Resistance Creates Resistance - How Staying Out of the Battle & Problem Teaches Your Child to Trust You

Welcome back to the No Problem Parenting Podcast, where we choose to deal with and overcome the behavioral and emotional challenges within our home. Hey there, you guys. I'm Jackie Finneman, and after 30 years and with more than 40,000 hours of working with countless kids and families, I am here to support you, the parent, so that you can help your child. Determined, loving, and well-meaning parents just like you listening today, hire me to become the confident leader that your kids crave you to be.

Because you know, many parents we're frustrated, we're feeling sorry for, or we're frankly sick and tired of fearing for our kids' future. So I help you to deal with and overcome any behavioral challenge in your home with confidence through a model that I call No Problem Parenting. Whatever challenges you are experiencing with your kids right now, I promise you there is a solution. And the first step to finding out that solution is for you to become confident that you and your child can deal with and overcome the problems.

I'm here for you to help pull you out of the fear or frustration or worry and to empower you as a parent again so that you can reclaim your family's peace. Now if you need more information, if you want, you're like, yeah, right, Jackie, my problem's pretty big at home. Book a call with me. Let's chat.

Let's see if we can figure this out. Go to noproblemparenting.com. Click on schedule a call with Jackie.

The other thing that you can do is if you're ready to get started right away, you want to have immediate on-demand access to the three key things that I believe all parents need in their toolbox, in their parenting toolbox. Go to the noproblemparenting.com site and click on get started now. You're going to get all access to the course, which is only 96 minutes, you guys.

It's not even very long. It's jam-packed with information, foundational information, right? And so you're going to learn the three steps in there about seeking first to understand your child's behavior and your response to the child's behavior or your reaction, right? Why are you doing that?

Step two is preparing for the worst. The more prepared we are, the better able we are to respond and be confident leaders for our kids versus reactionary drill sergeants and you know just people there to tell them what to do and how to do it and then step three is change the conversation having conversations with your kids is important but what do you do when a kid won't even talk to you well step three we're going to talk about how to get your kids to talk to you i don't know how many times i've heard parents say to me i wish we'd have known about this years ago we wish we'd have known you years ago. Well, we can wish all we want. You're hearing about me now. Give me a call. Schedule a time to chat. I want to help you. It feeds me. Selfishly doing this work and helping parents,

it feeds me. So do me a favor. Give me a call and let me see if I can help you. All right, let's get into the episode today, which is all about resistance. What is resistance? Where does it come from? And what do we do when our kids resist our direction and our guidance?

okay as we get into the episode today about resistance i want you to take a moment to think about the relationships that you have both at home and at work you see no problem parenting yes it's directed towards parents it's really going to give you some great foundational ideas on how to interact and have conversations with your kids and it also helps with any relationship these techniques or these tools can be applied across all your relationships whether at home or at work with extended family etc so think about your relationships in general right now are they mostly cooperative or are they mostly resistant are you feeling like geez no matter who you talk to or who you interact with there's constantly some kind of irritation or frustration and then you're gonna if that's true you're gonna want to use these techniques on yourself first to be honest. You're going to want to look at your own resistance first. But if you're kind of like thinking about these relationships right now and you're like, you know, one person is standing out,

maybe that's your kiddo and you're having some kind of challenge with them and it's really weighing on your mind. We're going to talk, I want you to focus about that person. You know, and it could be things are going okay at home, but there's some kind of resistance going on at work with a colleague and it's affecting sort of your mood when you get home. So think about the relationship that stands out most to you right now as a resistant relationship. That's the person I want you to focus on today as I talk about resistance. Okay, I want you to just have that person in mind. Thinking about that person, what happens when either you or that person becomes resistant? So let's think of it as a kiddo right now and what happens when your kiddo becomes resistant to your feedback and your direction. Think about the last time that that happened for you. Was your child defensive? Did they argue with you? Did they refuse to do what you asked them to do? If it's a toddler, did they wet noodle on the floor? Do they run away from you when you try to, you know, get them to do something? Does your teenager roll their eyes at you and just like, oh, whatever, and shut down or just walk away. I'm going to challenge you today to think differently about why your kiddo is resisting you. I want you to think differently about their behavior. Instead of thinking about it as something that you need to discipline or correct, I want you

to think about, be curious about why your child is behaving that way. Okay, so that's our focus for today, put aside your judgments of your relationship with your kiddo for just a moment. And think about this, the resistant behavior that your kiddo is displaying, I want you to think about that as a coping skill for something. All right. And sometimes that coping skill, you know, the wet noodling, the backtalking, the lying, the stealing, you know, whatever it is that's happening with your kiddo right now. I want you to think about that as a coping skill and that coping skill is triggering a defensive response from you. And why is that happening?

Well, it's likely because that defensive response has come from a place of previous experience in your life. Some sort of memory of somebody doing that, that you found or you thought was unacceptable, that you were embarrassed by, that you were hurt by. Maybe there was arguing in your home when you were growing up and you just couldn't stay on that. And so you, it triggers you now when your kid argues with you. So, but think about this as a coping skill. And then I want you to acknowledge your kiddos defenses or coping skills. And we're going to learn how to accept the reality of why they cope the way they do, because that's going to help us respond differently. We're going to take it less personally when they backtalk or they wet noodle or they disrespect us. Okay. We're going to take the personalizing of that out just a little bit so that we can be a confident leader for them. Just doing this alone can decrease or eliminate the resistance from your kiddo.

When they don't get that normal response from you or reaction from you of anger or demanding or telling them what they need to do, that in and of itself is going to help your kiddo become curious. and you've heard in other episodes we talk about when we get our kids curious about what we're going to do they're in that front part of their brain and they're less likely to be in fight or flight okay so there's really not a need when your child misbehaves or does something that normally you'd be upset by you know because it's disrespectful or they're just not doing what you ask them to do there's no need to respond with frustration anger or defense it's just become so natural that we do. When somebody doesn't do what we ask them to do, we become defensive or we become angry or we feel like we have to, you know, talk louder or prove our point or get more forceful with our words. Unless you have a really compliant kid, usually doing so, getting frustrated is just going to feed the problem. It's going to create more problems. Now, of course,

There are times when a stern or firm no is warranted, especially when there is a safety concern. There's some sort of risk of safety. Then obviously you need to do whatever you need to do in the moment. Your fight or flight is going to kick in and you're going to take care of the situation.

But what I'm talking about today and what I want to teach you about today is that your frustrated or reactionary response that doesn't need to be your go-to response. We need to lead with empathy and understanding while at the same time not personalizing the negative interaction, the backtalk, the misbehavior. You can be in emotional control. And when you are in emotional control, it's going to enable you to handle the behavior or the situation much more quickly while preserving the relationship.

And we let the problem be the bad guy and not you. now in the resistant relationships workshop that I do I go into a little bit more depth about looking at yourselves first because it's really important to know what kinds of things are your triggers what makes you upset what areas of your life maybe do you feel you're inadequate in or you're not doing a good job in and you're taking that home taking those emotions out on your kids what kinds of stressors are you experiencing that maybe influence your decision making and the way that your parenting or the way you're responding to your kids. And then also I talk in the workshop about experiences or memories that you've had that cause you to react to negative behaviors,

tense or frustrating behaviors from your kids and from anyone. But we won't be getting into all that today. Just take a minute when you have some time, take a minute to think about what are the things that trigger you. If it's your kids back talking, well then take a look at that. What can do to prepare for the next time your kids back talk so that you respond instead of react you know sometimes we try to control the outcome of the misbehavior and we try to control the way our kids respond to us which we really don't have a lot of control in the moments right that comes later with the way that we discipline them but sometimes we get so stuck in the habit of resistance and we think way too far in the future you know my kids misbehaving and so They're going to turn out wrong.

You know, they're going to get into all kinds of trouble. And we just assume that, you know, the behaviors are so bad that things aren't going to get better. And so we're constantly focusing on just the problem, a.k.a. the misbehavior.

And where it really gets tricky is when we put too much of our own emotion into it. And we really feel like our parenting, you know, our child's behavior is a reflection of our parenting. And so we have to control this. We have to fix this.

We have to solve this. We have to get them to behave. and that's where things get really tricky and you get caught into the resistance and you end up being in a tug of war in your relationship with your kids and again with anyone you know resistance actually equals control and being in control makes us feel safe and secure it empowers us and it protects us and there's nothing wrong with being in control we need to be in control right we teach our kids we want our kids to be in control of their bodies and their words and all the stuff right control helps us feel like we're in charge and when we're in charge we feel more capable and so that's the same with your kids so think about that in the moments where you're arguing or you're battling with your kid if you're playing tug of war and just trying to see who's going to win the control or who has the most control that's probably why you're beating your head up against a wall if you're having chronic problems with your kids or chronic misbehavior with your kids so i want you to be the confident leader. You are the adult. You can recognize when your kid is just fighting for control because maybe they don't have control in some other area and they need to compensate. And it's safest to do that with the people in your own home, right? With your parents,

they always behave better. Almost always, I shouldn't say always behave better for other people, right? And then they take it out on their family members. You do the same thing as a parent.

You know, we perform better at work or we behave better at work and then we're frustrated, but we get home and then we let it all out on our loved ones. So just be aware of that. Too often we're responding with anger and our resistance or our need for control kicks in and then we escalate the situation. So when you're in resistant mode and when you feel like you need to be, you're getting caught in an argument or a battle with your kid, that's the time to stop the conversation, stop the interaction and say, you know what, I'm too frustrated to talk about this right now.

I'll get back to you later. I'm going to handle this. I'm going to figure this out, but I'm going to have to get back to you later. Now, if it's a little one and you just, you need them to stop, you can't get back to them later. Your goal is to stay calm and stay quiet as much as you can in those situations when they're misbehaving. And you're kind of watching them as an outsider, melt down, throw a fit. And you're saying, I know, I know you're having a tough time. You don't want to do it. You don't want to do it mom's way. You don't want to do it dad's way. Take your time.

Have a nice little fit. Get it out of your system. And it's so fun to watch this because your kids, as they're melting down, you're thinking this isn't working. My kid's still melting down. My kid's still throwing a fit. My kid's still back talking or, you know, swearing at me or doing whatever. And when you take this calm approach, it doesn't mean they're getting away with anything.

You're going to take care of that and handle that later. And there's going to be some sort of consequence for the misbehavior. But in that moment, I mean, how many of you, you guys can identify with this, right? In the moment, rarely does it get the kid to stop the behavior without you getting emotionally involved, super upset, and feeling frustrated. So instead, when you don't respond with all that, you're not feeding the fire. You're not feeding the misbehavior. It's amazing what can happen. The kid all of a sudden is looking at you like, why aren't you yelling at me?

Why aren't you trying to get me to stop? And you'll notice they begin to calm down. They begin to shift gears. The attention shifts to curiosity of why mom or dad is handling this different.

Because you're not engaging in the resistant behavior in the moment. When your child's in meltdown mode, they can't think to reason. And so, you know, I often tell parents when your child's in that back part of their brain, that fight or flight part of their brain, don't take their words at face value. This is a big trigger for a lot of parents when kids are, you know, being mean, yelling mean and hurtful things, backtalking, all that. And we get really frustrated, obviously, when our kids do that.

But if you're responding in that moment to those words, oftentimes it's not what the kid means to say. It's not, yes, it seems intentional. Yes, it seems like they're very, they very much want to backtalk you. Well, they do in that moment, right? But when everything's basically going well, they don't. They wouldn't normally talk to you that way. So just know, don't take that so personally, the words that they're saying. They're frustrated. And the consequence for that behavior can come later because we don't want to just make, you know, allow our kids to backtalk to us. That's not right. So later, when everybody's calm, you can go back to them and do the make it right technique, which you can get a free download of the make it right technique by going to the hello world mn.com website sign up to receive the newsletter and then you'll get that free download of the make it right technique which is just you know asking your kiddo what happened and then when they tell you what happened you say good job being honest or good job telling the truth and then you say what are you gonna do to make it up to me or what are you gonna do to make it right they may need some ideas and then you allow them to handle that situation to make it right or make it up to the person that they harmed all right so how How do we stay calm in those really tense moments?

Well, you've already heard me talk about the pause. I talked about that in episode one. And I know a lot of people give me crap. They're like, Jackie, geez, you know, pause in those tense moments.

Put my hand on my heart and my hand on my stomach. And, you know, that's really going to help anything. Yeah, it is. And it takes six seconds and it's super easy.

But sometimes the most simple things that actually work, for some reason, we don't do them. we kind of poo poo those ideas right it's got to be tougher than that it's got to be trickier than that and we think we make parenting in those situations so much harder so I mean you don't want to use it don't use it but I'm telling you if you stop in those moments yeah I can't get you to believe me you actually have to try it to see it if you stop in those moments and pause for six seconds before you respond or react to whatever behavior is going on in your kids you will shift to your logic part of the brain and you'll be able to parent as a confident adult and a confident leader instead of joining in on the misbehavior and battling with your kids. Now I am not perfect.

Anybody that knows me will tell you they can probably tell you a lot. I still react. I still overreact. I still you know get frustrated or tense because stress makes that happen or when we know we're not doing as good of a job as we could be doing on something we're feeling less then are like not adequate enough, which is our own crap. It's our own stuff. It happens to all of us. So again, no judgment here. Like any parent, you know, I do my best with what I've got or what I've been handed or what I've been dealing with in the moment in that day.

And then I forgive myself when I mess up and I go back and I do an apology with my son or whoever it is that I upset and I feel bad about that and then I'd like to do something to make it right. I use the make it right technique for myself. We need to be using empathy because empathy helps us stay out of personalizing the child's behavior and being resistant because we're personalizing that behavior and we're feeling this need to defend ourselves. We don't need to defend ourselves and we don't need to jump on board with our child's feelings in those situations where they're upset.

But empathy allows us to be leaders and to support our kids as they experience the hardships of not getting what they want or being rejected by their peers or feeling bad or sad or mad or scared or whatever about something. We want our kids to experience those things and be there for them so that they learn they can rely on us no matter what the problem is or no matter what poor decision they've made. but if we're reacting to the poor decisions or the misbehavior as they get older they tend to hide more things from us because they think oh if mom or dad knew that they're gonna freak out and so they become sneakier and they misbehave and they take risks when they do and it doesn't work out well for them they don't come to us and share it with us because they don't think we can handle the misbehavior. They don't think that we're going to be able to love them and support them through the mistakes that they make. And I'm telling you parents, by the time you get through the No Problem Parenting course, or you work with me one-on-one, you're going to be excited for your kids to misbehave because you're going to feel so prepared to help them through their misbehavior and to be able to make right the things they've done wrong.

Now, I'm not saying that we want to encourage our children to misbehave. Obviously not. But I hope that if my child's going to make these big mistakes, I want him to make those mistakes when he's with me and in my home versus, you know, hiding the little mistakes or the big mistakes that he's done throughout the years and sneaking around. And then when he's, you know, out of the house, He makes big mistakes just because I've kept him too structured or too boxed in.

And that's a really tough thing to say as a parent because there's so much fear around our kids making mistakes that are going to affect them later in their life. And we just want to be there to protect them. And we want to, you know, make sure that we're telling them all the things they need to do or not do or whatever. And, you know, honestly, we just don't have that much control as parents.

So the most important thing, and I'll say this about empathy, is using empathy so that your kids, even when they mess up, they'll still come to you. Even when they screw up, they're going to come to you and they're going to let you know as hard as that might be, because they're going to trust that you're there to support them through it. They know you're not going to make it better for them, right? No problem. Parenting teaches that we want our kids to learn from their mistakes. And so we let them own their mistakes. We allow them to make right what they did wrong so that they can feel good about themselves from the inside out, not just doing so because you know not just making things right because you said so I talked more about that in episode 23 I think it is where I talk about how saying I'm sorry isn't enough and you learn more about the make it right technique and then there's a link in there for the the download as well so all right you guys resistance creates resistance it's like a rubber band don't engage and when you feel like your kid is just they have to win arguing with them isn't going to work demanding, getting stricter might seem like it works in the moment. Rarely does it help the relationship and there is a much better way. So stay out of those tug of war conversations with your kids. Delay those conversations until you can get your poop in a group and you can feel calm

and you're not going to be resistant or reactive. And again, this idea, this technique of staying out of the battle or the conversation, you can use this in any relationship. partner, your spouse, your, trust me, I use it all the time and I'm not always great at it because again, we all have that reactionary fight or flight part of our brain. And sometimes, you know, we get triggered and we respond in ways we're like, Oh no, why did I do that? Why did I say that?

And you get embarrassed and you're ashamed and there's all the things. It's all right. Take some time, forgive yourself, go back, make it right. All right. Thanks for listening today, everybody.

Hugs and high fives. You got this. Thank you.