When One of Our Kids Takes Up All of Our Bandwidth

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0:32Amy Wilson:Marcia, Marcia, Marcia. What fresh hell. Laughing in the face of motherhood. That kid starts to get away with murder. With Margaret Ables and Amy Wilson. Yeah, watch what I can do. A podcast that solves today's parenting dilemmas so you don't have to. And it's just like coming out of the forest at the end of Apocalypse Now. You know, like, just like, what? Who am I?

1:01Amy Wilson:Hello, everyone, and welcome to What Fresh Hell? Laughing in the Face of Motherhood. This is Margaret. And this is Amy. Today, we're talking about what happens when one of your kids is taking all of your parenting bandwidth. Gee, Amy, I don't know anything about that experience. Let's define the issue. Let's define the issue first. Bandwidth is your available capacity or resources as a person, right? Mentally and physically, I guess. There's the emotional bandwidth. Like I can't hear about your sister's wedding right now. I'm too tired. There's logistical, I'm fried and I can't decide what's for dinner.

1:39Yes. It can also be literal bandwidth. Like I don't have the time because it's hockey season and it's taking all of my time. My free time is being spent in the car or your money or some more literal examples of bandwidth.

1:54Amy Wilson:I sometimes think of this as an emergency. Like one of my children is sick and hospitalized for six months and like that takes all my bandwidth. Or one of my children has medical needs, special needs, whatever it might be. That feels like it's taking all of my bandwidth, like these big things. But it can also be seasonal stuff and less overwhelming stuff, I guess. Well, that's just it. I shouldn't say less overwhelming. I just, you know what I mean? Like I'm thinking of less permanent. Oh, my God. The kid broke her leg and this whole summer has got to be about getting her around. Right. This is totally your mileage may vary.

2:26Right. But these are all different. So that's another way that it can show up that sometimes it is a season. I was going to call it. Yes. A storm blowing through this fall. I have a kid applying to college. That's an intense bandwidth, literal, logistical bandwidth sucker for me that I know is coming this fall. It's OK. You know, it's a season. Right. I know it's coming. I'm not also going to take up the violin this fall right right exactly like i know my september to november is going to be pretty busy or um like i said travel hockey i'm using that example because i have nieces and nephews who play hockey and in season ice time is when it is it might be 5 30 in the morning and if they don't have a driver's license yet then you're driving them but that's not forever so glad my children had no athletic ability oh thank god thank you lord hockey is an intense one so is baseball because baseball the game itself is like three three and a half hours long and sometimes it's double headers i mean yeah mamas don't let your kids grow up to be baseball

3:24Amy Wilson:players who play double i'm gonna put in a real vote for tracking cross country it's really easy soccer is a tight 90 uh that's pretty good yeah basketball's inside basketball might be the best because it's not weather dependent but yeah so that sometimes there's a season and sometimes it is more of a this is how it is situation. You have a kid with chronic needs. You have a kid with chronic illness. You have a kid who's nonverbal. It's part of the fabric of the family that you have. Or you have a kid whose emotional set point is to needy and a kid whose emotional set point is to independent. You know, like, sure, we definitely have had a conversation, my spouse and I where we're like, okay, tomorrow we have to remember to pay attention to fill in the blank of our kid who is not needy at all.

4:15Amy Wilson:But that doesn't mean they don't have needs. You know what I mean? But sometimes it's the squeaky wheel gets the grease and this kid never squeaks. And so it's truly like Jan Brady sometimes, oldie locks alert. Back in my day. But like Jan was the middle girl and it was always like her older sister was named Marsha and it was always Marcia, Marcia, Marcia. Like Marcia gets all the attention and Jan was just the ossel ran. But she took up a lot of bandwidth because she complained all the time. She was the love measure in that family. Yeah, she really was. But I do think this can happen kind of naturally when you have multiple kids and there's just a kid who talks all through dinner every single night or whatever it is.

5:00Amy Wilson:They just take up more bandwidth. Or an explosive kid who like might blow at any time and tiptoeing around that. Don't sing because that kid doesn't like it when you sing, right? Whatever you do, like let's keep that kid from blowing can take up a lot of bandwidth and can be something that becomes kind of chronic without you realizing it sometimes. For sure. Avoiding the kid who's really emotional blowing. Been there. Yep. Or they're challenging. Like you said, sometimes a kid demands attention. Sometimes they can just be challenging. They can be defiant, oppositional, whatever. And that takes a lot of bandwidth.

5:36Amy Wilson:Or they can even be like a super adorable six-year-old who's just like 24 hours a day, watch my tap routine in my sparkly outfit in the living room. Like there's different ways to demand attention. And it can also be for good reasons, for wonderful reasons, like one of your kids got a part on a TV show. One of your kids is a state level tennis player. One of your kids is a star and so I had some exceptional ability that is very exciting, but which the whole family has to revolve around for a little time or a long time. So all of these things, right? So there are big reasons and there are small reasons and there are hard reasons and there are wonderful reasons why your bandwidth can be unevenly applied to your kids.

6:21Not even unfairly necessarily, but that's not without cost. Yes. And then I think we spend time feeling guilty about it.

6:28Amy Wilson:I think that this is dynamic that can be quite damaging and maybe not damaging forever. But this is a dynamic that I watch for a lot in the family because I do think that some of this stuff happens passively and some of it happens actively. I think if there is the good child, the bad child, the problem child, this is the picky eater. Like as you lean into definitions of people in the family, it can kind of calcify those roles in a way that's probably not the most healthy thing in the world. In terms of bandwidth, it can be the quote unquote good kid golden child that is taking up all your bandwidth.

7:10Right. Like she's to be driven to auditions three times a week. So, I mean, bandwidth is a little bit it's part of that, but it can move independently of that. It isn't like sometimes the good kid is the kid, as you were saying, like, God, I have to remember to pay some attention to Brian tomorrow because he just always goes with the flow. when his sister is tantrum all the time. Right. Yes. There is a cost to that, that attention, literal, like attention, time, trying to do things, trying not to do things in support of one member of the family can throw the ecosystem off or worse, become the ecosystem.

7:43It becomes the weather.

7:44Amy Wilson:Right. It becomes the water you're swimming in. It becomes a climate. I think another thing that is really worth talking about because I've been there is is why is this happening? Why is this kid taking up all the bandwidth? And what is our role in it? And is this a choice we are actively making? How is it serving us? Is it serving us? And I'm not saying the solution to all of this is quit travel soccer, don't let the kid audition anymore. But I think sometimes these kind of family dynamics and roles are like a fast moving current that we're just sitting in and we just don't realize how much control we have over this.

8:23Amy Wilson:And I think this can sometimes be the most important step, really defining which child is taking up all the bandwidth, why, and are those active choices that we're making or passive choices we're making? Right. And is it controllable or not? Is it controllable or not? Well, let's go through all the different reasons that a kid can take up your bandwidth because some of them are just patently uncontrollable and some of them are very controllable. So I think that's an important variable to figure out. So let's talk about the impact of a sick kid, a kid who is high needs because they're sick or because they're high needs.

8:55There was a study done out of Lancaster University about the impact of a sick or high needs child on the healthy siblings. siblings. The study referenced the finding that parents underestimate, tend to underestimate the emotional tool on the other kids. This totally rang true to me when I heard this, that you say, they seem fine. They say they're doing great. Thank goodness. The rest of the kids are fine. They're functioning great. But really, the other kids are often just sublimating their own needs because there's no room for them because my sister's in the hospital right now. Right.

9:27Amy Wilson:And what kind of jerk are you going to be to be like, well, I need more even though my sister has cancer. Like no kid is going to say that, you know? Right. Exactly. I'm not going to cry that I don't like mashed potatoes when this thing is going on that I see the toll it's taking on my parents. So the siblings, the studies show that they have changing family relationships. Of course, it changes the family dynamic, but it also changes the way that those kids see themselves in those situations about their right to be the squeaky wheel, you know, once in a while, right? Or to get a B or to throw a tantrum or to, you know, to make a mistake.

10:01Right. I think it's all going to come down to in the end, no matter what kind of bandwidth sucking we're talking about, that it's about seeing it for what it is, right? Addressing it, facing it honestly yourself and with your parenting partner, if you have one, and then addressing it with your kids. Because this study found that in particular parental silence about the issue of the sick kid in the family, which there tended to be. We do tend when one kid is sick, like we're just going to play it totally normal at home, right? There's no reason to upset Brian and we're still going to go to a soccer game.

10:29whatever. But this sort of let's not talk about it doesn't lead to a sense of calm. It leads instead to confusion.

10:38Amy Wilson:I mean, see also your marriage stinks. You are in conflict with your own family. Right. When my mom was dying, you know, I was reluctant to talk about it for 850 different reasons. But I could just sense the tidal shift in my household so quickly that the kids were getting anxious, you know, because I wasn't saying anything about it, but they were still drawing off of me and being like, oh, something's really, really wrong. And I finally sat down and was like, okay, here's what's going on. Yeah. There's a crackle in the air, right? That they pick up on. I wanted to make one more point on the study that I thought was fascinating that they found that sometimes the sick child, if there's a sick child in your family, will get less discipline out of pity or stress on the part of the parents that that kid starts to get away with murder.

11:29And that is not a great situation either. And certainly something that the other kids will pick up on that your kid gets to get away with anything if they just say they're not feeling well today. Yeah. Something to watch out for. Okay, let's take a break. When we come back, we'll talk about more ways that kids can take up all our bandwidth. Fall is the perfect time for a back to one new routines and maybe a little more attention to the things you may have put off over the summer. If your hair could use an autumn reset, it's time for Nutrafol. Nutrafol is the

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15:28Amy Wilson:I think that when we say this, if you know, you know. one child who sets the mood for the family. If they're having a good day, everyone's having a good day. If they're having a bad day, everybody's having a bad day. It's just this person's mood regulates the whole household. Sometimes I think that can be the spouse as well. I mean, I'm being gendered, but I think sometimes this can be the father. But when you're talking about a child, it's the squeaky wheel in a kind of behavioral way. And this could be a child with the diagnosis, oppositional defiant, autism, ADHD, any kind of bipolar, mood regulation, mental illness.

16:07Amy Wilson:And that for kind of survival instincts, the family kind of moves into a mode of let's not bother this person. We have a problem that is the center of what's going on in our households, but we don't know the solution to that problem. And so our solution to that problem is to just make ourselves as small and quiet as possible so that the problem doesn't explode. You're living with a tiger in the house. We used to have a member of our family who had a really hard time in the morning, and we would sometimes be like, the tiger is up and angry. And I think also secrecy comes into this very quickly.

16:49Amy Wilson:You're out of control. You're not doing a good enough job. Nobody can find out that we have a kid who is out of control in the house. You know, you talk to people and the amount of people who would say they've ever been scared of their own child is a huge number of people. Yeah. It's a huge number of people. That's a lot of bandwidth. Right. I think that's such a frightening thing to say out loud. Then the secrecy becomes on top of it that you don't want to talk about what's going on. You mean like nobody can know? Nobody else can know that we have a kid that's disruptive? Yeah, but it somehow feels very shameful.

17:23Amy Wilson:I don't have control over my house and home. I don't have control over my out-of-control child, and I'm scared of them. When this one member of the family who's irascible, let's just say, really short fuse, the other family members will turn on one another. Like, why did you do that? Why did you say this like that? Why did you chew that loud? Right. Whatever. You know, you know, they don't like X. Right. And you turn on one another, which is obviously unhealthy, but it's something that can kind of seep in. Let's keep the peace. And the people will get mad at when they're not peaceful is like, it's not my fault.

17:59It was your fault. You shouldn't have done that. And that can be, it has to be addressed because it's really hard. I think when kids see that a sibling is getting away with things they wouldn't get away with. Even if it's for this is also a diagnosis and you don't.

18:13Amy Wilson:It's hard for kids to understand. This is also, I think, a thing that happens where I'm picturing like two parallel lines and then they diverge by like a half an inch in opposite directions. And it doesn't seem like a big deal. But then like five miles down the road, they're 10 miles apart, the lines. And I think it's like or the frog in the water, you know, that the frog doesn't sense the water getting hotter, that you start making very small adjustments. And then over time, you find yourself in situations where you don't recognize yourself. You don't recognize your household. You're all like literally creeping around being quiet because we can't wake the bear.

18:58Amy Wilson:And it's just, I think that this is a reckoning place to say like that central thing, especially if there's a diagnosis involved, that it can feel like that toe creeping around the bear is the only possible solution. That's where you have to start and really stare this problem down and say, we deserve to not live like this. Yeah. And to acknowledge this is really hard on other members of the family. And I think that sometimes it's as simple as saying this is really hard right now. I know it can be really scary when that person yells and they're having trouble controlling their emotions. But that behavior is fundamentally not OK.

19:45Amy Wilson:Just sort of trying to name stuff because I think it's that we're all creeping around because there's a tiger in the house, but we are never allowed to say the word tiger. That's part of where it gets so bad. I think that's exactly right. I think that realizing what this is and naming it and acknowledging it in age appropriate ways really helps. If you can be honest with the other kids, it can feel tricky. But to be honest with the kids, like, I know this is hard right now. Your brother, your sister has anxiety and it's making them really hair trigger right now. And it's hard to be around. And I see what you're doing.

20:20I see how you're trying to help. And I know it must feel really unfair sometimes that we're dealing with this. And I just want to say, like, I understand it's hard for you rather than gaslighting them into like, what do you mean? We treat you exactly the same when they can definitely see that you don't. Right. Or just never talking about it.

20:37Amy Wilson:Or just never talking about it at all. Never acknowledging that there's anything going on, I think, is the worst option. And I think that foundationally, like, some of these are really hard situations. I worked at a children's hospital. literally one time I was there for an event or something. This was probably 20 years ago. And I think now they're doing a lot more work with families on how this was. But I was there for an hour and I was like, wow, these are some really tough family dynamics. The sick kid tended to be like kind of spoiled and obnoxious, you know, because they never got told no.

21:13Amy Wilson:And you could kind of see it all playing out. And I do know that people, they're working more with families, with kids who have chronic illnesses because it's super hard. It changes. It throws all the rules out the window and you get lost in it. Of course. Who wants to discipline a kid who is sick? It's important. I think this is a situation, whether it's like this kid who only wants mommy or the, you know, cranky kid who missed a nap and like, let's just let him look at his phone while he eats dinner. Right. That you can make these decisions that do provide short term relief. But what you're losing along the way is long-term balance and you have to keep an eye on this.