Latest / The Parenting Podcast / Not Raising Your Voice but Connecting Your Hearts | Ep. 29

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Not Raising Your Voice but Connecting Your Hearts | Ep. 29 · The Parenting Podcast

• 1:00
  Cheryl: welcome to the parenting podcast.
• 1:03
  Cheryl: Listeners were glad you're here today.
• 1:06
  Cheryl: I'm Cheryl and
• 1:08
  Ellen: I'm Allen
• 1:08
  Cheryl: and I'm Denae and we're excited to be here.
• 1:11
  Cheryl: Y'all do.
• 1:12
  Cheryl: We're doing
• 1:13
  Ellen: fine.
• 1:13
  Ellen: I can't speak for you.
• 1:16
  Danae: I had to talk to my daughter today who lives in Denver, and that was a treat talk for about an hour and caught up first on FaceTime and then our wifi went out.
• 1:26
  Danae: So we had to go just to the telephone
• 1:31
  Cheryl: pointing.
• 1:33
  Cheryl: Oh, isn't it good oh, I'm so thankful that technology.
• 1:36
  Ellen: It's a nice area to be born in, should leave apart.
• 1:40
  Ellen: And I remember the days when we
• 1:41
  Danae: wrote letters written a letter in a long time,
• 1:46
  Cheryl: actually I was cleaning out my garage and came across a box that my mom had saved all those years of letters.
• 1:54
  Cheryl: I'd sit when I was somewhere else when I was a teenager.
• 1:58
  Cheryl: And.
• 1:59
  Cheryl: Uh, letters I wrote during college and just all through the years, like, no, I did know she had saved a mouse.
• 2:07
  Cheryl: I have
• 2:08
  Ellen: a box filled of love letters from Mike.
• 2:12
  Ellen: We were married and we lived apart.
• 2:14
  Ellen: He was like in the Philippines for a year.
• 2:17
  Ellen: So, and, and in those days it was like$30 a minute to make a phone call.
• 2:21
  Ellen: You just didn't call.
• 2:22
  Ellen: And so, you know, looking forward every single day to getting a letter
• 2:27
  Cheryl: so different, epic of communication.
• 2:30
  Cheryl: It, Let's get on to maybe some questions and, uh, mom sent us this Uh, she has things, she said she had four boys under 10, but this would be for any age.
• 2:42
  Cheryl: Um, how can I teach my kids to listen to me and respond without having to raise my voice?
• 2:48
  Cheryl: Um,
• 2:50
  Ellen: yeah, it's hard sometimes, especially with noise.
• 2:54
  Ellen: Boys in particular, you're not even meaning to, you just have to get over the fray.
• 3:01
  Cheryl: And it, in particular, I think of some moms are wired for a calmer, quieter.
• 3:09
  Cheryl: Preference in life and kids can be noisy.
• 3:12
  Cheryl: Our family was noisy and our meals were noisy and we just had a lot of noise and, uh, I could take a lot of it, but I mean, it can be overwhelming just, we're just talking about the noisiness, not even speaking into it and trying to get them to hear you.
• 3:33
  Danae: Do you think this question is about.
• 3:36
  Danae: Responding to her when they're being noisy or that, are they being too noisy and she's needing to talk over them or is it that they're ignoring her?
• 3:46
  Cheryl: The expanded version of this is they're ignoring her, that problem that we all have put on your shoes and put on your shoes, put on your shoes.
• 3:54
  Cheryl: I said, put on your chest
• 3:56
  Danae: now, right?
• 3:58
  Danae: Yeah.
• 3:59
  Danae: Yeah.
• 3:59
  Danae: That's what I was thinking that it meant.
• 4:01
  Danae: And you know, a phrase I've said to myself is, say what you mean and mean what you say.
• 4:08
  Danae: I would check myself.
• 4:10
  Danae: That if I were going to ask my child to do something, I knew that I would follow through.
• 4:16
  Danae: Right.
• 4:17
  Danae: So if I were going to say Cheryl, put on your shoes, now that I've asked you, I know that, I mean, put on your shoes.
• 4:28
  Danae: And there were so many times busy life that I would just be calling out all these things, get your shoes, grab your coat, get your lunch.
• 4:37
  Danae: But then there wasn't any follow through on my part.
• 4:40
  Danae: We get in the car and I'd be frustrated with everybody because they didn't do what I said.
• 4:46
  Danae: And then I'd let it go.
• 4:48
  Danae: Or maybe, maybe I'd raise my voice, let it go so many times that my kids weren't listening to me numb to it.
• 4:56
  Danae: They get to it.
• 4:57
  Danae: And they're thinking, oh, mom doesn't really mean that they may not consciously think that, And then I realized I was training them not to listen to me.
• 5:08
  Danae: If I'm not requiring them to follow through on something, I'm training my children.
• 5:14
  Danae: Not to listen to.
• 5:17
  Danae: So maybe if there's 10 things that I typically would call out to my child, pick three, pick one, let's start with one thing and get them to respond, to
• 5:30
  Cheryl: Yeah.
• 5:30
  Cheryl: That's so nice.
• 5:31
  Cheryl: So guilty of it.
• 5:32
  Cheryl: So what's the root of that.
• 5:35
  Cheryl: It's just my lack of awareness.
• 5:37
  Cheryl: Oh.
• 5:37
  Cheryl: So this would always come
• 5:38
  Danae: back to,
• 5:40
  Cheryl: but it's me thinking in the moment or thinking of the future and moving too quickly now.
• 5:49
  Ellen: Not disciplining ourselves to say, okay, we have to be out of here in 30 minutes.
• 5:54
  Ellen: So I need to make sure that my kids need 10 minutes to gather their shoes, gathered their coat, gather whatever they're going to bring in, have it gathered.
• 6:03
  Ellen: So we're not just, I'm not getting panicky because we should have already walked out the door.
• 6:09
  Ellen: And I found that for, uh, you know, five children that worked really well is by giving them.
• 6:16
  Ellen: Markers to meet in that gap before we had to go out the door, because anytime we have to just instantly get out of there it's chaos.
• 6:24
  Cheryl: Well, and I just think about this is not just little ones, right?
• 6:29
  Cheryl: This is all the way through.
• 6:31
  Cheryl: I mean, working with little ones, but your teenagers.
• 6:37
  Cheryl: Yeah.
• 6:37
  Cheryl: And yourself, you know,
• 6:39
  Ellen: I mean, if I have stuff I'm doing, I will put my things in the car the night before.
• 6:45
  Ellen: So then, but that took training, you know, I trained myself with a big family.
• 6:50
  Ellen: Okay.
• 6:50
  Ellen: I need to bring these four things.
• 6:52
  Ellen: I need to get them in the car the day before, because I'm going to be helping chills.
• 6:56
  Ellen: Get in the
• 6:56
  Cheryl: car I just needed.
• 6:58
  Cheryl: Elena's Mike Cheryl.
• 7:03
  Cheryl: Remember y'all are going to this exhibit and you have to do this.
• 7:09
  Cheryl: And that's the problem is sort of slowing life down, I think for me.
• 7:16
  Cheryl: Yeah.
• 7:16
  Cheryl: But even see, like I'm saying, it's not just a small problem.
• 7:20
  Cheryl: One of the things, the way I break up parenting, as I look at it is when they're small and then, uh, to about 10 or 11, these are training years.
• 7:32
  Cheryl: And so it's appropriate to repeat it.
• 7:35
  Cheryl: For example, I had one of my little granddaughters, um, struggling to just even hear your voice and there's no hearing problem.
• 7:44
  Cheryl: But not responding.
• 7:45
  Cheryl: And so we practice, we have a fun game, integral let's practice, stop Gaya.
• 7:51
  Cheryl: And so, okay.
• 7:52
  Cheryl: So I go, you go away and so she'll turn around and run away and I'll say stop.
• 7:56
  Cheryl: And she loves practicing and she thinks that's so fun.
• 7:59
  Cheryl: And then I go, come here.
• 8:00
  Cheryl: So we are practicing it.
• 8:02
  Cheryl: Fred language.
• 8:04
  Cheryl: It's like the old game, red light, green light.
• 8:06
  Cheryl: And so she is learning and then we talk about it.
• 8:09
  Cheryl: And, and so with the little ones like that, lots of practice and lots of patients, and everybody kind of understands that.
• 8:18
  Cheryl: And, um, and then on the side occasionally to talk about who I want her to learn to listen, because I'm not trying to ruin her fun, but I want to protect her.
• 8:28
  Cheryl: And I love her so much and I can't.
• 8:31
  Cheryl: And help if I don't.
• 8:32
  Cheryl: So, so we start little like that, and that's the kind of conversation moms that I have with little ones.
• 8:38
  Cheryl: And then we practice and practice and practice and practice.
• 8:41
  Cheryl: But, you know, I'm thinking even in the teen years struggling to have my teens now with phones it's even more difficult or to know someone has their air buds.
• 8:52
  Cheryl: Yeah.
• 8:53
  Cheryl: They have their air buttons.
• 8:56
  Danae: I know.
• 8:56
  Danae: I always wish they had a little flag, some kind of like hologram, but their heads.
• 9:03
  Danae: We struggle with that.
• 9:04
  Danae: Our household, me and my two girls, you know, we'll all have our headphones and listening to podcasts and we'll end up yelling at.
• 9:11
  Danae: The room and then you get annoyed.
• 9:13
  Danae: It's like, oh, I wish we had some kinds of way
• 9:16
  Ellen: to, or you've had a full conversation of instructions only to realize no one heard you.
• 9:22
  Ellen: And then, then it usually happens with my husband and I he'll go what I go, oh, nevermind.
• 9:29
  Ellen: It's too long to go into.
• 9:30
  Ellen: I'll just do this over
• 9:32
  Cheryl: here.
• 9:32
  Cheryl: So it's an added aspect.
• 9:34
  Cheryl: It's not what the mom was asking that it is even part of our modern.
• 9:39
  Cheryl: Yeah And we were talking to her a couple of weeks ago about interrupting and then the courtesy of that, because one of the things in all of this, at whatever age, the courtesy, even for me to interrupt what they're doing and ask them something, and I didn't always think my children have their own lives and they're involved in something.
• 10:01
  Cheryl: And they're thinking whether they're reading or whatever it is.
• 10:04
  Cheryl: I sometimes would come in just with the mother ism and say, okay, get up.
• 10:09
  Cheryl: We're going to dah it and start giving instructions rather than kindly waiting saying, oh, by the way, whatever it is to get them to here.
• 10:18
  Cheryl: So patients on my part.
• 10:20
  Cheryl: I tell you, I didn't always do that right now.
• 10:23
  Ellen: Communication's a big deal.
• 10:25
  Ellen: It's communicating.
• 10:26
  Ellen: This is what our day looks like.
• 10:28
  Ellen: This is where we're going to be going.
• 10:29
  Ellen: So whether they're teenagers or little kids, they kind of have an idea that probably in two hours, we're going to be leaving the house or that you're going to, you know, people are coming over into our, whatever it is, I think, including your children in on your plans.
• 10:45
  Ellen: Planning meetings, my husband and I every Sunday, but then we would include the children in part of the planning meeting.
• 10:52
  Ellen: So they would know what activities were happening that
• 10:55
  Cheryl: week.
• 10:55
  Cheryl: I told her she should buy mother to help organize like that.
• 11:02
  Cheryl: And you have to
• 11:02
  Ellen: do it that way.
• 11:03
  Ellen: But the idea is to kind of think that way in your mind so that you're communicating well
• 11:08
  Cheryl: Yeah, just
• 11:08
  Danae: back to the question about the children not responding.
• 11:12
  Danae: Is there a habit of the children not responding.
• 11:16
  Danae: So the parents may need to talk to the children and say, this has kind of been our family habit, but we're going, we're going to do something different.
• 11:26
  Danae: And this is how we're going to, we're going to do, you know, when we ask you to do something or we call your name or we make a comment.
• 11:35
  Danae: You know, this is how we're needing you to respond and then expect it, expect your children to, to be respectful to you, to respond.
• 11:44
  Danae: When you talk to them as Cheryl, you such a great job talking about the heart behind, not interrupting your children, you know, so.
• 11:54
  Danae: Be be mindful of what are your children doing?
• 11:56
  Danae: Are they right in the middle of a passionate game, you know, with one of the friends and you're walking in and going, you know, Hey Tommy, and they don't turn around exactly when you want them to, you know, think about the circumstances.
• 12:08
  Danae: But I'm imagining, I know I struggled with this and I can imagine that their parents there's a habit that's been built there in the family structure that needs to be addressed, be broken some creative.
• 12:23
  Danae: Thought
• 12:23
  Cheryl: about.
• 12:26
  Cheryl: Oh, the old I count to three, you know, one, no child ever even considered moving until two point.
• 12:36
  Cheryl: Okay.
• 12:36
  Cheryl: About 2.8 now I need to, so you're right.
• 12:40
  Cheryl: And the deal is if something's reinforced, it just gets repeated.
• 12:44
  Cheryl: And a lot of times it's just the immaturity of their children and it falls back on my shoulders.
• 12:49
  Cheryl: I have slipped up again and I've quit doing it.
• 12:53
  Cheryl: Um, and I need to be the one that's trained and disciplined so I can love them.
• 12:58
  Cheryl: Well, and it's not fair to expect that response just because I happened to come in or I want it, another something you mentioned a good question to ask is, is this something that's just suddenly started?
• 13:15
  Cheryl: Um, or let's say it's one child where they always doing this.
• 13:20
  Cheryl: This is typical.
• 13:21
  Cheryl: This child, or has something changed?
• 13:23
  Cheryl: That's good because what if there's something that's unique in your family or something's changed where it might be a little bit of flag.
• 13:32
  Cheryl: If someone was one way and then there a different.
• 13:35
  Cheryl: Oh, that's good to look.
• 13:37
  Cheryl: Not just in general, but specifically have something changed or is this just typical?
• 13:43
  Cheryl: And unfortunately you're asking me, I would probably say, no, this is just typical.
• 13:48
  Danae: That's right.
• 13:48
  Danae: But a red flag may be the child.
• 13:51
  Danae: That's a heart issue or something that's really going on with them that needs to be addressed in.
• 13:56
  Ellen: Sometimes they just get snooty and are ignoring you.
• 14:00
  Ellen: It's
• 14:01
  Danae: that simple?
• 14:03
  Danae: They've gotten a little older.
• 14:04
  Danae: Yes.
• 14:04
  Ellen: Like I'm just going to ignore my mom right now, or I already know what she's gonna tell me,
• 14:10
  Cheryl: but I like this idea of letting them know beforehand.
• 14:14
  Cheryl: And so even though I didn't do it the way Ellen did it.
• 14:17
  Cheryl: Like to do that also.
• 14:18
  Cheryl: Okay.
• 14:19
  Cheryl: This afternoon, we're going to go such and such whatever age and let them know.
• 14:23
  Cheryl: So when I do interrupt your life with what I'm doing, I've prepared you for it.
• 14:29
  Cheryl: And then, uh, I'm just telling you, it came back on me.
• 14:33
  Cheryl: I had to have my heart prepared.
• 14:36
  Cheryl: So that I responded correctly to them because instead of yelling or raising your voice, I needed to be self aware and self controlled enough to go over, maybe touch them on the arm and do the really.
• 14:51
  Cheryl: Correct.
• 14:52
  Cheryl: Walk them through the conversation and then keep doing the training.
• 14:57
  Cheryl: Keep during the training courses, eight year old and a 14 year old.
• 15:00
  Cheryl: You can't say let's play the stop gate,
• 15:04
  Ellen: but you know, I think Denise touched on it a little bit too.
• 15:07
  Ellen: Especially as they get older teenagers and everything you've consequences.
• 15:11
  Ellen: I can think of how many times we've driven off because a teenager wasn't ready.
• 15:16
  Ellen: No, we came back and picked him up, but that kind of got the point.
• 15:21
  Ellen: I think my two girls.
• 15:23
  Ellen: We're goofing around so much, they missed a whole like pizza vent or something because I'd asked him and asked him and I said, okay, well, if you're not ready, we're leaving.
• 15:32
  Ellen: They were old enough.
• 15:33
  Ellen: We could leave them.
• 15:33
  Ellen: Yeah.
• 15:34
  Ellen: But, uh, you know, they, they knew me.
• 15:37
  Ellen: And if I said that I was going to follow through, even if I felt totally horrible, you know, cause my husband would sometimes say maybe the consequences doesn't need to be that much.
• 15:48
  Ellen: You're grounded for a thousand years, you know?
• 15:52
  Ellen: That helps reinforce because that is real life.
• 15:55
  Ellen: When they get out into the workplace, if they're not where they're supposed to be, or do you know, there's the door they're not going to be.
• 16:03
  Ellen: I mean, cause that's ultimately, that's what you're training them for is so that when they get into the workplace into marriage, into relationships, apart from you, can they function comfortably
• 16:14
  Cheryl: I like kind of what y'all talked about is that we have to turn that around and we have to be willing to listen when they're trying to get our attention and not just say I'm the one with the power that I need them to respond to me, but the listening to them as well.
• 16:33
  Cheryl: And I mean, you know what?
• 16:34
  Cheryl: It's like, you're busy with something and you're thinking you're involved in it.
• 16:38
  Cheryl: And one of the conversations I had with my kids and they were.
• 16:41
  Cheryl: Somewhere older teens probably.
• 16:43
  Cheryl: And they said, I'm so frustrated with you.
• 16:46
  Cheryl: I come in to say something to you, and you're always on your computer and dah, dah, dah, dah.
• 16:50
  Cheryl: And so what I had to do is turn around and have the conversation saying.
• 16:55
  Cheryl: Of course, I want to be connected to you.
• 16:57
  Cheryl: I want to hear what you say, but you'd have to get my attention instead of walking in and just speaking to me and expect me immediately to disconnect with whether I'm on the computer or I'm reading a recipe or I'm reading a book or.
• 17:12
  Cheryl: Looking at the sky And so we had a number of those conversations cause they would be very frustrated that I didn't drop what you were doing in a nanosecond and be listening to what their desires or wishes were.
• 17:25
  Cheryl: and seeing that's what we adults do all the time to them.
• 17:28
  Cheryl: But, and so I'm just saying same with moms.
• 17:31
  Cheryl: We need to be sensitive to them.
• 17:33
  Cheryl: What you were saying.
• 17:35
  Cheryl: Practice it and follow through.
• 17:37
  Cheryl: That would be the most solid advice I would give that mom, quit raising your voice, like what we have here.
• 17:44
  Cheryl: We have a thing that has sound decibels when we're recording this.
• 17:46
  Cheryl: So we know too
• 17:48
  Danae: loud.
• 17:48
  Danae: She turns me down,
• 17:51
  Cheryl: but in the house, the same thing, we can't have that machine, but don't raise your voice above.
• 17:57
  Cheryl: Speak and then follow through and respect
• 17:59
  Ellen: each other, respect yourself that you don't want to yell, no respect your children and what they're doing enough.
• 18:06
  Ellen: So you don't have to yell at them.
• 18:07
  Ellen: And that they know that they're getting respect from you.
• 18:10
  Ellen: And require them to respect you back.
• 18:13
  Cheryl: And I love this because this is such a bigger picture again than just getting your kids to do what you want.
• 18:19
  Cheryl: Right.
• 18:20
  Cheryl: And not raising your voice.
• 18:22
  Cheryl: Cause she just don't want to yell.
• 18:23
  Cheryl: This is cultivating respect within the family.
• 18:26
  Cheryl: If we can just take the time to pull back and keep looking at,
• 18:31
  Ellen: and I did yell at my kids.
• 18:33
  Ellen: I'm talking, I was going to say, I'm talking like a person who hasn't yelled at their children.
• 18:38
  Ellen: I have yelled at my children many times and in probably languages, they did not understand.
• 18:45
  Ellen: you know, I know that I yelled at my kids and now looking back besides apologizing and, you know, helping them work through, when I did yell at them, I also realized how much emotional energy I wasted.
• 19:00
  Ellen: Um, that I could have been using for really positive things doing with them and being with them that got spent on angry, wasted, yelling
• 19:11
  Danae: energy.
• 19:12
  Cheryl: Um, what great perspective, Ellen, I'd love that moms.
• 19:17
  Cheryl: We're not talking about perfection at all.
• 19:20
  Cheryl: Now what we're trying to come.
• 19:22
  Cheryl: Messed up people, ourselves, and are messed up parenting.
• 19:25
  Cheryl: And what we saying, what we always say, it's worth it to love others, better
• 19:31
  Ellen: And it's never too late.
• 19:34
  Ellen: I
• 19:34
  Danae: love that.
• 19:35
  Danae: It's never too late.
• 19:36
  Danae: Yes.
• 19:36
  Danae: Well, I know we're almost through, but I want to give you this example.
• 19:39
  Danae: I do this often and I just did it last night.
• 19:42
  Danae: I was in a conversation with one of them.
• 19:45
  Danae: Children, my children are all adults now.
• 19:47
  Danae: And I started down a conversation and being critical and then I just stopped kind of froze.
• 19:53
  Danae: And I looked at her and I said, Hey, can I retract that?
• 19:56
  Danae: Can I have a do over?
• 19:57
  Danae: And she just kind of opened her eyes wide and big and nodded her head.
• 20:02
  Danae: And I just said, okay.
• 20:03
  Danae: And I went back about 15 seconds and just started in a different direction.
• 20:09
  Cheryl: Tastic.
• 20:09
  Cheryl: Yeah.
• 20:10
  Cheryl: I love that.
• 20:12
  Cheryl: Mean, we could talk about that one thing an entire episode.
• 20:15
  Cheryl: Yeah.
• 20:16
  Cheryl: So it's never
• 20:16
  Danae: too late, not even 15 seconds to late.
• 20:21
  Ellen: Mom's, it's never too late.
• 20:23
  Ellen: Right?
• 20:24
  Ellen: You can, you can turn around a bad situation.
• 20:27
  Ellen: You can forgive yourself for blowing it and you can turn and love your children the way you
• 20:33
  Cheryl: want to.
• 20:35
  Cheryl: Wonderful.
• 20:36
  Cheryl: Just a clean slate.
• 20:38
  Cheryl: You can start over every day, every hour, some
• 20:42
  Ellen: days it's
• 20:42
  Danae: every hour.
• 20:45
  Danae: Even every 15 seconds
• 20:47
  Cheryl: Yeah.
• 20:47
  Cheryl: That's right.
• 20:48
  Cheryl: That's great.
• 20:50
  Cheryl: And, uh, yeah, come looking at the clock and we are out of time.
• 20:54
  Cheryl: Thank you all, both so much.
• 20:56
  Cheryl: And look forward.
• 20:58
  Cheryl: We'll come back next weekend.
• 20:59
  Cheryl: Talk about something else.
• 21:00
  Cheryl: Sounds good.
• 21:02
  Cheryl: Sounds good.
• 21:02
  Cheryl: Okay.
• 21:03
  Cheryl: Moms remember hang in there.
• 21:07
  Cheryl: Keep loving, keep persevering because it is worth it.