You Say No, Your Child Gets Upset. Is There Something Different You Could Do? #600

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2:49Cozy Earth's bamboo sheets, everywhere pant, and everyday polo are designed to keep him cool, comfortable, and relaxed all summer. Go to CozyEarth.com. Use my code CALM for an exclusive 20 % off. That's code CALM at CozyEarth.com for 20 % off and let CozyEarth know we sent you. If you say no to your child and they have a more extreme reaction, they get really upset at you, does that mean that you did something wrong or that you're not being a good parent? Does that mean that there's something wrong with your child? Those are just a few of the questions we're going to ask on this very different episode of the Calm Parenting Podcast.

3:30This is the fourth time I have recorded this. I originally recorded this for our PDA Parent Podcast because it's directly related to that. And I was struggling with it and I had Casey listening. He said, Dad, there are a lot of really good insights in here that I think will apply to a broader audience. So you may be hearing this on the Calm Parenting Podcast or our PDA Parent Podcast at celebratecalm.com. So however you got here, we're really glad you got here. And this is going to be a really tough podcast. That's why I've recorded it so many times. I want to get it right. So here's the genesis of this.

4:06I've had about a dozen parents email me and say, hey, we got this email from a leader in the PDA space who said, oh, our child just came out of burnout after nine months of playing Minecraft and getting food deliveries. And the question was, well, what do you think about this? And so my initial response was, I was very angry when I heard that. But I have taken two months because I don't like to reply to things when I'm angry. And the truth is, I'm still angry about this. And I'll share to answer this honestly because I believe I'm responsible to do that. There's no judgment in here. I don't need, it's such a nice thing as I get older, I don't need to convince you or anyone else that I'm right.

4:58I trust your instincts. If this approach and what I'm talking about resonates with you, and if it gives you confidence to raise your kids differently than maybe other people would, especially judgmental people, then good. So let's go through a lot of different points on this. So one of the first assumptions, especially in the PDA world, but especially with our other kids who struggle with anxiety, they get overwhelmed and have a lot of different things going on. I understand the line of thinking that says, okay, we're going to give our kids, Let them be on screens because that helps regulate them.

5:38We came up with an insight over 25 years ago. I remember one of my very first presentations before I knew what I was really doing. I remember saying, look, you've got to get inside the head of these kids because everything feels like it's out of their control. They have these very busy brains inside at school all day. It's sensory overload. They're being told what to do minute by minute almost. and they're around peers that they don't always connect with and some of our kids have dyslexia and it's just hard. So when they come home from school, why are screens so comforting? Well, just think about video games.

6:15It's something your child feels like they have complete control of. They know exactly what to expect. The rules are the same every single time that they play that video game. There's not a mom video game and a dad video game with different rules. and so when they mess up at the game or they lose the game the video game doesn't lecture or use a snotty tone or say you know what you lost there's no shame there's no yelling there's no pleading the video game just says hey you lost your life you have to start over again and your child goes along with that some of your kids get really upset but they still do it it's also stimulating for the brain and they're also many of your kids are very good at video games and so confidence comes from competence, being good at something.

6:59I'm not always good at school or behavior or getting along with kids my own age, but man, I'm really good at this. So it makes perfect sense to me that a child would seek out screens to regulate. Now, here's where I have a huge problem with this, because in certain corners and certain leaders in the PDA space especially, they're like, well, I let my child play be on Minecraft for nine months in his room. Another one of their emails said our son was in his bedroom for 86 straight days. And so think about this. It's absurd to think that isolating yourself and having your head in a screen would somehow be healthy.

7:48Nobody would say that. And I understand why. I really do because Casey was in that space when he was a younger child and in middle school. Totally get it. I've got PDA. Casey has traits of PDA. Totally get that. So I understand and there's again no blame, no guilt if this is where you have been. But there are 25 healthier alternatives to that right from nutrition to some of you would do vagus nerve activation, sleep, fresh air, sensory pressure, and activities, exercise, being out in nature, massage, chiropractor, all those things would be very, very healthy. And so I encourage you to do a thought experiment.

8:35If someone that you cared about deeply, a friend of yours, spouse, maybe one of your grown adult siblings came to you and said, I'm really struggling with some mental health issues or with a nervous system disability or my nerves are kind of shot, would you or anyone in the world recommend, you know what I think you should do? I think you should isolate from other people and just have your head in a screen. And if you can do that for an extended period of time, oh, I think that'll really help you out. Nobody would say that. And in this PDA world, what I'm finding is, man, it can be brutal. And if you even mention this, the pushback and hatred and anger that comes at you as if like you don't understand, I get it.

9:29I just want to introduce some common sense here that PDA is not an exception to any of these other natural laws that we have here and common sense. and unfortunately many of the leaders in this space have permitted that and I don't think it's healthy and in fact if you go instead of in in addition to not being healthy I think it can be extremely damaging and so my fourth point I think it is objectively not a compassionate thing to do for your child two of the worst prescriptions for anything to do with your nervous system health mental health is to isolate and be on screens. And so that's not compassionate at all because our job as parents is to do what's best for our kids.

10:22I understand how hard it is when our kids have shut down and it seems like they can't do anything else. And then my other concern is the duration of it. Nine months. And these are kids, I believe, who are under the age of 10. Just think about this your childhood is very short like adulthood if you just take it from age 20 to 80 that's 60 years but childhood especially kind of think about like prime childhood years when it's innocent and supposed to be fun maybe from age four or five to age 10 because middle school it gets kind of squirrely and tough but but childhood isn't that long and if you allowed a child to be on screens and isolated for nine months, they missed a large part of their childhood.

11:12It's like that 86 days in their bedroom. That's three months. And there's also what I would call the rabbit hole issue, which is the longer you allow this to go on, the deeper the hole, the harder it is to come out of it. I know it's not a great example, but how many of you, when you work out at the gym, If you're on a regular schedule, like me, I don't like the gym. I love hiking. But man, when I'm on a good roll at the gym, it's great. But if I miss a day and then I miss another day, so much easier to miss. I'll just pick it up next week. And some of these things, once you get into, okay, now it's been a week.

11:52Now it's been two weeks. Now it's been a month. It is exponentially harder for the child to come back out of that. number six huge concern for mine of mine when i listen to a lot of people and you can say you're i'm being judgmental i'm not trying to be judgmental i'm really good at observing patterns this doesn't mean that i'm right but it sure seems at times like a lot of the the leaders and the parents here are emotionally entangled with their kids and it almost sounds at times like I want or need my kid to be dependent on me so now I can be the compassionate caretaker and it's always couched in terms like well I just supported him through nine months of bringing him food and letting him be on screens and I know some of you in the PDA world you're going to be like you're such an a-hole Kirk I'm not trying to be by the way I don't have to try if I really wanted to be it comes second nature to me I'm really not I am trying to I am challenging some of you right and I'm encouraging most of you hopefully to say man because most of the emails that we're getting especially in the PDA space are you know what what we've heard just doesn't sit right well with us it's not sitting right with us and I want to be someone who says you know what you're not alone because I'm talking to a lot of highly trained therapists who have these same concerns.

13:24And so I don't think it's good leadership that they're practicing here. And it feels like they're all kind of tied in. Like there was even this thing of like, well, our son came out and said, mommy, I'm not in burnout anymore. And I'll tell you my visceral reaction was ick. You know why? Because it sounds like they're all like, well, we're just in burnout now. We're in burnout as a family. And it feels like their identity is being created around PDA. And I understand how difficult it is. Look, Casey and I have this in the alphabet soup of labels, but one of our goals was not to let that identify us.

14:04We readily admit, like if I ever talked to you, I'd be like, hey, I can tell you 10 things I really struggle with. I don't have a problem with that. It's very normal. We all have things we struggle with. But what I would also tell you is, okay, I'm very aware of, I have these 10 struggles And here are the 10 specific things I do to help with those weaknesses and to help with those so that they don't identify me in that. And so I will encourage you just to watch that happening in your home. It's very easy because many of you are very sensitive. Many of you are very empathetic. and so then it's like well I'm just gonna I just feel like and I want you to challenge yourself because I want you to be compassionate but I don't find allowing a child to be isolated on screens for nine months I don't find that to be compassionate I find that to be the intention is not cruel but the outcome of that very well could be cruel down the line why because we're starting to get stories now of kids who have a failure to launch when they get into high school now and then high school is hard navigating it's hard academically in that social aspect of it well now it's like well mom i'm in burnout again can i just go and sit my room by myself and be on screens for the next nine months and miss the school year see how that is starting to happen and I also, you know I always look at things from the kid's point of view.

15:38What do you think the child is beginning to internalize? This has been by far our best summer yet since moving here. Why? Because we're spending a lot more time outside with family and friends. We went to Wayfair.com. First thing we did, we got party lights to string outside. Why? Because it makes the space festive. It invites us outdoors more. We found this comfy bench with storage underneath. It's a perfect mix of comfort and convenience. That's one reason we love Wayfair. We can find everything for outdoors and indoors in one place. Plus, we always get fast, free, reliable shipping with Wayfair.

16:14Let your kids go to Wayfair.com and pick out some fun yard games, like Cornhole or Giant Jenga that will draw you outside together. Patio seasoning is here, so take advantage of special deals now. Head to Wayfair.com slash m slash outdoor right now to get your outdoor space ready for Wayless. That's W-A-Y-F-A-R dot com. Wayfair, every style, every home. So we just earned some huge parenting bonus points. You know how? Casey and our daughter-in-law just returned from a trip. You know how that is. Everybody's exhausted and crabby and dreading going back out for food. So we had three meals and groceries from Hungry Root waiting for them.

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17:37hungeroot.com slash calm code calm. So we just went out of town for a few days and it was really reassuring to know our home was safe with our Cove home security system. It's simple, affordable, and I set it up in less than 30 minutes. Cove adds that extra peace of mind we enjoy when we're away from the house longer than we intended. You know, there's those days you work late or you end up at the hospital with your child or sports activities run late. It's reassuring to know that you have live video and audio streaming right to your phone so you can see what's happening in real time. Cove is easy to set up yourself and professional monitoring starts at less than a dollar per day.

18:17So start the summer off right. Order your Cove system today at covesmart.com slash CPP. Head to covesmart.com slash CPP or use code CPP, Calm Parenting Podcast, at checkout for up to 70 % off your first order. And please let them know you heard about Cove from this podcast. I think you're really going to find this a simple, easy solution. I think at times when I've talked to Casey about this, as he thinks about his childhood, there were at times feelings of his where he said it felt like I wasn't capable or you guys didn't think I was capable of doing difficult things. There's a certain amount of shame.

19:02Well, why can all the other kids do it? Why can my brother and sister, they can handle these things, but I can't. And then forgive me for the language, but I don't know another. well, I do know another way to say it, but I want to say it this way. If I were a kid and later on in life, a few years from now, I found out like, wait, you just let me waste nine months out of my childhood. I'd be pissed. Wait, why, why, why didn't you guys have the courage or the skills or the tools to lead me out of that? Why did you leave me in that place? Now, again, I don't want you to feel guilt. Some of you have done this because you didn't know any other options and you were doing your best.

19:44There's no guilt in that, but I don't want it to continue on. And I also want to put my voice out there to say, I don't think this is right. I think this is very harmful for our kids. Another point, you know, I'm all about our kids, especially strong-willed kids and PDA kids having a lot of autonomy. We call it ownership. I want you to have ownership of your choices and your life. I step back. You step up. I let go of my anxiety and my control issues. I want you to have a lot of freedom. But not everything can be led by a child because they are still a child. And that is not looking down on them.

20:24Oh, they're just children. It's just the fact of I'm a grown adult. I'm a parent. I've had three decades, four decades, five decades of experience on this planet. I know more than my child. We've swung a little bit too far to be too egalitarian when there are times where your child needs you to set boundaries and you need to be their thinking brain to say, hey, yeah, I know. I understand what you're feeling. I can acknowledge that. But that's not good for you. That's not healthy. And so I'm going to be the leader. And there's nothing wrong with that. I'm not talking about being authoritarian. You know what?

21:03I'm the boss of this home. I'm the dictator. I'm not talking about forcing and pushing and denigrating. You know what? I don't know why you stay in your room all the time. Why are you incapable? Your brother does. None of that. There's none of that that I've ever taught that's in there. But we have to be the leaders and we can be empathetic, compassionate, confident leaders who lead our kids through discomfort. Now, if you're struggling with that, a lot of the PDA parent podcasts that I have done focus on how you can do that. So I want us to lead a little bit more. I want our kids to feel confident and competent, to know that they're capable.

21:48Okay, here's another one. And this is usually the hardest thing that parents face after they wrestle with this. So the parents who go through the PDA Parent Program, even the Calm Parenting Bundle, if you get it, I help personally with the toughest situations. And this one is usually the core issue. And the first question is, OK, but what if we don't allow our child to be on screens? They're going to be extremely upset and they're going to lash out. And in the PDA world, there's a lot of fear. Oh, are they going to go back into burnout? out. What are we going to do? We can't do that because that's just going to harm his nervous system.

22:33There is way too much fear in that world. I'd encourage some of you to be honest, get off some of those forums and some of those things because it causes parents to tiptoe around their children and doubt themselves and live like this. That's not good confident leadership. Confident leadership doesn't mean that it feels good. It doesn't mean that it's easy. And it doesn't mean you always feel confident. You're going to second guess yourself all through this. But you can't shrink back from that. So the question, well, what if they're upset? Well, let's step back for a second, right? Like, well, what if my child's upset because I told him that he couldn't eat sugar snacks at five o 'clock right before dinner?

23:21what if my child's upset because I said he has to go to bed at a reasonable time what if they get well then they may as well not have parents right because we have to set boundaries so I expect I fully expect that the child will be extremely upset and that they will lash out that is very normal it is a genuine response from the child who is probably being triggered of like no no No, the rest of my world is out of my control and I'm overwhelmed. And these screens, this is my safety blanket. Now you're taking it away. But here's the thing. I'm not going in and like ripping it out of their arms and saying, you know what?

24:06You can't have this. You know, you're too dependent on this. No, I'm saying there are lots of different alternatives to letting kids isolate by themselves and be on screens. and so the tone behind it is because I love you so much because I believe in you I'm not going to allow you to isolate and be on screens because that's not good for you and I objectively know that can you hear the tone in that right and so otherwise you're going to be held hostage every time you try to give a boundary or say no and your child gets upset well then what's your response is like well I guess we'll just never ask our kids to do anything and there won't even be any boundaries and now you become an enabler and I understand in this world I and I mentioned this on I think the last PD one of the last PDA parent podcasts and I know some of you will get angry at this, but sometimes I think we've used these other people's teachings a little bit as an excuse of like, well, they can't do it, right?

25:17They can't. They can't do it. So if they can't, well, then I don't have to lead them through their discomfort because that makes me really uncomfortable. And that goes back to being emotionally entangled with your kids and not being able to say, no, my job is to lead my kids because I love them. So if you've made it this far, thank you for that. And so I'll give you this quick encouragement. I've had three families email in the last 10 days and they said, we did this. And so the first two days off of screens, one family said the first two days, absolute hell. Other family said five days of pure hell.

25:58The other family, two weeks. That's hard. Kudos to you for lasting for two weeks. And they said it was pure hell. But then here's the cool part. Once they made it through, the common phrase was, we feel like we just got our child back. We feel like we're leading and we're making progress. Because doing this month after month after month normalizes that that's okay, that that's healthy. So guess what? When the next really hard thing happens or something triggers their nervous system, Well, I think I could use another six weeks on my screens. And I'm not denigrating the child. That's all they know because they're kids.

26:42Look, we're all like that. We all tend to choose, at times, the easier path in life. Some of you have needed to talk to your spouse about something really hard. You put it off. Why? Because it's really difficult. and it's going to cause your spouse to dismiss you or get upset. It's human nature. But I want you to know, just because your kids are upset, and I found a lot of younger parents, because you are so empathetic and you're so connected to your kids, you really struggle with this. And you think, well, if my kids are upset, then I must have done something wrong. Maybe I need to do it differently.

27:26What I want you to know is this. just because your kids get upset and lash out does not mean that you did something wrong. It does not mean that there's a good alternative to the way that you did it. Sometimes this is just the way that it works. It doesn't mean that you're a bad parent and it doesn't mean that there's something wrong with your child. You know what's best for your kids and I want you to trust in yourself to know that and to lead them through that discomfort. So the most common question we get from parents is, well, how do we lead them out of burnout off of screens? And every child is different because they've got unique gifts, talents, and passions.

28:10And I went through in the program what we did with Casey in his earlier years and then in kind of the middle school years. And so I'm not going to go through that cure because it's something I do through the PDA parent program and it's very very specific to each family and each child but what I'm really looking for is this I just got an email that said this we have we have struggled and wrestled inside so much with things but what we're finding now is we have confidence to lead we have confidence to take another path and know that we're not hurting our child that in the end we are doing the right thing and that our child is happier now and feels and here's the other thing I'm hearing which is awesome the kids are proud of themselves I did one on a kid who got in on an airplane and was terrified of the airplane which I can relate to and and after his mom led him through that and he got home and got a good night's sleep he had said mom thank you for helping me with that because we want to set our kids up for the rest of their lives because life is hard.

29:22There's a lot of disappointment, frustration, and stress. There's trauma that happens. There are all kinds of very, very difficult things that happen. And I want our kids to have the skills to know, yes, that's really hard and I had to dig deep. But now I have some tools to do that differently. So I encourage you, go to CelebrateCalm.com, look on the PDA tab, listen to past episodes. If you want me to mentor you through that, go through the PDA Parent Program and I will answer you personally. I will work really hard at that. If you don't have a child with PDA, you want the Calm Parenting Bundle, do that.

29:57I will help you. And if you're struggling financially, email Casey, C-A-S-E-Y, at CelebrateCalm.com. If you want all the programs, Casey can put together a very, very special thing for you. But most of all, what I want you to know is you're good parents and I want you to be confident and trust yourselves. because guess what? It's so cool when your whole family starts to feel like, you know what? We're doing difficult things together. Mom and dad are doing it. Kids doing it. That's a cool thing in life. So love you all. Respect you all. Let us know how we can help you. 102 miles ago, the oil light came on.

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