Rebecca Schrag Hershberg, Ph.D., Author of THE TANTRUM SURVIVAL GUIDE
[0:00]Hi, I'm Zibi Owens, and this is Momstone Have Time to Read Books.
[0:12]This episode of Momstone Have Time to Read Books has been sponsored by Nini's Treats
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[0:33]I'm here today with Rebecca Shrag, Hirschberg, Ph.D., who's the author of the
[0:37]Tantrum Survival Guide, tune in to your toddler's mind and your own to calm the craziness
[0:42]and make family fun again.
[0:43]A clinical psychologist and founder of Little House Calls Psychological Services, which
[0:47]helps kids and parents face all sorts of challenges.
[0:50]Rebecca has written many helpful articles about early childhood issues.
[0:53]She's taught at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and has led many seminars and
[0:57]workshops for parents.
[0:58]A graduate of Yale University with a PhD from the University of Virginia.
[1:02]She currently lives with her husband and two young sons in the New York area where she
[1:06]was born and raised.
[1:07]Rebecca, thank you, I'm so happy to be here.
[1:09]Rebecca and I went to high school and college together, so this will be more of an informal
[1:14]probably tone than some other podcasts.
[1:17]I keep thinking if our like 16 year old selves could see us now, their minds would be
[1:21]blown.
[1:22]I still feel like you had the coolest room in high school.
[1:26]I like begged my mom to remodel my room based on like your bulletin board.
[1:30]Do you remember that?
[1:31]I do remember that.
[1:32]And what was funny is that I had like the least designed, it was like I don't know,
[1:34]buy some stuff and put it on the wall.
[1:36]I just, I know.
[1:37]When it was like, it was like the coolest, you were like the coolest thing anyway.
[1:42]So your book, congratulations, so awesome.
[1:45]The tone of your book is so great, like as if I'm just sitting here chatting with you
[1:48]today.
[1:50]Even the first sentence of your book sets the whole tone.
[1:52]You say, hi, I can't believe you pulled it off, you found a few minutes of downtime to start
[1:55]this book.
[1:56]So immediately when I read that I'm like, oh, this is going to be great, I feel understood.
[2:00]You get it.
[2:01]In fact, then you go on to say just that, you say, I get it, I do, I too am a parent.
[2:04]I have two little boys, 21 months apart.
[2:06]Did I mention I get it?
[2:07]So it's so refreshing, there's so many experts out there, but it's refreshing for an
[2:11]expert to be sort of so disarming like that and just like be like, yeah, I'm in it with
[2:15]you.
[2:16]So tell me how you ended up writing this book in the midst of running a psychological
[2:20]practice and raising two little kids.
[2:22]Yeah, no, it's a very good question and it's actually a good segue from what you just
[2:26]said because it's like this unheard of thing that happened to me, which is that I just
[2:30]got a cold call from an editor.
[2:32]I was on maternity leave with my second and I will never forget because it was the, I was
[2:38]exhausted and, you know, unshoured and all the rest and I was deciding to go for a walk,
[2:43]which as you know, is like this big decision and I got a call from an unknown number that
[2:47]I didn't accept and I listened to the voicemail and it was an editor at Guildford Press
[2:50]saying that she had read some of the articles I'd written and particularly been impressed
[2:54]with exactly what you just said, which is that there was an expert voice and a mom's
[2:58]voice that were very seamlessly kind of interwoven.
[3:02]And asked if I'd be interested in writing a book and I of course assumed that this was like
[3:06]some quack because who does that, you know, and I Googled and I was like, oh no, this is
[3:11]the real deal and I really was hesitant to do it because I was so tired and so busy, but I've
[3:17]always loved to write and I am smart enough to know that opportunities like that don't come
[3:22]along every day and so had a real conversation with my husband about whether we could pull it off
[3:26]because of course all these decisions involve family thing shifting and yeah, pulled it off.
[3:31]Part of it I think was like an out of body experience, but I did it. It was some late nights
[3:37]and some jiggering, but yeah, it's done. So exciting. Thank you. So let's talk about tantrums.
[3:44]Let's do it. Let's do it. So why do kids have tantrums? Go, take it away.
[3:52]Why do kids have tantrums? Well, kids have tantrums because I mean there's so many reasons
[3:57]and the book obviously goes into it, but at its most basic level, a tantrum is an expression of
[4:02]an emotion that's too overwhelming for kids to process without having a tantrum. So where tantrums
[4:10]tend to emerge, they can be a little earlier and a little later, but roughly between say 18 months
[4:15]and five years when part of the brain that can do things that prevent us from having tantrums like
[4:20]exert our judgment plan, express ourselves is not fully developed. And what is fully developed is
[4:27]the emotional part of the brain, which we're born with. And so when kids are calm, you see them
[4:32]have various skills that they're developing, but once they're emotional, the emotional brain kind of
[4:37]hijacks the thinking brain and they're off to the races and adults have that as well. We're better
[4:43]at controlling it, but the times when we kind of lose our minds is the exact same thing. It's
[4:49]that our emotional brain isn't really kind of talking to our logical brain. And so you may know
[4:53]that what you're upset about makes no sense whatsoever, but you're still there. And that happens.
[4:58]Of course not. You know, even when you were younger, never.
[5:03]Okay, but then in your book, you say you can't totally stop the tantrums, but you can help manage
[5:09]them. Yeah. And that's a really important, I'm sorry, I just interrupted you.
[5:13]No, it's just you also said that you don't want to extinguish them all together that there's
[5:17]some benefits to tantrums. Yeah. Well, tantrums are normal and they're expected and they're
[5:24]happening at a time when little kids are figuring out who they are and how the world works and how
[5:29]relationships work and how feelings work. And most kids, and I'm going to say most because I would
[5:34]never say every single one, but most kids have tantrums because it's part of a developmental
[5:39]trajectory that's healthy. And so I take objection when articles say, you know, 10 quick ways to
[5:46]stop tantrums once and for all. It's like, that's just not going to happen and you wouldn't
[5:51]want it to. When I've seen rarely a child or a family in my office where the child is having no
[5:58]tantrums, there's often a sign that something else is going on. There's like some real anxiety or
[6:03]things don't feel safe at home. You know, it's like, it's like somehow there's a military school
[6:08]atmosphere. And so yes, kids in that extreme circumstance can possibly hold it together.
[6:14]But you don't want that, right? Um, is that answer that question? Yeah, that's good. All right.
[6:19]And he said, um, there were five possible red flags that signal that tantrums maybe a sign
[6:25]or something to worry about. Yeah. So, and I always hesitate to talk about them simply
[6:30]because parents freak out. I mean, I will. And I'll tell you what they are. But before I say
[6:34]them, I want to say that one of the things I say in the book that I think extremely important
[6:39]to remember is that there really is no formula. The idea that like if your child has three tantrums
[6:44]a day and one is more than an hour, but two, you know, it's just false that that's going to be
[6:50]a way to figure out if there's something to worry about. Generally though, the research has shown
[6:54]that there's five things to look at when you're looking at are these normal developmentally
[6:58]appropriate tantrums or potentially correlated with a later mental health diagnosis. And they are
[7:05]frequency. So is your child having 10 to 20 tantrums a day over 30 days at home or some fewer
[7:14]number that I'm not remembering exactly out of the home duration? Are they generally or typically
[7:21]more than half an hour? And I'll have parents say to me, you know, oh my gosh, yes, I remember this
[7:26]one time my kid like lost his mind for an hour. And I always say, right, you remember that one time,
[7:31]right, it stands out in your head because that was so bizarre. Most of the time tantrums are,
[7:37]you know, between two and eight minutes. And that's what ideally quote unquote you want.
[7:43]Then there's self injury. Again, nothing to freak out about. It is completely normal for kids to
[7:49]hit themselves, pinch themselves, bang their head into the wall mostly because they're kind of
[7:53]looking at you at the same time. And they know that that's what's going to make you come running.
[7:56]If your child is repeatedly scratching him or herself, biting him or herself, really doing that
[8:02]kind of extreme self injury is behavior. That's often something to worry about. Similarly with
[8:07]aggression, the fourth one is aggression toward other people, which is the same caveat, totally
[8:13]normal to a certain extent. And then the last is self soothing. So can your child come down, you know,
[8:19]with your help, perhaps with a teacher's help, with a caregiver's help, but is it incredibly
[8:24]effortful to get your child to calm down every time? Again, I don't want any parents listening
[8:30]to say like, oh gosh, last week I could barely calm my kid. It's like, right, this all happens to
[8:35]all of us, which is why I hesitate to make it a formula. But I think it's important for parents to
[8:39]know that if those five things are ringing a bell, it may be worth seeking professional advice.
[8:45]And then that person may still say there's nothing to worry about. But it's just those are the
[8:48]flags that signal let's get somebody else in here to take a look. Okay. I always like to go to the
[8:52]worst case scenario. So thanks for covering that up friend. Okay. So your kid's having a tantrum,
[8:59]it's eight minutes. For instance this morning, my son didn't want to put on his socks.
[9:03]How do you know the difference between, okay, fine, our socks that important is pretty warm out,
[9:07]but not giving in, right? Like once they start tantrum, you can't change your mind, isn't that
[9:11]the whole deal? No. I mean, yeah, yeah, it's not really me. So yeah, it's delightful out.
[9:19]I just came here. I'm not wearing any socks. That's a misconception, I think. I mean, again,
[9:25]in part it's a misconception because it's a quote-unquote easy rule. It's like, oh, once this
[9:29]happens, never do this. And I think it's easy to say that and to have parents say like, okay,
[9:34]now I know what to do, but it's not realistic. What you want to do and what I think the book
[9:40]emphasizes is get to a point where you can pause in that moment and make a thoughtful decision
[9:46]about whether you want your kid to wear socks or not. So you're not saying, ideally, and again,
[9:52]if you did this this morning, then you're still a fantastic mom. But it's not like, you know what,
[9:56]fine, forget it. Just go on, Seth, real worries. You know, it's more like-
[10:00]Okay, let me pause for a second.
[10:01]Yeah.
[10:02]Think about whether this is a battle I want to fight.
[10:04]Think about the pros, cons, whatever.
[10:06]And then say, okay, I thought about it.
[10:08]Here's the deal.
[10:10]I give the example in the book and I will,
[10:13]because I talk to you parents about exactly this.
[10:15]Each scenario is a choice point.
[10:17]And you're not going to make or break your kid's
[10:20]general behavior by one incident.
[10:22]Do you want a trend toward consistency?
[10:24]Of course, that's why we've all heard that rule.
[10:26]Of course, ideally most of the time
[10:29]once your kid is tantrumming, you're not giving in.
[10:33]But that doesn't mean that if sometimes you do
[10:35]for various reasons, you're kind of messing everything up.
[10:38]And I always give the example, my oldest Henry,
[10:42]he must have been about three.
[10:43]And we'd sort of talked about how he could only call me in
[10:46]in the middle of the night if there was an emergency
[10:49]and we'd define emergency.
[10:51]But at one point he called me into his room about two
[10:53]in the morning and said there was no more ice in his water.
[10:57]And he wanted more ice.
[10:58]And my first reaction was that's insane.
[11:02]I'm not, no way, it's three in the morning.
[11:04]I'm not going downstairs to get you more ice.
[11:06]You can have the lukewarm water at three in the morning.
[11:09]And he started to have a tantrum.
[11:11]And I was able to, and this is not always the case,
[11:13]but I was able to pause and think, like,
[11:15]what do I want to do here?
[11:17]Do I want to really toe the line on this
[11:19]and like really not give in and not give me ice on principle?
[11:23]Or, and this is the path I chose, am I exhausted?
[11:26]Do I have a long day at work tomorrow?
[11:28]Do I, I don't know if this is something
[11:30]he's going to do every single night.
[11:32]If he does, then I'll deal with it.
[11:33]But right now, I just am going to choose the path
[11:35]of least resistance and get him the ice.
[11:38]The way that you did this morning
[11:39]and told him not to wear socks.
[11:41]And that's fine.
[11:42]And then you'll see if that happens every morning
[11:44]as it gets colder and colder, then you'll say,
[11:46]you know what?
[11:47]It's time for me to draw the line on this one.
[11:49]But we need the data to know if towing the line
[11:52]in that way makes so much sense.
[11:54]Does that, yeah?
[11:55]It was like a long answer.
[11:57]It actually took some pressure off
[11:58]because every time I don't do what I think I'm supposed
[12:01]to do in a tantrum situation and I give in a little bit,
[12:04]I feel like some sort of failure.
[12:06]Like, oh God, I was supposed to let this tantrum just
[12:10]derail the whole morning and whatever.
[12:12]But I don't have time for that right now.
[12:13]Yeah, and there's no, and again, tantrums are emotions.
[12:17]And every tantrum is different.
[12:19]And the book I hope takes a complicated topic
[12:22]and simplifies it a little bit because you can say,
[12:25]is he having a tantrum?
[12:25]Is he doesn't want to wear socks?
[12:27]Yes.
[12:28]Is he also maybe having a tantrum
[12:29]because he didn't sleep great last night?
[12:31]Fine.
[12:31]Is he having a tantrum because he didn't spend time with you
[12:34]over the weekend and is missing connected?
[12:36]Like, ideally you want to be able to.
[12:39]And this is really just takes practice.
[12:41]But in the moment, kind of anticipate
[12:43]what's going on with your kid.
[12:46]And if your kid is not a kid who tends to most of the time,
[12:50]engage in these behaviors as a way of pushing you to give in,
[12:55]then you don't have to worry about it as much.
[12:56]There's no one's as fits all for this stuff.
[12:59]And I think in this age of punchy headlines and so on and so
[13:06]forth, people try to make it seem like that's the case.
[13:09]And for good and bad, it's not that simple.
[13:12]And what about the advice to just ignore tantrums?
[13:15]Because sometimes I end up doing that.
[13:18]I know that's not necessarily in the book.
[13:19]And yeah, it is.
[13:21]Isn't it?
[13:22]OK.
[13:22]You can ignore them.
[13:23]Yeah, I talk about something called strategic attention,
[13:26]which is an appearance.
[13:27]And so that was so well said that I didn't just say.
[13:32]I'm glad you missed that point entirely,
[13:33]because it means my book is really well done.
[13:35]No, I'm sorry.
[13:36]I'm sorry.
[13:37]No, it just means we, because I'll say,
[13:41]I'll start talking about strategic attention.
[13:42]And parents will always say to me, like, oh, this is not about
[13:44]attention.
[13:45]My kid gets so much attention and don't worry.
[13:47]And it's not about that.
[13:48]It's about when we give our kids attention.
[13:51]So if we, and I see this as it gets colder, not today,
[13:56]because your son didn't wear socks.
[13:57]But as it generally gets colder out,
[13:58]I'll see that all the time with, like, put on your jacket
[14:00]or put on your shoes.
[14:02]If a child doesn't put on their jacket,
[14:04]they suddenly get 10 more minutes with you.
[14:06]They get you put your phone down, you stop paying attention
[14:09]to the siblings, whatever it is.
[14:11]And like, you are just focused on getting
[14:13]them to put their code on.
[14:15]Whereas if they actually put their code on the first time
[14:17]you ask, maybe, maybe if you're really tuned in,
[14:20]you'll say, thanks so much.
[14:21]But then you'll go on to something else.
[14:23]And so it ends up rewarding them to not do what you want.
[14:27]If that's what you feel like is going on as a general trend,
[14:30]then those are great tantrums to ignore.
[14:33]You know, come put your code on.
[14:35]No, I'm not going to put my code on.
[14:36]OK, you let me know when you're ready.
[14:37]And the meantime, I'm going to hang out with your sister
[14:39]or I'm going to return some emails.
[14:40]I say, like, take out your phone.
[14:42]As if we all take out our phones when our kids are being
[14:44]terrific because we're like, oh, I have some time.
[14:46]I can return some emails.
[14:47]The best thing to do is kind of shift that
[14:49]and take out your phone when your kid is starting to be,
[14:51]again, not having a full-on tantrum.
[14:54]I would say once your kid is having a full-on tantrum,
[14:56]it's best to maybe say something
[14:58]empathic something kind before totally ignoring.
[15:01]But in the bleed-up to it, when they're
[15:03]starting to kind of potentially get there.
[15:06]And the other thing is, I'm talking a lot so sad about this.
[15:08]Good, OK.
[15:09]You're here.
[15:09]I want to hear what you have to say.
[15:11]The other thing that I think is so important
[15:13]is that ignoring doesn't have to be mean.
[15:17]Like, ignoring ideally doesn't come from a place of,
[15:21]you know what?
[15:22]Fine.
[15:22]I'm just not going to pay attention to you
[15:24]until you blah, blah, blah.
[15:25]You can communicate.
[15:26]And it's so valuable to communicate
[15:28]that you are on the same team with your child.
[15:30]You're just giving them some space, right?
[15:32]So you're saying, you know what?
[15:34]It really is time to put your code on.
[15:35]I'm sorry you're having a hard time with that.
[15:37]I get that you really love T-shirts, whatever.
[15:41]I'm going to write something emails until I know you can pull
[15:44]it together.
[15:45]I know you can do this.
[15:46]I know your body knows how to calm itself down.
[15:48]So that way you're still doing the desired thing,
[15:50]which is pulling away the attention
[15:51]so you're not reinforcing the tantrum,
[15:53]but you're not adding this other element of like,
[15:56]I'm angry at you.
[15:58]I'm shaming you.
[15:59]There's something wrong with this.
[16:00]You're messing up our whole morning, you know,
[16:03]that kind of thing.
[16:04]It's a much simpler, just remove the attention.
[16:07]The other morning, my daughter didn't want to put her code on.
[16:09]This is exactly what you're saying on the way to school.
[16:11]And I was like, you know, you should put it on.
[16:13]It's called outside, whatever.
[16:14]So you don't want to wear my gun.
[16:15]Just don't.
[16:16]And all of a sudden, I'm like, you know, these poor little kids,
[16:18]like we tell them what to do all the time.
[16:19]If somebody told me what to do as much as I tell my kids,
[16:22]what to do, I would want to like run away and never come back.
[16:25]So I was like, you know what?
[16:26]Why don't you hold on to your jacket?
[16:28]And if it's really cold outside,
[16:29]you'll probably put it on, put it on.
[16:31]So she's like, okay.
[16:32]So she holds on to this cute little jean jacket
[16:33]she just got.
[16:34]We go downstairs and we walk too black
[16:36]and she goes, it looks like a mama.
[16:38]I'm cold.
[16:39]And I was like, good thing you have your jacket,
[16:40]and she just put it on.
[16:41]And now we like don't.
[16:42]Yeah.
[16:43]And that's such a great point.
[16:45]I mean, so much of being with little kids
[16:48]and the book is seeing the world through their eyes.
[16:51]It's like she's a human being.
[16:52]She wants to decide.
[16:53]And there's certain things like, no,
[16:54]she doesn't decide when she gets to go to bed
[16:56]or every day what she's having for breakfast.
[16:58]But to the extent we can build in choice and autonomy,
[17:02]it goes so far.
[17:03]And then particularly in this current climate,
[17:06]not to go down the political route,
[17:07]but to say something like, yeah, you know your needs.
[17:10]You know your body.
[17:11]You'll know when you get cold.
[17:13]Really emphasizes a message of like, yeah,
[17:15]you even at this young age,
[17:17]you know yourself better than anybody, even mommy.
[17:20]And you can have, again, some autonomy
[17:24]over some of these decisions,
[17:25]particularly ones that have to do with being cold,
[17:28]which by definition, you can't possibly know.
[17:30]Yeah, if she feels that.
[17:32]Yeah, maybe she was like, all right, yeah.
[17:34]And then last night, not to keep talking about my kids.
[17:36]Last night, she didn't want to have salmon.
[17:38]And she was like, I'm not going to have dinner.
[17:41]And I was like, okay, and frankly,
[17:43]sometimes with four kids,
[17:44]if one kid is having a thing like that,
[17:45]I just don't have time to deal with that.
[17:46]I just wanted to get everybody else to do that.
[17:48]So she went off, she ended up drawing this whole like,
[17:50]picture of herself and then she wrote the word mad
[17:53]and then her name and then came back to show us a picture.
[17:55]And then I just let her go off and like do the thing.
[17:58]And then with all the other kids,
[18:00]I just didn't, it's not like I chose to not pay attention.
[18:03]And I was thinking to myself,
[18:04]if this was my only kid,
[18:05]I would be up there being like, come to dinner,
[18:07]now it's dinner, don't do this.
[18:09]I can't take this, you know, but I just couldn't.
[18:10]I like didn't have the luxury of doing that.
[18:12]And then by the time we were all finishing,
[18:13]she came back in, showed us a little mad sign.
[18:15]And then she just like walked over, sat down,
[18:17]she's like, oh, this really is good.
[18:18]I was like, well, and so it worked in your favor
[18:21]because ideally even if she had been your only kid,
[18:24]it sounds like that was the intervention that worked best.
[18:27]And it sounds like that's exactly what I was just describing
[18:29]in terms of taking away your attention,
[18:31]but not in an invested way.
[18:33]You didn't really care or have time that she went upstairs,
[18:36]but that was the perfect message she needed.
[18:38]It was just like you're pulling away your attention
[18:41]in this case because you had to pay attention
[18:42]to the other kids, but it wasn't,
[18:44]it was just in a way that communicated to her,
[18:46]like as you just said, go do your thing.
[18:48]And then she was able to, within that space,
[18:50]first of all, do something incredibly adaptive,
[18:52]which was right out her feelings and write the word
[18:55]and express how she was feeling,
[18:57]which then allowed her to come to the table and eat.
[19:00]Yeah.
[19:01]But then I feel like, don't you feel like
[19:02]there's so much second guessing and parenting?
[19:04]Like whenever I make a decision,
[19:06]I wanna like, in my head 50 times,
[19:08]I'm like, was that the right decision?
[19:09]Like what message am I sending to the other kids?
[19:10]Like now is nobody gonna come to the table?
[19:12]Does she always think she gets to choose?
[19:14]Like is this gonna happen every single night?
[19:16]And that's a right.
[19:17]And every single day.
[19:18]And then I freak out.
[19:19]Yeah.
[19:20]And that's, first of all, as parenting.
[19:21]So yes, but second of all,
[19:23]those were, you gotta be where those always in never words.
[19:26]Like that's what I was saying about with Henry
[19:28]with the ice in the middle of the night.
[19:29]Like I could have easily gone on that bed with like,
[19:31]get a mice tonight, he's gonna want ice every single night
[19:33]and I'm never gonna sleep through the night again,
[19:35]which is a different thing.
[19:36]But, and that didn't happen.
[19:39]And if it had happened, I would have dealt with it.
[19:41]Like the book is kind of scattered with common question
[19:45]and answers and this is one.
[19:46]It's like, how do I know when it's okay to give in
[19:48]or not?
[19:49]I'm second guessing myself all the time.
[19:51]It's just a choice point.
[19:52]It's one point in time.
[19:53]And to the extent you can remember that.
[19:55]And then afterwards, if you wanna reflect on it
[19:58]in a helpful way, great.
[20:00]but not to beat yourself up and say like,
[20:02]well, now that I've done this,
[20:03]we're always gonna be like this
[20:04]or no one's ever gonna eat,
[20:05]or because the message that you're sending
[20:07]to your kid's quote-unquote is ongoing
[20:10]and all the time,
[20:12]and the only times you beat yourself up about
[20:14]are those incidents,
[20:16]but there's a million times during the day
[20:17]you're sending them wonderful messages
[20:19]by just saying, hi, how are you?
[20:21]How is your debt?
[20:22]And so it's just when we're faced with a behavior
[20:24]that we don't like, it's one choice point.
[20:26]And we make a choice, and then depending on how that goes,
[20:29]we make another choice the next time,
[20:31]and then again, if you notice,
[20:33]wow, every time my daughter doesn't wanna eat,
[20:36]she's reacting this way,
[20:37]then you have enough information to maybe say,
[20:39]okay, well, what can I change
[20:41]that might change the pattern?
[20:43]But until there's a pattern,
[20:44]you're just dealing with one point in time,
[20:46]and there's no right or wrong answer most of the time,
[20:49]there's just an answer that you pick and choose,
[20:51]and then keep going and see where it leads you.
[20:54]I love that.
[20:54]This also sort of dumptails with the whole section
[20:57]you wrote called Parenting
[20:58]that inadvertently reinforces tantrums.
[21:00]And then under that, you read that correctly,
[21:03]you can close this book now
[21:04]because at the end of the day,
[21:05]it's all totally your fault.
[21:06]Okay, I'm kidding with that last line.
[21:08]That was a good one.
[21:10]Yeah, well, because parents come into my office
[21:12]and they feel like it's all their fault.
[21:14]And it's, we're all just doing the best we can.
[21:16]And I hope that the book, there's a line in there
[21:18]that's like, while I'm writing this part,
[21:20]my younger kid is over in the corner
[21:24]like hitting his head with a spoon or something.
[21:25]No, it's like, it's like, and yet I'm one deadline
[21:29]and out of the rest.
[21:30]I mean, we're all just doing the best we can.
[21:32]And it's about these large, we nitpick ourselves so much
[21:35]and we think it's about these micro things.
[21:37]And it's not, which is not to let everybody off the hook.
[21:39]I mean, I wrote a whole book about different things.
[21:41]You can do, it's just to say that one of the things
[21:43]that hurts us most is that level of self-criticism
[21:47]and beating ourselves up.
[21:49]Okay, should I work on this?
[21:50]You write that when you're talking to a parent,
[21:54]you listen for language like, he won't let me
[21:57]or she makes me, how do, you know,
[22:00]what do you do for people who may fall victim to this?
[22:03]Not that I necessarily know anyone.
[22:05]Well, it's just about how you think about it, right?
[22:08]So you could say, you know, my son didn't let me put on
[22:12]his socks this morning or my son wouldn't,
[22:13]you know, made me let him go to school without socks.
[22:16]Or you could say, my son got, you know,
[22:19]just to yourself in terms of how you think about it.
[22:20]My son got really upset about wearing his socks this morning.
[22:23]And so I chose to not make him wear this,
[22:27]it's just about realizing that you have agency
[22:30]and that this little creature is not the one running the show.
[22:34]And that doesn't mean you can't choose on many occasions
[22:38]to do what your child is requesting.
[22:43]A big theme in the book is that there need to be equal balance
[22:45]of kind of love and limits in the home.
[22:48]So by all means you're setting limits,
[22:49]you're just doing so in an intentional and thoughtful way
[22:51]where you know, okay,
[22:53]this, so back to the ice,
[22:55]Henry's two AM ice craving, I said out loud to him.
[23:00]And I don't think it went in in a way that he understood,
[23:03]but it was really therapeutic for me.
[23:04]And I think a good habit to get into.
[23:06]I said to him, you know what, I'm gonna get you ice
[23:09]and I'm gonna get you ice because I've decided
[23:12]that's what's best for me and for our family.
[23:15]Again, it was three in the morning
[23:17]and he's three and there he, you know,
[23:18]he wasn't like, oh, okay, you know, whatever.
[23:20]But the point is it's not that he made me go get
[23:23]an ice at two in the morning.
[23:25]And the more I can shift my mindset to saying,
[23:27]you know what, he woke up at three in the morning,
[23:29]he was upset, he wanted ice and then I chose to get it
[23:32]for him because I weighed the different options,
[23:35]helps us feel and be kind of the ones who are actually
[23:40]in the big picture in charge.
[23:42]So it's not so much about never giving into those things.
[23:44]It's about just the semantics of it
[23:46]and the thought process that often lies behind those semantics.
[23:50]So what, what is your take on timeouts?
[23:54]If they start to have a tantrum, can you be like,
[23:56]this behavior is like unacceptable,
[23:57]I'm giving you a time out or,
[23:59]or what if the time out then leads to a tantrum?
[24:01]Do you just leave that like, so timeouts are one
[24:05]of the most widely misunderstood behavioral techniques
[24:10]out there and there have been huge controversies over them
[24:13]and in short and I'm gonna try not to get on a soapbox
[24:18]here and I talk about this in the book.
[24:20]So, so timeouts are extraordinarily well researched techniques
[24:26]that that work as a very basic behavioral tool,
[24:29]which is to say, children generally, little children
[24:33]love attention more than anything in the world
[24:37]and so one really good consequence for extinguishing
[24:41]and behaviors to take away your attention in a planned way.
[24:44]That's all the time out is,
[24:45]is it's a time out from attention.
[24:47]And a time out from attention only works
[24:50]if the rest of the time, generally, in your home,
[24:54]there's a positive more amount
[24:55]in a sphere where your kids are getting attention, right?
[24:58]So when people talk about, well, I do a time in.
[25:01]It's sort of like a time in should be kind of generally
[25:03]how things are and a time out is a time out from attention
[25:07]and it works for discrete behaviors.
[25:09]So behaviors that you can talk about ahead of time.
[25:12]So you, and you talk about it with your kid,
[25:14]even if your kid is three, you know,
[25:17]in this house, there's a time out for,
[25:19]if you try to hurt the dog, you know,
[25:22]there's a time out and that's an established thing.
[25:24]And so when they go and they agree to it
[25:26]and when they go to hurt the dog, you say,
[25:29]oh, remember we talked about this, that's a time out
[25:32]and then a time out happens in a very specific way
[25:34]that's been researched, which is that it's out in the open,
[25:37]on a chair or on a mat, no toys or books
[25:42]or whatever while they're doing it and it's time.
[25:44]So it's a minute per age, per year.
[25:47]Timeouts don't work for tantrums
[25:49]because it's not a discrete behavior.
[25:52]You're basically saying, I'm giving you a negative consequence,
[25:55]I'm taking away my attention because you're upset.
[25:57]A tantrum is just what being really upset
[26:00]for a little kid looks like.
[26:02]And it doesn't work because you can't talk about
[26:05]an advance or planet or really say
[26:07]with a good conscience like every time you get really upset,
[26:10]I'm gonna put you in time out.
[26:12]It's just not the healthy, good message.
[26:14]What you can do is take away your attention
[26:17]as we talked about in a non-emotional way and non-time out.
[26:21]They don't have to go to a chair, they don't wanna,
[26:23]but again, it's in an empathic way.
[26:24]Like, wow, you're having a really hard time
[26:26]with the fact that we're only getting one cookie
[26:29]and I get it, cookies are totally delicious.
[26:31]I know you can calm yourself down
[26:33]and so I'm gonna go in the other room
[26:34]and I can't wait to read a book with you when you're calmer.
[26:38]So again, it's that same idea,
[26:39]you're still taking away your attention
[26:41]but you're not giving this negative consequence
[26:44]for an action that they've taken
[26:46]because a tantrum, at least when it starts,
[26:49]is it's just a behavioral manifestation of an emotion.
[26:54]If the tantrum then includes aggression,
[26:57]like hitting or whatever, I think you can give,
[27:00]then it's about the specific kid
[27:02]and I don't think you are gonna do anybody any favors
[27:05]by trying to give a timeout in the middle of a tantrum.
[27:07]You know, and we can talk about these specific scenarios
[27:10]or not, but to the extent that you wanna think
[27:12]about the discrete behaviors that happen
[27:14]as part of a tantrum, potentially in certain circumstances,
[27:18]those respond well to timeout,
[27:20]but I still don't think within the context of a tantrum,
[27:22]it's the best way to go.
[27:23]Okay.
[27:24]Does that clarify?
[27:25]Cause that's, it's so, it's so widely misunderstood
[27:31]and debated in a way that's not even what it was intended.
[27:34]You know, it's frustrating.
[27:36]It sounds like time answers sort of more like,
[27:38]take a moment.
[27:40]Like time out has become, I think, like go to your room,
[27:43]closer, like stay in there until, you know,
[27:46]this is your punishment.
[27:47]Go to your, like kind of like when I was growing it.
[27:48]Like go to your room.
[27:49]And they were never meant to be in the room.
[27:51]I mean, in your own, I mean, and that's,
[27:53]and because among other things, once a kid realizes
[27:56]they're in their room and like,
[27:57]like they're gonna just be like sweet.
[27:58]I'm in my room.
[27:59]Well, that's what I always felt.
[28:00]Yeah.
[28:01]I was like in your room, I was like,
[28:02]I love my room.
[28:03]There's no place around the room.
[28:04]I'm gonna sit and read and like that time out is a timeout
[28:06]from a tantrum for a set amount of time.
[28:08]You can set a timer.
[28:09]If kids can understand time, which most can't,
[28:12]you have a visual timer,
[28:13]like they have in a lot of preschool classrooms
[28:15]where they can see the time going down
[28:17]and like the pie slice.
[28:18]But I think there's a real difference just to just,
[28:21]what you just said there.
[28:22]It's take a moment in the context of a tantrum.
[28:25]But in the context of like,
[28:27]you see one of your kids go over and smack your other kid.
[28:30]Which also happened.
[28:30]Yesterday we were in the botanical gardens
[28:32]and my little one was walking
[28:34]and my older one just came up behind him and shoved him.
[28:37]That's not a tantrum.
[28:38]And that's potentially a great example of something
[28:42]you could give a timeout for.
[28:43]And that would be the quote unquote,
[28:46]like formal timeout, you know what?
[28:48]Now we're gonna go sit for a three, you know?
[28:50]So those are really distinct
[28:51]and they both can be useful in different circumstances.
[28:55]When you were saying that part about pulling out your phone
[28:57]when you wanna sort of take the attention away, basically.
[29:01]In the book you said that you listened to Van Morrison's
[29:03]into the mystic as a way to calm yourself down
[29:05]when your child is tantrumming.
[29:07]And I mean, I feel like you played me that song.
[29:10]You introduced me to Van Morrison in high school.
[29:12]And it's still like now one of my favorite songs
[29:14]like kind of an idea and stood at the wedding.
[29:16]Like it's like one of my favorites.
[29:17]So anyway.
[29:19]Oh, that warms?
[29:19]No, I was sitting there like smiling, like flipping.
[29:23]I was like, oh my God, she wouldn't put it in the book.
[29:25]All this time, like our mix tapes, anyway.
[29:28]But so your kids started a tantrum.
[29:31]And are you really now like going into iTunes
[29:33]and like are you listening to it out loud?
[29:36]Are you putting in it?
[29:36]That's like, you're like walking me through.
[29:39]Lock me through how I do this.
[29:42]So before we get to the nitty gritty,
[29:45]the context is that tantrums are interactions.
[29:48]There and the book goes a lot into that.
[29:50]That it's family dynamics and interactions.
[29:52]Your kid is not having a tantrum in a vacuum.
[29:54]Your kid is starting to exhibit some behavior,
[29:57]which then causes you to exhibit some behavior.
[29:59]And they, and you,
[30:00]And it takes two to really, really amp up, not always,
[30:05]but the best thing you can do as a parent
[30:07]in a tantrum situation is to stay regulated and stay calm.
[30:11]And there are different ways to do that.
[30:12]You can feel both your feet on the ground.
[30:14]You can take a deep breath.
[30:15]You can close your eyes and remember
[30:17]the first time you held your child as a baby,
[30:20]when they like exploded your heart.
[30:22]There's different ways to do it, but it's so important
[30:24]because there's this great expression
[30:26]that I did not make up so I can't take credit for.
[30:28]Be the thermostat and not the thermometer.
[30:31]You're there to set the temperature,
[30:34]not to let your child set the temperature
[30:36]and you just measure it.
[30:37]So one of you has to get calm and regulated
[30:40]for the other one to feel better.
[30:42]And sadly, your kid's not gonna pick up that task.
[30:45]And so music is one way that for me can really help.
[30:49]And so I think most of the time,
[30:51]I do it frankly when I feel like the atmosphere
[30:54]is just ripe for a tantrum.
[30:57]Like after a long day,
[30:58]when we get home from preschool and daycare,
[31:00]I've had a tough day, I'm exhausted.
[31:02]The last thing I do it is I feel like doing
[31:04]is giving my kids dinner.
[31:05]One of them is already complaining
[31:06]that it's a bath night, you know,
[31:08]then it's like, you know what I'm gonna do?
[31:10]I'm gonna put on into the mystic.
[31:12]They're gonna want me to put on Paw Patrol sound track,
[31:15]but I'm gonna, you know, I need that
[31:17]to get myself through a better place
[31:19]so that this whole evening goes smoother.
[31:21]Occasionally though, what you said is true,
[31:24]which is that my kid will actually start to have a tantrum
[31:27]and I've had clients that say this works too.
[31:28]And you do go into iTunes.
[31:30]Because you say, I really need to get myself
[31:32]to a different place to be able to see this person
[31:35]as anything other than like the most annoying person
[31:38]and ever.
[31:39]And the way I'm gonna do that is with music.
[31:41]It senses.
[31:42]It also can be eating something that you, you know,
[31:44]just going like a lot of times it's about me, you know,
[31:48]you get so frustrated with your kid
[31:49]and then you realize you haven't had a sandwich
[31:50]for six hours, you know, right?
[31:52]So it's just getting yourself back in your body,
[31:55]back in your senses in a regulated place
[31:57]so that then you can have that pause that we talked about
[32:00]where you can be more thoughtful and intentional
[32:02]about how you want to approach a situation.
[32:04]There's this other song called Let's Be Still.
[32:05]Do you know that song?
[32:06]I don't.
[32:07]I don't.
[32:08]I'll stop.
[32:09]Go for it.
[32:10]No, no, no.
[32:11]Anyway, it's really good, but that's like my go-to song.
[32:14]If I'm like having a nurse break down myself
[32:16]because it like, it's called like Let's Be Still.
[32:18]Anyway, there's also, you can go the opposite mood
[32:21]and put on like a dance song.
[32:23]Right.
[32:24]Sometimes when my kids are making me crazy,
[32:26]I just blast a dance song and we all dance
[32:29]and it takes, because it's that same energy
[32:31]of like that excited, like, oh, energy,
[32:34]except instead of, you know, channeling it toward my kids,
[32:36]I'm like really dancing and they're really dancing
[32:38]and usually they look so cute that then that shifts my mind.
[32:40]You know, and again, it's about shifting
[32:42]that it's being the thermostat.
[32:44]I'm not gonna come in and get, you know,
[32:46]sucked into your drama that you pulled your hair
[32:48]and you took your legos and whatever,
[32:51]I'm actually gonna come in and put on dance music
[32:55]and change the whole tone, because I'm a parent,
[32:57]I can do that.
[32:58]So last question, what is the best piece
[33:02]of parenting advice someone has given you
[33:04]because you give everybody else so much advice?
[33:06]That's okay.
[33:07]The best piece of, I mean, I would say,
[33:11]and I talk about this a lot, that it's not direct
[33:15]parenting advice, but I often think about, well,
[33:18]two quotes I was gonna say.
[33:20]One is I think Marianne Williamson,
[33:21]when she says something about how the way to change the world
[33:25]is by changing how you interact with your child
[33:28]so that and not each individual interaction,
[33:30]but I really feel like if we can all start to be more
[33:33]empathic with our kids and see them as people
[33:36]and deal with emotions in a healthier way,
[33:38]we can change the larger scheme of things.
[33:40]And then more directly, there's a Maya Angelou quote
[33:44]that I'm not gonna remember, but it's something like,
[33:46]people will forget the words you say,
[33:48]people will forget where you were,
[33:51]but they'll never forget the way you made them feel.
[33:55]And I think about that a lot with my parenting,
[33:57]particularly when I'm in a cycle of beating myself up
[34:00]about something I did wrong or said wrong, it's like,
[34:03]well, what can I do now so that my kids remember how I'm,
[34:07]you know, you can go back, you can apologize,
[34:09]you can have a snuggle, you can just,
[34:11]I want my kids to feel overall, not every second
[34:15]of everyday we're all human, but overall,
[34:16]how do I help them feel loved, seen, heard, understood?
[34:22]And that helps me be less critical
[34:24]with the exact words I choose in any given situation.
[34:31]Awesome.
[34:32]Well, that was great.
[34:32]Thank you, thank you for giving me some extra little tools
[34:35]for the toolbox of parenting,
[34:36]which is the most important tool I'd like to carry
[34:40]around these dates in there.
[34:42]For coming on mom's time to tell you.
[34:44]I love, thank you, thank you for doing
[34:45]this amazing podcast and for having me on here again,
[34:48]as if our younger selves could see us.
[34:51]But yeah, this has been a real treat, so thank you.
[34:54]Thanks, Ruth.
[34:56]This episode of mom's don't have time to read books
[34:58]has been brought to you by Nini's Treats.
[34:59]Nini's Treats.com, available also on goldbellie.com.
[35:03]Thanks to Ryan and Steve at Texture Sound
[35:05]for the audio editing and mixing.
[35:07]Thanks for listening.