From Chaos to Calm: Devon Kuntzman on Thriving Through Toddlerhood

that's actually what happened that's what I call observe and describe you observe what happened and described it which is very neutral versus like my child's being so bad if I don't do something about this he's gonna grow up hitting everyone he's gonna get kicked out of school no one's gonna be his friend all the parents are gonna judge me you know you go down that road yeah that's exactly that's exactly what happens

welcome back to raising men if you've ever had a toddler throw themselves on the floor because you cut their toast the wrong way well you know how intense those early years can be but what if we frame toddlerhood not as something that we have to endure but as one of the richest seasons for growth both for our kids and for us as parents today I'm joined by Devin Coonsman she's the author of Transforming Toddlerhood and the founder of the business by that same name she's on a mission

to rewrite the story

that we tell about this stage of life she helps parents move from chaos to connection from power struggles to partnership and from guilt to Grace Devin welcome to raising men thank you so much for having me well so so so many parents myself included just absolutely brace themselves for the terrible twos but you're promoting a different way of thinking about toddlerhood tell me about it yes you know we all get told whenever we have a baby and then that baby starts

crawling and then that baby's about to start walking just wait just wait until they're a toddler just wait until they're two just wait until they're a teenager everyone like warns us and then I find that we enter toddlerhood kind of like white knuckling it like oh man what are we getting into here and what I like to tell families is that when we are focused on mitigating

something that hasn't even happened yet we're already training our brains to look for what we would say would be like negative or the behavior we don't wanna see so of course we're gonna start noticing that if we're hyper focused on what's gonna go wrong when our kid turns 1 2 3 you know and so if we start looking at twos as a critical developmental period instead of a terrible developmental period because it sets the stage for brain development for emotional development

for the rest of your child's life then we actually can support our child's development and be empowered but if we're just looking for the terrible then we're actually doing ourselves a disservice as parents we're gonna feel a lot more frustrated and we're gonna have a lot less access to being able to really support our child's development because we're too busy focused on you know what's gonna go wrong or be bad about it yeah I have a business mentor that used to say to me

um used to say your biggest opportunity is often your biggest problem and vice versa

your biggest problem is often your biggest opportunity and that has you know in the business context always helped me really reframe what I'm looking at as the other thing which is a really really useful thing and we look at toddlerhood as this enormous problem oh man I'm gonna have to endure and you know set boundaries and do all of that but if you think about it as wait no I have the opportunity to really set them on the right trajectory it it changes your behavior

absolutely everything that we treat as a problem

is an opportunity for learning an opportunity for growth whether that is our child's tantrum or if we lose our patience as the parent all of these so called problems truly are opportunities so I love thinking about this in the business context too absolutely is true in parenting so how so tell me about how it works how do how do toddlers actually learn and communicate through their emotions and behavior yeah so in toddlerhood in my book I talk a lot about younger toddlers versus older toddlers

so I think to have this conversation is good to establish like okay what's a toddler here so I like to talk about younger toddlers ages 1 and 2 and these are our younger ones that um are definitely in toddlerhood and they have very limited expressive language skills so they're not able to tell us a lot about what they're thinking and feeling and need but they absolutely

can understand a lot of what we're saying then we have 3 and 4 year olds that are older toddlers that still have the same lack of brain maturation lack of skills although they're learning more because they have a little more life experience but now they have a better command of expressive language so they're gonna start experimenting with words to communicate how they feel but they're gonna miss the Mark so they're gonna say things like you're not my friend anymore I don't know you're mean

things like that whereas like a one and two year olds going to use their behavior a lot more to express their um feelings emotions and needs and so what we really need to understand instead of labeling behavior as good and bad we need to label behavior as communication it's communicating your child's feelings and emotions their level of brain maturation their the lower brain

the um more primal part of our brain that's responsible for feelings and emotions the stress response I call that the Conan the barbarian brain as opposed to the Sherlock Holmes brain exactly yeah it's like this part of the brain is really well developed for toddlers that's why they drop down there so quickly and so often whereas the part of the brain that's responsible for emotional regulation logical thinking um empathy all of this is not very mature

so toddlers have a harder time staying there so we're going to see them using behavior to communicate their um their feelings and emotions their basic needs their sensory needs and their developmental needs like the need to feel capable to exert their will to have a sense of control to experiment and explore these are all things your toddler is working on

because the whole point of toddlerhood is for your little one to become their own person to develop a sense of self for the very first time in their lives realizing they're a separate individual from their parents and caregivers so what do you know I found that in my experience and I I remembered even when they were little babies it felt like they were trying to manipulate me or they were scheming to try and get you know I don't know more candy or or whatever it was but obviously

I mean they're not they're they're behaving out of that cone in the barbarian brain what are the tactics I need in order to keep myself in the Sherlock Holmes brain from and and keep myself from dropping down there

and and and getting in a fight yeah it's so easy to jump on your child's emotional roller coaster the first thing we need to do after we understand that you know all behavior is communication we have to like reframe the story we're telling ourselves about that behavior so instead of saying oh my kids being so manipulative when we kind of get to the root of what's happening which toddlers are reliant on us to really meet their needs their physical needs their emotional needs and so they're being

strategic to ensure their needs are met whether that's to get another piece of candy or to like feel connected to us or to like get their next meal because I mean your kid can't just hop in the car go to the grocery store cook up a meal and things like that so I think we sometimes forget that young children are just reliant on us to get all of these needs met so as soon as we can start saying my toddler's not being bad they're having a hard time we're going to start looking at solutions

and how do we help our child have the skills

or have the support they need to be successful versus asking ourselves what punishment does my child need so if you're thinking how do I not jump on this roller coaster we really have to tell ourselves we have to like tell ourselves when we start getting in that stress response hey wait a minute brain you're trying to trick me you're trying to trick me into this sense of urgency you're trying to trick me that there is a threat right now so we literally

have to just make sure our kids are physically safe and that we're physically safe um you know if your child's hitting you have to put them down you have to create some space between you maybe you have to like put a pillow between the two of you whatever it is to like tell your brain hi we're safe here this is not an emergency

yeah and then you can start to ground yourself and come back up to your upper brain and be more regulated but we have we're really fighting against that innate biology that's trying to tell us there's a threat there yeah one of the issues I have is I like to see two data points and then I'll draw a line between the two and then I'll act as if we're all the way over in the infinite extension of that line as if if I let the kid get away with you know whatever

then when he's an adult he's gonna do X right I I have to actively beat down that reflex in myself

and just recognize that it's that fear loop right that like that like extrapolation that we we go into whenever we're like feeling that stress response yeah yeah it it is and and I'm almost when I'm doing that I'm almost worried about how it reflects on myself as opposed to how it's how it's gonna impact him when he's older and you know I think taking the ego out of it is another real important key to being able to manage that yeah this is why a lot of parenting truly is mindset

because if we get stuck in these thought loops yeah where we're telling ourselves a story about our child's behavior like oh they're gonna grow up to be a brat manipulative a bully or whatever or we get into thought loops about the story we're telling ourselves about you know our parenting oh we have no control

we're doing a bad job or ruining our kid you know all of the thought loop or am I gonna be judged or people gonna think I didn't do a good job you know whatever it is right it's all of these um thought loops that really stem from um that place of like fear and being in the unknown because our minds don't like to be out in the unknown um and so it's really about shifting our mindset to interrupt these story loops that we tell ourselves that really take us out of the present moment and you know

put us into a place of fear and then we're acting from fear of the future of something that may never happen instead of what's actually happening in the moment'cause what's happening in the moment per se is like I was holding my kiddo and getting him a glass of milk

but he just woke up from his nap and was still groggy and sleepy and I wasn't moving fast enough and he like bought me on the head and like that's that's actually what happened that's what I call observe and describe you observe what happened and described it which is very neutral versus like my child's being so bad if I don't do something about this he's gonna grow up hitting everyone he's gonna get kicked out of school no one's gonna be his friend all the parents are gonna judge me you know

you go down that road yeah that's exactly that's exactly what happens and so I mean that's a really this observe and describe thing is a really great practical tool uh walk me through how that works in practice like let's let's continue with this with this um with this example he bonks you on the head as you get him as as you get him some milk what do you do yeah so typically you'll see this type of behavior from like a kid that's between 1 and 2 years old where they're just experimenting

with their bodies and how to use their bodies to communicate because they can't say like faster or this is taking so long or I really need milk right now or whatever it is so what you might do is um if it just happened once and your child's not like really really upset you might just say oh you just hit me are you trying to say you want the milk

you can say milk please milk please use your hand gentle like this you know so it's really about creating connection setting limits and following through and teaching skills this is the recipe for healthy effective discipline and say that your child's though really upset and they're like going to a tantrum and they're like flailing and hitting and things like that then you have to respond a little different you have to start with the limit because if not if you don't establish that safety

you're going to feel um more and more stressed and get into that like stress response right so I might say something like I won't let you hit hitting hurts and then maybe give like um you know set them down or say oh you can hit this cushion

you can't hit Mommy something like that and then once they're like calming down a little bit I might say wow looks like you were feeling frustrated you wanted that milk faster and Mama wasn't fast enough when you want milk you say milk please because it's really about teaching skills yeah when kids have the skills to communicate they do better I think a lot of the time especially you know before I really developed the skills to deal with that sort of thing

in a healthy way not that I do all the time by any stretch of the imagination oh we're no one's perfect here yeah exactly because we're human beings we like literally are incapable of being 100% consistent 100% perfect it's like not even possible as human beings yeah

but it was easy for me to forget that this this really is a skill thing they they don't I wouldn't get mad at them for not being able to walk or run and yet I'll get mad at them for not having the interpersonal skills required in order to express dissatisfaction in a healthy way that's insane yeah cause they just don't have the life experience and the brain maturation and the impulse control yeah and that's the thing it's like a child's impulse control at the at this age

especially in toddlerhood is much lower then their developmental drive to exert their will and to you know like they're just not able to control themselves in these moments and I I typically say like okay we wouldn't punish a child who's like learning to ride a bike and like falling down or like learning to swim like who has ever punished a child who's like learning to swim and like doesn't have the skills yet right but that's the difference between

like the hard skills you know like physical skills and then like the soft skills which are social emotional skills because social emotional skills are harder to see we sometimes forget that those skills indeed are there and they are still a skill they're actually skills yeah and you have to develop them now let's let's continue this um this example that we talked about with the milk as the as as a toddler gets older the the communication switches from behavior to verbal right yes so

you know is do you the way that you deal with it is it different um when they're starting to melt down instead of you know hitting you or pushing you yeah so we regardless of like a child's age I still use the same framework but the things we do and say inside the framework might change a little bit so let's say that we have a child who is um having a tantrum let's say that you gave them milk and then they wanted more milk but that's like not within your limits that the milk is all done

you know that we're not giving more milk

and so then they start getting really upset because it's typical when we set a limit for a child to have a reaction to that because we just took away their sense of control which they're developmentally driven to have a sense of control because they're trying to become their own individual so when we take away that sense of control they're not gonna like it right so they're gonna say something about it so now your kiddo is headed into a meltdown

the biggest thing to do during a meltdown you might less is more typically but you might say oh you really wanted more milk and the milk is finished and then your you know your child is just um upset and crying yeah so the biggest thing that you can do during that time is just ground yourself take deep breaths and try to keep your emotions in check yeah because the calmer you can stay emotions are contagious and so that will wear off eventually it works both ways right emotions are contagious

so when they're melting down it wants me to melt down exactly because then we're trying to jump on their emotional roller coaster and we're like wait someone's got to pull the brakes here yeah so you can't do that if you're on the roller coaster so

the biggest mistake though I see parents make when it comes to tantrums besides punishing a kid for having a tantrum when really they're just having a hard time coping here um is that parents will sit and like stand by the refrigerator in this example waiting for their child to decide to stop crying and accept the limit the challenge is is that if we don't start moving forward then our child will think there's a chance there's a chance they might just open that fridge

and give me another sip of milk so it's important to not only say okay the milk's all done but to also move forward so you might like grab like a cup of water and say oh there's water here when you're ready and you know you set it on the table and then maybe you go turn on some music you get out a toy you start playing

when your child sees you moving forward then they're more likely to move forward because they see like any chance of you backtracking has like that train's left the station yeah it's not it's not gonna happen yeah yeah I I can see I mean that appeals to me as an adult I can imagine times where you know I'm not getting what I want but the person is still kind of dangling it in front of me and then that sort of gives me hope and then I I stick with that and then whereas if we move on past it

then I can I can start handling it yeah and let me take this example a step further for all the parents that are like okay yeah well I just put that cup of water on the table and of course if I have a kid having a tantrum I'm probably gonna make sure there's a lid on it and at least a lid um but hopefully in like a spill proof like water bottle type of thing but if not and your kid just goes and like swipes off the table cause they're mad and they don't want that water yeah

we might be so tempted to say what are you doing you don't do that clean that up right now you know whatever it is go to your room sit in the corner that's bad you know whatever it is but we have to understand that our kid is like seeing red they're out of their minds right now they're not doing this to be bad they're doing this to convey how frustrated and upset and then you got people say well they should just know better you know what when your kiddo's

not losing their mind and upset and stuck in a stress response in that lower brain they do know that they shouldn't swipe water and you know throw water off a table yeah however in that moment being stuck in a stress response our kids are not thinking rationally yeah they are just trying to communicate their deep displeasure the best way they know how so what we need to do is let our kid get over the hump of the tantrum tantrums are always kind of like a bell

curve right like at some point it's gonna peak and then they're gonna come down the other side yeah

and then when they're coming down the other side that's when they can start to hear us again and we're like connecting and then we say something like you were so upset you threw the water off the table let's clean that up water stays on the table let's clean that up together and you give them like a sponge you get a sponge and then you know you go clean it up that's teaching that's teaching like our actions have a consequence yeah but like in a logical way

right not in an adult imposed arbitrary consequence where we're like now you have no screen time the rest of the day or no dessert tonight yeah that's an arbitrary consequence not a logical consequence which is like you spilled the water through the water now we need to clean up the water yeah yeah and I think you know I I can imagine that one of the the the push backs against that concept is no they need to be punished because they need to learn that they can't spill water

and that's the answer to that yeah the way they're learning that is the natural consequence of having to clean up the water yeah and and so like like applying an arbitrary consequence like no screen time for the rest of the day they won't connect those things it's you know it's I don't know very similar to training a dog in that way they just don't you know it just feels like it it feels arbitrary to them and that's that's its own problem

if they feel like they live in this arbitrary world where at any moment the hammer comes down then that creates all this anxiety and and is really maladaptive I I imagine exactly and that's the thing where it's like are we trying to help our kids learn how to learn that human beings make mistakes and learn how to make things right after making a mistake yeah or are we trying to teach kids that they should comply with a higher

you will respect my authority authority right like no matter what because if we want to focus on compliance based parenting and us being in control then we're setting ourselves up to always have to be there to draw the line in the sand yeah versus kids learning the skills the emotional regulation the behavior regulation skills and also like this skills to make amends and to make things right like oh yeah I knocked that water over I should like go clean that up versus like

going to sit in the corner and think about what they did what they're thinking about is that maybe I have lost my parents unconditional love and acceptance which is what your child is most concerned about this age because again they're reliant on you to get all of their needs met so if they feel like that connection is threatened they're going to have a lot of fear going through them because then maybe they're not gonna get a meal maybe they're not gonna get a hug and that's what matters

most to your kids at this age and so we have to think like do we want our kids be motivated by fear and like really be setting up the fear pathways in the brain that's like priming kids for anxiety and depression and things like that or do we want to really strengthen the neuro pathways and connections that are um full of connection and learning you know the outcomes of like behavior how to make amends how to like clean up the messes literal literal messes and figurative

messes like the emotional messes right

yeah but it it seems like the whole the key to this is maintaining your own emotional regulation when the kid knocks the glass of water off the table and water spills all over everything maybe on the furniture you know ruining some stuff how do you stay emotional what are some tactics that you use to stay emotionally regulated in that moment that's something that I feel like I struggle with someone yeah absolutely and there's gonna be days where we're like more resource or less resource

right like days where we're more tired more hungry have more stress in our lives right and it's gonna be harder to stay at that emotional equilibrium here's the good news you don't always have to stay there but the best way to get there is to again establish the physical safety and then literally tell yourself this is not an emergency I am safe and my child safe because when we can tell our brains we are safe and then practice grounding ourselves then

it's going to get better it's gonna get easier to pause so we have to really fight that biological sense of urgency to react

right now because it's not gonna make a difference if we react if we respond to our child's behavior right now or in five minutes like it's gonna be okay it's better to respond in a way that's you know emotionally healthy so we have to ground ourselves and it's gonna be different for every person so I really recommend that you go and like think about okay what are things that help me feel like calm and regulated is it taking deep breaths is it like checking in with my five senses is it

like smelling some essential oil or lighting a candle is it sitting down is it looking outside is it splashing cold water on my face is it blowing bubbles it could even be something silly like blowing bubbles right like keeping bubbles in your your kitchen or nearby but I recommend that everyone write down like three things that um you either know helps calm you down and ground you or three things to try practice those for a week first of all stick it on sticky notes

all over your house so you can remember when you're like seeing red and then practice it and see what you find out I know for myself personally

I the more I can move it like helps like give energy to like my frustration so for me sitting down or even laying down like taking away my ability to move like calms me down a lot whereas some people actually need to move I'm the reverse yeah I need to take a look right yeah so you know it's it's really you have to get to know yourself um and see like what will work for you but here's the good news say that um you know you have this you you've you've just totally lost it and you

use shame blame guilt judgment or fear in that moment where your kids you know behavior went off the rails and your behavior went off the rails you can always come back and repair the relationship and that's what it means to take a problem and turn it into an opportunity right it's an opportunity to rewire your brain and to model that repair process right to make amends with your child and strengthen that relationship and then model skills that your child's going to learn

now I'm not saying that we should like purposely like troll our kids yeah um to be able to create opportunities no there will be plenty of them of of natural opportunities to exactly right so I'm not just saying like oh you should just like go hard on your kids and then repair it yeah no but what this is is like as human beings there's gonna be moments that like we just mess up we make mistakes and so do we want we want to like normalize it's human to make mistakes

and what do you do once you make a mistake and if you can model that process for your kiddo it's on page I believe 49 in my book but I have a four step process for making amends which is um taking ownership

so that might be something like hey back there I felt really frustrated and I totally lost control and yelled and then you want to check in with your kid to check in on the impact so you might say something like how was that for you and if you have a 1 year old they might not say anything if you have a 2 year old they might say bad if you have a 3 or 4 year old they might say something more and then you just validate and repeat it back you might say oh you feel blank or

that was blank thanks for telling me right so now you're telling your child hey we can have tough conversations and still and it's okay like we don't have to shy away from like these tough conversations then step 3 apologize hey I'm sorry I am so sorry that I yelled at you and that was not my intention and then step 4 is the most important part which is the redo next time X y and Z happens here's what I'm going to do then you practice it in that moment and guess what when you're a toddler

becomes a school age kiddo of 5 6 7 years old they're gonna be your accountability buddy they're gonna be like hey remember mom last time uh this happened you said you were gonna X y and Z that's great you know because in the end now we're showing kids what it's like to be human and they're actually helping us and we the goal is to work ourselves out of the job and to you know to be partners with our kids we're still in charge but this is great cause it means your kids

learning the skills too yeah what a powerful tactic I I love that 4 step repair process you know the the um I'm a I'm a pilot and that's one of my hobbies is flying airplanes and in in in in flight training a lot of what we do is managing emergencies right and it's all about I mean the the mechanics of learning how to fly are in fact even in your very first lesson you'll

you'll start practicing what happens if your engine fails right and um one of the first things that they teach you to do in dealing with emergencies in an airplane where I mean literally you're you could be seconds away from catastrophe is um the first item on the checklist is wind the clock and you think okay I just lost my engine and you want me to wind the clock and the reason is because it takes you out of the loop out of that reaction loop for you know three to five seconds

I'm I'm gonna wind the clock and then you can sit down and go okay well what am I gonna do and um and that's you know I feel like that's a really good metaphor for dealing with the meltdowns also is wind the clock just you you don't have to do anything we're not there's not a car coming to hit the kid we're physically safe yep so wind the clock just sit there and think for a moment and then and then decide how you're gonna act and then do the thing

yeah it's all about disrupting the stress response yeah yeah how do we disrupt it how do we you know throw a wrench in it so to stop that loop or to stop that cycle and it's it's challenging and so that's why I create all these frameworks right so we can write it down we can have it on sticky notes we can yeah like remind ourselves of it in the calm moments and hopefully in the challenging moments too and the first step is establish safety establish the physical safety

yeah so then you can create the emotional safety you know as I as I think back over you know my childhood journey I right now I have two kids one of them's 6 one of them's 3 so one of them's kind of outside that toddler zone that you're talking about one of them's still smack dab in the middle of it um I don't remember any of the fights but I do remember the times that I didn't measure up to my own sense of values where I lost it or or you know I failed and I think that you know

how to part of it is being able to have the Grace

to recognize that everybody fails and you know you you haven't irretrievably broken your kid by yelling at him one time uh even if it was really bad and you know what are what are some of the tactics that you have for giving yourself that Grace yeah I talk about this a lot in my book as well so you know of course repairing the relationship is by and far the No. 1 thing that we can do is to like re establish that parent child bond and to you know really make amends

making amends make amends make amends however for our own internal mindset in these moments it's really easy to go into a doom loop to go into a fixed mindset I'm failing I'm such a bad parent I'm messing them up they're gonna need years of therapy you know all the things yeah and so um what you wanna do I always say stop looking in the rearview mirror this is a car metaphor stop looking in the rearview mirror stop living in the past and what a could have should have land saying

I should have done this could have done that if I just would have done this X y and Z

that's not going to help us do different next time so what we wanna do is look out the windshield at the horizon and we wanna say hey here's what happened here's what I Learned here's what I wanna do next time and then go forward and try it out practice it in the calm moments yeah try it again in the challenging moments and be willing to make those mistakes and practice again each and every time you practice you're making progress not perfection your practice makes progress

and each and every moment is an opportunity to practice again we just have to choose if we're gonna look through the um rearview mirror or if we're gonna look out the windshield toward the horizon where we're going yeah that's a really great metaphor looking out the windshield versus the rearview mirror it's up to you yeah you know one of the themes that I've kind of detected through this conversation is this notion of parenting through connection or through control

right you know what is your goal here are you trying to cultivate something within your child or are you just trying to

crack the whip and so what are some of the signs why do we feel like we need that control why why do we what's what's the reflex there and why is it there and what do we do about it yeah so Chapter 4 of my book is the um Knowing Your parenting role where I talk about the different types of parenting roles the controlling commander the permissive pushover the nagging negotiator and the confident leader and guide yeah and we often times want to like will slip into this role

of the controlling commander because okay having a sense of control some all human beings need to feel a sense of agency

right to have some sense of agency some sense of control and that's also very prominent in the toddler years as your child is trying to become their own person so it's very very prominent but it's important to all human beings so when we start to realize well when our toddler starts to realize that they're a separate individual from us and not an extension of us we often times are still treating them as an extension of us because we often feel like babies are an extension of us um and so

we start getting bent out of shape when our agenda and our toddler's agenda doesn't match and we feel that sense of control slipping away and we start to realize that control is an illusion and then when we start looking at things like sleep eating and going to the bathroom like you can't force your child to close their eyes and sleep you can't force your child to chew food and swallow it you can't force your child to like release and go to the bathroom right and so toddlerhood is one

big wake up call that control is an illusion and that is very very disconcerting because it challenges our sense of agency and it's very hard to be in relation with someone um especially whenever there's such a power dynamic difference right because we're bigger stronger and have a lot more life experience than toddlers so it feels easier to like dominate and control because they're smaller less experienced and things like that and so often times we're just trying to like assuage

our own discomfort and anxiety when faced with the idea that controls an illusion and so we think okay I've got to have compliance and then you couple that with like the fear loop of like extrapolating the future yeah so that's why we're trying to constantly control our kids behavior so you're either gonna have like more docile personality children that are going to like comply out of fear but you're priming them for anxiety and people pleasing or you're gonna have strong willed kids

who are going to constantly push back push back push back

and then when they get older those are the kids that are going to like be more likely to lie to hide things from you because they're afraid of getting in trouble so the kids eventually get bigger and they get smarter and they you know have better tactics and so really we have to think okay connection based yes it might be more work up front but we're still setting limits and following through we're not saying this is a free for all here we have to have limits limits are so very important

but we're also not ignoring our child's feelings and emotions and needs but we are teaching skills that are going to have our child be successful and work ourselves out of the job and it gets easier then we don't have to try to like have a 6 or 7 year old that we're trying to control every second because good luck yeah what so how do you deal with discipline and I I you've advocated for something that called positive discipline what does that look like day to day yeah so what I like to

you know everyone's like positive discipline conscious discipline gentle discipline gentle parenting all the I like to call it developmentally smart basically we're working with our child's development not against it and what we know from the research that this closely aligns with what we call authoritative parenting where there are clear boundaries and limits in place

we are creating the container however we are still trying to meet our child's needs within those boundaries we are still taking their feelings and emotions into account and we're also teaching skills so for example say this is like if anyone has a pet at home you have a toddler your toddler probably has or soon will discover the dog's water dish and they are going to want to go play in that water because toddlers love water right it's sensory play it's super exciting

so you could come from like a compliance um

first in conventional way of parenting see your child play in that water dish and say bad no you don't do that we don't play in that water yeah it's something like this punish them and then okay like we did that but what about the child's needs what about the child's feelings right right so we can accomplish the same thing in a developmentally smart emotionally healthy way by saying oh looks like you wanna play with water you're having so much fun playing with water

this is the dog's water no dogs water stays here let's go play in the sink or let's go take a bath let's go do these dishes let's go play with a water table outside find a way for your child to have water play that's within your boundaries so now we are still having limits but we're taking our child's needs into um into consideration yeah I find that once when they get older you can kind of put the monkey on their back you you know yes oh you want this thing but that's outside the boundaries

how do you think you might what what's another way we could get the benefit of that exactly so you can start this around 3 years old but definitely around when your child's 4 you can start saying well what do you think how could we make this better what's your idea what's a way that we can play with water that you know is within boundaries like what you get to be it's called collaborative problem solving yeah and this is how we we as parents make our jobs easier

and this doesn't mean that you're weak or soft what it means is that you're respecting your child as a human being and as an individual now you don't have to do what your child says but when you let your child give some ideas of how to figure out what to do next not only are they practicing problem solving skills they may come up with something you hadn't thought about because we can't remember we we look through at life through a very logical lens because our brains are fully developed

and we just don't remember what it's like to look at life in a different way without our brains being fully mature so our kids might teach us something or have a great idea or maybe they don't have a great idea and you have to work together to come up with something acceptable but this is how you work yourself out of the job and how you release some of that pressure of having to have everything figured out and know what to do all the time it's okay

for you and your child to work through it and figure it out and then you're creating buying cause your child feels like they have a voice they're gonna be more likely to cooperate when they feel like they have a voice yeah I had a I had an experience along those lines recently the um the kids were in the back of the car and I was driving along and they were bickering about something they each wanted the same toy or something along those lines right and um and they were starting to

kind of yell at each other and that that is really upsetting to me I really don't like it when they're yelling in the car and and so I got on the boy the boy is older and I kind of got on him about not you know sharing with his sister his sister is younger and she doesn't quite have the the the mental skills to really ask for what she wants or really know what she wants and the boy can be happy with a lot of different toys and she and and the girl can't and so

I kind of got on him about not sharing with his sister and he took from that

oh well then she always gets whatever whatever she wants and I have to sacrifice that's fine she can have all the toys is is the way that presented itself and I kind of well that that didn't really necessarily go as planned and the next time that happened which was about five minutes later I I said listen what's a way that you can give her what she wants or something close to what she wants that doesn't interfere with what you want or that even maybe enhances what you want

he thought about it for a second he came up with a good solution oh how about I give her this part of the toy and I retain this other part of the toy and we'll both be happy about that and it worked and it actually made him excited about the solution as opposed to resentful about the solution because you know he was gonna have to give up everything he wants for his brat sister it was it was such a an accidental parenting victory for me and I love it it's amazing and this is such a great example

of what it looks like to teach skills over compliance yeah right and when we're teaching skills now you just empowered your kids to resolve a conflict together so next time they're going to be more likely to resolve a conflict without you ever having to get involved and the more that you practice being the coach in these situations versus the referee that's when they're gonna learn those skills and in a year you're not even gonna have to get involved they're gonna work it out themselves

cause one of them will be the voice of reason yeah especially once your three year old is a little bit older and then they're gonna be like oh what can we do here they're gonna figure it out they're not even gonna have to come get you yeah it also puts me and the boy kind of on the same side it's like alright you know you and I are a team and we're trying to figure out how to how to make these things as smooth as possible and how do we how do we deal with your sister if she's if she's freaking

out about this and it's not give her everything she wants it's you know how do we how do we how do we do it together

yeah kids just want to feel seen and heard and that's why the connection piece is so important yeah the problem is is that sometimes people slip into permissive parenting cause they're only focused on the connection piece right and they never set any limits or anything so that's why we still need to have the connection piece set limits and follow through and um you know teach skills right and that was just a great example the problem solving skills but the more kids feel seen and heard

the more that they feel like they have a voice the more that they're gonna be bought in the the more that they're gonna cooperate and the easier things are going to get yeah I always love to finish up these conversations um by asking everybody the same question and I know that's gonna be putting you on the spot but when you think about the kind of humans we're raising what is one operating principle or a truth that that you might offer for every parent when it comes to raising their toddler

yeah everyone is a human being doing their best your child did not wake up today saying how can I make your life miserable how can I make your life difficult and you didn't wake up today and say how can I make your life difficult or miserable right but sometimes as human beings we're not going to be at our best we're trying our best but we might not be at our best and that is okay it is okay to be human and so we just have to let this idea of perfect behavior for our children

and for ourselves to let it go embrace being human embrace having a growth mindset embrace um this like learning and growth together and that's really where the magic is

that's a really powerful principle the book is called Transforming Toddlerhood and if this conversation helped you see parenting in a new way share it with your friend or and and like and subscribe to the channel and check out Devin's work the link is in the show notes this has been raising men I'm Shawn Dawson and you are a great parent raising men is produced by Phil Hernandez this episode was edited by Ralph Tolentino