Creating Rules Kids Will Follow: A Guide for Parents - Wendy Snyder

24:53they just are like fine you can have the cookie but only one. So that's kind of those are some of the knee-jerk patterns and really like so much of it, as we say, it's just, it's not your fault. It's just the conditioning often that you, your nervous system saw in the first two decades of life and, or like what was common in your home. And a lot of times it just absorbs that as safe. So doing something different, which we would call new, a lot of people feel like it's hard, right? Like it's hard, it's hard to stop yelling. We always say it's just new to your nervous system to step into the backyard or go upstairs and scream in a pillow and move the emotion.

25:35Anger, we always say, is where justice is born. It's where you can set a firm, kind limit with courage. But you have to step into the bravery on it. And just really the nutshell is mistakes are just opportunities to learn. And the most successful people in life see them as that instead of things to hide and deny and feel bad about. Therefore, it just keeps repeating. We know from Brene Brown's work that shame really doesn't do anything. It only keeps people stuck in the same repetitive suffering cycles. Yeah.

26:12Hunter Clarke-Fields:We can do it over. Let's do it over. This is what I wanted to say. This is how I would have Yes. Like I say it. Or, you know, yeah. Oh, yeah. You know, these patterns are so hard. They're so deeply ingrained, you know, thinking about like the pathways in the brain. It's just a habit that's been built over so many years. And so it really takes a lot of effort and a lot of mistakes to make those new parents and new patterns. Yeah. One of the things I love about what you do, Wendy, is that you really provide people with an alternative to holding those boundaries in a way that's skillful. And you say rules plus relationship equals respect.

27:10Hunter Clarke-Fields:And I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the shifting from that holding boundaries and shifting to the sort of safety of rules and holding boundaries when you're not being a jerk about it. Yeah. I love this part of the work because it's kind of everything. There's so many, I guess there's so many parts of the work that I would say is everything, but this one is really important because a lot of people have the pattern of, I just sent an email about this today. It's like, you know, you tell a kid, here's the rule. And then you either probably do two things people fall into the patterning of.

27:56The kid challenges, challenges, challenges, right? Like pushes the boundary. Come on, come on, please, please, please, please. We saw this, like for example, when my kids would beg for the technology in middle school that they weren't allowed to have. We kept our kids off iPhones till high school. And it was intense. Like their pain and suffering to be the odd kid out is something I'm so proud of that we endured, but it was intense. And they would beg, beg, beg, beg, beg, and we would need to move through what does it look like to hold a firm boundary, but without flipping your lid, tea kettle, or giving in, right?

28:33So that's the pendulum spring that a lot of people do is the kid will push back and then finally the parent will be like, that's it. Like, not only are you not getting an iPhone in ninth grade, you're never getting an iPhone, right? And they shame, yell, maybe even add more threats. Like, you know, That's like you lose your ish. Or the other side is like, okay, fine. You can have it. But like, you know, whatever. They try their best to like put these limits on there. And then it usually turns into like quite the chaos is the pattern I see. But anyways, those are the two extremes. So when you learn how to understand that your roles and boundaries aren't just about like, yeah, because I said so.

29:14And because I'm in charge. And what I say is what goes. this home. Like, that's kind of the classic, right? So it's like, do what I said, because I said so. And nowadays, like with our bodies at work.

29:27Hunter Clarke-Fields:It's still infuriating to hear that. Like, my father used to say that to me. And I would be like, oh, yeah. Oh, are you kidding? I don't know. It's still just unconscious conditioning. Yeah. For a strong-willed person, usually the people who say that are, they have hypocrisy. And it will drive someone who has big justice buttons, right? Like I would refer to myself as someone who is like very justice button sensitive. So if like there is inequality, inequity, like I will lose my mind. Like I have to do something about it and I can see the same in my strong willed daughter. But yeah, it's infuriating, but that is the norm.

30:11And so what we have, we get to learn. And really, I see this as like, once you fall in love with this journey, it no longer is like, oh, I have to do this. It's like, this is fun that I get to do this, that like by the time I'm 80, 90 years old, that my grandchildren will like have a different reality growing up. So if you can find the joy in the journey of being a continuous learner, it's so much easier to do the work, so to speak, because yeah, it's intense at times to question your belief systems and all the things. But we get to learn how to set the firm boundary and then really understand what the values are that sit underneath of it.

30:48Like why are we so insistent that our kids wear a helmet when they ride a scooter? Like why are we so firm that we want them to stay off an iPhone with untethered access to the internet till high school? Why? Like you have to really build your confidence around why you are going to be, a lot of times in this work, people think that this work is permissive, but in our circles, the parents are often way firmer about the things that actually matter. What we see is like a lot of people, let's just say in our greater community, they might be really firm and air quotes strict. Like my son's new little girlfriend, she's so sweet, but I said, how is her relationship with her parents?

31:28And And Taryn's like, it's fine. She says that her parents are very, very strict. And so my little ears went up and I was like, oh, I wonder what that means. A lot of times it's like we're going to monitor the amount of makeup you wear. And we're going to make sure you don't wear a hash shirt that is exposing, whatever. Where we look at we are very strict on like data-driven things. So like keeping kids safe on technology, firm AF. Like so firm. most of the people in our community are not, right? Or like wearing helmets. Like I always joke that I'm like the safety police on my block because we have so many little kids.

32:05And I will never stop because I know like how many kids get brain injuries from being hit by a car or falling. Had a little girl on my street that was really hurt growing up. Oh, wow. So those are the things that we're very firm about, but you have to understand like the why. And then when your kid challenges it, you get to learn how to stay out of the autocratic ways of making them respect the rule and you just stay firm. And so we have a little formula that we teach in our Firm and Kind Parenting Blueprint. You can Google that real easily, but it's like you make a strong agreement, which has to do with helping them understand why the firm value or the firm boundary benefits them.

32:47It's not just because I said so, it's because here's how you're going to benefit when your mental health is strong in high school or whatever. And then when they push back, we move right into empathy, which is like, no wonder you still want to do this. You make sense to me, right? We tap into the need for belonging, which is one of the core drivers of behavior, misbehavior. And then we tap into restating the agreement and helping them engage their critical thinking skills, which kids love. Kids don't love to be told what to do, but they do love to be like, I remember, I'm empowered. I remember what we talked about last night in a calm time.

33:26That made sense to me. And I may still not like it because all the other kids are doing it and they have parents who don't care. But I remember the agreement. So it engages a critical thinking. I understand, yeah. Yeah, and then the last step is we empower them with choices. So like, do you wanna plug it in here or do you want me to plug it in in the kitchen? if you're trying to get a kid to get off a device or something versus like do it now or else you are not going to have that device for seven days. So that's kind of like one little formula that we play around with to you just – you get to stay firm.

34:02Like you don't give up on the boundary. You just actually step into learning how to implement it with connection instead of overpowering and like what we would call pseudo power because it doesn't last. as you mentioned before, Hunter, like pseudo power where you're overpowering with threats and like usually it involves money and you have to be bigger than the kid. We see that expire for a lot of parents once they have kids that are bigger than them and that can get a job once they're 16. My little guy is 6 '2 now. So, you know, if I would have had a power over structure where I was like, my, his cooperation came from me threatening to hit him or he would, it would be a joke now.

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36:33Hunter Clarke-Fields:That's an additional$50 off bundles, and they already have some discounts, people. An additional$50 off bundles with the code hunter at whisker.com slash hunter. You're making me think of like the rule in our, we have a rule in our house about electronics. My 16-year-old, oh my God, she's 16 now. sorry she she watches youtube on the ipad or whatever and the rule is all electronics must be out of the room for you know by like 9 30 right all the you know phones must be plugged in downstairs and um and i'm obsessive of that i'm also obsessive about the phone no phones at the table too and they push back and argue with it and sometimes you know and but i know that she understands why this rule exists and she it's interesting because she recently got we got her finally she had got she had a bark phone which i loved which is like a high parents controlled phone but so she could talk and text until her 16th birthday and now she has a phone a full-on smartphone phone but she has she put her own i didn't ask her to do this and she put her own screen time limits on it.

37:54Hunter Clarke-Fields:And where she's like, showed me the limits of the number of minutes she has on Instagram and stuff like that. And I was like, okay, cool. Like she's thinking, she's taking things in. She's, you know, these things that we've talked about, like the why of like your mental health and all these things, like those are being taken in because there's that influence is still there, right? It's not like the power over where I've totally lost the influence, right? The influence is still there. So that, you know, she's making her own smart decisions, which is, that's what we want ultimately, right? Like, yeah, I love this.

38:31It's so good. And I love how your story highlights too, that there's not perfection. Like that is such a false like expectation that any, anything, like my kids still push back every time if they try to sneak their phone at the dinner table and I'm like, hell no. And they're like, mom, come on, what's the big deal? You know, and I'm like, one day you'll thank me. Like, you know, like, but it's a, it's still a firm. No, but they try, they try to push, you know, or like, um, I did. Yeah. It's, it's like, they're, they're going to push. So like when you learn what to do with that and not see it as a threat, but more of like, oh, they're going to stay, they're going to keep being human.

39:09And, but they're learning the life skill. Because if you would have brought in threats or overpowering, they would have rejected that life skill. But instead, because you stayed with them and you were like, hey, it makes sense. Literally nine out of 10 of their friends these days, there is no boundaries around technology. So those of us who are doing the work to stay strong in the tech boundaries, it just takes so much courage to stay consistent with it because it really does work in the end.

39:39Hunter Clarke-Fields:So let's just go walk through an example of these, the way you might hold these boundaries, you know, the rules plus relationship equals respect. How might that look if you have, let's take it to like a littler kid, like how might that work if you see like, you know, a five-year-old whacking her little two-year-old brother? What might that holding the boundaries around something like that be? Let's dive into that first part of the question because you said, what does it look like for rules plus relationship equals respect with those little ones? And I think that part of it, it starts very early with like how you are seeing their unique natural design and either building it up or trying to fix it, right?

40:25So in the beginning with Stella's strong will, I remember trying to change it. I was like, she must change. Something's wrong with her. Like if I say go right, she goes left. If I say don't pull the dog's tail, she'll pull it harder, right? If I say don't shake the baby, she shakes the baby harder. I'm like, she must change. Something's wrong with her. And then, of course, something's wrong with me because I can't get control of this kid. And then once I started really understanding this work, I realized, oh, nothing's wrong with her. Nothing's wrong with me. She is just naturally designed as a power kid.

40:59So she is a future leader, which surprise, surprise. She is like the stats are like less than 1 % of high school athletes become division one athletes in college. She has accomplished that goal. She'll be playing beach volleyball at a school that's top 10 in the nation for the last 10 years. And she had to fight. Go Stella. I know. Like she had to fight tooth and nail for that position. And it was so fun to watch her, right? for her to just lean into those natural gifts that come to the strong-willed kids, like perseverance, grit, persistence, like chip on your shoulder mentality. Like they never give up.

41:38They're insanely competitive. Like they just have that gift. And so to see it come to fruition has been so beautiful. But back in the day when we got the memo, we were like, oh, we got to support this in this kid. so like I remember there was a Monday morning where she I had stopped my career and I was home now full-time which is really when the poop hit the fan and I found all this stuff because I was like what have I done but it was a Monday morning she was like I want to go sell rocks out front and there were these gems that grandma had just come to town and spent like 20 to let her mine for these beautiful gems and then she wanted to turn around and sell them on Monday morning to make a profit out front and it was like almost rainy.

42:21And my first reaction was like, no, we're not going to go sell rocks. Your grandma just bought those for you. You need to keep them. And like, it was just that I know better, right? And then I realized, okay, I'm learning a different way, Wendy. How can I honor who she is? She wants to lead. Like she got a baby brother who's on the boob half the day. I'm not able to be with her. She wants to feel powerful. So okay, you know what? We'll go out. We'll sit there. I think she made$17 that Monday morning. She made friends. A grandma ended up buying a few. She was on cloud nine. And my memory is the rest of that afternoon, she behaved really well.

43:04And it's because I was able to respect her for who she is. And at that point, too, we had started to pull back on the things that were damaging our relationship. So before I found this work, it was like, oh, a book tells me that I have to hold down my kid when they tantrum until they submit. We tried that. I still have so much heartbreak in my heart when I think about that moment. And then we learned, no, you can do different things to make a child go to bed or stop tantruming, right? But those new things that we learned when we stopped punishing, because before I found this work, I tried spanking twice.

43:52I put her in timeout. I'd throw away her precious toys. I mean, it's just such drama when I think of those memories. and imagine like what that was doing to the relationship. Once we started to change that, we just felt more connected. We know when she would hurt her brother, which the cop story is, I was in this work at that point. It was like the very beginning. We got to do the cop story. So this is one of the ones I write in the book that's like, here's where I got it wrong and I'm still a great mom. You know, it was early in the work. It was sitting in this exact room. It's funny that I'm recording in this office today.

44:31and her little baby brother was just in his diaper. He's 11 months old, and she got pissed for some reason, and she bit down on his back, his chunky little back, and she drew blood. And I just remember, as someone said to us the other day, they wrote in and said, can you help me with a program? I feel like my nervous system is literally on fire, was her words. That's what it felt like that day. I felt like I could have eaten my young. I was so mad at her. And I called Terry and I was like, honey, what do we do? She's evil. Why is she blah, blah, blah? And we were trying our best, but we were new to this work.

45:11So now I teach compassionate discipline. I teach the four R's. So it has to be related, respectful, teach responsibility, and be reasonable. And we were trying at that point to do that. So Terry was Terry's idea. I get to blame him a little bit. And he was like, hey, babe, what if you take her to the police station and tell her this is what happens when people hurt people. And I just jumped on it. It was me. I agreed to it. And I just thought, this will really – but it was still that old school mentality of if you really scare a child, then they'll stop the behavior. That's just baked into our nervous system.

45:47It's like, this child needs to be terrified of doing this again. It's not so much a thought. It's just the feeling. So I knew her brother was going to fall asleep soon for his nap. So I got him all packed up. She's screaming all the way to the cop station. I get her out. I put her on my tailgate. And the thing that's so sad is that, Hunter, we both know I was never going to take her into that police station. It was a lie. It was intimidation, right? And so she's begging me, please don't take me in, mommy. And I do the whole thing. Well, This is where people go when they hurt each other. And later I realized like, crap, I don't think we hit the nail on the head, right?

46:28And so Terry and I just kind of like hugged each other and we were like, well, maybe at least it'll work or something. And then, you know, we went on later to understand more as we expanded in our work of Compassionate Discipline to realize like we did have different options that day. We just didn't know yet how to handle it. I didn't know yet how to regulate my nervous system when it felt like it was on fire. And so I do what we do. We act fast and we bring in fear and force. And to this day, she still tells that story of the day she jokes and laughs and says the day I tortured her. Because I know it's stuck, right?

47:09And like, thank God, I think our children are growing up in families where it's normalized to like be like that wasn't okay what happened right like I have a lot of clients who grow up and their parents still joke around the Thanksgiving dinner about how they got the wooden spoon for three hours straight one day when they were three because they wouldn't submit like and they joke about it we don't we don't really we might laugh at that story but we also always are like Stella you did not deserve that you were just a kid you had just made a mistake Like you just probably were watching me handle things with aggression.

47:47And so you were just copying mom in some ways. Like you didn't deserve that. And that had to have been so hard for you. And she knows as an 18-year-old that that wasn't something that happened to her because she was bad. It's just because mom and dad didn't know what to do at that stage in our journey as parents. And she did go on later in life. She was probably about – she was about seven when one night – I've always had like reactive tendencies. So it's been my journey to really become more responsive. But it was probably age seven. They were fighting. And like I think they might have like pushed each other or something.

48:25And it's always been my Achilles heel, their sibling conflict. Now they're really good. But they push each other. And I was like, that's it. Punishment, essentially. You're going straight to bed. You're going to eat your mac and cheese at your desk. no tv no connection time you're going straight to bed and stella came in she's crying and after she gets her jammies on she's she says to me um mama mama wait she goes please we don't have the we don't have to end the night like this she said um look we learned from this taryn and i have learned from this. And look, we're all learning. She said, you've only been a mom for seven years and I've only been a kid for seven years.

49:11We're just figuring out how to do this thing called life. And she said, we can start fresh. We can start over and not end the night like this. And being a very stubborn, strong-lead person myself, a lot of people can't walk me off the ledge, but Stella always has been able to. And that night I was like, damn it she's right and I was like I'm I just here I here I was again having this very strong reaction when really like we could do it different and so we did a probably a redo I think you know you call them or role plays whatever and we went to bed in our normal connected state reading books snuggling kisses um and it just felt so good so I give a lot of those stories in the book because I want people to understand like we all got it wrong unless you were lucky enough to get this work before your kids were born.

50:02But, and then you learn and you do it differently. And then I tell a lot of stories of like where I really like hit the nail on the head. And when I tell those stories, I'm like, this felt like a million bucks to handle it this way and the effectiveness of it.

50:14Hunter Clarke-Fields:Yeah. Yeah. You really know in your gut, in your heart when you're like, oh, that wasn't the way or that was, yeah. Well, I love these stories and I know they're gonna be so related to and I really appreciate that. And that's so beautiful that, you know, we can end with Stella saying, let's have a fresh start because Wendy's book is called Fresh Start, Your Family, Powerful Parenting to Restore Peace in Your Home. And it is out now. Go get it. Absolutely. Um, Wendy, thank you so much for the work you do. And thank you for coming back on the podcast. And I always love talking to you and I appreciate it so much.

51:01Hunter Clarke-Fields:It's been great to chat again. Hunter, thank you so much for having me. I always enjoy our conversations. You have always been so supportive of me. So thank you so much. And listeners, yeah, go get the Fresher at Your Family book anywhere books are sold. I'm so grateful to get you into this work. And thanks again for all you do, Hunter.

51:25Hunter Clarke-Fields:I hope this episode gave you some hope that you can be loving, you can be compassionate, and you can set firm boundaries too. Yes, yes, you can. I believe in you. You got this. Oh, yes. So if you are feeling more hopeful after listening to this than you did before you listened, please do me a favor and my team and share this episode with one friend today. Tell them what you got out of it or just share it and say, listen, it's awesome. Subscribe. That would be amazing. And I hope it helped you. I hope it helps your family and helps you guys start over and create a more peaceful, respectful home.

52:09Hunter Clarke-Fields:So I'm rooting for you. I am rooting for you. You got this. Anyway, I'm wishing you a wonderful week. I'm so glad you're here. Thank you so much for being here. And I will talk to you again real soon. Namaste.

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