Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #1105- Q&A: Rough Play Headaches & Battle Scars

Transcript

#1105- Q&A: Rough Play Headaches & Battle Scars · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast.
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  Speaker 2: It's the podcast for the time poor parent who just
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  Speaker 2: wants answers Now.
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  Speaker 3: Today on the Happy Families Podcast, we take a look
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  Speaker 3: at two questions. One from Nita, who wants to know
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  Speaker 3: about a three and a half year old who is
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  Speaker 3: beating up his little brother, and Emma and Brisbane trying
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  Speaker 3: to pick the right battles. Where do we stand our ground?
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  Speaker 3: Where do we give the kids a little bit of space?
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  Speaker 3: How are we supposed to figure it out? Hello, my
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  Speaker 3: name is doctor Justin Colson. Welcome to the Happy Families Podcast.
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  Speaker 3: Every Tuesday on the podcast, I answer your questions. If
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  Speaker 3: you'd like to leave us a message, all you have
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: to do is go to Happy families dot com dot
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  Speaker 3: you the super simple system. Just scroll down to the
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  Speaker 3: podcast area, press record, start talking. It's that simple. Questions
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  Speaker 3: about parenting, questions about wellbeing, questions about relationships. Tuesdays the
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  Speaker 3: day that we do it happy families dot com dot
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  Speaker 3: Au and use the super simple system to let me
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  Speaker 3: know your questions. Here we go with our first question
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  Speaker 3: number one from Nita.
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  Speaker 1: Hi, Justin and Kylie. We have a three and a
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  Speaker 1: half year old son who's always had really intense emotions
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  Speaker 1: since he was born. He's super loving, but he also
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  Speaker 1: loves rough play, and that sometimes leads to him accidentally
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  Speaker 1: hurting his little brother, and that causes a lot of
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  Speaker 1: stress at home. We try to keep them apart if
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  Speaker 1: we can, but that's not realistic because they're in the
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  Speaker 1: same space. We talk to him about being gentle a lot,
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  Speaker 1: but he just loves playing rough so he continues, how
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  Speaker 1: can we help him manage this? Are there any strategies
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  Speaker 1: that you recommend?
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  Speaker 3: Thanks a lot, Okay, Nita, let's talk about siblings hurting siblings,
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  Speaker 3: especially when they're little. Okay, so we've got limited cognitive development.
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  Speaker 3: It's not like we can sit down and have a
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  Speaker 3: deep and meaningful conversation and get into perspective taking in things,
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  Speaker 3: at least not in any kind of profoundly deep and
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  Speaker 3: helpful way. Regulation is what we're talking about here, helping
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  Speaker 3: our child to be gentle, which is really tricky because
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  Speaker 3: boys particularly love to use their bodies. Now, all kids
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  Speaker 3: love to be active, but boys seem to like to
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  Speaker 3: bump into each other and push up against each other
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  Speaker 3: and ram into each other and I don't know, slap
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  Speaker 3: and kick and throw and punch and just that's kind
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  Speaker 3: of what we see with boys. We also see that
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  Speaker 3: they are less regulated physically. Behaviorally, they're much more likely
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  Speaker 3: than girls to move with a lot of energy and
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  Speaker 3: a lot of ambition and purpose and excitement relative to girls.
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  Speaker 3: And now, of course we're talking averages. There are some
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  Speaker 3: really sedate boys and there are some extremely active and
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  Speaker 3: physical girls, but on average, we see boys using their
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  Speaker 3: bodies a lot more, and this lack of regulation often
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  Speaker 3: comes across as problematic. We start to think there's something
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  Speaker 3: the matter with our boys, and then we feel like
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  Speaker 3: we need to fix them. So the first thing I
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  Speaker 3: want to emphasize is that your son doesn't need fixing.
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  Speaker 3: He's probably doing exactly what he's been designed genetically to do.
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  Speaker 3: But it is inconvenient. Just because it's common doesn't mean
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  Speaker 3: it's not challenging. Here a handful of ideas that I
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  Speaker 3: think can help, and I'm just going to run through
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  Speaker 3: them fairly quickly see which one's gel for you and
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  Speaker 3: which ones don't. Some will certainly resonate a lot more.
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  Speaker 3: The first thing that I really want to emphasize is
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  Speaker 3: just the importance of time to a child. Love is
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  Speaker 3: spelt time. We've got a little guy. He's got a
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  Speaker 3: new sibling, and while we might think that by now
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  Speaker 3: he's used to it, that doesn't mean that he definitely is,
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  Speaker 3: and every now and again he probably just really really
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  Speaker 3: loves to have good quality time with you. I think
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  Speaker 3: this second thing to highlight here is that sometimes he's
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  Speaker 3: just going to struggle to regulate out of excitement, not
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  Speaker 3: necessarily out of malice. He may become over involved in
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  Speaker 3: ways that you would prefer he not be involved with
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  Speaker 3: his new sibling, and that, of course, can cause some
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  Speaker 3: challenges and problems. So I'd be encouraging you to read
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  Speaker 3: and cook and clean and be involved and spend time
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  Speaker 3: and also play and wrestle and jump and run and
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  Speaker 3: throw and do all those sorts of things. Keep him
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  Speaker 3: outside as much as you can, keep him active as
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  Speaker 3: much as you can. I'd also be encouraging fun play,
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  Speaker 3: which usually means a little bit of risk. So we're
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  Speaker 3: talking about maybe doing things that involve going fast, maybe
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  Speaker 3: riding a bike or a scooter, or monster play like
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  Speaker 3: scare and jump moments, sort of rah kind of things.
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  Speaker 3: Three year olds love this sort of stuff, anything that
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  Speaker 3: involves a level of risk, a level of activity, being
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  Speaker 3: outside these kinds of things are going to help your son,
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  Speaker 3: you're three and a half year old, to understand how
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  Speaker 3: to find the edges, how to bump into where the
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  Speaker 3: edges are, and start to regulate more effectively. Every parent
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  Speaker 3: I talk to will absolutely confirm that when their kids
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  Speaker 3: are outside, they're simply better behaved and they come home
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  Speaker 3: or they come inside and they're better regulated because they've
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  Speaker 3: got all their wiggles and their jiggles out while they
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  Speaker 3: are outside. A couple of other things that might be useful.
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  Speaker 3: If your son hurts his sibling, go straight to the
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  Speaker 3: hurt sibling and focus there. Let your son know that
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  Speaker 3: you know he's sorry, but focus on the hurt sibling.
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  Speaker 3: Build the sibling bond wherever you can. It sounds like
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  Speaker 3: that's mostly okay based on your voicemail, but every now
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  Speaker 3: and again some parents will say, this is really not working.
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  Speaker 3: The kids don't seem to like each other. The big
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  Speaker 3: brother or the big sisters being a bully. I don't
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  Speaker 3: think that's an issue here, but we really want to
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  Speaker 3: build that sibling bond where you can so have your
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  Speaker 3: your big boy helping out, whether it's running some chores
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  Speaker 3: or doing some baby sitting or just anything that can
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  Speaker 3: build that relationship. And the last thing that I would
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  Speaker 3: say is regular gentle reminders. The gentle reminder is that
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  Speaker 3: you call out to your son and you say we're gentle,
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  Speaker 3: or we're soft, or we're kind or whatever. It is
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  Speaker 3: just a couple of words, just that gentle reminder consistently,
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  Speaker 3: like Chinese water torture, drip drip drip, Eventually the message
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  Speaker 3: will get in. I mean, again, we're talking about a
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  Speaker 3: three and a half year old, so regulatory capacity cognitive
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  Speaker 3: capacity both fairly limited, fairly restricted in the scheme of things.
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  Speaker 3: You're probably not going to completely stop it because siblings
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  Speaker 3: will constantly hurt each other from day dot all the
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  Speaker 3: way through. I mean, this is part of having If
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  Speaker 3: you don't want the siblings to hurt each other, don't
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  Speaker 3: have siblings as kind of the pessimistic message that I
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  Speaker 3: would share. But he will mostly grow out of it
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  Speaker 3: kind of. And these tips and ideas should be helpful
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  Speaker 3: in helping you to get there. I think there's about
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  Speaker 3: six or seven there, so that's quite a lot to
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  Speaker 3: hang on to. You might want to even go back
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  Speaker 3: and listen to it again because I ran through a
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  Speaker 3: number of things fairly quickly ultimately, though, need is such
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  Speaker 3: a fabulous age, so perfect, so so delightful, such a privilege.
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  Speaker 3: It's just one of the best times that you'll ever
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  Speaker 3: have in your life. As exhausting and terrifying as it
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  Speaker 3: can sometimes be. Three and a half year old boy,
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  Speaker 3: good luck. What a wonderful question. Up next Emma and
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  Speaker 3: Brisbane struggling to pick the right battles. Question number two
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  Speaker 3: comes from Emma in Brisbane, Hi.
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  Speaker 2: Justin and Kylie. My name is Emma and uncle from Brisbane,
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  Speaker 2: with a query around picking your battles. I find this
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  Speaker 2: is such a great thing to do to stop turning
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  Speaker 2: into a giant nag and becoming white noise. However, sometimes
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  Speaker 2: picking battles means that I don't feel like I can
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  Speaker 2: enforce some clear and consistent boundaries as well. As an example,
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  Speaker 2: I feel like I'm constantly nagging my ten year old
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  Speaker 2: to use his cutlery at the table and to not
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  Speaker 2: have his hands all over his eight year old brother.
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  Speaker 2: If I pick my battles and don't try to correct
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  Speaker 2: that behavior, I don't feel like I'm enforcing the boundary
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  Speaker 2: that we would like to set in place. Any tips
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  Speaker 2: would be gratefully appreciated.
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  Speaker 3: Oh, Emma, this is the relentless, never ending challenge of pairing.
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  Speaker 3: When do you step in? When do you step out?
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  Speaker 3: The parents who do pairing the very best seem to
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  Speaker 3: have figured that one out. And I don't know that
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  Speaker 3: there's a simple formula that I can give you here
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  Speaker 3: other than that some stuff is low level at one
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  Speaker 3: age and high level at another. So, for example, Cutler
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  Speaker 3: at four or five years of age is different to
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  Speaker 3: Cutler at fifteen years of age. Man Is at three
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  Speaker 3: is different to man Is at six or twelve. So
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  Speaker 3: where do we go with this? What battles do we
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  Speaker 3: take on? Or do we just constantly nag about everything?
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  Speaker 3: I want to start with something that I emphasize a
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  Speaker 3: lot on this podcast, and that's the value in family meetings.
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  Speaker 3: When we have family meetings in our family, we sit
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  Speaker 3: down on a Sunday, We usually have a snack, although
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  Speaker 3: not always, and we basically say, for the next ten
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  Speaker 3: or fifteen minutes, we're going to talk about three things.
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  Speaker 3: Number one, what do we do well in our family?
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  Speaker 3: Let's talk about the successes. Number two, where are we
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  Speaker 3: falling short? Like, where have we not done so well
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  Speaker 3: this week? And number three, If we would look at
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  Speaker 3: all of the things on both lists, which would we
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  Speaker 3: like to do more of this week? Or shift and
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  Speaker 3: change and try to improve this week. And the reason
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  Speaker 3: that third question matters so much is because it gets
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  Speaker 3: everybody on the same page. It might be that you say,
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  Speaker 3: we're doing a few things wrong, but we've done a
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  Speaker 3: lot of things really really well this week, and I
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  Speaker 3: think we should keep on doing those things really really well.
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  Speaker 3: The alternative, of course, is that you can look at
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  Speaker 3: the list where things aren't going so well and say,
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  Speaker 3: we've got four or five things that we could definitely
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  Speaker 3: improve on if we picked one and worked on it
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  Speaker 3: this week, which one would we work on? And this
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  Speaker 3: is not a finger pointing exercise. It's not an opportunity
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  Speaker 3: to say, well, we've got this child who keeps on
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  Speaker 3: doing this, and you need to work as a family.
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  Speaker 3: These are things that we want to work on. And
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  Speaker 3: I guess what I'm really emphasizing here is that when
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  Speaker 3: we get on the same page, when we're all swimming
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  Speaker 3: in the same direction, we get much better results. And
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  Speaker 3: it might be that you don't get to discuss the
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  Speaker 3: manner's issue or the cutlery isssu or the sibling fighting
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  Speaker 3: issue for I don't know, four or five or six weeks.
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  Speaker 3: But as you start to make gentle progress bit by bit,
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  Speaker 3: as you see yourself moving in the direction that your
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  Speaker 3: family functions better, all of a sudden, everyone gets more motivated.
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  Speaker 3: Everyone likes the meeting because in five, ten, maybe fifteen,
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  Speaker 3: and we've discussed where we're up to and what we're
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  Speaker 3: going to focus on, we've got direction and we can
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  Speaker 3: move in a healthy, positive way. So family meetings would
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  Speaker 3: be one number one response for this. The other thing
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  Speaker 3: that you could do is you could just gently set
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  Speaker 3: aside some time to be with your child and say, hey, kiddo,
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  Speaker 3: I've noticed something and i'd love to share it with you.
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  Speaker 3: Do you mind. I'm really big on asking kids for
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  Speaker 3: consent when we're going to share some correction or direction.
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  Speaker 3: And the reason for that is because when we just
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  Speaker 3: barge in and start telling them what they're doing wrong,
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  Speaker 3: they tend to feel incompetent. They start to feel like
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  Speaker 3: we're on their case all the time we're nagging. There's
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  Speaker 3: lots of correction and direction, Whereas when we softly approach
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  Speaker 3: them and say I've noticed something and I wanted to
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  Speaker 3: run it by you. They tend to be much more receptive.
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  Speaker 3: That consent around permission to share something that could improve
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  Speaker 3: their lives makes a difference, and it could be really
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  Speaker 3: rough when they say, actually, i'd really rather that you didn't.
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  Speaker 3: I had one of my kids say that to me
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  Speaker 3: recently and I was like, ah, but I really need
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  Speaker 3: to tell you this because it's driving me mad. But
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  Speaker 3: it's a mean thing, not a them thing. Yes, this
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  Speaker 3: goes back to that developmental idea that I mentioned at
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  Speaker 3: the beginning of this conversation. Your child might be struggling
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  Speaker 3: with something right now, but do they need to have
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  Speaker 3: it completely under control now? Often we find that they'll
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  Speaker 3: figure it out as they get a bit older. There's
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  Speaker 3: one more thing that I want to share with you, Emma,
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  Speaker 3: that I think might be useful, and this goes for everybody,
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  Speaker 3: and that is that if you decide that a battle
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  Speaker 3: is worth picking, and I think that as a parent,
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  Speaker 3: you've got the right to pick the battles that you
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  Speaker 3: think need to be picked, provide a really clear rationale.
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  Speaker 3: Simon Sinek says, you've got to start with why, and
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  Speaker 3: the reason is because it's so much more empowering, it's
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  Speaker 3: so much more need supportive. When your child understands why
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  Speaker 3: you would like them to use a knife and fork
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  Speaker 3: rather than their hands, they're more likely to say, oh, okay.
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  Speaker 3: In fact, what's even better than you starting with why
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  Speaker 3: and you providing the clear rationale is you're saying, I've
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  Speaker 3: noticed that this is happening a lot lately. Can you
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  Speaker 3: think of any reasons why it might be bothering me?
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  Speaker 3: Or can you think of any reasons why it might
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  Speaker 3: be worth trying to improve what we're doing here? And
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  Speaker 3: stepping in with their opportunity to provide the rationale means
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  Speaker 3: that they're even more likely to internalize it because they're
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  Speaker 3: the ones that are figuring it out. Em there are
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  Speaker 3: many many more things that we could do, many more
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  Speaker 3: conversations we could have around picking your battles. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: there are some people who'll say you're the parent, and
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  Speaker 3: things should be the way you want them to be
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  Speaker 3: in the house. Just man up or pairent up or
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  Speaker 3: whatever it is that you want to I want to say,
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  Speaker 3: I don't think that that approach is going to be useful.
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  Speaker 3: The ideas that I've shared here should get you moving
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  Speaker 3: in the right direction. Some gentle reminders like I mentioned
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  Speaker 3: in the previous answer some family meetings and providing a
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  Speaker 3: really clear rationale and just remembering the developmental realities of
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  Speaker 3: what's going on. Thank you so much for your question, Emma.
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: If you would like to submit a question, all you
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: need to do is go to Happy families dot com
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: dot au. We have a super simple system for you
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: to use. You literally just scroll down to the podcast
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: a part of our homepage, press the record button and
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: start talking. We have a few more weeks to go,
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: just over a month until we break for Chris, so
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: if you'd like to get those questions in, especially questions
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: with a Christmas ey sort of theme, jump onto Happy
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: families dot com dot au. Let me know what's going
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: on in your home, your relationships, your well being, your parenting,
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: and I'll do my best to be as helpful as
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: i can. The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: Roland from Bridge Media. If you'd like more information about
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: making your family happier, love for you to join us
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: at happy families dot com dot au.