”No, I Won’t and You Can’t Make Me!”: Helping Children Shift from Defiance to Compliance with Special Guest Ginny Luther

Hey guys, I'm Jackie Finneman. I'm a parenting strategist and coach. And after 30 years and with more than 50,000 hours of experience working with kids and families, I promise you there is a solution for your parenting challenges. The key to this parenting gig is to guide and lead your kids with less fear and more confidence. You don't have to know everything to be the expert of your child.

So let's get to the root of what is going on in your home with you and your kiddos. And then we're going to prepare for the worst and change the conversation. You are exactly the parent your child needs and wants, and you are more capable than you sometimes give yourself credit for. Problems are a part of life and they're meant to be dealt with and overcome. So I teach parents how to turn any problem into a no problem. Fast track to my solo episodes, head on over to noproblemparents.com, click on the podcast tab, and you'll see the 15 episodes or so that I've done just with my favorite techniques and talking about no problem parenting, attachment disorders, remembering the pause, making it right technique, some of my favorites. So you can head on over to noproblemparents.com and find it there. And you can subscribe to our emails as well. We are already a top 2% podcast. The more followers and subscribers and listens that we get, the higher up we rank and the more parents that we're able to reach. All right, for now, let's get into today's topic and meet our next guest.

Welcome back, No Problem Parents. No, I won't, and you can't make me. How many of you listeners out there have heard that a time or two in your household? Well, today, my special guest, Jenny Luther, is on to help us learn how to respond to comments and behaviors like that.

Jenny is a dynamic and captivating speaker in high demand for parent and education professionals, workshops, classes, and support groups. specializing in Dr. Becky Bailey's conscious discipline and brain smart strategies. Ginny's overflowing positive energy is contagious.

She has a tremendous ability to enthusiastically connect with all ages while offering life-changing personal solutions. Ginny is extremely creative and shares practical strategies and solutions to any difficult issue. Pulling from her own array of life's experiences combined with her charismatic personality, Ginny leaves everyone thirsty for more of her tremendous knowledge. I am so excited to have you here today, Ginny.

Welcome to the show. I feel honored to be here. Well, we are going to talk all things, no, I won't, and you can't make me, and how to get your kids' attention so that they listen to you. Tell us a little more about how you got into this biz and then how you started to specialize in this particular type of behavior.

That's a great question. I was working as a speech pathologist in a psychiatric center with preschoolers who were the most severe emotionally and physically abused children in upstate New York. And I worked on a dynamic team and an interdisciplinary team for 10 years. And before the 10 year mark was up, I had my firstborn, which was wonderful.

He was flexible. We changed the schedule. He was right with it. And then my marriage started to fall apart and I had my second child.

and he was a nightmare. And all the skills that I was using in the psychiatric facility that were like the traditional kind of responses that we have to help children was not working on my child. And so I was with a wooden spoon in his face one day because I had just absolutely had it. I was done. I was a single parent. He had just driven my last nerve and I put up that wooden spoon in front of his face. And I said, if you do that again, this is going on your bottom.

I was scared. He wasn't. He gave me a big smile, pulled his pants down and said, spank me, mommy. And it was at that moment that I had an epiphany that it was more than just what my need to control him versus my need to connect him. Now, I didn't connect those dots yet, but I knew I had to do something different because my lat, the wooden spoon was my last straw and he wasn't going for it. So I was really mortified. He would throw tantrums that were 45 minute long and violent.

So it was a scary time parenting for me, very scary. I was scared of him. And I also felt completely out of control. And yet I thought that was my job. And so I started the journey at that moment of making a decision that there's got to be a better way. There's got to be something more that I can do as a parent than try to make him behave. Does that make sense?

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And, and interesting too, I just recently interviewed Diane Costo on the podcast and she talked about a similar situation with her son and who eventually was in residential programs. And even with her vast experience and knowledge, many of these programs couldn't respond to her son's behaviors. He would get kicked out time and time again.

Yeah. Well, and the key is, is that we know, especially about the brain, is that what actually wires up the brain for impulse control, for self-regulation, for willingness, motivation, focused attention is connection. And that's what I was lacking. I was too stressed to be connected with him. So I controlled, that was it. And the more he tried to control back, the more I tried to control him. So his connection was with, with me was with power struggle. And it was exhausting to say the least it was exhausting. But as I researched and went forward and started to realize that the base for his willingness to be with me was in mind, the relationship with him, what was my relationship in his moment of upset? It wasn't just that I loved him. Oh, he knows that I love him, that we play playful games, which of course we did. And,

you know, hide and seek and peekaboo and all those things that you do to bond with your child. It was how connected was I when he was upset? And that was where I was disconnected. That's where my threats came, you know, threats of punishment, blame, all that stuff came through.

And my judgment came through in those moments. And that's where the change needed to happen was my response was having an impact on his response. I cannot imagine what I must have looked like to him with that wooden spoon two inches from his face. I must have looked like the Wicked Witch from the West. And for a two-year-old to process that, you know, he just took it as challenge.

Most kids will freeze or they'll start crying more. They'll throw themselves on the floor. He took it as challenge. So he actually became my teacher.

Isn't that interesting? That tends to be what happens. Well, at two years old, I mean, I specialize in attachment and attachment disorders. I can understand when a child hasn't connected due to abuse, neglect, medical pain, things like that. But why was your child so defiant? What did you end up learning? Well, I learned that my disconnect became his disconnect, but essentially I had a very bad marriage and divorced. It was not amicable and divorced when he was five months old.

So the problem was before I even got pregnant, he was not planned. I almost considered aborting him. It was very stressful. I had a very stressful pregnancy.

And I think that really had an impact on his ability to cope. But I didn't have any of that knowledge back then. That was 37 or eight years ago. Well, there are people today that don't have that knowledge because we don't know what we don't know.

Exactly, exactly. So, I mean, I was only doing the best I could. And I thought the best I could do was to offer rewards or punishment, you know, which were consequences at that, what we called consequences was consequence, right? Instead of looking at what my response was and how my response was impacting his response in any moment.

yeah and this is super key jenny and i so appreciate you coming on to talk about this and to be vulnerable to tell your story about it because um often what happens when we're in an abusive relationship it is an unwanted pregnancy or unexpected pregnancy um there's postpartum that can be you know going on after we have our child so even though we're meeting their needs feeding them keeping them alive if that emotional connection is not there that has so much to do with their behavior as they grow and their responses. So tell us a little bit more about conscious discipline and what we can do to build our child's willingness to comply.

Great. So the willingness comes from connection. So conscious discipline, you can go online. It's developed by Dr. Becky Bailey, and you can go to consciousdiscipline.com to really find it.

It's a very comprehensive program, social emotional learning. I don't like to call it a program because it always starts with adult first and the adult first because your state dictates a young child state young children including babies come to you to get regulated and they regulate through your autonomic system they regulate based on your inner state right and because they feel that and they smell it and they hear your voice they hear all those things and so if you're stressed you're disconnected and your autonomic system is kind of on fire and so they can't regulate themselves. Right. Yeah. They're sponges to us, aren't they? And energetically, they are sponges to us. Totally energetically. If you think about it, they're not processing language. They're only looking at our nonverbal because the right side of the brain is the first thing that actually develops. And so that is all nonverbal image, gesture, energy, energy kind of oriented. So they're picking up the social cues through our energy and through our non nonverbal states. So if you're stressed all the time, then they can't regulate. Does that make sense?

Yes, absolutely. Yeah. You ever seen a mom who's like, I tell this a lot to, you know, teachers who have the mom dropping off their toddler or their young child to school and the child's crying. The mom's going, you're going to be okay. You're going to be okay. Maybe I'll come pick you up. Their anxiety state, they leave with that child. And so then that child is anxious all day about their mother coming back. Does that make sense? Absolutely. Absolutely. I learned that even as a, as a new mom myself, 18 years ago, you know, dropping the child off at daycare and they cry and the date, my daycare lady was amazing. And she, she would say, Jackie, he's going to be fine, be confident and go just tell him, have a great day and get out of here. He'll be in a couple of minutes. He'll be good. And thank goodness she said that to me. And I knew,

you know, I'd have been a counselor. I'd been babysitter of the year, you know, 10 years running as a young person. Like I knew all those things, but when you're the mom, it tugs your heartstrings and you do things you wouldn't otherwise do. Well, that's because the attachment is so strong. And so when kids are young, they rely on their attachment to be soothed, to get soothing and to relieve their stress.

And so when they break, now this child has to find a new attachment and they don't have that. So they're very, very overwhelmed. And the mom's feeling that too. I'm separating. That child relies on me. So it makes sense that everybody be real nervous about it. And conscious discipline, we set it up so that parents can really feel comfortable with that.

But also to help with seven powers. And first of all, they understand the brain. So we teach a lot about how the brain self-regulates. And then once people understand that, we move into the powers and the skills.

And so the powers are the belief systems that are keeping you stuck from being the person you want to be in a child's upset or when there's conflict. And conflict always starts with upset. So it teaches you to work on yourself first. And you have to do that by changing your belief system.

And so if we're talking about the, you know, making a child do something, the first skill is composure. But the power behind that is the power of perception, which says no one makes you angry without your permission. So that means if I'm getting triggered by my child's behavior, that child isn't making me upset. It's whatever my story is about that upset.

Amen. Maybe they're whining and we're like, no, you don't whine. Well, why is no, you don't whine something that triggers you? Well, because somebody probably said that to you and you were abandoned when you needed someone to attach with you.

So you don't really know, but the bottom line is got to manage ourselves with composure first so that we can be present with children and see what they're really trying to communicate. Oh, I love this so much. And No Problem Parenting is all about helping parents become the confident leader that I say our kids crave us to be. And this is exactly, you're proving that point or you're acknowledging that in saying that, you know, start with you, become confident, aware of what's going on with you and feel confident because your kids are going to sponge off that.

You're going to empower them to be confident as well. Absolutely. Absolutely. So there's seven powers and seven skills and it's a lifelong journey.

If there's no destination, it's really, and that's why my book, Blue Star Grit, is my journey from being totally unconscious and a control freak for very obvious reasons, which you get to learn about my life and some of the tragedies I've had in my life that contributed to me wanting to control everything to actually connecting, letting go and connecting so that I could be clear and help guide my child into owning their choices.

that they make. So we want kids to be responsible. And the only way they can be responsible is if they feel comfortable making a choice, right? That they can own and be okay with the outcome, whether it got the outcome they wanted or not. This is so great. I just absolutely love it. Let's go through a few of those seven. We can't, we don't have time to give them all away, but I want you to share a couple of them with us. So the first one was composure. No one makes you upset. So if you see a child, a child does something and they trigger you, the first thing is that you've got to believe that my upset's my upset. So my job right now is to be the calm so I can download that to that, dictate that to my child so that child can be calm. Then we can get about the business of solving the problem. Another one is the power of attention, which is a very big one.

And the power of attention, it basically says what you focus on, you get more of. And this is a very big skill. Okay. Because what we tend to do when we're giving commands to children and setting boundaries, which is what I believe you're talking about confidence. Okay. You're not doubting yourself. It just is. You're giving a command, you're expecting behavior. It's, it's, it's really a skill of expectation with children. You have to set boundaries because your job is to keep them safe, right? Until they're, I don't know, whatever age they are, that you go, okay, you're on your own, but your job is to keep them safe. So they're going to have some choice within boundaries. And so when you give boundaries, you want to give choice within the boundaries so that they feel that they have some say in it. Because someone like Bart,

who is my son in the Blue Star Grit book, he always challenged. Every time I gave him a command, he challenged me and I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to go there, but I was really good at saying, no, we don't do that in this house. That's not the way we act. I said, stop jumping on the couch. All of those, all of those commands are not commands. Why? Because little kids think in pictures. They don't have a little conversation going on in their head saying, maybe if I do this, I'll do this. And maybe if I do that, no, they think in pictures, they're thinking in the present. And so what they do is when you say, don't jump on the couch, guess what happens they jump on the couch jump on the couch because that's what they're visualizing and so if you're bart you're gonna laugh and make a game out of it let's see what he does next especially if i'm blaming him for my upset so do you see what i'm saying so so the power of attention says it's really important that we make a contract with kids with our eyes and we teach them to set boundaries with them for themselves, but also we set our boundaries with them.

Oh, I was just going to ask you too, what is necessary for attention? And I was going to ask if you were going to say eye contact. Yes, there's four steps. So here's, here's a visual I want you to keep. And this is, I love this visual because it's like, you imagine your house, your house is, your house is your territory, correct? And you have four walls. Why? Because you want that space to be yours, the walls are your boundary. And you have a door for people to come and ask if they can come in. So somebody comes to your house, the first thing they do is they don't walk in your house, go to your refrigerator, grab a beer, take the remote out of your hand, sit down and start watching television. That would be awful. What a cross of boundaries, correct? Right. And it's not stated, but it's you have a specific set of boundaries. The house proves that. So what do they do? The first thing they do is they come to the door and they ring the doorbell or they knock on the door and then they wait they wait for you to open up the door and then you make eye contact with them and then you ask if you can come in and they may say yes and they may say no does this is this is a very basic social skill so i teach two-year-olds three-year-olds four-year-olds like all ages if they're seven and they're not doing this and they're their your whole body is your boundary. You have to know what your space is. So when you go up to somebody and you want

something from them, or you want to play with their toy, or you want them to play with you, or you want them to move, or you want them to do something, it's really important you knock on their door, tap on their shoulder, call their name. That's the doorbell. Wait for them to look. they're looking may i have a turn such a basic skill so great and when i hear parents you know because i see this happen with parents especially phones take distract your attention they distract from your your attention from the moment so when you don't have that eye contact with a child you don't have this contract that says i'm listening to you you're listening to me we got it. We got a deal. Yes, this is what's going to happen. We're not asking if they want to. We're saying this is what's going to happen. I'm looking at you. You're looking at me. You're understanding that this is what it is. When we don't have the eye contact, children assume you either said yes or no. So typically you'll see a child tapping and tapping on their parent. They're looking at their phone. They're not paying attention. They're knocking on their parent's door and the parent doesn't answer because they're too busy with the phone until the child smacks the parent.

Now the parent turns and attends to them, which has taught the child how you get one's attention is to smack them. Right. Taught that. And so when they go into school, they're going to do that with their friends. They're going to do it with everybody because this is how you get attention.

So it's our responsibility as adults to teach children how we want them to treat us and approach us. So setting a boundary requires that we're very clear. We don't say what we don't want. We focus on what we do want.

get off the couch you can jump here or you can jump here these are your choices what is your choice i'm going to wait for their choice i'm not going to say what's your choice and walk away what's your choice what's your choice you're oh you're going to jump over here okay go for it now right i don't even say great choice i say you're choosing because i don't want i don't want to be responsible for their choice that's a good point don't want to be responsible for their choice As soon as I do that and I say, great job, then now it's all about pleasing me.

And Bart, yeah. And that's, it's interesting that you say that because I share that with parents too. It's not about you. It's about them.

And don't, so don't make it about you because if they're not happy with you and they don't want you to be happy, they'll make sure to not do that choice again. And that was Bart. And that was like, that was the big epiphany for me. I had given him all my control by trying to control him.

I had given my in-chargeness, my authenticity of who I am and how I represent myself as a parent. I handed to him and made him responsible. Well, that's a lot for a two-year-old. Right.

So that's really good. Really good. So tone of voice matters as well. And sometimes, you know, as you're talking and sharing about, you know, setting that boundary or that expectation, giving the command, whatever it is, We can do that in a matter of fact way so that we can, we take out the emotion of it.

Right. So it's not like pretty, please do this with that lilt in your, in your voice. And it's also not like demanding strict, you know, drill sergeant. We're talking about passive and aggressive behavior.

Okay. So passively pleads. And it's, it's, it's really how you're saying. So there's a difference between a request and a command.

And a lot of people don't understand this, but there's a difference. So if you're requesting, then you're literally asking. Okay. Now, if you're asking, they can say yes or no.

Correct. So it's confusing to children. When you say, let's go brush our teeth, you get in there and they go, here's your toothbrush, mommy, because they take everything literally. Well, no, I'm not brushing my teeth.

Well, no, I don't want to brush my teeth either. Right. You just said, let's go. Or you say it's time for bed.

Okay. Oh, I know. it. That makes you just, I, I like to have a little moment of silence for those parents that do that. What they're really doing is they're saying, did you hear me? Right. Because a lot of times it's across the kitchen. It's time for bed. Okay. Now you don't have eye contact. You don't have a contract going. You haven't, you know, so now you're giving them the option when you say, okay. Cause they could say, no, it's not okay. I'm not going to bed. Exactly. And all you was my son Bart to challenge me. He would challenge me all the time. He was such a great teacher.

And then I say, well, wait, let me go back. So understand what a command is. A command is an expectation that you know is going to happen. So what would commands be for a lot of parents?

Bedtime, homework, for some people's coming to dinner and sitting at the table, which people would do that more often. But getting out the door, getting yourself dressed, you know, all these things picking up toys picking up after yourself doing your chores blah blah blah these are all commands you're expecting this behavior so what i teach parents is to say instead of would you or could you would you please because a lot of people say i'm trying to teach manners not when you're giving a command because please is a request it has a request to it please would you please please let's do this if you've got a child who likes power struggles they're going to say no They're just going to say no.

So what I say is it's time for, it's time to pick up the toys. Do you want to start with the blocks or your trucks? What's your choice? Do you hear it?

It's time for bed. Do you want to brush your teeth first or get your jammies on? So I always, especially with kids with power struggles, I give them two choices within that, but because it is time for bed, we're doing this, whether you have a full-fledged tantrum or whether you go really cooperatively, you are going to bed. And what do you think about, because I've taught parents this before too, with the kids who immediately will wet noodle or throw a fit, I often say, give them permission. Would you like to throw a fit now and then brush your teeth? Or would you like to brush your teeth first?

You know, that's fun. I've never, when they get wet noodles, I just say, it's hard for you. And I pick them up and help them. So, so the other, the structure that we have, we also have structures with this, but the structure that we have with assertiveness is you want to give them a visual routine so that they can check it off. So, or pull it off, you know, like a, a picture of all the things that have to happen at night. Let's say it's a nighttime routine or bedtime routine.

You would want to have a picture of a toothbrush and a picture of a, you know, you can get all of these done. So simple now, put Velcro, put them on the wall or put them on a board of some kind. And so then they know what the routine is. You hand it to them.

Okay, what are we going to do first? And they can pull up, got that done. So that gives them some sense of ownership in what's going to happen versus brush your teeth, brush your teeth, get your tooth brushed, brush your teeth. I mean, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah.

Right. And they don't want to hear that. They want to take some responsibility in it. So the visuals help a lot because young children, especially young children, don't know how to plan.

They don't know how to project and plan and they don't know how to reflect in past. They're always in the present. So if you say, what should you be doing? They have some sense of pattern, but they are not like, I don't know, playing my iPad.

That's what I do all the time. Like they're going to give you some snide comment and you're going to be. You know, it's time for bed. I'm not going to tell you then.

So we go into that whole thing. Yeah, exactly. Well, and then if you have a kiddo who is super forgetful, has some sort of a learning disability or, you know, something like fetal alcohol syndrome, where it's like groundhog day, you know, they know how to tie their shoes. They just tied their shoes yesterday.

And today they forgot. They don't remember. They can't, you know, they know how to go to brush their teeth and get their jambies on it. And today they forgot.

So have the, having the visuals. Well, just think about it. If you've ever gone out to play golf, you know, you don't get one lesson and then go out there and shoot pro. It takes 2000 times in context to practice a skill before it actually gets wired, myelinated and wired in the brain for it to become automatic.

Yeah. 2000 times in context. So it's really important to know the younger years you're teaching, teaching, teaching, teaching, teaching, teaching, teaching, teaching the skill over and over and over and over and over again. Yeah, I love this so much. So before we wrap up, I do want to ask one more question. I think I know the answer to this, but why is the word don't ineffective in giving a command? Well, first of all, it focuses on what you don't want. And so they're going to picture in their little brains, the very thing that you're saying, young children do not, they don't process negation well. Most of us don't process negation well. We like to deny, we don't like, we like to deny what we can't have. Does that make sense? But at the same time,

they, if I say to you, pick up the big ball, and then I say to you, pick up the one that's not small, which one is easier to process? Right. The direct fan. Right. So you want to paint a picture for them. The other thing is, don't is such a button pusher. If I tell you don't turn around and look what you put on your shelf, the first thing you want to do, you feel challenged by it. So the brain doesn't like to be denied anything. So if you say, okay, you're going on a diet don't eat chocolate guess what you're thinking about visualizing is the chocolate i want the chocolate and you see tvs commercials on tv and the french oh man the french fries i can't have those either so you're like you want you actually want to do the very thing but if someone says you can't do that isn't the first yes i can so that so and the third thing is it's just not usable information. It doesn't give, it doesn't help the child to know what to do. Right. It's like, if I said to you, don't do your podcast that way, you'd go, well, if I was in charge and said,

don't do it that way, how would that help you? Right. Exactly. You're even, even, even saying something like, don't forget your sports equipment. The first thing you're thinking is forget.

so instead it's hey remember your sports equipment exactly you're absolutely 100 right on yeah i you know there's there's those negative words um that i say resistance creates resistance and defense creates defense and so even saying no i often teach parents to say no by saying yes to something else can i go outside and play yes you certainly can go outside and play just as soon as you finished your dishes or picked up your toys. So you're, they're not hearing no and becoming defensive right away. They still might be upset and bummed that they're not getting to go outside until their toys are picked up, but you don't have to be the bad guy. And you've set the kind of set that limit. And it's like no problem to you. It's brilliant. You're, you know, you're avoiding a power struggle, right? Which is saying, focus on the behavior that you want and what they want, but then put the limit. Like the limit is you can do it now. Do you want to, do you want your cookie after dinner before bed? Yeah. Right. Yeah. Can I have a cookie? Oh, absolutely. Would you like your cookie before dinner or after bed or after bed after bath? You know, uh, it's,

it's just genius. And it helps that relationship. Like we started the podcast out that connection and that relationship. You don't always have to be this bad guy where there's, you know, that, And for a kid who loves to challenge everything, they can still challenge it, but you're not getting defensive about it.

And you're not feeling if they don't do it right away that, you know, there's there's you don't have to get upset. Well, yeah, and it's about guiding them, because truthfully, I say, and if you read my book, Blue Star, Great, it's it's all moving a child. And the most potential for leadership is children who are defiant. They have so much potential for leadership.

They're not people pleasers. They don't follow along the path. They have their own idea about how things are going to move. They have the most potential.

And so do we want to guide that potential in a direction where they can really make a positive difference in the world? Or do we want to send them down a path of defense and resistance and struggle and defiance in ways that are hurtful? Yeah, absolutely. I encourage people to go to your website, JennyLuther.com, get the book.

You can head over to Amazon. We have links in the show notes for all of this. So you can pick up Jenny's book, Blue Star Grit, schools, daycare centers, mental health and parenting conferences. You can hire Jenny.

She is a dynamic speaker, engaging. You will be sure to have fun and learn a lot. So all the information can be found at JennyLuther.com.

And Jenny, thank you so much for reaching out and being a guest on the show. Thank you so much. I'd love to get together again sometime. Yes, I know.

We were talking about we need to do a roundtable event on all on speech and language pathology. But also now after doing this interview with you, I really think we need to do something on unconscious discipline. I'd love it. All right, parents, that's it for today.

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