Are you losing your cool with your kids because you're too nice?

Are you losing your cool with your kids because you're just too nice? Hey parents, here's the deal. Your irritability with your kids might be at an all-time high right now. This past year has been super challenging, and our patience in general has been tested to the max.

Add behavior problems to your already stressed-out life, and it's no wonder you're losing your cool. A good majority of my coaching clients this past year have come to me with this problem, and they're trying their best to keep their cool and not react. But here's the thing. The root of the flying off the handle problem is almost always because these parents have been too nice.

Does that sound like an oxymoron? Well, listen in as I share how being too nice and not allowing your natural and logical consequences to happen, not following through with those little things because you just want to keep the peace, How all that can cause you to blow up in the long run. with an app so you can listen to the tips and tools just like you're listening to this podcast. Click the link in the show notes or go to NoProblemParents.com. Become a No Problem Parent today. All right, so let's get into this. When did consequences become a negative thing?

Like, when did parents decide that following through with a consequence meant that you were the bad guy or that you were a mean parent. Parents, kids crave leadership and connection, right? Natural consequences and logical consequences are the best teachers. You actually don't have to put in a ton of work when you allow those natural and logical consequences to happen. A natural consequence is the painful result of one's actions and that's typically the best teacher of all. Logical consequences are the result of a person's actions, but they're imposed by somebody else. Both logical and natural consequences mean that the child will experience some type of difficulty. The child will experience some kind of difficulty, some inconvenience,

or some uncomfortable feeling due to their behavior. So it's not punishment. It is just a natural result of something they did or something they didn't do. And the good news is that when they misbehave or make a mistake, the logical or natural consequence allows them to make right what they did wrong and it teaches them why not doing something causes a problem for them.

So they're valuable learning lessons and we oftentimes don't need to add to those problems by jumping in or stepping in. But too often, we as parents, we manage to rob our kids of those natural learning opportunities because we feel bad or we're inconvenienced. And then even worse, we step in and we take care of the problem ourselves or we personalize the problem and we feel bad or we lash out or we become demanding or we lecture our kids and over-explain why what they did was wrong and why they need to do what they need to do to correct it or fix it.

And we often yell and lose our cool and then feel bad later or beat ourselves up later for losing our cool. I call this over-parenting. Now, when you're the nice parent time and time again, meaning that you kind of skirt around the problems or you justify the little problems your kids cause or you just take care of things or clean up the mess that your kids' problems create. You're kind of hoping that your child will be thankful that they didn't get in trouble or that they didn't have to take care of their own problems, that you took care of it.

And you're like, oh, they'll see how good of a parent I am and how nice I am. And so they just won't do it again. But guess what? They do it again, don't they?

And again and again and again. And you're nice and you're nice and you're nice. And then finally, you blow. you lose your cool. You're actually creating more problems. You're feeding the problem.

See, no problem parenting teaches you to deal with those little and big problems right away by allowing your child to solve them, to suffer the natural and logical consequences of their actions or their misbehavior with your guidance and leadership instead of taking care of it yourself or blowing up and giving in and creating more problems. No problem parenting actually acknowledges problems as they happen so that your child can learn from those problems in the moment which increases the odds that they won't cause the same problem or misbehavior again.

And if they do, no problem parents say, hey I kind of figured this might happen again. No problem. I got this. So the definition of a problem is this. It's a matter or situation regarded as unwelcome or harmful that needs to be dealt with and overcome.

Did you catch that? The problem needs to be dealt with and overcome. And that's what no problem parenting strives to do. We deal with and overcome the problems in our home with our kids and in our relationships in general.

And our attitude when leading our kids to own and solve their own problems is called the no problem attitude. Okay? So yes, it's true that behavior problems often cause problems for us as parents, right? One behavior problem often causes a problem or an inconvenience for us as parents, right?

But no problem parents guide their child to handle the problem instead of feeding that problem by becoming part of the problem. Or getting angry or mad and now you're in a tug of war with your child and you're not even thinking about or dealing with the actual problem anymore. Now it's turned into a whole bunch of other stuff. So when we react or we yell or we give in or we take care of the kids' problems ourselves, we're actually creating more problems.

Have I said that enough? All right. So while it can take more time and effort in the moment, parents allowing your child to take care of the problem with your confident, no problem attitude and guidance, It actually helps you and your child to deal with and overcome those problems. This can be anything from toilet training problems to lying, stealing, late assignments, sibling rivalry, skipping curfew, you name it.

But here's the thing. Consequences are sometimes uncomfortable. And so we as parents and cause more problems, right? So we as parents don't want our kids to be uncomfortable.

We don't want them to go through that or we don't want to be inconvenienced and we don't want to have to hassle with it. But think about this. There's good consequences. Consequences aren't just negative things, right?

And in the last episode, I talked about the difference between consequences and punishment. So please don't use those in the same sentence. Consequences are not punishment. We do not need to punish our kids.

If you want a good relationship with your kids, throw punishment out the window. But think about the good natural consequences for behavior. If your toddler goes potty on the potty chair, the consequence is that they don't have to sit in wet pants. They don't have to feel that icky pee on their skin.

Now, if your toddler goes potty in their pants and they have wet pants, one of the best things you can do is say, oh, what a bummer. You've got wet pants. Let's get that cleaned up. and you go help them take their stuff off, have a little bucket of vinegar, water sitting by the toilet, let them kind of rinse out their little pants by themselves, right? You're right there with them and they can rinse out their pants. They, that consequence for that is, oh, I wet my pants. I got to rinse them out. Now, mom and dad are actually going to do the laundry, but allowing your child to have that experience where they clean up the mess, so to speak, can help teach them that I don't want to do that so I'm going to remember to go potty. Now it's not a bad negative consequence. We're not mad at our kids when they wet their pants. That wouldn't do anything right other than make your child feel bad and probably not want to learn to potty train. So instead let's teach them when you make a mess you got to clean it up and we put the clean up their skin put their fresh pants on. Hopefully they can do most of that themselves by the time they're learning to potty train. And yes, it's inconvenient. Yes, it takes a little extra time to do that. But it is so important for our kids to connect that, oh, when I wet my pants, it's icky. I don't like that. And I got to clean them out. And it takes a little extra time. So it motivates them to want to use

the potty. What about if your child goes to bed on time? What's the natural consequence for that? The natural consequence for a kid going to bed on time is that they're going to be rested.

they'll be able to wake up a lot easier in the morning. They'll be less bleary-eyed and tired. Now the other consequence for staying up too late is that your child is going to have a harder time getting up in the morning. They're going to be crabbier but you don't need to be crabby.

You get it. You can logically say oh my kid stayed up too late last night. I caught him playing on their technology. I had to go you know shut it off and get him into bed. You can already be prepared the next morning that that kid is going to be crabby and try to get out of going to school.

And the whole time they're doing that, you don't need to be frustrated. You can be like, I know I'm tired too when I stay up too late. You'll get through it. You'll make it through. Let's get going. And then of course, if they really dig their heels and they say they're not going, we've got ways for you to get them there. There's all kinds of different techniques I have for if your child just refuses and you have to get to work and so you can't force them to go to school.

There's consequences that can come later for that where they can make it up to you and to the school. So get in touch with me if you want some ideas on that. The bottom line to this episode, you guys, is that we should be dealing with the problems in the moment. Doesn't mean we can't delay the consequence.

Like I talked in the last episode, you can delay the consequence, right? And handle it later if you're too crabby to handle it in the moment. but deal with it right away. Don't be taking care of everything for your kids and being all nice and explaining and all that because eventually it's going to get at you. It's going to irritate you. You're going to be upset that they're not more appreciative of you and thankful for you and then you're going to end up blowing up. All right thanks for listening today. Next week I have a special guest coming on that's going to be talking about all things technology and safeguards for your kids. There's so many dangerous things out there that many of us parents are worried about our kids having access to. And so my special guest that's coming on next week is going to help us with some tools and tips and things that you can do to help safeguard your kids when they're using technology. All right, that's it for today's episode of the No Problem Parenting Podcast. Hey,

thanks guys for tuning in. If you found value in today's episode, click the subscribe button and share it with other parents who might need a little boost. Stay connected on our socials by following at No Problem Parents for more parenting tips and get your free download of the 60 ways to respond to your kids without losing your cool. Go to NoProblemParents.com.

Until next time, remember, your confidence comes from embracing both successes and setbacks. So take a deep breath, embrace the chaos, and remember, you got this.