Why Is EVERYTHING So Hard With This Child? A Guide to Make It Easier. #609

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3:12So I was going to start this by saying that potty training can be really challenging when you have a child with PDA. But the truth is that everything can be challenging when you have a child with PDA. The good news is that certain strategies can be applied across different situations. And the first one is always the same. Control your own anxiety. And we've been talking about that for 25 years, you know, on our regular Calm Parenting podcast. But it's especially important when you have a child with PDA because you have to control your anxiety about their eating, their pooping, brushing hair, hygiene, everything.

3:49They are hypersensitive to your pressure. By the way, it's a great trait because part of that hypersensitivity makes them very aware. It often helps these kids because they see patterns and things are often very creative. We can use that to our advantage in many, many ways. But you just have to watch when you're a parent because even when you don't think you are pressuring your child with words, they can feel it in your attitude and your intentions. And it always backfires. So in this episode of the PDA Parent Podcast, let's address a very specific potty training issue. And I won't cover every possibility, but I hope these little case studies give you insight that you can apply to all kinds of different situations.

4:38I'm more about imparting how do you think about this? How do you strategize different situations to come up with creative ways to handle this? And I hope you will see through this case study kind of how we go about that, and hopefully it will help you. For those of you who are new, our grown son and I both have most of the traits associated with PDA. So this is very personal to us. My name is Kirk Martin. For those of you who don't know, I'm from the Calm Parenting Podcast. By the way, if you don't follow us on Instagram or Facebook, we're at Calm Parenting Podcast or CelebrateCalm.com. Just look that up.

5:12But I'm very active, especially on Instagram. I try to do videos there. And it's a good place for me to interact with you kind of in real time. So let me break this down in parts. A mom going through the PDA parent program emailed about her son who is age five. He's having trouble with potty training. And she said he's capable but is now regressing a bit. And mom is understandably tired of having to clean and wipe all the time. And this is impacting his ability to attend camps and classes. To access things that other kids just access all the time with no real problem. and they're already a bit isolated, so she'd like to help him be more predictable in this way.

5:58So when I'm coaching people through this program, it's a process of discovery. So let's go through that process together here, and hopefully you can answer the same questions in your own difficult situations. And by the way, I'm sorry you're going through all the difficult situations. It's really hard. So the first questions I asked were, Hey, does your child have any extenuating medical or physical issues that contribute to making this more difficult for him? And is your son a picky eater? And the answer was yes and yes. Not surprising. So here are the first three things we began to focus on.

6:37One, if you find anything your child won't eat that's even moderately healthy. For those of you who don't know, on our Instagram page, I'm always outside. We're a very healthy family. But we also have an extremely picky son who had some gut issues and all kinds of things. So I'm all over eating healthy, but I'm also a realist with our kids. So I'm not trying to downplay it, but if you can find something moderately healthy or just not awful for them, and if the only thing they eat are things that aren't great for them, I wouldn't stress about it too much. I don't want to add things to your plate and be like well if you were just good parents your kids would eat so well look our son was a horrible eater when he was a kid now he's incredibly healthy he's actually a great cook I'm actually recording this on Father's Day afternoon we had this great hike this morning he bought me lunch we sat outside I got a Father's Day nap and then he is cooking salting bokeh for us tonight and also a special dessert I don't know about.

7:43So they change over time. And we did check out, he did have some gut issues when he was a little bit older. I think that helped. But even today, look, I like the consistency of eating the same meals very, very frequently, meaning every day. I wear the same hiking clothes. I do wash them. But I wear the same, I find something that's interesting. So don't be freaked. Don't feel guilty. if you find something that works with food, I just don't want you to create extra stress around food. Model healthy eating and living yourself. Number two, spend more time on self-care. In previous episodes, and I'm going to encourage you to do that, listen to those because we talk about saying no to things, about setting proper boundaries, that you do not need to be a verbal or physical punching bag for your child with PDA, that you don't always have to revolve your entire family life around this child.

8:44I want you to learn how to be able to do that and lead your child through discomfort instead of accommodating everything because that's honestly unsustainable for you. It's not good for your child and it's definitely not good for your entire family. So I encourage you to listen to the past episodes because I think it can be harmful for your child and family to make every single thing about this child and always accommodate everything. I want to give them tools because they are capable of doing more. So make yourself a priority so that you have the patience to keep doing this so you don't grow resentful and don't feel guilty for that And so you don't feel so exhausted that you put this pressure on the child, if that makes sense.

9:41I don't feel like I'm saying that well, but I'm not going to record it again because I'm really trying to practice imperfection. And look, that's part of self-care is I'm not making everything perfect. I'm not doing everything for everyone. I'm trying to do the right things, the important things well. but no, I'm not going to do that extra thing because I do need my time and I want you to be able to say that and that's part of me it's bugging me inside while I'm saying no, I'm supposed to be a professional communicator I need to redo that part and go back and edit this I'm not doing it you know the importance of it I just don't want you to feel guilty because you're taking time to yourself because the greatest gift you give your child is not what you do for them It is what you do for yourself.

10:32Because when a child with PDA and in our other world with strong-willed kids and kids on the spectrum, they are very demanding of us. And I don't mean that in a bad way. It's just true. They require a lot of emotional and physical energy. And so the greatest gift you give them is what you do for yourself. Because now I can show up and not be moved by it. I'm not thrown by it. I can respond with patience. I can problem solve. I can lead and teach. So here's the interesting third point is this. I'm not editing that either. Maybe it's Father's Day, but I just, I needed a drink of my water. So this young boy, as it turns out, does have a physical problem with his bladder.

11:22and forgive me for positing a hypothesis that is not proven but casey and i my son discuss this frequently on our hikes more often than not when someone signs up for our program to go through it and tells us about their child they mention a fairly intrusive physical medical or neurological condition. Not something fairly common like, oh, my child has asthma or eczema, right? No, it's usually something that interferes with daily life and is extremely aggravating. So the assumption I make at times is that the demand avoidance from many of our kids originates or is exacerbated by this. I have this severe medical or physical condition that makes everyday life harder, more complicated, or embarrassing in front of my friends.

12:19I have to do challenging physical therapy or take needles or jump through extra hoops to do things other kids just do naturally. Simple things like going to the bathroom are much harder for me. So playdates and sleepovers and participating in normal kids activities and sports is either impossible or complicated. So I'm exhausted and frustrated and a little PO'd. So mom and dad, when you ask me to do something, even simple things, my natural response is, I don't effing want to do this. I added the effing. Hopefully your kids aren't yet, but I want you to, but I want that is visceral inside of me.

13:08No, I already have to do these other things every day. I've got tubes sticking out of my body or I have to have a catheter and I'm five or seven or 12 or I've got to wear this brace and it's hard to do. So when you ask us like, no, I don't want to do it. I've already expended extra physical, emotional, mental energy just to do X and Y. So no, I'm not doing any extra today. So, see, that makes a lot of sense to me. And I say that because I understand how exhausting this can be for your kids and how exhausting it can be for you. And I do want to remind you, these are kids. They're children who are in an ideal world, are supposed to be living fairly innocent lives, and already at a young age, they have to jump through hoops with some intrusive physical conditions.

14:01And I understand your exhaustion, but some of you are expecting your kids to kind of just deal with it or accept it and move on. But it's not that easy. So be patient with them and realize much of their resistance may be due to that. And be patient with yourself and with the expectations of yourself. That's why I mentioned self-care up front. It's not a nice to have. It's critically important when you're caring for your child. And yeah, I would validate that with intensity at times. Yeah, that would really stink having to do that every day. I'd probably be irritable because of it also. That intensity shows you get them instead of, oh, honey, other people have it worse.

14:48Oh, it's not that bad. No, it's really a pain to be able to do that. So I ask three follow-up questions that I'll ask you to think about. Number one, what does motivate your child? Have you noticed any patterns when your son is more able and willing to handle cleaning himself? I like looking for patterns so we can recreate those situations and keep the good pattern going or so we can disrupt a negative pattern. Number two, so I love getting messages that aren't about parenting. A mom said, we are on a three-week road trip this summer with four kids. Yes, we're playing your parenting programs because the kids think they're learning our secrets.

15:32But what has helped a ton is the Cure hydrating packets. The kids love, and occasionally fight over, the different flavors, and they are amazed we keep letting them have Cure. We didn't tell them they're healthy, so they think they're drinking something loaded with sugar when there's none in there. Cure has saved us tons of money because they're not begging us for sodas and sports drinks. Our strong-willed son, of course, will only drink the adult flavors. And they even take them into restaurants to mix in the water. That's awesome. Look, if you need to resupply on the road, you can now get Cure at Target.

16:10Or get 20 % off at curehydration.com with code CALM. That's curehydration.com, code CALM. So this is our second summer out here, and what we have missed most is having friends over for dinner. It's such a pain to go to those big box stores and carry home huge items, so we went to Wayfair.com. We picked out deck furniture, a grill, fire pit, and yard games. Boom. Easy. Fast, free shipping. Last night was kind of magical, and it was simple. We had friends over for a dinner outside with the fire pit going, kids playing cornhole, just good conversation and laughs. We like Wayfair because it's one-stop shopping for everything we need inside and outside our home with prices that fit our budget.

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17:50Save up to 30 % on your next oil change to take five. $15 value, valid to participating locations, terms and conditions apply. Have you recently experienced any changes in the home? A new baby was born, parents working a different shift or job, new teacher, did a grandparent or favorite pet pass away? Changes like this will almost always create changes in behavior. Number three, I always ask this question because it's a huge key to problem solving. What are your child's natural gifts and passions? What are they interested in? What brings them joy or contentment or satisfaction? Because I already know what your kids struggle with.

18:25I want to know what their strengths are because we use those to help them overcome or manage the tough areas of life. And so the mom's answers were interesting. The mom indicated their son goes back and forth between wanting to be kind of a baby and being the big guy. He tends to take the initiative more when he's motivated to be the big guy. And yes, there have been changes. They have an infant in the home now. He is kind of fascinated with being in her home office while she works and wants to emulate her as the successful business person. He also loves to explore how things are built. Okay, that's good.

19:08We can work with that. So here were my recommendations. And if you can apply any of these to your situations at home, well, that would be awesome. Number one, I would encourage you to do the following with a huge caveat. Do the following things because they are good and healthy and helpful without needing these strategies to lead to your son taking care of himself with potty issues. You must release that expectation entirely, like 100%. Let go of your need and your desire to prompt a change in your child. Otherwise, that negative charge and energy will still be there, and he'll pick up on it. Our kids are super sensitive to even unspoken pressure.

20:00So you do what's right because it's right, not with the intention of the child reciprocating in any way. Now that's a spiritual practice right there. I remember when we first started, like with the Calm Parenting podcast, dealing with our kids. And so much of it is about dealing with our own anxiety. I remember this dad emailed me and goes, you know, I've been really controlling myself and I've been doing all these right things. And yet my son isn't changing. And I was like, but the purpose of you learning how to control your own emotions isn't to change your child. It's because that's the right thing to do.

20:39that's causing you to mature and grow up and be a different person and eventually downstream from that things will change but if you're only changing so that your child will change well then that's going to backfire. So number two, the more you can let go of any and every expectation you have, the quicker your child will learn. Look, if I were to follow you around every day asking hey do you need to pee? Want to poop? Want to try right now? Well you'd get constipated and you'd lash out at me. With PVA kids, I just wouldn't give potty issues much energy. Put the potty in a closet, in a private place, in the basement, somewhere they can go without a concern or anxious or enthusiastic parent asking, oh, are you going?

21:25Just make them a little space with a potty, some books and blocks, with nice low lighting, with wipes, a convenient kind of very wide round trash can that's big, in case they throw stuff in there you don't want them to miss. Even have some music or a noisemaker there so they can experiment with it without you hearing them. Keep it comfortable so they'll even just practice or just go and sit. Now, when your kids predictably do have accidents, don't grimace or say a word. Just stoically clean it up in a business-like manner and move about your day. You have other more important things to do, even though this occupies your thoughts and conversations with everyone 24-7.

22:10And no, you're not a bad parent. You're not doing something wrong because your child struggles with potty issues. Don't listen to the judgmental haters who potty trained their kids in 35 minutes and want to lecture you about what you're doing wrong. Sometimes it's just a time and maturity thing. When your son, in this case, does take care of himself, unless he's the exception and likes overt praise, keep it very low-key. The tone is more like, oh yeah, I knew you'd figure this out because you're always good at doing more grown-up things. See, that plays into and reinforces his desire to be the big guy.

22:47Number three, well, this makes perfect sense that there's a new baby in home. Naturally, your son sees the baby being catered to and wants some of that, like who wouldn't? That regression is normal. So let's reframe this for him, right? So it's not like, oh, the new baby gets all the attention and you don't anymore. Used to be the only one here. Let's reframe it from competition with the baby to this. So he gets positive attention and intensity from being so capable as the older child while this baby gets attention, even though he can't do anything on his own, right? And it sounds something like this.

23:30Hey, you know what? You know what, this baby, they're not even capable of X, Y, and Z. Yet you can do all those things so well. You could be specific, like you can put on your shoes. You know how to eat. You know how to feed yourself. You know how to do, right? But the baby can't even do those. So I'm so glad you're here to help this helpless baby out. Something like that. Then make up some important missions for him to help with, not necessarily related to the baby. You are giving your older child his own space and place to feel important without being in competition with the baby. And then give him positive affirmation when he's the capable, helpful one.

24:10I just want to remove the baby as competition in a sense. and do make sure if you have like a new baby in the home, make sure when people, grandparents, friends come to the house, they first go to your older child and say, oh, that's really cool what you just built. Oh, I love how you are doing that. Give some intense engagement before heading to fawn over the new baby or the new puppy. Number four, obviously we wanna create more of a motivation to be the big guy. I like the idea of having, of this little boy having his own home office. It could even be he dresses up on certain days and mirrors what you do.

24:53Heck, get him a little briefcase. Get him a little clip-on tie if you want. Get a little desk and put it in your office. I would work this in very subtly because you know he's sensitive to being manipulated or forced or pressure. But you could casually mention sometime during your workday, hey, that to stay on top of my game, I've got to hydrate, eat healthy, get fresh air, go to the bathroom, do thinking exercises, all those things. I wouldn't single out potty issues. I casually lay some groundwork that if you want to be a high performing business person like me, well, you just got to take care of business.

25:32And I'd recognize how grown up he's being by getting up. And in this case, he was getting up and getting ready in the morning, how that makes him look like a mature big guy. And so you may even create a separate little office for him somewhere that perhaps includes a private potty slash cleanup area that makes him easy for him to do his business in every sense of the word. Look, I wouldn't even have a problem with creating, you know, those like mini fridges. I always wanted one of those. I had a boss once when I first started my career. He had a mini fridge in his office. I was like, that's so cool.

26:11I can keep waters in there and snacks and stuff. Oh, look, I don't. If you listen to the other episodes, I'm not always about accommodating everything with our kids and just giving them accommodations, accommodations. I like giving them tools. but I don't mind in this case saying, hey, I'm gonna set up a little area with this little desk and a little briefcase and a little private potty room where it's nice lighting and there's music on in there or a sound machine and he's got a little refrigerator in there because that recreates this thing of like, I'm independent, I'm the big guy, so I'm gonna take care of my business.

26:50I like that a lot with these kids because they do like being more like adults. In the other episodes I've been through, how I hate the label demand avoidance because when they get a vision for things, they're often very demanding of themselves internally. And part of what they're really looking for is respect. So all kids that I work with, I just talk to them more in even matter-of-fact language and I talk to them kind of like they're adults because that's a sign of respect. And there's also, there is expectation there. Oh yeah, you're acting like that? Yeah, I bet you can take care of that. So this will build his confidence doing all these things.

27:33It'll create a closer bond with you. And that's important in itself. Number five, that's why I also want to build on his desire to understand buildings and how things fit together. Always feed your child's curiosity. see if you can discover why that is so interesting to your child because we can use that to our advantage at some point with your child if if you go through the pda parent program i will mentor you through things and we usually do it through email sometimes i'll do some i have time for extra phone consultations and if i do i guarantee you i'm going to spend a fair amount of time like yeah i know i know i've heard all the things like that your child doesn't do well what i really want to know is what do they do well?

28:20Because that's where all the creative strategies come from, playing off of that. So number six, I know we want your son to clean himself up every single day, but I'm a big believer in celebrating progress, not perfection, and building momentum with small wins. So maybe we even begin with the idea of three days and perhaps specific days of the week that are designated as grown-up days, where he's the big boy and takes care of business himself. That takes some of the pressure off, but it also gives him ownership and makes him feel like a big guy. He doesn't have to do it every day, but if your child is currently taking care of things himself in whatever area, zero days of the week or one day of the week, well, instead of going for like, well, you have to do it all seven days, It's like, well, let's get three days a week and let's get some competence and confidence of like, oh, yeah, I did that.

29:19OK, see what we can do to get to four. And look, I'm a realist. For some of your kids, the best they will do for the next coming year will be, and I'm using this arbitrarily, is four days a week doing things really well. OK, but that's better than two and three days that we've done for the last year. And then with another year, it'll be like, OK, now he's up to five days. Does that mean two days you're still going to be frustrated and you're still going to have to take care of things that you don't think that you should have to at this point in time? Yeah, but I'm getting progress in that area, and I like that a lot.

29:57So the thing with PDA is you never know what's going to work when or how all the time, right? So you keep doing the right thing. You look for clues. You manage your own anxiety and expectations. And eventually you discover, and you usually will, a small shift that makes a huge difference. And I love the brainstorming with parents on tough situations like this. So if you are interested in it, look up the PDA Parent Program at celebratecom.com slash PDA. And I would be glad to go through that with you. So I very much appreciate how hard you are all working to change yourselves and help your family.