S2 E17: Communicating through proactive and positive parenting
with LMFT Jennifer Kuebler
Key Takeways
I became a parent and I realized just what an important role that was and what an impact we have on our children and in the world in that role and how much support we need, which I didn't have at the time. So part of what I do in my daily life now is what I wish I had when I was a young parent.
Helping children to be motivated internally based on their own values, as opposed to externally, as opposed to seeking approval from outside or, being motivated by being worried about getting in trouble or even wanting a reward or something. Helping kids do the right thing when no one's watching.
An anxious, depressed or unfocused child is going to have a lot more difficulty accessing academics. Not only responding to children's social, emotional struggles, but proactively establishing, a whole system of social, emotional building blocks that were incorporated into the curriculum at the beginning of the year, that helps students to learn about brain science, ways to cope, mindfulness, problem solving, conflict resolution and all those skills that are going to go on to really support them as they develop in their life.
So positive discipline eschews any kind of punishment or rewards, and it's based on a sense of connection, belonging, mutual respect, and really building that relationship. Also being able to get to the source of the cause of things, instead of responding and reacting with a punishment or even a consequence that isn't related. Children, aren't learning from that. And so this technique really embraces mistakes, but learning from those mistakes. So positive discipline is really about taking the time to embrace making mistakes and learning, being reflective about them, learning from them and making a plan for next time.
As adults, we're very self critical of our own mistakes that can make it hard for children to embrace mistakes. They'll always say we're totally fine with our kids making mistakes. We embrace them. We tell them it's okay. But I'm really hard on myself. I'm, a perfectionist, it's hard for me to make mistakes. And so that is where they recognize that our modeling is very important. Once we see that we're doing that, we can have some fun with embracing the mistake making and saying, oops, I blew it. That's okay. To really let kids know that even for us it's okay.
The oops jar is another part of positive discipline. Kids actually put in, roll up and put in their mistakes and then you have a party and you open them up and you talk about what you learned from them. And, again, just creating that whole environment that it's okay to make mistakes. And we learn from them.
Natural consequences is more not telling your child, not having to remind your child all the time that they need a jacket to go outside and they're going to get cold if they don't. So versus punishment being something that's fearful something that's motivating them by fear and not about what happened. The reason we want to try to give less punishments or even consequences that aren't related is that we want them to learn from what is happening. When kids worry about getting in trouble, they didn't want to tell the truth about what happened.
We started doing the family meetings. I agree, that's one of the best tools. And we followed the guidelines; we created a little agenda that the kids could add to during the week. And I think what was great about that is rather than addressing problems in the moment when everybody's not in the best place to do it. We would just put things on an agenda and then address it calmly at another time. And then we'd take notes and when we had come to an agreement of something we wanted to work on, I could then point to that later in the week. Cause I stuck the agreements on the wall.
Brainstorm, everything it takes from mowing the lawn to feeding the dog, to going to the store, to going to the dry cleaner, to preparing the food, to cleaning it up. And kids are just like blown away. They get into making this huge list. And then they look at it and you have a conversation. Is this something that mom and dad should be doing everything, and then they have fun choosing. So it's a negotiation and it's a buy-in and it's a recognition that we're all part of the family. Positive discipline is creating community and a sense of belonging. It's something we expect them to do, but we still recognize and acknowledge them when they do it and say how much it does help us. We were modeling to the kids about how they had agency and how they were contributing to our family and to the decisions we made.
The thing about some people's views of therapy is they think they're going to get into therapy and they're going to be paying for it and going to therapy forever. But some of these programs have a very distinct starting and ending time. Like SPACE is eight to 10 weeks and designed to be able to overcome anxiety, which is pretty powerful. Having a distinct timeline like that can be really emotionally satisfying for parents. Parents going through it, they're saying, they're really understanding how to increase support for their children and recognizing also that as much as we want children to be happy, that it's also important to allow them to be uncomfortable. SPACE is a program that was developed by Yale which is actually a program that they have determined that you can work with parents, just parents, to overcome anxiety and OCD in children. We can start to understand the ways that we're accommodating our children and increase our support of them and decrease accommodations. And it has been very effective in shifting childhood anxiety.
An ADHD program based on 'Hunter and his amazing remote control', but I added a lot to it just again, from some of the things that I'd experienced through kids at school, putting in using all of these buttons on this remote control to be able to pause and be able to rewind and be reflective, fast forward and think through how you would do things next time.
If you can help families to learn about mindfulness and practice it, it can do so much to help you regulate differently and help you be able to respond instead of react to things. So the power of co-regulation. The thing about being a parent is if we can help ourselves and we can help our kids by co-regulating and this can even be true in married couples. If you respond differently when your spouse gets upset with you, if you engage, it's going to escalate, but if you can diffuse it and stay regulated yourself, there's so much power in that.
Mindfulness has been scientifically proven to change your brain. It shrinks the size of your amygdala, your alarm system, helping it to be able to respond better. So if you are able to do those things proactively, it starts to calm your brain down in general. And then in the moment you can respond. By using mindfulness as well, taking some deep breaths and trying to just be present in your body instead of reacting to things. Go Noodle for little kids where they're like, pretending they're an ice cube and pretending they're melting. Things that are going to help you get in your body, be present in your body. Body scans can be really helpful.
I have kids go out for mindful walks. Let's stop this hike. And for five minutes, we're just going to be completely quiet and we're going to listen. We're going to use our five senses and then you stop them after five minutes and say, okay, now what did you hear? Smell? Feel all of that. And they're like, oh wow. I heard the birds chirping. I didn't notice that before I smelled the leaves. I felt the breeze. Because then they were just in their minds thinking, or talking, or they weren't really present in the moment. Or you can take your kids for a color walk and say, let's look for red, let's look for blue. And those are things that just help us get grounded and present in the moment.
If you can create a pause when you get triggered and we all get triggered and be able to just breathe, count to 10, use self-talk with yourself, so that your situation isn't overtaking your sensible brain. As a first step, that's just going to make you feel like you have so much more control of your environment and make you feel so much more empowered.
Storm starters is a fun way for families to talk about it at all together of just sharing the things that really, make our brain feel upset, make our emotions feel upset, trigger us.
For people to understand that it's normal and empowering to get help. There's nothing wrong, we're all human, we're all flawed. And so working with someone, I think on anything that you're struggling with individually, or as a family can only benefit everybody.
Bio
I am a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and a Nonviolent Compassionate Communication Life Coach in private practice. I worked at a K-8th grade public charter school as a Counselor and Mental Health Services Provider from 2012- 2021, supporting children, adolescents, adults, couples and families providing individual, and group therapy and parenting education.
I have collaborated with hundreds of parents and families to help overcome family struggles in the home while integrating tools related to the Positive Discipline approach by Dr. Jane Nelsen. I am both a Certified Positive Discipline Parenting Educator and a Certified Positive Discipline Classroom Educator. I am SPACE (Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions) trained, and offer programs for parents (solely!) to overcome their child’s anxiety https://www.spacetreatment.net/
I also incorporate training in Cognitive Behavior Therapy, Exposure Therapy, Solution Focused Therapy, Mindfulness Based Interventions for Children and Teens, Redirecting Children’s Behavior, and Neuroscience, among other things.
I am an empathetic, compassionate and accepting individual who believes in both deeply accepting and loving our imperfect selves, but also growing emotionally throughout our lifetime. I am someone who is committed to walking my talk and I use the same tools that I teach in my own life every day.
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