to take a nap!, or whatever. Do you guys have a nap at your school?

Mr. Chazz: We do have a nap.

Janet Lansbury: I am just imagining something that the child is like, no, and then just like, “Oh, you don’t want that part. Maybe there’s a plan we can make for how you can handle that.” So I’m just saying, it doesn’t have to be that we tell them the plan and now they’re all excited. We definitely don’t want to try to get them excited, because they always see through that, don’t they? It’s like, Why is she selling this so hard to me? It’s got to really suck. So really being prepared that it’s okay. It’s great to give them the lay of the land and what’s going to happen and it fuels them, it gives them confidence going in. But they’re not always going to be excited about every part of it, and that’s okay. It is better to be honest and to be open to, Well, maybe I’m going to ask a teacher about that. Maybe there’s something else you can do during that, or whatever.

Mr. Chazz: Yes, that’s such a great nuance part of the point. Because often things come up in play more than in an actual situation. A lot of times the actual situation can be sometimes so overwhelming that even if they have a lot of words to communicate, it’s harder for them to come up with the words and to communicate and they can get more in themselves. But when we’re kind of playing the situation out, they often feel safer to express those things. And then you can problem-solve ahead of time or maybe talk to the teacher about, Hey, they’re having a little bit of a hard time. Then the teacher also knows that this might be something that is a challenge for this child, and maybe the teacher has an idea of how to support them in this difficult moment. So you can collaborate there too.

What I also say to all the parents out there listening, especially in a center where there’s so many kids, the first month, your teachers are still just really getting to know your child. Every child comes with their own set of codes, their own personality, their own ways they like to do things, their own routines that they have at home that are different from school. And the teacher, especially if they’re getting all the children at once, the first month they’re just trying to figure all that stuff out. I always ask my parents to send a picture of the family. I always have their cubby set up and I have a picture of their family, so first-day sadness and feels, we can bring that picture down. But also I like to know, what does your child like to play with? Is there anything that would be helpful?

Nap time is another big thing too. Some children, right at a certain time, they’re out, but some children take a little bit longer time to nap, and some children, patting their backs helps them go to sleep. Every single child during nap time, they have a different way that they like to go to sleep. And those are all just little things that we as teachers are figuring out.

So for me, there’s never too much detail. If a parent sends me just a long list of things about their kids, I appreciate it. I might forget some of it, but if something is going on with their child around nap time, like, Oh wait, I remember they said something about nap time. Let me go back to my notes. Oh, she has a stuffed animal and the reason why she’s freaking out right now is because she doesn’t have her bunny and she goes to sleep with bunny every single day of her life and we forgot to put bunny out. Oops, we’re still learning.

Janet Lansbury: That’s helpful for the parents to expect and to understand that the teachers have this challenge of learning all of the kids, learning about who they are, and that it does take time. It wouldn’t take as much time with one child, but with a group of them, it definitely does.

Mr. Chazz: Correct. And the larger the group size, the more time it’s going to take to be attuned. Like we were talking about earlier, just noticing what the child is looking at and noticing it with them, and maybe even just looking at something or pointing at something or grabbing something. It’s hard to notice what three children are looking at at the same time and having that moment with three children at the same time, right?

Janet Lansbury: And then when they’re in a really big group where there’s more than 12 in the room or in an adjoining room and it’s so noisy and so stimulating, then they probably spend a month just flying around with all the children and not really being centered in themselves for a long time, I would think. It’s harder for them to find their center when they’re just so excited about everything that’s going on, picking up all the energy of all these different people, and that could be challenging.

Mr. Chazz: For sure. But I also want to say that I made the choice to go back into the classroom. It’s not something that I had to do, to be honest. I’ve been doing a lot of speaking.

Janet Lansbury: I remember, I know, I’m totally aware of this. I remember when you first got the opportunity to do this and how excited you were.

Mr. Chazz: And my choice to go into the classroom as opposed to traveling and speaking, there’s a lot more emotional labor involved in being in the classroom. It is a lot of work. I’ve done the coaching in the classroom, I’ve done the speaking across the country, and there’s absolutely nothing more rewarding than being with my kids day in and day out and supporting them and practicing my skills and supporting the parents and teaching the parents. It’s the difference between going a mile wide versus a mile deep.

And I just wanted to shout this out into the void. Maybe someone might hear me and just know that this teaching job that we’re doing, as difficult as it is and how much you give and how much emotional labor is involved in it, I personally wouldn’t trade it for anything. And there’s nothing more rewarding than this. I love teaching the teachers, but there’s nothing more rewarding than being in the classroom and teaching the children.

Janet Lansbury: I feel that, I feel that so much. Since I’ve been writing my book now and doing the various things I’ve been doing, I haven’t been teaching, and I really, really miss that. Because like you said, it’s so deep, the ups and downs and all the feelings and carrying everyone’s emotions, trying not to really carry them as much, but feeling them, the parents, the children. And you learn so much. You just keep learning, there’s no end to the learning that you do. The children teach you so many things, the important things in life, I feel like. So yes, I feel the same. I don’t do what you do, but I totally, totally get what you’re saying.

Mr. Chazz: I just wanted to say this to the teachers out there, from someone who’s in it with you and who is going in the classroom day in and day out. I know that it’s hard. There’s some days that I absolutely do not want to wake up from my bed. I’m lucky that I have a little bit less of a commute because I work downstairs. But take some moments to just appreciate the little moments. That’s been something that’s been really helpful for my own self-care. Me wanting to go back in the classroom every day is really taking those moments to just appreciate the little moments of like, Oh, there was a child the other day who was really upset and he was really having a hard time, and he was hitting me and trying to bite me and was having these really big emotions. And I couldn’t really figure out how to get to him. I knew what he needed, but I didn’t know how to actually help him feel understood. I knew that this child needed to feel understood, but I couldn’t figure out how to get there with him. But when I put the words to what he was feeling, it shifted his whole body language and he was in a place where he was much more able to collaborate and cooperate with what we were doing. And then when he shifted, then he was able to choose some of the skills or some of the strategies that we talked about. He picked his feeling buddies of what he was feeling and we worked through the feeling and he welcomed his sadness, he welcomed his disappointment, and then was able to make a choice of what was able to help him.

That moment is something that I am still appreciating and is what honestly springboarded me up from my bed this morning to get me back into the classroom. Try to appreciate those moments where things do go really well, where all the hard work that you’ve put in, where you see it come out of them, focus on that too. I think these moments happen all across our early childhood centers, I don’t think that we notice them enough.

Janet Lansbury: And parents too, to feel that, to know, Hey, I didn’t lose it when my child was losing it. That is awesome. To be able to celebrate that instead of feeling like, Phew, I got through that and I’m terrible.

Mr. Chazz: And that gives us energy to continue doing this very difficult job that we have as a parent or as an early childhood professional. And what it also does is it makes it more likely that there’s going to be more of those moments because we have more of a belief within ourselves that those difficult moments, those really powerful learning moments, can still happen from that moment. And when we’re able to keep that belief, we’re able to create more.

Janet Lansbury: Well said.

Mr. Chazz: And I think that also goes into, tying it with the school transitions, that even our belief that our child can do this and our child can handle the moment of separation when you do have to leave or go to work and they are really upset, that belief that they can handle that sad as long as there’s a teacher on the other end who is thinking about how to help a child feel safe, connected, and understood. When you leave, they’ll have a safe place to land. And even though it might be difficult, it’s something that they can handle.

Janet Lansbury: And not only can handle, but it’s healing. If we think about it, kids are in love with us. How would we expect them to just, Bye, see you! I don’t care. Of course they’re going to have feelings about that. They’re saying goodbye to their loved one. It’s a nice thing that they love us that much. It’s not a weakness in them, it’s a strength.

Mr. Chazz: Yes. They’re loving deeply and they have a strong connection with their number one and their number two person in the world. It makes sense.

Janet Lansbury: Thank you so much, Mr. Chazz, for taking time out of your long days and sharing with us.

Mr. Chazz: It’s always a pleasure talking to you, and I never know where the conversation’s going to go, and I always just love riffing off of you. Got to do more in the future.

Janet Lansbury: For sure. Bye, Mr. Chazz.

Mr. Chazz: Bye.

The post Making a Successful Transition to Preschool (with Mr. Chazz) appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Transcript of “The Bad Advice I Gave About Toilet Training”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.

Today I’m going to be talking about toilet training, or toilet learning, and my thoughts about it. Most of you, if you’ve listened here, have probably heard me say that I’m a believer in allowing kids to lead the way when it comes to what I call toilet learning. The reason I believe in that is not because that’s the only way that works. That’s absolutely not true. There are a lot of children that do fine with the parent-led toilet training in three days or whatever the books say.

The reason that I recommend child-led potty learning is that this is something that kids can autonomously achieve, with our support. There are so many things in life that kids need us for. In my view, anything that they could possibly do themselves is a precious opportunity that I believe in trying to give to children when possible. But that doesn’t mean that that’s always the way that everybody wants to do it or everybody agrees with, and definitely not the only way it works, like I said.

In this episode, I’m going to share how my advice around toilet learning was not helpful to a particular family. I did a podcast episode about a year ago called “When Kids Don’t Seem Motivated (to Potty, Crawl, or Create)”. And that was one of my weird podcasts where it’s about all sorts of different things, there were three different notes. But in all of these cases, the parents were sure that their children could do these things, that they had the ability, but it seemed like their child was not motivated. So that’s why I talked about all of them under the heading of how to encourage this motivation or really, the way I see it, helping kids get unstuck.

I offered some remedies for all of these situations, because these remedies are all about helping children get unstuck and connect with their natural motivation. Because another thing I believe is that we are born motivated, motivated to learn, motivated to build skills. This isn’t something we need our parents to make happen for us, we already have it. We know that infants are incredible learners. This has been proven in loads and loads of studies for years now, that they all have this passionate desire to learn.

In that podcast episode I talked about what gets in the way and then how I recommend helping kids get unstuck. The first remedy was trust. Having genuine trust in our child’s natural abilities and motivation, their inner direction. That also means giving them plenty of opportunities to practice those abilities. And then number two, the second remedy, was reasonable boundaries. Often that’s what’s getting in our way, or at least part of what’s getting in our way, when our child seems stuck. And number three, the thing I talk about in almost every podcast episode, welcoming kids’ feelings. Their uncomfortable feelings, the ones that can be so hard for us as parents to hear and not feel responsible to fix or to make better. Because that is part of achieving anything; kids need to be able to feel frustrated or feel uncertain or feel like it’s not working. Sometimes when we’re too uncomfortable to allow them to feel uncomfortable, we can get in the way of their natural motivation.

Anyway, all of that said, the third of these notes was about potty learning, and this is what the parent wrote to me: 

My three-and-a-half-year-old is absolutely set on being in diapers “forever.” She will not so much as get near a potty and don’t even think about talking about it. She’s been physically, cognitively, and verbally ready for about one-and-a-half years now. If she woke up one morning and decided to do it, she’d teach herself in a day. We’ve completely backed off for a long time now. No pressure at all, and a genuine attitude of I don’t care, you do you. If you need me, I’m here.

However, I’m honestly doubtful that, left to her own devices, she will ever get to the point of feeling ready. I’m struggling to reconcile the let-her-lead approach with the concept of not enabling avoidance that doesn’t serve her, leading to feeding her fear cycle. She’s a very fearful and avoidant kid, and every single day in other contexts we have to be her wise guide, as she says she’s scared of and doesn’t want to do certain things. And we acknowledge and allow the emotion and we go anyway and she loves it. Left to her own devices, she does not approach things. We very kindly and openly do not let her feelings take the wheel and, as a result, she engages with the world. So this is why it feels really wrong to be unable to have her out of pull-ups. It’s so out-of-sync with the highly skilled and capable kid that she is, and it feels like enabling a phobia.

By the way, she’s typically developing, though highly sensitive and strong-willed, demand-avoidant. No transitions of any kind, stable household, etc.

I wrote back, and this is all part of the podcast episode “When Kids Don’t Seem Motivated (to Potty, Crawl, or Create)”. This is already in there, but I’m shortening it a little bit. I wrote back: “Can you tell me the whole story of what letting her lead has looked like up until now?”

And she wrote back:

When she turned two, we noticed signs of what we thought at the time was readiness and a good time to give potty training a try: absolutely hating diaper changes, body awareness, and telling us when she had to go and after she went, she had various potty books that she liked to read, and she would role-play with stuffed animals and talk about it positively. And we tried the full-on (and here she mentions a popular book and potty training method that I’m not going to repeat here). I know now it’s the worst, I would never recommend it again. But she absolutely would have no part in it, was very distressed and physically resisting. So we tried for a number of days to work through the fear, but then gave up. We decided to let go of all the pressure and return at a later time, waiting until she was ready.

Eventually, when it had been a while, I started to very low-pressure mention it again as an option. Like, “Here’s your little potty next to mine. I’m going to pee now and if you want, there’s your potty” type of thing. Throughout the next year it definitely came up, just because it does. Also, she’s a Velcro kid and she almost always follows me into the bathroom, which I’m totally fine with. So throughout the next year, we would sometimes talk about it directly, like if she would bring up other kids she knows using the potty or she initiates her own independent role-playing potty with her stuffed animals quite often. But we never said she has to or should or anything like that.

We did try many times to understand what she’s scared of and doesn’t like about it, but she can’t articulate it. I think she genuinely doesn’t know. At first, because of that dang book, we probably initially weren’t, but later we did really come to a fully-accepting attitude toward her readiness and leaving it up to her. And I swear we have really, truly conveyed that for over a year.

But then after a year, no budging or interest on her part, she turned three, and doubt started to creep up again, wondering if it was really right that we should wait for her to tell us she’s ready. This is never going to happen. Our pediatrician and a child therapist said we should try again, with the rationale that she’s three now and to just tell her, This is what we’re doing now, and we know she can do it.

So we did that. We told her it was time for underwear and she willingly picked out a potty and underwear and put it on herself and everything. But then as soon as the first sensations of having to pee started, she started to get super anxious and hide and freak out and say she didn’t want to use the potty. I was supportive of her anxiety, showed her where the potty was, but did no physical bringing her there or even telling her she needed to. But she refused and went in her pants. This went on for two days and this time we didn’t care, but we were just really afraid if we dropped it, we would be telling her she isn’t capable and can’t accomplish something new. But we had to, because the physical withholding and fear was just being exacerbated. So we told her, nevermind, back to pull-ups. Told her we know she could do it if she wanted to, but that we see she isn’t doing it. You do it when you’re ready.

It’s been six months since then. Same thing. Dropped it, but it still comes up because it’s all around us, especially now that all her same-age friends are potty trained. And she still initiates play around it, I find stuffed animals on my toilet every day. I will occasionally say things like, Whenever you’re ready, we can figure out how to make this fun, not scary, etc. type thing, or try to casually talk to her about how she feels about it. But she hits a wall, and so I back off. So anytime the topic comes up naturally, she makes a point of saying she’s never using the potty.

I guess I should mention my husband. He’s basically been on board with all this along the way, so we’ve been aligned. I am the initiator of parenting problem solving and, if anything, he conveys less pressure and interest in the whole potty thing because he’s not the anxious overthinker that I am.

So in the episode that I’m talking about, about motivation, I offered some feedback to this parent, which I’m going to describe to you. But before I do that, I want to share the whole reason I’m doing this episode, which is that she gave me an update. I always love updates. Usually they’re really encouraging, but in this case, it was doubly interesting to me because this parent let me know that the advice I’d given her actually turned out to be the wrong advice.

She wrote:

Hi, Janet-

I thought I would circle back and give you an update, since you included this in your episode. I tried my best to implement your suggestions. Still, there was no movement toward interest in the potty on her part, despite all her same-aged friends doing it. No loosening of resistance, not even an inch.

As she approached her fourth birthday (this was just a couple weeks ago), we decided that even though she was not interested whatsoever in taking the steps to get out of diapers, four would be the limit. I was unwilling to have a four-year-old without developmental disabilities in diapers, and so there was simply going to be no choice anymore.

The first couple days were grueling. Her fear and resistance was intense, and we had to push really hard through that. It felt hopeless at first, but then we broke through. Long story short, she hasn’t had an accident in a week and she willingly uses the toilet now and it’s not a problem.

I don’t quite know what to make of this all, and I’m curious about your interpretation. I honestly feel regretful that I didn’t listen to myself as I look back at my previous email and push it earlier. What I saw was a scared kid who needed help doing something she was fully capable of. She was stuck and needed us to see through that. Through my observations, I honestly believe she could have gotten to age six and never initiated this. Through my experience, I don’t actually see pottying as a developmental milestone that kids inherently do when they’re ready. Or I should say: for a lot of other kids, yes, this is the case; for my kid, I don’t think so. I think it was a phobia that she wasn’t ever going to overcome without help, aka a strong and firm push. More like going to the doctor to get vaccines than like walking.

I know what worked. It was us having a hundred percent certainty that it was time despite no interest on her part and that she could do it, but we needed to force the issue. This time we were confident. She didn’t agree to the plan, but I see that she’s now proud of herself. She’s acting her age in a lot of other ways too. She needed this.

Okay, sorry for the essay. For what it’s worth, my husband thinks we waited until the right time. If you ever have a spare moment, I would be very interested in what you make of this experience!!! Thank you.

I wrote back:

I’m thrilled for you and your daughter that you got this result. I imagine you’re greatly relieved, and I’m sincerely sorry if my advice led you astray and away from your instincts. I do have an interpretation and I’m wondering if you wouldn’t mind again if I shared my thoughts in a podcast.

Of course I couldn’t remember all the advice I had given in that original podcast, so I’m just going to share some of it with you now. And then talk about what I make of all this and why I’m calling this episode “The Bad Advice I Gave About Toilet Training.”

Here’s the feedback I gave her in the podcast episode:

I would love to help this parent. There’s not necessarily one simple answer here, but I can offer perspective and some thoughts as to her child’s point of view on this. It would seem like, speaking of motivation, that this little girl isn’t motivated to go on the potty. But as I’ve said, I believe that all children are motivated to develop and to move forward. So here are some of the things I would look at.

For one, when she says “my three-and-a-half-year-old is absolutely set on being in diapers ‘forever,’” “she will not so much as get near a potty and don’t even think about talking about it.” She’s showing signs of big resistance. Children don’t say things like, “I’m going to be in diapers forever” unless they’re making a point, they’re pushing back on an agenda that they feel from the parent. Now, this parent’s being so careful not to impose her agenda, to be sensitive, to be trusting. This little girl, like all children, they’re reading their parent’s thoughts all the time. And one thing that gets children caught up is when there’s some kind of mixed messaging.

I think that’s one of the main things going on here is this girl is getting all these mixed messages. They want me to. Now they’re trusting me, but I remember that they still wanted me to. And it’s really hard to kind of erase that without going super far the other direction, where we’re not just trying to trust, but we really feel certain in our hearts that our child is not going to be going to college in diapers. That they really, really have what it takes.

And in this case, this parent sees how confident she is, but what gets in the way? The anxiety, the fear. A lot of that comes from the mixed messaging. Because when we’re feeling mixed, it’s very uncomfortable for our children. It’s like they have nothing to hold onto. What is it? Does my parent want me to go on the potty or are they really waiting for me to do it?

The main advice I have for this parent is to make a clear choice one way or the other. My recommendation would be to go the full-on trust direction. And really full-on, because the fact that this little girl has friends that are going on the potty now, it’s not going to be hard for her to do that. But we have to take ourselves out of the picture, I believe. So that’s the direction I would go.

But even if this parent’s going to try to make this happen, to be really clear in herself. To be through and through with what she’s deciding, and know she’s being a great parent in her choice either way. That, I believe, is getting in the way, the mixed messaging. And the parent, as she admits at the end, having her own anxiety. So when her child is anxious, it makes her feel anxious probably. I mean, it makes all of us feel anxious when our kids are anxious or upset or scared. But that is filtering in here.

And she says, “I’m honestly doubtful that, left to her own devices, she will ever get to the point of feeling ready.” But why not? There’s no flaw in this girl. This girl has what it takes to develop this, and every developmentally appropriate skill, in her time. So these doubts, where are they coming from? Are they doubts in ourselves or are they really doubts in our child? Often it comes from doubts in ourselves. So trust is a big, key point here.

She says, “She’s a fearful and avoidant kid, and every single day in other contexts, we have to be her wise guide,” as she said she’s scared of and doesn’t want to do things. So they’re handling this part very well. They’re not accommodating her fears. They acknowledge, they allow the emotion, and they go anyway. The big difference in the way that we want to handle going on the potty is that we can’t make a boundary like that. We can’t force a child to do that, just as we can’t force a child to crawl or to draw. So navigating this has to be more subtle and delicate.

This parent says she has a fully accepting attitude toward her readiness after the approach from the book didn’t work and leaving it up to her. She says, “I swear we have really, truly conveyed that.” Well, conveying that is great. More important even is that she feels it, and then she doesn’t have to try to convey it. But it’s really through and through, she’s actually feeling it. And maybe she was, but it seems like it’s kind of dependent on a certain timeline when she’s trusting. And I would encourage her to really believe in her child all the way, if possible. And I know that’s hard. The fact that she says the girl is playing it out with the animals and all that, it’s a brilliant sign. That’s her working through her anxieties or her reticence or her fears, whatever that is, that’s the most brilliant thing she could do. So I recommend trusting that instead of seeing it as a sign that this parent now has to pick up on.

Her daughter doesn’t need any more reminders, in my opinion, that the parent’s going to try to help and make it happen. So I would quit the reminders. I would really trust. I would enjoy seeing her process as she plays with the stuffed animals. She’s got a process that she’s motivated in. Trust that process. She’s showing you that she’s on her way, in her time. So really I would let her have this. Because this parent says, “Anytime this topic comes up naturally, she makes a point of saying she’s never using the potty.” So even when it comes up naturally, let it sit with her. Let her be the one to say more about it. Try to not take the bait, to pick up on it. Just let it lie where it is. She will come to this. Her friends will help her, and her natural ability will help her.

There’s one other thing that I feel like is key that I wanted to speak to here. The parent went through where she was trusting, and then she said she “started to very low pressure mention it again as an option.” So we already showed our cards that we wanted her to do it, back in the beginning, and that kind of eliminates our ability to just casually bring it up again without it pushing a button in our child and revealing that we really haven’t let go. So what can seem very casual to us on an adult level, they’re picking up on all the subtext, all the feelings, all that other stuff. We really have to be clear, unfortunately. I know, it’s a bummer.

But the thing I wanted to point out is that she says, “Throughout the next year it definitely came up, just because it does. Also, she’s a Velcro kid and she almost always follows me into the bathroom, which I’m totally fine with.” In my other posts and podcast episodes about potty learning, I mention that one of the things that can get in the way is if it’s hard for us to set boundaries with our child. Because the reason it’s usually hard for us to set boundaries with our child is because we don’t like to see them upset or seem anxious or seem scared or seem anything uncomfortable. That is the main reason it’s hard for a lot of us to set boundaries. And I’m raising my hand here! So when we say we have a Velcro child, we’re saying that she’s more needy, needs to be physically close with her parent at all times. And sometimes this is even kind of a control thing that children do. I mean, I’m not talking about consciously they’re trying to control their parent, but it actually usually comes from a strength more than a weakness. In my experience working with children and my own children, it comes from, I don’t want to let you go easily. I’m going to make a big fuss.

And this parent said she doesn’t mind at all having her come into the bathroom. But I would look at that because usually, and maybe the parent going to the bathroom isn’t a good example, but if we’re describing our child as a “Velcro child,” that’s usually a sign that we’re not comfortable setting certain boundaries in any way, and it often gives children that mixed messaging I was talking about. In this case, the parent said she doesn’t care, but for most of us it’s like, Well, I’d actually rather go to the bathroom by myself, but I feel bad, so I’m going to have her come with me. And that feeling of navigating these mixed messages in a parent, as I said before, is really, really uncomfortable for a child. It can keep them stuck, it can keep them in that anxious place of the parent not being able to really let go of them all the way and really let them have their feelings about certain things. And therefore they’re kind of left in a state of uncertainty and anxiety.

This is me offering a perspective, again, that may not exactly match what this parent is feeling or what’s going on here, but I just want to offer it.

What I would suggest is this parent starts to be really clear about her boundaries and herself with her daughter when it comes to separation. In the beautiful, clear way that she said she’s handling the outings with her daughter that her daughter’s reticent to go on. And so instead of thinking of her as a Velcro child, she thinks of her as a child who really has a lot of feelings about letting go of her parent and that she needs to express more feelings about that because she has a lot more and stronger feelings about it. When she can feel that clarity in her ability to have her feelings and move through them in her way, for her to come to all of this on her own, because the parent has actually given this to her, free and clear. Again, it’s that total trust that’s down to our bones, that we have to feel, that belief in her. Not, Okay, I’m going to trust her, but if this doesn’t work for a certain time, then maybe I’m going to wonder again. And also that clarity around boundaries.

I would give her both of those, and that belief in her. Belief in her to be upset about the parent going to the bathroom alone or whatever it is, and wanting to be Velcro but we’re not going to let her be Velcro because we have our own needs. And it’s more important to be honest and allow her to express her feelings.

So that’s how I responded to her in the podcast episode. And then she wrote me this note about her success that I’m genuinely thrilled about. And what it made me realize, the learning I got from this is that even though I predicated all of this by saying the main advice I have for this parent is to make a clear choice one way or the other, I feel bad that then I recommended her to trust her child. Because, as I said in the beginning of this episode today, I believe that’s preferable if we can do it. I believe it gives our child this tremendous opportunity to have one of the first big autonomous achievements in their development. And as this parent reflected on in her update to me, I do see this as akin to walking rather than akin to needing a parent to set a boundary. Because I’ve seen how it happens, it can happen this way.

However, this was not good advice for this parent because it was suggesting that she stretch to a belief system that she absolutely was not in. When I look back at all of this, I can see how she would keep trying to let it go, but she still had doubts. Even though she was sure that she was conveying this to her daughter for a certain amount of time, what we are aiming to convey and what our child is picking up on can be two different things. As I shared with this parent about the mixed messaging, that’s what children feel when we are conveying something that we don’t believe in our gut.

As this parent said in her update, she’s regretful that she didn’t listen to herself. So the part she says she regrets she wasn’t listening to was the part saying that her daughter could not do this, that she had a phobia and that she needed her parent to make this happen. And I’m not doubting that. My only question is how the phobia developed because, as we all know, children catch our feelings. And when this parent described herself as an anxious overthinker, there’s nothing wrong with that, but what we want to know is that that’s getting transmitted to our child all the time, around everything. So it’s going to tend to create anxiety in her, and then her anxiety reflects back on ours, and we go back and forth like that. And it builds and it shows up in all these places that we’re anxious about, that we’re feeling like, Oh gosh, I’ve got to do something and I’m not doing it or I shouldn’t be doing what I’m doing with this book, this isn’t the right thing. All that self-questioning that’s so much a part of parenting, but if we have a more anxious temperament we’re going to feel that a lot more intensely and that’s going to come off to our child.

So the reason I believe I gave her the wrong advice, I gave her unhelpful advice clearly, is that even though I said all I believed was that she should go fully either way and believe in it fully, which is what she eventually did, I was really kind of promoting that she should go the trust direction. And when I look back on all of this, that didn’t fit what this parent actually was feeling at all, and there was no way she was going to make this giant shift into that. The only thing that could make her shift it is if her child just suddenly out of the blue, even with all the mixed messaging and the different tries and different messages she was getting from her parent, if she out of the blue went and did it, then that parent might be convinced, right? But otherwise, there was no way she was going to be. And I can’t promise that her daughter would’ve done it.

Although I see that even in this last note to me, this update, she says, “I tried my best to implement your suggestions. Still, there was no movement toward interest in the potty on her part, despite all her same-age friends doing it. No loosening of resistance, not even an inch.” And so that part, that loosening of resistance, there can’t be resistance unless there’s something to resist. And that’s where I think even this parent realizes she was still maybe very subtly pushing this. Because if she wasn’t, she wouldn’t describe what her child was doing as resistance. We can’t resist unless there’s something to resist. So this parent wasn’t in a place where she could really believe this was going to happen. She says other kids maybe, but for her kid, she doesn’t think so. That this was a phobia she was never going to be able to overcome without help.

It’s really hard for me and I can’t, of course, say with complete conviction that I know how to untangle this web of feelings that go back and forth between a parent and a child. We all have them with our children, no matter what. And it’s always interesting for me to try to do that, but I can only guess.

I just have this complete belief in children, so I know that I’m coming from a different place than this parent’s coming from. And that’s okay. All I care about is that she got the results that she wanted. Her daughter’s obviously doing great. She sees her daughter feels good and feels proud of herself. So this is a win. I just wish that I had really considered more where this parent was coming from. It’s her daughter, she knows her better than I do.

And this sort of reminds me of really what any parenting advice is about, where it works and doesn’t work, and when it’s good for us and isn’t good for us. Whatever parenting advice you’re getting from anywhere, it’s got to resonate with your instincts. It may not have been your first instinct. A lot of times it isn’t for any of us, right? I mean, that’s how I felt about this whole approach I teach. When I was first learning it, I wasn’t doing a lot of this. But when I would hear about it, even before I could see it working in my child, it made sense to me, it felt right to me. And if parenting advice from anybody about any aspect of parenting doesn’t feel like that to us, it’s never going to work because it’s not right for us.

So while oftentimes we have reflexive responses to things and we can call that instinct, and maybe some of it needs work or whatever, ultimately it’s still about our instincts. Yes, research and studies and experts and psychologists can share views with us that we didn’t have before. But if those don’t feel right, don’t listen. It’s going to be like we’re trying at something rather than really embracing it, and that doesn’t feel good to us and won’t transmit well to our child. And it can create this kind of mixed messaging. It’s like when people tell us words to say and it’s not the way we actually talk. It may look better in theory, but that’s why I don’t like to give a lot of word examples. Because it’s got to come from us and it’s got to be a part of us, and it’s only going to be any of that if it jives with our instincts. That’s why I was interested in responding to this parent for this episode. I wanted to assure her that she was right to trust her instincts.

And it also reminded me of this idea of parenting we sometimes get, the impression that it’s competitive. That we don’t like the way you’re doing it, you don’t like the way we’re doing it. Well, how can it be when it’s only about our individual instincts? And all these big media sources have been doing pieces on how awful gentle parenting is and all that, but why is that even a thing? It’s only unhelpful if it’s unhelpful to you. If the way that you’re parenting your child is resonating with you and feels right, how dare somebody else judge that and make fun of that? Anyway, that’s this little soapbox, but I don’t understand, I just don’t understand. Everybody gets to do them as parents. They really do. And that’s the only kind of parenting that’s ever going to work, is if we’re doing us because we believe in something. And yes, we get advice and it feels right.

So that’s how I let this parent down. Again, I’m thrilled that she is relieved and got the success and that her daughter, I’m sure, is relieved as well.

So yes, take advice, but if it doesn’t settle in with you, it’s not the right advice. Our children want us to listen to ourselves, because that’s who they’re listening to, so we’ve got to be through and through. As this parent said at the very end of her update to me, “I know what worked. It was us having a hundred percent certainty.”

I hope some of this helps. Thanks so much for listening. We can do this.

The post The Bad Advice I Gave About Toilet Training appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Transcript of “Eating Disorders, Healthy Body Image: What Parents Need to Know (with Grace Lautman, CN, LMHC)”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.

I’ve been looking forward to this opportunity to hear from Grace Lautman. She’s a therapist, an eating disorder clinician, and trauma specialist who’s with me today to talk about our kids’ healthy body image and the treatment and prevention of eating disorders. She mostly works with preteens, teens, and adults, so I’m hoping she’ll share how we can get on track early to be able to influence our children positively in regard to their relationships with food and feelings about their bodies from the time that they’re young. And maybe we can catch early signs of tendencies that our kids might have.

On Grace’s website, honornutritioncounseling.com, that’s honor, H-O-N-O-R, nutritioncounseling.com, she states that her team appreciates “the bravery and energy it takes our clients to reach out and invest in their own healing, as well as their children’s, and we are honored to be trusted as a resource.”

Let’s get to it! Hi, Grace. Welcome.

Grace Lautman: Thank you so much for having me.

Janet Lansbury: I would like to start right away with hearing about your work, the issues that families bring to you. What’s happening for you these days? What do you see families concerned with?

Grace Lautman: My work primarily is with the prevention and then also the treatment of eating disorders. I work with kids as young as about 11, and I work with parents, obviously, because of that, and adults. So a lot of my work centers around an eating disorder that is already present in a family. But in addition to that, there’s a lot of prevention work, especially in my work with adults who already have an eating disorder and maybe a parent that is unpacking that while parenting, to try not to put that harm onto their kid.

Janet Lansbury: Does that happen, that if we have a disorder in regard to eating, that our child has one? How much of it do you think is genetic and how much is environmental, and what is our influence in terms of helping children to not struggle the way that we did?

Grace Lautman: I feel like it’s absolutely genetics plus environment, as so many things are, so many pieces and so many experiences disorders are. But we do have influence. In working with parents—and in being a parent myself, since I became a parent, I feel this even more strongly now—how important it is to acknowledge the genetic aspect of that. We know from the research that this is a brain difference, it’s a difference in your brain. And so genetically, we know from twin studies that this is something that we totally pass down genetically. And there are a lot of things that we can come into parenting with and even pull back and redo and recreate in our families to sort of establish the family culture around this stuff that can be more preventative.

So I always tell parents, you don’t just cause an eating disorder, it’s not all your fault. We’re not here to blame parents for an eating disorder. And that’s a very, very important part because we’re all human trying to navigate through so much in these conversations around food and body with our kids.

Janet Lansbury: Exactly. There are certain genetic tendencies that we all have for different things, and there’s nothing helpful in getting down on ourselves either for these things.

Grace Lautman: Totally. And I think with food, part of unpacking some of this stuff in our families and in ourselves to set our kids up well and treat an eating disorder if somebody gets into that position in a family, is really about reducing the shame around it and getting out of the blamey, black and white thinking and controlling. It’s like, yeah, this stuff happens and we can always redo how we’re doing it and have these more nuanced conversations in our families and just approach it from a more nuanced lens and compassionate lens.

Janet Lansbury: And are there certain dynamics that we could see in our children very early or certain aspects to their psychology or ways that we see them handling situations that might be a sign that something like this might be happening? And at that point, what would you do anyway? I would really love to hear what you talk about in terms of prevention. I think that’s really important.

Grace Lautman: The prevention is, I’ll maybe name a couple of the big topics within the prevention. It’s normalizing puberty and growth in childhood and throughout childhood. Normalizing fat and weight gain as a part of that, because our culture tends to be very fear-based around growth because growth typically does, especially in childhood, mean weight gain. So part of what happens in those preteen and teen years is that a lot of fat deposits happen, a lot of fat growth and weight growth happens.

And it can be really, really scary for parents, especially when there’s so much fear around preventing diabetes or being in a bigger body and all this stuff. So it becomes really scary, and I just see a lot of parents feeling really afraid and then trying to control something that they don’t have as much control over in that way. That sort of thing that you talk about a lot on your podcast, which I love, which is about focusing on the relationship and what’s happening in our child and staying out of this fear-based, reactive place. And so we’re trying to slow people down, to both normalize what’s happening and also focus on the relationship.

Janet Lansbury: Yes, that fear-projection space that we can get into so easily without even knowing it. And we all do it to some extent. I don’t think there is anybody that looks at their child and watches the way they play or the way they behave and doesn’t have some little fear or red flags that come up around certain things and based on our own experience.

But how do you calm parents down about it? I want to steal some of your ideas so that I can help parents! When you work with these issues and they’re 11-year-olds and you’re obviously working with the parents as well. Are you talking to the children separately and the parents separately, are you talking to them all together, or both?

Grace Lautman: It’s so much both. Maybe we could use as a little bit of an example a pediatrician appointment. Typically, we go to the pediatrician and they take our weight, they take our growth, they look at our growth charts and see about our kids’ trends. And as an example, if the doctors are saying, “Hey, how are you doing with your fruits and your veggies?” And the caregiver makes that sort of, “Well, not very good,” and there might be a moment of the weight’s looking a little too big. These are moments where we might be unpacking some of that in my work with kids and families. Just stepping out a little bit to unlearn some of the things. There are times in the medical field where there are approaches to weight and food that are based in aspects of science and bodies that are important, but we have to look at them really critically and how that looks to be a kid in this world growing up in a body with social media, etc.

So if we’re unpacking these moments and some of the things that might have contributed to a kid getting to their preteen and teen years or that moment of, My body’s starting to grow and I have more fat on my stomach than I’ve ever had before, then it’s a moment where we’re going, Hey, nobody really told you about this, but it’s really normal to gain a lot of weight during this period, even before puberty starts. There’s a lot of reasons why we don’t get enough vegetables in sometimes, so many different pieces. You’re not doing a bad job or we’re not looking down on you for that. So we’re just reducing shame and blame.

Janet Lansbury: And giving more of an objective perspective from your clinical point of view and your experience.

Grace Lautman: That’s right.

But I think a lot of it is about normalizing puberty and growth and is also about celebrating body diversity and normalizing that. And then taking some of that fear from parents away. A lot of parents are nervous that their child is going to struggle in the same ways that they’ve struggled with their body image, but it’s from a place of fear. The kids pick up on that, you feel it. So I’ve heard a lot of teens say things in private to me like, “I never worried about my body until it was starting to be commented on.” Even larger kids have said to me, “I keep hearing my parents say something like, I just don’t want you to struggle in the way that I struggle. I don’t want you to be made fun of.” And they say, “I didn’t feel bad until it started to be discussed in our family.”

Janet Lansbury: Yes, that’s a problem.

Grace Lautman: Totally. But those are the really honest and lovely moments. And as you know, so many parents want to do so well. So it’s just that shift of giving that information, having that. And what I really want your listeners to know is just that they can back up, they can redo, they can have these conversations, and they can develop that continued listening. Really unpacking what is mine and what is my child’s and what is me looking out for their health and what is me sort of projecting this fear onto them?

Janet Lansbury: But as you said, the intention is so loving and positive and we do want to spare our kids from our own struggles, of course. So how do we put that in perspective and understand that the way it works isn’t that direct? It isn’t like, If I tell my child this, they won’t do it. It can be the opposite, that our anxiety is contagious. And when there’s anxiety around eating, we know that creates issues, whether it’s they’re not eating enough, they’re eating too much. Anxiety actually affects the appetite, it affects us physically.

Grace Lautman: Yes. And I’m also thinking about how the preventative moments are just the subtleties of everyday life. We’re eating all the time with our kids from a young age, and the subtleties in it are those moments where they say, “I want that! I want a cookie with lunch.” And you as a parent make the decision about it. And the subtlety is whether or not you go into, Well, you’ve had way too much sugar and you don’t need it and you never eat vegetables. You don’t need that. It’s just a little shift of, “Oh, that’s not on the menu right now. We’re doing something else. But cookies are so delicious, let’s have some later.” Or even in managing a health condition, if a kid has Type 1 diabetes or something like that and they can’t, it’s just really making it about what it is and not making it moral, not making it this shame-based thing. It’s just keeping the attitude of, Oh, that’s not what we’re having right now, knowing you as the parent set the stage for the family’s way of going about things. But we don’t want to attach eating to weight. We want to keep that out and we want to keep the food boundaries really kind of unruffled, if you will.

Janet Lansbury: What does that look like, unruffled food boundaries, in your opinion?

Grace Lautman: I think it’s different with every age. But in discussing preteens and teens, I always start with this vision of hand-making baby food when your baby is just starting solids at five months, and then you get to the teen years and your kid comes in with a big bag of chips and a Code Red pop from the store and you’re going, What happened?

Janet Lansbury: Yes. I mean, we don’t control someone else’s body and their cravings or anything like that. Unfortunately we don’t.

Grace Lautman: Right, but we do when they’re little and that’s part of what’s nutty about it. We do actually in that first year or so. We’re just losing control more and more over time when it comes to food and body, even clothing choices. That progression really happens.

Janet Lansbury: And I would argue that it does actually start in infancy, whether we’re using feeding to stop every single sign of discomfort that our child may have, whether we’re trying to get them to eat one more bite when they’re babies. It starts us on a track when we’re thinking that way. It’s not even so much our child, but I always think of it as the habits we’re creating for ourselves, the way that we’re seeing our role in eating as trying to get you to do this. I’ve got to put you in front of TV to get you to eat. I’ve got to follow you around the playground when you’re just walking because that’s how I’m going to get food in you.

There’s no kind of consciousness, we’re not teaching what we want to teach. And we’re not realizing that it starts in the beginning, the way all teaching starts, the way children are learning from the beginning, right from birth, they’re learning everything. They’re so ready to learn, and we’re not realizing that it’s not later that we teach this thing, it’s starting right now. The way that we expect our child to sit down and be mindful during this, it could be two seconds that they want to eat something. But for that two seconds, we’re just going to do this, so that they have a chance to have a present relationship with their bodies and what they need.

Grace Lautman: Yes, exactly. So Ellyn Satter is someone that you’re probably familiar with.

Janet Lansbury: Yes, I’ve had her on the podcast. I was actually just going to ask you what you think of her. Because she’s like, Let them eat the dessert first, things that would actually make me cringe. When she was talking to me about that, I was just like, Wow, I’m glad you’re saying this and not me.

Grace Lautman: Yes, I feel like Ellyn Satter can feel really radical when you’re unlearning the diet culture, fears of fat and whatnot, it can be really scary to really go all in on Ellyn Satter. But research-based, really standard of care for eating and developing positive relationships with food and body, she’s the go-to.

This is her division of food responsibility: The parent responsibility is the what, when, and the where, and the child’s responsibility is how much and whether. So in those early years, we’re really holding the boundaries, what can I control versus what can I not. And what I can’t, I’m just really going to let go of that fully. I’ve decided when we’re doing breakfast, lunch, and dinner, or I decided that we’re going out to ice cream today or we’re not. So if you sit down and you really aren’t eating anything, you hate everything that’s on the plate, it’s like, That’s okay, we’ll have snack in a little bit. You’re not bending over backwards and making it a big deal or making it a blame game or forcing them to stay at the table or eat this or that, because we want to give them that body autonomy. And that stays pretty true throughout all the years. And then reaching the teen years, there’s some nuances to that because sometimes we don’t get the what, when, and where all the time because they’re starting to launch into more autonomy.

Janet Lansbury: Yes, and then we find the more we’re trying to control, the more they’re trying to need to break out of that, break away from that. And it’s not working in our favor. Actually, that starts in toddler years.

Grace Lautman: Yes. I had a moment with my own daughter, who’s just about five. I was taking some time to get ready the other day for work, and we had a little gap in childcare, so I’m like, okay, I’m getting ready. And she’s out there, I’m a little distracted, she’s playing. And then I come outside and she’s sitting on the kitchen floor with a bag of chips. She had grabbed the chips from the counter and she’s just sitting there eating. And I thought, this is such a moment where I could say, “It’s 8:00 AM. What’s going on? No chips!” But what I ended up doing, from this mentality, is I just said, “Oh my gosh, are those not the best chips?” And I sat down on the floor with her and we just ate some chips at 8:00 AM. And I said, “Let’s both have one more. Here’s another for you, here’s another for me.” We giggled and then we put them back up and I said, “Okay, we’ll have a snack like we normally do, at the counter, the next time.” Had I not unpacked previously in my life some of my own controls, I’d be like, I’m not eating a chip at 8:00 AM! But just sort of zooming up a little to be like, What is the point of this moment?

Janet Lansbury: Yes. And I think that’s something that works with every kind of boundary or every kind of parenting moment. It’s actually really great that you heard those voices or you felt that impulse and you were able to kind of befriend that impulse and go, All right, that’s interesting. Maybe that isn’t a big deal, but it feels like it could be. I’m going to let it go and see. And that is really powerful, because then you’re not giving power to something that really would just be a waste of your energy, it would call attention to something that your child might have to explore more.

Grace Lautman: Additionally with that too, it would be totally okay for someone to notice in themselves, I really don’t want to eat a chip right now. I’m getting ready for work. And it’s just that you would navigate it again in that unruffled, grounded way of, Oh, look at you eating chips. Let’s put it away. I’ve got to keep getting ready.

Janet Lansbury: Yes, we don’t have to do it. On that note, we don’t have to say yes to anything we don’t want our child to do. Maybe we don’t want them to have the chips out right then, or maybe they want us to get them more different food and we just don’t feel like doing that for whatever reason. We don’t have to try to please. But I think if we get hooked into that idea that our child’s intake is our responsibility, I’ve found with the parents I’ve worked with, it’s really hard to let go of that, because our child gets hooked into that too. Now their dynamic with us around eating is how they’re going to resist or give in to us. It takes eating totally away from what it needs to be, which is, I’m listening to myself.

Grace Lautman: Yes, exactly. It becomes a power struggle of, Am I my own person? Can I get this? It becomes not about the food anymore. We start trying to meet developmental needs through our eating habits as a kid.

Janet Lansbury: So how do you recommend that parents dial this back? Maybe they have been very involved in their children’s eating and they’ve been feeling that pushback and now they’re coming to you and they feel like, whereas they didn’t cause this, their attitude is not helping their child. How can they dial back all these messages that they may have already given their child? Even if it’s just us very focused on ourselves in the mirror, or “Oh, don’t wear that outfit going out. You don’t look good” or “This suits you better, your tummy is hanging out of that top.” How do we undo what we’ve done? Is it a conversation that we have with our child at some point, and at what age?

Grace Lautman: I think at any age, if there’s a big enough pivot happening, that kids respond really well to that realness of just saying, Hey, I’ve been learning some things and realizing that I’m learning some new things that I want to do differently because I think it would be better for us and that I had it wrong. And so here are some of the pieces that we’re going to be changing. So for example, with some of the families I work with, it would be, “We’re actually going to be keeping the cookies in the house here.” Or, “Instead of what I used to say, I might say something more like this.” Or, “The expectation is that we’re not taking such and such food into our room, but it’s really okay for you to have that. I’m not going to be making those same comments.”

When it’s the parent reflecting on their own modeling and their own relationship with food and body, it can be the same, especially with a preteen or teen. As all kids do, I think, but especially preteens and teens, they will sniff out your bullshit immediately.

Janet Lansbury: Totally.

Grace Lautman: Just to be able to sort of say, No surprises here, but I don’t have a great relationship with my body. That’s my own stuff and I’m going to work on that. I can imagine a lot of ways that that’s been hard. Or I’m uncomfortable with my body. I’m uncomfortable, but it’s not bad. It’s not bad, I’m not bad. I don’t want you to feel this way, so I just want to let you know that I see that and I’m going to be working to do this differently. It’s just really powerful to say I was wrong or I hadn’t unlearned this yet and I’m going to keep unlearning it, it’s going to take time.

Janet Lansbury: So really being open about your process, I love that. I love that way of sharing with anybody, whether it’s a parent sharing with the co-parent. It’s such a powerful, non-threatening way to help, by saying, This is what I’ve gone through. And what I’m thinking as I’m listening to you is it’s reframing that piece we were talking about in the beginning of, I don’t want you to be heavy like I felt, or whatever. Instead it’s like, I actually want you to have a better feeling about yourself than I had. And that’s a really positive way to use that same motivation that we have as parents, that’s so wonderful and precious and loving, and turn it into something positive, where it becomes vulnerability on our part, which children always respond to. They never step on us when we’re vulnerable because they treasure that, like in all relationships.

Grace Lautman: That’s so connecting and healing. Definitely the kids and adult kids I’ve worked with who have been able to have their parent just say, I messed that up. While I had the intentions of trying to look out for you, it was the opposite. That sucks and I’m going to keep working on doing it differently. And in the times where I slip up, because I’ve been kind of at this internally for a long time with my own body, I’m open to us being called into that and me reminding you that that look I just gave you with that food, that was about me. That wasn’t actually about you.

Janet Lansbury: Yes. I’ve been looking out for the wrong things, I realized. I’ve been looking out for not the really powerful things that will help you feel good about you and me feel good about me.

Grace Lautman: One other piece I want to mention with this is that I do feel like there is a lot of pressure for body positivity, and I feel like for many parents it’s more accessible to shoot for body neutrality because we don’t always feel positive about our bodies and our kids don’t always feel positive either. And it’s okay to normalize discomfort because what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to take our body off a pedestal of, It needs to look a very specific way. We need to be super positive with it all the time.

Because what good body image is actually about—hopefully sometimes you can evaluate it positively. We want that for everybody, that’s nice. But with different body sizes and culturally different messages, that can be a really hard goal for some people, to feel like they can be positive. So just to acknowledge instead that it can be uncomfortable to be in a body. Bodies change, they’re always going to be changing, we can’t get around that. And we’re going to be able to get more comfortable with the discomfort and know that this is just one part of our experience, it’s not everything. It’s okay to be uncomfortable.

Janet Lansbury: I love that. Instead of the everything’s fine, my body’s great, I love myself, it’s the truth, it’s what’s inside. It’s getting to be all the feelings and the freedom in that and the health in that.

Grace Lautman: Right. And sort of being with our children about the challenges of that, where it’s I feel fat or I look fat. Instead of just, “No, you’re not,” it’s going towards, Tell me more about what’s coming up and what it’s like to be with these friends and your body, their body. I want to hear about it. And that’s really the shift. A really good example too, of the well-intentioned “No, you’re not!” That can be a really big shift from someone who grew up having their parent shame them for their body really directly. But we can actually take that a step further.

Janet Lansbury: I think that’s the big impulse that we all have that’s so strong, just this idea of instead of letting the feeling come and letting it be and let’s try to understand it or sit with it a little, it’s like immediately push back, push back, push back. That feeling is uncomfortable for me that you’re having, so let me push back on it. It’s so human, we’ve got to forgive ourselves for that one. But just keep an eye on it and just be aware that basically we’re invalidating something, right? And then the danger in that, of course, is that then our child doesn’t want to share it with us because they’re not going to be heard. They’re going to be argued with about it, and nobody wants that.

Grace Lautman: Right. Or that urge to kind of fix it.

Janet Lansbury: “Let’s start exercising right now!”

Grace Lautman: Yes, and that’s where it’s like, oh no! It’s so well intentioned, but there we go down this rabbit hole, especially with the genetic piece. You could be in big trouble soon.

Janet Lansbury: I work with a lot of parents where this is a really difficult subject. We’re not at the point of disordered eating yet or anything, but How do I get them to eat more? What do I do? Or I don’t want to have any boundaries around meal times in terms of what they can do, because I’m not going to end a meal with my toddler who may need to eat more. It’s hard for me to trust that them throwing food down is conscious. But you can sense that in your child if you’re paying attention at mealtime. If you’re asking them to be present and you’re present as much as possible in those moments, then you can totally read the difference between I’m just dysregulated and I can’t focus, which they probably can’t eat then anyway, or Look, is there an answer to this question about throwing food or standing up and running around and coming back? You’re just not giving me an answer!

And that’s where I think that sometimes we misdefine love as, Oh, I would never let my child go the slightest bit hungry, and at the same time, I’m just going to leave you asking all these questions about boundaries and I’m not going to give you an answer until you get me mad, and then I’m just going to be mad at you. And really, it’s not the child’s fault, it’s our fault. I’m the last person who wants to set boundaries, so that’s why I love talking about that subject. We’re afraid that our child isn’t going to get enough to eat.

Grace Lautman: It’s such an understandable and such a biologically-based urge to make sure that they’ve gotten what they wanted. And that’s where all those tricks of Just eat this or Woo, look at this, it’s an airplane! It’s so normalized.

And yet I do think a lot of the messaging that we miss around this stuff is just reassuring parents that it’s okay. It’s okay to let them come to the table and not eat anything, and then to just roll with it a little bit. Sometimes you’ve got to roll with that in order for it to get back to that division of responsibility. I think we really underestimate how much we can trust bodies. I reassure parents that it’s okay, and you don’t have to do this perfectly. Culturally, we put a lot on food and body, and we know that health comes from and nourishment comes a lot messier along the way than sitting down and really eating everything on that high chair tray, right?

Janet Lansbury: Yes.

Grace Lautman: It’s just so much pressure, and so we need to relieve ourselves of that. And also, outside of food conversations, I feel like what you guide parents in is so useful because it is you yourself as the parent doing less work and being able to enjoy more and laugh more about what’s happening. And that is the benefit of some of this with eating. If your kid comes to the table and is just playing with their spoon, that’s okay. You can just watch them play with their spoon or throw it on the ground and say, Oh, okay, it looks like you might be all done. And just sort of move along.

Janet Lansbury: I want to circle back to this thing you said about trusting the body. So for me, it’s not even just trusting the body, it’s trusting our child’s ownership of their body. It’s trusting them to embody their body, that they can do this, that they have the wisdom. If we can clear away some of the noise, they have that in them already. But we can get in the way of it and we don’t want to do that. This is going to serve them for life, that they can own their body and their feelings and what they need, and it’s really easy to drown out that message that we really want them to have.

I wanted to ask you also, if there are children that develop eating disorders that actually didn’t show any sign of problematic eating when they were little. Maybe anxiety or perfectionism or something, and then it manifested as an eating disorder?

Grace Lautman: Yes, absolutely. I like to think about eating disorders as an attempt to solve a problem, a maladaptive way of solving something that otherwise is too sticky and feels like the family or that kiddo can’t figure out on their own. And an example of that would be if we have an anxiety piece coming up or something internally going on, even neurodivergence and autism, ADHD, that there becomes sometimes a need to muffle emotions or control what are otherwise extremely loud sensory experiences. And restricting food actually can be a way of solving a problem.

So sometimes an eating disorder is really not what people think, right? An eating disorder is an attempt to solve some complicated problems, and a lot of times you can’t see it early on. The things we’ve been talking about are wonderful protective factors to set up, but there’s all these other pieces that can come into play.

Janet Lansbury: And how do you help when it is serving a purpose like that? How do you help a client find another way to achieve that?

Grace Lautman: Yes. I think especially when there’s, for example, autism at play, and I definitely have worked with many clients that didn’t get a lot of support for their autism early on or didn’t get a lot of accommodations. So sometimes it’s actually just about while you’re working on some of the eating behaviors from a harm reduction place, let’s see if we can make sure we’re not causing too much harm with those things. But as we’re doing that, we’re really looking underneath the surface and saying, what can we also alleviate for you so you don’t have to rely on this restriction of eating or extreme picky eating that is really helping you solve this other problem of internal distress. So we’ll be working on these other aspects of, okay, what is happening here? What needs were not being met? That might look like addressing anxiety, it can totally look like addressing trauma. I’ve definitely worked with a lot of instances where trauma is at play, especially speaking of body autonomy and trying to control or muffle things in the body. There can be a lot that comes up around that for people too.

Janet Lansbury: Very basically, it’s about feeling the feelings and allowing for what we’re trying to control.

Grace Lautman: And different eating disorders function differently. I find a lot of times anorexia can be really common when our nervous system has functioned better with control. Anorexia is a way oftentimes of muffling a lot of the impacts of perfectionism. Whereas binge eating tends to be more of a strategy to numb, get out of an emotion. There’s different aspects of different eating experiences and disorders that actually can give us some clues to what this person is needing a little bit more or less of.

Janet Lansbury: Is perfectionism simply a fear of imperfection?

Grace Lautman: Part of the modality that I work with is called RODBT. It’s called radically open dialectical behavioral therapy. Like every therapy thing, there’s a terrible acronym that goes along with it. In this approach, when we are incorporating this, we think about this as almost a spectrum of over-control and under- control. I always think about perfectionism as, and this is almost a temperament explanation, there are folks that feel in their bodies and in their nervous systems more safety when things are more controlled. And then there are people that feel more safety in their bodies when actually there’s more flexibility and spontaneity. Perfectionism can come up for different reasons, but I think in the context of anorexia, a lot of times there’s perfectionism at play because it feels safer in the body for somebody to control and make sure that all the ducks are in a row and that they’re presenting a very specific way. And especially with different traumas at play, that can have been a really important way of protecting oneself too.

Janet Lansbury: And where does it get into where you’re actually not seeing yourself at all anymore? I can relate to, I just want to look this certain way. As I’m aging, I could see why people will do anything to hold themselves at a certain age, physically. So I can see that. And I kind of had a little of that when I started to get middle-aged. I was like, well, I want to be at this weight. At least this I can control. But when we get into that place where we’re not even seeing what we’re doing to our face, maybe as an older person, or what we’re doing to our bodies, that we’re getting unhealthy and we can’t see clearly. How does it get to that point?

Grace Lautman: I think about normal eating being on one side of the spectrum and then an eating disorder being on the other, and disordered eating is in the middle. That also exists. Disordered eating sometimes overlaps with even dieting behaviors that are applauded societally as well. When it gets more into that eating disorder area, like anorexia, bulimia, there’s an aspect of distortion of your body image or body dysmorphia that can come into it.

I usually explain that as if you’re at one of those hotels and it has one of those mirrors in the bathroom that hyper-focuses on your face. You can see all your pores and you start to look at it and you start to think that you’re just one big pore. That’s sort of the experience that people have with body image distortions that come at that other end of the spectrum. Where it’s not just body image issues, well, I kind of wish I could alter this or I’m kind of uncomfortable because I’m starting to notice these changes and I might do this here or do that there. Yes, there’s some disorderedness to that, but it’s not really impacting too much and the person still feels like they can look at themselves in the mirror and sort of orient, Yeah, that’s me. I know what I look like. When you get further down that spectrum towards more of a severe eating disorder, you start to lose a sense of what you look like and it starts to feel really confusing and distressing to orient yourself in your body.

Janet Lansbury: Isn’t it amazing that our minds have so much power that they can cause us to just focus in on one thing without seeing anything else, like this myopic vision of yourself?

Grace Lautman: Yes, and sometimes it can be really reassuring actually for people. I always say, I’m going to use this word “delusion” in the most loving way I could use it, but there’s a delusional aspect to having an eating disorder like this. Because you have to kind of say to yourself, you know what? It’s okay. I’m not really going to see an alignment with full reality, and so I can almost step away from the mirror. I almost need to, because I know that looking is only going to make it worse. And that’s very much true when we get to one of the big signs of an eating disorder, which is it’s on your mind 24/7. There’s some level of preoccupation that just gets really high. It’s never helping to engage further with it, it’s just going to make you feel more confused. So we try to pull back from that.

Janet Lansbury: I feel for this, I feel for all of this. And I’m really glad that you’re there. When should parents consider reaching out to you or someone like you? By the way you’re reachable at honornutritioncounseling.com. Where is the line where it would be a good idea to reach out for help?

Grace Lautman: It never hurts. So if you feel a little nervous or you want to get on top of it, I feel like if you’re wondering, it doesn’t hurt to reach out and just sort of check in. Some very clear signs are on growth charts. Not BMI, I don’t recommend BMI as an indicator. But if a child is really dropping off a growth chart and line, the percentage that they’ve typically been following, that can be a moment to just check in. Alongside seeing that your child’s eating has really shifted and their mood and experience around eating and going out to dinner or trips. Usually there’s just a lot of distress that starts happening. Those are sort of the big pieces within it.

And during the pandemic, when all the waitlists were full, I created some online on-demand courses. One of them is supporting families who think their kid might have an eating disorder and the other one is for just feeding preteens and teens. It just sort of expands on some of the conversations we were having today about the mindset around it. Those are definitely places people can go. And I also am pretty active on social media these days; I have an Instagram, which is honor_nutrition_counseling. People can totally reach out if they want resources as well.

Janet Lansbury: Wonderful. So those courses are available on your website also?

Grace Lautman: They are through my website.

Janet Lansbury: Excellent. Thank you so much, Grace. This was wonderful. I could talk with you for a long time, you’ve got so much wisdom. And I feel like we’re very much on the same wavelength in our thinking, but I don’t know anything about all this stuff you’re talking about, so I love hearing your perspective.

Grace Lautman: Thank you so much and thank you for having me on. This has really been an honor for me, so thank you.

Janet Lansbury: Keep up the wonderful work and we’ll talk soon.

Grace Lautman: Sounds good, Janet. Thanks again.

Janet Lansbury: Okay, thank you. Bye-bye.

Grace Lautman: Bye.

The post Healthy Body Image, Eating Disorders: What Parents Need to Know (with Grace Lautman, CN, LMHC) appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Transcript of “Rejection, Exclusion, Teasing — What to Do When Friends Aren’t Kind”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.

Today I’m going to be talking about a subject that can be pretty painful for us: when our child has friends that aren’t treating them right. Maybe other children are excluding them, rejecting them, saying unkind things, playing little emotional games with them. Most of us know that we don’t want to intervene too much, it’s not the way to make friendships bloom. Play works best when it belongs to the children. So what can we do? How can we empower our children in these situations? What do they need from us, and how can we help them to be effective with their friends?

I have several notes that I received around this topic, so that’s what made me want to talk about this today. And interestingly, they’re all about daughters and they’re all around five years old. I always find it interesting when I get these waves of notes that are all on one theme. It seems like a sign that I’m supposed to be trying to talk about that, so that’s what I’m going to do today.

Here’s the first note:

Hi, Janet-

Your work has been such a lifeline for me. I found your work when my daughter was three months old and now she’s five-and-a-half.

She has a friend who she plays with at school and in the neighborhood. It’s always been great, but lately there’s been more and more relational aggression from this friend to my child. I know this behavior is common and typical, and I remember the same dynamic amongst me and my cousins as a child. But there were no adults monitoring our play. So while I know we grew out of it, I don’t know what to do. It’s hard when every playdate ends in tears. The other mom chalks it up to only child syndrome, but surely we can do something to help our girls.

It usually goes something like this: The girls are playing, then they differ on what they want to do next. The child will tell my daughter, “If you don’t do X, then I won’t be your friend anymore.” Then she will either refuse to look at or speak to my daughter or ask to go home. Sometimes they’ll be playing something and it will be time to go. My daughter will ask for five more minutes and then exuberantly say, “I get to stay for five more minutes!” At which point the friend will spin on her heels and say, “I don’t want to play anymore” and not acknowledge my child until we’re gone. No goodbye, refuses to hug (which we obviously don’t ever force, but it seems like she feels the power in withholding).

I just don’t know how to handle this, how to help them work it out. I’ve asked the mom if we can agree that the kids must answer each other even if the answer is no, instead of just ignoring, icing out, leaving. But should we as parents address the ultimatums or just identify, “Hmm, sounds like you want to do X, but you want to do Y. What are some ideas that would work for both of you?”

I’m tired and overwhelmed and would really appreciate your perspective.

So here’s the idea that I wanted to talk about today. It’s a lesson that can help us all, and I feel like I’m only just starting to really get it, sadly. I feel like it’s more important now than ever for children today, with the effects of social media and all the comparisons it encourages. The FOMO (“fear of missing out”) that kids feel because they’re inundated with all these comparisons. The lesson that will help arm them through this now and in the future is this: People only have power over us when we give it to them.

Yes, of course there are exceptions. There’s the power a boss has over us or someone we need to do business with or elected leaders, other people in authority, even teachers when we’re kids. But when it comes to most of the people we encounter in life, we get to choose the amount of power we give to them. It’s that thing of we’re speaking in front of an audience and everyone’s applauding, but then there are these few people in the corner that are kind of shaking their heads and they’re not applauding. And we decide to focus on them, we decide to give them all this power in our minds and hearts. It’s misappropriated and it’s not reality. It’s the same as getting all this positive feedback for something, but then you get a few bits of negative feedback that’s not even constructive and you decide to give that your time, your attention. We can’t let our kids do this, especially not with what they’re up against today.

So how can we teach them this? How can we impart the healthiest possible perspective to our kids so they can carry that with them, as a reminder if nothing else, that they own the power that they have. They get to decide who truly deserves and then continues to earn the power that they give them. You’ve heard me talk on this podcast about this idea of the power that we give to children when they have certain behaviors. Some of it we can’t help, we get triggered and we react and therefore we give power to that behavior. Which then encourages it, unfortunately, and that’s the last thing we want.

Our influence is huge, and so to teach the children in these questions, all of them are quite capable of having a conversation with the parent about this idea of who we want to give our power to, that this is a choice. But the even more impactful way that children learn anything is through us, through our modeling and our influence. And so in these situations, where peers are being unkind, the best way we can teach our child not to give power to that behavior in those children is by us not giving it power. By us showing our children that that isn’t an exciting, powerful, terrible thing to be happening. And that doesn’t mean that we don’t respect how they’re feeling about it, but it’s this big challenge that we have to stay one step behind them in this process instead of pulling them ahead a little bit to what we’re feeling about it. I’m going to talk about how that looks with all these notes.

But what stuck out to me in this first one is this part right here where she totally nails it. She says that the friend “will spin on her heels and say, ‘I don’t want to play anymore’ and not acknowledge my child until we’re gone. No goodbye, refuses to hug (which we obviously don’t ever force, but it seems like she feels the power in withholding).” She feels the power in withholding, yes. And in this case, I don’t know how much of this is her child giving this power or if it’s that this parent is worried about this, therefore giving it power. It’s hard not to worry about this, but this parent says this happened with her and her cousins and everybody grew out of it. There were no adults monitoring their play. So she and her cousins grew out of this, but now there are adults monitoring this play. I’m not saying we shouldn’t monitor play. It’s fun to do if we can do it from a place of enjoyment and a lot of trust and interest in what’s going on and how the children are feeling about it, rather than how we’re feeling about it. That’s the challenge that I’m talking about here.

All this stuff is going on. She said “every playdate ends in tears,” so her child is getting upset about it. And that’s very valid. We can help her process that by not getting involved and risking giving more power to that little girl’s behavior. This is the part where it feels like this parent’s getting a little too involved: “I just don’t know how to handle this, how to help them work it out. I’ve asked the mom if we can agree that the kids must answer each other even if the answer is no, instead of just ignoring, icing out, leaving. But should we as parents address the ultimatums or just identify, ‘It sounds like you want to do X, but you want to do Y. What are some ideas that would work for both of you?'”

So that part even sounds very neutral and like it’s not imposing any point of view, but it is giving children the message, I’m not comfortable with this being left open-ended. I want this to be resolved. Or the friend deciding she’s not going to talk anymore. All this silly immature behavior, right? I would recommend stepping way back and just being there to support your child. If she says, “Oh, she did this and that and that,” I would just say, “Yes, I saw that” and “That hurt your feelings,” if it did. But doing all we can to not project and to not make a decision about how they should behave with each other.

The thing about giving power to things is kids get stuck there. They get stuck in that feeling of power and they don’t know how to get out of it. They almost can’t get out of it sometimes. We can help her and we can help that girl by dialing back the power that we’re giving to this. Letting go of it a lot more, just being there for our child, one step behind her, interested in what she’s feeling and what she thinks of the situation. Whether she wants to see this friend again, maybe she doesn’t.

And having this other conversation with her about the power that this girl is trying to have over her, it seems like, by playing these games with her. We can help our child see that for what it is, and then trust her to make the choice to try to learn about that with her and be in it or not. But either way, letting her know that you see this as kind of, maybe you’re not going to use these words, but just immature, silly stuff that she’s getting attention for doing. And that your daughter doesn’t have to be involved in that if she doesn’t want to. Or maybe she does, which is a strong choice for her to make.

I think one of the fears that we have is that another child is going to rob our child of their spirit, but that’s not what happens when we can trust them and stay behind them in this. What happens is they learn a lot about other children and how to relate to them and what they like and what matters and what they’re willing to put up with. They get to choose.

Here’s another one that will help me explain this more or better, I hope:

Dear Janet,

I have two daughters, four and nearly six. We have just moved to a new country, and so also a new neighborhood. My nearly six-year-old is very social and outgoing and friendly. She immediately made many friends with neighbors (there are a lot of kids in our development) and everything had been going well for two-and-a-half months.

However, suddenly two sisters in the neighborhood have started to exclude her. It has gotten worse quickly, as they’re telling other children in the neighborhood not to play with her. They tell her she is not allowed to play in communal play spaces. They will invite her to play with them, only to wait for a chance to run away and leave her all alone. They have encouraged younger kids and their younger siblings to not play with her, and if she comes to play, they will even yell at their younger siblings to go away because she’s there.

I’m struggling with how much to intervene. I want my daughter to be able to handle and manage situations on her own, but I want her to know she’s supported and that I’m there if she needs help. Today she asked me to talk to their mom, so I did. The other parents are very receptive and have even noticed it themselves and had spoken to their children about it once already.

I guess I have two big questions. First, I want more insight as to how much to step in or how much to let my daughter solve this on her own in the moment, while giving her the support she needs at home. As this is often happening within earshot or eyesight of me, I can step in when I notice it and do sometimes, however, I don’t want to rescue her but prefer she can figure out ways to handle it.

Secondly, I’m really struggling with how to act and treat the kids bullying her. I know this may sound terrible, but I really cannot figure this out. I’m naturally a very inclusive and warm person toward children, and I want to keep a good relationship with these kids as they are our neighbors. Also, I do understand that kids do things like this for various reasons. I’ve tried some peace-offering situations where my daughter has invited them over for some fun activity or to play in our house. They will come and have fun in the moment, but soon after, once they’re out playing together, they go back to singling her out and excluding her and telling others not to include her or not to be friends with her anymore.

I want my daughter to know I’m on her side, so I find myself having a hard time being pleasant with these children. I’m inclined to want to acknowledge them but not welcome them anymore for snacks or activities we may be doing in our yard. This mostly stems from me wanting my daughter to know I support her. My younger daughter even told me that this group of children are trying to get her to join the “bad group” as she put it, but that she didn’t want to and is sticking by her sister’s side.

I would appreciate any insights you have on this issue.

This parent, she mentions all the things I’m talking about here with her struggle on how to intervene. “I want my daughter to be able to handle and manage situations on her own, but I want her to know she’s supported and that I’m there if she needs help.” This is a wonderful example of her being sensitive to this idea that this is her daughter’s journey and she wants her daughter to know that she believes in her to handle these situations on her own. That’s believing in our child’s power.

I found it interesting that she said her daughter’s “very social and outgoing and friendly and immediately made many friends with neighbors” and that everything was going well for two-and-a-half months. And then it seems these other children came and were threatened by this and they’re trying to assert their own power to control everybody. Those are the weakest people that are trying to do that. Again, it’s a lot of immature games. And yes, I know these children are only five and six, but it’s really kind of blatantly obvious stuff.

For one thing, I would keep doing what this parent’s doing, letting her daughter be the one to say, “Could you talk to these parents?” Not getting involved unless her daughter asks her for help and then doing just the minimal thing that she asks her, not over-intervening.

And also she noticed this is happening within her earshot or eyesight. So these girls have gotten caught up a little bit into the power that they’re getting, and it’s a shame because it just sort of feeds on itself, as we’ve noticed. Because it does come from insecurity and weakness, it doesn’t come from a happy feeling inside. Those children with a happy feeling inside are very magnanimous and giving, and those aren’t the children doing these things. It sounds like this parent has done everything she could. She even offered these peace-offering situations, but I wouldn’t do that at this point.

As far as her first question, more insight as to how to step in and how much to let her daughter solve this on her own: I would trust her to solve all of this on her own in the moment, with the parent’s support. So just letting her daughter know, I’m here. I wouldn’t go in and talk to the girls, but I don’t think that little girl would ask her to, because kids already sense at this age that that’s not going to help things and this girl sounds very socially adept. I would encourage her to have the friends that she does like over, that are nice to her, that deserve the power that she gives them and the time that she gives them. And let these other girls spin their wheels and do their thing.

Reminding your daughter whenever you can that, I know they’re trying to do all this stuff. You don’t have to give them power. None of this is a reflection on you, it’s a reflection on their weakness. Let me know if you need help. And I would definitely not go out of your way to try to make this work. Because again, like with this other parent’s example of her wanting to make a pact that the kids have to talk to each other and that the girl wouldn’t just ice her daughter out, this also is this subtle way that we give power to something. By wanting it to work out, wanting to mend bridges, wanting everybody to get along, and Maybe there’s something I can do to make this better. I would not encourage the parent to waste her time or energy on that. As she’s seen, it doesn’t work anyway. All of that is just kind of adding to the negative power that these girls are getting out of this.

As this parent says, she doesn’t want to rescue her but prefers her daughter can figure out ways to handle it. Yes, and then if she wants advice, if she needs tips, help her out. But also have that conversation: You don’t have to give power to these girls. You have so much power of your own. Give it to the people that deserve it. Give it to the people that are showing you that they return it. That’s how we empower our children, is by believing in them that way. I love that the little sister stands up for her. I mean, kids see through this stuff, they really do.

I think this parent is totally in the right direction, and I just want to encourage her that she doesn’t have to be nicey-nice with those kids. She can be kind with them, but she definitely doesn’t need to go out of her way to include them in things that she’s doing. I mean, why would you? Because that would be validating behavior that you don’t like. It isn’t what you want in a friend for your daughter. This parent has great instincts. Trust your instincts. Do less and just be on your child’s side here, which this parent already is.

Here’s another one:

Hi, Janet-

Thank you for always being there and always having an answer. My question has little to do with my daughter and admittedly quite a bit to do with me. My oldest daughter, age five, is a carbon copy of younger me. She’s naive, sweet, thoughtful, smart, and kind to absolutely everyone she comes across. She doesn’t have a mean bone in her body.

Obviously I’m thrilled with these attributes and feel so lucky to have such an amazing kid, but I also worry about her falling into traps that I fell into when I was young. I was kind and empathetic and let people walk all over me. It wasn’t until college that I was able to stand up for myself, find my group, and feel comfortable. For years I allowed myself to be bullied, to be told who I was and what I was allowed to do. I was too nice, too sweet, the easy target for cheap jabs and mean girls.

I’ve already seen some of these same things happen to my daughter. Girls saying, “You can’t play with us!” and her accepting it and walking away, telling me she’s sad later. She’s watched friends a year ago choose her younger sister over her as a playmate (she’s three) or neighbors actively leave her out and make a game of not including her. These are just a few examples of many. She seems to accept it. Sometimes she’ll be sad and tell me later.

My mind instantly jumps to what this might mean for her later in life. I don’t want her to be treated as I was, feel badly about herself as I did. We’re working on self-esteem, using our strong voice, and what friendship really looks like. I’ve listened to every podcast and read every article you have about bullying, confidence, friendship, etc., but so much of me wants to teach her what it took me so long to learn: be mean back, stand your ground, get people on your side. These are things you definitely shouldn’t teach a five-year-old.

She’s entering kindergarten next year and I’m terrified her kindness will be identified as weakness and she’ll be taken advantage of. What am I missing?

This parent has such great self-reflective ability, right? That she even says from the beginning, “this admittedly has quite a lot to do with me.” Her antenna is up, right? She’s ready to project into situations and may already be doing that. At the same time, she sees similar things happening to her daughter, and that’s terrifying, right? Things that we suffered around, we don’t want our child to do. But the thing is, we’re raising our children so consciously these days. Parents that are listening to advice, that are reading books, it’s a very different generation of parents than it ever was. And it’s reflected right here in this parent saying that she sees herself and she’s worried and she realizes that a lot of this is about her and her fears.

She asks, “What am I missing?” What I see is that this daughter is owning her power right now. And that’s the hard thing, is that power doesn’t look like we might think it does. The people that are trying to assert power by being mean and excluding, like I was saying before, those are the least powerful people. Those are the weak people. Cruelty is weak, compassion is strong. And this girl making a choice, even with sadness, making a choice to accept what’s going on, that’s actually very strong. I don’t know if this girl is showing that she’s stressed in other ways or anything like that. That would definitely be something to look at. But kindness and empathy is different from letting people walk all over us. And I’m not sure why this parent let people walk all over her. Sometimes that’s just not in our control, and I certainly had a hard time in adolescence as well. But her daughter isn’t necessarily destined to follow the same pattern.

The best way this parent could intervene is not to tell her these things that she realizes she shouldn’t tell her, that she should be mean back and get people on her side. That’s what the weak people do, that’s what the bullies do. No. Instead, owning your power like you do now. You don’t have to give it to these people. There must be other people in her community or from her preschool that she could reach out to to have a playdate with, to nurture those kinds of friendships. This is a great age to do that. And there will be people in her kindergarten that would appreciate her friendship.

That’s what I would do. I would nurture the strengths by letting her know that you believe in her. This is in a way like waving a magic wand when we have all these feelings and worries about it and we’re seeing ourselves. So this is a big reach, I realize, but that’s the direction I would go, maybe just in baby steps. She has choices, she doesn’t have to give these people power. And she’s already making choices to accept, to let it go, walk away. That’s the most powerful position to be in. And then maybe, yes, I would encourage her, not try to coax her to, but just say, “Is there anybody you want to have over? Is there anyone we could make a plan to do something with?”

Staying one step behind her in this journey, with all the confidence in her that you can muster. The confidence that you wish you’d had in yourself or that maybe someone encouraged in you. Because she’s not showing any sign of not having it. Kind and empathetic, again, those are the kind of powerful tools that are what get you to win in life. Maybe it doesn’t feel like it these days, but I really believe in that. She can walk away, but if she wants to choose to navigate with those children, that’s where we have to trust. And that’s so hard, I know, but I think with all of this self-knowledge and self-awareness this parent has, she can definitely do this because she already sees this is about her.

This parent says things like, “I’m terrified her kindness will be identified as weakness in kindergarten.” It sounds like it would be helpful for this parent to work on self-calming. I don’t know who she’s talking to about herself and these residual feelings that she has about how she had suffered. I would try to keep that separate so that you can give your child what she needs, which is belief in her and this reminder, also, that she doesn’t have to give her power to those people. But again, it sounds like she’s already got that message and maybe she could help the parent learn it. And this is where kids can teach us something, they can help us learn. Oh wait, she’s approaching this in a much healthier way.

So again, teaching her about owning her power by this parent, not giving so much power to everything that’s going on with her, and trusting her daughter to navigate, with her support.

Here’s one more:

Hi, Janet-

I have a particular scenario that I would love some guidance on, please. Our daughter is five years old and is an only child. She’s social, happy, caring, and a well-adjusted kid. She has a best friend, girl of the same age, and they’ve been friends for the past few years, attending daycare and now school together. We are family friends, so on the weekends and in holiday periods we often see them a lot, as we all enjoy each other’s company.

My daughter and her friend are very comfortable and familiar with each other and because of that, they often act like siblings, bickering and doing things to annoy each other to try to get a bite. I look after them once a week after school and I find their bickering triggering. When they’re in my care, I often notice my daughter’s behavior more than the other child and end up telling my daughter off. I try to be calm and neutral, but I can’t help but pick up on my daughter’s behavior more. On the odd occasion, I have shouted and have immediately regretted it.

My child is strong-willed and more confident than her friend and says things like, “You’re shy” or “I’m better at X than you,” which feels mean, and I wonder why she says this. When she says these things, she knows she gets a response from her friend and then her friend gets upset and runs to me. I know my daughter senses my annoyance and discomfort, and I’m also aware that because I have one child, I’m not used to having to work through sibling conflict. When we have play dates with other children, we do not have the same behaviors as she’s probably not as comfortable with the other children. And whenever she’s at other people’s houses with friends, etc., I’m told she’s so well behaved.

Any guidance or tips would be greatly appreciated. I suspect it’s a normal kid thing and that it’s me who needs help to accept and learn to support in the right way. Thanks for all you do for us parents helping us navigate our way.

So here the table is turned, right? This parent is focusing on her child being the unkind one in the situation. And I just love how these parents know themselves so well. She says at the end, “I expect it’s a normal thing and it’s me who needs help to accept and learn to support in the right way.” I’m not going to be one to point fingers, but yes, it is almost always about us, right? She says she finds their bickering triggering, but right in the beginning she says that they’re both teasing each other, doing things to annoy each other.

And it’s a really common thing in my classes, it’s always the parents of the child who takes the toy from the other child or pushes or hits, those are the parents that always feel the most uncomfortable. Not the parent of the child who got hit, but the one who’s doing it. It’s so hard, right? Again, this is about power, though. And this can give us a clue into the behavior of some of these other children, not the children of the parents who wrote to me, but the ones that are bothering them. That perhaps the parents of those children are sometimes giving their child’s negative behaviors power. Because again, that is how children can get stuck.

In this case, it does seem like this is a mutual thing and that this parent is struggling with her daughter’s side of it. But if she could know, and I think she does know on some level, that letting go of this and just being there to support both the children, in this case, is the kindest and most helpful thing that she can do. Not trying to fix her daughter’s behavior, but just supporting either one of them when they need support. So when her friend gets upset and runs to her, then that’s when I would say, Oh, what happened? And, Oh, you didn’t like that. And I wouldn’t come in and scold my daughter for this, but really just staying in a supportive role with that child. Oh, she did what? She really did? Oh, you didn’t like that, huh? That doesn’t feel good. Did you tell her?

Whatever we’re getting from that child, we can reflect it back. We want to only make it as big a deal as our child thinks it is, or that child, in this case, the other child. It’s so easy for us to fall in the trap of now we’re taking the ball and running with it. But it’s not our ball. Those children just need us to support them in what they’re doing. And that’s how this parent can take any power she’s giving to this situation out of the picture, allowing it to play out and allowing the children to learn from it.

The role is actually very clear, but that doesn’t mean it’s always easy. Because we are going to see things in our child and other children that we don’t like or that we’re afraid of or that we worry about. That’s being a parent. The challenge is to hold onto that trust in them throughout. And to know when we have our own experiences and we feel our own judgments coming in. Those are getting in the way of us being able to see clearly and do what our child needs, which is to see our child in all their imperfections and believe in them in their journey. In this case, this behavior is happening in front of this parent, right? And it’s not happening with other children, apparently, that she hears about, so that’s a big sign there that her daughter’s getting caught up in the power of this behavior with her mother. We have the power to not give power to that.

I really hope some of this helps. And I know these situations can be thorny, these social situations with our children, and it really is hard to trust that they have what it takes. But if your parents don’t trust that you have what it takes, it’s hard to believe in yourself. So I believe in you, and I believe that you can be your child’s supporter and be the one to help them choose to give their power where they want to give it, and then to trust those choices.

I really hope some of this helps. Thank you so much for listening. We can do this.

And if you haven’t already, please check out my self-paced course for parents HERE!

The post Rejection, Exclusion, Teasing—What to do When Friends Aren’t Kind appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Transcript of “Sleep, Baby, Sleep (with Hari Grebler)”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.

Today my guest is one of my most favorite people to talk about all things parenting with: Hari Grebler. She was my very first parenting guide, the person who first encouraged me to see my baby with new eyes, as a whole person, deserving of respect. And this changed my life. Hari’s been a RIE associate—that’s Resources for Infant Educarers associate—for over 35 years now. She studied with Magda Gerber, like I later did. She is also a Pikler pedagogue and she’s trained as a Waldorf early childhood teacher.

She joined me here on Unruffled a year ago for a very popular episode, “Every Child, Even a Tiny Baby, Deserves Time On Their Own.” Hari teaches weekly parent-infant and parent-toddler guidance classes, she consults privately, she holds workshops. You could check out all her wonderful offerings at harisriestudio.com. And I really love what she wrote on her website bio right here: “Through Magda and RIE I became familiar with the world of infants and learned that respect could be communicated through everyday interactions.”

And today, Hari has promised to share with us on sleep, beginning with infants. How can we set ourselves and our babies up for healthy sleep right from the beginning? Hari often has surprising ideas to share, so I’m really looking forward to this.

Hi, Hari. Thank you for joining me here again.

Hari Grebler: Thanks for having me.

Janet Lansbury: I was hoping we’d talk about a topic that tends to be controversial for some reason: sleep, including sleep training and what that means. I love how you’re always able to cut through things and give this really commonsense advice. But I don’t even want to call it common sense because it’s really more like uncommon sense, I feel. And I, for one, find it very comforting. It’s always spot on and simple, kind of like the way Magda Gerber always shared.

I’ve really appreciated your feedback over the years. And now you have this wonderful Instagram account, Hari’s RIE Studio, where you offer uniquely brilliant, warm advice about a lot of things, including sleep. So what’s some of the basic advice that you like to give parents around sleep or things that you followed yourself?

Hari Grebler: Yes. I mean, I only will give advice that I tried. I just remember when my son was about five months and I thought, Oh my God, when’s he going to sleep? And I thought, Oh, do I have to get help? And then I thought, Well, I just have to do what I told other people to do over the years and sort of what Magda taught us, too.

My very favorite and best tip ever in the world is from the very, very beginning when you see your baby tired, even the littlest baby, to say, “Oh you seem so tired. I just saw you rub your eyes. Come, let’s go get ready for bed.” And that’s it. I wish people would just take those moments to say that to their baby, all the different ages. Because they’re bringing awareness to the child, a simple awareness, and they’re having an action with it. I see you’re tired and now I’m going to pick you up and let’s go get ready to rest, ready for bed. There’s a giant payoff. No matter what you do after that is not as important as doing that initially.

Janet Lansbury: Because you’re approaching it very positively, for one thing.

Hari Grebler: Yeah. It’s not like, Oh, this is a bad thing. Well, this is the other thing that I think happens is, before you even have your baby, sleep sounds scary. I mean, people scare you, I think.

Janet Lansbury: Right. You’re never going to sleep again and all that.

Hari Grebler: Yeah, you’ll never sleep again.

Janet Lansbury: And well, that’s true.

Hari Grebler: You’ll never sleep again. You need to have this, this, and this. You need blackout curtains. You need a sound machine. You need the snoo. And so with all that, you’re inundated, it gets so hard to come just to, What would I do and what would my baby like? It just removes us away from knowing our child before we even have a child.

Janet Lansbury: Right. You’re putting all those things in between you instead of trusting that this is a natural process. Obviously we’re all given this ability to go to sleep, it’s how we survive.

Hari Grebler: People want to sleep. Remember Magda, just how much she loved sleep? She was always late for class. And not just loved sleep, but loved her bed. And that’s how it can be for babies too. They can love where they sleep, wherever you sleep. And I’m not saying it has to be here or there, I think that’s the personal decision of the family where the baby sleeps. But I think that people need to take a look at the baby as a whole person that gets tired, that’s awake, now they’re hungry.

Janet Lansbury: Yeah. And getting in that practice of observing, because even before the eye rubbing, which is so classic you almost feel like it’s a cartoon that your baby’s rubbing their eyes because they’re actually tired. But before that, and I was never good at this, there are all these signs. Your baby is a little more dazed the way that they’re looking at things or their movements are slowing down or they’re kind of speeding up. Those early signs that come even before the eye rubbing and the yawning and all of that, that it’s best to catch.

Hari Grebler: It would be great if you can, but I always say eye rubbing because that’s sort of universal, that people can start there. Because the other things that you’re talking about are a little more subtle. But for sure maybe an hour after the baby wakes up, they’ve been playing and then it’s not going so well for them anymore, right?

Janet Lansbury: Yeah. They’re not focusing.

Hari Grebler: Or like you say, they’re just gazing out, so it’s important to look, to observe.

Janet Lansbury: Or it’s just that time element, which is so short. Okay, they woke up, they were fed, they had their diaper changed, and now they’re playing. And then it’s like, okay, boom, they’re tired, it seems like two seconds later sometimes. So knowing that that’s going to come probably way sooner than you think also helps.

I wanted to go back for a second to what you were saying about “you’re tired.” Even when I hear that, I can hear my parent’s voice saying “you’re tired” in that kind of I’m really disappointed in your behavior and you’re being a jerk way. And I think my kids sometimes took it that way, although I never meant it that way. It’s like, Don’t say I’m tired! I’m talking when they’re a lot older than infants, of course. I wonder sometimes if “tired” is like they’re copping out somehow, they’ve done something wrong and they’re tired and you’re exposing them or I don’t know. But I got a little pushback for that sometimes. And so I think I used to say more, “Do you feel sleepy?” I don’t know, for some reason that word, maybe because I had a bad feeling about it and I never used it the way my parents did, but somehow it came off like that anyway.

Hari Grebler: I guess that happened to me too. It’s like, oh, she’s tired, all your behaviors. I feel like that’s much older, that’s like a five-year-old or a four-year-old. But I think this idea of “tired” being positive and starting from the beginning makes a difference. It could also be, “Oh, you’ve been playing for a long time. I saw you rubbing your eyes. Come, I’m going to pick you up and let’s go get ready for bed.” Or rest, whatever it’s going to be. And it’s just taking those moments before you pick the baby up to let them know, Oh, I noticed that. I noticed things aren’t going so well for you right now. Come, let’s go to bed. The language is your choice. But I think older kids do take offense if you’re blaming all their behaviors on whether they’re tired or not tired. Yeah, I agree.

Janet Lansbury: Which could actually be the reason for their behavior.

Hari Grebler: Yes, it could. Well, I mean, if we want to go there too, I get calls, well, I had one the other day, it’s a good example. They were explaining that she’s hitting them a lot and doing this and doing that. Then so I ask, and that’s what I always ask, is my first question, tell me about her sleep. And of course it was about sleep. And there’s nothing else you can do with behavior until you sort out the sleep, is what I think.

Janet Lansbury: Because that’s part of the dysregulation, they’re just not themselves.

Hari Grebler: And they can’t help it. It’s not fair to try to discipline or do this or that with a kid that is tired. So the goal of that call was to take a week to notice when do you see her first being tired? Whatever sign that is for them. That helped me, I know, when my child was about five months, watching and seeing when they were tired, that things just weren’t going well.

Things were also so simple. Keeping things simple, that’s another important piece too. Keeping life simple. So if you’re going here and going there and doing so many things, then you don’t really get a chance to observe. And if you take time, even if you’re not always just at home, but let’s say just for a few weeks you stay at home and you see after they woke up from their nighttime and then they go to play, you’ll see clearly when they’re getting tired. It’s really obvious.

Janet Lansbury: But it’s not something we can really compare to how we feel because we underestimate how much they give to every experience, how much of themselves. They play with their whole bodies, they go to an event with their whole bodies, and it is so much more exhausting than the way we as adults compartmentalize and kind of do this and use this part of ourselves.

I remember recently a parent asked me about, she was appalled, she said, we had this amazing birthday party for my child, who was I think five years old. They’d spent a lot of money, they’d done all this planning, it was like the best of everything. It went beautifully. And then the next day their kids wanted to go do that bouncy, the parkour or whatever that is, their favorite thing. And she took the girl whose birthday it was the day before and her brother, and they were just terrible. They were misbehaving, they weren’t listening, they were screaming, they were doing all this stuff. And she couldn’t believe it. Look what I did and look what happened!

And I believe I wrote back and said, they’re exhausted from what you did the day before. And this is the really unfair thing about children is that they get topped out way before we would. And so we can’t base anything on how we’re feeling. We really have to be observant of them and know them and also just be ready and be prepared that they’re going to be tired when we least expect it, maybe.

Hari Grebler: It’s really common that somebody will say, I took them out, I did this, I did that. I got ’em this, I got ’em that. And then when I said, oh, they couldn’t have that, just like total meltdown. It’s like, well, they’re so exhausted, they’re so tired. And then adults respond with “You’re ungrateful.”

Janet Lansbury: Yeah, because it seems that way.

Hari Grebler: It does look that way, but it isn’t that way.

Janet Lansbury: Right.

Hari Grebler: They’re overstimulated, overtired.

Janet Lansbury: Yeah. So let’s talk about more simple. Well, first of all, I want to hear about the five months without sleeping. Knowing this approach so well and then your own child not sleeping. Did you just kind of wait it out, or what did you do?

Hari Grebler: Well, I think that when they’re really little, a rhythm will come, but it’s not there from the beginning. So I think that it was really natural what was happening for me and for my son. And I remember going to my friend’s house, she was in our RIE class. We went to visit, I took Arthur and her baby was there too. And she’s like, “Okay, she’s going to have her nap now.” And I’m like, what? And then she said, “Yeah, well she had her two-hour nap in the morning and now it’s her next nap.” And I was like, how did you do that? I was just jealous. And I thought, what am I doing wrong? And she told me this book that she read and was going by this book.

I actually had the book, but I’d never read it, I kind of got it more for work. I came home and I read it and I thought to myself, no, I’m not doing that. I’m not going on this person’s rhythm. I’m going to find my son’s rhythm. I’m not going to impose a rhythm on him. And so from that day forward, I just watched really carefully. We had a rhythm of getting up in the morning, being fed, very much connecting together, diapering, changing, and then he would go to play. And this started from a very early age. So it was around five months where I knew I had an hour. After being very close and very intimate with him, he would go to play, and I had about an hour to get a coffee or eat some breakfast or something.

But at the hour, I had a little chart, I know that’s kind of nerdy, and I just watched and observed and I saw when things weren’t going so well for him, that was sort of his sign. And then maybe an eye rub or a yawn, I’d see a yawn. For a week, every day I ticked off and it was like 9:00 every day, there was a complete rhythm there. So around 8:45, I would go and get him and wind down and prepare for sleep with a little sleep sack or change the diaper, have some closeness, and then he would go to sleep because he was tired. That’s how I found his rhythm.

Janet Lansbury: So you felt like you were working harder at studying that, making the chart and everything, than you had been previously? Or you feel like he just needed that amount of time to even find his rhythm?

Hari Grebler: Yes, I think he needed that amount of time. I think when they’re little, it’s just they’re tired, they’re awake, they’re asleep. I still think we have to pay attention, but—

Janet Lansbury: Yeah, they’re falling asleep and their tummy’s upset and then they’re waking up.

Hari Grebler: Yeah, there’s so many things in the beginning. So it was around 5, 6, 7 months that we really fell into a rhythm that was his, and it was fantastic. It really gave me more freedom myself. And I remember Magda talking about that. People will say, I don’t know if people have said this to you in your class, they don’t want to do the same thing every day, every hour. They worked hard not to have to do that, not to go to the nine to five or whatever. But what they have to see is the more rhythmic the life of the child is, it gives them more freedom to do what they need to do and want to do. That’s what I think.

Janet Lansbury: Yeah, because their child lets go into all these experiences with that confidence of knowing what’s going to happen and this is how it’s going to be and this feels right and I’m used to this and all those things.

Hari Grebler: And I think a really important part of sleep and being able to go into sleep is being very well connected in the first place with an adult. And also having that time, like we talked about last time, about having that inner life, that time to play. A time where someone’s not talking to them, asking of them. I think that all goes together.

Janet Lansbury: Where they’re also free to move their bodies.

Hari Grebler: Yeah, there’s a reason for all of it. You can’t separate sleep from play from caregiving.

Janet Lansbury: And the fresh air, even having a place to play outside is amazing.

Hari Grebler: Or sleep outside if you can. When my son was really little, I mean we had one of those little bassinet strollers so we could put it out in the garden to sleep. That was really nice.

Janet Lansbury: Yeah, I tried to do that. I had a pack ‘n’ play out on our little porch and everybody in the neighborhood was doing construction, it seemed like. I had this romantic ideal from the children at Lóczy, which for people that don’t know is Emmi Pikler‘s center where she had children, and they would all take their naps out, even in the snow or the rain, they would sleep outside and get their ruddy cheeks and had a place that was a covered porch where they could all take their naps. And oh, I just really wanted to do that. But it didn’t work out so well for me, it was more like a frustration.

I think that’s part of it too. It’s like what you were saying before about relaxing into that your child just hadn’t found it yet. There’s so many psychological things around sleep, I find. And I’m finding this now because for myself as I’ve gotten older, sleep is not easy. And I go through periods where it’s really, really hard. I’d never had that my whole life, I was always a great sleeper. One of the best bits of advice that I read, it was at the end of all these other things, like no matter what, wake up the same time, try to go bed at the same time, do a wind down thing. All the things that we know with children. But then the last one was: and don’t worry about it, just let it go. And that’s the part that has helped me the most, being able to let go and not trying to control it, not trying to worry about it, not thinking, Uh-oh, I’m not going to sleep very fast. This is going to be bad and I’m going to need to go take a pill or do something. Really just knowing, Okay, eventually you’re going to go to sleep, you know how to do this. So what if it takes a long time?

Hari Grebler: And I think anxiety is what interferes, for the adult anyway. And for the child, the anxiety of the adult. Somebody trying to make somebody fall asleep, I just have issue with that. There’s a difference between putting someone to bed, however that looks, but just all the things that people do to make someone sleep. So I feel like we go in with they have to be asleep, instead of just in bed. And one tip that I got is all you can do is put them to bed and you don’t make them sleep. And you just continue when they’re tired to put them to bed. You know what I’m saying?

Janet Lansbury: And what if they’re crying?

Hari Grebler: Well, you can be with them. I’m not going to let them just be in there crying.

Janet Lansbury: But do you pick them up or do you let them stay there?

Hari Grebler: I would hold them. A lot of crying before sleep is a release. And that’s something that is important to acknowledge. A five-minute cry sometime, it’s just a big release. And they don’t have to be alone in a room to do it. If you want them in your arms, they can be in your arms. I would tend to have that.

One unique thing about me and sleep is I didn’t used to leave the room. You know how people are like, I’ll put on the machine and close the blackout curtains and I’ll tiptoe out. I don’t do that and I don’t recommend it either. In my mind, if you think about Emmi Pikler’s place where the children were eight in a room or a family that has a room with more than one child, and it’s very unique to us that there’s one person in a room all alone.

Janet Lansbury: And that it’s such a controlled environment. I think that’s that psychological part, too. We’re trying so hard to control it and make the perfect thing, like you said, to make them go to sleep. And that ends up backfiring on us because we’re stressed about it.

Hari Grebler: And the older kid, your older kid has to be quiet and then you’re mad at them and you become the sleep police, sort of. And it doesn’t really feel good to anybody.

Janet Lansbury: No, it’s too much pressure on us.

Hari Grebler: And especially to the child. Someone’s waiting for them to go to sleep. That’s not a good feeling.

Janet Lansbury: And then if it’s not working, we’re blaming ourselves and getting frustrated and all of that is making it all worse.

Hari Grebler: When my son was really little, I’d lay on the bed, I’d read, I loved to watch this process. And we’d look at each other and I would sing maybe sometimes and just be there. With my daughter I would tidy up the room, I’d make the bed. They were in my room for the first year. We’ve turned it into something incredibly precious and scary and hard. And this was a little more lighthearted.

Going back to newborns, when you say, oh, you’re not going to get that much sleep, how I dealt with it is calling it fairytale time. I’m up, I’m asleep, I’m awake, it’s the middle of the night, I see the moon. It’s okay. I’m talking about the newborn phase. And hopefully most, if they can, they’re with the baby. So I’m talking about that very early stage of just letting things be more easygoing around sleep. And not have all the stuff. I don’t know if you have any memories, but I have a memory of driving home from my aunt’s house, it was kind of a far drive, and falling asleep but hearing everybody talking around me.

Janet Lansbury: Oh, totally.

Hari Grebler: Yeah, like a blanket.

Janet Lansbury: And then pretending I was out, so my dad would carry me in.

Hari Grebler: Yeah, yeah, that too. And it was just so sweet. And we take away the sweetness of the home by putting all the other things in. And it’s just like, oh, they’re washing dishes, they’re talking to each other. Oh, there’s someone singing. I hear the dogs barking or the chimes or whatever it is. I know if you have construction going on, that’s hard. But I’m talking about mostly—

Janet Lansbury: Natural sounds, not chainsaws.

Hari Grebler: Yeah. And the siblings and not having to worry. This is the thing, both my kids are completely different people than each other. And sleep was the same for them. They want to go to sleep when they’re tired. And to this day, I mean they’re older, but yeah.

Janet Lansbury: My daughters were like that. My son was a different story, but I did all different things with him because he wanted it and needed it. And I ended up getting into it, lying with him in the bed until he went to sleep. When he had a bigger bed, I wasn’t lying in a crib, I know some people do that. But lying with him in his bed with this little hand on my heart.

And then I was thinking about this lately because one of the things I’ve done, I went through this whole thing this year where I wasn’t sleeping very well earlier in the year, and I get a hot water bottle and I put it on my chest, actually. And it reminds me of when Madeline, my second, used to take naps and she would fall asleep on my tummy or my chest and it was so nice and comforting.

And I mean those memories are precious, I wouldn’t give that up for anything, either of those. So it’s okay to do what we want to and need to do and to give in to certain things.

What do you think about the people that believe that if you don’t train right at a certain time when they’re young, that you’re not giving them what they need or it’s not going to work? Obviously you don’t agree with that?

Hari Grebler: I don’t. And I just see a different way.

I want to go back though, because I love what you just said about how wonderful it was to lay with him. And I want people to know that we’re not talking about how you put them to bed. We’re just saying to notice them from the beginning and see what they need, not what people told you they need or not what a book says they have to have. If your child is too tired, you’ll know. And sleep is as important as food. That’s what they say. And I was going to say too, I’m talking about a rhythm, not a routine that goes by the clock.

Janet Lansbury: Although I do agree with Magda, and I’ve found this of course with my own sleep training that I’ve had to do with myself lately, finding my rhythm, that oftentimes when it’s a problem, it’s because we’ve caught it a little too late. And that’s even true for me. I have a window and if I miss my window, it’s just going to be harder, a lot harder.

Hari Grebler: I know that people say that and I appreciate that you noticed that for you. I did not find that with my kids. But I would do experiments when they got older. We’d be having fun and playing games or something and I wouldn’t say it’s time to get ready for bed. And I’d just wait and see what would happen. They always would say, “Could you put us to bed now?” They’d always ask.

Janet Lansbury: Because you made it into something like, I see you, I see what you need, and let’s go help you right now.

Hari Grebler: And also it was pleasant. It wasn’t anybody standing there, laying there, really wanting them to go to sleep. It’s the vibe. So yes, you can lay there and be totally relaxed and just this is heaven and that’s great. But I think a lot of people do feel that they have to be asleep before anything else could happen. I never had that feeling. You want me to tell you a funny story?

Janet Lansbury: Yes.

Hari Grebler: So I am guessing around three years old, three-and-a-half maybe. and we went to someone’s house and it was that thing where they don’t want to leave, that screaming I don’t want to leave! thing. And so I said, “I’m picking you up and we have to leave.” And it was a real downpour, real storm outside. And I carried him kicking and screaming, got to the car, and then I was able to put him in. And he was mad. And we got home, which was very close, and he got out of the car. And he took his hat, he was wearing a beanie, he just took it off and threw it down in a puddle. And he looks at me and he goes, “I’m going straight to bed!”

Janet Lansbury: Turning the tables on it. Instead of parents saying it, You’re going straight to bed, young man!, he is using it against you.

Hari Grebler: Yeah.

Janet Lansbury: I’m not going to listen to your stories, mommy.

Hari Grebler: Yeah. He’s like going, I am so tired!

Janet Lansbury: That’s what we want.

Hari Grebler: That’s the result of letting them know that you see what they’re all about, what they’re feeling. Bringing their awareness to, You rubbed your eyes or things are not going your way, you’ve been playing for a long time or you yawned and come. It’s inviting. And whatever space they’re going to be in is also inviting. It’s somewhere you also like. So whether it’s your bed or a crib, whatever it is going to be for you and your family.

And not to go on automatic, that’s the worst. I’ve seen people right when they’re born and they think they have to bounce them asleep, and they never even waited to find out if that baby wanted to be bounced. Mine hated to be bounced.

Janet Lansbury: Did you try it?

Hari Grebler: Yeah.

Janet Lansbury: I never tried that. I did try the swing, somebody gave us a swing. And my baby got this look on her face, she just looked really out of it, and it was disconcerting.

Hari Grebler: I’d never had that ball, the birth ball, and I never bounced like that to get my kid to sleep. I just want to say that. I said I did, but I didn’t.

Janet Lansbury: It’s okay if you did.

Hari Grebler: But what I did do sometimes, you know how you kind of bounce, they’re upset, or you hold them like that. Well, he would tell me not to, he did not like it.

Janet Lansbury: He’s like, I don’t want to be dizzy. I’m already upset.

Hari Grebler: And I remember just being pregnant with him, when I went to sleep, he went to sleep. When I woke up, he woke up.

Janet Lansbury: My son was the opposite. As soon as I tried to sleep, he was kicking me all over the place.

Hari Grebler: Most kids are, well this one wasn’t. And that’s why he didn’t like it when I did that.

Janet Lansbury: That’s so interesting how they’re the same person from when they were that little.

So I just want to talk a little about sleep training. And I don’t even really know what it is. People will say to me, like they’re trying to nail me to something that they think is true about me, Oh you believe this or that about sleep training. And I say, because this is how I honestly feel, “I don’t know what you mean by that. Can you tell me what it is?” Then they act like I’m trying to be evasive or it’s like you’re supposed to know what this “sleep training” thing is.

To me, it’s like gentle parenting. What even is that? Oh, I do gentle parenting and this isn’t working. Well, what are you doing? What do you consider gentle parenting? When I started calling this work respectful parenting, that was because nobody knew what RIE was. And instead of me trying to explain that online, I thought, I’ll just say this. But then other people say respectful parenting and it doesn’t even still mean that anymore. So all these labels, I just feel like I don’t know what they are.

But the part of sleep training that I would not recommend or just wouldn’t feel right to me. I don’t have any judgment of people and I feel like how can there even be controversy around parenting? It’s really what helps you and what speaks to you, what resonates with you. And you should be able to do that or try it at least, no matter what other people are saying. I don’t understand why there would be arguments about anything to do with parenting. But to me, training sounds like it’s some regimented approach. Like you said, I’m not going to put somebody else’s rhythms on my relationship with my child. My family’s rhythms, I want to find my child’s rhythm. So what doesn’t feel comfortable to me about sleep training is that It’s like they’re saying this is the set thing that you do to get this unique individual to sleep. And I just can’t see how that would work in terms of thinking of our babies that way in the long term, or even in the short term. It doesn’t seem to be a relationship-centered approach, which is what I believe in.

Hari Grebler: I agree. I don’t feel like RIE is behind sleep training. I’m not. You’re not. And what is sleep training? Sleep training to me is a set of rules, like you say, and it’s putting the baby in and letting the baby be. And they talk about all kinds of things.

Janet Lansbury: What do they talk about? I don’t really know. I haven’t researched it.

Hari Grebler: Well, leaving the baby to cry, and I feel like there’s a difference between a five-minute cry in your arms or even longer in your arms. I feel like that’s different than a baby being by themselves. The question that we were talking about earlier, I just don’t think that they have to be by themselves.

Janet Lansbury: But also there’s different kinds of cries and there’s cries that are not that distressed. And you could say, “You seem like you’re having a hard time getting to sleep. I’m going to go wash my hands or whatever and I’ll be back to check on you in a few minutes.” I don’t see anything wrong with that. It’s not like I’m going in the hall, looking at my watch and going, okay, I’ve got to do 10 minutes and I’m faking it. It’s not like an artificial, contrived thing. It’s just, Okay, let’s work together here. I wanted to go do this. It feels like it’s not helping you to have me here right now, maybe you need to let go a little. So let’s try that.

Hari Grebler: It’s tricky because everybody wants the baby to go to sleep, to be asleep. It’s such a big subject, it’s so hard. I mean, someone said, why don’t you do a workshop on sleep? And really and truly, I want to work individually with people on sleep. And I think the things we’ve said here are good starts. I think it’s good in the beginning, if I do a prenatal, what I can tell people is try not to create a habit that wasn’t there before. Don’t create a need that’s not a need. So that’s like bouncing on the ball.

Janet Lansbury: Yeah. Think in terms of the bigger picture right from the beginning.

Hari Grebler: Yeah. You don’t have to start that. Don’t make it so like, Oh, they’ve got to get to sleep! like that.

Janet Lansbury: But I mean, let’s be honest, I definitely wanted my day to end with little kids. I was ready for them to be asleep and my day to end, and it was hard to feel like the day ended when they were still awake. So I did want my kids to sleep. But I just knew, or I’d learned, that they’re so aware, they’re reading everything, they’re feeling all your vibes. And there’s a letting go that has to start with us. If we don’t let go, they can’t let go. Even if we’ve got a lot on our minds, we kind of have to be with them and exhale and let it go, the agendas and everything. But I mean, I can’t say that I didn’t want them to get to sleep really badly.

Hari Grebler: I also wanted them to get to sleep. I mean, Magda wanted them to get to sleep. Magda was like, put the kids to bed and then go have dinner with your partner or your friends, have people over. She was really about balance for the adult and the child, together and apart. And I feel like I had that from her.

You can see some pictures of babies sleeping with such abandon. That is a real sign of I feel really good. And you see some kids that are holding onto something, just looking for something. And I don’t know, that seems harder. And even Pikler talks about the picture of the baby is kind of indicative of their day.

Janet Lansbury: I never heard that. Yeah, I was thinking Madeline used to sleep on her back with her hands clasped under her head and her elbows out, like she was sunbathing on the beach.

Hari Grebler: So she was relaxed. She’d had fresh air. She got to move her body. I mean, imagine trying to go to sleep and put your baby to bed after they’ve been in the swing, they’ve been in a walker, they’ve been in the stroller, in the car. All the different things that they’ve been in without ever stretching out. See what I mean by not being able to really separate it? Because as we talk about sleep, I keep hearing in my mind, Oh, someone’s going to think that we’re just throwing them in the crib and walking out of the room. But it isn’t like that. It just isn’t like that. It can be a happy, joyous, peaceful, just such a nice feeling to get into bed.

And Magda used to say, Just set the scene. It just gets calmer and calmer and calmer. And I’m mostly talking about the little ones, I really am. But I mean, as you do this with the little ones, you give more to the older ones in a sense. They need you more. Maybe you’re going to tell stories, maybe you’re going to sing songs, they’re going to have their bath. All those things are symbols for what’s happening next. And it’s important to start with the baby with those symbols. The bath is always good as a part of the ritual. First there’s dinner, then there’s the bath, then there’s the pajamas.

All those things are very intimate and close and full of the adult and the child, so separating isn’t so quick to go to sleep. I’ve just been with you, I’ve been talking to you. I’ve been asking for your foot and your hands to help with the pajamas. And we’ve been playful and we sang songs. By the time they go in the crib they’re like, Oh my God, stop talking to me. I’ve had it. They’re so filled up, in a good way, but then they also need their own time.

That’s why I always kind of feel a little bit sorry when people feel like they have to make them sleep. They don’t have that opportunity to feel before they sleep and have some fun before they sleep. My kids want to play around a little bit before they sleep or maybe they’re talking or I don’t know, they’re just doing something. And they wake up the same way, when they wake up in the morning. If you rush to them or they’re right there and you just get started, they just want to kind of hang and relax. I want to do that in my bed, I don’t want to get straight up. But we do that with babies all the time. We put ’em in, we want ’em to go straight to sleep. We get ’em up, we want ’em to come up and play.

My daughter cried for the first six weeks, cried, cried, cried. And I remember like, Oh my God, my son wasn’t like that. What’s happening here? And the moment that I stopped feeling that franticness when your tiny baby is crying so hard, which they do and nobody really tells you that they could cry for the first three months. When I realized number one, she was probably very tired. And number two, that I just had to relax, taking those deep breaths, sighing, just letting her. And that’s when we really started to turn that corner for her. I mean, lucky I did RIE because I didn’t put her in a swing and I didn’t try a ball and I didn’t try all the things. I just held her and let her cry when she needed it. And that was how we turned the corner.

Janet Lansbury: The good thing about that is it’s a lifelong approach right there that we can start early. I mean, the other things are only going to last a certain amount of time or we’re not going to be able to do them anymore, bouncing, swinging, rocking. But I’m not talking about the soft kind of rocking, more the rocking where there’s nothing about it that’s relaxing for the parent or the child. It’s just a way to get to sleep. All those things have a lifespan, but this idea of letting our babies share with us, you can tell all that stuff to me, that’s something we can take with us to the end with our kids.

Hari Grebler: And imagine crying and being rocked out of it instead of held. I feel like there’s a difference.

Janet Lansbury: Yeah. It’s like when you’re angry and somebody wants to just, Oh let me give you a big hug.

Hari Grebler: It’s also not allowing for the feelings, for the feelings of, This is really hard for me. I’m so tired and maybe I am too tired or whatever I am.

Janet Lansbury: Maybe there was too much going on today. Too many guests or people.

Hari Grebler: And then just being in your arms without an agenda.

Janet Lansbury: Yeah.

Hari Grebler: It’s hard. It’s really hard.

Janet Lansbury: It is hard. It’s hard, but it passes and we all find our way.

This was big for me, to get to hang out with you and talk with you and hear all your wisdom. I really appreciate it.

Before we go, you can find Hari on Instagram at Hari’s RIE Studio. And also, didn’t you say that you had something new that you’re offering for parents?

Hari Grebler: It’s called Hari’s House and I’m going to be showing my house, I’m welcoming you to my house. Everybody can come over. And I want to show the principles of Pikler RIE respectful parenting and how we translated it and what it looked like at our house. I have video, it’ll be like a workshop.

Janet Lansbury: So people can get an idea of how the whole day could look.

Hari Grebler: Yeah, the environment inside, environment outside, caregiving, free play, meals, just all the principles.

Janet Lansbury: That sounds great. Okay, good. Well everybody check that out. And it’s going to be on your Instagram, right? You’re going to show how to sign up?

Hari Grebler: Yeah, I just sent you a little link too.

Janet Lansbury: Oh, perfect.

Hari Grebler: Thanks, Janet.

Janet Lansbury: Alright, thank you, Hari. And we’ll talk again soon.

Hari Grebler: Okay, great.

Janet Lansbury: Alright, bye.

Hari Grebler: Bye.

The post Sleep, Baby, Sleep (With Hari Grebler) appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Transcript of “Secrets to Talking to Kids About Anything”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.

Today I’m going to respond to notes I received from three different families who all are asking, How can I say it? How can I tell this to my child? In one case, it’s about a new relationship that this parent is in after being separated from her child’s father. Another one is about setting a limit that a child isn’t accepting and they keep asking and asking and asking after we’ve given our answer. And the third one is about these parents’ choice to move out of a neighborhood where their children have been settled for their whole life and have friends, and there’s obviously going to be feelings involved.

So those are the three topics I’m going to be specifically talking about, but this advice I’m offering applies to anything that we want to talk to children about. It’s also the way to talk to them that helps them to listen and accept what we’ve said. It all boils down to talking to children with the same respect we would with an adult. Children are different in so many ways, but they deserve the same human respect in communication, and you’ll find that’s what they respond to best. I’m going to explain what I mean by that in a moment.

I’m going to start off with the first note and then I’ll talk about the really simple advice that I’m going to offer. The first one:

Thank you so much for all the wonderful content. My daughter is six and your podcast and articles have helped me so much over the years.

My daughter’s dad and I have been separated for three years and co-parent 50/50. I’m in my first relationship since the separation and I’m wondering when and how to introduce my daughter to my partner. Do you have a podcast or article with any advice?

Thank you for your help.

Here’s the advice that I’m going to actually give to all these parents, but I’ll talk about how it specifically applies in each case, to talk to our kids about anything and be effective. Meaning that they will listen and be able to be receptive to what we’re saying not just in this instance, but generally. We tell them in simple, age-appropriate terms so our child can understand. We want to be genuine and honest, so that also means direct. We’re not talking around it or whitewashing something. We’re really being fearlessly open about it. Be clear, speaking right to what’s going on. And then the last one, be comfortable.

It was interesting. As I was thinking about this, I realized that the only reason we ever worry about talking to children about something, the only reason that’s ever an issue for us is this last part, being comfortable. We’re anticipating it’s going to make our child uncomfortable in some way when we say this to them. That’s what makes the whole thing hard, right? It’s easy to talk to kids about things that we know they’re going to be excited about. We’re going to Disneyland, yay! We don’t have to ask someone like me how to say it. But when we’re worried about our kid’s reaction, that’s when it feels harder, when we think we might not be effective. That’s when it’s more challenging for us to get comfortable so that our child can feel us talking to them simply, genuinely and honestly, with clarity and comfort.

That doesn’t mean we have to comfort our child and make them feel better about it. It just means that we’re comfortable. And what are we comfortable with? Our child’s reactions. We’re allowing them their right to feel however they feel about what we’ve said.

The way I see it, this is the key to freedom for us as parents, a feeling of freedom. Not that we’re going to like it when they get upset about something we’ve said or they ask us awkward questions or we could see that they’re having a reaction that’s emotional. We’re never going to like that, but we can perceive that as this really positive part of communicating and really, really positive for the element of trust in our relationship. That our kids can trust that they’re allowed to share with us their disagreements, their discomfort. Their wish, in this case, that we didn’t have a boyfriend, that we still wanted to be with their dad or that we wouldn’t have anyone else but them that we care about. If we’re not afraid of those things because we know those are healthy for our child to express, we can say anything. And that’s the freedom I believe we all deserve to feel as parents. It’s that trust in ourselves as leaders, that we’re making choices that we’ve thought hard about, probably.

What if we believed that however our child reacted to what we said is the perfect way for them to react? Not perfectly fun for us, but perfect. It’s not ours to change or soften or to calm down, to make better in any way. Nor is it our job to punish because we don’t like the way they’ve responded. Obviously if it’s something physical that’s not safe, we’re going to help them stop that. But as far as the way they’re feeling about things, that part we’re allowing. Then we can again be free to say anything without that trepidation, but instead with the knowledge that this is healthy and positive for them to get to express.

Anyway, this seems kind of like a mild one for what I’m talking about, but this parent says that they’ve been separated for three years, she and her daughter’s dad, they co-parent 50/50. She’s in her first relationship since the separation. She’s wondering when and how to introduce my daughter to my partner. I would start by sharing with my daughter that I’ve gotten to know someone that I really care about and I’m excited for you to meet them. This is their name. That’s all we have to do.

And then the part that maybe we’re nervous about, which is our child saying I don’t like this or I don’t want to meet them, that has to be okay with us. And if it went beyond just saying they weren’t happy about this situation or crying or letting us know that they really refuse to meet the person, then with a six-year-old, I might wait a little and say, “Okay, let me know when you’re ready” or “This person’s going to come by and pick me up, but you don’t have to say hi if you don’t want to,” something like that. But we don’t want to get into something where we’re trying to talk our child into, Oh, they’re really nice. You’re going to like them. Just really keeping it simple and genuine and clear and comfortable ourselves, and that’s all we have to do.

That was a simple one, right? Here’s another one, this one’s a little more entailed:

My husband is a pastor and we’ve recently made the difficult decision to accept a new divine call in a new city a few hours away. This decision was made largely because it will put us 25 minutes from all grandparents, their sister (who’s my stepdaughter), and my husband’s and my hometown.

My son is five, supposed to be starting kindergarten in the fall, and has lived here at our current call his entire life. We spend three hours in the car one way very frequently to visit our daughter who lives with her mom and our family. The long six-hour road trips have grown increasingly difficult, which is a big reason we are making this big change. We also have a three-year-old daughter. They both are very sensitive, deep-feeling kids. Both of them desperately need more adults in their lives. They’ve become so attached to my husband and I that this change simply needs to be made. We can’t go any further on this path.

My son is struggling very much with this idea of moving away from his now-lifelong friends, parks, the zoo, and all other special parts of his life and routine. I need some advice on handling the feelings of this move. We’re trying to push the “family being closer” factor, as he detests being in the car for these long drives, but I can only affirm and agree that it will be difficult to leave our loved ones in our current city. I’m sad about that too, but I know we can handle this and come back to visit every now and then. I’m truly nervous to take my kiddos, especially the five-year-old, out of his environment. I put on a strong front, as I know I need to model going through the change with grace. Feeling the feelings, but still going through it confidently.

Any advice on how to truly and age-appropriately communicate what’s happening to the kids, and what to do during the big bursts of emotion? Like I said, currently I acknowledge their feelings and admit that things are changing significantly, however, we’re doing this for the betterment of our family, even if it doesn’t feel like it right now.

Lastly, my son is freshly five with a May birthday. I’m considering holding him in preschool until he is six because going through these two huge changes at the same time seems like a lot of pressure that could harm his confidence. I’d really love your input.

This parent is nailing all the different feelings that any of us would have going through this. She knows it’s the right thing, but it’s not going to be smooth. The children aren’t going to make it easy on her unfortunately, and that’s not their job and it can’t be their job. What I want to encourage is this idea that we really can be simple, genuine and honest, clear, and then this hardest part: comfortable. Comfortable with your discomfort, comfortable with you missing all your friends, saying No, I’m absolutely not going to leave! They get to express all of those things. And the more room we make for them to express them, the less we get in the way of that, the more we see it as positive and healthy that they’re sharing their grief about the losses of these different things. This is part of life, right? And this is the time, in these early years, when we can encourage in our children a healthy process around change, loss, and all the feelings that go with that. The anticipation, the fear, the excitement, the sadness, the missing people, loneliness.

A couple of examples this parent gave show that she’s doing the normal thing to do, which is trying to convince them that this is going to be better because we’re going to be closer to family. I think once we’ve said that once, it will help if we really don’t stay on that part. If instead we’re more willing to be accepting of our children’s point of view, not trying to convince them of ours. Really just telling them how it’s going to be, being clear about what’s going to happen, honest about how we’re all going to miss so many things here, and really letting them go there. There’s nothing to fear about that because again, the more they share, the more readily they’ll pass through these feelings. It’s just the way it works.

If we can give space for that without acting on the impulse almost all of us have—actually, I don’t know anyone that doesn’t have it—to try to convince them about the good things that this is going to be, how positive this is going to be. Almost like we’re convincing ourselves, right? This parent was very honest that it’s going to be hard for her too. And of course, wouldn’t it be nice if our children didn’t make it harder on us? But these are two separate things. One is our feelings, which are ours to feel and process and allow ourselves to feel as well. Ideally not falling apart with our children, but with our partner or our friends, we can talk about that.

But then our children get to have their right to feel what they feel. And that helps the children to get more comfortable sooner in this new environment, because they got to share how uncomfortable they were. They get to share that for as long as it goes on, without any pushback. We’re not taking on as part of our job that we have to make that better, we have to do something with that. We just almost encourage and want them to say more about that. If we could get to that place, it’s so freeing when we can start to really embrace this idea that feelings are healing when we let them be, when we really let them be.

This parent said she needs advice on handling the feelings of the move. So she doesn’t have to “handle” anything. All she needs to do is reflect, allow, welcome, try not to push back on. Because every time we push back, it’s almost like now we’re going to have more coming at us. It’s going to get more stifled, and then it comes out in different ways and it all lasts longer. So handle it by rolling out the red carpet for them to share it, seeing it as the most perfect thing that they could do. Nothing that needs to make us doubt our decision. She says, “my son is struggling very much with this idea of moving away.” Yes, it is a struggle and it’s a healthy one. For him to share that struggle and to vent it is the best thing he could do.

This parent’s making this choice for all the right reasons. I mean, not that it’s up to me to decide that, but she knows she’s making the right choice. But he doesn’t want to be away from his lifelong friends, his parks, the zoo. And even if there’s a bigger zoo where you’re going or a better zoo, more parks, that’s not something we want to tell him about there. All we want to do is say, Yeah, your park, you love that park. Whatever he’s telling us, we allow and reflect and acknowledge it, without any guardrails on that. That’s healthy. When you can feel that yourself and reflect on it and then have your parents say, Yeah I get it, to validate you in that way, that helps it all pass through. And that’s what we want, right?

This parent said she’s nervous to take her kids out of their environment. Think about it, what makes us nervous? That they’re going to have feelings. So if we don’t have to fear the feelings, we’re not going to be as nervous about it, right? If they didn’t have feelings, it would be strange! If they just said, “Okay, sure, let’s go and move to this new place. Yeah, we’ll do the new things,” that would be very odd and strange, and I would actually be concerned about that. Does this child have a sense of self and their feelings? So this is all exactly what needs to happen. And I would just love this parent, or any parent going through something like this, to be able to rest in that sense of comfort that, Yes, it’s supposed to be messy and emotional, this whole thing. I don’t need to worry about that part or doubt myself because of that.

And then she says, “truly and age-appropriately communicate what’s happening” to the kids. So I would tell them all the things: we’re going to go in the car, we’re going to have this new house. Invite them to be as involved as they want to be. “Here are the boxes. We’re going to pack your stuff. Do you want me to help you? And you can do this with me.” Give them all the appropriate choices to help them feel a part of this, that they’re not just passengers to these changes.

But really the key is the big burst of emotion, as she says, what to do during the big burst of emotion. And what to do is nothing. What to be is open, welcoming, validating if there’s anything to say, really validating. But if you can’t go there, then just nodding your head and just reflecting back what they’re saying.

And then she asks this other thing about her child having a May birthday and should she wait for him to go to school. I think more will be revealed on that. I’m wondering if she could have the school play a part in that and have him play a part in that. Where he gets to go look at the school, maybe talk to some teachers, maybe there’s a summer program he could be a part of. And for you to take your time deciding on that if you can. Because it’s not always the right choice for children to have another year in preschool. Maybe this is controversial that I’m saying this, but for some children it’s more comfortable for them to be with children more their own age and not be the oldest one. But for some kids it’s better to be the oldest one. So it really depends on the child and the kind of school that he’s going to.

But I honestly feel that what will help again so much is allowing her sensitive children to feel all the things. That saying, “the only way out is through.” I love that one, but I think it’s even more empowering as parents to think of it as, “the best way out is through.” The best way to get out of this thing where I’m worried about their feelings is to let them go through the feelings, to want them to go through the feelings. That’s what is going to work best. Children can face just about anything when they have someone that loves them that they can really share with. Someone that isn’t going to be trying to talk them out of it or feeling crushed that they’re feeling that way. A comfortable person to share uncomfortable things with. That’s all any of us want in life, I feel.

And when she talks about how the pressure could harm his confidence. Both of her children are going to get so much confidence from knowing that they can be resilient in this move, with all the messiness that’s going to happen throughout that. When they do start to get to the other side—which isn’t going to be like a smooth door opens and now I’m done. It’s going to still flare up. But to be able to be in that process as a child and know it’s okay to feel really awful one minute and then feel better, there’s nothing more confidence-building than that. As my mentor Magda Gerber used to say, “If we can learn to struggle, we can learn to live.”

Here’s one more:

Do you have advice for “only saying something once”? What do you do when your toddler doesn’t like that you said no, so they ask over and over again, making themselves into a pest, and I guess hoping you’ll give in? I’m not going to entertain such nonsense. I said no, and I meant it. So do I just ignore the building-up begging that I understand is just “attention-seeking behavior”? Ignoring seems like passivity. Today I put her in her room because she wouldn’t shut up after asking me to feed her a snack. She wants to be spoon-fed like an infant and I said, “No, the options are to eat it or not eat it.” But I think she’s probably seeking a connection, so I don’t know how to meet that need.

This is the kind of talking to children that comes up for us a lot beginning in the toddler years, where we have to say no or we have to set a boundary of some kind. I mean, the last parent’s note was about a boundary, in a way. She decided it was the best thing for them to make this move and they get to have their feelings about it. That’s the same here. Being simple, genuine and honest, clear, and comfortable.

Being simple would be saying, “I’d love to give you a snack, but I don’t want to spoon-feed you like a baby.” Because that’s how this parent feels, right? So that’s all I would say. Because from there, my child gets to have her reaction. I mean, this is how I feel, I know every parent doesn’t feel this way. But this is how boundaries work really, really well and how our children know that we can be the strong leader they need. Being a strong leader is about being all these things I said when we’re expressing ourselves: simple, genuine and honest, clear, and comfortable with the idea that you are not going to like what I said.

And the way children sometimes show that is they keep asking, they keep asking, they keep asking. But that has to be okay with us. We don’t have to keep responding, but I also wouldn’t ignore it because ignoring is kind of an aggressive response. We don’t mean it that way, but that’s how it feels to a child when we’re just deliberately ignoring. There’s a place that’s not ignoring, but it’s also not repeating ourselves, which this parent may have heard I don’t recommend.

So we’ve said it, we’ve been clear, we’ve been honest. I wouldn’t say the part about, “You have a choice to do this or you have a choice to do that.” I would just say the clear, simple part, what we are willing to do. “You’re welcome to have a snack, but I’m not going to do it this way for you.” And then when she asks again and again and again, we carry on with life, whatever we’re doing. But maybe every now and then we look and nod, Yeah, you’re still there. You’re still asking me for that same thing. I wouldn’t say our part again, “No, I’m not going to do that.” We’ve already said that, and we’re so comfortable with our choice and with our leadership role with her that we can allow her to have her discomfort that she really wants this so badly and please, please, please, please! There’s a reason children do that, and it’s because of the reaction that they get from us when they do, if that’s an ignoring reaction or a Now I’m at my wit’s end because you keep expressing this and I’m feeling pressured by that. That’s the part that we have to separate ourselves from.

We say it, we express it, and our child gets to feel whatever they feel in response. That’s their right and that’s their business, and ours is just to let that part be. And also to know that behind that is not even that she wants to be fed like a baby. There’s something else going on in this dynamic that she needs to be able to share in this really annoying way. I do realize it’s really annoying when kids keep doing that. But what’s annoying about it is that it’s making us feel uncomfortable, that we have to respond in a certain way, that we can’t let her keep doing this. Her holding on to something, that’s the feeling. It’s like, I’m just holding on. I can’t let go of this because there’s a discomfort in you that’s not allowing me to.

But when we can find that place of comfort with her discomfort, then our kids can kind of relax into that. When she sees that we’re not changing, but we’re also not mad at her for feeling that way, this will stop happening. So imagine that all these uncomfortable things, annoying things, maybe scary things that our child feels and does, these reactions, if they were all okay with us because we knew they were healthy and what our child needs to do to feel better, think about how free we could be to be ourselves.

This parent says, “I think she’s probably seeking a connection.” And at the end she says, “I don’t know how to meet that need.” So that’s the connection: Just see me, stuck in my pesty, annoying thing. See me, accept me. Just let me unravel like this, repeating myself again and again and again and again. Let that be a safe thing for me to do. That’s the feeling of connection, believe it or not. All these things, the child getting to scream and cry about his friends and his routines, the child in the first story possibly not liking this idea that her mom has a new partner, however that ends up looking. We don’t have to worry about any of that. We’ve done our job.

And every time we do this, our child will feel safer, closer. We will feel more confident because we realize, Oh, okay, nothing terrible happened by me allowing that. We’re helping them get on track right now to know that they can survive every discomfort, as long as we can still love them through it. And loving them through it means, I don’t need you to change for me. I don’t need you to feel better or not show those feelings or let go of things easier, or like everything that I do to validate me. You can be a child and I can be the adult that loves you and accepts you.

I really hope some of this helps, and thank you so much for listening. We can do this.

The post Secrets to Talking to Kids About Anything appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Transcript of “I’m Bad, I’m Stupid — Kids Being Harsh on Themselves”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.

Today I’m going to talk about an issue that a lot of parents have been asking me about lately. It’s when our children are saying unkind things about themselves, they’re getting harsh on themselves. And these parents want to respond in a way that’s going to help their children feel better, of course, but the responses they’re giving just don’t seem to be doing that, so they’re getting concerned. The feedback I’m going to offer actually also applies to children saying unkind things to us or generally acting out in that way, even behaving in unkind ways. So I really hope that this might help parents dealing with those kinds of issues as well.

Here’s the first note I received:

Hi, Janet-

My daughter’s seven years old and is extremely hard on herself. She’s constantly saying things like she deserves to get hurt, she’s annoying, nobody loves her, she’s stupid, she’s not good at anything. Every time she says things like this, it breaks mine and my husband’s heart. We do our best to stop and talk to her about it, but she shuts down, cries, runs away, or yells at us every time.

I’m not sure if I’m making a big deal out of something that is normal and typical for this age range. I’ve asked her in the past if she wants to talk to somebody about her feelings, and she’s adamant that she doesn’t want to and that would mean that she has failed even more. I don’t want her to feel that she’s in even more trouble than she already feels she constantly is.

She’s in first grade and does very well, but has been having a lot of issues with her friends. Her teacher says she just has a very cliquey group of friends who can be hard to mesh with, but she always seems to be left out at lunch and recess and doesn’t get asked over for playdates. I can’t figure out what came first, the lack of self-confidence and self-esteem or the friendship issues.

My husband and I follow a lot of your parenting style and she doesn’t get punished, she doesn’t get sent to her room, and she is an overall amazing, well-rounded, respectful, and kind kid. I don’t know what to do and I’m at a loss as to where to go from here. I would love any advice you could provide me.

As I often do, I wrote back to her, just to get a little more information. I said:

Can you tell me a bit more about the context for these comments she makes about herself? When do these statements usually come up? What’s going on at that time? I’d also love to hear more about how you set boundaries with her. And do you have other children? Has anything else been going on with your family besides her dealing with first grade and these clique-ish friends? Also, one more thing: when you talk to her about it, what kinds of things do you say?

Just so you know, you’re not alone. I have another note on this issue from a parent and I’m thinking I’d like to respond to them and to you in a podcast episode.

She wrote back, and I’ve edited this down because it’s quite long:

As far as context for the comments, it is usually after she makes a mistake or does something she perceives as wrong or hurtful. For example, if she tells her younger sister she doesn’t want to share a toy and then her sister cries, she’ll say, “I’m so annoying” or “I’m the worst person in the world,” sometimes even before my husband or I come into the room. If she’s writing and writes a letter backward, I know that if I point it out, she will immediately cry and say she’s stupid.

Other times, if she’s having a hard time and crying or yelling at me or my husband and we push back and remind her of the rules in our house, she will start by telling us the typical (I think!) hurtful things like, “I hate you” or “I wish I wasn’t part of this family.” Then when she calms down, it turns into, “I’m the worst. No one loves me. I wish I could bang my head open.” She apologizes when she’s calm whenever she’s said mean things or done something hurtful. At times she will try to physically hurt my husband or me, but never her sister. And we connect and talk things through, but she never says she doesn’t believe the things she said about herself.

She also will say things in moments of calm, though, and that’s what’s harder for me to understand. During our bedtime routine, sometimes I’ll ask her to name two or three things she loves about herself or things she did that she was proud of that day. Or in the morning, to look at herself in the mirror and tell me what she sees, etc. She always goes negative and will say, “I’m not proud of anything. I see an ugly girl. I don’t love myself. I’m the worst.” If I push her, she will bury her head under her covers or look away from me, seeming ashamed. At most, she will say she thinks she’s a good artist or is good at making friends.

As I said in the original email, I do not send her to a room or take things away from her when she’s struggling. I try to connect with her and talk it through. Her shame is so overwhelming, though, that even once she’s calm hours later, she cannot look me in the eye and talk to me about what happened or how to change things the next time it happens.

This parent went on to talk about the friends and the social situation. She said:

Unfortunately, no one really asks her for playdates unless I initiate. She’s so perceptive that I think she’s taking in every little thing from other kids. Unfortunately, she takes it in and turns it negatively towards herself. She has perfectionist tendencies and takes critiques to heart.

I know some of this is normal and typical for children of her age, but the complete lack of self-confidence and love is something I can’t figure out. Is this something I can continue to talk through and work out with her and build her confidence through my own strategies and techniques (though I don’t know what else I haven’t tried yet) or is this something bigger?

I’ve tried talking to her about it. By this I mean I will wait for her to be calm and ask her why she did that, what makes her feel this way? Did anything happen that makes her think this? Did I say anything that hurt your feelings? And she will turn away from me, cry, run out of the room, yell at me. “I’m just stupid! No one likes me, that’s why. I deserve to be hurt. I should be out of this house, alone.” I’ve tried simply telling her we don’t say mean things about anyone in this house, ourselves included, and I’ve tried ignoring it completely. I struggle with these, though. I worry she cannot feel the love we’re giving her and it breaks my heart.

That’s a lot of helpful information, right? And I said:

One more question, if you have time. Can you give me an example of how you talk things through?

Then she wrote back:

Sure. She’s a very picky eater, so dinners can easily be a source of big emotions. If she doesn’t like some or all of the dinner, she might tell us she hates us and we are the worst. Then we will remind her that our family doesn’t talk like that and to please try again. Sometimes it works; sometimes she spirals and will stick her tongue out, scream more, say more hurtful things.

She will eventually calm down and I will sit with her in a quiet space or she will just come straight to us and apologize. I’ll ask her, “What happened?” or say something like, “I understand you didn’t like dinner. You wished we had mac and cheese.” And she’ll say, “Yeah, I was so hungry today and I couldn’t wait to eat, and then I saw a gross dinner and I got angry.” Sometimes it ends there. I’ll say, “I get it. Dinners can be hard. Thanks for talking to me,” and give her a hug and move on. Sometimes I’ll ask her, “What would you have done differently?” Or say something like, “Do you know why you can’t say things you said or do things you did?” When it’s just about words, she can think of other things to say or articulate herself well. When it comes to her behavior, she usually can’t think of anything else she could have done, despite multiple suggestions from me in the past. This is when she will cover her head, run away, or ask me to stop talking about it, which I usually do.

So many thoughts come up for me with this parent, who’s obviously very considerate, very loving, making every effort she can think of to help her daughter feel better. And I can feel this parent just kind of wringing her hands as to what’s the right way to go, the right thing to do. And in the meantime, her and her husband’s hearts are broken, she says. That right there makes everything very hard. Because we’re doing what we do as parents, which is taking it very seriously as something that we’re deeply doing wrong. Maybe there’s something seriously wrong with their child. It all feels very heavy, right?

Here’s the pattern I see here, that I feel is getting in the way of what this parent is trying so valiantly to do. She’s doing the normal thing that most of us want to do, which is we want to do something to make this better. We want to say the right thing, do the right thing, we want to fix it. And this is so well-meaning on our part, it’s so loving, but it gets in our way. Because when we’re doing, we’re not going to see as clearly. And when we’re doing it with broken hearts, that’s going to get in our way too. Not that we can change that part, but what we can change is to stop trying to do so much. Because what happens when we’re in doing mode and fix-it mode is that we end up kind of pushing back on what our child is saying, instead of hearing them, and that gets in the way of our connection.

In this case, this child is taking it out on herself most of the time. But children going through stuff can also lash out at us in different ways, physically or with words. As this girl sometimes does when she says “I hate you” and “I don’t want to be in this family.” What’s happening there is that they are hurting in some way and they are unable to ask for the actual fix that they need, which is just more acceptance from the parent and to be—we talk a lot about this—but to be seen, to be accepted, to feel like they can share with us without us trying to put a spin on what they say or make it somehow better. That we can actually say all the things and feel all the things. I mean, it doesn’t mean we always love their behavior or the things that they say, but we can allow them to share those.

So what’s going to always work better than doing or saying the right things? (And I know social media parenting advice probably encourages that, right? Because it’s so much about, Here’s this one thing you can say or do that will change something! And I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that, but it’s limited. And it’s especially limited in situations like these, where the doing is what’s misconnecting or not connecting and getting us stuck.) Instead of doing, what we want is being. Being open, being curious, being comfortable enough with ourselves in the situation and accepting enough of our child that we don’t let this small, momentary stuff get in the way. Because that’s when we miss the forest for the trees.

And in this case, the forest is that yes, she’s feeling sensitive. And it really sounds like it’s to do with the first-grade social stuff. That can be a tough year. It’s challenging for all kids academically, and then the social part is even more challenging. She has this cliquey group at her school and she’s on the outside of it. So yes, she’s feeling sensitive about that, I’m sure. She’s taking that very hard, and the way that’s coming out is her being hard on herself.

This parent asks several times if she really means this or if it’s just something she’s saying, if this is some deep-seated thing she’s feeling. My take on that is that yes, she means it. Not in some pervasive, deep-seated way, but in the way that young children feel things, which is in a passing way. She’s kind of self-shaming with it, which of course we don’t want her to do if possible. But the first thing we have to do is see that and accept that that’s what’s going on, and see the hurt that’s there. And the hardest part of all for us as parents is not feeling threatened by that. Not taking this to heart ourselves, but hearing it as a need for us to be more open as to why she’s saying this, to what’s really going on.

One of my thoughts about this is to be kind of a shame detective on ourselves, just to notice there are things that we’re correcting that maybe we don’t really need to correct. Because a lot of what we want to correct is unnecessary small stuff, like the backwards letter. She’s writing a letter and it’s backwards. So the doer in us, maybe there are even some perfectionistic tendencies in us that lead us to want to tell her about that, right? It’s a struggle to let that kind of stuff go or to let the language at the table go or to let the way she’s talking about herself go. But really, this is getting in our way. She’s going to learn about the direction of the letters eventually. She doesn’t need us to be on her with that, and we don’t need to be the person who does this.

Instead, there could be more room for her to feel accepted in her discomforts right now. Which do sound like they’re about these social challenges, and we have no control over that part as parents, none. But what we can do, and this is what I’m suggesting, is nourish her self-acceptance and confidence at home.

Now, the way to do that unfortunately isn’t asking her about what she likes about herself or what she sees in the mirror. The problem with that is that kids, they feel us working there and that does the opposite of build their confidence. It feels like we’re trying to make this better, we’re trying to get her to stop doing what she’s doing, instead of really understanding it and accepting it and being able to connect with her where she is.

“What could you do differently?” I would let go of that idea of talking to her about what she could do differently, because generally she knows and you know what she could do differently. And what that’s doing—without this parent meaning to—is shaming. It feels shaming when you know that you’ve had a blowup at dinner and now you have to talk about why you shouldn’t have done that and what you should do instead. And that doesn’t mean that kids don’t need to learn these things, but this isn’t the way for her to learn them, in my opinion. At this time, when she’s going through this, we want to be shame detectives on ourselves and not be shaming her in ways that are unnecessary, because she needs us more to lean on the side of acceptance and being open to her.

So instead of trying to build her confidence with these kinds of strategies and bringing up these certain things, just be interested. Not in what you could do differently, but, Ah, you’re really having a hard time. I see that. And it’s coming through in these places, like with dinner today, and then that other time with your sister, and most of all in these feelings about yourself. You feel so bad. I’m so glad you’re sharing this with me. It’s hurtful to feel that about yourself, isn’t it? It must feel terrible to feel like no one loves you and that you even want to hurt yourself, because you feel so bad.

And then silence.

This is the most challenging thing for a lot of us. I have a post about it called “Braving the Silence.” This is where, first of all, we’re not afraid to say all the things that our child’s been saying about themselves, these scary words that we would rather they weren’t saying. And we want to say, “Say something different! What else could you say?” or “Let’s hear some good things about you.” Being able to openly share in an accepting way, to bring up these scary, inappropriate-seeming words our child’s using, even. Like, “You hated that dinner. You felt so bad about it.” And, most importantly, “You don’t like yourself. You feel like you can’t do anything right and that no one likes you.” And to leave those alone and not be trying to spin them or fix them or say anything about them, just letting those feelings have a life.

This is one of the most challenging things, and yet it’s so simple. We can go there without any complicated scripts. It’s just reflecting on what your child actually is saying they’re feeling and not saying anything more. Letting that be. And this is what will give us the strength as a parent to be able to do this. This parent said, and this is the part I would focus on: “She is an overall amazing, well-rounded, respectful, and kind kid.”

There she is.

None of these things she’s saying or doing in a moment of venting change that or could ever change that. This is also reflected in her relationship with her sister, which this parent says is mostly great. There you go. That’s the her that we want to support, in all her ups and downs.

And right now the downer is the shame she’s wallowing in. Less fixing and correcting and doing, more openness to her. That’s how we can support her, and that’s what she wants more than anything. I know this is challenging, but it opens up so many things that we want with our kids: that connection, them to feel better about themselves, because they know that we accept all of these things going on with them.

There’s already been flashes where this child shows she has a very trusting relationship with her mother and feels accepted. This will open up more of that.

This little girl apologizes. That’s great. She sounds like she apologizes without even being asked to apologize or anything. There’s so many positive things going on here. I would just like to encourage this parent, and any parent going through anything like this, to focus on that and make room for the rest to be shared. Where there’s no pushback, no judgment, no shaming, no I want answers, no Try it this way instead. Shouldn’t you do it another way? And instead, just letting the feelings be.

And here’s another note on this topic:

Hi, Janet-

I’m wondering if you could help me find an old episode of your podcast. I know I’ve listened to one or more where you touched on shame in kids, making comments like, I’m bad, stupid and how to respond. I’ve searched and I’m not finding it, but this has been coming up recently with my older daughter and I don’t know how to help her. Thanks so much for what you do. She’ll be six next month.

I wrote back:

What is the context in which your child says these things? How do you respond? How old is she? I’d love to try to help.

She said:

It depends. She has said something along the lines of “I feel like I’m bad” after I’ve corrected behavior, asked her not to do something, or gotten onto her in some way. When that happens, I respond with, “No, you’re a good kid who just made a bad choice.” She has also a couple of times called herself stupid. That’s less frequent, but it’s happened a couple times.

She’s learning to read and write and, depending on the time of day, she can be easily frustrated in the evenings. And I’ve told her, “Oops, that letter is backwards.” Not making a big deal about it, but lightly letting her know so she practices it in the correct way. (We’re not forcing her to practice, she does this for fun and writes books, etc.) And she will say she’s stupid. My response to that is usually lighthearted, “Be nice to my girl. And no, you’re not stupid at all. You’re still learning.”

She’s in a challenging phase right now and I understand she has a lot going on. She’s a kindergartner, so that’s big and brand new, even though the year is wrapping up. She is a pretty sensitive kiddo. And we also have an 18-month-old. So I try and cut her a lot of slack with her feelings, but I’m feeling like maybe the way I respond to her is not producing the desired effects, especially now that I’ve heard her negative self-talk lately. I appreciate any advice you have.

This one is probably easier to see, because it’s less involved. She’s concerned her child is doing these things, she’s trying to respond in the right way that helps make her feel better, but it’s still a doing mode that she’s in.

And these are sweet things to say. As adults, if someone said that to you, a friend or whatever, “Oh, come on, you’re just learning. Be nice to my girl,” that would feel good, right? But with young children, they’re just exploring all these different feelings in themselves and she’s finding herself in this self-shaming mode. The most healing thing would be to have her parent be able to meet her there, just like with this other parent, to be able to meet her there and embrace that girl.

We make these very well-intentioned comments like, “No, you’re a good kid who just made a bad choice.” It’s really hard, first of all, for kids to separate that they did something bad from they are bad. So I probably wouldn’t necessarily use that word “bad” on my end, “made a bad choice.” But I could still open up to her saying that she’s bad, and this is how that might look:

Whatever she did, the parent corrected it and then she said, “I feel like I’m bad.” So there’s an opener right there. Our child is giving us these beautiful missives: Here I am. See me. I’m putting it out to you, the ugly things, the uncomfortable things. What will help us is to see these as precious overtures that our child is making. Even when they’re things that make us uncomfortable to hear, I don’t want her to be saying that about herself.

So, for a start, I would be careful about how you’re correcting her. That’s all in my book No Bad Kids and in my master course. Because there are ways to do it that aren’t getting on her case so much, that are just like, Ooh, that’s not cool, honey, can’t let you do that. Maybe acknowledging that she wanted to do that. That non-judgmental correction is the most helpful kind.

And how bizarre is this, that this parent actually had the same thing where she’s told her, “Oops, that letter is backwards.” How interesting is that, that this exact same detail both these parents had with their kids? Here again, it’s kind of unnecessary to tell her the letter is backwards. I know people would argue, Why not just tell her?

But why? I mean, sometimes that’s coming from us wanting it to be fixed more than it’s really coming from helping our child, that we are afraid that she’s going to get it in her head that that’s right or something. But eventually she will learn. The fact that she wants to do all this on her own, she’s very self-motivated and she will notice that herself. And that’s always the most powerful way to learn something too, when we notice it ourselves and we discover, Oh wow, look what I’ve been doing all this time. And then we take that in, without any criticism from our parent.

Remember, kids are so vulnerable to us. We’ll never have someone else like this in our life, that cares so much what we think. And even if they’re a teenager and they’re not saying that anymore, they care so much what we think about them. So we do want to take care in the way that we correct them, in the kinds of things that we feel like we need to point out to them. And this is one that I would totally let go of.

But anyway, now she’s saying she feels really stupid. And that’s where I would be like, “Ugh, you’re tough on yourself when you make mistakes, aren’t you? That makes you feel stupid, because you did something wrong? Because you did a letter the wrong way? I’m sorry to hear that.” So we’re showing her through our tone, be nice to my girl and that we don’t think she’s stupid at all, but we’re not saying it that way. We’re just open to the feelings she’s having. Letting go of the doing and instead being. Being accepting, being open, being receptive. We have to be accepting to be open and receptive, all of those things go together. This one adjustment can make all the difference.

And we want to know, right? We want to know what’s going on with our child and why they’re feeling that way. And unfortunately we’re not going to find that out by probing and asking. We’re going to find out when we allow them the emotional space, filled with acceptance and safety, to get to that point where they can say more and understand more about themselves. When they’re responding to our well-intentioned pushback, they can’t do that. Kids take more time to figure these things out, to even know why they’re saying what they’re saying, or even know what they could have done differently in that situation. They have a slower processing time, so give them that time and so much more that they need, give them that acceptance, give them that feeling of self-confidence, because a lot of that is based on our responses.

But also know that self-confidence and self-esteem aren’t some fixed thing in children. They aren’t even fixed in us as adults, but especially not in children. They are always growing and changing and developing. So there’s so much we can do here and so much that we don’t need to worry about, just be aware of. We have a lot of power, and it starts with accepting ourselves so we can accept our child and then they can accept themselves.

I hope some of this is helpful. Thank you so much for listening. We can do this.

The post I’m Bad, I’m Stupid—Kids Being Harsh on Themselves appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Transcript of “My Boy Seems Anxious, Sensitive, Easily Overwhelmed… Is This Normal?”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.

Today, what I hope I’m going to be doing is encouraging you. Especially if you have a child who seems extra anxious maybe, they’re sensitive, they get overwhelmed. Maybe it seems like they’re different from their peers or other kids that you see, and we worry. So that’s why I thought it might be helpful to share that several people have written to me about this topic recently. While maybe this is a less common temperament, or it seems to be, a lot of children have it. I relate to it, where maybe we’re a little awkward socially. Maybe it could be referred to as reserved, introverted, slow to warm, shy, I guess, although I never love that term. Maybe because it was used about me by my parent in a disapproving way, like telling people when I wouldn’t say hello right away, “She’s shy,” and I could tell that that wasn’t a welcome way to be.

But is this a deficiency? Is this a problem? Is this something we should be ashamed about? Absolutely not, in my opinion and in my experience. Because children that have this, they can do just fine when they’re one-on-one with a friend, socializing in small doses or in ways where they feel like they have some control over the situation, but when it’s kind of unmanageable and coming at them, it’s unsettling and exhausting. Like I said, I relate to this kind of temperament.

And what I would like to help these parents do is, well, they’ve all asked if they need to do something to help their child. What should they be doing differently? They’re getting a little frustrated, they’re obviously concerned. One of them had this subject line: “Encouragement Needed.” So that’s why I said right from the beginning I just want to encourage these parents to trust their children, accept their children, and therefore support their children to be who they are. And I want to talk about some of the things that get in the way of us being able to do that.

I’m going to dive right in. Here’s the first note:

I’m a long-time listener and this is my first time ever writing in to anything, but I’m paranoid that I’m ruining my child. My son is three years old and very independent. He’s always been very comfortable playing by himself, or so it seems. Even when he’s with friends he enjoys, eventually he will get tired of playing with them and walk away and do his own thing, even if they’re at our house because he wanted a friend over.

He does seem to get overwhelmed easily. During his own birthday, everyone shouted “Happy birthday!” and he buried his face in my shoulder and bit me hard. I had to ask the kids to sing to him quietly. He will swim with his dad or I individually, but if someone else shows up, he no longer wants to stay in the pool. When kids invite him to join in dancing or play, he will join if it is one kid. But if another kid comes, even if it is one that he knows and likes, he will not join. He will just hover around the group. I try to ask him privately if he wants to join, and I offer to hold his hand while he asks if he can play.

But there are some times where we’re all having fun and he will try to do it with us and then will suddenly stop or leave and do his own thing. Do I go after him or let him do his own thing? I’m so lost. I’m not going to lie, sometimes I feel shame. Not about him, but because I want to do fun things with him. He always pulls back and retreats. He loves when I sing and will sing along, but if I sing or dance out of the house, he gets so overwhelmed.

How do I support him? My husband says he can’t force us to stop dancing or singing every time, and he’s doing a normal thing by leaving and doing his own thing if he doesn’t like it. But I want to show him it’s okay to get overwhelmed and maybe in the future how he can regulate himself when he is feeling overwhelmed. I don’t know.

Thank you for any advice you have.

Yes, so this child is showing all the signs. He’s independent. I mean, that’s a good thing, but when it comes to navigating with others, it’s a little more challenging for him. He gets easily overwhelmed. It sounds like he’s taking care of himself quite well. He’s managing this, not exploding at his friends or doing something that’s inappropriate, but he moves away. He sounds pretty competent around taking care of himself and his needs in these situations, and he’s only three years old.

“He gets tired of playing with them and he walks away and does his own thing, even if they’re at our house because he wanted a friend over.” Yes, so he wanted the friend over, but it just got too much for him, too exhausting, and he needed to move away. That seems reasonable and understandable to me.

Then she said about the birthday that everyone was shouting happy birthday, and he buried his face in her shoulder and bit her. Well, obviously we don’t want him to bite her, but that is a sign that he’s overwhelmed and doing this very impulsive behavior that children do when they’re just trying to deal with feeling overwhelmed. So that wasn’t okay, but it just got too much for him. And I think it was great that the mom asked the kids to sing more quietly.

And then in terms of somebody else coming when he’s in the pool and he doesn’t want that, that makes sense. I mean, especially in a pool, it’s something to navigate in itself, being in the water. Then he’s got his one parent there, and when other people come, it’s too much.

So all of this to me seems very, very reasonable, including that he can sing and dance with us at home, but if we’re singing and dancing out in public, that’s uncomfortable. I mean, you could ask my children about me singing and dancing in public and how unwelcome that was maybe until just recently. Oh, even now, as adults, they would probably be mortified. It would be too much for them. But anyway, I’m not laughing at this parent’s concern.

And she says she’s paranoid that she’s ruining her child. So I don’t see anything she’s doing as ruining her child. And when she says that she wants him to know it’s okay to feel overwhelmed, that’s actually the message that he’s going to get when she allows him to take care of himself in the ways that he’s choosing to. The appropriate ones, not biting her, but the other ones like moving away, getting out of the pool if he’s not comfortable with the vibe there. That is teaching him that it’s okay to be overwhelmed.

I think what she might be worried about here is if she’s supposed to teach him to get over being overwhelmed, that that shouldn’t be getting in his way or he shouldn’t be handling it the way that he’s handling it. And while that makes sense, and he may grow out of some of this, that’s actually going to give him the opposite message: that it’s not okay for him to be overwhelmed, that she wants him to feel better when he’s overwhelmed and just manage it and continue with whatever he was doing.

I just want to encourage this parent to see this as typical behavior, that she doesn’t have to do something to fix this. Maybe just work on accepting more and having reasonable boundaries so that she’s not trying to accommodate him. So when she says that she tried to help by asking his friends to sing more quietly, I wouldn’t consider that that she’s accommodating by helping him to feel less overwhelmed. Because I think that that’s very reasonable, if kids are yelling it really loudly and you know that you have a child or you see that you have a child who’s not comfortable with that, that you ask the friends lightly, “Let’s sing a little quieter, because this is a lot for him.” So she’s helping him to manage that situation a little bit better, but she’s not trying to rescue him from it, move him away or get him out of there, tell all the kids to leave or something. That would be more accommodating the behavior, which does tend to feed into it.

I have some more comments about this note that I’m going to share in reference to all three of the notes. For now, I’m going to move on to the next one. This was the “encouragement needed” note:

I’m an avid follower and, as a first-time mom, I’m very thankful for the immense help that your work has provided me for the last five years since my son was born. I didn’t think I would come to this point where I would write to you. Today it feels like I lost it.

A quick background on my son: his temperament has always been on the reserved side. He was born in the pandemic and it was just us with my husband in the house. In the rare occasions that we see relatives, he would cry so hard when they try to cuddle or even just give the slightest attention to him. I would give him space by telling them he’s not ready and we just keep a distance that is comfortable to him.

At four years old, we send him to a playgroup to sort of prepare him, and us, for kindergarten. His socialization improved a lot, but still we can see him cry sometimes, even after a year in the same school. During his moving up pictorial, his pictures were either in tears or sad looking [and she put a sad face]. My observation is that he’s extremely anxious around social situations involving interaction or performance with new people.

While for the past four years plus I’ve tried my best to trust him and not force anything on him, today I felt really exhausted. We enrolled him for football class, which he has enjoyed with his dad since a couple of weeks back. However, he’s extremely clingy during the class and won’t stay in the group without us. We are just at a stone’s throw away, but he still cries if we don’t stay beside him.

He’s the only one in the group acting that way. Even the younger ones, who would lose focus or get shy for a time, don’t cry and just go back to the group after some time. Admittedly, this made me more frustrated. He is tired because it is his nap time, but he has acted better in similar no-nap cases before, but without a crowd.

I feel that we might be missing something here. Any practical advice or words of encouragement? Other than this, he’s a bright, sweet, calm, and caring kid.

This child also, she refers to him as reserved. He’s sensitive, he’s easily overwhelmed. He’s not a big-group kind of kid, at least not at this point in his life. And he’s emotional about it, which is a positive thing because sharing the feelings helps him to move through the feelings.

She mentioned about the relatives, that he would cry so hard when they try to cuddle or even just give the slightest attention to him and that she would tell them that he’s not ready and we just keep a distance that is comfortable to him. So I’m not sure what age that was happening, but there may have been a little bit of messaging there, that this parent didn’t mean to give, where she was being kind of protective of him there. I’m not sure how this looked or how it played out or what her mood was like when she was doing this. If she was light and just matter-of-fact about it, Oh, let’s give him a little more room, but not really trying to rescue him there, which of course that’s an impulse that we all have. There’s a line there that would help him more than if we’re intervening too much. And that line is where he can express some of these feelings with the people that are coming too close to him and we can help them to read that this isn’t working for him a little bit more, so he has more of a chance to move away or work through some of this himself.

Then the playgroup, it sounds like that was a great thing for him. And she said, “we can still see him cry sometimes, even after a year in the same school.” Crying when you’re feeling stressed about something, crying when you’re feeling sensitive. That’s, again, a positive thing and something we want to encourage and for ourselves, if possible, see as normal and healthy. But she said, “during his moving up pictorial, his pictures were either in tears or sad looking.” That’s a transition. And if they made a big deal out of the ceremony, that can be intense for a child that’s sensitive like this. Again, I would try to see it as positive that he’s expressing that with his expression and his tears, that he’s not holding it all in.

And she says, “my observation is that he’s extremely anxious around social situations involving interaction or performance with new people.” Whenever we have these observations, they’re usually spot on. And I’m sure that’s spot on, but I would not see that as something negative that we have to change. And that’s what she said: “For the past four plus years I’ve tried my best to trust him and not force anything,” but then she got exhausted because of the football class. So a football class for a five-year-old, that’s not something I would think of as comfortable for a child with this kind of temperament. With the playgroup, he could probably move away if he was uncomfortable and maybe his mom was there and he could go sit with her or something. But this is a lot for a child this age that is more sensitive to other children and groups. So even here, his clingy behavior makes sense.

But this is where I would do something that I want to suggest to all these parents, and that’s have reasonable boundaries. Reasonable boundaries around what you’re willing to do and allow him to do. And where the reasonable boundary comes in here is that I would not continue with this class if he couldn’t allow you to sit in a reasonable place and feel free to come to you if he needs to, but not expect you to be right next to him. It’s understandable that that would be frustrating and exhausting for the parents. We need to have a boundary there for ourselves so we’re not doing this thing that gets to be ridiculous where we’re right next to him and he’s trying to be in a class and play football.

You may have heard me say in other podcast episodes around sports and classes and lessons and things like that, that we can’t really expect a child to be able to do this kind of thing at this age. Football is pretty complicated. I remember back in the day when my kids were little, they would maybe have soccer for kids that were as young as five, not younger than that, but they might have a soccer team or a soccer class. And the kids were all over the place, but all they were doing is kicking a ball and it wasn’t really a big deal. I mean, even football is a little more organized. You’ve got to throw, you’ve got to catch. I don’t know what this class is looking like, but that seems like a lot for a five-year-old to be doing coordination-wise, everything. And then this group situation where he kind of has to perform sometimes. So all the things that he’s sensitive about. And this feeling of being out of control with what the other kids are doing. I think it’s this expectation that got this parent overwhelmed herself, and then the fact that she was trying to go along with what he wanted instead of having a reasonable boundary.

So when she says, “Am I missing something here?,” that’s all I think she’s missing. I do want to encourage her that her child seems like he’s doing just fine and that it’s perfectly valid to be this kind of person. And again, a lot of this he may grow out of, but it’s a sensitivity that can be very positive and very powerful. It’s okay for him to feel anxious in these situations, and when he has to perform, too. I mean, I get anxious just thinking about that, social situations where there’s performance required. I don’t understand why there’s people that don’t get anxious about that, to be honest. But anyway, it sounds like this parent is right there, tuned in. And she knows her child really well, she’s obviously being sensitive to him. I don’t see any problem here or anything she has to worry about.

But I wouldn’t sign up for things that are going to frustrate her like that, where his behavior is going to be like that. And you could give him the option: We can do this, but this is the way it’s going to go. Do you still want to do it? We’re not saying it in a threatening or negative way, but just putting it out there, honestly. Look, you want us right next to you. We don’t want to be right next to you in that situation. If that’s what you need, let’s not do this right now, and that’s okay.

And know that there’s so much time for kids to take these kinds of classes and do these kinds of sports and things. There really isn’t a rush, I have this long view. There’s no reason to start something earlier than a child wants, or to even put them in anything that isn’t totally their thing, that isn’t something that they actually have their own interest in doing, an interest that comes from them.

Here’s one more, and then I’m going to make some general comments about all of these. This one is a pretty unusual situation, but it sounds like the child’s sensitivities and everything fall into this category of all these children:

I have a question to do with our nearly six-year-old son’s request for us to not attend school events. This isn’t because he doesn’t want us there, but rather he says he knows he will get upset and cry when he sees us because he won’t want us to leave without him at the end. He is anticipating being sad when it’s time to say bye.

As some background, he’s been at school for about six months and at the beginning would sometimes feel sad when saying goodbye in the mornings, but now has no problem happily waving me off. He loved it when I came along on a full-day school trip with him, but shorter events during school time seem to be different.

When he had athletics a couple of months ago, he told us he wasn’t sure about us coming to watch because he might get sad. But on the morning of, he changed his mind, so we went along. He did indeed get upset when he first saw us and cried for five to 10 minutes, missing out on part of an event. We were with him while he was upset and the other children were too focused to really notice. Once he had worked through this, he had a great time and enjoyed us being there to watch. When it was time for us to leave, he was actually totally fine about it.

In the present example, he has 10 class swimming lessons that parents are invited to watch. He has clearly and repeatedly told us he doesn’t want us to come along because he says he will get sad. We’ve listened to him and won’t go. However, I do wonder if this keeps happening, is it better to gently encourage him to face this difficult emotion, process it, and then enjoy the school event with us there to share it? Or is it better to respect his choice every time without trying to encourage him to face this fear/worry?

I would be so interested to hear what you think would be the right approach. Thank you.

So this is interesting, right? When we feel that our child is anxious or easily overwhelmed or very sensitive like the children in these stories, what we want to try to take out of the equation is our own worry or anxiousness about the feelings our child is having and the way it’s showing up. Which also means we don’t want to try to fix or change the feelings, because those really aren’t in our power to change anyway. And when we’re fixing or changing the feelings, kids sense that, and what it’s teaching them is that it’s actually not okay to feel what they feel. And they can’t change what they feel, so we want to start with that full acceptance of them.

And the reason it’s so important to know that this is a pretty common issue that kids have—I don’t even want to call it an issue—it’s a pretty common type of personality that kids have, is so these parents can see it as normal and they can not worry and be anxious about it. I know I can’t wave a wand and make people put their worry and anxiety away about things, but it really is okay to be anxious. This is appropriate to feel anxious and sensitive in these situations, and overwhelmed.

So it’s wonderful for us to be sensitive to our child in that way, that their anxiousness makes us anxious and all that. All these parents have that going for them and it’s lovely. But then if this becomes anxiousness or worry about their anxiousness, we’re making it harder for them. We’re amplifying the feelings through our own feelings about it, which our children will always pick up on. No matter what we say or do, they’re just going to pick up on it. We’re never going to meet anyone more aware than our young children are of everything. It’s kind of wild and intense and a blessing and a curse, obviously. But what our kids need is for us to normalize this for ourselves and trust our child.

And then from there, because we trust our child and we don’t want to accommodate or try to fix it for them, we need to have reasonable boundaries. I talked about this in the first two notes. It didn’t really come up in the first one so much, except that I would encourage her, she was saying, her husband says he can’t force us to stop dancing or singing every time. Right, absolutely not. So I wouldn’t let him decide what you’re doing, but allow him to decide to move away, put his hands over his ears and over his eyes, whatever he needs to do. But don’t let him stop you from doing the things that you want to do. That’s where the boundary comes in here. So if we can be ourselves and do what we want to do, but at the same time allow him to be himself and not take it as a problem that he wants to retreat and not dance with us if there’s too many people or whatever, then he feels a comfortable place in this relationship with us where we can all be ourselves. So we don’t want to be changing ourselves or doing things we don’t want to do for our child. That’s where the personal boundaries come in.

And then in the second one, it was about having him do this football class where he was demanding they stay right by his side. That wouldn’t work for most people and it is going to make us frustrated. So with trusting that our child is okay as they are, we can trust ourselves to do what we want to do in the relationship.

And then in this last note, this is interesting, right? That he wants them to be there, but there’s a part of it that’s bittersweet for him, that makes him sad. And I don’t even know if it’s sad. They said he describes it that way, but it sounds more like he’s moved by them, maybe how much he loves them or that he always wants them to be with him. I mean, this is really a precious thing he’s going through. And as much as it’s concerning these parents and they kind of want him to stop feeling like that I bet, this is a really special time in their life when they’re treasured like this and he’s showing it so openly. Sensitivity, it’s a gift. And as these parents are noticing, not all children have it to the extent that these kids have. That’s okay, other kids have other gifts. But this quality is very positive.

It’s also interesting all these children are boys. I don’t know if that makes it harder for the parents or not, if the gender’s an issue for them in that way. But they’re doing what they’re supposed to do, which is having feelings about things and expressing them, being themselves. And we can help them continue to have that attunement to themselves and that acceptance. That acceptance makes us strong, confident in who we are.

But in terms of boundaries for this last family, they had this incredible experience where he changed his mind. First he said he didn’t want them to come, but then he changed his mind and they came and he did cry, and then he got to share that, and he had a great time. What I would recommend to these parents is what I was saying to the other two parents, which is to do what you want to do that’s reasonable. If you want to go to watch your child swim, you don’t need to try to accommodate what he’s saying there and not show up. I mean, they said, “we’ve listened to him and won’t go,” so they already made that decision.

But she asked, “if this keeps happening, is it better to gently encourage him to face this difficult emotion, process it, and then enjoy the school event with us there to share it? Or is it better to respect his choice every time?” So my boundary would be that if I really want to go to see him perform or do this school thing or just to be there with him, I would say, “I know you’re afraid and you’re worried you’re going to cry. It’s okay if you cry. I really want to come, and I’m not afraid of you crying. I want you to share that with me.” That’s how I would open this up a little for him.

And I know it’s scary because we don’t want to do something our child says no to, but it sounds like that is his fear talking, and there are decisions around this that he needs you to make, and make with courage and openness. Hey, I want you to be able to cry if you need to cry. It’s okay that you have those feelings. I love that you feel so strongly about us, and I always want you to share that. We don’t want to let him stop us from all these things that we would otherwise go to and enjoy with him.

It’s our attitude about the crying and the situation that makes this work. If our attitude is, Hey, bring it on, you can cry. I’m not worried. I’m not ashamed. I don’t feel there’s something wrong with you for that. I’m not saying these parents do, but those are all thoughts that can go through our mind. I think it’s a lovely thing. So that’s different from trying to condition him in some way, like with any of these, that we’re deliberately showing up when he doesn’t want us to to try to teach him something. We’re only going to go because we really want to go and share that with him. And we’re not afraid of him sharing his healthy feelings around that. And by us not being afraid, he doesn’t need to be afraid of crying and maybe feeling sad or whatever that is that’s getting touched off in him.

That’s why our kids need us to be brave about their anxiousness or their vulnerability, so they don’t have to worry about us too. And then it gets so complicated, all these layers of, Well, I’m anxious and that’s making them anxious and that’s making me more anxious. As a child, we just get swallowed up in that, right? It’s like my mother being disappointed that I was shy. I loved my mother and she loved me, I know that. But she was ashamed that I wasn’t able to always greet people the way she wanted me to. And I internalized a lot of that shame, too. So we just don’t need to do that. These sweet and deep children, I want to meet all of them.

And it may be if these are their biological parents, that maybe there’s some reflection of themselves that the parents are seeing too. And that can be hard. If we were maybe shamed for certain things or not accepted for our vulnerabilities, our social awkwardness or whatever, then we see that in our child and it’s hard to accept. So it always starts with accepting ourselves first, then accepting our child, and then being brave about our boundaries.

I really hope some of this encourages. That’s all I ever want to do. Thank you so much for listening. We can do this.

The post My Boy Seems Anxious, Sensitive, Easily Overwhelmed… Is This Normal? appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Transcript of “Discipline Isn’t Working – 3 Common Reasons and What To Do Instead”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.

Today I’m going to be talking about three common reasons that discipline doesn’t work as we hope it will, meaning our responses to our child’s behavior, the way we’re handling it. Why does this keep happening? Why is the behavior maybe getting more pronounced? Why does this feel messy and unclear to me? What’s going on?

I call these common reasons because we’ll all fall into these kinds of responses, at one time or another at least. And besides these being about responses to behaviors, these are also reasons that have to do with feelings, like I’m always talking about here. And that’s because feelings, on some level, drive our behaviors. There are things that we do on automatic, where we’re not thinking about it or feeling like we even want to do that, but we’re just doing them, especially as we get older. But when it comes to children, the behaviors they have, especially the ones that we don’t like so much, are driven by feelings and stress, right? Because that’s how they get dysregulated and lose control. Their system gets overwhelmed.

I was thinking about this today: there’s been such a change in the attitudes about feelings since I first started writing online in 2009. Back then, there was this sense—not so much with the professionals, but parent-to-parent, which was the way blogs were then, they were mostly parents writing about their ideas and their suggestions for each other. And there was this real sense of shaming in the idea that someone’s child was having meltdowns or as a baby was crying, that this meant that the parent was doing something wrong. They weren’t breastfeeding enough, they weren’t carrying their child enough, they weren’t giving them enough connection.

So this evolution has been huge to where we are now, where it seems like everybody’s talking about feelings and how important they are and how to let your child express them. And what often happens when there’s a big evolution like this is that the pendulum swings a little too far in the opposite direction. And I feel like that’s what’s happening now, because it feels like there’s such a focus on feelings that our role seems unclear. It feels like we should be doing so much around this, that it’s so important.

But it’s also life. I think it’s Mooji that said, “Feelings are just visitors. Let them come and go.” And that kind of attitude is really, really healthy for us to have and for us to be teaching our children through our responses. Yeah, this one doesn’t feel good and this one feels great and it’s all normal. It’s not something I’m responsible for making better. It’s not something where I’m worried about you and I’ve got to wait until you get all the way through it and stop everything in my life. It’s this really normal, healthy part of life. So I feel like that’s getting lost in some of the ultra-focus that’s being given to feelings. Which is for the most part, very, very positive, but can give that kind of impression like, Ahh, this is such a big deal!

I guess, of course, there are still circles where there’s this disallowing of feelings and rejecting a child for them. You get what you get and you don’t throw a fit, all of that. I guess there’s even books about that for children, to teach them that this is just something that you control and you don’t let happen. Well, I don’t think I’m getting those kinds of parents because they’re probably not interested in what I’m sharing here, which is really trying to look at the long term as far as our relationship with our children. Do we want to be somebody that they feel comfortable sharing with, that they don’t feel judged for? Or, Just put that one away! I don’t want you to feel that around me. That’s not the kind of relationship of communication that most of us want with our children and that trust and that closeness where they’re going to confide in us. So while that kind of behavior-control stuff maybe seems helpful when kids are younger, it does not build the bond with us and the emotional help that we want our children to have.

Anyway, I just want to acknowledge that that’s still out there, but it seems like a lot of us, or the people in my circles at least, are going maybe too far the opposite way and getting all cluttered about what’s going on with how we’re supposed to react to feelings and what we’re supposed to do.

Here’s the first of the three common reasons that discipline isn’t working: We react to the symptoms rather than addressing what’s behind them. We’re seeing all this behavior in our face. And because our child in so many ways seems so reasonable, it’s hard to realize that this is absolutely not reasonable behavior, this is kooky behavior. And it’s about our child feeling out of control.

I had an exchange with a parent around this on, I think it was Instagram, and I just want to share some of it here:

Hi, Janet-

I love your workbooks and podcast, it got us through a really hard 2.5 to 3.5 stretch. But alas, our four-year-old is driving the house insane. We do have a six-month-old baby, which she was doing okay with, but our beloved dog got sick and had to be put down at the end of March. This was combined with both grandparents being hospitalized, who live with us and she adores. So I know the reasoning, but it has been unbearable. My wife and I have been very ruffled lately, and all your teachings have gone out the window. We also got a nine-month-old dog unexpectedly, which adds to the stress.

She is yelling constantly, defiant, doesn’t listen at all, screams at the dog, the baby, strangers, the grandparents, etc. She’s been rough with the baby (bit her once), physical with the dog, and is back to hitting and newly biting us. She is super smart, borderline gifted, and manipulative. Bedtime now takes two-plus hours, with screaming and yelling and running out of her room. When asked about her behavior, she says she doesn’t know why. Lately I’ve been trying to reintroduce your techniques, with some success. Tonight after going full exorcist demon mode at 9:00 p.m., she admitted in bed that she is sad every day because of the dog dying and misses her.

I really miss my sweet girl and I used to do so well with her. Now I’m yelling at her and I don’t know what to do. I feel so lost daily and like a failure as a parent. She’s so out of control. Please help. She’s a model citizen at pre-K, with no behavior problems.

This family is going through so much and it would be bizarre if the parents were just feeling fine and comfortable and their children were feeling just fine and comfortable. None of them are. And our children are especially affected by us, even more than by these outside factors. Their main influence in terms of how comfortable they are and how settled they feel and how well they’re able to exert self-control is all based on us. Life happens and everything is going on right there, I feel for this family. If this wasn’t all happening like this, I would be really, really surprised.

I wasn’t able to say this to this parent because it was just a quick message exchange and I wanted to cut to the chase. But just to even see that as normal can help us. Well, this is totally expected. We don’t love what’s going on, but it’s totally expected.

What I said back to him, though, was:

Thanks for your kind words. I feel like you nailed it right here: “She is so out of control.” Yes, she’s going through something, feels totally out of control, and I’m certain she doesn’t want to be behaving this way and angering her parents. It can help us to think about how we would help someone we cared about who was in this terribly uncomfortable position, not meaning the things she says and does. We wouldn’t take the person’s behavior reasonably. We’d just try to help them out and minimize any damage they unwittingly do. It doesn’t matter how intelligent she is. In fact, intelligent types are usually even more sensitive to losing control.

Let her yell but keep her protected from the dog, the baby, as much as possible. Can the baby be in a playpen or some other protected space? And can the dog be outside if you’re not there to calmly intervene with the helplessly out of control behavior of your daughter? That’s what will help this to pass, because she’ll feel safer when you realize that she can’t do any better than this and you respond to her from that place of understanding.

The thing that I love about this, the thing that’s so interesting to me, and I know I’ve said it before, is that we know, right? There’s a part of us as parents that knows exactly what’s going on, and yet we still get caught up in kind of taking it personally. Because here’s this really bright girl and she’s doing all this to us. “Cut it out!” we just want to say, right?

So please don’t anyone blame yourself for doing that because that’s just a human, adult reaction that we would have to a child’s behavior. Cut it out, you get what you get, just stop. But that’s where we can get stuck, because we’re not seeing what’s beyond the behavior and we’re not seeing the feelings that are going on that are driving this. Which are, I feel all over the place and I can’t function! And I’m sure these parents are feeling some level of that too, even without their daughter behaving like this. And that is also why she’s behaving like this, if that makes sense. So taking care of ourselves and then perceiving this as, You know what? It’s going to be wild right now. We just have to help her through.

And the interesting thing about what he said about the long two-plus hours it takes to go to bed, when children have that at bedtime, it’s often because they haven’t had enough chance just to vent it throughout the day, whenever it’s come up through our boundaries. We’re not going to let you near the baby right now because you’re too out of control, or whatever we want to say about that. And then she screams. Whatever we’re having a boundary with, she reacts. And right there, she’s moving it through, moving it through, getting these feelings out of her system. Shared safely, because we’re trying to see this as our dear, little, out of control girl. So we’re going to be less likely to yell, we still might yell, but less likely to yell. And if we do yell, “Oh sorry, I’m having a really hard time. I know you’re doing the best you can.”

Then she can share it safely and it won’t build all the way up until bedtime, where now she’s got more feelings to vent and it’s ending up taking so long to go to bed. That’s one of the most common reasons that bedtime gets delayed or that children are having all these emotions around bedtime, like he says she’s having. The buildup throughout the day lands them there, and that doesn’t work for us. So we don’t want that to happen as much as possible. If we could remind ourselves, it’s really good that she’s yelling about all these insignificant things, or it’s good that I set that boundary even though it made her upset. Because that was a reasonable boundary and her sharing how upset she is is a positive thing.

The second reason that we get caught up with behaviors and discipline isn’t working, and this is closely linked to the last one: We say no to the behaviors, but we don’t allow for another way for our child to share their feelings. I don’t have a particular note about this right now, but I get many, many questions from parents where they’re doing this very typical, normal thing where we’re just saying, Nope, I can’t let you. Stop. Don’t do any of these things. But we’re not allowing any way for our child to share the feelings driving that behavior another way.

And this isn’t a complicated thing where we have to figure out what they’re exactly feeling and all that. Not at all. All we need to do is what’s right in front of us. Just seeing, just taking a moment, “Can’t let you do that. I’m going to stop you. You want to keep doing that. You’re really having a hard time stopping yourself.” Just that little mini-reflection right there, where we’re seeing our child and they see us seeing them, has a calming effect. And helps them to realize, My behaviors are not cool. They’re not okay, and my parents are not going to let me do them. But it’s okay to feel like I want to do this. They’re not getting mad at me around that. They’re not telling me you can’t do this behavior and you should never feel like you want to do that behavior. We don’t mean to give kids that message, but that’s the one that they often get when we get very focused on the symptoms. We’re just dealing with symptoms, symptoms, symptoms, and nothing we’re doing is helping with the cause of the behavior. So these are just reminders for us.

The third common reason discipline isn’t working: We feel responsible in some way or sad for our child or too uncomfortable for our child to have these feelings. So we want to make them better, instead of just setting the boundary and welcoming our child’s full force of whatever feelings they have. This is my job. And yeah, you can share with me how much you don’t like my choice, how much you disagree. And when you’re doing that, I’m trying to remember as a parent that you’re actually sharing feelings that probably don’t have that much to do with this specific boundary, that are more generalized or more on a theme. Like, you’ve got a six-month-old baby sibling and your parents are really wound up about all these things going on. And you’re not responding well, that’s throwing them off even more.

It’s not about what I was demanding in that moment or what I thought I needed. It’s about these bigger things. But as a parent, we’re still in that other mode where we’re seeing the symptoms, maybe forgetting they’re not coming from a place of reason in our child, so we second-guess ourselves or we doubt ourselves. Oh gosh, maybe I don’t have a right to go to the bathroom by myself or say no to this, or I shouldn’t have. Oh, it hurts her. She needs to do this and that, and I feel bad. And now she’s having this strong reaction. I’ve got to be delicate around that and try to kind of placate her a little bit, calm her down.

The parent that I consulted with in the last episode, called “Struggling with a Strong-Willed Toddler’s Tantrums,” this is what we were talking about, that she thought her job was to teach her child self-regulation on top of everything else. On top of setting a boundary and allowing you to have your feelings, I also have to teach you to control your feelings or calm you down. No, that cannot be our job. And thank you to all the parents who wrote to me and said that that message really hit home from that last podcast. I recommend listening to it if you’re interested, because I get to talk with the parent in person, so we got to have a back and forth.

Again, that’s this whole pendulum swinging so far in this direction that now we have so many jobs as parents and it’s not clear. And we’ve got to help them name the feelings and go through them, and hopefully they won’t feel as strongly next time. It’s unproductive, it’s unhelpful, and it makes it feel like discipline isn’t working. Because our child is getting this message that it’s not completely safe when they go to those dark places or go to those uncomfortable places in themselves. That we don’t think it’s completely safe, that we feel like this is kind of an event. This is something you need help with, this is something I’ve got to invest energy into. It’s not just what happens with young children, which is that their feelings go up and down all over the place, and that’s how it’s supposed to be. The younger the child, the more this will happen. And the more that’s going on in our household, the more this will happen.

It’s tricky, right? Because as parents, we do tend to see, especially when we’re in a stressful time and it feels like everything’s black and white, that either we’re being gentle and so kind, or we’re being rejecting and you get what you get and get over it and you shouldn’t be doing that. But there’s this wonderful middle place that is so helpful to children, that encourages all the things we want to encourage our child to share with us instead of worry about how we’re feeling about their feelings. Even if we’re a little bit uncomfortable, that comes off to our child, unfortunately. They’re so tuned in, right?

So I just want to circle back to this dad on Instagram because he gave a little follow-up. He said:

Thank you. I’ve been trying to just sit with her and let the storm ride over me the last few days, and she seems to be responding better.

I wrote back:

Great, and you don’t even have to sit with her every time. Definitely don’t need to make an event out of every explosion, or any explosion. All that’s needed is acceptance and as much understanding as you can muster that she’s feeling it and going through it.

That’s me trying to quickly explain that sweet spot that we all can find in ourselves. We definitely have it, but we need to practice it. We need to taste it and then we need to practice it. And it can become pretty comfortable. We’re never going to be entirely comfortable when our child is upset and when we’ve been the cause of that, of course. But it starts to become a familiar place and it feels right. And it works, because our child’s upsets are shorter, the difficult behaviors lessen. We see the safety it gives our child when we’re accepting, but we’re not seeing this as a big deal.

Here’s a note about that:

Dear Janet,

I have read your book and followed your podcast with great interest. Your work has been a meaningful part of my parenting journey. In a recent episode, you shared stories from parents who had applied your methodology with their children and experienced peaceful, harmonious outcomes. While I appreciate hearing those success stories, I felt the need to share that my reality as a mother of a six- and four-year-old has been very different.

Since their birth, I have genuinely tried to embody the respectful, attuned approach you teach, yet parenting has remained extremely challenging. For instance, just today my son created a cardboard sword and wanted to bring it with him to his grandparents’. We gently told him the sword would wait for him at home. He became upset and refused to leave. I sat down with him, acknowledged his feelings, expressed curiosity about his creation, and suggested we find a special place for it to wait. Despite this, he remained angry and immobile for 15 minutes, unwilling to budge.

Hearing the recent episode felt surprisingly discouraging. Not because I don’t believe in the method, but because I’m applying it wholeheartedly and still not seeing the kind of ease and harmony described. I think the podcast could benefit from acknowledging that even with committed, aligned efforts, outcomes can be messy, prolonged, and emotionally intense. Without this balance, it can leave parents who are sincerely doing the work feeling like they’re somehow failing, simply because their experiences don’t mirror those in the examples shared.

This parent was so kind. And I just have to say, this made me feel terrible. I mean, this is obviously the opposite of what I’m trying to do, to be discouraging, to make people feel like it’s not typical to have messy, prolonged, emotionally intense situations with our children. It absolutely is.

But after that moment of feeling really disappointed and kind of sad that this parent had that response, it’s amazing how quickly I wanted to just try to help her to maybe get something she wasn’t quite getting. And of course, she just gave me this very small example. And because I’m into this topic so much, it’s like a challenge for me, now I want to help her, to make this easier for her. Not to say at all that all those parents that shared the success stories in that episode, which is called “Discipline That Works — Your Best Responses to Your Kids’ Behaviors.” There were like eight parents that I shared from there, and none of them wrote back to me and said, “By the way, after that success it’s happily ever after and everything’s easy now with my child.” And I doubt that happened with any of them.

The reason I value success stories, the reason they help me and I feel they can help parents, the reason to celebrate these is that we’re getting this taste of what I was talking about earlier, that sweet spot. And the more we can taste that, the more we can find our way back to it. That definitely doesn’t mean it always works or that it always works for us after the success story, it definitely didn’t always work before the success story. It’s always going to be messy and prolonged and hard to have young children, no question. I’m really sorry this parent was left with those feelings. Like I said, the last thing I want is to discourage anyone.

I wrote back to her:

Thank you for reaching out to me and your kind words. I’m so sorry the episode was discouraging to you, that’s the last thing I’d ever want. I would love to try to help you with your challenges, perhaps for a podcast episode, if that would be okay with you. Can you please give me some other examples besides the one with the sword? I have thoughts about that, but more examples would be helpful.

That was a couple of weeks ago and this parent never got back to me, so I’m just going to go with my thoughts about what she shared and see if there’s something here. Because for me, this falls into this idea that we’re doing too much around emotions. And this isn’t to criticize this parent or any of these parents at all, because this is a very nuanced idea, especially in the story this parent’s sharing. Very nuanced. And I’m taking a chance here just sharing my impressions on it. I could be way off, but I’m still going to do it.

She says: “Parenting has remained extremely challenging. For instance, just today my son created a cardboard sword and wanted to bring it with him to his grandparents’. We gently told him the sword would wait for him at home. He became upset and refused to leave.” And this is a six-year-old boy. And then she says: “I sat down with him, acknowledged his feelings, expressed curiosity about his creation, and suggested we find a special place for it to wait. Despite this, he remained angry and immobile for 15 minutes, unwilling to budge.”

So the sense I’m getting here is that this parent was kind of leaning into doing what a lot of us have the instinct to do, especially people like me that are people-pleasers and don’t want to disappoint anyone. Let’s try to make this okay with you. Let’s find a way to make it safe. Let’s talk to you about it. Let’s hear all about this. And if this is what’s happening regularly with boundaries, what I always do is I put myself in the child’s shoes. And I’m feeling like there’s some delicacy around this. It’s a bit touchy to say no to me for something that, if we think about it, it’s really not very reasonable that I made something and rather than enjoy it at home later, I have to bring it to my grandparents’. It’s definitely not a need that a child would have. And even as a desire, it’s kind of, I don’t know, I almost have the sense that her child knew that was a little bit of an inappropriate demand to make, but that this was symbolic of some other things that he’s feeling are going on with him.

And that it would help him more, and definitely help this parent more to not be dealing with such a prolonged episode, for the parents to just lean in and say, “Yeah, you really want to bring that. Gosh, that’s making you so mad. Come on, we’re going to go. But you can yell at us the whole way in the car if you need to.” Keeping it direct and kind and simple and not trying so hard to make it work for him. I doubt he would’ve gone on for the 15 minutes. It would probably be five intense minutes, and maybe a few more in the car. But if parents can have that conviction and that simplicity and honesty, while at the same time welcoming the feelings, You get to share. I’m not afraid of you being mad about something. I don’t see it as a problem or something you can’t handle with our support, then it flashes much more quickly and it’s over.

And our child knows, Hey, I can vent stuff and it’s not a big deal, and I’m not getting all this—I don’t want to say “attention” because there’s so many things put on negative attention and all that, Oh, the kids are just seeking attention. But kids get an impression when there’s so much attention around them having an uncomfortable feeling. They get the impression that it’s not that safe and shouldn’t be normal and comfortable and just acceptable. That there’s a need my parents have to make it better for me. And what that does is it kind of undoes our boundary in the first place because we’re not being decisive, we’re not being confident, and it can tend to create a situation where a child keeps kind of seeking this clearer passage to share.

I don’t even know if that makes sense to anyone but me. This parent, like all the parents I hear from, could not be more caring and thoughtful and loving, and I can feel her working hard just in this example. What I’m suggesting is to do a little less and to trust our children a little more to share all the things they need to share, to know that’s a positive thing for them. There’s nothing negative about it or problematic about it, at all.

That’s my strange, nuanced feedback for this parent. I don’t know if she’s ever going to hear this, but thank you for reaching out to me and being so kind about your constructive criticism. That’s really, really helpful. I always love hearing feedback like that, something I can work with and consider.

This thing about discipline and feelings—this dynamic where we set the boundary, they get to share the feelings, we all move through—we do have to be kind of brave, I feel. Brave and believing in our kids. Believing in their ability to go through life with all the disappointments and the heartbreak and the losses and the anger. They’ve got what it takes, they can do it. And we can do this. It’s so much less complicated than all the messages out there around feelings and behaviors are making it out to be. It’s really quite simple, the dynamic: I see what’s going on. I set the boundary with confidence. I welcome you to share whatever you feel about it, that’s your prerogative. And we go through our day like that.

I really hope some of this helps. And there’s a ton more about this in my No Bad Kids Master Course, and in my book No Bad Kids, which has helped many, many parents turn a corner.

Thank you so much for listening. We can do this.

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