Latest / Play Therapy Parenting: Real Parenting Questions Answered by a Child Therapist / S2E18 - Choices, Consequences, and Catching the Bus: A Play Therapy Approach to School Morning Power Struggles

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S2E18 - Choices, Consequences, and Catching the Bus: A Play Therapy Approach to School Morning Power Struggles · Play Therapy Parenting: Real Parenting Questions Answered by a Child Therapist

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  You're listening to the
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  Play Therapy Parenting Podcast with Dr. Brenna Hicks.
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  Hi, I'm Doctor Brenna Hicks, The Kid Counselor.
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  This is the Play Therapy Parenting Podcast where I give
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  you insight awareness and enlightenment about your parenting
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  and your relationship with your kids.
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  In today's episode, I am answering a question from Noel
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  and she has been working on consequences
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  and trying to make sure that the consequences are related to the behaviors.
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  And she mentioned that getting out the door in the morning as part
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  of the morning routine before the bus shows up is a daily challenge.
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  Sound familiar to any of you all.
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  I hear that story a lot.
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  So the morning routine getting to the bus on time,
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  getting to school on time can definitely be extremely tricky.
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  So Noel,
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  thank you so much for the email and I'll be able
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  to read parts of your email and then share some thoughts.
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  So by the way,
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  if you all are interested in having me answer a question on a future episode,
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  you can email me brenna@thekidcounselor.com or
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  you can leave a message on the call in line
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  which is 812. Nope, sorry. 813-812-5525.
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  And then you can leave a message for me and I can answer it that way as well.
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  So, Noel, thank you so much for the email
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  and I'd like to read some of this for you.
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  And then we'll dive into some
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  thoughts about a child-centered play therapy approach
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  on making sure that the morning routine is a little bit easier.
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  So here are parts of her email.
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  We've grown very tired of 20 or more reminders, begging and pleading to get dressed,
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  brush teeth, eat breakfast, get shoes on, et cetera.
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  Most days it turns into if you don't finish getting dressed right now,
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  no candy at dessert tonight,
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  which is an unrelated consequence that they do care about,
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  but it doesn't help them stay on task the next day.
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  The natural consequence of missing the bus is not acceptable
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  because it would only be a consequence for the parents.
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  My daughter often gets mad locking her door because
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  she doesn't like all the reminders to get dressed.
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  But when I pry it open, she's usually in there playing or laying in bed, half dressed
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  and I struggle to find a connected consequence.
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  We often wind up raising our voices or starting the day on the wrong foot
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  with repetitive consequences or panicked yelling to get
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  shoes on that don't improve the situation.
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  I know there must be a better way. My kids are five and seven.
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  The seven year olds,
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  seven year old has inattentive ADHD making time management even more difficult.
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  I'd love to use patience but the bus is not patient.
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  Do we need to wake up an hour earlier
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  or is there? No, no, you do not?
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  Or is there a better way to re remind firmly without nagging in fights?
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  And also maybe a related consequence that I haven't thought of already.
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  And then she briefly brings up, she's heard of some people using Amazon Alexa
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  for reminders,
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  but she's nervous to add tech to the household without consequences.
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  And I am a firm opponent of
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  adding technology to your household.
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  I wrote a book about it. I don't mention it often. But if you all are interested in
• 3:10
  the effect that screens are having on your children and their brains,
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  please check out Device Detox.
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  It's available on Amazon
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  in book printed form and in ebook Kindle form.
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  So no, I do not advise
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  tech reminders, Amazon Alexa,
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  anything like that, Noel. So I'm just not even going to read that part because
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  I'm gonna give you some other strategies that I believe are much more helpful.
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  The path to calm, confident and in control. Parenting starts now.
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  Ok. So one of the things that we talk about in the parenting coaching
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  is you set yourself up for success by strategically providing choices
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  when you know
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  that there are going to be
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  expected, problematic behaviors.
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  In other words, it's already been established for you that every single morning,
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  it's the same issue over and over again.
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  So when you know that there are anticipated behavior struggles,
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  you can structure choices
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  to address that proactively,
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  to set you and your kids up for success.
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  So the very first thing that you would want to do
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  is provide choices the night before.
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  Here's why this works
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  actually quite a few reasons. So I'll try to unpack them one at a time.
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  So the first is when you provide choices with kids,
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  they have buy in and ownership
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  and we want buy in and ownership to avoid the nagging.
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  If your kids are bought in
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  to
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  whatever they chose,
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  it will eliminate all of the reminding and hounding and nagging that you hate.
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  Anyway,
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  the goal of choice giving is for
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  kids to have ownership and responsibility themselves,
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  which therefore means you don't have to nag and remind and hound.
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  That's the beauty of choice giving.
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  So you're going to provide choices the night before so
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  that there are buy in and ownership with your kids.
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  Secondly, the night before is not the stressful time.
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  The night before is not when you typically are
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  already in a heightened emotional state as a family.
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  So you're going to structure the environment
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  at a calm, neutral time
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  so that everyone is able to be more compliant.
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  So when you provide choices the night before,
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  not only does it set and structure you to have a more pleasant morning,
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  but it's not
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  going to likely be a fight
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  because
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  the nights are from what at least your email doesn't say pretty peaceful.
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  All right. So
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  you know that getting dressed, brushing teeth, eating breakfast is a struggle.
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  So you're gonna provide choices with what you
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  can provide choices with getting shoes on.
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  Not really an option, brushing teeth, not really an option.
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  However, getting dressed is an option.
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  So
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  do you choose to wear this shirt or this shirt tomorrow? Which do you choose,
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  do you choose to wear these shoes or these shoes tomorrow? Which do you choose?
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  The more choices can be made ahead of time?
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  The child has already bought in the child has already committed to do that.
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  So there will be less fight and less power struggle
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  in the morning.
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  Also,
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  the more choices you provide consistently
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  for empowerment,
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  the more the child does not feel the need to
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  fight for so much control and everything you're describing.
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  Noel is a power struggle.
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  It's rooted in a fight for control.
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  You want them to do something,
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  they don't wanna do something and kids only have control over a handful of things
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  and one of which is obedience.
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  So they are refusing to do what you're asking
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  because they want some power over the situation.
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  But by giving them choices, you are giving them power consistently.
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  So another option, you said eating breakfast
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  tomorrow, you can choose to eat cereal for breakfast or you can choose to eat
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  pancakes for breakfast, which do you choose
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  once the child has already agreed that tomorrow morning, I want this food
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  when you prepare that food and say, ok, you chose to have pancakes,
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  your pancakes are ready.
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  There will likely be less of a fight
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  because they've already committed to eat pancakes.
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  So I'm hopeful that you can see how this connects.
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  So the night before the more choices you can provide for the next day,
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  the better it will be because there will already be
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  lack of power and control needs being worked in.
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  Ok.
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  The next thought,
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  I'm gonna share a personal story here.
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  I was not a child that
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  had a difficult time with like doing what I was
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  told to do as far as like obedience and stuff.
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  But I liked to take my time
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  and I did a lot of things very slowly
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  and that meant that I often was not ready when my mom was ready to leave
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  and she is an early person and I was
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  not particularly concerned with being early at all.
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  As a matter of fact, I was perfectly fine, being late
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  and so much to my husband's dismay, he's like
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  on time is late and early is on time. And I was like, said Brenna never.
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  But anyway.
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  So I grew up in a household where my mom always wanted
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  to be early and I just didn't really give two hoots.
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  So she would say let's go and I would still be getting ready.
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  And what she started doing was she would
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  put the garage door up and she would back the car out and she
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  would back out of the driveway and she would start driving down my road.
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  I grew up on Kent Avenue.
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  She would start driving down Kent Avenue and I would
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  fly out the front door holding whatever I still needed to take care of.
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  And I would catch up to the car and I would jump
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  in the back seat after she was already on the street leaving.
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  And that became a pretty consistent pattern because she just
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  kept saying I am not going to wait for you.
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  When now, granted, she didn't know choice giving language.
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  So she didn't use the child-centered approach.
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  But essentially what she said was if you choose not to be ready,
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  when I say it's time to go,
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  you choose for me to leave and you choose to have to run after me to catch up to the car.
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  And that's what I did for quite a long time.
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  Well, here's where I'm going with this story.
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  I was part of a singing group that traveled
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  nationally when I was young
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  and we had practice
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  two hours away from where we lived
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  and
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  we were there all day. It was an all day practice every time we went
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  and people came from all over the state to practice. So it was a state group
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  and we had people literally from all over
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  the state of Florida meeting for this practice.
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  So it was a very long practice
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  and it was two hours away from home.
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  So the moral of the story is, it was another one of those,
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  my mom backs out of the driveway,
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  backs into the street and starts driving down the road and I'm running down,
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  carrying my brush and my makeup and whatever.
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  And we get all the way to Lake Wales, which is the city where we were practicing.
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  And that was two hours from our home
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  and it dawns on me that I did not bring shoes.
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  I forgot to grab them in my frantic rush to
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  run out the door and chase her down the street
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  and we pull into the parking lot at practice and I go, oh my gosh, I didn't bring shoes
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  and my mom's like,
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  well, that's what happens when you're not ready on time.
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  And I literally was like, can't go home and get them. She's not gonna go buy me any.
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  I guess I'm walking into practice barefoot
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  and I spent the entire day barefoot at practice.
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  And it was the last time
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  that I forgot things and that I was chasing my mom down the road.
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  Why? Natural consequence of choices
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  I hated the fact that I didn't have shoes and that I forgot them.
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  And I had to walk around barefoot all day.
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  And I was like,
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  this is not worth it.
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  I will just be ready on time and I won't bring all my stuff with me anymore.
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  So Noel, I'm sharing that story to illustrate a point
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  when you mention you want to have related consequences
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  and you want there to be connection between the behavior
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  once you've given choices
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  and once you've made it very clear what the expectation is
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  after they've chosen not to comply three times,
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  you move to ultimate choice giving
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  and here's what that looks like.
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  I'm going to say your child's name is Sarah.
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  I don't even know if it's a boy or girl, but I'm gonna go with Sarah.
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  So you're going to say Sarah,
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  we've been having a lot of difficulties getting you
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  on the bus on time in the mornings.
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  So moving forward, there are new expectations.
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  You can phrase that however you want.
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  We're about to institute a new and significant
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  policy within the confines of this household.
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  Whatever you want to say, to get your child's attention
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  and to communicate
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  the rules that I'm about to share with
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  you are going to change your life and you need to be paying attention.
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  So whatever needs to be expressed,
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  to help them understand the weight of what you're about to say.
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  Then you move into the ultimate choice.
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  If you choose to be ready
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  by 8:05 so that you can make the bus on time.
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  You choose to have everything you need for your day at school.
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  If you choose not to be ready by 8:05,
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  You choose to get on the bus in whatever state you find yourself
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  and moms especially. But parents, grandparents, caregivers of all kinds.
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  It is really hard to let your child deal with the natural consequence
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  of their decisions when they choose not to be ready by 8:05.
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  But let me tell you,
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  Sarah will only get on that bus with no shoes one time.
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  She will only get on that bus in her pajamas
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  one time.
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  She will only get on that school bus with her
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  hair in a tangled knotted mess because she didn't brush it
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  one time.
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  She will only not eat breakfast before she goes to school
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  when she gets on the bus one time
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  because the natural consequence of decisions
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  are significant
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  and they are huge lesson teachers.
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  So notice that the if then choice, if you choose to be ready by 8:05,
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  you choose to get on the bus with everything that you need.
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  If you choose to not be ready at 8:05,
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  you choose to get on the bus in whatever state you're in.
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  And yes, you enforce that consequence even when she chooses to get on the bus
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  in her pajamas
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  and the whole time she's crying and freaking
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  out and so embarrassed and so miserable.
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  And how can you do this to me? And you're the worst mom ever?
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  And I hate you and I will not get on that bus
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  and every other thing that's going to come out of her mouth,
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  you're going to say
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  you're really disappointed that you chose not to be ready at 8:05.
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  But tomorrow you can choose to be ready at 8:05.
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  Self control,
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  self regulation,
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  self motivation,
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  intrinsic
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  locus of control.
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  You don't nag you don't hound.
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  You don't remind, you don't beg, you don't plead, you don't yell,
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  you don't do anything.
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  You calmly set an if then choice
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  and you calmly acknowledge what choice was made.
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  Sarah.
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  I see that you chose to be ready at 8:05 and you
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  choose to have everything you need to go to school and you're ready
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  or
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  I see you've chosen to go to school in your pajamas today. Let's go.
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  No, no, no, no, no. Oh, you're really frustrated. You chose not to be ready at 8:05.
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  But tomorrow you can choose to be ready
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  and you put her on the bus in her pajamas. It will only happen one time
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  and guess what you would have chosen for her to be ready.
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  You would have chosen for her to choose to have everything she needed done,
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  but she chose to not be ready.
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  Therefore, all you're doing is enforcing her choice.
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  You don't have any emotional charge over this.
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  You are completely calm,
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  completely rational, completely neutral
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  and you just acknowledge the choice that was made. You reflect her feeling.
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  You acknowledge her choice and you remind her that tomorrow
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  is a new opportunity to make a different choice.
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  And I promise you she will start being ready by 8:05
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  because she will choose to be ready by 8:05 because she chooses to not have to deal with
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  going to school and getting on the bus in
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  whatever state she found herself when she wasn't ready.
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  So Noel, I hope that you find that helpful. I hope that that's encouraging to you.
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  I hope that's encouraging to all of you
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  be mindful that when you give choices,
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  you do not have to be the disciplinarian, you do not have to be the enforcer.
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  All you do is acknowledge what choice was made.
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  And sometimes your kids are going to choose really, really stinky outcomes
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  and you're gonna feel for them. But guess what
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  they will learn and they will learn to self control, they will learn to self regulate
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  and it will not continue and guess what
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  your mornings are going to be peacefully happy
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  because she's going to do what she needs to do
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  because she knows what the stakes are.
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  So
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  final wrap up.
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  If you choose to be ready by 8:05,
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  you choose to have everything you need to go to school.
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  That's the if, then positive,
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  if, then negative, if you choose not to be ready by 8:05,
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  you choose to go to school in whatever state you are in at 8:05.
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  Which do you choose? Notice that I said the word choose five times.
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  Make sure that you do that. It's not a choice.
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  If you just say if you're not ready by 8:05, you're going to school.
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  However you are, that's a threat.
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  If you need a refresher on choice giving,
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  go back and listen to the choice giving pillar.
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  So we use the word choose,
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  but then all we do is acknowledge what choice was made. I see you chose to be ready
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  or I see you chose not to be ready
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  and then the associated consequence
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  comes with it.
• 18:00
  Noel. Thanks a lot. I'm really help. I'm really happy that you sent that email.
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  I'm hopeful that that was helpful to all of you.
• 18:06
  If you want to send me an email, please feel free.
• 18:08
  I'd love to hear from you or you can call.
• 18:10
  Thanks again for your time.
• 18:12
  Thanks for taking me with you on your walks
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  and your runs and your folding of clothes and your
• 18:17
  grocery runs or whatever else
• 18:19
  for
• 18:19
  doing. Thanks for all the time that you share with me each week.
• 18:22
  We'll talk again soon. Bye.
• 18:24
  Thank you for listening
• 18:25
  to the Play Therapy Parenting Podcast with Dr. Brenna Hicks
• 18:29
  for more episodes and just subscribe to our newsletter.
• 18:32
  Please go to www.playtherapyparenting.com.