Latest / The Raising Emotionally Intelligent Humans Podcast / Episode 6: Calmer Parenting; how a conversation with a friends shifted everything.
Transcript
- Heidi Lindeman: Hello and welcome to the Raising Emotionally Intelligent Humans podcast. I'm Heidi Lindemann, your host, a single mom by choice to two little ones, and a therapist. On this podcast, I talk about stories, stories around emotions, mine, my kids, and how to create more emotional intelligence in my family through real stories and with my children. So here we go, another story. So this story starts on a Sunday. This particular Sunday, we decided we were going to stay home. Often we go to church, but that can be a whole nother chaotic event because of times and church times and sleep times and naps and all that. But that's a story for different time. Today we decided to stay home because our day the other on Saturday was unexpected. And then we had to get our tire changed and it took five hours. Also another story. OK, so to the point to the point here. OK, so we were we'd spent our day at home. I've been folding clothes, getting ready for the week. Picking up the house a little bit. And we had not really been outside. And my older kiddo, she really wanted to go for a walk. It's like, OK, we we need to go for let's go for a walk, little love. We went for a little quick walk before rest time. before her sister's nap time. And then after nap, the plan was we're going to the park. We're going to the park. It was a February day and it was gorgeous outside. Little eerie that it's so ⁓ nice and we've had very hardly any snow. But it was a gorgeous day so we were gonna go to the park. Around the time when I wanted to go to the park, like three-ish, I got a text from a friend who I hadn't talked to in a very long time, and I really wanted to talk to her. So I called her, and I was like, okay, kids, you can play for a little bit, and then after the call, we'll go to the park. The call ended up being an hour long because I love her. And we still decided to go to the park. Okay, so here's where the real story starts. I get into the mode, we're going to the park. We're gonna get in the car to drive to the playground. to play the playground a little bit before dinner time. We also have to have baths tonight, because I haven't had a bath in a while. So we should give them a bath. So we have to be home enough time to make dinner to have time for a bath time. This was my brain process. This was what was going on. And just that thinking, the like trying to think out the time, started to make me feel rushed. was like, ooh, in my chest. We gotta, we gotta like go, go, go if we wanna go to the playground. And that urgency that happens inside of me, that comes from a place of, well two places, one of like over whelm or over stimulation from like we need to go, we need to get this thing done because this is what I expect, that's partly a neurodivergent brain, and the other from my childhood experiences and ⁓ the pressure that I felt when I was rushed. So there's that part of me that's feeling rushed. And I didn't quite catch it. So I was kind of barking at my kids. Come on, if you want to go to the park, we got to put on our shoes. Go get your shoes, please. We got to go to the park. If you want to go the park, we're going to put our shoes on. Do you want to go to the park? Put your shoes on. OK, if you don't put your shoes on, then we're not going to the park. Not my best, best mom voice by any means. But it was coming out. And I also was like, oh, we should probably go potty before we go to the park. So I told them both to go pee. The older one did, the younger one did not. She was refusing. She was falling on the floor. She was crying and saying, no. I was feeling frustrated from that urgency, from that overwhelm. I wish I would have paused and taken a couple of deep breaths in that moment and realized that there is no urgency in going to the playground. We can go and play for five minutes. We can go and play for half an hour. It just depends on how long it takes us to get out of the house. But that there's no urgency in going to the playground. If I had noticed that and slowed myself down, I probably would have handled that situation a little bit better with getting out of the house. But I didn't. Little one didn't go to the bathroom. We all got our shoes on. We went to the playground so that they could be outside because we were inside most of the day. They were both very excited to go to playground. So like actually them getting out of the door, beyond putting on their shoes was fairly easy. We got in the car, drove to the playground. It's like three minute drive. And it was lovely. And then they both got out of the car and they ran to the playground and they were running around and we happened to see a couple of our friends, which was really fun. So they were just playing on the playground and then it'd been maybe, I don't know, 10. ish minutes of being at the playground and my little one's climbing up this ladder and she's getting really good at climbing these ladders. She's about two and a half ish right now. She's climbing, she's mastering that. She's been climbing the ladder and then going down the stairs because she doesn't want to go down the slide. It was very cute to watch her do that and then her little friend was going up the stairs, sometimes up the ladder, and going down the slide and her little friend was trying to get her to come with her. It was very cute and very fun. then I felt a sense of joy, sense of calming. I was standing next to another mom. I got to say hi to her for a little bit. It was really nice to have that connection for me. And I just sunk into to them playing into the nice weather. It was warm, not hot. Also weird because it's February. But that's also not the point. So she's climbing the ladder again. She pauses. and stops. And I'm like, you okay? Do you need some help? And she said, I'm peeing. And she looks down like, oops, you're peeing. Well, I guess we're going to have to go home because I didn't bring any extra clothes. I pulled her off the ladder and put her on the ground. She's just standing there in wet pants and tell my other one, hey, we got to go. It's right. The little one peed her pants and we we have to go home so we can get her clean pants. She didn't want to go. Not at all. She first tried to bargain with me, which was great. She's like, how about three more sites? How about five more minutes? How about? We stay for a little bit longer. I don't want to go yet. We haven't been here very long, Mom. I know. I know we haven't been here very long. I know it's really hard to leave the park. I know it's really hard that your little sister peed in her pants. It's really tricky. But we do have to leave. We're going to need to go get in the car. She runs away and she goes on the slide anyway. And I continue to actually stay calm and grounded. And I grabbed the little one's hand and I said, come on, we're going to the car. I tell the older one, we're going to the car. And there was something that happened in my body and in my mind. Where I knew that because my older one is actually a very ⁓ responsible child, she has never been a runner. She has always been, I'm going to stay relatively close to mom. ⁓ So there isn't a, I'm nervous or afraid about you running away because you've shown me you do that. You actually have shown me you tend to stay close. She's not going to go anywhere. It's very unlikely for her to run. And then when she does, she does it as a test and then she'll stop and make sure I'm watching her and that she's close enough. And if she gets far too far away, she'll come back. So because I know that about my older kiddo, I just hold the leotard one's hand who will actually run away. And I walk her to the car. The older one climbs up a, there's a little tree climbing thing, it's not an actual tree, and she climbs up that. I'm like, okay, that's fine. You go ahead and climb that and come to the car when you're done. I'm gonna take her to the car. I walk very calmly to the car, holding her hand. And then I pick her up and I put her in her car seat. And then I tell her, I'm gonna roll down the windows. I'm gonna go get your sister and I'll be right back. I strapped her in. I did not turn on the car, but I did roll down the windows and I walked back and I got my older one who at this point I had been watching her. had run into a slide climbing thing. It's not slide. It's like a it's a tube. The tube that you can climb into. She climbed into there trying to hide from me, but I was watching her and I watched her do that. And then I had watched her come out of the tube and she came in. She was hugging. A leg pull, like full on hugging it, legs wrapped around, arms wrapped around, holding it as tight as she could. She's like, I am not leaving the park. I could tell that she was in this, I really want to stay kind of intense space. And because I could catch that, and because I knew she really didn't want to leave, and how short of a time he had spent at the park, I could empathize with her. I could get the sense of, yeah, if I had been so excited to go to the playground all day, we'd get there and we're there for just a few minutes. I wouldn't have wanted to leave either. Of course not. That understanding and knowing inside of me helps me stay calm. I connect with her. I get that that's where she's coming from. I say that in my mind. And I also at that moment, because of that clarity, because of that connection with myself and understanding where she could be coming from, I'm able to access my fun, playful parent brain. So I walk over to her, I get down on her level, I'm looking in her eyes and I give her some little love, some little tickles. like, hi, love you. Oh my goodness, you don't wanna leave the park, that's so hard. I'm gonna tickle you. And I was playing with her. It was a total playing thing. She started smiling, she started laughing. Not just because I was tickling her, because I could see her connection with my eyes. and she was soaking it up a little bit. It got her to release her arms, but she was holding on tight with her legs. And I did say to her, now, honey, we do have to go. It's time for us to go. Go home. I know it's hard to leave the apartment. We got to go. And then I try to pick her up and she clings tighter to the pole. And I continue to stay really calm. And this to me is. ⁓ magic in a way. It's it's something that is still so like wow how did I do that? How was I able to stay so calm and so regulated? How did I not get worked up by her intensity? Because a lot of the times I have been getting worked up by her intensity. So it was just this moment of releasing the The pressure, really, the pressure and the urgency and the like, we have to do it right now, right when I tell you to do this. And I picked her up. And I kind of still had to pull her a little bit to get her legs to release from the pole. then I carried her. We also had a whole little, there was a moment where I pick her up, I'm trying to pull her up, and then she's almost five, so she is kind of big. And. She moves in a certain way, so then I kind of gently lay her down on the ground and then she's kind of rolling on the grass. And then we're laughing again for a moment. For like two seconds, she's laughing, OK? So she still does not want to leave the park. I pick her up again. And I'm carrying her like I would carry like a baby, you know, you get put your kiddo on your hip and hold her and walk with her, and she's a squirming little little being at this moment. And she squirms and I just have to go with her body movements because she big enough that I can't fully resist her. I don't have that type of strength. But I do have the strength to still hold her while she's squirming. So she squirms and she ends up kind of laying around me, almost like a little baby, kind of carrying her like that. And then she squirms more. So then she's like flying like an airplane. So I'm like carrying this child, flying like an airplane, holding her as much as I can. And also staying so relaxed and calm. I had my shoulders dropped down, I was just breathing and I was just very, not slowly, but it felt slow in my body. Slowly walking to the car. Just this is what we're doing in a very clear and this is what we have to do. We're walk to the car. I'll walk to the car. Then it got a little more intense and I told her, I'm going to put you in the car. She resists that a lot. And at that moment, one of her friends walked by with their mom and her mom, it was Ex-employee, his mom noticed that she was having a little bit of a tough time after she had said, oh, hey, see, your friends are going to, trying to help her son. move away from the park and leave the park as well. And that as soon as in my mind, I'm like, huh, this is interesting to see the perspective of what somebody else might be saying. In her mind, she said, oh, no, in her, then she said to her son, oh, no, we don't go with it. You can't talk to them right now. Knowing that she could witness the struggle, the challenge that I was trying to have with my kiddo who was kicking and she was screaming a little bit, trying to get her in her car seat. And I stayed calm. I stayed calm. I really did. I stayed regulated. And how I know I was regulated was because my internal system, my body was slow, gentle. but yet open and very clear with what I was doing. So still a strong sense of grounded. yet it was not urgent. There was no urgency. And Tonya, my little body with ADHD has a lot of urgency. So struggle, struggling with her the best I can to get her her car seat, get her buckled in. There was a slight rise of urgency at that moment, a slight desire like, ⁓ I want to yell at you. And then I took a deep breath. Exactly like that. As I was still holding her and putting, buckling her into her car seat. I get her buckled into her car seat. She's trying to get her arms out. She puts her arm through her car seat and she's like, hey, look, my arms out here. I see your arms out here. We're going to put it back in the strut where it goes. Buckle you in. Buckle you in. Tighten you up. Tighten her up. she's screaming, it's too tight. It's too tight. It's too tight. I had tightened it. quite a bit because of how much she was moving. wanted to make sure she was secure in her seat. I did release it just a little bit so that it was slightly looser for the drive home. And then I got in the car, all the windows rolled down, and we drove home. And then we get home and I turn around to her and I say to her, hey, how do you think you're going to get in the house? Is your body calm and ready enough to walk inside? Can you make it inside? I don't know. What do you think? At first she says, no, no, no, I'm going to run away. I'm going to run away. I'm going to run back to the playground. Oh, OK, yeah. Yeah, your body still really wants to go to the playground. OK. I'm going to take a couple of deep breaths to help my body calm down. I call my own body. I continue to keep myself as regulated as possible through this whole experience. and I knew that I needed to help her regulate herself so that she could get herself into the house. And I was able to flip my brain and not do what I normally do. What I normally do is tell her, actually expect that by the time we're actually home that she's fine. That I could just get her out of the car, unbuckle her car seat and she'll just get out and she'll just walk inside. I expect that of her. That is rarely what happens. My brain started searching. I started searching as I was telling her, asking her how she was going to get in the house. what consequence do I give her? What do I tell her if she doesn't go into the house calmly, if she doesn't just walk into the house? What is her consequence? I'm searching, I'm searching, I'm searching. What do I do? What do I take away from her? How do I make her know that she needs to walk inside? And I asked, I did actually ask her too, said, I wonder, I wonder what, what do you think what should happen if your body isn't able to walk into the house and you try to run away? What do you think we should do? And she said, I don't know. And I was like, in my own brain, of course, because I can't figure it out either. I can't figure out what is the natural consequence of my kid getting out of the car and. running away or not running away. I don't know. Thinking that in my brain. I did not say that to her. then I realized, ⁓ I don't need to give her a consequence. I need to help her regulate. I keep breathing. I move and I get the little one out of the car seat because she's been perfectly fine. She just has wet pants and she kind of wants to go inside and take off her pants. And after I get her out. I go over to my other one, I start unbuckling her, and I let her know. It's really hard. We're going to get inside. We can do this. You and I, can get there. How do you want to get inside? Are you going to walk? Are you going to run? Do you want to jump? How do you want to do it? She doesn't want to, she doesn't care. She says nothing. And I say, okay, let's go ahead and we're gonna go. We're gonna get out of car now. And get out of the car. and she has calmed down. can tell that. That's why I got her out of the car. Her body was a little bit slower, not fully regulated by any means, but slower. So get her out and she starts to run into the parking lot. And I say, it's not safe to run into the parking lot. You need to come back here right now. We need to walk to our house. It's not safe. And she pauses and looks at me. And then she walks towards me. This is the temperament of my child. I'm telling you this. is, I do not expect every five year old child to stop when I say stop. and to not run into the street. Now, there are many five-year-old children who will absolutely stop and know that the street is not safe. And I did that because I know her. Had it been a different child, had it been my younger one, I would not have let go of her hand. There would have been no, let's see what you can do with yourself. So just naming that. Know your child and know what they need. And test it out based off of what their temperament is and how they work. And then I know, I can keep finding that place in my brain, that like creative, parenting, playful space. This child loves races. She wants to win everything. So I'm standing in the parking lot by my car and she's standing kind of towards the end of car and I say, I bet there's no way that you can get to the... Sidewalk before I do, I don't think it can happen. Reverse psychology with child works amazing. I don't think you can do that. Uh-uh, there's no way. Trying to help her flip into her own thinking brain, her own space where she wants to go. And then I slowly take a step forward towards the parking lot, towards this curb. She goes, no! Like, ⁓ I know it's tough. I wonder if you can get here first. I wonder if you're going to try. If you're going to move, got to come this way. I wonder if you could do it. And then I put one foot onto the sidewalk and I'm standing with on one foot. I'm like, I don't know. Am I going to win? And I start like jumping on my foot and start turning around on one foot so that she still has an opportunity to win. I don't know. Can she win? I don't know if she's going to get here. And then I'm doing like whole full circle on my foot, one foot. And then she starts running. She runs past me. And then I put my other foot on the circle. I'm like, ⁓ no, she's winning. I gotta go get her. And then I start following her, holding the younger one's hand. She might've been running too. And then we just both start going. We're all going towards the door, towards our house. We get, I get to the door. The little one gets to the door. The older one keeps running past the door. Oh, hey, you missed the door. You're gonna come inside with us? Might want to come in. I don't know. Do you you can beat me to the door? Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. Rylan went to the... The little one made it to the door. She got to the door. Your sister got to the door first. I don't know. Can you beat mama? Wonder what's gonna happen. pausing, And then she doesn't move. So I keep walking towards the door. I open the door, little one goes inside. I do tell her to take off her shoes and her pants. She doesn't exactly do that, but you know, hey. She's doing it, so you know, roll with it. And then at this moment I had flipped into, I know that the playfulness isn't gonna work. She's not fully there yet. got her close enough to the door. So then I go inside and I put down my things, my jacket and my purse. And then I go back outside where my child is now close. She's pretty close to her door and she's on the ground and she's crying, kind of in a fetal position, just sobbing. And I pick her up and I say, I know it's so hard. And I knew that that was a whole cycle for her. She goes into a fight, flight, more of a fight place than a flight honestly, because she doesn't really run away from me, as I just told you. ⁓ And then after that she goes into the meltdown, crying space. And it's her release, it's just her getting that feeling out of her body, her coming down to regulate. And then, should we get her inside? And then I had to work with both of them for the rest of the afternoon, particularly her, to help her come down. I first tried, you want to watch some TV? Nope. That's not going to work. She wanted to kick and hit her sister because she's bigger than her. I bring her upstairs for a moment so that we could try to have a little space. ⁓ doesn't exactly work. She says, I'm just going to run back downstairs. Yeah, I know you really want to be with us. And I was like, I have an idea. I need your help. I need your help so much. Can you help me in the kitchen by cutting the cheese so we can make dinner together?" And she gets very excited. She's like, yeah, let me cut cheese. On the way downstairs, before we get downstairs, I have her push on my hands. She needed a muscle sensory input. this is one of the strategies we learned from her OT. And I play with her and I... Say, I bet you can't push me over. And she tries and she tries and she tries to push me over. And then eventually she pushes me over. And it's a game for her. So she doesn't actually know she's doing anything. She doesn't know she's trying to regulate because it's a game. That helps a little bit. I need her to be more focused. I need her to have more something that she's proud of doing. So we go downstairs, I cut big pieces and then I give them to her. like, I need you to cut these into strips or into cubes. You get to pick. I give her a job and a role and she goes with it and she sticks with it and then she's like, mom, I'm done. And she was totally calm and went on and went to play with something. And it was quite the moment for me to feel the way that I stayed regulated, the way that I continue to be able to find in my brain the things that I know about this child and what helps her. and troubleshoot a few things. had to do a few things to get her to be fully regulated. And I kept myself regulated. I think that was probably one of the biggest things. Me being regulated helped me not yell at my kid to try to get her to be regulated because that never works. And it's just amazing. And I know this doesn't happen every single time. There was a combination of reasons why it happened. The talk with my friend before that actually was helpful for restoring my own battery. Then nice weather outside. The fact that I had a relatively clean house. ⁓ and that I was really just looking forward to the week and to hanging out with my kids on that weekend, yes, on the Sunday. So there's just a lot of things that came together. was just a beautiful moment. I wanted to share it with you. I hope there was some nugget of wisdom or insight or laughter maybe you got from this story. And if you enjoyed it, mama, I would love for you to share it with somebody else, to leave a review, to leave a rating. and to come back and listen to another story on the next episode. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being a mom, a parent who cares about emotional intelligence for yourself and for your kiddos. Until next time. Mama, you've got this.