Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / When To Ignore Kids' Bad Behavior Vs Give Consequences... And When You And Your Partner Don't Agree On Parenting

Transcript

When To Ignore Kids' Bad Behavior Vs Give Consequences... And When You And Your Partner Don't Agree On Parenting · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:05
  Hi everybody, and welcome to the doctor.
• 0:07
  Psych mom show today, I'm going to address a topic that a
• 0:11
  subscriber wanted to wanted me to explore, which is when you
• 0:17
  should ignore kids bad behavior and when you should not ignore
• 0:21
  it and or give consequences. So, before I dive into that
• 0:27
  topic, I would like everybody to subscribe please, so that you
• 0:30
  get to hear all my paid content about all the different Topics
• 0:35
  that I talk about if I'm looking at my most recent ones, the role
• 0:40
  of Maintenance sex in a healthy relationship, does it really
• 0:43
  matter to wives when husbands get into better shape neediness
• 0:47
  versus healthy communication? Communication of needs?
• 0:50
  Those were all paid. So if you pay then you get those
• 0:53
  two anyhow. So when should you allow your
• 0:58
  kids to just kind of misbehave or or roll their eyes or bigger
• 1:04
  or Whatever they're doing versus when, should you lay the
• 1:07
  smackdown is really the question and there's really no
• 1:10
  hard-and-fast law about this quite honestly, I would think it
• 1:15
  would be a better topic to say, what do you do?
• 1:17
  When parents aren't on the same page about this?
• 1:20
  And the answer there is to respect each other.
• 1:23
  And when Mom is the one that's in charge, it's her rules.
• 1:27
  When dad's the one that's in charge of his rules, people
• 1:30
  always think that parents have to have the exact same rules.
• 1:34
  They don't, What they have to do is be on the same page.
• 1:37
  So basically whenever you hear that your child is catching some
• 1:40
  shit from the other parent, you have to be on the side of the
• 1:43
  other parent. Obviously, I'm not talking about
• 1:45
  an abuse situation. I'm not talking about, you know,
• 1:48
  your husband like throws the kid across the room and you're
• 1:51
  supposed to be like, yeah, that's what he said.
• 1:54
  No, obviously not, I'm talking about a situation where here
• 1:57
  I'll give an example, you know, just to highlight both the
• 2:01
  individuality of these decisions.
• 2:03
  And then, Need for parents to be on the same page with each other
• 2:08
  versus not, right? So let's say Dad is doing
• 2:12
  breakfast. And dad does not care if the kid
• 2:15
  pours, the cereal onto the table, right?
• 2:18
  Because Dad, just a real laid-back, dude, right?
• 2:20
  And he doesn't care the Kids 3 years old, and he says, Fine,
• 2:23
  eat it off the table. So if Mom comes down and she's
• 2:27
  like, what is all this noise? Oh, my God.
• 2:31
  You're training him to be an animal pick that up right now.
• 2:34
  In timeout, we've talked about this, right, you know, what's
• 2:39
  bad? The kids heart rate goes up from
• 2:41
  the marital conflict, right? And then also in a long-term
• 2:45
  situation, the kid learns, dad is an idiot and only mom knows
• 2:49
  how to parent, right? When that's not true.
• 2:52
  Because, you know, why is that an idiot?
• 2:54
  He can just sweet. He's gonna have to keep up the
• 2:56
  damn table anyway, right? We'd kids eat.
• 2:58
  It's a horrible mess. So he just says, I'll sweep up a
• 3:01
  little more. He doesn't give a shit.
• 3:02
  Maybe this was how it was when he was Going up, right?
• 3:05
  People were allowed to do kind of whatever they want.
• 3:07
  It either way, the kid isn't really hurting anybody.
• 3:10
  What he's not doing, she's not playing by Mom's rules but
• 3:12
  that's okay because mom's not in the root, right?
• 3:15
  However, if it tomorrow, mom is doing breakfast and Mom has the
• 3:19
  kid eating with a spoon and in from a bowl and dad comes down
• 3:23
  and he makes like a silly face and he liked pours his own
• 3:26
  cereal on the table. Well and he's being a pretty
• 3:29
  Prime jackass, right? And he's undermining her
• 3:32
  parenting. So the problem in this
• 3:34
  Situation. Isn't that like we have to
• 3:37
  figure out whether you're allowed to pour the cereal on
• 3:39
  the table or not when you're three.
• 3:40
  But why do these parents continue to undermine one
• 3:45
  another? And why are they kind of, why is
• 3:48
  their self-esteem predicated on being right versus thinking
• 3:51
  about how the calmness of the home, and the connection between
• 3:58
  the couple is preeminent, which it really is in the mental
• 4:02
  health of the entire family. Obviously, We including the
• 4:05
  children so people can have very, very different
• 4:08
  perspectives on what to allow and what not to allow, right?
• 4:12
  And this is the same with co-parenting.
• 4:14
  Obviously, you know, your ex can co-parent very different than
• 4:18
  you do. As long as the children are not
• 4:20
  getting physically or emotionally harmed.
• 4:22
  And you got to have, like, you know, this isn't like you say,
• 4:25
  oh yeah, they're emotionally harmed.
• 4:27
  Because, you know, they're gonna not know how to live with rules.
• 4:33
  No, I'm talking about. Like if your co-parent is
• 4:36
  telling the kid, like, I hate you, you're a terrible person.
• 4:40
  That's emotional harm, right? That's emotional abuse.
• 4:43
  But in the situation where, and this is always what it is.
• 4:46
  One person is just more laid-back than the other person.
• 4:49
  It could because they have ADHD. It could be because there is any
• 4:52
  Buddhist, and it doesn't really matter.
• 4:54
  It means that they parent different than you do and
• 4:58
  therefore you don't like it because you like to think that
• 5:02
  your way is, right? And they like to think that
• 5:04
  their way Is right, if they are also then judging your
• 5:06
  parenting. So this is usually what happens
• 5:10
  in terms of what are there any hard stops on?
• 5:13
  What sorts of behavior should lead to consequences, like,
• 5:17
  timeout or removal of privileges?
• 5:20
  Usually, that's just hurting somebody, you know, it's hurting
• 5:23
  somebody or openly defying a parent, which hurts the parents
• 5:27
  feelings, you know? I mean, nobody likes somebody to
• 5:30
  scream. No fuck you, you know, I mean
• 5:32
  the bright or the equivalent the Equivalent.
• 5:35
  No, you can't make me or something.
• 5:37
  So, if there's open Defiance of a parent, or there's hurting of,
• 5:41
  somebody else, like pushing a sibling, insulting a sibling,
• 5:45
  really bad, then. Yeah, that would get
• 5:48
  consequences stuff like that goes against the rules of your
• 5:52
  home. May get consequences to.
• 5:54
  You can make that decision, child.
• 5:56
  You told child to clean their room, they don't clean their
• 5:58
  room, okay, that can get consequences.
• 6:00
  But in terms of a hard stop what I would say what's healthy is to
• 6:04
  To have immediate consequences, whether that's a Stern
• 6:08
  talking-to, whether that's a deep talking to whether that's a
• 6:12
  timeout. If somebody hurts somebody else,
• 6:14
  because that's really what we want to raise.
• 6:16
  His Kind children, who empathize with others and who are
• 6:20
  emotionally intelligent. You can refer back to my
• 6:23
  emotional intelligence, podcasts on that, right?
• 6:26
  And so if you allow your child to hurt others, then don't be
• 6:31
  surprised when they continue to do that for their whole life.
• 6:34
  So that Be the hard stop. And that is the thing that makes
• 6:37
  most parents. Most upset is when the child is
• 6:40
  openly disrespectful because it's hurtful to the parent and
• 6:44
  when the child hurts a sibling or, you know, somebody else.
• 6:48
  So, in terms of disrespect, you have to always, of course, think
• 6:52
  about whether you have too many rules for a child to possibly
• 6:55
  follow. So, if you want the child to
• 6:57
  clean their room, but you also want the child to practice
• 7:00
  violin and then you also want the child to, you know, clean
• 7:04
  up. Up after dinner and then you
• 7:05
  also want the child to come down and dress for dinner and then
• 7:08
  you know, like all these different things and sometimes a
• 7:10
  child is just, you know, can't do everything.
• 7:13
  So then they start to lie and like in strict households, this
• 7:17
  is why there's a lot of lying because the kid just can't do
• 7:19
  everything so they, you know, they max out.
• 7:23
  So then what do they do? They gotta like, they don't want
• 7:25
  to get in trouble. So this would be how
• 7:28
  authoritarian households impact children?
• 7:31
  They usually lead to Children kind of fearing.
• 7:34
  Consequences so much that they lie and then of course they get
• 7:37
  in trouble for lying when that's found out to their kind of
• 7:39
  really in a shitty situation overall.
• 7:41
  That's why you really got to examine if you have too many
• 7:44
  rules. However, on the other side, I
• 7:46
  see this more frequently in the clients that I work with
• 7:49
  nowadays is overly permissive parenting, where there are no
• 7:53
  rules No Boundaries and then the child is just disrespectful
• 7:57
  about anything. You ask them to do because they
• 7:59
  don't think they have to because they don't have to you'll say
• 8:02
  clean up your room but then, You'll never ever do it with
• 8:07
  them or tell them it really has to be done.
• 8:10
  You'll just kind of say it and then you'll just go do it, you
• 8:12
  know, so they don't listen and then as they get older, they
• 8:16
  listen, less and less because they don't believe you, it's
• 8:18
  crying wolf ever so often you say there should be some sort of
• 8:21
  a rule and some sort of thing for them to do, but they know
• 8:25
  that's not real so they don't really respect you.
• 8:28
  So in that sort of situation, basically, my point here is look
• 8:31
  inward before you give consequences lookin at whether
• 8:34
  the Parenting is fair and whether the parenting is really
• 8:38
  teaching the child how to do the things that you then want them
• 8:42
  to do. So you can't say to a child.
• 8:44
  Be nice if you and your co-parent always yelling at each
• 8:47
  other. I mean, married in the house or
• 8:49
  not married, you know? So like if you and your husband
• 8:52
  or wife or always bitching and sniping at each other, then you
• 8:56
  yell at your kid for doing the same thing to their sibling well
• 8:59
  at some, you know, pot calling the kettle black stuff.
• 9:02
  Right. I mean people in glass houses.
• 9:04
  And every other cliche, you could think of stuff.
• 9:07
  So you got to look inward at yourself before you yell at your
• 9:10
  kid because that situation with the three-year-old in the cereal
• 9:14
  you may think that that's crazy. That the man would come
• 9:16
  downstairs and poor his cereal on the table.
• 9:18
  But I see shit like this all the time.
• 9:20
  Like one like parents trying to get at each other through the
• 9:25
  kit so they're basically using the kid as a pawn and they'll be
• 9:29
  like don't you see that? She like like the child's like
• 9:34
  fucking like? Eight months old and the woman
• 9:36
  will be like, don't you see? She doesn't like when you're on
• 9:38
  your phone. It's like what?
• 9:41
  Like you don't like what he's on his phone and you're saying the
• 9:44
  baby doesn't like it. The baby was looking at, you
• 9:46
  know, Baby Einstein mobile or whatever.
• 9:49
  You know, certainly kids. Don't love it when you're on
• 9:51
  your phone, but every single time I hear parents say that,
• 9:54
  it's because they wish that they got more attention from the
• 9:58
  adult their partner. And so their verbalizing, it
• 10:01
  through the kids. So that's another thing to get
• 10:04
  from this. This podcast episode is are you
• 10:06
  complaining about your co-parents behavior because you
• 10:11
  really are upset with them for you and you're just saying that
• 10:15
  it's through the kids. So that's another thing to think
• 10:18
  about. So for example, in the same
• 10:23
  question, the or the same reader, who asked this question
• 10:26
  said how can you get your spouse to recognize that if a child is
• 10:33
  smart? And they're They can still have
• 10:35
  Tantrums like other kids and they shouldn't be you know he'll
• 10:40
  to other standards because you know they may not develop the
• 10:43
  same intellectually as the but they're still you know like a
• 10:47
  developmentally, a child etcetera whatever.
• 10:49
  Basically getting at the idea of, how do I make my co-parent?
• 10:56
  See that XYZ is right? Is usually not going to work.
• 11:01
  Imagine how different this would go.
• 11:04
  If you said God, my kid can be so annoying when they tantrum
• 11:10
  and, you know, I am going to empathize then with my spouse
• 11:15
  and maybe there's something that both of us are doing that, sets
• 11:19
  it up. So that my kid Tantrums all the
• 11:20
  time, which is objectively, a behavior that is bad.
• 11:25
  You know. That's never going to get my kid
• 11:26
  anywhere in life is like losing his shit.
• 11:29
  You know, like he's if he's two years old like yes, cured,
• 11:33
  two-year-olds have In terms. But honestly, they don't all the
• 11:36
  time, they really don't. And they usually don't at school
• 11:39
  and that's how we know that it's not like usually just a two year
• 11:42
  old thing. It's usually a parent is getting
• 11:46
  frustrated. Kid is then getting frustrated.
• 11:48
  The two of them are not interacting well with each
• 11:50
  other, because many kids, tantrum at home, that never
• 11:52
  tantrum. It's cool.
• 11:53
  And it's not always because they're like, so relaxed and
• 11:55
  happy at home, like, you know, people like to say sometimes
• 11:58
  it's because they're just no fucking rules at home.
• 12:01
  The inmates are running the Asylum.
• 12:03
  Kid doesn't know what's happening Next.
• 12:04
  And so the kid Tantrums. So think about it this way if
• 12:08
  you have this issue or any other issue with your spouse say to
• 12:13
  yourself, why am I not taking my spouse's position on this and
• 12:18
  only the kids position? Do I have any resentment about
• 12:21
  other things currently going on with my spouse, you know, and
• 12:24
  then work through those things because if you said to your
• 12:27
  spouse, geez, these tantrums are like unbelievable.
• 12:31
  I think that something I'm doing is I'm being like a little Bit
• 12:34
  too loose and free and easy with the rules.
• 12:38
  Like, you always tell me and, you know, sometimes you could be
• 12:41
  harsh, I feel like probably we got to get in the middle on this
• 12:44
  because probably nothing either of us is doing is working.
• 12:47
  You know, I wonder if there's anything like what do you think
• 12:50
  that we should try in terms of afternoon routine so that he's
• 12:55
  not tantruming all the time, right?
• 12:57
  Coming to your spouse like that, that can get you somewhere.
• 13:02
  If you're like, hey, I read this article on.
• 13:04
  How gifted children have asynchronous development and
• 13:07
  therefore your rules are too stringent.
• 13:09
  And maybe you could just read this book real quick.
• 13:11
  While I stand over here and teach our kids, some more math
• 13:15
  that shit's not going to work, right?
• 13:16
  And everybody is tempted to do that.
• 13:19
  Everybody's tempted to come in like the big parenting Guru.
• 13:22
  Especially women who read like approximately from my clinical
• 13:25
  experience 46 thousand times as many parenting books as men do,
• 13:29
  but just because you read all those books doesn't mean that
• 13:32
  you don't also have your own issues.
• 13:34
  So, come at it, from a place of we are probably fucking up this
• 13:37
  issue. I really see your point about
• 13:39
  this kid and therefore, let's brainstorm ways to make our
• 13:43
  family routine different and better so that everybody is
• 13:47
  happy. So that is just an extra little
• 13:51
  add-on to this because this any any parenting question that has
• 13:56
  to do with how people should co-parent with each other.
• 14:02
  Usually goes back to the relationship between the Parents
• 14:04
  just like in law questions or never about the in-laws.
• 14:07
  It's about how the spouse is dealing with their parents that
• 14:10
  you don't like, you know. So think about that in terms of
• 14:14
  this as well is what is going on?
• 14:16
  What are stressors with your spouse that are being expressed
• 14:21
  through the arguments, about how to parent the child, that's
• 14:24
  frequently what's going on in my clinical experience.
• 14:27
  So overall, what did we learn? It's there is no one way to skin
• 14:31
  a cat or parent, a child. There are No real rights or
• 14:36
  wrongs or heart stops until the child is hurting someone, you
• 14:40
  should look inward If the child is hurting someone or doing
• 14:43
  anything else and where they could be learning this behavior
• 14:45
  from and whether the routine of the home is really
• 14:49
  child-friendly, remember the can't be no routine.
• 14:51
  That's too permissive and it can't be all, you know, boot
• 14:54
  camp, that's authoritarian. The Sweet Spot is the
• 14:57
  authoritative in the middle and don't come at things when you're
• 15:00
  trying to teach something to your co-parent.
• 15:02
  This, this one would be a real good podcast.
• 15:04
  Last honestly if you want to share some shit with your
• 15:06
  co-parent, you know, married or not or divorce, share this, what
• 15:10
  divorce? They're not.
• 15:11
  They're not going to listen that anything you said, right?
• 15:13
  But you know I mean maybe maybe they could but if you want to
• 15:17
  share this with your partner, this is a good one because this
• 15:20
  one is saying, listen, Maybe I'm coming at this wrong.
• 15:23
  Maybe I've been trying to act like the parenting Guru on the
• 15:26
  Mountaintop and not looking in, at whatever in my behavior is
• 15:29
  contributing to the dynamic that I don't like and there is not
• 15:32
  one right way and one wrong. Wrong way to parent, you know,
• 15:36
  and let's figure out what we could do.
• 15:38
  That's somewhere in the middle that leaves us, both feeling
• 15:40
  respected and shows our kids that we are on a team and makes
• 15:43
  us feel like we're on a team. All right.
• 15:45
  So hopefully this was useful and please, everybody do subscribe.
• 15:49
  So you can get all my bonus content can also follow me on
• 15:52
  medium. I'm sorry if you like medium.
• 15:54
  I'm on medium now and I will talk to everybody suit.
• 15:58
  Have a great day.