You're listening to episode 35 of the Sustainable Parenting Podcast. And we're talking today about how to respond to little lawyers, those kids that seem to just argue for the sake of arguing. Let's dive in. Hello and welcome to the. Sustainable Parenting Podcast. Let me tell you, friend, this place is different.
We fill that gap between gentle parenting and harsh discipline that's really missing to parent with kindness and firmness at the same time and give you the exact steps to be able to parent in ways that are more realistic and effective. And for that reason, finally feel sustainable. Welcome.
First, I want to. honor our listener of the week, who is Abby. And she sent me a personal message saying, I listened to the podcast about what to say when your child [00:01:00] says no, and oh my gosh, it was so helpful. I have five toddlers on Wednesdays. as a preschool teacher and whoa, let me tell you they're busy and the tantrums goodness.
This will be useful for my toddlers in the preschool and my own kids. Thanks so much Abby and go ahead and send me another personal message to know you heard this highlight. And I will send you a bonus gift and friend, as you're listening today, if you find value in what you hear, please do us two huge favors.
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Now let's dive into little lawyers. As one family I met with this week in private coaching told me it's like their kid, [00:02:00] your kids can sometimes just be, um, difficult for the sake of being difficult. And this family told me that with their five year old, it's just incredibly frustrating for him to get in these modes where he'll argue what seems like the silliest thing.
So an example they gave was that they were all dressing up to go into a school party. dressed him as characters and he was like, this isn't stupid. You don't even look like those characters and I'm not going in like that. And then dad was arguing like, I think we look fine. We all look wonderful in these costumes.
And he was like, no, we don't. They're not cool. We don't look like those characters at all. Dad argued back and so on and so forth. Another example was that he got frustrated with a friend, this five year old. was playing football and a friend made a touchdown and he just got super adamant, like he did not make the touchdown.
He did not. And the parents were like, yes, he did. We just watched him do it. And he said, he did not, he didn't do it right. It [00:03:00] wasn't true. And the parents are like arguing again. Yes, he did. And it just feels like. This cycle that never ends and is incredibly frustrating, like you think you're hitting your head against a wall or something because it's like, wow, nothing I say seems to change him arguing for the sake of arguing.
So I want to give you two easy things to do instead in these moments with our little lawyers. The first thing that I want to encourage you to do, and that I encourage this family to do in our private coaching, was to let go of the power struggle rope. You know, really, as much as they can start arguing for the sake of arguing, we can get easily sucked into being on the other side of that and continuing to argue just for the sake of being right.
So they want to be right, and then we want to be right, and they want to be right, and we want to be right, and both of us are just escalating up and up and up, and nobody's winning. So, this feels very counterintuitive, but I want to [00:04:00] suggest that the first thing you do when you notice that you're in one of these traps with your little lawyer child is to let go of your side of the rope and hold their side of the rope with them.
Now, I'm not saying that means you say they're right, like the mom of this wonderful family that was doing a coaching call with me said, do I just be like, fine? Yes, you're right. He didn't get the touchdown. And I'm like, no, no, we're not going to like, one of my cardinal rules is we do not negotiate with a terrorist.
And definitely along that line, we're not going to give in to telling the terrorists they're right. And like, it's. Hear me out on this. I am not saying your child is a terrorist. We love them, but if they are using terrorist tactics, we do not want to negotiate with that or say that that is right.
Otherwise, we encourage more of that tactic, and we want our kids to be living their most, most wonderful, kind, um, wise selves. [00:05:00] So I said to this mom, okay, so it feels counterintuitive, but let go of your side of the power struggle rope and hold his side with him. What does that sound like? When he says, we don't even look like the characters we're dressed up as.
This is going to be embarrassing. Instead of arguing your side, and he argues back and arguing your side. Let go and name his side to give him a sense of feeling heard because the reason he's continuing to argue with you is that he doesn't feel heard. So what that sounds like is, boy, you don't think we look at all like these characters and pause.
And let me be clear as I work with families on this, a lot of this is nuance. We've got to think about our tone. If our tone is Boy, you don't think that we look like these characters, [00:06:00] but we do. That's not really holding their side of the rope with them. Or if we use words that are kind of condescending, like I know that you don't think that we look like the characters, but that also is not truly holding their side with them.
So notice the keywords I'm using, which are, I notice, or you seem, or you think, or you feel. So boy, I notice. that you don't think we look like these characters, or okay, you don't think that we look like these characters. You feel like it's going to be embarrassing if we go in, not really looking like the characters.
Is that right? Do you hear the empathy in my voice and the key words? I'm not using the, I know you feel, I'm just saying, oh, you [00:07:00] seem, or I notice. And with a truly empathetic tone, like if I was saying it to a girlfriend where we were about to go into a party together and she's like, embarrassed or worried that maybe she dressed up too fancy and no one else is going to be dressed up that much.
Like, oh gosh, you're really worried that you're going to be the only one dressed up. Okay? Empathetic tone and empathetic words. Let go of your side of the rope and hold their side with them. Now this may feel counterintuitive, but I tell parents it's kind of like with that little lawyer, it's like picture, it's like a dog bite.
Like you're so like, ow, gosh, it's like, it's sharp that they are so argumentative and you want to pull away the opposite way. But with a dog bite, they say you've got to kind of push your hand into the dog bite to loosen their jaw. And then that would be a safer way to pull your hand out if a dog were to bite you.
So, same thing in these kind of moments. We push into it so that we're more likely to get out of a [00:08:00] situation. Lean into naming their feelings in an empathetic way. Let go of your own desire to be right and needing to argue that and lean in and name their side first. Be clever enough, be wise enough to be parenting smarter, not harder.
and knowing that a piece of that is being able to say, I know you need to be heard before you're going to want to listen to me. Okay. Part two, after you have done that, is to be able to say to the child some sort of redirection, and how can we move forward here? So we're going to name it, that little lawyer, and then we're either going to redirect with some sort of when then, you can say like, well, When you're older, you can choose the costume that we have, or next time we go somewhere, you can choose what the character, um, costumes would look like so that maybe they can match what your, your ideas are.[00:09:00]
Or you can use what I call the, I love you and the answer is no, which is another way to redirect them to know that we're not going to argue here. It's like, yeah, I hear that you wish we had different costumes and this is what we're wearing. It's amazingly powerful after we have. listen to their side of the argument and named it for them a bit more.
I often feel like they're more receptive to our side of the argument, but also you'll hear, I'm not like getting into the weeds of arguing with him. I'm just using my side of the rope to say, I love you. And this is the boundary. And if they start arguing against that, you can use a broken record sort of method.
That's not like, you know, mechanical, but just, you know, I, I hear you don't like this costume and it's what we're wearing. I know. I hear that you don't like this costume and it's what we're wearing. or if ultimately you need to [00:10:00] hold two roads with the child, it could be, you know, I can, you know, tell you really disagree, and you can either come inside with these costumes, or you can choose to take yours off, but the rest of us are wearing them.
Those might be two options. And finally, with that example where the child was having this go on with a peer, same model we can use. Let's say that the little lawyer is getting adamant with his friends. He did not make the touchdown. You did not. You did not make the touchdown, even though you clearly just watched it happen.
And the friends did too. You can come in and say, you know, it seems like, kind of translate what it is you think is underneath him resisting, seems like you wish he hadn't made that touchdown. I noticed that you're frustrated that he made the touchdown. You don't feel like it was a fair touchdown. So using all of those same phrases and [00:11:00] a truly empathetic voice tone, listening first so that then you will be heard.
Thank you. And then second piece is moving on. So either some version of, you know, when you now have the ball and you might be able to make your touchdown, or when he does cross this line, that is the touchdown. Or you're just reiterating, you know, I love you and we need to move on with the game. We're not going to argue what happened.
And they, they're much more likely to be open to that after you've truly validated. Okay friends, so this is my favorite tool for responding to those little lawyers. Let go of the power struggle argument rope, hold their side of the rope with them, and secondly then, either try to transition into giving them choices, or reiterate the I love you and whatever the boundary is.[00:12:00]
All right, friends, and if you have personalized questions about this, message me just like Abby did in sharing what she got out of the episode. You can reach out to me in Instagram or Facebook or email, and those links are all in the show notes. And as always, let today be another chance to parent with kindness and firmness at the same time so that it finally feels sustainable.