I saw it as it was happening -- our 4yo was going to meltdown. But before it happened, I swooped in, connected with her, and then worked it out.
On today's episode, we talk about the mental model of connecting:
Hello, mamas and Papas. Welcome to dads smarter, not harder. The daily podcast for parenting through mental models, as opposed to through rules. I am your host, Jun Loayza. I live in San Francisco with my wife and two daughters, Juniper, who is four and Kimball, who is two.
Today, the mental model that we're going to be talking about is connection. And help building that connection is absolutely critical. Before you can teach your son or daughter a lesson. Let's take a look at what this does it look like when you're not able to connect before teaching. So let's say little Johnny.
Is playing with a toy. And his little sister is next to him playing with a toy as well. Well, this toy that the sisters playing with, Liz's looking very enticing. So little Johnny goes and takes it from a sister. Now you as the parent, you see that and you get upset. How could Johnny do that? To take that from a sister? He's the big kid he should know better.
So you walk over there, reprimand Johnny, maybe yank it from his hand and give it to the sister. What does he learn? He's learned nothing. Except that he can be punished, except that you can come at any moment and take that toy away from him and give it to a sister.
And then he starts feeling animosity towards the sister. Because all she has to do is cry and she's going to get her way. That's a missed opportunity to connect before you can teach. Or another example. Let's say little Nancy doesn't want to go to school. And you come and you say.
Well, Nancy, you have to go to school, go get ready right now. Put on your shoes, put on your socks. We're late. Let's go. She's going to throw down, she's going to throw a tantrum cry and you're going to have to drag her out of the home, put her in the car, take her to the school crying.
What she's going to learn. Well, it's going to happen the next day. And the next week.
Because instead of connecting and first understanding the frustration first understanding why the child doesn't want to go to school. You were just forcing the child to do what you needed to get done.
I know it's hard. Especially when emotions run high. Especially when you're late. Especially when you need to just get out the door. It's incredibly hard to just take the time and connect. But we have to remember. That all this investment is going to pay off in the long run. We need to connect now.
It's going to work out if we believe in it, if we follow through and then we'll be able to move forward. So let me give you a real life example of what happened today. It was something pretty amazing actually.
Kimball our two year old is feeling a little sick, so we need to give her medicine. Juniper our four year old comes and says, I want to give her the medicine. Fantastic. Here you go. Here's the syringe. Kimball sitting in her high chair next to mom, Kim. And then Juniper goes and gives her the syringe. She's taking a little bit, little by little in her mouth.
But then Juniper gets a little overzealous. She squirts the syringe. It hits her in the neck. It hits her in the face. Kimball is all dirty. I look at Kim and she's upset.
Her reaction is to say. Juniper. Look, Kimball's all dirty. Now she's frustrated. She's not accusing of course, but this was just a natural reaction from Kim. She felt frustrated.
Can I can see Juniper already having a meltdown. She's about to have that meltdown because she felt like she's being accused of something. And I felt it. I felt it coming because we have so much experience with it. And I came over there. I swooped her up. I picked her up in my arms. I looked at her as she was, kind of yanking herself away from me moving.
She was already making the noises like she's going to cry or just complain. And I let her know. I know Jenna, Brian. No, that's very frustrating. You were just trying to be helpful. Come on. And we walked, we took a little walk with her in my arms. You just were trying to be helpful. You really were just trying to be helpful.
And then she stopped. She was breathing calmly now. And she said, yeah. I just want her to be helpful. That's right. And instantly just like that, it was amazing.
I knew that I had to pick her up. I had that opportunity to connect with her and I took it. And it worked out so well.
Once Juniper was calm. We walked over back to Kim.
And we had a good conversation with Kim.
Juniper talked to mommy. And let her know that she was just trying to be helpful. Kim apologized. She said, I was feeling just a little frustrated because Kimball is now all dirty and we have to clean her up and then Juniper apologized. It was a great conversation and we were able to close the loop on what had happened.
Okay. So, what have we learned and how can we apply this mental model of connecting to your life?
First and foremost, we have to practice loving energy. We can't always have positive energy because we can get frustrated and that's okay to be frustrated. But we always love our children and we have to calm ourselves down as much as possible and express that through our words and through our actions and through our energy to our children.
I have that loving energy, which means communicating empathy, which means communicating patients, which means communicating that we're listening to them and trying to understand them.
Number two, we need to communicate that we understand what the child is going through and help them understand what they're going through. In this case, I labeled the feeling and I labeled what had happened. Juniper. You were just trying to be helpful. And now you're upset because mommy got frustrated.
Right there, that package, I let Juniper know that she was just trying to be helpful and she has that confirmation. Okay. Poppy understands that I was just trying to be helpful. And he understands why I feel now frustrated because mommy's frustrated.
Number three. If you weren't able to calm down your child through that, to labeling of the feeling. And expressing you understand what they're going through and they're crying hysterically. Then we need to connect further and just breathe together. Hold them close, breathe together. Let them know. It's okay.
It's okay. To feel frustrated. It's okay to cry. And let them know that you understand. I know it's very frustrating. You were just trying to be helpful and if they cried out, let them cry it out. One of the feelings that you may have is, well, if I'm always holding them, when I'm crying, are they just going to keep crying and crying?
No, no, no. That's not how it works. Children's brains are developing. And as they get older and older, there'll be able to control their emotions better. Right now, when they're younger, they can't control it as well. And it comes out as crying. And so you have to be there to help them work through it. And if you're there to help them work through it, if you're there to let them know, it's okay to cry.
As they get older, they're going to be able to regulate better. They don't feel pressure. And shame for crying. No, they feel acceptance and they know because they've practiced going through this with you in the past, they're going to do better with it in the future.
Number four. Once you're able to calm down together. Now it's time to teach the lesson. Now they can be receptive to the lessons and the teachings that you want to give them.
Because when they're angry, when they're crying and they flip their lid. They're upstairs brain. The place of logic and reasoning is no longer active.
They're downstairs brain. Which controls their emotions.
Which controls their fight or flight reactions. That has all of a sudden taking control. So you can't teach them in that moment, no matter what you say, no matter how much you try to reason with them. They're not going to be able to listen to you and understand what you're trying to teach them.
All right. That's it for today. If we apply this mental model of connecting. Then all of these challenges that you guys go through are going to be seen as wonderful teaching moments. I know I keep saying this. I know it's hard, especially in the moment, for example, with this example of Juniper. Spraying the medicine all over Kimball. It would have been incredibly hard for Kim in that moment to take Juniper in her hands and have that conversation that she was just trying to be helpful. So oftentimes we have to rely on our partner.
We have to rely on our partner who's that third-party watching the situation to be able to assess it swoop in and help our partner and our kids go through this. That's what I did for Kim. Kim has done that for me many times before in the past. So definitely you and your partner has a unit. If you work together in this way, especially when times are tough, you guys will all come out of it for the better.
All right. Thank you very much. Have you guys have any comments or questions, please hit me up on Twitter @junloayza.