We do a lot of talking and I have this great acronym that I use. It's called Wait. Why am I talking? And I love it because I think that's probably one of the biggest things parents want to fix things, they want to correct things, they want to problem somethings and sometimes your kid just needs to talk and you need to not.
Welcome to the Beautifully Complex Podcast, where I share insights and strategies on parenting neurodivergent kids, straight from the trenches. I'm your host, Penny Williams. I'm a parenting coach, author and mindset mama, honored to guide you on the journey of raising your a typical kid. Let's get started.
Welcome back to the Beautifully Complex Podcast. I am super excited to have Leslie Josel back here with us for this episode. She has been on the podcast before in lots of our neurodiversity summits and always teaches me some new strategy every time we talk.
Even in all the years that I've been in this work and obsessed with figuring things out right and helping my own kid, I always learn a new strategy every time we talk. So I'm really excited because we're going to all learn something new today together. So will you start Leslie just tell everybody who you are and what you do.
I'm Leslie Josel. I am by trade a ADHD student coach as well as a parent and coach, but I am the principal quarter out of chaos and we are a very large global virtual community for parents and students and related professionals. And I always say it's where you come to help yourself, help your student and everything we do is virtual. So we offer products and programs, workshops, webinars and a ton of coaching.
I'm also a student for students and for parents. And I also write the dear ADHD family coach column for attitude magazine. So that somehow some people know me. I bring A's to your dues. So I do that too. So and I love being here. Penny, you are like I always say you are like a begin you are who I look up to and I feel like I always learn something that I'm on your orbit. So thank you for having me. I'm a virtual admiration. Yes, everybody.
And I don't say that all the time. I have people say that about me like Leslie leaves nothing for chance. And so I don't say that all the time. And I think you are, but that's it. Okay. And so we're talking about building habits using emotional rewards. And yeah, like habits, I think are the key for our kids for the parenting that we have to do routine structure to create habits. Because when we're struggling with like working memory, right.
If I am on autopilot because this process is a habit for me, I don't have to rely on my working memory. So that's no longer a hurdle, right. Exactly. Right. Yeah. So tell us about emotional rewards. First, what do you mean by that?
So here's a lot what I mean when and you know this penny because you and I play in the same space in the sense of parents. And yeah, I think if you really break it down, we'll hear all the time from parents is I really would love my child or we always say students. I'm just going to say what order with order out of cast. We call them students because that's
a lot of the things that we have to do. So we focus on. So a parent will say I really want my students over to get up in the morning and on their own or get out the door without you know being prompt dependent or whatever it is, whatever it is you really want.
So if you really drill that statement down and there's a lot about that statement that we're not covering, but if we really drill that statement down, which are really asking for as the parent is I would really like my child to build a habit that they could just do this again and again without having to be asked to do it or be prompted to do it. So it's really building a habit. Now, before I even get into it, obviously the child or the student has to know how.
Yeah, I don't really want to spend too much time on the have, but I want to make sure that your viewers aren't going well, OK, Leslie, that's great, but obviously my kid doesn't know how to do it. They're not going to do it. So we're going to pretend in our scenario that the child actually does and knows how and can get up and has on occasion done it, but maybe not consistently.
Right, so it's doable for them to do a ball. We need to make sure that we caveat it with its doable so I don't get any of that what happens if it's not doable. And I think when we have to remember what I mean by emotional rewards is this we have to talk about habit building first to actually know we all know that if we are neuro divergent, it takes much longer for us to build a habit than it does for more neurotypical friends.
But the other thing that we are very focused on usually when we built habits is giving tangible rewards. So if you want your kids to do something like, OK, if you get up on your own three days this week, I will give you, you know, $5 on Saturday to go spend whatever you want or I'll give you the keys to the car or you can get extra video time and we know that he's a future awareness or even working memory.
Do they really even remember that you said that they can have something on Saturday is that tangible goal, something tangible reward, something that is incentivizing. It's not believe it or you know that it's not because it's now or not now right the timing exactly. So what we know about when we build a habit is we need three things.
We need a queue, we need a queue, we need something, a prompt, a queue, a visual reminder, scaffolding, a point of performance, whatever it is that's going to queue us to do whatever it is we're trying to build this habit from. So that's the first thing. Then this the queue actually goes to the routine. So the queue prompts us to do whatever it is we want to nail down a routine, whether it is getting up in the morning, getting out the door in the morning, loading the dishwasher, whatever it is.
But the piece that has to come next is there has to be a reward. The reward is what solidifies that habit or routine into our brains. And what they have found and what we have found is that emotional rewards are much more effective and here's why number one, they're immediate.
This whole like I'll get to you in five days to hand you your five dollar bill just doesn't work, but they found that actually intangible rewards that emotional reward actually helps your student or child to solidify that routine more because number one, it's immediate.
So they are getting that whether it's praise, whether it's whatever it is happening right at the time. So that actually the routine will solidify if we're waiting, we're not having all three things happen that cycle happening at the same time. But we also know that our neurodivergent kids tend to be more emotional, get more negative messaging. So when they are hit right away with some positive praise, positive praise that specific. Yes.
Meaning not just I'm so proud of you, but wow, you were able to done it out on your own. That was really wonderful or I know how hard that was for you. I'm so happy. Whatever it is, however you praise, that that will connect it immediately. Yeah, they will connect it. And the reverse is true. What we don't realize is that our children look at not being yelled at, not being anxious, not staring down the wrath of a parent or teacher even as positive praise.
That not having something negative being thrown at them is actually converted to a positive. And I think that's a really subtle way and a very interesting way of looking at it. So when a child, you know, who's late or isn't doing or activating on their own is used to hearing negative, negative, negative, negative. And they either hear positive or nothing, even the nothing is considered a reward. Yeah. Well, if you're hearing negative all the time, it is.
Exactly. It's a space to breathe. Right. So like here's one of my favorite stories and I really want to share this one because I think it's a really great lesson. So I had a parent in coaching client who really was very upset about her son's behavior. She wasn't explosive or, you know, wasn't physical. It was she and this is her words, not mine. She's like, you know, he just doesn't seem to care about anybody else. This is her speaking, not me. Right.
He was 16 and she found them to be very selfish. You know, he didn't care. He always said, I can do what I want to do. I don't really need to care about anybody else and it really, really soured their relationship. And he told the story to me, you had a doctor's appointment or whatever and they were on their way back and he asked if they could stop to get ice cream.
And she said, sure, you know, it's not all the time the behavior and he was fine. The doctor went, well, he didn't put up a fight for it. And they pull into the parking spot. And you know, the mom says, I'm all wait. Go, you know, you're old enough. You can go get ice cream and he says, OK, he comes back a minute later and says, mom, you're not going to believe it.
I'm one of your favorite flavors today. See where we're going. And he goes, do you want me to get it? Do you want it? And she's like, no, that's OK. I don't want ice cream. And he goes, but you know where I'm going and he goes back gets his ice cream and they drive home. And then literally later that is when we had our meeting. And she said, I screwed that up. Didn't I?
Well, first of all, you still have time. You do. I feel like it's never too late to praise your kid about something. Yeah, she said, but I feel terrible because when we got home, he left something in the car. And I got upset that he left something in the car because it was something that was that melted.
And I said, did you tell him about that? And she's like, yeah. And I'm like, did you praise him at all about the ice cream? And she's like, well, what was it about the praise? And I'm not badmouthing her. But she didn't see the connection of right. You want him to think about others. He came out and he didn't have to. He could have gone and just bought his ice cream, but he thought about you.
I said, next time either a you definitely need to get the ice cream, even if you have one bite. Sorry, you do. Yep, I agree. Or if you can't, you say, you know what? That was the nicest thing you did. I am like so overwhelmed by your generosity to remember that that was my favorite flavor. And took the time to come out. I can't thank you for nothing that and how good that made me feel. Yeah. And that's my point. It's that type of thing.
We just some of us look at that as empty praise. I actually look at that as your direct line to building habits. Yeah, amazing. A litifying habits. And it's an interesting way of looking at it because we don't necessarily take that path. Yeah. Yeah. And as you're talking about this, I keep thinking about building neuro pathway is in connections. When we get positive praise, we are building neural connections. Yeah.
When we know us, when our kid did something that they have been trying to work on or something that is difficult for them, we are wiring positive connections. But the same goes for negativity. If it's always negative, then they get wired toward the negative. And as you were telling that story specifically, as soon as you said that she said, no, I don't want any.
I went rejection. Like kids would feel rejected a lot. Yes. And it wasn't her intention at all. And that's really, you know, the work that I do with parents is like, wait a second. You know, we have to look at intention. We have to look at our own intention. We have to look at our kids intention. And then we have to look at how they're receiving. Yes.
Are they getting our intention? Are they imagining or filling in blanks and coming up with something different? And that could easily feel like rejection to that kid. Oh, I thought it was I felt I mean, I wasn't in the car. Obviously, but I would have assumed very much so that he felt rejected. Yeah, just deflated. And she admitted, this isn't me. She, I go, did you thank him? And she says, I was like, on my phone. That's a thing.
She's like, no, I just said, no, it's okay. Thanks. Like not acknowledging even and just now I see it. Now I'm much more cognizant of every. And I said, when you, when you notice it, are you now seeing she goes, yes, what I've noticed, they now listen, we know this is a unicorn. And it doesn't happen overnight. And we have to do it consistently.
But since she said I have started to really like cherry pick out what the things that he's doing matter strength base that are positive that are, you know, even that are remotely pulling himself out of himself and, you know, showing others concern or empathy. And so I said, I'm very zero in on it. And I said, then you need to, you need, this is my, this is so my way of speaking, but I'm like, well, then you need a marching band and a parade. Yeah. That's what you need. Yeah.
I said, I'm not saying you don't get to parent. And that's an interesting thing too. When you're building these habits, because I get asked all the time, well, okay, what do I do or how do I do this? If we're seeing like something positive and negative at the same time with the behavior. Like, okay. So yes, Leslie, maybe my kid got out the door on time, but left like a, you know, a wake in his way. So to speak.
And listen, I'm some of it. I feel like there's no like rulebook for it. I feel like you have to kind of know your kid, but I really, really believe it's like, where are you in that moment with your child in the sense of like, what is the thing you're working on? So if getting your child out the door in the morning is the hill you have like died on. Do you know what I mean?
That is why I'm working on. Can you leave the kitchen that was left like disastrous, come at not be also added because it dilutes what you're working on? Yeah. Not everybody agrees with me, but I am a firm believer in if you can look away on some things that are not earth shattering or crisis or affected others. Then I think your best use of your own like is staying positive in what it is. Yeah.
If you can, we do something, and I'm sure it's called like the sandwich, right? Where you do a pro-comprow. I love that. I think it is. You know, I see teachers even using it now in school when they're giving like constructive. I don't want to use the word criticism, but let's say they're feedback. There we go. Much better words. Yes. Where they'll say something lovely furs or something concrete about how good something was.
Offer the feedback, but then follow it up with something positive. And I find that that works too. And I notice it in building habits too. Yeah. Yeah. There's something I'm working on right now is noticing that we're making progress. Exactly. Even though it's not perfect. So for my kid, we are working on bringing your dishes and your garbage out of your room, keeping your room, even some tiny percentage of clean.
It's been an uphill battle for years and years. And she's actually making great progress. And I caught myself the other day. He brought dishes out, but they ended up like on the counter on the island instead of like rinsed out in the sink, right? And I caught myself about to say something. And I'm like, wait a minute. You need to harness this moment in the right way, right? So I was like, I am so proud of you for bringing this out here. It's so amazing.
You know, I see it. I notice that you're working hard at this. You're making progress. And let's get through this. And the next we're going to work on getting the dishes all the way to the sink because I was getting stuck there. And I finally realized that I was getting stuck there. And I was not noticing the progress. And that's what we have to do.
Totally. And the other thing that I want to bring up because I think this is really fascinating too is we get asked a lot, why is it that we develop bad habits much faster? That we develop good habits. Right. It kind of proves why emotional rewards are really where you should be focusing on. I want to make this clear too. I'm not saying money on a car.
It's not help a child. Trust me. I have not now, but when my kids were younger dangling cash and dangling keys to a car was very was motivating. But it wasn't habit building. And I think there's a difference. But why do we develop bad habits? The good feeling that we get from a bad habit happens immediately. There it is. I want to explain that.
So for example, let's say you're a student and you're about to sit down or write a paper. Right. And you're so don't want to write this paper. So there was a queue. Okay. The queue was, you know, I opened up Google Calendar. So on my planner, I went on the school's website. So there's a queue. I have to write this paper.
Now I'm sitting down. I'm getting it to my routine. But all of a sudden, you're like, I don't really want to be doing this. And immediately you're going to maybe grab your phone to look at Snapchat or TikTok or whatever. And it's not that the TikTok was the reward because it's not it's that emotional feel good. That's the reward. I was feeling uncomfortable. I was feeling in pain. I was feeling whatever I was feeling, but definitely not feeling good because I was about to face doing something.
I absolutely do not want to do. So how can I make myself feel better? Oh, I know. I'll grab my phone. I'll put on my computer. I'm emotional reward that instantly took over. And now I've solidified a bad habit. Yeah. It felt better. And I think that's an interesting like juxtaposition of why we look at why good habits don't form as well as or as fast as bad habits.
I need to kind of like push that bad habit feeling out of the way by supplementing with like, wow, that was great. Oh, I'm so proud of you. Wow, I wish I had a marching band and parade this morning, you know, because that actually does help us lay it down. So I think the bad habit thing is an interesting way to look at it because I think when we look at bad habits, we look at what we're using to make ourselves feel good as opposed to the actual emotion of feeling good.
It just makes us so clear now how we get stuck in bad habits, but it also really illustrates that there's a feeling behind everything that we do. So if we attach a positive feeling to thinking about mom and what ice cream she wanted right or bring dishes to the kitchen. Then that positive feeling is going to really have an impact because we see how much that positive feeling impacts us when we're doing bad habits right way except that fully.
So let's, you know, overlay that on to the positive stuff. And I also think this is just again, kind of all part of it is that again, I'm bringing questions to the table that we get asked all the time goes back to that, okay, last while great, my kid did one thing right, woohoo, did a few things that I wasn't happy about. Do I not get to parent him or her or they just going to use him. Let's just use him. Do I not get to parent him.
And I'm like, yes, you get to parent, but just not in that moment. So I call it the diluted praise, right? Or it's like, wow, that was great, but I hate that. It's so funny to me because obviously you and I've been around for a really long time and there's a lot of things I hate. I think I hate that the most. I do too. I really, really do.
Because I hate it when someone says it to me. Yes, exactly. Right? I hate it when someone goes, okay, let's, I get, I get it. That was great, but I'm like, no, no, no, don't I look what just happened because you know that that saying that everything before the but means nothing. Exactly. So what I tell parents is you can obviously praise your child and you compare them just not at the same time. Because if you want that routine to really solidify, it's got to be clean.
Soly about what it is that you want to like see happen. Yeah. So if you child walked out the door in the morning and other things didn't happen, but he thought out the door on time, then that's what you're praising and that's where begins and end. If you would like to have a conversation another time where, hey, you know, it would be great if we could work on X, Y and Z. That does not dilute the praise because the praise needs to happen in its pure form.
It can't be a, that was great. But conversation, it just can't and we see, I probably see that more than I see anything else. Yeah, yeah, my husband does and it drives me nuts. I'm constantly like, don't say, but you're negating everything nice. You just said, don't say, but just stop. And it's just habit, right? We get in these habits as parents, we instinctually like say, no, before we hear our kid out, we end up saying, but when there's something else that wasn't quite right, right?
Like these are things that often we're not even aware of. And we really have to be more mindful and aware as parents to catch ourselves doing that, right? And to not dilute our praise, to have the biggest impact, that's the other thing here is we're not just criticizing your parenting, but to have the greatest impact from that praise, that praise needs to stand alone.
It has to be pure. I always thought how I kind of say I said, it has to be pure praise. But that doesn't mean that at another time, you don't get to say, you know, I would love it if we could work on X or, you know, but not taking away from what it was they did.
And I think if I look at everything I've read and heard and what we talk about in all our groups, that's where the work is. Yes, it's learning to praise, which we don't do, because I think a lot of us just say, OK, you walked out the door great. I'm like, no, no, catch that moment and catch it now, especially if you want to build rewards.
But if there's something else, let it lie for now, because it's not important right now. And then let's parent at another time. Yeah. And I think that's hard. I think it's really hard for parents to do.
It's really hard. We feel like our job is to correct, you know, and the other thing as you were just saying that I just heard in my head and I hear this so often in our communities and on coaching calls, you know, yeah, he finally made it out the door and caught the bus this morning. But, you know, he's 12. He should already be doing that. Like, why should I praise him? It's what he should be doing. That drives me up a wall too, because obviously it wasn't totally doable. Right.
And you're working on that. And now it's happened. And if you wanted to happen more, you've got to be excited about the fact that it happened. Right. And you can even ask your child, like, I have some parents who say me what I actually do is I'll say like what clicked for you or what was it about today that went well because I think if you can kind of ask them in a way that doesn't sound like formal or not authentic.
Then you might get some intel so that could help, you know, something else. And I said, parents tell me that that has actually been really helpful is actually going like that was really, you know, I love how you got up this morning and got out the door on time. What was it about today that worked for you? Because that's another way to actually solidify a routine.
Another way to praise is saying like, I noticed this. Can you tell me what worked like I want to learn from you? So it doesn't have to just be this one way. I'm so proud of you that you got up this morning and walked out, which sometimes might might land a little flat. It's going like I noticed it and I'm curious what worked and what changed because I'm watching and I notice.
And sometimes that might feel a little more genuine. I don't know if that's the right word, but you know what I mean authentic authentic. It might. Yeah, yeah, I agree. And then let them talk. I mean, I find it's funny how you said this about that it's our job as parents parents want to correct. I feel like it's a parents just want to talk. We do do that a lot. We do a lot of talking and I have this great acronym that I use. It's called weight. Why am I talking?
I love it. I love it because I think that's probably one of the biggest things parents want to fix things. They want to correct things. They want to problem solve things. And sometimes your kid just needs to talk and you need to not. Yes. So I don't need to disparage parents. I have one. No, I mean, this is something that's part of our behavior revolution program is like when things are happening stop talking if your kid is an intense stop talking you're making it worse.
If your kid is actually talking to you, stop talking and listen to them. And I'm a fixer. I am very type A. I want to get it done right away. I want to fix it. I want to get on right. And so for me, there's a lot of work on mindful awareness and overriding those instincts that I have to wait it out to do it in my kid's time.
You know, one thing that was huge for us when he was a teenager probably, I don't know, 15 or 16, probably 15. He finally said to me one day, like you keep pushing me to talk. And I just can't talk about it right now. And when I'm ready to talk about it, I will let you know. And it was like a slap in the face right.
This is so me. Yeah, I just want to and you know, even when he I can just tell I can tell he's my kid I can tell when something isn't going well when he's not feeling great when something is going on right and I immediately I'm like, whoop, let's get on this. Let's talk. Let's fix it. Let's, you know, and he is not that person. He needs time to sit with it first. And the magic was that he always comes and talks to me.
Of course he does where he wasn't then he would just claim up and be like, the walls up. We're not doing this ever. He always comes because I respect now and I work very hard at it and sometimes I catch myself still doing it. But you know, I respect the fact that he has asked for time. And that's what he needs. And that's what's important in that situation.
And what that also means is that that doesn't mean when your child says, you know what, I need some time right now and walks down. Let's say the hall to go to his bedroom. That doesn't mean that you follow. And keep talking, which used to be me. I have to share this with you, Penny, because so I just wrote my last call like my latest, not last call my latest calm for attitude.
And what it was titled was, are you having mom versations? And I did not make that up. It was actually made up by my son, who is the nerds divergent one. And yes, I'm a planner. I'm a fixer. I'm an organizer. I'm a problem solver. I'm a burgo. I'm type A. We keep going.
Yep. And I had him alone. This was a couple years ago. And we went out for like lunch. And I literally pull out my notebook. And I was like, okay. And he just sets it's back like this. Now, granted, he's 25 now. But he was, I think it was like right. I don't know when it was a few years ago. And he goes, is this any just like this? He did pants. And he goes, is this going to be one of our mom versations?
And I do it like you. I do this for a living. And I like bit my tongue. And the first thing I said, well, he would never say it was about his dad. This is going to be a dad versation. He wouldn't because my husband doesn't have that gene. My husband is way more like, you'll talk when you want to talk.
He's like, I'm late back. Yeah. Very chill. We'll get to it. But he's like, he's laughs. But like, I says, and I was like, I came with my pen. I'm like, no, can I? And he goes, I can't. Like, you got to basically like, you got to stop. And he's like, I'm like, you know what? You're right. One.
I'm like, what do you want to talk about? Like what's on your agenda? Like what's on your time frame? And I realized that I was like shooting questions and that completely overwhelmed him. It clearly shut him down. And he's like, you got to do it one at a time. One at a time. He goes, I eat time to like process what you're saying. So even I have to remember the weight. And I will say in all of my parenting.
And I'm saying this to you, your community who's listening that I think that that is actually the hardest thing for parents and for me. You know, I've learned how to praise. I've learned how to praise effectively. I've learned how to not parent when I shouldn't be, meaning when I'm better off either praising or showing empathy.
But what I am still learning, even with kids that are 29 and 25, my kids are fully blown and grown. But even I have to go, why am I talking? Why am I talking? Why am I talking? And we want our kids to talk to us and we don't give them space to. We fill all the space. We do. So I think what I've learned to do that I think is really helpful is I just used my like body language to talk as opposed to my mouth.
And I think that's a really good thing for parents to know. Like I'll just nod my head. Right. I'll just, you know, sometimes I'm saying, I'll say I'm listening, anything neutral. Even if I'll just put my hand on like my kids, if they're with me, I mean, a lot of it is done. Obviously, neither one of my kids live with me. So I'm not always in their space. But if I can't, I'll put my hand on a knee. I'll put my hand on the arm. I'll say, I'm just listening. And I'll hold my hands under me.
I don't know why that is, but it really, really helps me to be quiet. And I will say to myself, why am I talking? And I think that's just a really good lesson for parents because I know this is a little bit of a segue away from habit building. Yeah. I really feel it's all connected. It is. We overwhelm our own kids. We are the overwhelmers as opposed to thinking that we're the helpers.
We call it the escalators. We co escalate instead of co-ranking on the time. We don't intend to. We intend to help. But what we actually do is escalate a situation a lot of times. So I don't know if this happens in your house is just to happen in mine is when I would say something very innocuous to my son.
I would go, hey, can you come downstairs? I want to talk to you. Now, I knew what I wanted to talk to him about. He was usually like, we talk about logistics for tomorrow, who's picking you up, you have this, you have that, right?
It was in my own head. It was completely innocuous. And I think this is important too because again, you are wanting a willing partnership with your child because without that willing partnership, even habits aren't going to form. Right? You're not even going to get there.
I'm usually what I was met with was a very oppositional kid. No, I'm not coming. No, I don't want to. What do you need to start to? Like you've got very defensive very quickly. And I couldn't figure it out. And I finally figured it out.
But I realized that I was too open ended and where did his brain go? His brain went to all the first thing is what did I do wrong? But that all of a sudden, I'm like, he thinks he did something wrong because I haven't told him like because unfortunately that's where their brains go. Yeah, they got overwhelming. Well, what could she be wanting? How long is this going to take and all of these questions tumbled out of him not verbally, but probably in his own head?
So what I started to do, I started to pre-empt topic in time. Hey, can you come down stairs? It'll take 10 minutes. I want to talk about logistics. But tomorrow, very different. Yeah. And I will tell you that that is what I get so much like feedback on from parents. Like I never would have thought to do that. And that one little change has created a lot of harmony in my house. But more importantly, when you have harmony, obviously you can then have conversations like we're having
build the habits you're having. So I just wanted to share one little like it's a verbal change. It's easy to do. You can implement it immediately. But I think I've seen so much change just in that preempting topic and time. Yeah. And you know what we're talking about in this entire conversation is about the language that we use and our relationship with our kids. That is what sets the foundation for all of this work building habits, all of it.
And so I think that's a nice way to wrap it up and about. So for everybody listening, I want to make sure you know how to connect with Leslie, how to access any of the resources that we talked about here. All of that is in the show notes at parenting ADHD and autism.com. Slash 241 for episode 241. And with that, I just want to thank you again, Leslie so much for always being willing to share some of your wisdom and your time with us.
I love you. I wish I was with you in North Carolina having tea and your gorgeous. One day we're going to meet and hug for sure. For sure. Absolutely. All right. A while that's it for this episode. I'll see everybody next time. Hi everyone. Take good care.
Thanks for joining me on the beautifully complex podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and share. And don't forget to check out my online courses and parent coaching at parenting ADHD and autism.com and at thebehaviorrevolution.com.