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Welcome to the Parenting Without Power Struggles podcast. I'm Susan Stiffelman, author of Parenting Without Power Struggles and Parenting with Presence. As a family therapist, teacher, and parent coach for over 40 years, I've helped thousands of families raise kids with more connection and ease. and fewer power struggles.

And I get to share some of what I've learned with you here. In this series we talk about real parenting struggles and practical ways to address them based on decades of experience and study in attachment theory, neuroscience, internal family systems, mindfulness, polyvagal theory, and of course decades of clinical practice.

You'll hear conversations with guests like Dan Siegel, Janet Lansbury, Mona Delahooke, Tina Bryson, Ned Hallowell, and many others, along with episodes where I answer questions from parents like you. At the heart of my work is a commitment to helping you be the calm, steady, loving, captain of the ship for your children and teens.

Managing dysregulation, your kids and your own, so that you can raise confident, resilient kids who feel safe, seen, and heard. Secure and open to your loving support. You can find out more about my work at SusanStiffelman.com where you can explore a library of masterclasses on everything from meltdowns and chores to helping anxious and sensitive children thrive along with lots of other wonderful parenting resources.

Now let's get started. A parent wrote this question, a great question. I'll bet lots of you can relate to it and I'll read it to you and then I'm going to share some of my thoughts and ideas.

My seven year old is a creative, bright, and sensitive boy. We focus on connection and allowing all emotions in our parenting.
He often has big feelings and they manifest as rudeness towards us. He says no to small and simple requests, argues about everything, insists on doing something his way or not at all, makes demands and interrupts by repeatedly yelling his request or my name while I'm talking. I get caught in responding and I end up in lawyer mode.

Your model has really helped with this piece, but here's the bit I find a bit confusing. I understand that it's not productive to focus on tone and words and instead go under to the feeling, but in the moment it also seems remiss to not correct him when he's yelling rudely. Is it not important to expect a certain way of speaking, so we can discuss things productively and be respectful, the same way I would hold my physical boundaries if he were hitting me?

I find I spend a lot of time correcting his tone, but then I wonder if he isn't being able to release all these feelings and if that's why he seems to be simmering. I'm not sure how to find a helpful balance and would love your thoughts. So this is a really it's a beautiful question because it's more nuanced than, how do I get my child to put their shoes on or stop hitting?

This is, going deeper, which is my favorite thing to do, because simply putting band aids or scripting something for someone, offering a superficial, three, here's three tips, to me, while it's useful and helpful and can, get the job done, when you're really trying to look at the big picture of what's going on with a child, it helps to be more nuanced.

What can I say? The first thing I like to start with is what's going on inside the parent, because, the old thing, you can't change anyone but yourself, so the version of us that would show up, or the version of you, parent who wrote this question, the version of you who engages with your child, let's start with looking at that.

And again, this is going to be a brief, sketchy kind of response. I'm not going to go into an hour long coaching session, but that would be fun. And I, of course, do that in my private practice and membership. But in terms of some global ideas I want to get to here. The first is, which version of you is showing up?

Because you're saying, and you must be familiar with my work, that I talk about how we can either be the captain of the ship, or the lawyer, or the dictator. And with, when you're the captain, you're calm, you're steady, you're not taking things personally. There's a level of stability and regulation inside of you.

So that, when your child, or if your child pushes back, or they speak rudely, or they're very demanding, or they're uncooperative, it doesn't land personally. It doesn't activate older, kind of emotional vulnerabilities where, you can't talk to me that way, might not only be present day, a present day.

Reaction to have a seven year old, you can't talk to me that way, but may also be reminiscent of things you went through as a child where you were spoken to unkindly or rudely or your voice was simply disregarded. So the more you can look at who is engaging with a child and maybe take a minute or two When you need it, to put your hand on your heart, to collect yourself, to see if you can challenge whatever the interpretation of your child's behavior is that might be fanning the flames of your agitation or your frustration.

Which could, for instance, be, my child is disrespectful, or they're going to grow up to not have any friends because they don't know how to be tolerant. Those stories can certainly destabilize us. Can you move to a place either beforehand, before you have to let your little boy know that something has to be done differently than he might want or if you're already triggered, activated to put your hand on your heart, take a breath or two and just check in with yourself to see where, what's getting stirred up and to be more conscious and aware of that.
I know this is sometimes a tall order in those moments when you're just, I just want you to. Bring your plate to the kitchen counter. I don't want to have this complicated dialogue either with my child or with myself. I just want the plate in the sink, right? I get it. Sometimes, once in a while, using those triggering or challenging reactive moments in IFS, it's called the trailhead.

The trailhead, which is where's this, there's a possibility here. That I'm on to something deeper than just the superficial presentation of the problem in the moment. Then we get to not only approach it differently, but prevent more and more of these challenging moments. Because the more we stay solid and steady as that calm, present captain of the ship, the better able we would be in that moment to say, Sweetheart.
You have something important that you want to say. Do you need some help saying what you want to say in a respectful tone? I'm happy to help you. Now, sometimes what I find more effective is not to do this in that moment because if a child's already pretty dysregulated, they're not going to be open or receptive to your guidance.

So some children feel quite remorseful after an episode like this where they've been very rude or demanding or defiant. Sometimes later on when you're reconnected the child might say, I don't know mommy, I just got really mad. And you could say sweetheart, I hear that. It happens to me too.

Would you like to get a little bit of help with that so that we stay friendly toward each other even when things are going on and you don't like? Now, again, go slow, don't use tons of words. I'm very wordy and I'm also in these podcasts, and I tend to try and cram a lot of information into, so you might need to replay this.

For some kids, they genuinely want help, and that's where you could practice and even role play and say, alright, sweetie, let's imagine that I'm about to tell you that it's time to bring your plate to the kitchen sink, and a part of you feels like, I don't feel like doing that. I think that I shouldn't have to do that for whatever reason.

How could, let's practice you speaking up for the part of you that just doesn't feel like it in a respectful and kind way. And let's see where that would go. So you could coach your child to say, Mommy, you want me, I don't want to bring my plate. I really don't like doing that. Or, it feels hard to me to do that.

Now, again, we're going to question the validity of his argument. Like, how hard is it to really bring your plate to the sink? But, that's okay. It doesn't have to be about the plate to the sink. It might be picking up his clothes. It might be, he's supposed to feed the dog. Sweetie let's hear you talk about What you wish could happen in a way that is respectful.

And some kids are more responsive when you inject a little bit of playfulness into this. And one, another way to do that effectively where they don't feel quite so confronted is to use stuffed animals and act it out. So here's one animal, just one represents the child, one represents you as the parent.

And the little tiger child is just shouting at the parent elephant, the stuffed animal that, It represents the parent, maybe it's an elephant, a little elephant. And you could demonstrate it with a little bit of exaggeration and show the elephant kind of rubbing its head like, Oh my gosh, this is, the tiger child is so loud.

Again, it's calling attention to something. He's still quite young and remember that, he's acquiring a whole body of skills that will take a long time and lots of practice to develop, but if you can stay in that compassionate spirit. Captain of the ship mode rather than the lawyer mode where you've gotten activated and now you're arguing and coming at him with suggestions and advice and counsel or the dictator You know with your yelling or you're you know Really upset with him the more you model for him the that ability to stay present and articulate put into words sweetie I want to hear what you have to say and let's practice, let's give it a try in a way that is kind and respectful.
And again, when you do these role plays, you're modeling for him what that sounds and looks like. And of course, I hope you're also showing him in your day to day life Tommy, I'm guessing that when I let you know it's time to pick up your clothes and throw them in the laundry room, you might have some objections.

You might not feel like doing that because I know. Most of the time when I tell you it's time to do that, it seems like a part of you really doesn't want to hear it. Do I have that right? And, it is time to gather up all the dirty clothes, and maybe You know, drag them, or wear them on your head, or put them in this bag so that they make their way to the laundry room.

Is there, do you have any questions about doing that? And then you make the space, but you're in a calm and steady place, and if he says, that's stupid, I'll do it later, I don't want to, you could say, oh, so you were hoping that I didn't mean right now. You know what, that makes sense to me, especially if it's something you don't want to do.

You were hoping you wouldn't have to do it. Or that maybe you could say you're going to do it later on. Unfortunately, it's a now thing. So do you need any help finding your way to getting that done? And if he starts yelling or saying no, or I don't want to, or I'm only going to do it This time or this way you can just, if you can just stay steady and calm and say, try and be minimalistic with your words.

Oh, you, so it really sounds like this is at the bottom of what you wanted to do right now. You know what? I can understand that. I can really understand that you were wishing that you wouldn't have to do this. Yeah. And. This is the time for it. And so try to avoid saying, I'm sorry, but you have to do it.

Because if you were sorry, you wouldn't make him do it. So stay present, stay calm. I know this is just the tip of the iceberg because of course there's all the questions about does he get dysregulated? Does he need more connection? How is the attachment between you? Is he tired when you make the request?

Is he feeling out of control in other areas? There's so many directions we could go, but this is at least a place to get started. Thank you so much for submitting the question and I hope it was helpful. And to those of you listening, please feel free to visit SusanStifelman. com slash podcast where you can submit a question of your own.

We love it when you like the podcast or you write a review, you give it a nice, the extra stars because we are trying to get the word out about this work. And of course, visit SusanStiffelman.com for lots of information on my classes, programs. And all the ways we offer support to parents. Now remember, no matter how busy life gets, look for those moments of sweetness and joy.

Stay well, take care, and we'll see you next time.