Part 6/6: 60 Ways to Respond to Your Kids without Losing Your Cool

Welcome to the No Problem Parenting Podcast. From toddler tantrums to teenage eye rolls, this podcast is your go-to for updated and old school tips and tools that are gonna help you become the confident leader your kids crave you to be. Do you ever wish there was a specific manual that came with each one of your kids? I mean, what works for one often doesn't work for the other, right?

And let's face it, we don't know what we don't know. And even if there was a manual, it probably wouldn't be able to keep up with all the changes in our world. Well, this podcast is the next best thing. I'm your host, Jackie Finnaman, a 30-year counselor turned parenting coach. And I've got a lot to share, including hundreds of resources that you have access to right from your home and strategies that are going to boost your confidence and energize you. So whether you're knee deep in diapers or navigating the tween years, or you're launching your child into adulthood, subscribe and share this podcast with your friends, teachers, and daycare providers. We're going to turn your parenting problems into no problem, one episode at a time. Hey there, welcome back. No problem parents. This is part six of our six episode series where I've been sharing 60 ways to respond to your kiddos without losing your cool. And we're on the last 10 responses, numbers 51 through 60. Have you been enjoying them? Have you been using them? Which episodes or which episodes, which responses have you liked the most and have any of that? Have you tried any of them and they haven't worked?

I would just love to hear your feedback. You can always email me Jackie at no problem parents.com or you can shoot me a text message and let me know which responses were your favorite. You can text us your responses to 320-640-1599.

I see all of the messages and things that come through that number. And I just love to hear from you. Let me know which ones are working, which ones are your favorite. Did you have any fun or funny moments?

Did you get your kids curious about what you were doing when you weren't engaging in the battle? I just love to hear all those things. Reminder that these responses are to be used with a very matter-of-fact tone, right? We don't want to be sarcastic.

We don't want to be, you know, flippant or criticizing our kids or angry or trying to even convince them to do something. We want to make sure that we're very confident and matter-of-fact. And yes, these responses can be used for all ages. I actually had someone email me back. I have, I sent out a newsletter, typically a couple times a month. Sometimes it's once a week. And I, folks, if you're on the newsletter, you've already seen that come through today. But I had a parent reply to me and say, what do you mean you can use these responses with infants? Well, it's kind of like, even though your child can't talk back to you as an infant, when they're arching their back and you're trying to change their diaper, you can say things like, oh, I know you don't want to. Thanks for letting mama do it anyway. What these responses do, remember, they help you to remain calm and they help you to remain confident and not join in or engage on or get frustrated by the things that your kids are doing. So yeah,

absolutely. When the baby doesn't want to get in the car seat or the car carrier, when the toddler doesn't want to get in or out of the high chair, you can be using these responses. And again, the intent behind the responses is for the parent to respond to the situation or the unwelcome behavior, the problem, as a leader who understands that the kiddo is upset or the baby is upset or the teen or the adult child, right, is upset or sad or struggling or venting. And the parent just does not need to join in on the emotion and become upset right along with the child. Now, of course, sometimes you are going to be, and we've got responses in here about that, that, yeah, I'm so stinking mad right now. I can't, I can't talk to you or I just need to go get myself calmed down. Um, but making sure that you're empathetic and understanding, firm and confident in your responses without joining in the battle. And if you're new to the podcast,

then you're going to want to go back and catch the first five of the six part series, starting with episode 189, 191, 193, 195, 197. And then we skipped last week. Episode 199 was our 10 year anniversary special, the 10 years of Hello World and No Problem Parenting special. And then we're back today in episode 201 to finish up. And there's also a link in the show notes for you to be able to download the PDF. This is a free PDF because a lot of these responses are things that I have learned over the last 30 years of experience working with kids and families, trainings I've taken, other programs that I've learned and been a part of, but there's just a lot of these are my go-tos and they tend to come up quite often in my one-on-one coaching with parents. So all right, let us get into the last 10. We are on number 51. All right, so number 51 says, would you like advice or for me to listen? Now there's a similar one. I don't have that number right in front of me. There are, again, remember some of these responses, there's different ways that we can say them and tailor them for our child too. But this one is, would you like some advice or for me to listen? And your kiddo might be coming home from school looking upset. They might have thrown their backpack on the floor. They might have, you know, slammed the car door when they got in after practice, or maybe they're not outwardly, you know, like showing

you're letting you know that they're upset or that something's wrong. Maybe you just notice they've been kind of quiet and withdrawn and you can just kind of head over there instead of just always saying like, hey, what's wrong? What's the matter? You know, don't, don't be so mad.

Don't be throwing your stuff around or you can go to the, go to them and just say, hey, would you like some advice or do you just need me to listen? And they might just be super curious looking at you. Like, why would you even come over to me and say that? And you can say, use, I noticed, right? And I just noticed that you kind of came home upset or you slam the car door and people don't slam car doors. If there's not something going on, you know, or I've just noticed you've been isolating and kind of not hanging out with me lately or being around the family and so you might say hey I can see something's bothering you would you like some advice on how to handle it or do you just need someone to listen right all right number 52 do you need help solving this problem so your kiddo is struggling with their homework they're trying to tie their shoe they're trying to figure out directions to somewhere you know whatever it is and you notice that they're getting frustrated before they're like super frustrated or even when they are super frustrated and have blown, you can pause and then just say, hey, I can see you're struggling with your homework or it looks like you're struggling with your homework. Is it giving you a hard time? Are you stuck on a problem? Do you need help figuring out how to solve the problem?

But it also might be a conflict with another kid in school. Maybe their friends are in an argument or a fight. Maybe they're frustrated at their sport and they're not getting enough playing time and they're just really kind of gruff and you're getting all the negative emotion and reaction out of that, right? And so maybe you just need to say, hey, looks like you're having a problem.

Do you need help solving it? And then of course, remember guys, you've got to pause and wait for them to respond. If they say no, you say, well, I'm here if you need me. And then you keep her moving, right?

So don't poke and prod and pick and try to give all your unasked for advice. Go back to that. Would you like some advice or would you just like me to listen? Let me know when you're ready for some advice.

Let me know when you'd like to hear what some other kids have tried. That works really well with kids because they don't always want to know what the, you know, old lady mom or dad has to say about advice. We couldn't possibly understand what they're going through, right? And in some ways it's true sometimes, right?

Because society, our world is always changing. We said the same thing to our parents when we were growing up. But they might be open to what other kids have tried. You could say like, oh, some kids make a note of that problem and they go to their teacher right away first thing when school starts and they go and ask the teacher about how to solve that problem.

And then they just move on to the rest of the problems and finish the rest of the problems. Some kids actually call a place for directions when it seems like Google Maps isn't giving them the right the right map or the right way to the place. Right. I've just got so many good examples.

I got to keep going. so we get through the rest of these um but again if you have any questions about how do i respond to this that or the other with my kid shoot me a text or send me an email all right number 53 thank you for being honest all right do you ever have a time when your kiddo is like not typically being honest they're like if they get in trouble they come to you and make they lie about what they did or or didn't do and they're kind of trying to cover up their tracks all the time, like they have this fear that they're going to get in trouble. Maybe you yelled one time, you know, really loud. Maybe you just really flew off the handle. And maybe ever since then, they tend to not own up to or fess up to the things that they did, even if it was an accident.

And so saying to them, any chance you can get when they are honest, saying thank you for being honest or thanks for being honest or thanks for telling the truth is super, super important to do. All right. So let's say that your kiddo accidentally breaks a knickknack, a vase, whatever, while playing in the living room and they know they're not supposed to be in the living room and they kind of freak out. You hear something and even before you can get there, your kiddo comes running to you and says, oh no, mom, I broke the vase. The first thing you do is pause, right? Because you've heard the crash, you're ready to run. Once your kid meets you and you can just stop, pause. And first thing you say is, hey, thank you for being honest.

I mean, that is so key when a kid can do that and own up. I know we're set off by the, oh my gosh, which knickknack is it? Which base? Whatever. I mean, this literally happened to me just about a month ago with my 18 year old son. I'm upstairs. I asked him to bring dishes and things up from the basement. It's like his bachelor pad down there. And I hear crash and I'm just thinking, okay, what are the odds? It's one of my bowls that we were like down to four of these little small, like ice cream bowls. And thinking it's one of those, isn't it? I just kind of waited. Yep. It was one of those shattered everywhere. And he's like, I don't even know how that happened. I I tried to catch it with my foot.

It like barely hit, you know, it dropped maybe four inches. And I'm like, yeah, well, that's what happens. But in that case, obviously, I didn't have to say thank you for being honest, because clearly I was there. He's the only one in the house.

So we knew he did it. But what I'm saying is sometimes even as older, it's still it's frustrating. But what I'm saying is it can be such a bummer for the parent when something gets broken. And sometimes it can be even devastating if it's like something truly super important to you, which I always suggest to parents.

If there is something like that and you have younger kids, don't put it out. Don't put it up. Don't risk the chance that it's going to break. If you've got a kiddo who's behaving really poorly lately or really flip, you know, flips out and rages or is aggressive and just put all the really important stuff away for the time being.

You can bring it back out when you get the behaviors intact and your kiddo feeling better about themselves. but yeah I mean it can be so hard to just keep our cool and you're not always going to do it you're going to flip sometimes but reminding yourself to say hey thanks for being honest now what happens if a kiddo doesn't tell you the truth and you go to them and you say what happened remember there's the make it right technique I've got that link in the show notes for you as well but you go to them and you say what happened and they don't tell you the truth they might need a little bit of help do you need some help remembering do you need some help saying it. You can even say to your kids, I'm noticing, I'm wondering if you're afraid to tell me because you think you're going to be in big trouble. Sometimes you have to do a little bit of,

of helping them, supporting them. Don't come off as this force of control and power. When you're asking your kids, if they did something that you already know they did, because, and you're just waiting for them to tell you the truth to see if they're going to do it. guys that is it it just sets your kids up to lie if they are a liar if they have fear if they have anxiety around telling the truth so I always say to parents we never ask a kid if they did something when we already know they did especially if we know that kiddo is a liar so you can say what happened if they tell you something that's not true you can say something like what do you think I think we're going to get to that one here in a little bit or you can also say I'm wondering if you're afraid to tell me the truth. So I know you broke and you can get them to the point where they can say, I just want to hear you say it because I want you to believe in yourself that you can tell the truth. So you can give them a little coaching on getting to the point where they can say the truth. I broke the ice cream bowl, mom. Good job being honest. So even though they originally lied,

you can help them get to the point where they can tell the truth and they get that experience and their muscle memory of their brain, right? The muscle memory gets that experience of, that was really hard for me to do. I did it and I heard, I thank you for being honest. And so we get to model that.

So yes, anytime a kiddo, even when they're not telling the truth, let's not join in that battle and get all defensive with, I know you did it, quit lying, all of those things. If you have any situations like that at home, schedule a 30 minute call with me. We'll work through that one. And actually in 30 minutes, I can give you at least probably three to five, maybe even upwards of 10 different ways to use the responses, depending on how efficient we are on the call.

All right. Number 54. I didn't think you meant to fill in the blank. What can you do to make it right?

So maybe your kid said something hurtful to a friend during an argument. Maybe they backtalked you. maybe they hit their sibling maybe they broke the ice cream dish maybe they lied just automatically and they you can kind of even tell they they caught themselves lying and they didn't want to you can say hey I didn't think you meant to lie just now or I didn't think I don't think you meant to be mean to your friend or backtalk me and then you follow that up with what can you do to make it right so the make it right technique again is in the link is in the show notes but that is that five-step approach to helping to guide children through what happened. Thank you for being honest.

And what could you do to make it up to the person that you wronged or harmed? And then we teach them how to make right what they did wrong. Adding I'm sorry is great if they want to do that, but it's, this is a much better way to teach an apology and how to make up for things that we did wrong. And it also helps prevent our kids from covering up or hiding their mistakes or their misbehaviors.

But yeah, so a lot of times we can just say, you know what, I don't think you meant to be really angry at me or yell or talk back or whatever. But what can you do to make it right? Don't put the button there. I just added that.

But what can you do to make it right? What can you do to make it up to me or to your friend? And we do that all really quick, really quick, short things of what you can do. not long drawn out therapy sessions about the mistake or the misbehavior, right? And when we just keep her moving. So more about that in the Make It Right Technique. I encourage you to go download that one if you haven't already. And if you're already on the No Problem Parents newsletter, you will be, you have seen the Make It Right Technique and the 60 Ways download in the newsletter updates each week as you followed along with the six part series.

okey-doke let's get into number 55 oh this is a fun one whoops I see you blank when you were upset I don't think you meant to blank how can you make it up to blank so same thing as number 54 where we've got that same part in there but here's the key difference you're saying whoops and that's I mean it doesn't seem like that big of a deal but it is first you're saying whoops I see you say what you saw say what you noticed that they did and then you add I don't think you meant to how can you help make it up to and you're really specific so this is just this one takes a little bit longer not a lot a little bit longer because it's a little bit more detailed and especially good for kids who maybe don't have the best social emotional skills or social cues or know how how to work this kind of stuff through this is a good way to teach them but you're also saying whoops like whoops a daisy um because it helps a child who especially kids who have come from trauma who have a lot of shame who uh have a lot of anxiety um maybe feel some you know more guilt than they should um or then we'd care for them to have to feel it's those kind of kiddos where we want to, we want to let them know that whoops, that happens. And that the more we walk them through this stuff without significant, you know, frustrating anger based or anger driven consequences, we're teaching their muscle memory of their brain, right? That you can screw up,

you can make mistakes, even tough ones, even bad ones, and you can recover from them and you can make it right. So let's say, oh my gosh, your kid gets really upset and tears out a picture of their siblings coloring book. How many times has that happened at your home? Or maybe teenagers, they go and grab their siblings homework and crumple it up or spill something on it or whatever it is, and you know that they did it on purpose. They were ticked off or they were upset and they actually like did it on purpose. Now, of course, even though they've done it on purpose, they weren't in their right mind when they did it. Something else, you know, triggered them or tick them off enough to make them do it. So they weren't feeling good about themselves in that moment when they did it. So again, it could be totally intentional in that moment, but something else was happening or has happened or it was the final straw or whatever it is, right? So we can say to them, whoops. Now, can you imagine saying whoops to your kid when you know they've intentionally done something? I mean, it's just, it seems bass-ackwards, right? Well, no problem parenting.

When regular traditional responses aren't working with our kids, we pull out the bass-ackwards responses. Why? Because they work and they change the conversation with our kids. And we switch from being punishment-driven and power and control-driven to relationally-driven, right? And connectionally-driven. And we rebuild that trust and connection with our kids. So you do different things. You do things that makes them curious again, gets them in that front part of their brain. And they're wondering why you're responding the way they are. And again, the idea is not for our kids to just do things because we said so. And it's the right thing to do. We want them to feel good from the inside out and become good people from the inside out because they want to,

not because it benefits us, but because it benefits them. So whoops, I see you tore out Jane's picture from the coloring book when you were upset. I don't think you meant to tear out the picture from the coloring book. And yes, sometimes we have to repeat it in this same sentence. That's why there's another dash there. If you're looking at your PDF, I don't think you meant to tear out sister's page from the coloring book. How can you make it up to sister? How can make it up to her. Now, this doesn't go really super smooth. And in the moment, it may not work at all because that kid is still really triggered and you've got a crying sister or brother, whoever they've hurt. Right. So, but even though it's not going to completely work in that moment right now, you can still go through all of this and then you can use the, you know what, pop off to your room, get it, get it out of your system, come out when you can be kind. And then you come back to this response and you say, whoa, or whoops, you know, I saw that you tore out the coloring,

the page of your sister's coloring book when you were upset. I don't think you meant to tear out the page. Now, how can you make it up to sister? Okay. So then you go back through it again.

Now doing this the first time might not work super smooth. The second time might not work super smooth in my one-on-one coaching. That's what I, that's what I coach people on exact actual conversations, responses, situations where you're going to, you're going to use these kind of techniques and then I'm going to guide you through how they work. And if you're, no matter how your kid responds, I'm going to help you figure out how, how to respond to the responses or not respond or what to do. Okay. And I've had, in fact, even just last week, I had a family that said, you know, at first, a couple of things you told us to do, it didn't work. And we were, and you were like, no, just keep doing it, tweak this, do this. And they're like, it's a game changer because we stuck with it and they got their own, this mom and dad got their out of their own way. They were already predicting what wasn't going to work for their kid and they needed to get out of their own way. And when they did that and just trusted the process, trusted the technique and, and followed through, it was a game changer for them. And now they're not worried about going out in public with their kids. I mean, the kiddos were four and 11 and feeding off of each other. It was like, sometimes they would say, well, the 11 year old acts like the four year old and the four year old acts like a two year old. And I mean, it was just, so again, sometimes these

techniques can sound like, are you kidding me? That's not going to work, but they actually do. So stick with them, keep working on them. And if you need any help, I am here for you. Keep saying that as the calendar fills up, right? That's all right. Okay. Number 56, you've got a crying kid or a really melting down kind of kid, or I'm going over and sitting in the corner on the floor kind of kid and I'm not doing nothing. And I'm, you know, crossing my arms and I've got a really smug look on my face. You can say to them, Hey, what's happening? Tell me why you're crying.

tell me why you're upset tell me why you're frustrated what's happening so that's all you say what's happening let them tell you and sometimes when you say that their response of what's happening is a long response and they're not they it starts with what's what they're frustrated about and it goes on and on and on and on and on into all the things that happen throughout the day maybe last week they throw in a couple of other things they just need to get it all out. And when they're ready, they do. And we need to be there to listen. So you can say, you know, I see something happened or something's happening. Tell me what's up. Why are you crying?

Why are you upset? Now, if they continue to cry and if they're used to getting your attention by crying, you can still use this phrase, this response. What's happening? Tell me why you're crying. And you can also still wait until you can actually hear them and they've like stopped crying or for the most part stopped crying. Remember, we don't want to be leaning over, bowing down to our kids. Yes, you can get down to their level. Yes, you can look at them face-to-face direct eye contact, but let's not be looking down at them like we're bowing down. And also, let's not be sympathetic with these responses. Let's not be too like squishy, mushy, softy, right? Like, oh, what's the matter? Tell me about, that is weak and not confident. Instead,

it's, hey, tell me why you're crying. Like you're curious about it. That's the way you're saying, tell me why you're frustrated. Tell me why you're upset. And they're just not having it at that moment. Then you've got all these other responses that we've talked about in the last five parts, five episodes, where you have a lot of different things to pull from. All right, let me know when you're ready. I'm here for you. You know, all those kinds of things.

But when they're visibly upset or they're crying, you can just simply say to them, Hey, what's happening? What's going on? And your lilt in your voice can be not super sad, can still be concerned, right? And empathetic, but not like stop crying and not, oh baby, what's the matter? You know, like if you know that it's, they're frustrated from something, if they've actually got an owie or hurt themselves, of course, them are a little bit more sympathetic and empathetic, but sympathetic, right? Cause they're hurt. But when it's something that they've done because they're upset, maybe didn't get their way, didn't get what they wanted and they're crying and they're frustrated. We do not want to lead with sympathy in those situations.

Okay. I hope this is all making sense. Number 57. We've talked about this one before. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about this right now. I'll get back to you later tonight. So, and, um, oh gosh, I can't even remember which response that was. It was closer to the beginning. I believe I get these all mixed up guys and I put them in different orders all the time.

But yeah, sometimes it's like, I don't even know what to do. It might not even be that you're mad. It might not, you might not even be, you might be kind of shocked. You might be a little bit stunned by the behavior or, you know, something that your child did and you just don't even know what a good response is or a good consequence is for the behavior or how to even respond to it.

You're just like literally taken aback. you can say you know I'm I'm not sure what I'm going to do about this right now I'll get back to you later now that can be later tonight that can be um a day later it can be a week later if it's an older child if they're younger kids you want to get back within you know a shorter amount of time based on their kind of their age um but we can let our kids sit with it a little bit and wonder what we're going to do or what the consequence is going to be we'd never want to do that if it's going to, um, if a child already has like a lot of anxiety around things, we don't want to, we don't want to add fuel to that fire and make them do it just for the purpose of making them anxious. But you can say, I just really don't know what to do. I have to think about this one.

And, and I don't, I just don't know. So I'll, I'll get back to you later. And they come to you. Well, did you decide yet? You know, I wanted to go to my sleepover. Do I get to go to my sleepover? You no, I'm just not sure yet what I'm going to do, but I will get back to you. Maybe you need to talk to your spouse. Maybe you need to, you know, brainstorm it with a parenting coach or a best friend or your mom. You know, you just, you need some time and kids need to respect that. So I'm not sure what I'm going to do right now. I'm kind of, I'm kind of stuck on this one or I'm stumped or I'm just not sure. I'm going to get back to you later and then make sure you get back to them later. You must follow through. Otherwise your words don't mean gold and your kids aren't going to believe you or trust you. And they're going to just feel like they're getting away with whatever it is that they did because you never followed back up with them. Right. Okay. Number 58. So what about when your kid is super bad? Like you've been mad, right? But now let's say they're super angry because something didn't go their way. They didn't get chosen for the part in the play that they wanted. They didn't get invited to the birthday party. They didn't get to play with something that they wanted to play with or have a certain food or whatever it is. And they just got super angry. Um, now sometimes this is just a fit and there's not a lot of verbal words if you've

got a younger kid, but when they're older, they might just be ranting and raving and letting it all come out and they are ticked off instead of don't talk to me that way, lower your voice, you know, some of those kinds of things, which again, you can use those when it's appropriate. But sometimes you can just say to them, whew, that is a lot to be mad about. I would be mad too. What are you going to do? Notice my pauses in between. They're just little tiny pauses or breaks. That's a lot to be mad about. I would be mad too. What are you going to do. Now, maybe they have no clue what they're going to do and they just need to be mad in the moment. You can just, you can say, Hey, give it some time. Go ahead and be upset. I'd be mad too.

This might take you a little while, uh, to calm down or to figure out. And then again, there's other responses in here. We can say, Hey, do you need some advice? Do you need just a minute? Do you need time to get mad, to be mad, to vent, to, you know, scream, yell, whatever. Feel free to do that. That's a lot to be mad about. I would be mad too. And sometimes we want, we want to skirt around our kids mad and we don't want to let them be mad. We want to say things like, oh, that's disappointing. Um, not everyone can get the part in the play. You know, we want to say things like that to make it better for them. Please don't do that. Let your kids be mad when they're mad. There's nothing wrong with being upset or being mad or angry as long as you're in control and you're not hurting anyone else in the moment, like seriously hurting anyone else and causing a problem for anyone else, it's totally okay for your kids to be upset. All right,

number 59. What if your kiddo is just like they're whining, they're backtalking, just being a stink when they're responding to you? You know, you ask them if they did something that you asked them to do and they just give you that like, no, no, of course I didn't, mom. You know, they're just kind of being a jerk or maybe they're just even being super disrespectful, blatantly disrespectful.

You can say, nope, not OK. Try again. Sometimes that phrase needs to be really firm. It's an absolute nope, not OK.

Try again. And you are looking at them with very firm, structured, like confident, that direct eye contact of not happening in my home today, kid, right? Now, not in a threatening voice, but in a, I am not okay with this voice and I'm not tolerating that. And then you might need to follow it up with a pop off to your room, see when you can be kind, or I'm so upset right now.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do about this. I'll get back to you later. Again, following up with some of the other responses is, uh, is really helpful, but sometimes we just need to be super direct and be like, not okay, try again. You can give them an opportunity to try again. If they continue to do it, then I would just not put a lot more effort into that or energy, I should say, into that. You don't want to engage and get into that defensive resistance kind of battle with the kids. You need to just have a parameter and it's like, nope, not okay, try again, or exit stage left, you know, pop them off to their room or, you know, whatever it is, whatever the consequences that you need to do in that moment based on their behavior. But again, all these responses kind of can work together and there's lots of them and they can be tricky to learn. Just practice, practice,

practice. Try three, four, five of them at a time and get really good at those and then pick another three, four, or five. All right, our last one, response number 60. Oh my gosh, this is one of my favorites. You know, when kids come to you and they tell you either a lie, maybe it's a white lie, maybe it's a you know oh I forgot or I don't remember or maybe they're tattling on another sibling you know or they're saying something to you that isn't you know isn't true and they're really trying to be convincing about it like they they're going to get you to believe whatever it is that they're saying you can say to them what do you think I think so maybe they come to you And they say, well, the school, there's a school project that's due tomorrow, but our teacher never told us that it was due.

And I didn't think we had to. I thought we were just going to work on it in school. And I didn't know that I had to have it done for you can before anything, you know, before you say, oh, my gosh, you got to be kidding me. And try and think about that. You have to run to the store and get supplies or whatever it is to help get this project done.

Which, by the way, I don't encourage you doing. You would say, what do you think I think? and then the idea behind that is for your child to notice hmm mom or dad they're on to me they're keen to this and again you might have to follow that up with another thing that says something like I know it's hard to tell the truth and I know it can do you could do it I believe in you I bet it would be really hard to admit that you forgot about the project and you procrastinated and you waited too long because you just really didn't want to do it and now it's due tomorrow and you're freaking out and so you're making up the story and I just wonder if you think that making up that story is going to make it easier on you or if it would just be easier to say hey mom I procrastinated I didn't feel like doing it then I forgot about it now it's due tomorrow and I'm freaked out and then let's we can figure out how to handle this together but I also do not recommend especially if it's a school project kind of thing don't rescue the kids from their own mistakes. Um, be there for them, be empathetic with them and don't rescue them. Now, if you are in a situation where you're like, okay, we have to get this project done because if we don't,

it's going to really affect the kid's grade. And it's going to affect me because I'm going to have to have my kid home for summer school. And I don't want my kid or I want to, I'm going to have to bring my kid to summer school and I don't want to bring my kid to summer school. Then there's other ways around that like you can help the child they're going to pay for the supplies double when it's a late project like that and they're going to pay you double in time however much time it took you to help them with that project they're going to pay you back double the time so you'll remember like the sports example I gave I hope I did that when a kiddo causes a problem as far as like forgetting sports equipment or lunch for school or backpack or whatever it is however long it takes you to get to the school and back, that's how much time, not the miles,

but the time they need to repay you, you double that. So for me going into town to bring my kiddo to a sport was about 20 minutes there, 20 minutes back, that's 40 minutes of my time. I would double that to 80 minutes when I needed to run, you know, something into town for him. And so he owed me 80 minutes of time, whether that be going to the store with me, he just did not like going to the store, especially if I was going to buy, you know, supplies and, and or clothes shopping, right. Which I'm not a big clothes shopper, but he hated to go to the store with me. Um, but that was one of the things on my list of things that would make it up to me or make it right. Or things that would fill my cup is having, I like to have somebody with me when I'm in the store. Um, another thing he might do is one of my chores and, or another thing he might do is, you know, clean something that doesn't get cleaned a lot in our, in our house,

like the baseboards, all the baseboards around the entire house. So doing some kind of a favor or a chore or a nice thing, maybe sitting with me through a movie that I wanted to watch that's age appropriate for him, but a movie that I wanted to watch. And he's going to sit there with me and actually enjoy the movie with me and not get distracted by, you know, his technology or toys or whatever else is going on at the time. So, so when your kid does cause a problem for you or an inconvenience for you. You can use that make it right technique. You can come up with some creative ways for them to pay back the time. We don't always need it to be like a consequence or a chore. It's still a consequence, but it doesn't have to be like this negative heart thing. It can be a relationship building opportunity for you so that instead of them getting more upset because they have to do a chore, now you're actually having them do something that's fun for you,

not them you're getting that time in with them but it's something that's more fun for you than it is for them but they're going to do it for you because they oh yeah um and they want to make it up to you so response number 60 what do you think i think if a kid's coming to you and it's just like oh okay that's not true sometimes they come in i didn't do it i mean like the kid with the cookie on their face and they're like and you say something like who said you could have a cookie i didn't have a cookie what do you think i think and real quick don't say to the kid did you have a cookie if they've got cookie crumb on their face because you're setting them up to lie. That's another good example of setting a kid up to lie. You already know they had a cookie because you can see the crumbs, right? So don't set them up to lie. All right, there you have it. Those are the final 10 responses of the 60 ways to respond to your kids without losing your cool. Remember that the responses are not just phrases. They are tools to build a more positive relationship between you and your child. They are meant to be said matter of fact and not join in on the emotion and to stay out of the battle. You know, of course, in parenting, challenges are inevitable. Remember my no problem parenting guarantee is that I guarantee you're going to have problems raising your kids. But how we respond defines our connection with our children. So by giving

problems only as much attention as they deserve, we can empower ourselves and our kids to learn from and grow through each of these experiences. Remember, I always say mistakes are like and misbehavior are opportunities. They're opportunities for us to create relationship connection and to build and empower our kids to know that they are capable enough to recover from mistakes they've made or misbehavior to. Remember, the key to being a no problem parent is responding with empathy, understanding and a commitment to maintaining a positive relationship with their kiddos.

if you're struggling, if you're not sure what to do, if you just need some great advice and tips and tools, you're doing pretty, pretty well, but you're like, Hey, some of these things are pretty cool. I want to learn even more, uh, reach out, no problem. Parents.com. There's a contact button on that page, or there's a link in the show notes to book a call with me as well. All right, you guys, that's it for the 60 ways to respond to your kiddos. We'll see you in the next episode.

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 no problem parents.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 Thank you.