You're listening to episode 37 of the Sustainable Parenting Podcast, and today we're talking about how you help a child to reset instead of just sending them to time out. 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.
And friend, as a gift to you during this holiday season, in the show notes, there is an additional video linked there to give you more description. This is usually only something that [00:01:00] I give to my clients inside my parent coaching work. But I want to share it with you because it's super important to me that you get this tie in with today's topic.
So let's dive in. Friend, in this holiday season, I was thinking about you feeling a little stressed, feeling a little overwhelmed, feeling a little bit like, Oh my gosh, are we going to enjoy this week or two off with the kids not being in? childcare or in school, um, or are we going to be like drowning in tantrums and upsets and power struggles and fights?
And so thinking of you possibly being in that place, I want to give you this lifeline. This is if you and I were on the phone together, I would be saying, Oh my gosh, friend, if this is your worry going into the next week or two, I want you to have this tool. It is how do you help your child reset instead of just sending them to timeout?
Friend, if you have been missing this in your parenting toolbox, [00:02:00] it is so essential. It's like the building blocks. It's like you haven't been drinking water in, in my perspective, in terms of nutrition and nutrients and what you need to feel healthy and energized. I feel like every family needs to have some process of how you reset instead of taking a timeout.
in order to have everyone feeling connected and calm and cooperative. So here it is. Friend, I want to suggest to you what I, in my sustainable parenting work, have tagged as this unique word, reset, instead of timeout, and I hope that more and more people across the world start using this term and using this perspective when a child is hit a bit.
Very upset, uncontrolled place. So the first thing I need you to know is that in terms [00:03:00] of giving a reset time, we got to talk about when we're in talk about when we're going to talk about where, and then we're going to talk about how, when, where, and how, first of all, when do we use reset instead of our other parenting tools, like validation, like a silent hug, like talking them through the P the problem we use reset.
in those moments where our kids have pretty much lost their rational ability. And this is something that's just a normal human experience. You know, we know the prefrontal cortex in the front from our amazing work of Bruce Perry is where we have our like logical thinking, middle brain is that more emotional thinking, and then the brainstem is that fight, flight, or freeze, very animalistic, angry, or shut down.
And We all experience our brain getting overly activated in those lower parts, the emotional or the severely [00:04:00] dysregulated fight flight freeze. throughout our lifetime. And when you're young, those emotional places get especially triggered more often because their brain is just primed to be more in that space because the prefrontal cortex is not developed.
It's not fully developed till their late 20s. So of course they've got more activation in those middle areas because they're what developed first. You know, the brain grows from the brainstem up into the frontal area in terms of its complex development. And so it's normal that they are gonna have moments that they are just fully offline and irrational.
If you're like, sometimes I just feel like my kid turns into like an animal and it comes out of nowhere and I don't understand and they're making no sense. Yes, you're not crazy for thinking that. They're not crazy for experiencing it. It's developmentally normal. And It's really important that we help our [00:05:00] children through these moments to grow the skills to handle that emotional time effectively.
So I want you to think about a process we call reset. This is for really, really little kids. We just kind of do this naturally. Zero to one. When they're crying, we pull them in. We hug them. We pat their backs. We say, Oh my goodness, you're just having such a hard time. or we might give them space and know that they just kind of have an upset tummy or they're just kind of struggling with trying to crawl during their tummy time and that it's okay to give them a little space to feel upset and work through it and move forward.
As they get older we start to have them talking and we think that the main way to soothe them is to talk back and I want you to The gut instinct of how important it is to either hug or give [00:06:00] space. And so instead, when the, so when they have hit an irrational place, and I typically mark that by they are hitting, harming, or screaming, I want you to think of only offering a silent hug or space to calm down.
Those are the two key tools. of Reset. You can choose if they're safe with their body, but you're able and you're able to pull them in for a hug. We can offer a silent hug. This is, we're not arguing with them. We're not rationalizing. We're not telling them how they still need to get the thing done they're upset about.
We just pause and give a silent hug to help their brain move out of that dysregulated state to a regulated state. Or if they're continuing to be hurtful or they're not wanting that hug to calm down, we give them space. [00:07:00] So, That can look like a couple different things. So we've covered the when. We do it when they are hitting, harming, or screaming.
Where? Now, where can be a number of different places? Every family chooses this for what aligns with your values. I think a bedroom is a really nice cozy spot. It does not give them a negative association about their bedroom because this is about reset. This is about comfort. I want you to reset. back to your wise, wonderful self, get back to being a good boss of your body.
And so in order to do that, I find it most helpful to be in a comfortable, comfortable, cozy spot. So a bedroom is great. So when do we do it? It's when they are dysregulated, their brain is not in a logical place, and that might look like hitting, harming, or screaming. Where do we do it? I recommend a bedroom is a really great place when you're at home because it's cozy and [00:08:00] comfortable.
And then how? How do we do an effective reset instead of timeout? Timeout, let's go there first. In the old school manner was you need to go there until you feel bad enough to behave better. You need to go there and think about what a naughty girl you were being. You need to go there because we are just done with you and just can't even deal with you anymore.
That's shame. That's blame focused. So instead, we want to have an attitude that like, we all get dysregulated. Sometimes we all go offline and choose things that are like, we're in a state where we're not being able to be a good boss of our body or make our wisest choices. And when we're in that place, we do best to go reset.
We can reset with a hug or we can reset with some space on our own. So honey, I want to tell you [00:09:00] outside of this frustrating moment, like we want to sit down with our kids in a calm moment where they aren't upset and explain the brain process. I've got a great handout. I'm going to put in the show notes that is been created by another professional about the, um, animals in our brain.
You can explain this to your kid about how you've got a wise owl part of your brain and this sort of angry ape or guard dog part of your brain and that boy when you're in that place honey let's come up with how you could calm down either by getting a hug or taking space in your room and then practice.
This is another key part of how do we do effective reset. Let's walk through it. We wouldn't like want our kid as they're learning soccer to just be like put in a position where we say, okay, you're going to have a ball and you're going to be by your feet and then you're going to dribble it and you're going to kick it in the goal.
Okay, so that's what you need to do. No, we would get the ball out with them. We would kick it around. We [00:10:00] would practice. So I want you to think of the same thing as you're teaching your kid calming skills for when they need to reset. What does that look like? So, okay, let's walk through this now that I've explained the animals in your brain.
Honey, when you're in that guard dog state, um, let's go into your room. Let's practice together. Like mom's the one who's super upset and having that guard dog barking her brain. Oh, I just want to throw things and scream at everyone. Can you help me into your room? Okay, now in here, maybe I'm going to scream in your pillow or I want to like squeeze the pillow really tight or squeeze your little monkey.
Um, or your giraffe toy and then take a breath out. Oh, will you do it with me? This feels so good. Let's see what this feels like together. Squeezing the giraffe and then exhaling. Oh man, this feels really good. And then I think I'm ready to I think I'm ready to be a good boss of my body again. Let's go back out and play.
So you're practicing this. One [00:11:00] family that I worked with in coaching said that their four year olds who was having just kick down, drag out meltdowns often with them and even hitting them when they did this practice, she just loved it. She, she craved knowing better how to do the calming. And she started calling it the calm down game, and they would practice it with her Barbies.
They would practice it with her little animal toys, and she loved practicing it with the parents being the one that needed to calm down. All are wonderful. I recommend you try every single approach. All of these are wonderful. So, when do we do it? When our kids are dysregulated, hitting, harming, or screaming, and their brains are offline?
Where do we do it? I recommend the bathroom or the bedroom because it's a cozy, safe spot and how do we do it? We do it with an attitude of explaining outside of the moment. What's going on in your child's brain, making a plan of how to calm [00:12:00] down and then when the moment happens. helping them to that space.
Now, if you have a child that tends to resist and wouldn't want to stay in that spot, or often would run out from any way you've tried to have them have a space to calm down, these are problems we can solve together. And I would recommend that you reach out to me and we can talk about that. Also, if you're like, well, but what do I do if I feel like I need to reset when we're at a party or when we're in public?
Spaces, absolutely reach out to me. I would love to have a parent coaching session with you and we can solve that problem as well. So, friend, remember in the show notes there's a key tool, a video to be able to give you even more content related to this as my Christmas or Hanukkah or whatever holiday gift to you.
And as always, friend, during the season, I hope that you are. Being able to use these tools to parent with kindness and firmness at the same time so that parenting finally feels sustainable. Talk soon.[00:13:00]